Nostalgia

If you know me well, you probably know that my favourite childhood book is "Tuck Everlasting."

The story follows 11 year old Winnie Foster as she meets the Tucks family, who are immortal since drinking water from a magical stream by her house. She falls for 17 year old (well, really 104 year old) Jesse Tuck, and he leaves her water to drink once she reaches the age of 17, so that they can be together forever. Of course, she doesn't since she realizes that a normal life is better than being 17 forever, so she pours the water onto a frog.

But the story is poignant and all about nostalgia. It's one of those stories that gave me unrealistic expectations for childhood summers and first loves, and I read it and "The Princess Bride" everytime I'm sick.

Nostalgia plays funny tricks on the mind. I grew up in North Vancouver, across the water and a 15 minute drive from downtown Vancouver.

My Mom and Dad's house is lovely and unpretentious and backs onto a greenbelt.
North Vancouver is an upper middle class suburb filled with professionals, but it also houses a bunch of adrenaline junkies who smoke a lot of pot, listen to a lot of sublime, and came to North Van for the kayaking, hiking, snowboarding, and mountain biking. My house backs onto, apparently, some of the best mountain biking trails anywhere, and one of my absolute favourite things is to go for a long run or bike ride through the trails. I live a 10 minute walk away from truly inspiring scenery, and in high school, we used to have these campout parties a half an hour hike into the woods.

I still love to pack a picnic and spend an hour throwing balls for my dog in the river and pretending I'm far far away from civilization. Shots of the river by my house:





Although high school was fairly horrific for me, I do miss the North Van snowboarding, backyard parties, and mornings spent eating homemade donuts and drinking organic coffee at Honey's in Deep Cove. Memory is a funny thing, and when I'm home in North Van, I somehow forget all of those socially awkward I-can't-wait-to-get-the-hell-out-of-this place teenage moments, and recall all of the good times. But really, North Vancouver high school so messed me up, it took me a good three years to accept that anyone of the male persuasion might actually find dimples, dark hair, and my personality attractive, since I was so tortured for my weird looks, weird clothes, and weird interests in school. I so internalized the feelings of inadequacy due to my lack of a fake tan, revealing clothes, and long blonde hair, that I occasionally find it hard to believe that people have crushes on me.

My teenage/childhood hangout Deep Cove:




Not everyone had a childhood with hummingbirds and bears in the backyard, and teenage years spent drinking beers at the rifle range (!) around a big bonfire, mornings spent working at Delany's Coffee House in Edgemont Village, and watching the sunrise before work up at Mount Seymour.

Everytime I'm in town, especially in the summer, my heart aches a little for my home.
No wonder I keep returning. But, as they say, you can never go home again. Well, you can, but it never equals the gold-tinged memories in your mind.

Sometimes I miss having old friends around. I like meeting new people, but I love the feeling that comes from having lots of people around who really care and think about you, and it takes a while to find that. Although I met a couple of good people in Seattle, I haven't really taken the time to get invested in the city. It seemed I was escaping every second weekend to Portland, Vancouver, LA, New York, the cabin, etc. Admittedly, there are a lot of people in Vancouver who gave me a really hard time about breaking a few hearts between the ages of 19-22 to the point where it was a relief to leave the city. There really is a double standard for girls. The guys I know break hearts all the time, and I'm definitely been disappointed by people who I thought cared about me more than they actually did. I'm still disappointed by people that I think like me as a person, but are really just looking for someone to hook up with.

Now, I wouldn't care about people being judgmental, but at the time I took it to heart that all of those people I thought were my friends were saying such awful things about me. The slutty boy DJ at my Friday night hangout actually kicked me out of the bar once since my ex-boyfriend was there and I was dancing with boys. I didn't handle all of those boy problems in the best way possible (now I am just always upfront and don't let myself feel guilty about the way I feel), but looking back, I realize what a baby I was. Doesn't everyone fall in and out of love a few times in their late teens and early twenties?

Anyways, it was so lovely to see Vancouver people this weekend. I went to my cousin Sean's birthday on Friday with my sister Jessica and went out on Saturday night with old Vancouver friends.

This Saturday night!



And yes, there is a karaoke video on my facebook from Saturday, apparently. You have to love when you wake up slightly under the weather on a Sunday morning only to realize someone has "tagged" you in a facebook video from the night before.

