Confessions of a Halloweenie

I am a bona fide, certified, deep fried Halloweenie. I have always loved Halloween, and I still do.

I don't really know what it is about Halloween that appeals to me so much. I certainly do enjoy all things creepy (except for spiders.) I like chilling books and movies and plays (Note: Well, as long as there is someone there to hold my hand during the especially scary bits. Liking scary things does not necessarily translate into actually being "brave," you know.)

It's no mystery why it was so appealing to me as a kid, of course. I loved to plan my costume months in advance; I was a shy kid, and the chance to be someone or something else for a night was very appealing. Unfortunately, the thrill of the costume was nearly always marred by the reality that it is freezing cold on October 31. Every year I would fight the valiant fight, but every year my mother would prevail, and I would be stuffed into (as I remember it) a full snowsuit before I headed out trick-or-treating, any semblance of a costume completely hidden. No matter what my carefully-planned outfit was, I ended up looking like the Goodyear Blimp, or the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. And no matter how secretly grateful I was to my mother at the end of the long, cold night, I would still kick up the same fuss the following year and the cycle would continue.

But I didn't REALLY care about how bundled up I was, because I still got to go out after dark with my friends, and I would still come home with a giant loot bag of candy at the end of the night. My friends and I quickly came to know which houses gave out the best treats; I remember nearly weeping when we discovered the house that gave out full-size chocolate bars. Cans of pop were a mixed blessing; they were delicious, but too many of them would weigh down your bag and force you home early. We knew where the dentists (and their toothbrushes) lived and which neighbours gave out apples and teeny, useless boxes of raisins. We knew where the mean old lady lived - the one who wouldn't give you anything if you were also collecting change for UNICEF. (Note: I'm not kidding about this, and as an adult I often wonder what that lady's deal was. So I did a google search using the keywords "refuse," "UNICEF" and "Halloween," and the first relevant link that came up was from the white supremacist group STORMFRONT. Figures - jerks. In any case, we fooled the mean old lady by flipping our UNICEF boxes around to the back and got candy anyway.)

But now I am all grown up. I don't go out trick or treating and I don't wear costumes. (Note: This is not technically true, as I am attending a Halloween party on Friday night and I am totally stumped about what to wear. If you have an idea for me, please post a comment and tell me! I will give you all the credit and buy you a beer.) So why is Halloween still so exciting for me?

Part of it is because I am desperate to retain some of the childhood wonder and excitement I used to feel around holidays and special occasions. When you are an adult there are meetings to sit through, paperwork to fill out and bills to be paid, and if you're not careful, you can let those moments of giddy anticipation that once punctuated your childhood pass you by. Everything is a big damn responsibility, and opportunities to get really excited over everyday occurrences are few and far between.

But here's what I think it REALLY is, and what it always has been for me. I love the fact that we have a socially mandated night of silliness and mischief and gluttony and sin inserted into our otherwise staid calendar. I mean, take Christmas, which is the apparent antithesis to Halloween. Christmas is light, Halloween is dark. Christmas is about giving, Halloween is about getting. Christmas is about what comforts us, and Halloween is about what scares us. Certainly Halloween strikes fear into a few evangelical Christian groups, who would like to see it banned altogether.

I would argue to those groups that Halloween and Christmas have something in common. I can't remember what comic pointed this out first (I know I didn't think it up!) but we spend tonnes of energy teaching and reminding kids not to accept candy from strangers ... and then we have a night where we encourage kids to do just that. And we open our doors to other people's children - sometimes a hundred of them in one night. Then we "oohh" and "ahh" over their costumes and give them a piece of candy and our goodwill as they toddle off to the next house. For such a "scary" holiday, that's a pretty sweet sentiment.

I'm too old to trick or treat, and my strict condo building does not hold the same rosy view of trick-or-treating as I do (the condo blog is coming ... I swear.) So this Friday I'll head out into my neighbourhood and take a walk at dusk. I'll go out there to see all of the kids in their snowsuits calling "Trick or Treat!" and their parents hiding in the nearby bushes, whispering "SAY THANK YOU!" at the top of their lungs. Hope to see you out there.

And just wait 'till you see me at Christmas.

The Play's the Thing.

I love theatre. Full stop. I love movies too, and perhaps one day I will write a blog about my obsession with movies, but right now, I want to talk about theatre.

It's probably on my mind because I am just about to get underway with our school show. Directing a high school play is extremely rewarding, but it is also an exhausting, nerve-wracking pursuit. Your cast members are only available to you for a few hours each day after school, and have so many other things on the go that they are often totally swamped. They are balancing up to eight different academic courses, sports teams, orthodontic appointments and tutoring sessions. And more importantly, they are at the most socially tumultuous point of their lives, and can be distracted by worries about friendships, romantic relationships, and how much Axe deodorant spray to apply after gym class in order to attract the opposite sex. (Note: Boys, let me save you some time. NO amount of Axe deodorant spray will attract the opposite sex. It is heinous. Seriously. Ask around.)

I remember my very first trip to a theatrical event. I was five years old, and my father, a devotee of the theatre, took me to see a troupe called the "Strolling Players," at the London Public Library. I still remember the song they sang to open and close their show:

"We are the strolling players

We're here to play for you

We'll laugh and sing and dance and have some fun!

We hope you will enjoy us

and join in all the fun

And that is how we strolling players play!"

In my younger years I was somewhat less sophisticated, and thought that this was the pinnacle of artistic genius. I was also far less likely then to harbour disdain for a song that rhymed "fun" with "fun" than I am now. A love affair with the theatre was born.

I was completely entranced with the idea of performing, and I would drag my family (in particular my long-suffering brother) into the basement to sing songs and put on skits.
I created performances using my "Mini-Pops" albums and the John Denver and the Muppets' Christmas Album. My father brought home a Monty Python record and I memorized all of the sketches, which I performed, complete with the appropriate voices and accents in front of family AND guests (The "Argument" sketch and the ridiculous "Eric the Half a Bee" were two of my personal favourites.) I was relentlessly picked on when I was in elementary school, and my basement theatre was a place where I could make my own fun.

I finally overcame some of my shyness and, encouraged by my incredible friend Jenn, auditioned for and joined a local youth theatre troupe when I was in the ninth grade. I got some pretty good roles in high school shows, won the drama award, and went on to study English Literature and Theatre Arts at university. But I knew I would never make my living as an actor.

Now, of course I entertained fantasies of going to professional acting school and making a career out of it. I dreamed of someone discovering me and taking me to Hollywood and putting me in pictures! But I knew, deep down, that I wasn't suited to be an actor. I'm too sensitive, I'm not resilient enough, and the constant financial insecurity of the actor's lifestyle would wear me down. And by the time I was university I had finally realized what it was that I loved most about the theatre, and it wasn't about being in the spotlight.

I actually figured it out while I was leading a camping trip with some very challenging kids. I had become involved in outdoor education, and this particular group of kids came with their own group of social workers who were there to restrain them if the need arose (I am not joking.) The first two days of the trip had been pretty shaky, but all of a sudden the group began to click. As I watched them working together and negotiating what needed to happen in order to set up their tents, I was struck by how much can happen when people work hard together to accomplish something.

And that's what I love about the theatre. I love watching the actors do their thing, but it goes way beyond that. I love the fact that behind the actors is a set that somebody built, lit by lights that somebody else hung and designed, and dressed by props that somebody else collected. I love the fact that the audience radiates energy back to the actors and crew. A play feels alive and subtle and exciting and changeable, and that's not an experience that you can have at a movie theatre. Teaching drama and directing high school shows has allowed me to take the best part of what I love and share it with my students. I don't care in the least whether or not they pursue acting when they leave high school. But I do hope with everything in me that they leave with an appreciation of the art form and with the knowledge that if you can collaborate positively with a group of people, you can create something extraordinary.

