Remembering and Letting Go: A Balance

So, for the last two days I have been re-organizing and cleaning my apartment. I have felt the sudden need to finally figure out what to do with the clutter areas of my space, and to try to make it feel better to live in. I get such a satisfaction out of organization, but I often can't get myself to start because then suddenly I need to organize EVERYTHING and the project is so big that I get overwhelmed and don't do any of it.

This time, I tackled a bunch of smaller projects, and it has been much more manageable.

One of the things I was conflicted about was a little shrine I have had set up in my room beside my bed. Last year I lost both of my grandparents in a terrible car crash, and I had set up a little corner to remind me of them. I had all of the items I had taken from their various homes when we were cleaning them out, as well as pictures of them, cards from them, everything I could find that reminded me of them. (I also added pictures and items from my dear Eddie, our family dog who also passed away last year.) It was really important for me to have all of those things set up, it made me feel like I was actively remembering them, and like they were still with me in some way.

Today was the first day that I looked at that corner and I realized that it was time to put it away. As I started to pack up some of the cards I felt a twinge of guilt at the idea of packing them away. It's interesting to me that as I write this, it makes me sad all over again, thinking that in some way I am putting away the memory of them, but really that is not the case. The reality that is finally starting to sink in is that they are always with me, in my thoughts, and I don't need a bunch of their belongings, collecting dust, to remind me of that.

Instead, I decided to put a bunch of their pictures together in a little collage on my wall, that I can look at and see how much love they both brought to my life. It felt like the right thing to do.

 Grief is such an amazing phenomenon. I have been learning a lot about it through my past year of experiences, and one thing that really strikes me is how it progresses at its' own pace, and there is nothing we can do to speed it up. It is quite an amazing lesson in patience, and faith: the fact that we will feel what we feel in different ways, for as long as we need to, no matter what anyone says or does. I have found a new stage of my grief, and it feels like it was all so long ago, and yet here we are. That said, it is always a progression, and all we can do is roll with the tides, and see where it leads us, checking in along the way.

I feel I made an important step in my progression today.

Love and Kindness all.

Chat a chat chat

So, I’ve been stuck in bed with food poisoning and unable to do anything new for my blog, which has been a bummer. My brain is functioning way better today than it has so far, and therefore, I decided to come up with something immobile to do, with the help of the internet. My initial goal was very broad, to “help someone” or “give advice” which I decided I would do through internet chat. I have only been in chat rooms once as a curious teenager and quickly found them to be creepy and left, but I thought if I went to an adult one it might be okay… famous last words.

My first mistake was clicking on the first one that came up under my search for “chat rooms” I logged in as “livelife” and off we went. My initial response: EVERYTHING IS GOING TOO FAST! There were different coloured words scrolling past my screen way faster than I could read it. I decided to jump in and meet my fellow chatters… but I realized that they all had little pictures next to their names and I only had a question mark. I tried to look for a picture button and instantly felt like a very old lady or a monkey trying to use a computer for the first time. I found my profile, and realized they had all chosen “avatars” okay, cool… some of them were a little slutty… I avoided those and went for a picture of a girl who kind of looked like the girl with the pearl earring. Perfect.

Next I put out a “hello” to the room. No one responded.  I added a “What’s up?”

Still nothing. They were all going strong with weird conversations that I could not understand. And then some idiot started spamming the chat with this over and over again:

“Only beautiful girls can add me or pm me..I'm a model in a model agency for magazines,catalogs and photographers.If you don't believe me don't add me.”

I was pissed. I wrote “Sexymanforyou” a very angry “stop spamming, you idiot. If you were so attractive you wouldn’t feel so insecure as to write it all over the place.” Message.  He continued spamming as it is probably a robot of some kind doing it, but I like to feel that someone was touched by my intelligence.

After this I was suddenly slammed with private messages dinging in over and over again. I opened up 4 of them that just said “asl?” Now I am completely out of it, but I do remember from my middle school days that meant age/sex/location. I still think it is extremely rude to demand the question upon someone, so I responded to one of them with a “It is quite rude to demand that question of me. I would appreciate it if you kindly asked me where I am from and how old I am.” They responded with a smiley face symbol with red cheeks, so I obviously really got through to them.

