No Really – It\’s Just My Face

I have no excuse for this…..

It may come as a shock to all of you that I was not always the cool, calm, collected chick I am nowadays. No, there was a time when I was a total fucking loser. I refer to that time as my early teens.

Now, all teens are losers in one way or another….even the cool ones. I think the teen years are a horrible awful affliction that we must all travel through in order to appreciate the rest of life fully. The thing I am most grateful for when I look back at my teen years is that I had no idea at the time how truly horrid it all was. I knew it was lame, but I didn’t know HOW bad, cuz I didn’t know HOW GOOD it would get later on in life. I have no idea what people are talking about when they say those are the best years of your life. I can guarantee you they are most definitely not.

Teenage girls are interesting creatures indeed. Though I was one relatively recently in my life (shut up! it was recent, I’m only 25….oh GOD, when did I become 25??? Pardon me, I have to go put my head between my knees before I hyperventilate), I don’t have any explanations or insights into why they act the way that they do. Other than to say that they’re just teenage girls. Full of hormones, angst, insecurities. Being pounded by conflicting media messages on an hourly basis. Told to act like the girls they see on TV (aka, sluts), but not be sluts. Told that it’s good to be smart cuz that’ll get you into university, but nobody likes a smart girl. Worried about the dumbest shit EVER….like, if this shirt is too much like the shirt that that cool girl wore yesterday…cuz she wouldn’t want everyone to think she was trying to become cool…everyone knows you CAN’T become cool, that is decided on the first day of high school and if you fail, it’s over. Accept it and move on.

Anyways.

My particular embarassing and awful teenage obsession? Well. I’m about to reveal that to you.

Please, understand the strength it takes me to admit fully my utter and absolute retardedness and lameness. I am fully aware of how stupid I was, I assure you. I make no excuses. I accept that it is who I once was, and I ask you to understand that it no longer reflects in any way, shape or form who I am now. I now mock girls that are like what I used to be like. Mock and pity them. But in the midst of it all, I could not see the wrong in my ways. I was blinded by my teenaged outlook. In one way, I knew it was bad, because I kept it a secret from everyone. But I couldn’t help it. I was hopelessly addicted.

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Folks…….I used to love Hanson. The band. Yes, the Mmmbop kids with the long hair.

I’ll give you a moment. I know laughing that hard can often cause dizziness and shortness of breath. Take your time.

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The world ‘love’ doesn’t convey how bad it truly was. We’re talking BAD.

First, the worst thing was my age. I was in my teens. High school. Most of their fans were aged 6-11. I doubled most of them. I was 13+. This was bad. I hid this for all I was worth in high school, for if I was outed, then my social standing (as LOW as it was) would plummet even further. I wasn’t cool, but I at least flew under the radar and I did NOT need anybody suddenly noticing me. Oh no, I wanted to keep myself unknown to the cool kids.

Now, being their oldest fan on the planet, I was constantly plagued with the fear of a BIG what if…….WHAT IF Hanson came to old Saskatoon to perform? I stayed up many nights, staring at my Hanson-poster-plastered walls, wondering what I would do. Certainly, I couldn’t miss it. But I had nobody to go with. I couldn’t tell anybody I was going. Did I want to stand there in the crowd, amongst girls who had just lost their front teeth, petrified that a fellow teen had been forced to bring her little sister to the show and she’d see me and tell EVERYONE? I wasn’t sure how I’d make it through. Luckily I never had to make the choice. They never came.

My source of income at this time was babysitting. I didn’t like it. You all know I hate kids. BUT it meant money. And money meant….Tiger Beat. Tiger Beat meant posters, pictures and totally useless facts aplenty about Hanson. I would babysit, collect my money, wait until everyone was out of the house and speedwalk my ass over to Walmart. There, I would look around suspiciously and be sure nobody I knew was nearby. I’d make a beeline for the magazine aisle, grab the one with the most pics and promises of revealing information and try to hide my face from the cashier while I counted out my meager earnings. I’d race home and ogle the pictures. Then I would get to the important business of ripping them out and plastering them ALL OVER my bedroom.
No surface was uncovered, I’m not even exaggerating. This led to a particularly tricky moment that I recall from Grade 10. Two of my friends were over cuz we had to work on a project. I never had friends over…not because I had no friends, but because my mom was an unpredictable crazy person who I was not willing to expose others to. So when they came over, they wanted to see my room (since that’s a big deal to teen girls). I said no, it was messy. They insisted. I said no. They insisted. I said no. Before I knew it, one of them was up the stairs and in front of my door.
I about shit my pants. My entire social life, as fragmented and sad as it was, flashed before my eyes. If she opened that door, I was outed. I was done. I’d have to drop out and get home schooled. I had no choice. I grabbed her and ripped her the fuck away from my door. Violently. I’m pretty sure this scared them both, as they were both like, ‘Okay fine! Geez Talea!’ They left the topic of my room alone for the rest of the night.