Directing a play can be frustrating, and it can feel like it will never come together. But on performance nights, I am completely overwhelmed with pride and respect for the hard work and talents of my students, and I am already excited to begin the process again. I compare it to what I imagine childbirth must be like; painful, stressful and messy, but the minute you see the final product the memory of the pain vanishes and you are willing to do it again. (Note: My mother assures me that this is true of childbirth, although I feel compelled to point out that she was so highly medicated during my birth that she thought that she saw birds flying around the delivery room. True story.) Anyway, that's how it goes when you are working on a play, in any capacity.

So, without the aid of even one tiny epidural, I am leaping into directing Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile with my excellent students this term who will act, stage manage and design. It will be time consuming and it will be difficult. I'll get tired and I'll get cranky and I'll get frustrated.

And I can't wait to get started.

Hey! Teachers! Leave Them Kids Alone!

Well, it has arrived. The inevitable return to school.

My students, of course, have not returned to school yet. This is the mandatory preparation week during which teachers drag themselves back in to their classrooms and try to recall their login passwords and remember who "Hamlet" is.

I always have mixed feelings about this week. On the one hand, it's wonderful to get back into your office, to organize your day planner, and to have the chance to catch up with your colleagues before the students arrive and you really start running. On the other hand, it's incredibly boring. The only good thing about teaching is the actual time TEACHING ... it's the students who bring the life into the school. The rest of it, no matter how hard administrators try and how earnest they are ... is really pretty boring by comparison. For example, we spent yesterday going over school policy, procedure and ... get ready for it ... the new computer program that will assist us in organizing our markbooks. Boo-yah! And tomorrow, we will complete our mandatory eight hour First Aid course. I think that being trained in First Aid is important, and I absolutely understand why we are doing it, but ... it's going to be really sunny tomorrow, and I just don't wanna.

As a matter of fact, I was working up a pretty darn bad attitude about all of this back-to-school prep, when I remembered that I could be teaching in Harrold, Texas this year. Many of you will have already heard that Harrold is the first district in the United States in which teachers will be able to carry concealed weapons into the classrooms. Not to worry though. These teachers, according to the superintendent, must be registered to carry firearms and must receive training in crisis management and hostile situations. I guess that's how they are spending their preparatory week, if they have one. (Note: The superintendent has also stipulated that teachers must select ammunition for their guns that is designed to minimize the risk of ricochet in school halls. Talk about reassuring!)

Now, this policy may seem ridiculous, even horrific, but the superintendent has an explanation for it. The town of Harrold is 30 minutes away from the closest emergency response centre, so the teachers need to be armed in the event of a school shooting situation. Seem reasonable?

Here's my problem with this explanation. The school district of Harrold, Texas, has a total of 110 students in it. I would never want to trivialize the possibility of a school shooting, as one cannot assume that any particular school is completely immune, but wouldn't it make more sense to monitor the tiny student population instead of bringing guns IN to the school? I don't know about you, but I can't think of one teacher that I have that would have instilled confidence in me as a student if they were packing heat. As my friend Graham recently reminded me, I had a prof in university who couldn't find her TELEPHONE in her office when it started ringing while we were having a conference. And I don't mean a cell phone, either ... I mean a late 70's model, 40 pound, plastic, land-line telephone. With a rotary dial.

Ah ... but the Harrold superintendent has ANTICIPATED the argument about his teeny, tiny town, and has clarified his statements. He is worried not about his students shooting each other, but rather about the school's proximity to a large, interstate highway, which anyone can drive down. So, in essence, he is worried about an anonymous maniac on the highway pulling over, coming into the school, and shooting students and teachers. Now, I am not 100% positive about this, but until I see proof otherwise, let's call this event ... unprecedented.

Of course, the considerable pro-gun faction in the United States is having a field day with this, particularly with the recent gun tragedy in a Knoxville, Tennessee School last week. But I can't help but wonder if armed teachers would have made this particular situation better or worse. It was a targeted attack - one student shot another and then fled. If a teacher, with rudimentary training in crisis management, had flung his bullets into the fray, would there still be only one victim? Would it have been clear in that split second, even to the best-intentioned person, who the gunman actually was, and at whom the gun(s) should be pointed?

I really think that if a school feels the need for increased safety, the kind of safety that can be accomplished only by armed personnel (and I have no doubt that there are schools that are concerned with this) then they should hire a highly-trained individual who will act as a security guard on campus. It is difficult enough for a teacher to build a rapport with their students, and it is tricky to squeeze trust through the barrel of a gun. Then again, Texas doesn't seem to be particularly concerned with teacher/student rapport; according to a recent report by the Human Rights Watch and the ACLU, 48,197 Texas students were hit by teachers or principals in the 2006/2007 school year. That's right, folks, Texas is one of 13 states in which corporal punishment is not only legal, but "frequently used." Doesn't this make the school in Harrold seem even more appealing? I don't know about you, but nothing about an environment where armed adults are allowed to hit students says "education" to me. And it certainly won't say "safety" to the students.

So, in light of all this, I will skip happily to school tomorrow in giddy anticipation of my eight hours of First Aid training, and I will welcome my boring policy meetings with a positive attitude. Because I know that somewhere, in a dark and scary place, some teachers are preparing for their school year on a firing range. And I, thank God, am not one of them.

Confucius has nothing on Larry.

DISCLAIMER:

I generally have nothing but disdain for people who whine about their dating lives publicly on their blogs. So I generally never do it. But this one is just too damn good to leave alone.


My friend Larry, through a simple philosophy, has given my life meaning. And here it is:

Life should be viewed as a method of collecting anecdotes.

This may seem simplistic, unfulfilling or even sacrilegious ... but it is the only way that I can continue to muddle my way through life and have it not seem entirely ludicrous.

Anyone who has known for more than 25 minutes knows that my life continually veers toward weirdness. I'm not sure why this is; on the surface, I am pretty much an average plain Jane, with several passable life skills, none exceptional. I play the piano and sing reasonably well, but not well enough to put on a concert (my flute and saxophone skills have slipped well below "bearable.") I'm a pretty good volleyball player, horseback rider, dancer, public speaker. I think I'm quite a good English teacher, but then again, you can't open your car door without hitting an English teacher. I can write, but my proof of that is about 50 unfinished writing projects in various drawers and filing cabinets and computer hard drives. So it's reasonable to think that my life would tend toward the ordinary. Not so. For example:

1) When I was five, I was the only kid in London Ontario to contract scarlet fever that year. Yes, you have heard of scarlet fever before - it's the medieval disease that eventually kills Beth in Louisa May Alcott's novel "Little Women," published in 1868. I don't think that anybody BESIDES me has had it since that book became a best-seller.

2) I was called for jury duty AND audited by the government of Canada before my twenty-fifth birthday.

3.) I have been inside a house while it was being robbed. I was with my friend Allison Campbell-Rogers (ACR) and luckily we were oblivious - we were upstairs watching "South Park" while the downstairs was being looted. I am convinced that the robbers did not come upstairs because of our hysterical laughter, and therefore can say with some certainty that "South Park" saved my life.

4.) I have been hit by a car. While standing on a sidewalk. By a drunk driver. Who was STEALING the car. In CUBA. I did avoid any major, lasting injuries, which I suppose makes me lucky. I would argue however, that I am not as lucky as, say, people who DON'T get run over by drunken, international auto thieves.

See what I'm saying? All weird, but all worthy anecdotes.

It is this philosophy that has led me to value my latest weirdo experience, or at least reach a level of acceptance that prevents me from descending into a total depression and drinking fabric softener on the weekends. So here it is.

About two months ago, I received a package in the mail. It was exciting - I love getting non-bill mail. "It must be a gift!" I thought. I grabbed the package and raced up to my condo to open it. Inside the package was a hardcover copy of "The Prisoner of Azkaban," the third book in the Harry Potter series. That was it. No note, nothing else. And, to make matters more confusing, I realized that the package was not addressed to me BUT my name and address did appear in the top left-hand corner in the "return address" space. The package itself was addressed to a man I had never heard of, at an address I had never been to.