I deleted most of the other ones as they said disgusting things like “wanna see my sexy body? PM me.” (Which means private message me for all of you who may be out of the loop.) I did respond to one inviting me to see a certain part of their anatomy be saying “No thank you. I am on here to meet new people and have a conversation. You are being rude and disgusting. “ He stopped messaging me.

I then got a very interesting message from guest. Obviously he hadn’t figured out how to change the name. It simply said. “Hi. How are you?” That was refreshing. I responded with “I am well thanks, and you?”  I conversation continued as follows:

Guest: Good.

Me: Good then!

Guest: How old are you?

Me: I’m… 23 (I felt I needed to lie for some reason), and how old are you?

Guest: 21.

Me: Cool.

Guest: Can you rate my picture?

Me: I’m sorry?

Guest: Rate my picture. My face.

Me: You want me to rate a picture of your face?

Guest: I want to know If I look good.

 (Okay, I thought, this is someone that maybe I can help.)

 Me: What do you think?

Guest: What?

Me: Do you like your face?

Guest: Can you look at my pic?

Me: Why does it matter what a stranger thinks of your face?

Guest: I just wanna know! Can you tell me?

Me: I’m not going to rate your face.

Guest: I’m not 21.

Me: What? Okay.

Guest: I’m 14.

Me: Ok.

(I started wondering if I was going to be arrested by some kind of teen government co-op thingy…I decided I should finish the conversation, and not just leave.)

Guest: I’m not 21.

Me: Right, okay.  I’m going to go. Bye.

Guest: Can you just look at my picture?

Me: Listen, if you depend on other people to tell you how you look, life is going to be really hard. Learn to like what you look like. It makes it easier.

Guest: Please!

At that point I signed out. I hope that little boy thinks about the words I said and maybe, just maybe tries to listen to them.

What he said really struck me. I remember hearing about a fad going around where teens would videotape themselves and then post it and have people comment on how attractive they are. It was gross since people were mean on purpose due to the fact that they can comment anonymously. I decided to google “am I attractive” and see what came up.

What came up was a ton of sites with people asking that question. One that really interested me was a man with autism who was asking people to rate how attractive he was so that he would know what level of attractive girls he could try to date. Now, I know enough about autism (from the ol’ psychology degree days) to remember that this makes perfect sense as something that would be observed in other couples and therefore seem completely reasonable to ask. When I see the question being asked I think it is absurd. Is it?

When I really think about it, I know I write people off all of the time because I assume that they are too attractive for me. I don’t think I do it completely consciously, but I think that I do it. I’m not saying I think highly or lowly of myself, I think that it might be one of those human instincts that just kind of happens. It is so weird to pull it out and look at it though.

Now all of that said, I will be the first to tell you that my attraction generally does not come from looks so much as personality. Of course, I need to find something physically attractive about a person, but I am not extremely picky. I am more picky about many other personality factors and morals. I think there are a lot of people who feel this way. I decided to try round two of internet research to find out.

This time I decided to be pickier and choose a chat room that would be less chaotic. I decided on a movie lovers chat room. It was much less busy, in the way that no one was talking on it. I decided to break the ice:

“Ols” Oh shoot, I meant to say ola. Blew it. But wait! Someone named Jazur responded with a “Hi raisins”

(I should explain that I had chosen my name to be raisincouncil as in the quote from benny and joon “I can’t say I’m a big supporter of the raisin council.” Haha, anyway…)

So I chatted with Jazur, angel34, gorutsy and gabon about their favorite movies and then dropped this little puppy:

“Question: Off topic: If you could only pick ONE thing in a partner out of beauty, extreme intelligence or a great sense of humour, what would it be? ;)”

I only got one response, it was humour. Now keep in mind it was Jazur who answered  and then started asking me my answer (which of course was humour too) where I was from and my gender, so I’m pretty sure he was trying to pick me up until I told him I was Male. He then he asked me what actors I was attracted to.

