Embracing January

For me, January meant...

Before you do anything to do with this, get that dirt of your shoulders. (Mash up of the month.) 

-Getting back into the blogging world by creating Always Something! I was delighted to see some familiar old faces but also to be joined by some new ones. Thanks for listening to my chattering for at least a month. I have been blessed with some of the most inspirational comments and emails that truly took time to write and really made me think. I am excessively grateful to be surrounded by such smart people.

-A mix of old and new. Embracing Mondays are almost two years or so old by now, but they were improved with the goal of donating 5$ to somewhere awe inspiring or just plain neat. Original features like It's Wednesday, you should and Wikipedia Search were well received and will continue, likely becoming weekly things. Wednesday needed a refresher, right?

-Enticing emails and discussions of remarkable new projects regarding the blog were proposed & discussed, so I cannot wait to share them with you, hopefully in February!

-I started working at a new office (I showed you here!) for something I really enjoy & support. I will be here until April and I cannot wait to see what else I get to do after only one full month here. 

-I received a new Pentax camera that looks like it belongs in the military because it is waterproof and drop proof. As always, my mother is looking out for me. I am thrilled with the photo quality and am looking forward to using it more and sharing the images with you.

-I downloaded more podcasts and became obsessed with This American Life, which taught me about a lot of things like this on the Island of Yap and made me question money... and that was just one episode!

-I started using a new word every day. Today is ramifications! There! I just used it. That was easy!

-I got an exercise bike -& I actually use it! For a considerable amount of time every day! I am so proud. We are eating much healthier so this nicely compliments a new lifestyle. I still cannot tear myself away from mango frozen yogurt though. Some weird part of my brain thinks if I eat enough vegetables, this will be okay...

-I invited my older cousin for supper. It went well! I have the best cook ever for a boyfriend, and the mashed potatoes I made turned out almost all right. Victory! I feel more than a little more grown up.

-I purchased my first video game. I will not admit what it is yet, but it is amazing.

-My team won at trivia at the impossibly difficult bar where all the professors and their PHD students go every Wednesday. The first time after a year! It was incredibly difficult, but it felt amazing. Hardest earned pitcher of beer ever. 

-L & I started looking for new apartments for next year. It is likely we are going to be in a whole new neighborhood and the pictures I snapped while walking around make me impossibly happy. I am already plotting decor for a place that I have yet to acquire. 

Halifax is so lovely...

-I read: More Money Than Brains by Laura Penny and Hidden Agenda which somehow shockingly isn't on amazon but is a look at what makes the news. I am starting Dead Centre, which is available online, and I thoroughly plan to read nothing but novels after this big nonfiction month!

-I heard: Steady on my play list were: Crossroads by Eric Clapton / Fire by Bruce Springsteen / Bigger than my Body by John Mayer / Bottle Rocket by The Go! Team / Snowed In (Cruising) by Joel Plaskett / The Cave by Mumford and Sons / Crazy in Love by Beyonce ft Jay Z (hahahah... yes.) 

-I watched: An innumerable amount of decent movies on Netflix. I am beyond obsessed and incredibly excited. Requiem for a Dream for the first time; good, but not the thing to watch at 2 am. I got rather obsessed with Hoarders, finally saw my first few episodes of Mad Men, I told you about The Bothersome Man, I was okay with Black Swan. Super High Me and The F Word (a film on censorship) were both rather funny, and Designing a Great Neighborhood was incredibly exciting to watch as L is going into the Urban Planning program.  Putting the exercise bike in front of the television means I use both more!

For you, January meant...

-turning shirts into dresses via Emlyn. Rrrrrow!

-having delightfully enviable and beautiful journeys in Scotland all while being the chicest you have ever seen via Maud.

-starting an excellent sounding course via Melissa

-making everyone think via Tavi

January brought about...

-mystical looking travel inspiration

-laughable responses to an awful article.

-a budding love affair with The Hairpin.

-a fight for democracy in Egypt

-discussions about personal responsibility after a tragic shooting

-a tragedy in Russia

-some calls for Canada made

-an inspiring role model launching an impeccably put together magazine

The best responses I got this month was really, really hard to pick. I hope you read every single word that people wrote in response to Wikipedia Search: A Series of Unfortunate Events because they all literally blew my mind and helped me think about a very important topic to me.

However, I would like to highlight Andy who said, in addition to some spectacular insight:

"P.S. Your posts are always so informative and interesting and clever, it's one of the most amazing blogs I've seen lately. Also, your comment made my day. I'm glad I'm contributing to your travel list decisions and I think you should definitely come to Croatia. It's wonderful, especially in the summer. Foreign people have this strange belief that we are still at war and live in catacombs or something but it's really not true. :) Uh, I'm making it sound like it IS true, aren't I? Well, it isn't. :D "

SHE JUST VOLUNTEERED TO BE MY TOUR GUIDE WHEN I COME TO CROATIA SOMEDAY RIGHT? Okay, maybe she did not exactly do that but I would love to visit and I'll wrestle the volunteering out of her yet... haha. I'm not kidding though...