I owned all of their CDs, and to this day I still LOVE their Christmas CD. I owned their VHS tapes that they put out (it was before DVD’s). I listened and watched religiously. I had heart attacks each time their videos were on TV. If they were mentioned in the news, the family knew to be quiet so I could hear, or else I’d drop kick their asses. I was a crazy, teenaged girl. I taped their appearances on Oprah, Letterman and Leno.

I hung out on their website all the time. This was back in the day of chat rooms, and you’re damn right if you’re thinking I must have been a well-known regular. I most certainly was, thank you very fucking much.

I was glued to the TV the night that they were up for three Grammys. They didn’t win a one. I….sobbed.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, because I fully realize the absolute comedy and pathetic quality of it and want to share it with you all. Embrace who you are and let it all hang out folks. I think it’s important to be open about yourself and laugh at yourself.

But some things are not to be laughed at. If you would have told 13-year-old-me that Taylor Hanson DIDN’T reciprocate my love, I would beaten you to a bloody pulp and spit on your open wounds. How dare you, bitch!

Now, to even make this post FUNNIER (and further humiliate myself for no good reason, except that I really do find this past secret hilarious), I will share with you a photo put together by my BFF, Emerald. The day she found this out, she posted this on Facebook. I love it. It’s often my profile pic.

Enjoy:

Me and my boys, yo. Yeah, I’m 23 in that pic and they’re like, 12, 14 and 17. Whatevs. Now…..you TOTALLY have to spill one awful secret of your past in the comments section.

Sweet Dreams.

I had a dream last night that has made me feel completely secure and protected and happy inside all day long.

I’ve had a few of these dreams over the years and they are always the same. I remember that it was a dream with other characters and settings, but I don’t know what these were. All I remember is about one minute of it, and it’s always the same.

It’s black, everything, everywhere is black. My grandpa is a few feet away from me, and I am absolutely astonished to see him. I always run up to hug him, fearing that when I get to him, he will disappear into thin air and I will hug nothing but his memory, yet again. But he’s always there, always solid, always willing to return the hug.

He never says anything, but I know he’s there with me, he’s present. All I ever say is ‘I love you, I love you’ over and over again. The absolute euphoria I feel is nothing that I can get when I’m actually awake. I’m so intensely overjoyed and thankful and grateful to see him, to hug him, to let him know I miss him.

It ends as sudden as it starts, and that’s all it is. Nothing fancy, nobody else, no exotic locales, no familiar settings, no inane chatter.

I lost my grandpa in 2000. I had just moved to Ontario for university and his passing was sudden and shocking. It ripped me apart.

I had flown home for Thanksgiving (which in Canada, is in October) and he had come to Saskatoon with my grandma to see me, his oldest grandchild and the first one to leave the province. He ate dinner with us, my aunt and uncle and cousin, and we went about our visits as we always did. The time came for them to leave. For some reason (as I had NEVER done this before in my life), I became insistent that I get a picture of them before they left. I’d never taken a photo of my grandpa before in my life. I snapped the pic, accepted hugs from all, and went to the computer to finish an assignment for a class.

I sat at the computer and could hear their car start on the driveway just outside. I had this INSANE URGE to get up. Everything in my body was SCREAMING at me to get up, to go and wave while they drove down the driveway. I pushed the instinct down to finish my project, after all, Christmas was only two months away and I’d see them then.

The next morning as I was out the door to the airport, we got a call. He’d had a stroke. Everyone was confident he would push it through, as my grandpa was incredibly strong and still young at 65. They insisted I go back to school.

I did.

I wish to this day I didn’t. I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye, whereas all my cousins and relatives did. To this day I still blame myself. He was unconscious for days before he let go. I blame myself for not flying back sooner, since I am convinced that if he had heard my voice, felt my hand in his, he would have woken up.

I thank whatever it was that made me take that picture every time I think of it. It meant so much to everyone to have a pic of him the day before it happened. It’s a perfect way to remember him.

These dreams that I have every so often make me realize that he doesn’t hold it against me for not making it back in time. I am of the belief that the dead can visit you in dreams. Mock me if you will, but you won’t change my mind. My grandpa pops in every so often to just let me know he’s good.

Thanks Grandpa. I’ll see you later.

You’ve loved me for a year

Folks, today is my blogoversary. One year ago, I started this blog. I started it due to boredom at work (which is SO not a problem anymore). I figured since I was spending all day reading other people’s opinions, I’d throw my hat into the ring.