I was totally stumped. Why would anyone send me this book? Was it mine? I checked my bookshelf; my copy of "The Prisoner of Azkaban" was missing, along with several other books in the series. (Note: I am a compulsive book lender, and I admit that I never keep track of where they are. I simply trust that they will be returned to me, and truly, most of them are, sooner or later.) Was it possible that I packaged up the book, sent it to a stranger, and it was returned to me due to insufficient postage? I can be absent-minded, but this seemed ridiculous. I did a reverse-phone number search using the address on the package, but in the end I simply felt too shy and silly to phone. I mean, what was I going to say?

"Ummm ... hi ... I don't know you ... do you know me? Because I think I sent you a children's book ... no ... I'm not sure ... well, I know it seems like I'm crazy but ... I guess it could be dementia ... I did have scarlet fever as a child, you know ..."

So, I did the only thing I could think of - I put the book on my shelf and went about my life. Then, last week, I finally got an answer to the riddle that had been quietly plaguing me for months.

My 2.1 readers will remember that, although my intention was to NEVER discuss my dating life on this blog, I had one date that was so supremely awful that I included a scathing description of it in my "Youb tube" blog. I simply can't bring myself to write about it again, so you can look it up or just trust me. All you need to know is that he showed me the grossest Youtube video ever ... which involved ... well ... POO ... and then treated me with utmost disdain when I didn't share his sense of humour. I never expected to hear from him again, so you can imagine my surprise when he called to see if I had received the book.

"I'm glad you called," I told him. "I couldn't figure out where the book had come from, or if it was even for me."

"What, you don't remember loaning it to me?"

I suppressed the urge to say that not remembering much of our encounters was probably due to some kind of post-traumatic stress. "No, sorry. I was confused because the package wasn't addressed to me, and there was no note inside."

"Oh yeah, that was my experiment. I figured it would cost $6.50 to mail, so wrote you down as the "sender" and threw it in the box without postage. See? You got it back as the "sender" because of "insufficient postage." I just didn't want you to think I was the type of guy who wouldn't return a book. Even though you hate me anyway."

Now at this point, about a billion things were going through my head. Here's a brief synopsis:

1.) That's actually pretty clever.

2.) I don't HATE him ... hate is an awfully harsh word.

3.) Well, he's got a PhD in physics ... so it's not really all THAT clever.

4.) What does it matter if I think he doesn't return books? I already know that he shows scatological videos on dates.

5.) And now I know he practices mail fraud.

6.) And that he's cheap.

7.) Maybe I do hate him.

8.) Seriously, this is stupider than getting hit by that car.

After I hung up the phone, I started laughing, and I couldn't stop. The book episode was perfect closure for this ridiculous four-date "relationship." And, as anecdotes go, it's one of the best I've got. My friends who go on "real" dates that involve things like dinner and pleasant conversation will never build up a story bank like mine. And really, isn't that what being a writer is all about? Finding stories?

Larry, you're right. Your philosophy gives value to the stupidest things, and makes me see humour everywhere. So I thank you. Because otherwise my life would be too depressing for words, and I would certainly be drinking Woolite on weekends.

A

P.S. And ladies, if you ever come across a tall, handsome physicist-turned high-school teacher, don't let him near your computer and don't loan him any books. Unless, of course, you are looking to collect some anecdotes of your own.

The Open Road, Open Air, and an Open Letter to a Jackass.

I recently returned from a two week road trip during which I camped my way through British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon. I love going on solo road trips, and the Pacific Northwest is absolutely stunning. As always, dear readers, I have returned with random observations and a cranky rant which I hope will amuse and delight.

Random Observations: THE OPEN ROAD.

I love driving through the United States of America for the following reasons:

1.) Unlike Canadian drivers, U.S. drivers do not find it too taxing to engage the little finger on their left hand to indicate that they are going to turn their car. I am constantly amazed by the staunch refusal by many Canadians to burn the .000000001% of a calorie it takes to indicate that they are immediately going to cross eight lanes of traffic. While I admire our nation's physical economy, I must admit that I prefer the U.S. attitude towards turning.

2.) The U.S. Road Signage system is the most vigilant public safety service that I have ever seen. If a pebble should wobble from the shoulder onto the highway, U.S. road signage services immediately spring into action and erect the following signs to alert oncoming traffic of the upcoming hazard:

BUMP - 2 MILES

BUMP - 1.5 MILES

BUMP - 1 MILE

BUMP - .5 MILE

BUMP - REALLY SOON

BUMP - SERIOUSLY, I'M NOT KIDDING, THE BUMP IS COMING ANY MINUTE. IS YOUR SEATBELT ON? YOU SHOULD PROBABLY PUT YOUR COFFEE IN THE CUPHOLDER TOO.

BUMP - .000001 MILE

BUMP!

For all of the "BUMP!" signs I saw on my trip, I can honestly say I never felt a single bump, and certainly nothing even came close to Toronto's spring potholes. It was, however, very reassuring to know that should a possum shed a few hairs while it crossed a road, the road signage services would take immediate action to alert me of that fact at least eight times before my tires touched any follicles.

3.) The roads are so luxuriously wide that, had my car been capable, I could have driven it sideways throughout my entire trip and still been well within my own lane. Enough said.

Random Observations: Open Air.

I have done a few roadtrips before, and the best way to travel through the U.S. and Canada and save a few bucks is to take a sleeping bag and a tent and camp at state and provincial parks. The added bonus to this approach is that parks are usually designated as parks because they are attached to something beautiful, and you can hike, bike, climb, swim or ride a horse through whatever that beautiful thing is. I climbed to the top of Cape Perpetua and swam in the chilly Pacific in Oregon, and hiked through the lava flow rocks of Mt. St. Helen's in Washington.

What amazed me about my open air experiences in the U.S. was that on all of my excursions I was completely alone. I didn't see another soul, not even on treks that were outlined as some of the best in the country, despite the fact that the adjoining campgrounds were full to capacity.

Twice during my trip I was absolutely desperate to share what I was seeing with someone, but there was no one to be found. One experience took place at a whale watching centre in Depoe Bay, Oregon, which is strangely proud of its claim to fame as the "world's smallest harbour." I had been scanning the horizon for whales through my crappy binoculars for about 10 minutes when I was joined on the observation deck by a family of five. They glanced left, glanced right.

"Hmph. No whales. And we walked up all of those stairs!" the mother grumbled.

And off they went, back down the stairs. They had been on the observation deck for all of 30 seconds. This meant that I was all alone, fifteen minutes later, when three humpback whales began to breach and then continued to hurl their bodies out of the water for over twenty minutes. Alone on the observation deck, afraid to take my eyes off of them for a second, I kept calling out "Whale! Whale!" to anyone that was nearby and listening ... which of course, was no one.

During my visit to Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area (yep, that's what it's called) I decided to forgo the long line of people waiting to walk up the three flights of stairs in the historic lighthouse and to explore the winding paths and the black rock beach below. When I got to the shore, there was (of course) no one else there. As I trained my binoculars on a rock offshore to gaze at a group of harbour seals sunning themselves, I heard a strange sound on the sand by my feet. When I looked down I saw that a seal pup had launched himself out of the surf, and was wiggling his way up the beach towards me. He stopped, and looked at me with a quizzical look on his face, while I frantically looked around for someone to share this moment with. But again, there was no one.


My new friend

My gut reaction to these experiences was to encourage Americans to take advantage of their national park system. To go exploring. Then, something happened to change all of that. And that leads me to, as promised ...

An Open Letter to the Jackass who hiked the Falls Trail at Silver Falls State Park sometime before July 2, 2008.

Dear Idiot,

You don't know me, and I don't know you. But I do know that you are a grade-A jackass.