***

Tomorrow I celebrate spending an entire year officially with L, and I have never been so happy to celebrate something in my life.

I hope I can pass some of that happiness on to you. 

What made you giggle or cry and wish for this month?

I will continue to update this post for a little while.

Wikipedia Search: A Series of Unfortunate Events

“If there’s nothing out there, then what was that noise?”

-VFD Recruitment Slogan 

One of my atheist friends waxed to me one day, “I guess I just find it funny that you’re so quick to explain all of this mundane stuff as a ‘miracle of God’ when it’s so clearly the work of science.”

I looked around and saw nothing mundane. I guess I stopped being an atheist because personally I found it kind of boring. Yes, this is going to be one of those writings. The one where I actually talk about stuff. That’s actually stuff to talk about. Oh groan. Oh well.

My claim of atheism is a little broad. Truth be told, I just stopped thinking about God for a bit. As I ignored the guy who apparently to Abraham to kill his own son and got Moses to part the sea, no lightning bolts came down and smote me  while the words “jezebel… harlot… non believer…” filled the air. No snarky face in the clouds like a Monty Python movie, no Lucifer raised and laughing in victory, no feeling like a character in my own, ahem, series of unfortunate events. For a year or two, this seemed like all the proof I needed that there was indeed no God.

Now I see I got it all wrong; I cannot think of a better example of God. Mercy is not casually found in nature. This certainly is not proof for everyone, or even anyone, but moments that are special cannot always be poured into some fevered blog rant. I type this hesitantly; generally when I go this far people get eager to dismiss me as a fevered follower and logic hater. This is why I would like to set up a general disclaimer about my life.

GENERAL DISCLAIMER:

-I don’t knock on your door and ask you if you know random deities. I swear. I do however send these people to your door to get them off my back. Look, I’m sorry, but honestly, Tyra reruns are on, I do not have ten minutes to talk to these people about some guy I have already heard of. (Jesus is pretty famous actually… most people know who he is. Maybe you guys want to try a new approach.)

-I like science. Like, I have a crush on science. This is not to say I’m any good at it. Insert “because you’re a woman” joke here. Laugh. You inserted it, not me. Anyways, moving on, science class allows me to randomly slice up brains and stare at the insides while yelling “Cool!” and “Gross!” Apparently there are laws against doing that in Church though. That is one of many victories for science.

-Evolution and climate change yes yes yes yes... really people? You do not believe we affect our planet because it snows in the winter?

- I am smart enough to get that not all atheists are the same and have the same views... other than the one maybe about the whole not believing in a higher power. Atheists are pretty cool with agreeing to that, from my experience. I’m sure there is one God loving self professed atheist out there though, attempting to launch "The New Atheism" through homemade magazines, offended by what I am typing, and to you I say do not worry. You may hate me now but your unique disregard for basic logic will surely get an indie documentary film crew at your house in no time. You might even win an award! People love to give awards to films about individuals who “are unique.” Just keep passing it off as “unique” and not “idiot who does not own a dictionary” or “self important person with a sense of entitlement from the universe.” Society does not like to give those kinds of people awards, unless you are well off, stare at people in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable, and have facial hair.

Oh wait now…

Anyways, I struggled for a while to come up with some nice logical reason to explain my new re-belief. Or perhaps I never even didn’t believe. I was as appalled with my commitment to Christianity as my high school English teacher would be at the last two sentences, but I didn’t change either. It was very confusing for me at first, having this faith in what I admitted to be a powerful guy who watches me all the time. Because don’t mistake my belief in God for puritan values; according to this mentality God watches me yell at inanimate objects from drinking too much beer (to be fair, this hasn’t happened in like, a week), eat in bed while watching gratuitous movies passed off as art (the French can find any reason to show two people getting it on), and having premarital sex with my boyfriend (including what might be the biggest sin of all for a woman: enjoying it.) Yes, I am a STRONG, FIERCE, LIBERATED individual RAHRAHRAH GO GO FEMINISM. You don’t like it? Eat my BIRTH CONTROL because it’s covered by my INSURANCE.

So how could I do something as ‘old fashioned’ as pray? If I was in control of myself, why was I ‘naive’ enough to throw myself into the universe’s hands?  One day it hit me. Just as I bitch about the Canadian government but appreciate the Canadian government for letting me legally bitch about them, the fact that I did not get smote for all my ‘deviance’ is to me proof of God, not against. By coming to terms with God as a powerful but fairly democratic guy, I started to notice the noise.

Noise is a term stolen from The Boyfriend when he has a headache. Noise is the other people talking in a restaurant that he can’t help but overhear, the clatter of spoons being picked up and forks being put down, and the person murmuring into a cell phone that keeps him from always focusing in on the conversation we’re having. Noise is an indistinguishable jumble we frequently ignore, but sometimes should not. For some people, noise is always there.

My noise is different. My noise is visual, and my noise has multiple scents. My noise can be when I’m lying in bed next to the Boyfriend and I get the weirdest, happiest feeling in my stomach or when I’m standing in the middle of a rain storm. I saw noise in the plumes of ash that erupted from the volcano that shut down the airlines and said “You guys honestly think you’re in control of this planet?” to everyone.