I had huge dreams for my blog. Well, medium-sized dreams at least. I think in some ways, I’ve done it, but in other ways, this blog isn’t what I want it to be completely. There’s a huge part of me that I censor from this blog. The times when I disappear for a bit are the times when it’s that other part of me that’s at the forefront. I don’t let that part write on this blog. After a year, I think I just might. Who knows.

But for all of those who read this blog, a sincere thank you. I do it for many reasons at this point and I appreciate the input I get from others. Whether it’s those who support my innumerable pet peeves, or those who give me balanced and objective advice about hard decisions I’m hmmming and hawwwwing over. Thank you.

It’s been a blast and I’ve had more laughs reading all of your blogs than I would have thought. For those of you who have blogs that tend to make me think a bit more, I appreciate yours equally. I love a good think. The viewpoints and perspectives I’ve been able to look at the world through have been priceless.

I don’t know if I can keep this blog going for another year, but I’m gonna give it a shot. Sometimes I feel like all I do is write about things that piss me off, and while I am a highly irritable person, I don’t just spend my life walking around scowling and fuming. Though I LOOK like I do (again, hence the name of the blog). Though I find it odd that my complaining posts are the ones that get the biggest responses….hmmmm….maybe I should listen to what the people want.

And in honour of my one year blogoversary, I give you now more of what you want. Since you read my blog, you must love me (you certainly didn’t just stumble on this site, oh no, you must like me) and since you love me, I’m giving you a peek into the life of Talea.

Hold your cursor over each pic for an explanation. Enjoy.

Thanks guys!!!!!!

Elevator Mentality

I work on a middle floor of an office building. There’s no way for me to take the stairs up to my floor. I’m stuck with the old elevator. Several times a day, I go up and down, up and down. Elevators are a necessary evil in my life.

I spend a lot of time in the elevator, with many other people. I’ve had a lot of time to observe the human being in the elevatorial environment. It’s a strange place that seems to do strange things to people. Being in that tiny box, unaware of movement but going somewhere nonetheless brings forth odd behaviours in normal everday folk.

I have decided to document the most common and annoying elevator occurences for your reading pleasure. I will even try and give a reason for some of the behaviours, though I can’t be sure at all that they are right. They are, after all, totally made up bullshit from my cynical brain.

1) Super Nice Guy Who Winds Up Putting a Target On His Own Back. We’ll call him Frankie for short. Basically, Frankie’s a douchebag, but he really doesn’t mean to be and he really doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s the ‘hold the door for everyone’ guy. He’s the guy that stands in front of all the buttons and goes, ‘Oh!’ and slams the Door Open button every time there might be movement in the corner of his field of vision. He thinks he sees someone coming, so he holds the door open. No wait, that was just a janitor. Oh! Nope, wait, that person just walked right past the open doors. Oh! Is that the blurry figure of a human on the horizon? Better hold the door! Phew, it IS a human, with a limp and dragging a sackful of lead. Frankie’s just gonna hold the door til that guy makes it to the elevator. Meanwhile, the elevator is slowly filling up with smoke as it seeps out of everyone’s ears. Everyone hates you Frankie. People will have to catch their own elevators. We have places to go! LET GO OF THE BUTTON!!!!!

2) Classic Small Talker. Small Talker isn’t confined solely to the elevator, but the elevator is their favourite habitat. Their prey can’t run. They also can’t snap back at them. I dont know about you, but I’m not about to lose my shit in a small space on someone I don’t know. They could be batshit crazy and then I’m really in trouble. The Small Talker likes to make obvious statements, usually regarding the weather. “Hot enough for you?” “Cold enough for you?” “Man, looks like it’s going to rain/snow/be a nice one out there!” There’s nothing for you to do but give them a quarter-smile and continue staring ahead. This won’t dampen their enthusiasm. They’re then likely to comment on you. “Gee, why do you look so happy?” “Going down for a lunch break?” “Nice sweater!” Again….acknowledge, but ignore. It’s subtle. What you must remember is, the Small Talker doesn’t really care about your replies. They just want to hear their own voice. When you get off the elevator, let them leave first. See what way they go, then either go the other way or give them a few step lead. If you walk with them, they’ll assume an elevator friendship has formed and you’ll never shake them.

3) Post-Smoke Break Bitches. This is usually a group of women (3 or 4, on average) who would normally never be friends with each other. But they’ve formed a small bond over the fact that they are nicotine addicted monkeys with poorly-aged skin, yellow teeth and the inability to function for more than 2 hours without a cancer stick. They’ll meander into the elevator, talking raspily about stuff nobody cares about. Whatevs, I don’t care. But, they fucking SMELL. Bitches, you stink, get off the elevator! I’m in a confined space, with limited air flow and you don’t have the goddamned common courtesy to air yourselves out first? I propose that we have smoking areas in buildings. And at the doors to those smoking areas, we have motion triggered body spray applicators. When someone comes in from their smoke break, they are hosed down with no-name Gardenia scented perfume. It’d smell a helluva lot better than their cigarettes. Or we could have a five minute ‘air out’ tank. Kind of like a drunk tank, but for smelly smokers.
I have no advice on how to deal with the Post Smoke Break Bitches. I guess you could feign an asthma attack and shove them off before the door closes, blaming your cursed health. I wouldn’t try it, but if you’re feeling feisty, it’d probably be hilarious….