I instantly said Kate Winslet, and then realized that she is beautiful and I just ruined my point. So I left. I have to say that I don't just love Kate because she is beautiful, but because she is a fantastic actor. I don't really care how beautiful she is. But that is hard to explain in a chat room when I am pretending to be a man.

So my research didn’t go exactly as planned, and I didn’t prove any points, but it really got me thinking about how much we really do judge how attractive we are. I am going to leave this entry at this:

The older I grow, the more I start to realize that what I desire most in a companion is a lovely, artistic, kind-hearted person. There are other things that I find work, and other things that don’t, but I don’t look for a supermodel by any means. I know I’m not alone in this, so why don’t we all make a pact to try to focus on being kind-hearted people more than perfectly attractive creatures. I think it will help with a lot of our troubles.

Love and kindness all.

Love, Love, love.

I have been working on a particular blog idea for most of the week, and seeing as I am sick in bed, now seems like a perfect opportunity to create it.

It all started when I was forced to take a cab home (I choose my wording so that I don't feel any responsibility for spending the extra money that I am not supposed to be spending.) Anyway, I was FORCED to take a cab home from work because I had been waiting 35 minutes for a streetcar and there were still none in sight. I was in a pretty pleasant mood, so I started to chat with the cabby. He was talking about how before he was married he lived a completely different lifestyle and worked for different freelance companies, etc, but he is now getting his engineering degree and working as a cab driver in the meantime. It was in this moment that I was very interested in knowing more about Marvin's life (he had also told me his name was Marvin) so I asked how he and his wife had met. He told me that they had an arranged marriage, which of course released an entire avalanche of questions from me.

The story is Marvin and Paulina were set up by their parents as an option for an arranged marriage. They would have the ability to meet and then say yes or no to the arrangement. So, they met in a park for three hours and talked, and after that time, Marvin decided that he wanted her to be his wife. When I asked Marvin how he came to that decision he told me 3 things. One: She was pretty. Two: They seemed to have enough things in common. Three: You never really know anyone, no matter how long you have known them for, so he just thought, why not her.They have now been married for ten years.

I of course find this unbelievably fascinating given how different it is from my way of thinking, but in some ways I understand Marvin's attitude. Now, I should mention I am not completely sold on the whole thing. In fact, Marvin went on to say that they way he makes it work is by never telling his wife when he is unhappy with her. Instead, if he is upset that they are out of cooking oil he will say "I'm so happy that whenever you go shopping you remember the cooking oil." and then she will apologize. I don't know about you, but I could NOT handle living with someone that passive aggressive.

In any case, the whole thing made me think about my perspective on being single. For the most part, I am a pretty confident person, and I am comfortable with myself, and being on my own and independent, however, we all have those "days." On my "days" I feel embarrassed for being single for such a long period of time in a row, and feel the loss of that hope that I will find a good partner. I decided that it might be a good project to ask more people about how they have met their partners, and bring that hope back up.

Now in terms of conducting this project, I realized right away that I would have to be a bit careful asking strangers about how they met their partners if I didn't want to offend someone, or bring up bad memories, so I decided the rule was I could only ask people if they were wearing a wedding ring. That day I spent an hour and a half (to and from one of my jobs) scouring the subway cars, looking for rings. I have to tell you, there were not as many as I had expected! This is on one hand comforting, given that I started to realize I am not completely alone in my single-hood... but also didn't really help the level of hope that I was trying to develop. Although my roomy did have a good point saying that many of them could have been in relationships just not marriages, there are way more common law marriages now, less people wearing rings, and some cultures where they have necklaces in place of rings, so who knows!

I tried one younger-looking woman who really did not want to talk, so I had to move on. I did manage to find one older lady who was willing to answer my question, and she told me she had met her husband at work, they worked in the same department.