I understand that my God is not your god. All of the excitement and happiness I get from praying is probably seen as some ridiculous attempt to try to sound pure and persuade you, but it is not. My noise is dismissed as trite on paper, but to me, my noise is what is powerful and great about life. Great in the truest sense of the word, not in the 1980s high fived accompanied slang it’s become. My noise may have led me to God, but it is not necessarily religious. Once again, I do not try to convert, but I do hope that everyone, no matter how committed to the marvels of research, logic, and academia, can stop and see that just because there is an explanation does not mean it is mundane. Belief should not be taboo; this does not make society more fair. I am all for secular laws, but does this have to mean we have unquestioning souls? It is worth remembering that there is also something mysterious and ‘noisy’ behind science as well. People frequently look over it because it is ‘the way things are.’ I think that’s a shame.

I guess I resent the fact that so many people feel religion and science are mutually exclusive, and tend to side with what feels more modern. Science may have created the wonders of laptops, electricity, and stem cell research, all of which I embrace, but I support my moral is that it was science, not God, who created noise canceling headphones.

Do you frequently think about where we come from? Do you feel comfortable talking about beliefs with friends, regardless of what they are? Did your parents ever try to force beliefs on you? If so, how well do you think they have fared? Have you ever tried to pinpoint why you believe what you believe?

More? Pretty biased writing, but interesting study idea / Interesting discussion in the comments, including this gem: " they get hit with questions from every direction: atheist professors, student clubs that have the muslim society [...?!...], the buddhists, the Ayn Rand student group, and hundred others." Hahaha. Oh dear. This is why.../ 4%?! / Why is the Vatican going after Nuns? / John Keats/ This

pictures of James Cameron and volcano are from imdb and Reutgers

Embracing Monday

 

Happy Monday! 

Want to see where I am?

***

You knew I love the public right? Well, here's a Monday choc full of public libraries, public health, public festivals, public funds, public polls, and... a lot of snow. Goddamn Canadian socialist.*

If subways and buses all looked like this, I would spend less time on them reading blogs and emailing people.

However, I like reading blogs en route, especially when the sun has yet to show itself, so I am fortunate for Mckenzie, who gives us pictures that look like they were taken by fairies coupled with devastatingly charming prose. Save one for every morning and you will arrive anywhere happy.

Ouch. Hahahaha. Ouch. Ughhhh. But they're so right.... awkward. Poignant, uncomfortable, a little too close to home, spot on, and makes you giggle awkwardly. The Onion at its best.

And now, for the funniest headline of the day award... (This is not all of Canada.)

So wait, who's censoring who?

Hey Erin, no sorries. We're grateful for your pretty pictures!

Frequently, I fall in to the North American mindset of what is progressive, who is progressive, and a bunch of other awkward unfortunate cultural stereotypes. I am silly, go Nepal! However, it does raise a lot of questions for me, like aren't censuses (censi? Ha!) for gathering information for health care and such? So has the rest of the census been adapted to better accommodate what having a third gender really means in terms of services and actions? Is it more of a diplomatic thing, to make people feel better? It makes me think of the value of the census and what happened regarding the long form census here. So, who's progressive now, Canada?  

Lesley Myrick starts the new year's right with a name change (congrats!) and new resolutions that look not only not depressing, but downright charming & exciting!

Jezebel is definitely a woman's best friend this week with a not fear mongering  explanation of what an abortion is like.

Okay, maybe this is only a liberal girl's best friend but really even though I hope never to have one, it is nice to see it in plain speak.

Belle inspires me to write about picking the correct university with her charming and slightly sob inducing (yep, once you are there, you react like this sometimes) list of what school can be like.

"On Nov. 24, 1994, a teenage anorexic girl named Charlene Hsu Chi-Ying collapsed and died on a busy downtown street in Hong Kong. The death caught the attention of the media and was featured prominently in local papers. “Anorexia Made Her All Skin and Bones: Schoolgirl Falls on Ground Dead,” read one headline in a Chinese-language newspaper. “Thinner Than a Yellow Flower, Weight-Loss Book Found in School Bag, Schoolgirl Falls Dead on Street,” reported another Chinese-language paper. 

In trying to explain what happened to Charlene, local reporters often simply copied out of American diagnostic manuals. The mental-health experts quoted in the Hong Kong papers and magazines confidently reported that anorexia in Hong Kong was the same disorder that appeared in the United States and Europe. In the wake of Charlene’s death, the transfer of knowledge about the nature of anorexia (including how and why it was manifested and who was at risk) went only one way: from West to East. "

Interesting, mind opening, scary, and fascinating all at once.

"My wife makes really great cake..."

"Eggs benedict is good, but only in the winter!"

Watch it til the end. Too funny.

When we finished, L (who makes fun of my Criterion Collection/"snob films" passion) turned to me with eyes wide open and said, "That was really scary... and amazing."  A week and a half later, he still brings it up. (The start can drag a bit, but it picks up quickly.) [image]

I got a book of Moorish poems out of the library. Aside from it being one of the most soul wrenching things possessing the most acute and heaviest beauty I have every read, it got me thinking, "Wait, what is Moorish exactly? Is that not kind of a bad term now?"