4) Guy Co-Workers Who Insist on Having Pissing Contests When In the Vicinity of Females: For short, we shall refer to them as Wanker 1, Wanker 2 and Wanker 3. These guys tend to somehow be on the elevator when you get on, you always (if you’re a chick) walk into their conversation. Silence befalls, and then suddenly, the pissing contest erupts. It will usually be between Wanker 1 and 2, while Wanker 3 stands silent and presumably embarassed by his friends actions. They’ll start talking loudly about some situation where they ‘brought the smack down’, or about some ‘hot babe’ who was totally throwing herself at them, or some recent showdown with their boss where they saved the company from sure bankruptcy. They try to one up each other and shiftily check your reaction, while they jostle about, rearranging the ‘boys’ and laughing in that retarded moron way only guys can.
Resist the urge to point and laugh while screaming, ‘You loser! Do you think this impresses me?? Ahhhhahahahaha!’ Also, try to contain the puke in your mouth. If you engage them in conversation or give them anything to comment on, they might get very excited and wet themselves. You don’t want to be a part of that.

5) Button Panel Blocker: This person pushes their way to the front of the elevator line, boards said elevator and then immediately slots themselves in front of the button panel. If you want to get where you’re going, you’ve got to push the button for the floor. This forces you to become a sexual predator. There’s no way around it, you’re going to fondle them. And it’s nasty. You could elbow them out of the way first, but then you’ll get charged with a violent act. Better to go down a lover, not a fighter.
You can always try to ask them to hit the button for you. You could also carry a button-pushing stick, that can squeeze between their boobs/flab/gut/moobs (man boobs, if it’s a guy who has them) without resulting in person to person contact, but you’d look like a total weirdo. Your call, I guess.

6) The Confused Tourist Door Blocker: This person is akin to the tourists who walk around on Queen Street West in Toronto. They exit the elevator, take a step out into the hall and come to a dead fucking stop. This means that if you too wanted to get off on that floor, you’re trapped in the elevator, while they gawk around trying to orient themselves. They have no common sense or common courtesy.
There’s only one thing to do here. Kick their ass out of the way. If you don’t, you’re going to miss your floor or have the elevator try and close, but be forced open when it hits you in the rump. Be sure to give the person a nasty glare after you’ve moved them from your path.

7) Kids: Self explanatory.

8.) Stinky McStinkerson: These people aren’t grouped into the smoker group, since their smell is entirely different. The smokers just need to be hosed down with Eau de Rose Garden, but the Stinky McStinkerson’s need some medical attention. They just SMELL. Of what? You name it.
There’s no way around this one. Everyone knows you can’t just tell someone they smell. They might rub up against you and spread the stink. Again, you don’t want to be a part of that.

There’s many more types of wonderful elevator riding folks out there that I could mock, but this post is getting long enough. Feel free to share your own elevator profiling in the comments. Cuz everybody likes to hate on everybody else. And it’s so easy to do in a small, inescapable box.

Green Thumb Talea

I love flowers. Not just love, I LURRRRVE flowers. Even just plain old vegetation. It doesn’t even have to flower. Vegetation and foliage of any sort.

When I am surrounded by plants and trees, a different part of my brain turns on. I am in my happy place. I come from a long line of gardeners, women who took their gardens seriously. My family farm is still producing blooms from flowers my great-grandma planted decades ago.

Being around greenery soothes my mind. It just puts me into a happier, quieter, simpler frame of mind. I care for nothing but the shades of green, the perfect little buds and the amazing amazing colours only nature can produce in flowers. Watching bees do their thing is fascinating. Digging in the dirt and yanking out weeds is so stress relieving to me. I cannot walk past any little shop selling cut flowers without slowing significantly and examining them all. Walking down a residential street in downtown Toronto with me requires amazing and endless patience. I have to stop and admire each and every little front yard garden. I insist on pointing out my favourites to those walking with me, and if I know the latin name, I have to show off by reciting it and ensuring they know I was speaking Latin.

Thanks to my job a few years back at a flower farm, I know a multitude of plants by their latin names. Saying these names makes me feel really smart. At the farm, I got to talk to hundreds of people about their gardens. I got to design gardens solely comprised of different ornamental grasses, I got to help people design gardens meant to attract butterflies and songbirds, I tried to help pick out flowers more deer-resistant than typical plants, I got to design woodland gardens (my favourites) and help people who had fought against their clay soils for years.