It's interesting, because from all of my research through asking friends, family and acquaintances, there seem to be 3 common themes: Met at work, met at school, or were friends of a friend. Of course there are variations on this theme, but for the most part it holds true. One example I love is from a friend from work who said his best friend was dating her best friend, so they just ended up hanging out all of the time. When I asked him if there was a moment when he just "knew" he said little things kept happening time and time again, that solidified the fact.

Now, I'm a weird mix of romantic and realist. I love stories of romantic meetings and "just knowing you are meant to be with someone" but that is not to say I am not practical about marriage in general. I know from everyone I have ever talked to in a marriage that it is work. It doesn't just happen. I also know that sometimes people just grow apart.

My favorite story of meetings is my parents. (And I am not AT ALL biased ;) ) My father, originally from Thunderbay Ontario, had moved to Winnipeg to go to University, was playing piano on a river boat in Winnipeg called "the river rouge" as one of his many gigs. My mother was also not originally from Winnipeg, but had moved there when she was younger as my grandfather had gotten a job at the same University my father was attending. One night my mother and my aunt decided to go see their friend play in a band on the river rouge. (Just a side note: My mother still has the ticket from this boat ride and it says "find your true love" on the ticket... pretty cute.) Anyway, they met as my mother's friend introduced her to my father... and he asked her out on a date very shortly after.

when I ask my mother how she "knew" she explains that she had been dating a man shortly before this encounter and it wasn't working. She explained it to him that in order for a relationship to work, they needed to be like two pillars working together to hold up a building. She still has no idea where that analogy came from. Anyway, the first present that my father gave my mother was a book of poetry, and in that book of poetry there was a poem about two pillars working together to hold up a building. She knew. It was my mother who asked my father to marry her, and they were engaged almost five months after meeting. They have been married for 32 years, and have 3 children. It has been, and will continue to be work and compromise to make it work. My mother says she is lucky that when they grew up and made changes in their lives, they did it together, at the same time. If they had not, it never would have worked, but they did, and it did. 

So, I do have hope.

Someone posted this on their facebook page today, and I feel it is pretty on theme, so enjoy! (Just ignore the coca cola advertisement....haha!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px2fjhliA8s


Love and kindness all.

BALANCE and INGENUITY: otherwise known as segways and dollarama

Today I rode on my first segway! For any of you who have not seen them motoring around tourist attractions, it is a contraption that looks something like a scooter, and moves based on a sensor that keeps track of your body weight. Basically: They are very cool little machines.

Part history lesson, part team building activity, a group of my co-workers and I went on a segway tour of the distillery. So, we found the place, and were greeted by two very friendly gentlemen who handed us wavers to fill out. Basically I signed my life away saying it wasn't their fault if I hit someone, something, ruined the segway (which I would have to replace for 6, 000$... yikes) or died.

Once that was done we got to pick out the fun helmets. I looked totally bad-ass. Mmmhmm.

Next we were brought outside and given basic instructions on the rules and then were given one on one instructions on the segway itself. Now, I was totally excited and ready up until the moment when I had to step on the thing, and then I started to feel nervous. I got on it and I instantly started to wobble, and panic ensued. I tried to not think too hard and to follow his directions, and slowly but surely I started to get the hang of it.

I have to stop here to mention that the main tour guide/ instructor was quite a character. When he first opened his mouth to talk, I almost burst out laughing as this extreme surfer-dude accent and vocabulary came out of his mouth. He sounded exactly like the turtle from finding nemo. No exaggeration. From thence forward, he shall be known as "surfer tour guide."

Alright, so the time came for all of us to hop on our segways (mine was nicknamed Goldie Hawn after its' lovely gold frame...) and we were off, single file, on a journey through the distillery. The first leg was a little rocky, getting used to riding on brick, but shortly after that I unlocked my knees and basically stopped thinking and just did it. It was fantastic!!

So... what did I learn about the history of the distillery? There were a lot of drunk Canadians in the 1820's and 30's, based on the fact that they thought the best way to counter-act cholera (that they believed came from drinking the polluted water) was to drink whiskey and beer instead. So much so, that they even developed a beer for babies to drink to keep them from dying. Crazy.