So I found out more... good idea, right?

Ou! I just encouraged you all to do a literary purge (only in the physical sense!) but uh... is this not the funnest thing to look around? 

This is my city, better than I can capture it.

Your super intense call to action that will make you get up and go and want to kick something and help out and be a better person all at once (holy! a lot of 'ands'!) is... Life for Mothers. I'm going to try to donate 5$ somewhere every Monday, please feel free to join me!

And finally, confirming Anna's theories that Embracing Mondays come largely from lurking her wall.

Home is the place where I belong (?)

This was not some kind of claiming game where we were rushing to beat the other and do a metaphorical pee on one's future property. As a student I feel like a dandelion in the wind; by the time I am actually rooted, the lease is almost up and I am in a flurry of trying to find apartments and blowing away. Now, I have millions of tabs opened with dubiously low and deliriously high priced apartments alike and am sifting through, shopping for something I will not use until... September? This is madness.

As scary as relocating can be, even if it is only in a home city, there is something fresh and exciting about a whole new house. A new place is better than a new year in terms of resolutions; if the location is bright and cheery and nice, one swears that they will not near pasta sauce covered bowls in the sinks nor wait until a pile of garbage is ready to topple over. I lurk Door Sixteen, the Neotraditionalist, and This is Glamorous (whew! Too many!) and ponder what I might do with a new space to work with, one where I had the ability to paint my walls and reupholster my sofa and all the other freedoms that come with having a place that is actually yours. I promise myself I will become a professional packer; my folding starts off neat and tidy but ends up being chucked in at the last minute. I swear to myself I will donate tacky trinkets to thrift stores and minimize clutter, but all the rush of leaving a place makes everything more than just regularly sentimental. I worry that I will forget this place, this floor that was once home... but was it?

I love where I am now, but I will probably love where I am next year, wherever that is. I buy towels, table clothes, throw pillows, anything bright, anything vibrant, anything beautiful to surround myself with. I hope that by making the exteriors around me glamorous I will start to feel at home. But hotels are very beautiful, are they not? Will matching towels help make me feel like I belong?

As I complain about the not-so-dilemmas of student living, I force myself to pick my brain away that is the pettiness of such a limited sense of the word home. The Balkan Wars, the Southern Sudan referendum, even the current and consistently sad Israeli Palestinian conflicts are about people fighting for a place that is theirs. Resources and conditions of treatment are obvious problems, but when you hear people actually discuss what is happening wherever they are, there is always a common theme. They call it their homeland, they say they want a home for their children, they explain that it has been their home. It is never just an area or a place.

Home: "the place in which one's domestic affections are centered."

There are no true synonyms in English for "home."

The people we see on the sides of the streets who have cups in their laps and cardboard signs. We call them homeless without thinking about the label we applied, while walking around a place that is somewhat strange to us and going to sleep in a bed where the texture of the blanket is wrong. Not bad, not ineffective, just not right. Where are our domestic affections centered? Is your soul homeless? You can live somewhere your entire life and not feel right.

I take a 20 minute commute every week and go back to the place where my parents live. In a snap of the fingers, I could be there with them, but I get wrapped up in L's arms and understand that he is home to me. I pick up weekly free publications and walk down streets that can look beautiful or terrifying depending on the lighting that day. I know which buses to take to avoid rush hour, and I can give street directions almost anywhere. I have favourite places and regular restaurants. My nook of land is awash with tourists for a few months every summer, and they squeal ecstatically about the Maritime hospitality; "Nova Scotia is just so damn friendly!" They might mean the people are friendly, but what they also likely mean to say is my province is quaint.They say it feels like home, but they actually want to explain that the brightly coloured houses and rugged coastlines exude charm. Home is an emotion that takes time and weighs heavy on the soul; home is an effortless decision that you did not know you made. Home is more than imagining that a smiling fisherman could pop out from any corner, or seeing locals with accents, or the cliche image of a mother making soup, bread, biscuits, cookies.... what ever is familiar...

They say when you fall in love, you just know it. I am guessing the same is not true about finding home, but I might never be able to confirm or deny it. In the meantime, I read design blogs, I dream in paint swatches, I learn to bake, I lust for the ability to own a pet, and I keep looking at my open tabs, thoroughly analyzing each listing's utilities available, location, and especially focusing on if there is an option to renew.

Embracing Monday

Position: Assistant Manager. That means this guy probably worked his way up for at least a little bit. I always wish I had the boldness to quit  crummy job in a funny way but

a) I do not think I have ever worked a truly crummy job (only had some really awful managers)
b) I care too much about references for getting a new job
c) This might be fake
Still, I wish I could recite pi to the 46th digit.


*Maybe I'm just an ending guessing extraordinaire (I also figured Black Swan out quite easily) but although I really enjoyed the acting, shuddered and admired the cool landscape it is set on, and laughed under my breath at their dig at home decor addicts (umm... too real) I definitely guessed the ending. The film is described as very "Kafka-esque" which is fair but if you have read The Trial or Metamorphisis then the ending is pretty easy to guess. Kind of funny, really.