I loved this job. When I wasn’t designing gardens with other people’s money, I was maintaining gardens that I couldn’t possibly afford to create or have on my own. I was putzing around in a greenhouse, inhaling the smells of moist soil, moss and brand new greenery. I was in my heaven. I was set to be promoted the next year, and due to circumstances out of my control, I wasn’t able to take the job.

That was it for me when it came to gardening. I live in downtown Toronto and don’t have a clod of dirt to my name. I can’t grow anything on my balcony, since it’s covered and very dark. I don’t live close enough to any urban gardens, where you can rent a plot of land to grow whatever you please, and plus they all have huge long waiting lists for other land-starved urbanites such as myself. I went from acres of land with dozens of display gardens and cutting gardens to not even a potted plant in sight.

Now, it may come as a shock to you all, but sometimes I get a wee bit worked up. I know, right? So having something so effective at reducing my stress was really beneficial and always very convenient. I grew up with a huge back yard, I had a job that allowed me to garden my little heart out, and then it as all yanked out from under me. I even did my third year undergrad thesis on native plant gardening.

All I have now is a plant I stole from work. It grows quite happily on top of my wine bar, but it’s really lame and (don’t tell it I said so), I don’t love it very much at all. It doesn’t fulfill my green thumbery needs.

So imagine folks, my joy, when I was asked to help fix up a friend’s yard. Oh, I was so there. I went over (AT 10 AM ON A SUNDAY!!!!), all geared up and ready to go. Me and her 7 year old son were impatiently nagging her, asking if we could go outside yet, while she got everything ready for our super yummy lunch in a few hours. Eventually I couldn’t handle it and just ran outside into the great blue yonder. They followed me eventually.

I got to weed!! I got to dig around in the dirt! I got to play with snails and yucky insects and smell the earth!!!

After weeding and eating scrumptious broccoli soup and yummy Greek honey dessert things and two (and a half) glasses of wine, I got to drunkenly garden. Imagine my drunken glee when my friend told me, as I was asking her where she wanted her new plants arranged, that IT WAS UP TO ME!!!!! Oh happy day.

Folks, I have an adopted plot of land now. Sure, it’s far away and it involves taking the Dufferin bus (if you’re a Torontonian, you KNOW what that means), but I have been told I have free reign on it! I’m allowed to buy plants and bring them to her house and insert them into the ground there!

This is gonna be the Best. Summer. Ever. Little does she know, she’s never getting rid of me until it snows. Throughout the summer, I’ll snap some pics and share my gardening pizzazz with you all.

I’ve also heard rumours of the back yard being converted to a vegetable garden. Oh, tomatoes, potatoes, peas and beans, here I come babies!!! I may have to bully her into planting peas just so I can eat them raw when the time comes. And for some reason, my mom always planted gladiolas in our vegetable garden. I can probably convince her to do that too. Though my efforts at being sneaky won’t work, cuz I know she reads this here blog. Of course, I can’t really turn it into what I want it to be, cuz…in the end, it’s NOT my yard. But at least I can play in it. I’ve often considered playing in other people’s yards, but those fantasies usually end with me being hauled away in a cop car, screaming about how I just really love green things.

I’m SO damn excited.

Poor, poor teen pop princess. You may be rich, but at least I got to be stupid.

So there’s this girl who’s been around a lot lately. All the time, I turn around and she’s there. People are always talking about her and though I try to ignore her, it’s all in vain, as she is apparently unbeatable and ubiquitous.

Her name is Miley Cyrus. Spawn of the infamous Billy Ray Cyrus. We all remember him, don’t we? Now, I’m a girl who loves her country music, but never EVER was Achey Breaky Heart a good song. Who sings about their own heart blowing up in their tragic death??? And that dance that went along with it? I was like, less than 10 when it came out, but I still remember and shudder at it.

Well, somebody slept with Mr. Cyrus and poof, they popped out baby Cyrus. I have no idea if Miley is her real name. Her paternal unit is named Billy Ray, so I guess Miley isn’t totally out there. I find that white trash likes names that end in ‘ey’. Bethany, Destiny, Tiffany, Bailey, Britney, Candi, Bambi, you get the idea. Miley mixes right in there, all comfy-like.

Anyways, who IS this chick? I hear her name everywhere and only yesterday realized that a song on my internet radio was being sung by this girl. I listened to the words. I gasped and cringed. This BABY is a WHORE. She’s fifteen (15!) years old.