Gooderham and worts were the two brothers (in law) that developed the distilleries and manufactured beer and then the first Canadian rye whiskey in Canada, and they were a messed up family. Worts threw himself to his death off of their windmill after his wife died of childbirth and he couldn't raise the 5 children he had. The children were adopted by Gooderham, who then put one of the Wort sons in charge of brewing (since he didn't have a clue how to do it himself.) I should mention that Wort Jr was 16 at the time, and in charge of a company that brewed millions' of tons of alcohol a year. (He had also gone to university at age 13.. so he was just a little ahead of the game, or as surfer tour guide said "the Doogie Howser of alcohol. )

And there was a big explosion, and bla bla bla. Anyway, that was the most entertaining part of the history lesson. We continued to zoom around and at one point turned a corner when one of our teammates went straight and could not stop. He just kept turning around saying "I can't stop, I can't.."  and surfer tour guide went to his rescue. A couple of our teammates were saying "ao river" as he went drifting away, I didn't get it, it's a "Portlandia" thing. He was brought back on track, and other than that one occurrence, we all made it through in one piece, and I had a blast!

The biggest reflection I have from the segway ride was like so many things in life, when I stopped thinking, I had no problems. The key to successfully driving one was to train your body what it has to do to move in different ways, and then to stop thinking about it. Once I stopped thinking about it, I could trust that my body knew what to do, and it did! Only when I started to worry that I was going to lose control did I ever feel shaky. Oh so true for so many parts of life! If we could just turn our brain off (particularly of worry) everything would turn out just fine.

Part two of my afternoon showed off a little of my crazy. I was headed to a training session for a job that I do occasionally. I will not say any more about it, as I am not allowed, but for this particular job training I was supposed to be wearing shorts, and completely forgot them at home. After I finished a couple of errand and looked at the time, I realized there was no way I could make it home to pick them up, so I was going to have to improvise.

On the way to the subway I looked out for possible stores that might sell shorts and was sadly disappointed until I saw it: Dollarama! The store that has everything! I went in with spirits high and began my journey. They didn't sell shorts. However: They did sell footless tights for ladies, and boxer briefs for men. I grabbed a pair of both and headed to the cash register.

It was at that moment that I realized that I would have to bare my legs in shorts... and I had not shaved my legs in.... well a very long time. It's winter, it's just not that necessary. In a panic I grabbed a set of razors and a bottle of lotion and then went to the checkout with all of my items. Okay.

On my continued journey towards the subway I again searched for some kind of store that would have a bathroom I could use, and came across a country time. I went in, bought a tea and then quickly asked where the bathrooms were located. Just as she was handing me my tea I had a brilliant plan and asked her if she had a pair of scissors I could borrow for a minute. Reluctantly she agreed, and off I went.

So in the bathroom I got to work. I cut the legs off of the tights and put them on. They were fairly see-through, so I ripped the tags off of the mens' underwear and put them on top. Perfect! Now, at this point there was a lady in the other stall, who was just heading out. I decided to wait until she left to start item number two. Okay, she was gone. I whipped out the razors, lathered up my legs and braced myself against the bathroom stall door as I began to shave my legs. I worked quickly, but carefully (they were cheap razors, and I didn't want any nasty cuts.) Before long, voila. smooth as buddah.
I put my pants on top of my "shorts" and headed onto the subway and on my way. (After returning the scissors to a very confused lady.)

I am happy to report that I arrived on time, and was very confident with my smooth legs and "shorts."

Love and kindness all.

Adventures with props

As I was leaving work today, my friend Curtis handed me a poor abandoned hanger that he found in a box left from the wedding the night before. I decided to name her "hangy" and in that moment, I also decided to take hangy on an adventure this afternoon. Below is a visual diary of our afternoon.

The outing began with a leisurely stroll to the park, but along the way, hangy found some garbage

 She decided the best thing to do would be to recycle it.

 Next it was time to play!