I know this because I camped at Silver Falls State Park on July 1 and 2 of this year. I picked that park specifically because I wanted to hike the legendary Ten Falls Trail - the eight mile loop that would take me past ten stunning waterfalls. Imagine how thrilled I was when I woke up early, drove to the trailhead and saw that no one else was parked there. Imagine how excited I was each time I encountered a new waterfall. Imagine how peaceful and tranquil my hike was as a result of the fact that everyone else in the park was still at their tent sites, drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and watching movies on their portable DVD players.

Now imagine what it was like for me, almost three hours into my hike, to arrive at the ninth and tallest waterfall, to find the dirty diaper that you left rolled up on a rock next to the waterfall pool.

Now, here's how I see it, you jerk. You clearly put a clean diaper on your kid, because even taking the shortest route back would have been over an hour's walk. This means that you must have brought some kind of carrying device in which you transported the clean diaper that you put on your child. Now, I know that this is a radical idea, but ... and try to stay with me here, brainiac ... that same carrying device could have been used to transport the dirty diaper OUT of the waterfall grove.

Now, this isn't just about the fact that it ruined the beauty of the waterfall site, but the fact that I, as an environmentalist and a staunch NON-dickweed, felt compelled to carry the diaper out of the waterfall canyon in MY backpack. For over an hour. And I don't know EXACTLY what was inside the diaper, but I do know that there are only two options, and they are both gross. If it comes out of YOUR kid, you putz, it is YOUR job to carry it out of the area of natural beauty.

And if you just don't want to take that kind of responsibility for your kid's excrement, then let me know. I will personally buy you a portable DVD player and a lifetime supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon if you promise me that you will stay on your campsite and away from hiking trails or other pretty things from now on. Or ... maybe you should just stay in your own house.

Sincerely,

A

P.S. Jerk. The site of the crime!

Summer Vacation ... Ask Me How!

When I started writing today, I thought I
was going to write a blog about my 10-day camping trip in the Pacific Northwest, which, as a special bonus, would have included an open letter to a Jackass. But you'll have to wait a day or two for that one, because I just wanted to get this off my chest first.

I was in the elevator in my condo building today, taking my camping equipment back to my storage unit in the parking lot. A man that I hadn't met before got on the elevator and glanced at my backpack.

"Going on a camping trip?" he enquired.

"No, just getting back." I smiled.

"Oh, so back to work then. Too bad."

I should have just agreed with him. But no, I wasn't smart enough. "Well, I'm a teacher, so ..."

"Oh, a TEACHER," he said. "Two months off. Huh. Must be nice."

Okay. I never know what to say to this, and this is the response that every teacher gets from everyone they meet as soon as the teaching thing comes up. It may or may not be delivered as a "joke," but it is always spoken in the same disdainful, slightly accusatory tone of voice. It always makes me feel like I need to either a) apologize for my offending holidays or b) offer justification as to why teachers really do earn their vacation time. Up until recently, I did neither - just stared at my shoes and shuffled my feet apologetically, and maybe murmured something about all of the evening, weekend and yes, even summer commitments that teachers have.

Because here's the thing; it is nice. It's awesome. Teachers do get better vacations than pretty much anybody else - summer vacation, Christmas vacation, March break. We know this, and it's easy to feel guilty about it when a sensitive individual on an elevator focuses on the perks of the job rather than the monumental work involved. (Note: I wonder, what Mr. Elevator would say if he were introduced to a lawyer? Let me guess ... "So you're rich. Huh. Must be nice." Hmmmmm ... somehow I don't think so.)

But no more! I refuse to feel guilty about my summer vacation anymore, because I have EARNED it and I'll tell you how. Let's just assume that we all agree on the easy stuff here, shall we? The lesson planning, the marking, the coaching, the theatre club, the dance supervision, the lunch duties, the staff meetings and the parent/teacher interviews - yep, they all take lots of extra time above and beyond the normal workday. But it's another, lesser acknowledged reality that can take its toll on a teacher. I am speaking of the relative lack of anonymity, and the constant awareness that everything you do will be scrutinized by a larger community. This is true of your classes, your marking, your material (and of course, it SHOULD be) but it extends further than that. For example, whenever I am in a bar I am always worried that I will run into an underage student that has been able to sneak in. What are my responsibilities at that point? My night out at a bar shouldn't have anything to do with my job, but it's within the realm of possibility that it could, and that's unnerving.

A teacher's website or online blog can be a professional nightmare. Earlier this year, the head of a private day school in Toronto resigned after an anonymous email (I really have to wonder here WHY the email was anonymous, but I digress ... ) was circulated to the parent community which featured six of the several poems that were displayed on his website. Penned sometime between 1973 and 2003, these particular poems contained sexual and violent themes and material. His biggest mistake was arguably not actually writing the poems, but putting them on a website instead of hiding them in a place where no one would ever would ever see them, such as inside the pages of a book of poetry. As a result of the content of the poetry, questions immediately arose in the community as to whether or not he was an appropriate person to lead the school, despite the fact that he had been recruited from England for this specific position four years earlier.

Now, a few things about this. We should probably note that the guy has been writing poetry for twenty years, and only six poems were singled out as offensive (and really, they are not even very good poems.) We should also note that displaying the material on his website (now defunct) was not only dumb, but irresponsible. He knows what the Internet is after all, and he knows what a private school principal is. Finally, we should acknowledge that parents place a huge amount of trust in teachers and principals, and that they are absolutely right to be concerned about and protective of their children.

But is a writer one of the things that kids have to be protected from? One of the first things that I teach my students is that the AUTHOR is an entirely different entity than a NARRATOR or a CHARACTER (or in the case of poetry, a SPEAKER.) If we assume that the content of a literary work reveals the intention or personality of the author, then Stephen King would have to go to prison, and we should probably execute Thomas Harris, who wrote "The Silence of the Lambs." Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje and Alice Munro would certainly have a lot to answer for in their writing if they were teachers. And Shakespeare wouldn't even be able to make it through the front doors of a school if we were to assume that he espoused the values of his characters (cannibalistic chef extraordinaire Titus Andronicus comes to mind.) You can pursue artistic interests if you are a teacher - but you'd better be careful that your art is appropriate and palatable and that it is not easily accessible ... and a pen name may be in order.

Being a teacher impacts your entire life, and once you have the enormous responsibility of educating and caring for children, your whole public persona needs to be evaluated and perhaps reconsidered. You agree to carry your professional responsibilities into your personal life to some degree, and you accept the fact that you are held to a higher moral standard than people in most other professions. I'm not saying that this is wrong - far from it. I'm just saying that THAT'S one of the ways that you earn your two months of summer vacation.

In the end, these consessions are worth it for me because I LOVE teaching. Love it, love it, love it. I love summer vacation too - that's part of the package. And, for all of you people who lurk in elevators and sneer resentfully at my vacation time, buck up! There's no need for jealousy! YOU TOO can have two months off a year! Just follow these six easy steps, and eight weeks of bliss will be yours:

1.) Quit your job.
2.) Go to teachers' college.
3.) Graduate.
4.) Acquire a teaching job.
5.) Spend every day with kids who are not yours. If you're a high school teacher like I am, that could translate easily to 75-100 different kids during 3 or 4 different periods in a day. Spend your weekends planning things you'll say to them in the next week and reading stuff that they write. Give up your lunches and do extra tutoring and coach and direct and challenge and comfort, and prepare to get barfed on during school dances/long, field-trip school bus rides.
6.) Take your summer vacation.

See? That's not so hard, is it?

A

P.S. Perhaps you should also include step 7 - establish a pen name. I may have to myself for my upcoming "Open Letter to a Jackass."

Graduation, Growing Up, and why John Hughes is a big fat liar.

Over the last month I have had lots of opportunities to reflect on this mysterious phenomenon that is referred to as "growing up." (Note: Like many other colloquialisms in the English language, I feel compelled to comment on the apparent inaccuracy of this one, which seems, grammatically at least, to be referring to height, not age. Of course, this could apply to me specifically, as I am about 12 feet tall, but I digress.) Such self-reflection can be jarring, to say the least.