She sings like she knows shit, like she can decipher her hormone-controlled emotions and like she’s had time to reflect on things, make sense of them and grow from them already. At the ripe old age of fifteen. She sings about looking into some guys eyes, and then drops her voice into a sultry-esque tone (or rather, the computer she’s pretending to be is programmed to a lower note……there’s no way that’s an actual voice) and proclaims, “I can’t wait to see you again”

When you are fifteen, you should only be saying that with such intensity to your puppy dog. You’ll really miss your puppy when you go over to your friend’s house for a sleepover. She’s 15!!!! What was she doing that requires such a sultry voice? I find it conflicts nicely with her squeaky clean little image. Didn’t she flash her boobies recently? Well, not that she HAS boobs, but you know…..her nipples?

At 15, you should be wearing ill fitting bras, venturing to the mall with your friends and giggling as you go to buy underwear, wearing poorly coordinated makeup, changing your braces colours to match the seasons, cheering on your grade 9 teams and only just starting to venture into the middle of the gym at the school dances……a drastic change from the dances a few years earlier where the two genders ignored each other.

I feel sorry for this girl.

I feel sorry for all child singers/actors. They’re so fucking weird (Dakota Fanning anybody??) but when they talk, you can tell that they actually think they’re adults. They take themselves so seriously. I recently read Miss Cyrus saying that she’s just too darned busy for a relationship! No guy would want to put up with her fame and she doesn’t have time to drag him around with her anyways. What?! You’re not supposed to be in relationships at 15!! Why are you thinking about this? You’re supposed to have experienced spin the bottle, and a couple of awkward makeout sessions on your friends basement couch which were quickly interrupted by their suspecting parents.

Little Miley won’t ever have that. Every move she makes will be tracked. All awkward first dates will be documented. Her trip to the drugstore to buy her first confusing box of pads or tampons will be all over the papers. She’ll be over by 22. She’ll probably be pregnant by 22 too, if she follows in the footsteps of her female pop star predecessors. Her life is a game of pretend and she may not know it.

She pretends to have a female body. She pretends to have life experience. She pretends that she doesn’t have the unavoidable complexion of a 15 year old. She pretends not to be a depressed, confused, angry, up and down teenager. She pretends her life is the ideal.

Imagine what she’s doing to 8 year olds? Especially since she does have this squeaky clean image and parents probably aren’t limiting their children’s exposure to her. These girls grow up thinking zits don’t exist…Miley doesn’t have any (Miley has an army of makeup artists). They see that the only hair you should have is freakishly straight…..no famous singers or pretty girls have curly hair, that’s absurd (Miley has an army of hair stylists). They think clothes have to be perfect, expensive and figure hugging (Miley has several personal shoppers and stylists, no doubt). They should look at boys as things they are trying to impress at all times (Miley sings about how she’ll make it up to the guy for being so shy last time, you know, when she sees him again). They learn that you should always be upbeat and full of energy (ever seen a frowning Miley? ever seen a tired Miley? ever seen a Miley who didn’t see the silver lining?). These girls are being told that they should be someone that isn’t real.

I understand I”m not the first one to make this shocking observation. But for some reason, she really gets to me. It’s her age. 15. She can’t drive, she can’t drink, she can’t buy smokes, she can’t vote….she’s a minor! Why do we glorify this? Why do we sexy this up?

Why does she go along with it? Why is she allowing herself to be a brand? A commodity? A puppet? A robot with no real life save for an overbloated schedule? A marionette singing about things she couldn’t possibly know of or fully understand?

Who’s to blame here? Who’s to laugh at? Is she being used or is she using the people managing her? Who’s coming out on top here? Is she smarter than all of us or can she really not see what she looks like from outside to anybody over the age of 16? Where’s ol’ Billy Ray?

Maybe I’ve proven my own damned point. I’ve given her attention. I’ve driven her google hits. I’ve upped her stock. She’s still rich and doesn’t give a damn about me.

Maybe I’m the idiot, who knows. But at least I’m the idiot who did dumb embarassing 15 year old stuff, along with dumb embarassing 16 and 17 year old stuff. I think I’m the one with the last laugh for that. I don’t buy that whole ‘money can’t buy happiness’……..I think it could make a decent shot at it. However, all the fame and fortune in the world can’t buy you your teenage years back. Or your dignity.

Regurgitation……but it’s funny!

Keeping my priorities straight.

Some days, you just have to stop and think, ‘Damn I’ve got it good.’

This afternoon was one of those moments. Nobody yelled at me at work. I left work at a normal, human time.

On the subway, I got the best seat on the train. The loner seat. It’s a seat that’s not even in existence in all trains….only the trains with the yellow doors. The red door trains have no loner seat. The loner seat is highly coveted….it is only on every second car, at the back, and it coccoons you in. There’s a wall on one side and a glass panel on the other. Nobody can sit beside you and it is fantastic. There’s even enough room for your purse to sit beside you. It’s as marvellous as things can be on public transit.