Good times with a new friend.
After the park we continued on our way, and as we passed by a phone booth, one of the phones started to ring. Hangy decided to be polite and answer it... but it was a wrong number.

Next on our journey we passed some beautiful trees, hangy NEEDED to climb. She's really good with balance.

At this point we both started to feel a little peckish, and then hangy spotted a subway. She decided that we should indulge in one of her favorite snacks: subway cookies.

She picked out her favorite kind

 And we sat down for our snack. Hangy was really hungry.

yum. Okay, with full stomachs we decided that maybe it was time to come home. Now hangy was a little bit sad, for she didn't have a home to go home to. I decided that maybe it was best if hangy came home with me, as long as she could get along with the other hangers. She liked this idea a lot.
We walked across the bridge to the streetcar stop, what a view!

 Hangy got very excited and started to climb up the bridge even though I told her not too, pretty soon she was up way too high.

 I had to scold hangy to get her to finally come down.

She said she was sorry and was just overly-excited, and we made up, and found our way to the streetcar stop.

 After a cozy ride home, we made it inside. I introduced hangy to the key holder first, they got along splendidly.

Next we made our way to the closet, and hangy fit right in.

 It was settled then, I was to adopt hangy for good. I asked hangy if she wanted to come live with me and she got very excited and gave me a big hug.

The end of the day was approaching, and hangy was a little tuckered out from our busy day, so I tucked her in for a sleep.

Goodnight hangy!

Side note: Two different men commented "nice hanger" as I was waiting for the streetcar. Another man commented as I walked by: "beautiful eyes, nice hair, why are you carrying a hanger?" ridiculous objectification aside, I think it is interesting how giving people an object of conversation is key to allowing them to feel comfortable enough to interact with you. Anyone who wants to be spoken to on public transit,  carry a prop. I guarantee it will work.

Love and kindness all.

Dear....... someone

Today I wrote a letter to Emma Thompson. It may seem stupid and juvenile, but it was brilliantly therapeutic.

I got the idea a few weeks ago from my roommate. We had been talking about a book she was reading where the author suggested we write letters to our favorite artists. The idea is that you are putting the positive appreciative energy into the universe. My first thought was that it was ridiculous, given there is no way they will ever read it (says my logical brain.)

This is where my brain suddenly skipped to the part in "Love Actually" (Of course it's a movie with Emma Thompson in it) where Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister, is reading through a selection of christmas letters and finds the one from Natalie and she says she is "actually yours"- his, and it's beautiful, and he realizes he loves her and needs to find her right away!! - Okay, I realize it is a movie, but my point is that you NEVER KNOW if it just might reach that person, and maybe it is exactly what they need to hear. The Universe is a Miraculous Force. Plus, it is positive energy, and that is always helpful.

More than this, I felt so good putting all of my thoughts in order as to why I love Emma Thompson so much, and why she is so inspiring, and I felt inspired all over again!! I want to thank these artists that help me to feel this way. THANK YOU EMMA THOMPSON! THANK YOU!!! I know how much sacrifice it takes to be a small time actor in Canada, I can only imagine what she has given up to get to where she is, not to mention what she has to put herself through every time she plays a juicy role. So I think it is time that I say thank you to those people whom I appreciate so much.

I sent the letter through an e-mail to one of her agents' publicity sector. I hope somehow it finds its' way to Ms. Thompson.

In the meantime, THANK YOU to all of the other beautiful artists in my life who are so brave and let me into their worlds and their minds everyday so that I can become a more full and balanced artist and human being!!! Let's all thank our artists friends for helping our world to be beautiful and to change, and to grow as it should.

To show how appreciative I am, I am going to leave you with a clip from one of my favorite movies of all time: "Sense and Sensibility", screenplay and lead role by Emma Thompson. My second favorite clip (the first being the scene near the beginning in the stable where Edward tries to tell Elinor about being engaged and she has no idea what he is going on about) this one is the proposal right near the end. Lovely. I hope you all enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88_tyulOQDE

Love and Kindness all.