Last night, I attended a lovely dinner party to celebrate the accomplishments of the graduating class of 2008. My 2.1 readers may know by now that I am a high school teacher, and this is the first year that I have taught grade 12, the final year of high school in Ontario. I am very lucky to teach at an outstanding school, and to work with some truly excellent students. They are not all dedicated scholars, but they are all kind, compassionate and thoughtful people, and I am very grateful to work in such a positive environment. The students at the dinner (finally freed from their defining school uniforms and ties) looked like sophisticated young adults, and behaved with grace and decorum before they left the hall to go on to their graduation party. (Note: it did seem that a few students had started the party before the formal dinner ended, and to those students; don't kid yourselves ... parents and teachers notice more than you think.)

As if that wasn't enough to inspire a bit of nostalgia, three weeks ago, I attended the celebration of my high school's 45th anniversary. Revisiting high school is a bit of a disconcerting experience, partly because of how much you have changed, and partly because of how much you haven't. I certainly appreciate my high school teachers more now that I am a teacher myself. Because I was a vocal and instrumental music student I had the pleasure of being taught by two of the best teachers in the school. Watching them now with their students, seventeen years (gulp) after my own graduation, I am filled with gratitude and an understanding of how hard they worked and how much they inspired us. (I think that it is not a coincidence that in my circle of, say, fifteen friends who had these teachers, seven of them now make money as professional musicians.) I also have a much better comprehension of the world that I live in, and I understand now (as I did not understand then) that it doesn't actually revolve around me.

But it's the ways that I haven't changed that interest me the most, principally the fact that I am still waiting to feel like an adult. When I look around, I see the trappings of adulthood all around me ... a condominium (aka debt with carpeting), a steady job and a hopelessly indulgent shoe collection. I read the paper. I drink wine with dinner. I'm a member of Amnesty International. But this doesn't change the fact that I don't feel like a "grown up." Acquiring the condo on my own was absolutely terrifying, and even after eight months I have a few unpacked boxes still on the floor. I need advance notice when company is coming over so that I can spend extra time cleaning so that I can look impressive. Sometimes I eat potato chips for dinner. When a friend or family member is sick or sad, I feel scared and helpless. Truthfully, most of the time I still feel like a gawky, awkward teenager, just trying to figure stuff out. And this brings me to John Hughes.

For everyone who had the dubious pleasure of teasing their hair in the 80's, John Hughes was the voice of the teen generation, or at least he kept telling us that he was. He wrote and directed such movies as "Pretty in Pink," "Some Kind of Wonderful," "Ferris Beuller's Day Off," and "Sixteen Candles." I was very familiar with these movies as they were requisite viewing at every single birthday party I went to from 1984-1988. I knew somewhere deep down that the situations in the movies did not represent my life (senior male hunky student falls in love with awkward sophomore, cute sensitive guy gives up his crush on popular girl and chooses faithful girl-best-friend instead, kid skips school and ends up in parade, etc.) but boy, did I want them to. However, none of Hughes' movies strayed farther from any semblance of reality than "The Breakfast Club," the 80's teen movie cornerstone about five diverse students who spend 8 hours together during a Saturday detention.

"The Breakfast Club" is riddled with so many gaps in logic that it is only as realistic as, say, "Spiderman." For example, doesn't it seem strange that a high school principal would a) hate teenagers (as it is clear that he does in the film) or b) choose to spend his entire Saturday at school with the kids he hates the most? (Note: In the movie he actually commits to two months of Saturday detentions. I mean, seriously, folks. I have to do one hour of detention duty a YEAR and I resent it like crazy.) There's just not enough space in the blog to go through all of the unrealistic aspects of this "slice of life" film, so we'll just focus on the most egregiously manipulative one. It's most apparent when the kids are all angsty and weepy and learning that different types of people can be friends. Ally Sheedy's character (shamefully named Allison) proclaims to the group mournfully that "when you grow up ... your heart dies."

Now, Mr. Hughes, I hate to be a stickler about this, but according to my calculations that movie came out when you were 35 years old ... the same age that I am now. I certainly understand the marketing tactic you were going for; after all, how better can you engage an adolescent audience than to remind them that they need to rail against the evil adults? And I am willing to bet that your adult, cold, dead heart was at least somewhat warmed by the gobs of money that you earned as a result of that movie. But ... didn't it occur to you that your demographic would eventually graduate from high school, grow up and have something to say about the predicted death of their hearts?

As I watched my students celebrate their graduation yesterday, I wanted to tell them things about adulthood that would have probably bored them to tears. I wanted to tell them that they are embarking on an incredibly exciting time in their lives, but that they are going to have to search for the opportunities that will enrich them, rather than having opportunities handed to them. I wanted to tell them that they are going to fail sometimes, because ... well, sometimes you fail. It sucks and you deal with it. I wanted to tell them that although they will take responsibility for more and more in their lives (friends, money, education, pets, spouses, children, debt with carpeting,) they will often feel as nervous and unsure as they do right now. That despite their uncertainty, they will make the best decisions they can and soldier on with the consequences. And I want to tell them that John Hughes is a big fat liar and that their hearts will love more deeply and break harder than they can imagine.

Kids (and I know some of you sneaky ones have found this blog) I've had some experience and done some thinking on this topic, but here's all I can come up with. I hate to break it to you, but adulthood doesn't mean answers. All it means is that you decide every day whether you will be a good person, a mediocre person or a dickweed, and that you alone will be responsible for those decisions and what comes as a result of them. Things are complicated, so you have to think of ways to simplify them in order to find your way in this crazy, "grown up" world. Sometimes things are awesome and sometimes things suck, and you never know which it's going to be or when it will suddenly change. All you ever get to control is how you live in this world, how hard you work and how you treat other people. And that's it. In terms of life wisdom, that's all I've got. I don't know what else to tell you, kids, so I'll leave it to Kurt Vonnegut, who penned this, my favourite quotation. I think it's the best guideline for life that you can be given:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you have about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of– God damn it, babies, you've got to be kind."

A

P.S. You should also be kind to John Hughes if you ever see him ... even if what you really want to say to him is "Up yours, you big fat liar."

Geekdom (or Why Sex is Scarier than Chainsaws)

It occurred to me today, as I stood in a line for two hours in 30 degree weather in order to buy two tickets for the 300th performance of "Evil Dead, the Musical!" and the after-show party, that I am a geek. It's a difficult reality to avoid when you are standing in a ticket line with people who are feverishly passionate about musical zombie dismemberment via prosthetic chainsaw.

I could try to present the case that my interest in "Evil Dead: The Musical!" is highly academic and that I am, therefore, not a geek. I could argue the play is incredibly clever, and that I am intrigued by the way that it uses dialogue, music and choreography to lampoon every other musical that has ever been written. I could pontificate about how innovative and technical the show is, and about how I appreciate the physical and musical demands of the roles. I could even add that some of the most intelligent people I know have seen the show and loved it. All true. But it doesn't change the fact that I am really pretty geeky about it.

It ain't easy, being geeky, even for a moderate like me. I classify myself as a "moderate" on the basis that I never dress up in costume (with the exception of a series of Halloween parties in my younger days and one teenaged viewing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.) I do not collect action figures, nor do I write fan fiction. There are many iconic cult obsessions to which I am completely immune: Star Trek, Dungeons and Dragons, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Twin Peaks, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, anything with a video game console, Hannah Montana and Star Wars. (Note: All right, all right, before you rip my head off, I was a fan of the first two Star Wars films, particularly "The Empire Strikes Back." Who wasn't? But surely you must have noticed the Lucas/dollar inverse ratio; the more money that Lucas has, the crappier his films get. He can't even leave the first two good ones alone; he has digitized and sanitized them to death.)