So I managed to snag the loner seat and therefore was able to knit contentedly without having to worry about stabbing the person beside me, or having them grunt and shuffle each time I moved my arms to purl or something. It was great, and I have a sock-in-progress to prove it.

There was no idiots on the train, no bums begging for change, no crazy ladies screaming about Jesus and throwing bibles, no stinky people and it was gloriously baby-free. There weren’t even any inane conversations about made-up sexual conquests that I was forced to listen to, just because I was the vicinity of a couple of loud-mouthed liars. There weren’t any unexplained 20 minute waits between stations. Nobody was blaring their music out of their headphones. It was a perfect subway ride home.

I came up out of the station and walked onto University Avenue to the most beautiful music being played on an instrument I can’t even name by a guy on the sidewalk. He was playing in front of a garden, just blooming. I looked up at a redbud in bloom and while listening to this gorgeous music, saw the sun lighting the tiny pink petals. The air was cool, but not cold. Nobody was walking slowly in front of me, and I meandered at my own pace. The scent of the nearby Starbucks lingered in the air and still the guy played on with his wacky, yet amazing instrument.

It was a beautiful moment. My heart was full of happiness and spring was certainly here. The sun was shining, the air was crisp, I had nothing in the world to complain about.

Obviously, I chose this moment to count my blessings.

Staring at the glowing petals of the tree above me, I thought, ‘Damn I’ve got it good………it’s Friday night and I can get all sorts of messy drunk, with no worries about tomorrow morning.’

I smiled at this lovely, serene afternoon and continued on my way.

I may as well drive an SUV

This weekend, I did something I normally vow never to do. Something I take desperate measures to avoid, at nearly any cost. By doing what I did, I seriously broke one of my ethical/moral stances. I betrayed my university education and many things that I both believe in and preach to others.

I walked into my apartment after work on Friday, looked around and realized I had reached a point where I really had forced myself into it. I had no choice.

I had to. I had to buy…paper towel.

Paper towel, in my mind, represents all that is wrong with this world. Dispose of everything, advertisers say. Reusing is for old people, who still wait for the next Great Depression to roll around. If you reuse stuff, you’ll have germs, and god knows we’re not equpped as a species to handle germs. I hate paper towels. They kill trees, they use chlorine, bleach and are often partners in crime with Lysol or some such shit, and we package them up oh so nicely in plastic, wrapped in more plastic. Awesome.  We’re so fucking terrified of specks of dirt in our home, we destroy trees, forests and pollute our way to the ends of the earth to clean it up. God forbid we use cloths or rags, and just wash them. The sheer amount of research and development that goes into these things is ridiculous. Fancy patterns, liquid pockets, suckupability, different sized sheets…ugh. Not to mention the fact that they totally SUCK. They can’t soak up anything and only last about 3.2 seconds. Why wouldn’t you use a cloth that can actually scrub and absorb?

Uh….yeah…..totally sustainable, right? Don’t worry, they’ll plant a whole new monoculture of perfectly aligned trees with no ability to ever become a functioning ecosystem and call it a ‘forest’. It’s called ‘greenwashing’. Trust me, I went to school with a bunch of hippies. Ahem.

But getting back to why I broke down and bought some….I walked into my place on Friday and looked around. Remember I was talking about how much I hate myself for being such a lazy bastard? Well it had reached a peak that night. My apartment was a full-blown, disgusting, indisputable hell-hole of a mess, due to my inability to get off my ass and maintain a house that wasn’t about to condemned by the Department of Health.

I picked up my cell, called the boyfriend immediately and vowed to clean the apartment this weekend. “I vow it!” I yelled. “It HAS been vowed, it SHALL be done!”

Problem was, it had reached such a level of disgust, that it was totally beyond any cloths. All the cloths I have knitted were not going to be able to tackle this. I had to admit to myself that it had progressed to ‘paper towel’ level. My army of well-crafted, cutely coloured cloths weren’t equipped to handle the sheer volume of grossness that needed to be tackled. I needed something that could be covered in dirt, hair and dust and be disposed of and never mentioned ever again.

So far, I’ve cleaned half of the house. I’ve cleaned the kitchen, the bathroom (yeesh), the computer desk and half of the floor. I have dusting and vaccuuming the rest of the floor left to do.

Then I shall continue my paper towel boycott. And I will be sure to whip up some more cloths….or more likely, rip up shirts that I’ve grown too fat for and use them as washable rags.

 I should probably plant some trees or something for environmental penance. I’m sorry Earth.