South Sudan's oldest vote chooses independence: "Let us separate. It is better after separation because everyone can live in peace. If I die now I will be very happy," Rebecca told reporters through a translator.
If you do not realize what is going on here.
It may be because of this and thankfully there is a lot of information here.

But thinking about leads to JENGA! which is a pretty cool concept even if I do not agree with the entire essay explaining the game. I can also admit that it is pretty long and not written in a very friendly language, but it is more than worth reading.

I'm sure Dieter Rams' principles are no big deal to anyone in the design world, but I love this edition of Cool Hunting so much and refuse to delete it from my phone. Plus, it kind of makes me want to go redo my room.

"What the heck. But it's so pretty. What the heck. Pretty... What the..." aka: these.


NEVER ENOUGH LINKS ABOUT CATS. NEVER ENOUGH MEMES.

I had to Google the meaning of a word today because someone decided to use a random Japanese word amongst English when filling out a form at my office.
Thankfully, it lead to a neat discovery. I love subtleties in language & words that do not exist in English, so it lead to a little bit of nerding out.

You know when you realize that someone has changed you? Well, here is a bit of a tear jerker (even if you're short and could not give less of a care about basketball) about my new favourite person, Vlade Divac.

Yes, there are plenty of charming places on this planet and I would love to see them all, from Paris to Prague to Peru, but right now I would love to go to Minneapolis! Although the library and university look fascinating as well, it would be largely to see the Minneapolis Sculptural Garden. Luckily, there have plenty of photos on both the official and unofficial photostreams to last me until then.

I do not like Margaret Wente as a person, or even usually as a writer, but sometimes I like certain columns of hers. This is one of those columns, even if she is writing it from a conservative perspective and her analogy is pretty weak. Regardless, the message is excellent, and I agree. I am allowed to do that every now and then, right?

Another thing I do not like about the article above is the excessive use of the word crazy. I am not going to go on about the term in general, but it makes for an interesting discussion. "Crazy" or not, media outlets should not try to stigmatize people will mental illness by labeling exceptional cases within the article.

2012 guys! 20 friggin 12! (heh.)
 I really love me a good post apocalyptic/ dystopian novel. Yet I consider myself an optimist.
Huh.

But next on my reading list is the past not the future. I am really looking forwards to it... I do not necessarily agree with everything judging by the description but I guess I will have to find out.(This is the ebook version, but I have definitely seen it in stores.)

I wish I was inspired enough to make stuff this cool.

You know when people comment on your blog and say nice stuff and then you go to theirs and it's waaaay cooler and you feel so honoured and stupefied that they could ever say a nice thing about yours?
You had me at data gypsy...

Maybe after Minneapolis...
This project seems to have just started, and I keep hitting refresh waiting for more.

These women apparently want more too!

What I want is more Worn. I've already read this issue! Now I have to wait like... an entire half of a year until the next one comes out. Waaah. So I'll make myself happy by watching someone else flip through it with nice bright nail polish and a charming blue background.
Fun fact: That's the colour of my old room at my parents' house. 

And because it's standard blogger fare, I thought I'd let you know that someone lovely has set up a bloglovin thing for the new blog. Thanks, unknown charming individual! Now that I actually kind of use bloglovin (kind of. I still am challenged by computers) I understand how damn cool it is. If you do not use it, I would at least check it out.

& for the sake of milestones, this was the first post on this new blog, in case ya missed it.

Finally, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. day, here is some stuff he's less remembered for but just as smart as any 'dream.'

I heart gentrification

Sipping on my socially conscious, holier than thou hot chocolate, I realized that it usually started with an artist or two. Youthful and cocky, it only takes a few of these agile, trendy, and envy inducing creatures to move into a building with graffiti on the side, snap a few pictures of them standing by it for whatever people did with pictures before Facebook, and suddenly I'm buying a fair trade beverage in a place where half the people can’t afford bus fare. And thanks to everything that happening, everything between the original glittering muses and my virtuous premium coco, the moral dilemma begins.

To be fair, we cannot always blame the artists. They may start the fire, but it is the high rollers and the property developers who ‘burn it all down.’ Gentrification has become an issue in many cities all over the continent. Funnily enough, all the sons and daughters of the people who bustled into suburbs in the 1950s causing the White Flight trend are now growing up and taking advantage of the low income living in the once less glamorous parts of the area. So who are we to complain when they come back? We live in a free land, a place where one area of the city should not belong to one kind of person. Why should it matter if you can see more pairs of skinny jeans than ethnic diversity? Doesn’t their presence create more economy, more bus routes, more more more? Everyone should have a right to cheap housing...

But it doesn’t stay cheap. The artists, then students, change the culture. There are plenty of jokes about starving students but no one dares crack a smile about starving families. Rent soars as necessities like coffee shops and computer repair centres get put in. Scholarships and loans and skipping the weekly ‘Beer Wednesday’ can afford the perhaps modest increase. Hungry children and parents living with their parents and minimum wage with no room for advancement can’t. Now White Flight comes around, forces others out of the city... but these kinds of suburbs are not the clean lawns and smiling neighbours usually attributed to the label.