My first brush with real geekdom came in university when I became mildly obsessed with the TV show "The X-Files." My friend Cathryn and I were so enamoured of the show and so anxious to learn the exciting conclusion to a gripping two-part episode that we decided to attend a meeting of the university's "X-Files Club." (I am not kidding.) Somehow the club had gotten a copy of the episode two days before it was scheduled to air, and we could go to the meeting and watch it without commercials. Bliss! But the viewing came with a high price; the organizers of the club did not want to let us simply watch the videos - instead they became obsessed with recruiting Cathryn and I, their "new members," for their X-Files club pub crawls, T-shirt and cap design and bake sales. Needless to say, we did not attend other meetings and only watched the X-Files in our dorm after that. We were not geeky enough for that group.

Perhaps in some ways it is harder to be a moderate geek. Let's say you are really into Star Trek, so you go to conventions and club meetings and, as a result, find yourself surrounded with people who agree with you, and who you have that passion in common with. The moderate geek doesn't have the inclination (or time, or money) to pursue an interest to that level, so they will occasionally try to half-heartedly defend their interest to their colleagues in their staff lunchrooms: "No really! I know it sounds silly, but "Buffy the Vampire Slayer really is a fantastic show!" Or take today's "Evil Dead: The Musical!" ticket line. Most of the people there seemed to have arrived in large groups; I arrived on my own. I didn't have the requisite black t-shirt with a horror movie/death metal logo, the black fingernails, tattoos or piercings - in my white cotton skirt and tank top I stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a friendly, patient, jovial group of people, all laughing and socializing, and they probably thought I was aloof as I hid behind my copy of "The Painted Veil," out of shyness. And because I hadn't arrived early enough (like the real fans did) I missed the line cutoff for the 300th performance tickets.

But you shouldn't feel badly for me - I embrace my pseudo-geekiness and nobody really bugs me about it. Who we should all feel sorry for are arguably the newest "geeks" out there - the "Sex and the City" fans, or "chic-geeks." These are the people who dressed up in their highest fashion duds and sashayed out to the earliest showings of the long-anticipated film. (Note: I'm not being critical; I tried to do just this last Tuesday night (well, in my rather boring duds, but nonetheless.) Unfortunately, when I arrived to buy tickets they were all sold out. Just like today, I didn't make it there in time as a true, better-than-moderate fan would have.) Women have been flocking in droves to, and enjoying this movie, but we should feel sorry for them because something scary is happening.

When I went online to read about viewer response to "Sex and the City," I was surprised at what I found on the Internet Movie Database page about the film. First of all, it had a "user rating" of 4.9/10, which seemed to be very low to me considering the positive response the movie has had. But I was far more shocked by the comments that were being posted on the film's message board. Here's a sampling of what can be found there; I have not altered any part of the comments including spelling and grammar:

"Ok lets see what feminism has given us:abortion-thanks to this we have few future workers to replace the elderly,divorce-ok i understand sometimes divorce is neccasary ie abusive relationships but honestly you cant say it's with all of them and so many single parent families is it any wonder we got social problems these day? no i'm not sexist and not old fashioned i do believe women should get the right to vote and work etc but this is a step too far into a liberal uncontrolled direction."

You will notice that the above post is not actually about the MOVIE. It's not edited; that was the post in its entirety. I particularly enjoy the inpeneterable reasoning as to why "we got social problems these day." Here's one that is commenting on the fact that "Sex and the City" was outperformed by the children's movie "Kung-Fu Panda" this weekend at the box office:

"These 4 Ho's Beaten By A Panda How fitting. p.s. Guys if you want to keep your self respect don't let your wife/gf make you go see this. If she threatens to hold back sex just hire a prostitute, it is more self respecting than viewing this."

It's wonderful to get advice from someone who is clearly so schooled in the methods of respect, isn't it? I wonder how many Steven Seagal direct-to-video movies his "wife/gf" has sat through? This next one is one of my personal favourites, mostly because of the "signature" line at the end:

"In my day is was called being a slut, whore, etc. Now it's sexually empowered, thanks for the memo SATC fans.

~If you love Jesus Christ and are 100% proud of it, copy this and make it your signature!~ "

Now, it's important to note that I didn't have to look far for these comments - they were but a few of many that were posted TODAY. Since the movie opened last week there have been 70 pages of comments posted on the board, and many of them are incredibly negative and, in some cases, hateful. And they're not about the movie - they're about the people who are going to see the movie. The fans. The geeks. And the rhetoric here is downright dangerous; the implication is that the people who go to see the film espouse the views that are contained within it. If people are making judgements about the views and/or morality of "Sex and the City" audience simply by the fact that they have purchased a ticket to the film, what should we say about the "Silence of the Lambs" or the "Saw" audiences?

As someone who hasn't seen the fim, I not entirely sure why the movie is touching this nerve, but I've got some ideas. I suppose one could argue that people simply feel that it is a film that is based on a TV series that ran its course, that it is full of plot problems and that it is poorly acted. But that doesn't explain the tenor of the comments above, nor does it explain the absence of such comments on the "Dukes of Hazzard" message board which has all of the above problems and wasn't even based on a good TV show (incidentally, the Dukes of Hazzard message board only has three pages of comments.)Maybe it is because this is a movie made for women and, for some reason, people get weird about women being geeks - lining up, dressing up in the requisite costume (of course, the costumes here are high fashion) and going to see a movie they relate to and that they enjoy. A movie that examines male and female relationships with a critical eye and that women watch (for the most part) not with their partners, but with each other. Hmm.

I don't know. I haven't even seen the movie yet. All I can say is that if I am going to be a geek, moderate or not, it seems that I will receive a lot less abuse from outsiders if the object of my interest involves chainsaws and dismemberment instead of Prada and friendships and discussions of female sexuality. Now, isn't that interesting?

A

P.S. What, you want less social commentary and more geekitude? Seriously then, go see "Evil Dead, The Musical." It's so darn good.

A Tale of Four Kitties

This is a cat. I know it doesn't look like one. It looks like an alien. An angry, constipated alien. But it is a cat - a purebred Siamese. And it has been bred to look like this ... yes ... ON PURPOSE.

In ever more cartoonish ways, Siamese cats are being bred for arbitrary features such as big ears, wedge-shaped heads and tiny bones in order to win competitions that judge them on said arbitrary features. A person could drop between $200 and $3000 on a Siamese/angry alien kitten, depending on their pedigree. If you liked Siamese cats 20 years ago and wanted to get one now, you would have to search for a breeder of "traditional" Siamese cats to find an pet that looks remotely feline.

It's not just Siamese cats, either. Persian cats have been relentlessly bred for their adorable, squashed faces. There is no health benefit to the squashed-face breeding decision; on the contrary, because of their truncated ocular and nasal passages, the are particularly prone to infected eyes and sinuses. People who own Persians have to bathe them because their fur is too long for the cat to maintain themselves, and there are several suggested methods for dealing with eye goop. I'm serious. And my favourite breed of dog, the golden retriever, now has a projected 10 year life expectancy as opposed to the Goldens of 20 years ago, who had a 12-14 year life expectancy - all because of breeding for specific physical features.

It seems to me that breeding to this extent is a little weird. I mean don't we want our pets to live long, healthy lives?

I have never chosen a pedigree pet; as a matter of fact, I have never chosen a pet at all. My journey from lone-apartment dweller to mildly insane cat owner has been a strange one, as I can honestly say that I have never picked the cats that I ended up owning. And the cats that I have owned have been absolute mutts - the "Kid Rocks" of the animal world, if you will.

In 1999 I was living in a fantastic bachelor apartment on Isabella St. and loving it. I am definitely an animal lover, having worked on farms and ranches for much of my pre-Toronto life, and occasionally I would remark to a friend that I would like to get a pet one day. Every time, the friend would turn to me in horror and say "You couldn't keep a dog in this tiny apartment!
That would be cruelty!" (Note: I always thought that it was interesting that my friends thought that my apartment was too small for, say, a Lhasa Apso, but not for, say, ME. I think that says a little something about my friends, don't you?)