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In a completely non-related random thought that shall never have an entire post devoted to it, let’s talk about batteries. Cell phone and digital camera batteries. Why can nobody create a proper battery indicator? I will have three bars on my phone, take a 20 second call and suddenly, the damn thing is beeping at me, begging for a power source. Same thing with car gas tanks. I remember my car would have a full tank for like, 300 kilometres. Then one day, I’d drive for 5 minutes and I would driving on “P for Pray” and need gas immediately. What is that?? 

Grow up!

For a girl, I guess I’m pretty tall. That statement is fairly relative, since when I’m back home, I’m not that much taller than most girls. In my immediate family, I’m damn short. In pictures, my brother and cousins tower over me. However, in Toronto, which is filled with Asians and Italians, Jews and Indians, I am tall. They are short and I do indeed tower over them.

I’m taller than the boyfriend. Which was weird at first, but now it isn’t even an issue. Sure, I like tall guys, but I like personalities more, and his happens to come in a short body. He made out pretty well considering his mom is 5 foot nothing and his dad might be 5’6 and a bit on a good day.

My friends have always been shorter than me, but never really short. Like, most of them I guess would have been over 5’4. I was always the kid in the back row on school picture day. Ah, school pictures, good times. I was always the centre back in my ballet classes. I’m always the one who has to reach stuff for people. I scoff at the requirement of ladders. On the subway, I can reach the top ceiling bar and stabilize myself instead of falling all over hell’s acre and smashing into some stinky ass monkey. If I put on 5 pounds, it isn’t as noticeable as it would be if I was short.

How tall am I? I’m 5’10. Which isn’t outrageous. But I always freak myself out when I”m walking down the sidewalk and see some giant girl walking towards me. I’m all, ‘whoah, she’s a freak dude, no guy wants a girl that tall’ and then when I pass her, I realize she’s about 1/4 inch taller than I am. Super.

I used to refuse to buy heels. No way was I going to be 6 foot tall, thank you very much. Now I don’t care. Fuck it, bring on the heels. I’m taller than you bitch, deal with it. There’s something inherently powerful about being taller than someone. Reversed, it’s inherently intimidating and nerve-wracking to have someone stand over you. At least, in my mind it is.

So where am I going with all of this?

Well, I’m laying the groundwork for my shocking statement. The statement in question?

I don’t like short people.

I don’t.

I know I have no idea how tall any of my readers are. With my luck, half of you are 5’1 and the rest of you are legal dwarts/midgets/small people/whatever the political term is for them today. But I don’t care. You can hate on tall people if you like. With our smugness and ability to reach shit. But in general, short people get on my fucking nerves.

When I’m walking down the sidewalk, their short stride makes them slow. This pisses me off. Get out of my way. When I’m on the subway and they bump into me, their heads literally hit me in the boobs. This is inappropriate and annoying. They just seem to meander and weave more than the average heighted person (is heighted a word? probably not). They’re just….down there doing their thing. And I look at them and just want to push them.

It’s like children. They’re short and can’t notice everything, so they’re unpredictable because they’re caught off guard by upcoming obstacles in their pathway. I expect this from kids. But adults? I know it isn’t their fault that they live in a world where they can’t see over anyone’s head, but I don’t care. Move! Go!  I think it must be scary to look around and not be able to see the sky, for all the tall people blocking out the sun, but this doesn’t give you a reason to wander around like perma-tourists on the sidewalks.

Short people seem to gawk more. They seem to be in awe more often than their taller counterparts. I don’t know why this is, but it bugs me. And their pants are always rolled up, cuz they’re too long. Go to a tailor! And when I”m behind them in line at a convenience store and they’re trying to lean over the counter to see the selection of cigarettes, I want to scream, ‘Look! Look at what those smokes did to you! They made you so short that you can’t even see them! Ironic, eh shorty?! Hurry up!’ Or maybe that’s coffee that stunts your growth. I don’t know, smokes still suck. If you’re not tall enough to see them, you shouldn’t be able to buy them.

I know this is bad of me. But sometimes if there’s a conglomeration of short people, I just want to smash my way through. They just huddle around and speak in their higher-pitched voices, oblivious to what’s happening in the upper stratum of the population.  

It’s like this: I’m expected to watch out for them while doing my thing. I can’t walk into them or smash my way through their gatherings. I’m expected to look down as well as looking at my own level. But for some reason, they don’t look up while going along. They smash into you. They do. Maybe it’s only the Torontonian shorties who do this, I don’t know.

I realize I might get reamed out in the comments section by those who are vertically challenged. I dont’ care. I could beat you up. Haha, I’m kidding (well, I mean, I COULD, but I won’t). I’m sure tall people are annoying too. You’re always having to look at our armpits and such. We walk too fast with our long gaits and you have to jog to keep up. I know. It goes both ways.

But for now, just please put on a pair of heels so you can see where the fuck you’re going. And maybe one of those little flags on the grocery carts that kids push around, so I can see you coming.