As we try to shop local, another super dee dooper trend!, we say “There is an economy here!” We pay 5$ for a coffee and show what we are willing to hand over for a taste and image. We tell people this is reasonable and encourage others to come. The neighborhood starts to look like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, but the people there before the businesses, the shell of the area, are dropped and disappear. We contribute to local economy with a sense of self satisfaction. We patronize with our patronage. We force their original clients out with our iPods, satchels, and secondhand Kafka but then pat ourselves on the back for buying meat from anywhere else than a sparkling supermarket. Aren’t we edgy? Let’s take a picture!

We hate when the bulldozers come, chain ourselves to trees, beg for our community not to turn into condos. Other students from other cities, other places, unaware that the area was once ‘bad’, bring their belongings.  A brand name drugstore gets put in and other places follow, barely behind. Nail polish can be purchased at 1:08 am. Trendy French cinema is available on random nights. Whims can be met. 

But there are more bus routes there now, so people can get jobs in places that were once not accessible! The local library gets an overhaul, or at least a little bit more money. Police focus shifts from crack users huddled around a fire to drunken youth giggling in the streets. Walking home later at night is not so bad. Everything is a trade off. Old stores stay open despite competition; there is still a family owned barber shop or pizza place or bargain grocer even if they are now wedged comfortably in between a Starbucks and a travel agency. I salute them. I hope they flourish. I hope this has helped their Canadian dream.

I hope a medium income family has gotten rich off my stupidity. I hope they realized that all it takes to get me in their cafe is a coat of bright coloured paint and the presence of a few vintage books on some shelves. Maybe the word ‘local.’ For others, all it took was a vegan option. I hope they sit at night and laugh, “I can’t believe we used to charge a dollar for a coffee!” I hope their stomachs are full because I moved to an area with cheap rent so I could buy expensive, of the moment food. I hope I am a joke to other people. I hope someday they will forgive me and they will like me if I keep smiling politely and tipping well.

"But I can’t be blamed for all of this. I don’t even drink coffee." Can I?

The area is like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, but it looks different to everyone. I walk between old brick buildings and admire signs with pretty and un-ironic retro font. The wings of my neighborhood flap, and it is beautiful to me. I hope I am on the back of the butterfly, and not the one putting it a jar. I see people walking up and down the street; there is still poverty and there is still crime. Gentrification is a temporary answer and hardly a solution for the people actually affected. I wish this butterfly could be beautiful for everyone. I wish I knew how to help people fly.

Is gentrification an issue in your area? In your opinion, is gentrification a race issue (from either side)? Do you think about this at all when you see new Starbucks/whatever's contemporary going up? Has this had a positive effects in your area?  

More? Standard definition / Gentrification: The Game! / There Goes the Hood & links to other books on the subject / A Tale of Two Torontos / From another continent's perspective / Something I found while writing, by someone who says it better than I / White flight
If you only go to one link, go here.

There is swearing here, but it's for a good cause

In a world that seems to be constantly threatened by looming apathy, I certainly do not want to critique any activism. I am simply going to make this quick plea to you in the hopes that you will tuck it away in a file folder in your mind and maybe bring it out to back you up the next time you question what you’re doing and why:

No matter what degree of involvement you have with the world, whether you are loosely part of an ideology or the head of the (Insert adjective here) (Insert Liberals /Conservatives /Feminists /Sword Swallowers here) (Insert for /against here) (Insert Democracy /Equality/ More chicken nuggets here) Committee, do not let the media dictate your agenda.

The media? You are reading a computer screen now. I am not going to pretend to be some grass root virtuoso who has never let a magazine affect me because frankly, those who pretend to be so are lying or naive, which means they’re unintentionally lying. Current events are exciting, important, and relevant, but of course because they are current, they are fleeting in the grand scheme of things. Define yourself by what you do, not by what you respond to. The media has a very stretched out definition of the word duty to report on what is happening globally, and it is good to embrace that, but by constantly being swept up into a new world of words every morning it can be hard to nail yourself down into the ground and create actual change. It is important to remember that everyone has their biases, and as much as facts can be skewed and details can be ignored some issues can be swept under the rug and not picked up by a single paper at all.

Making true change is by getting passionately involved in that which matters to you, not merely responding to a hot topic the way the politician who is the most popular in your circle of ideological (find better word) ‘soul mates’ might, or re-posting articles on Facebook because they seem kind of relevant... somehow... maybe. There is nothing wrong with, or being one myself I should say I see nothing wrong with, being a proclaimed current event junkie but it is important to remember that it is not as directly related to activism as we think.   

It is important to always remember that you and your cause have more value than to just be an oppositional sound bite for some journalist. Be proud of your accomplishments and make sure that the actions you take constitute ‘doing’ and not just ‘responding.’ Make the media notice you. The media does control you to some extent, but it is you who decided the extent of it.