Part of my job was to arrange community service opportunities for my students, which included volunteer time at a local animal shelter. As a result of my ties to the shelter, I would get all of their emails regarding pet adoptions. I noticed that all of the cats on the list changed each month except for one sad, scrawny 11 year old black cat. Finally, after about six months of this, a passionate plea came into my inbox. Cleo, the cat, had been scratching all of the fur off of her face, and the shelter wasn't sure if it was due to some kind of allergy or simply because of the stress of having been in the shelter for over a year. Would anyone consider being a foster parent so that she could be away from the shelter until a permanent home was found? Before I knew what I had done I fired off an email saying that I would foster the cat. Allergies and small apartment be damned!

When Cleo arrived, she looked terrible. If you have read The Outsider, think of Salamano's dog and you'll have an idea of what Cleo's face looked like - scabby and awful. She immediately dashed under the bed and stayed there for the better part of a day. I basically did my own thing, thinking that she would come around eventually. I figured it was best to let her come to me in her own time.

And she did. After a few weeks her face was healing, she was gaining weight, and I couldn't sit down without her leaping into my lap. At night she would snuggle under the covers with me and when I woke up in the morning she would be sound asleep, sprawled next to me on her back, her head on the corner of my pillow. She was incredibly playful, and would chase toys for hours. And she didn't give me a moment of allergies.

It was part of my job as a foster-cat-parent to arrange meetings with people who wanted to adopt Cleo. The calls were few and far between, as a 11 year old black cat is a pretty hard sell; even without the age issue some people take that black cat superstition really seriously. But after about six months I noticed an interesting phenomenon; people would call and try to set up an appointment and I would put them off, or call and cancel. Finally, I decided it was time to get over my fear of cat commitment and just adopt the damn cat myself. I did, and she lived to be 16 years old, and made me happy every single day of her life.

After Cleo died, I didn't want to rush into getting another cat, but the apartment seemed horribly empty. A few months later, I decided to go to the humane society and get not one, but two cats. I often have very long days at school and I like to travel during my vacations, so I thought if I got a "bonded pair" of cats they could keep each other company while I was away from my new, larger apartment. I had a pair all picked out - they were as cute as little buttons on the Toronto Humane Society website - little year-old white cats snuggled up together in the same basket. When I got to the Humane Society however, the white bonded pair was gone.

"Do you have any other bonded pairs?" I asked an exhausted animal care worker.

"Just one," she said, and pointed me towards a cage.

I went over to it and peered in. There was one enormous black, long-haired cat sleeping inside. He looked like a felled mammoth, minus the tusks.

"There's only one cat in here." I objected.

The animal care worker came over, opened the cage and pushed the behemoth to one side. Almost underneath him, her fur all squashed, was an emaciated, four pound tabby who was so thin that she looked rather like the Siamese pictured above.

"Is she sick?" I gasped.

"No, I think she's just sad. He hasn't eaten much either, although you wouldn't know it. They're just stressed out."

"And this is your only bonded pair?

"Yep." she clarified.

"And that stuff all over their fur is ... "

"Diarrhea."

"Huh. Gross. Okay. I'll take them."

I took them home and cleaned them off and named them - Charlotte for the tabby, Fezzik for the behemoth (Note: I have my brother to thank for the excellent name suggestion taken from one of my favourite books. Still can't place it? Click here.) And as the months and years went by I was incredibly grateful that the bonded pair I was initially hoping to adopt was gone, because the mutts I got were the most hilarious, mismatched, loving and awesome pair of cats that I could have hoped for. To watch them sleep or play together always made me smile.

Fezzik and Charlotte

When Fezzik died last year of liver failure, I was heartbroken and so was Charlotte. She meowed at the door for two days and then curled up and went to sleep for two months. No more playing. I knew I wanted to find a friend for her, but I didn't think that I could take the walking up and down the Humane Society aisles, trying to choose the "right" cat. After all, I had never chosen a cat before, and the stakes were so much higher now; what if Charlotte didn't like her new friend?

Luckily, I didn't have to choose. My best friend found a kitten in a field, the only survivor in a litter of five whose brothers and sisters had either been carried away by foxes or frozen to death. Viki phoned me immediately.

"I found a kitten. I'll take it to the Humane Society if you don't want it, but ... do you want it?"

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"I can't tell. It was nearly frozen when I found it, so it's all curled up and I don't want to disturb it."

"What colour is it?"

"Well, it's pretty dirty ... but I think it might be black. Or gray. Or orange ... it's REALLY dirty."

"It's probably got worms, doesn't it?"

"Oh yeah, I think so. And some pretty wicked ear mites too."

"Huh. Gross. Okay, I'll take it."

The cat turned out to be female, light gray and incredibly active and mischievous and the perfect companion for Charlotte, who now acts like a kitten herself again. Emily and Charlotte play together, sleep together and destroy all of my personal belongings ... together.

So there you have it. In the last ten years I have owned four cats, and I have personally selected none of them. They have all come to me, and they have been scabby, filthy, scrawny, tubby and sick (which would be great names if Disney ever decided to do a movie about disease-ridden dwarfs.) And you know what? They have been the best pets I could ask for. So you can keep your expensive, pedigreed, snooty, alien pets. All the more mutts for me.
Emily

Wediquette

My friend Noel got married yesterday, and let me tell you, he did it right. Not only did he marry Maria, who could be the most adorable woman that is legally allowed to reside in the GTA, but the couple managed to avoid the pressure applied by a few friends and family members, and do the wedding their way. This involved an afternoon trip to City Hall and then an evening barbecue reception with 30 or so guests at their home. As the groom and several of his guests were musicians, the festivities wrapped up with a late-night jam session in the kitchen. It was a great night and, as far as I could tell, it was exactly the night that they wanted.

As I have watched friends and family get married over the years, I have seen that it can be very difficult to get the wedding that you want. My best friend, who got married 10 years ago, wanted to plan a tiny, inexpensive wedding in her mother's backyard. The backyard concept took (and was gorgeous!) but 90 people and $15,000 later, she was shaking her head and wondering what happened. Another friend of mine, after warring with her mother and future mother-in-law for months, threw up her hands, handed over the reins and told them that she would just pick a dress, show up on the day and find out what they had planned for her. How do these things get so out of control? Well, I'll give you my take on it.

(Note: my 2.1 readers are probably thinking right now; "Hey! You've never been married, Alison Hunter! What right do you have to spout off about this?" Well, I have three answers for you. One: I have been involved in several weddings - three as a maid of honour/bridesmaid and three as an Emcee, so I've got some chops. Two: Although it's true that I have never been married, I did come very close getting married a few years ago, when I suddenly came upon evidence, much to my surprise, that my fiance was a giant douche. You can watch a dramatic re-enactment of our relationship breakdown here. Three: It's my damn blog. I set it up expressly so that I could spout off about stuff I don't know much about. If you don't like it, get your own damn blog. Now, on to the observations.)

It has become very clear to me that the wedding industry as a whole hates people that are getting married, particularly brides. My best friend's caterer, while providing outstanding food, threw an absolute hissy fit and then pouted when my friend decided not to offer strawberry daiquiris as her "signature drink" at her reception (coincidentally, it was also the caterer's "signature drink.") Linda, another friend of mine, was planning a tiny, family only ceremony with a catered dinner afterwards. Wherever she turned, venues REFUSED to give her a price list until she specified whether or not it was dinner party or a wedding dinner party, so that they could give her the appropriately inflated price list. Attach the word "wedding" or "bridal" to any purchase, and the price immediately jumps by at least 50%. And, drawn to the gleaming engagement ring, predatory, salivating, salespeople scuttle out from under nearby rocks, trying to convince the masses that the "wedding" cake-cutters, photo albums, chairs and toothpicks are somehow better than their everyday counterparts.