Once, to avoid answering a question from opponents, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau distinctly mouthed “Fuck you” to them. The story got picked up by major papers and the unanswered question went forgotten. What bullet did he dodge? It doesn’t matter, because he succeeded. We don’t remember it, but we remember that he mouthed fuck.

Conservatives might have held posters saying “Fuck No” while Liberals carried “Fuck Yes” and the followers of the NDP would display “Please acknowledge that we are actually a party... please?” but none of it would have made any difference, because the word 'fuck' was not actually what was happening. Sadly, no one noticed what was happening because they were too busy reacting to what was being reported in the news. Instead of continuing on with their causes and goals, they dropped things and yelled and cried and debated the morality of a politician who would mouth an obscene word and the original question, the issue, the goal got lost and forgotten.  Keep this parable in our heart and draw out a manifesto of what you care about and what you want to change; there is no need to be fastidious or even firm with your definition of what improvement is. You just need to have one. Write it, read it, memorize it, and think it before you open your mouth. A manifesto is a map for your brain, hopefully leading your passion for your cause to your most impacting statements and stirring ideas. Do not be carried away with responding to what's dominating the front page every morning and stick to your core values.*  Just like the fuck no-ers and the fuck yes-ers, you too can be easily swept up in the current event frenzy and loose opportune abilities to work on the things you actually care about.

Fuck.

*Is it painfully obvious I major in Public Relations? 
Are you involved in any committees for the changing of something? Do you follow any news sources on social media? Do you post news articles on your Facebook? How much time would you estimate you talk about current events (ex: target marks on Ms. Gifford's names, dead birds) vs. spending time on causes (gun control/non violence efforts, environmentalism)?
Does this ever bother you? 

When something beautiful breaks

1) Buy a muffin in a paper bag, maybe with a plastic knife and cup of butter

2) Eat muffin, use half of butter

3) Throw the rest out

1) Buy shiny new school supplies

2) Rip off packaging and chuck in the garbage

3) Examine six lovely new pens

4) Loose half of them

5) Never actually use two of them, but leave them to break and bleed out in a pen cup somewhere

6) When final pen starts getting low on ink, toss entire pen in garbage

1) Buy soup

2) Get crackers

3) Take wrapper off crackers

4) Put crackers in soup

5) Throw cracker wrapper in garbage

6) Eat soup

*optional for students: 1) Take mildly unpleasant but on sale soup out of bag 2) Throw out bag

1) Pick up excellent free booklet, be it a guide to the city or good new music or for some anonymous hot line for what you feel is a problem you have

2) Put in bag. The same bag you put a banana, a million little receipts, about five plastic combs, and two tubes of lip balm in. And not just cheapie Chapstick either! One of these tubes should be a little wonky after being run through the wash thrice. Also, a few Cheerios that have spilled in somehow. They are now dust.

3) Use excellent brochure/bus riders’ guide/what have you a few times. Toss back in each time.

4) Watch it get bent out of shape.

5) See unbent, not sticky, all pages attached new one.

6) Grab, toss in bag.

7) Recycle old one… recycling makes it all cool right?

I am one who is attracted to the 'brightlightsbigcity' binging and purging of stuff. Minimalism and maximalist tendencies collide in my house, sometimes very ironically with an abundance of storage units and anti clutter books that are not relevant to my life. We are a society of waste. Even if you graciously decline a plastic bag when you buy that recycled/upcycled/carbon free/what is it even? feel good… thing…from a cool local store (or let’s be real, Urban Outfitters), you are still buying more. I’m not a hip girl who just stepped out of Club Monaco trying to tell you about Zen, feeling, and “You don’t own your stuff, your stuff owns you” or some other witty reversal that does not entirely make sense when you really think about it. I’m not even the angry hippie who gets mad at cars in their Facebook statuses. (The people who post stuff like they... they do realize you they are on a computer, right?) I am just one person making the hardly debatable statement that as a culture, we like more, even if more than half of more is thrown into the trash. I will not back down from this stance regardless of what one person with a trendy, back to basics, thirty day experiment you throw at me.

No, my mind is coming to peace with my inconsistent lifestyles. Owning only one notebook, even if it has a high gloss confetti smattered gold coloured cover, is more minimalist than going out and buying a black and white one with Helvetica font on the front, regardless of what the cool notebook store owner would have you believe. I slowly learn, while 1930s do it all, fix it up nostalgia is marketed to me. Fresh out of a credit crisis, Vogue is telling me about ‘investing’ in clothing that will last forever and I am looking at pricey cookware that seems reasonable because apparently I will never have to replace it. Maybe these things are made to last, but human tastes seldom are. I love the grill I have now, and it has quite the warranty, but when the plates are black and coated twenty years down the road will its timelessness be so appealing? Will I really want to spend ten minutes after every meal scrubbing at scuds that no amount of lemon dish detergent will make clean? Grills are fairly cheap. I am not sure if Future Me will make the right choice, especially when I imagine future grills flipping their own pancakes and smiling and saying “good bye!” when one unplugs them.(Why do I want that? Maybe Future Me’s children are going away to college by then and Future Me is tired of always talking to the radio.)

And then, there are those things. You know, those things. Not even obvious those things, like the incessantly charming first necklace L. gave me, that is obviously valuable for both wonderfully sentimental and banal monetary reasons. No, those things are not always obvious.

I have a intricately detailed necklace that will always woo me and be infinitely valuable even if it was found in a junk box on a jewelry table on a flea market. I have more mugs than things to drink, and yet I cherish each quirky one, assured that no one will ever love it as much as I do. What breaks my heart the most is a dazzling and impossibly intricately patterned Pucci wallet, not so vibrantly blue and green as it once was, but still utterly usable. That is my problem; I am scared I might use it until it is unusable. At what point do I have the willpower to stop whipping it out and feeling intensely and instantly glamorous every time I pay for anything, from a glorious gold gilted cupcake to a bottle of no name brand imitation Draino? I want to give this to my children! No, my grandchildren! They will gawk and awe and watch over it. It will be both sentimental and practical to one of them! Unless the next wallet I buy is somehow just as glorious and holds just as much emotional value… Besides, then what do I do with it? I imagine putting it in a trunk, but few buy trunks anymore. I am a student, and I move around too frequently to have untouchable trunks right now. Do I store it sacredly in a box in an attic at my parents’ house and hope I do not lose it or forget about it? Anyways, everything I have learned about trendy minimalism has told me that keeping usable things in boxes somewhere is bad for my health because of the metaphorical weight on my soul or something.

Then, there is the unimaginable. The horrific. The moment of eternal “noooo.” When something beautiful breaks, your heart feels a little chipped. I argue the idea that this is hypermaterialism, because it is not as much about the object as much as the loss of it. After all, not everything can be art to us. We do not all have high ceilings and white walls and pedestals in our homes to display beautiful but destroyed artifacts. Can you fix it? Or wait, is that damaging it further? Especially with older items, one can be hesitant to ‘reuse’ it. Applying modern plastic soles to delicate Italian 1940s sandals seems as shame inducing as Botox. What will become of beautiful broken sandals? Do we put them in a recycling bag and drop them beside Value Village, jaunting away with heart palpitations as if we have left a baby on a hopefully loving family's doorstep? It almost seems as if one needs to adopt a “they’re someone else’s problem now” attitude towards a simple broken object.

I treat my wallet delicately, never yanking cards out of the lush little pockets and limit the number of receipts I hold on to at a time, lest I stretch its lovely large pocket and ruin its vibrant print. I dabble clear nail polish; a smidge here and a touch up there would be what the wallet deities demand anyways, no? Should some kind of coin purse guru come and explain to me the exact steps for preserving such common yet rare and special things I would acquiesce and abide. Anything to prolong the life of this majestic holder of paper and plastic.

As much as I enjoy the use of my wallet, I know what I fear more than having to put change in my pocket is feeling like I have destroyed beauty turned into a noun. In a world where so few of the items we buy hold genuine value to us, it can be hard to come to terms with what happens when one actually does. My plea can be dismissed as the concern of a materialist, of someone who is petty and frivolous, and I will not object, though I might mention the first night you do not sleep with a blanket you have possessed since infancy or a jacket you wore to every protest in college, lapel still holey from all the FREE this country, BAN this corporation, MAKE LOVE NOT WAR pins you thought merited display. In that instant, when you catch your breath and pause for an instant and remember the exact colour, texture, and quality of that once skin like piece of something...

I will grin, and lightly remove anything too heavy from my wallet.

You have an item like this, right? What is it? Do you find minimalism incredibly appealing too? Do you find it contradictory to be 'sold minimalism'? Are you comfortable with your love of stuff?

More? A Collection a Day / The Story of Stuff / "From Luxuries to Necessities" / Mnmlist / This is Glamorous /

If you only go to one link, go here from here.

It seems like no matter what...

 

... I find myself back at a computer screen to talk about life.

Meeting someone who you find impossibly charming every day regardless of the circumstances and eventually moving in with them, moving into charming Cold War era houses with said someone, now being in a centralized location in my favourite city ever (still Halifax!), drinking warm drinks, even in the summer, vintage jewelry, always finding something to stand up for, quotations that make you stop and think, appealing little cousins who have red hair, magnificent tights that are too thick for summer and too thin for winter, a little bit of Marimekko all the time everywhere from bags to pillow cases, not being ashamed to order steak at restaurants, a budding passion for nice kitchenware and too large plastic sunglasses, a job in a charming coffee and sandwich shop that is owned and connected to my favourite restaurant ever, constant ferry trips, best friends, new friends, having someone to read The Huffington Post with every morning (he would even do Jezebel or the Hairpin if I wanted him too, but I am not so unkind as to inflict feminist musings before he has his caffeine in him), getting very excited about Real Simple every month (excited to the point that I knock over nail polish in drug stores or run and lose my coveted spot in busy grocery store line ups to grab it to hold it in my sweaty palms and attempt to absorb their perfect wisdom), going to the hardest trivia night in the city ever week even though our table is consistently everyone's juniors by at least twenty years,

and realizing I need to write more. And that I miss connecting with girls all over the world and hearing how they are doing.  

Hello. 

How are you doing?