But, and this might not sit well with some of you, even more than the wedding industry, family and friends seem to have even more ability to pervert and alter the wedding plans of the happy couple. From my observations, these disagreements can usually be broken down in two categories; tradition conflicts and guest list conflicts.

Tradition conflicts are probably the trickiest because they deal with cultural expectations and standards, as well as religious ceremony and significance. I get that, I really do. But I have seen more than a few couples grit their teeth through a religious ceremony that has no significance, or that they even find offensive, all in the quest to please their families. Families, I know it's difficult and that you want the best for your loved ones. But isn't the point of the marriage ceremony to be significant for the people getting married? They are the ones who are going to have to do the marital heavy lifting for (hopefully) the rest of their lives - so their ceremony should be meaningful to them.

As for the guest list conflicts, I must admit that I find this one a bit insane. I have several friends who have received some SERIOUS grief from people that they have left off of the guest list in an attempt to keep their weddings small and intimate. I mean, really people. Can't we just be cool about this? Weddings are expensive; according to Report on Business magazine the average Canadian wedding in 2007 cost $25,883. That amount is a very respectable down payment for a house! Or if you prefer something a little less practical, it's the cash equivalent of 359 bottles of Herradura Anejo Tequila (yum), 647 viewings of "Evil Dead, the Musical" (I'm actually well on my way to that number) or approximately 4 visits with your cat to a veterinarian (I wish that were a joke.) If you are close enough to the couple that you feel very strongly about their wedding, you can find another way to celebrate with them if need be. Don't kick up a fuss if you are not on the invitation list; show your support for the couple by ... I don't know ... maybe... supporting their decision? You shouldn't assume that, because you are not going to the wedding, they don't value you as a friend. Save those assumptions for 2 years into their marriage when they say things to you like "Umm ... don't take this the wrong way, but you've been on the couch eating our food and drinking our beer for 5 weeks ... how's about heading home now? "

I don't know if I'll ever say wedding vows myself, but today I am prepared to take some wedding-bystander vows here, publicly, in front of all of you.

Ahem.

I, Alison Hunter, take you, (insert engaged couple's names here) to be responsible adults who know exactly how you want your wedding to be without my unsolicited input. I honour and cherish your decisions, and promise to never throw a hissy fit or pout if you decide to keep your wedding small and intimate. I vow to make myself available to you if you need anything, and to get out of your way if you don't. If you do invite me to your wedding, I promise not to be one of those lame-o guests who comes and eats the dinner and doesn't bring a gift. In buying the gift, I will consult the registry list so that you don't end up with nine fondue sets. I also promise that if I am invited to your wedding that I will act appropriately and avoid the following common wedding misbehaviours: leaving my cell phone on so that it rings in the middle of the ceremony, clinking my glass if you have made a "no-clinking" rule, giving a speech about your ex boy/girlfriends, sobbing in the corner because I am still single or getting drinks all night from the open bar and leaving them, half drunk, all around the reception hall. You may now give me a high five.

Seriously though, I do feel incredibly flattered whenever I get invited to a wedding. I mean, think about it. A couple is making lifelong vows to each other, putting the foundation down to build a life and a family together ... and they think that my presence will make the day even better? That's pretty darn cool. So whether or not you get invited to a friend's wedding, just roll with it. It's all good. And it's all in the name of love, baby.

Tragical Realism

"Umm... like... being so far up in the air, so far, far high ... it's like being an angel. It just shows me how much in love I am."

This is one of the inanities that I subjected myself tonight, as I was drawn like a moth to the flame to the finale of "The Bachelor." The bachelorette who formulated the poetic sentence in question was parasailing and, I guess, felt like an angel... in love? Her train of thought was a bit hard to follow.

I didn't even know that "The Bachelor" had another season going, but when I flipped the TV on, there it was, chugging along as merrily as it did when I last watched it, probably about six years ago. All of the requisite ingredients were there ... the Bachelor (who this time, in a shocking twist, has a sexy accent!) a blonde finalist and a brunette finalist. The blonde bard of parasailing "won," an engagement ring and a fiance after six deeply intimate weeks of polygamous dating. The brunette, in her disgust at this outcome, said of the blonde "but... she was the falsest person here!"

To be the "falsest" person on a reality TV show is high praise indeed. When I ask my students to define "reality TV," they often reply that it is "TV programs based on things that really happen." But of course, this is the furthest thing from the truth, because otherwise we would assign the "reality TV" designation to the nightly news, or perhaps to live sporting events. No, to truly gain the "reality TV" label, the situations on the program must be almost entirely contrived. Washed-up celebrities living in the same house, wives being traded from one household to another, Scott Baio seeking out life coaching ... THESE are the "realities" we are presented with on the programs.

"Survivor," the granddaddy of reality TV, presents us with a very interesting take on reality. Sure, the contestants are actually deprived of food to some degree, and are actually living on a tropical beach, but their survival tasks involve answering trivia questions about each other, running obstacle courses, and solving gigantic wooden puzzles. My very favourite part of this reality show is checking in once each season to see how they have designed what I call the "indigenous pen." This is, of course, the ornately decorated Sharpie marker that contestants use when voting each other out of the tribe during the solemnly titled "tribal council." Each season the "indigenous pen" looks as if it was hewn from a sacred tree by the local shaman, and that it therefore must be an accurate representation of the organically harvested Sharpie markers of the region.

But I know that there are "Bachelor" fans and purists out there. So let's take a look at the "reality" elements of "The Bachelor," shall we? Far be it for me to say that you cannot learn anything from reality television! I have compiled a list of life skills that you can acquire by watching "The Bachelor."

1.) How to move into a house with 25 other suckers in order to compete for the attention of one person. Or, if you're a bachelor, it prepares you for that inevitable, golden opportunity when you too get a chance to try to impress 25 fame-seeking, captive women who are constantly being plied with alcohol. This opportunity is not dissimilar to the opportunity to go big game hunting at the Toronto Zoo. Gotta love those odds!

2.) How to go on dates that involve helicopter rides, parasailing ("Wheeeee! I'm an angel!" etc.,) trips to Barbados and gondola rides in Venice. How to dress in couture gowns and designer tuxedos. How to select an engagement ring which boasts a diamond the approximate size of a Toyota Yaris. And... how to have all of this paid for entirely by a large multinational corporation. I don't know how your relationships blossom, but over the years mine have followed this pattern pretty consistently.

3) Learning how to sensitively reject a woman. As we know from "The Bachelor," what you do is assemble a bunch of beautiful, fiercely competitive women around the "rejectee" and hand a rose to everyone in the room BUT her. You make sure that the event is witnessed by about 15 trillion people including a large viewing audience, a ubiquitous "host," several cameramen, producers, key grips, best boys and Phil the boom mike operator. Be sure to preface the rejection with "this is the hardest decision I have ever had to make," and crack a bottle of champagne with your remaining conquests the minute the woman is finally out the door.

4.) Learning to depend on others to do your thinking for you. If you're the Bachelor, you don't even have to know how to COUNT, because there is a host there to do your pesky math for you. Don't worry if you are at the "Rose Ceremony," and your rose count starts to dwindle, because your host will be there to clarify matters by saying: "Ladies ... Lance (or whatever your cheeseball name happens to be) ... this is the final rose tonight." This is incorporated into the ceremony because the Bachelor clearly can't tell the difference between two roses and, say, one oven. The host is kind of like the intellectual prompts you see in the form of flash cards taped to kindergarten classroom walls; "Apple starts with A!"

5.) And finally, the most applicable life skill: breaking up. There have now been 12 Bachelors on the groundbreaking program, and, including the one on the show that just finished, only two are still with their buxom picks. Ain't love grand?

Let's just take a minute and do the math on that. If your chances of being picked as the bachelor's partner are 1/25 (4%) and then your chances of surviving as a couple are 1/6 (17%) ... well ... there's gotta be a better way to find love. Dare I say ... a more realistic way to find love?

Then again, I'm probably wrong about that. After all, I don't have a "host" to do my math for me.