These are the mental images that make my heart ache a little for home:

Me riding a bike down Commercial Drive with groceries from the Italian deli and organic produce store in my basket, days spend down at English bay beach a block from my apartment with takeout and sunscreen, singing karaoke at the hobo bars, days spent at Wreck (the hippie nude beach) giggling at the drum circles and eating veggie burgers, sunny weekends at the Vancouver folk festival, tofu shishkabobs (sp?), sunlit patios in the west end, Lindsay's rooftop deck, mornings down at Granville Island eating warm bagels on the dock, going to dance nights where all of your friends on the dancefloor, the cherry blossoms blowing all over my front yard near Commercial, mornings running (late as always) to work at the coffee shop when the city is so still, never having to pay cover at bars, drinking coffee after coffee and talking and talking with friends, afternoons spent out on the ocean in deep cove in boats or kayaks, drinking wine in my hot tub after a day on the slopes, thai noodles at the Naam at 4am after a night at the bar, sangria and potluck parties, and being surrounded by good people I love and that love me.

Of course, nostalgia makes you idealistic. I even miss the packs of bloody mountain bikers that congregrate on my parents' street every morning.

and while you're all over there in your jack jones, you need to let me get behind your back bones

Me at 21 with my fashion mullet...I'm procrastinating, so I'm adding to this. I was reading through my old blog I started as a teenager and ended when I started this one, and I can't even believe how dramatic we all were. It's incredible, but I'm happy we got over that phase young. Someone once told me that I walked around as if I always thought I was the coolest person in the bar, and I always thought they were being ridiculous, but looking back at my old blog entries about all of the "scene drama," as I termed it, I'm beginning to think they were right. It's funny, I'm sure a lot of people don't think I'm as cool now that I'm "nice." I try to make friends and wear my "heart on my sleeve," so to speak. I actually don't like and get along with that many people. At heart, I am a cynical snob in many ways. I can be a jerk, it's true.

But, as I grow up, I realize more and more the importance of maintaining friendships and meeting "good" people. I now let friends know that I care about them, too. I don't know if this is a good thing or not. I'm not talking in terms of romantic relationships, but in friendships. It's funny, because I'm not a constraint and commitment type of person in romantic relationships, but I definitely "forge" connections with friends. I get interested in people and like to find out about their backgrounds and let them know that I care about them. I don't know, is that weird? I like to be "good friends" (shit, I'm using a lot of quotes) with people as opposed to superficial acquaintances, although I have those too, and I don't know if that's a likable or unlikable characteristic. I guess I just try to be genuine and up-front. I think why sometimes I tire of going out all of the time (okay okay, more than once a week) is that 1) I like alone time to be productive and 2) I get tired of having facetious conversations with people all of the time. Although I like to dance and flirt as much as anyone else, I really, really like people who can talk to me about things other than drama and gossip. I don't pretend to be an amazingly fascinating and intellectual person, I feel like I won't ever read enough books or learn enough in this lifetime, but I enjoy different perspectives, even if it's the perfect fresh basil/pine nut ratio in pesto.


IF ANYONE WANTS TO GO OUT ON THURSDAY IN SEATTLE, FRIDAY IN SEATTLE/VANCOUVER, SATURDAY IN VANCOUVER, text/call/email me. I'm finishing a horrific course this week, and need to celebrate.

Thanks to Dizzee Rascal, Deerhunter, Wolf Parade, and, I'm not embarrassed, Sean Paul (I really hope in my next life I'm reincarnated as a much cooler person, people always laugh nervously when I tell them I can't help dancing to "Get Busy," because they can't tell if I'm joking), I survived my move. I have been moving all weekend. I can't believe how many times I've moved in my life already!

Anyone I've talked to knows how I was debating about whether to move back to Canada or what, but I'm sticking it out in America a little longer. I've always been the type of person who followed gut instinct in terms of what to do with my life, but I am beginning to feel like gut instinct is something that's better to ignore. I'm not sure yet, but it always seems like my wants differ from my shoulds. I'd like it if they were one and the same....maybe this is what growing up is? Or not? I can honestly say that I have no idea where I will be or what I will be doing in 3 months. I keep waiting for some kind of intervention or feeling to overtake me and aid my decision, but, so far, I don't trust my instincts at all.

Typical of me, I made this whole decision two weeks ago, and two days later I was putting down a deposit on an apartment. I feel good about this move though. I was really hating my old neighbourhood. It's nice, boring, and yuppie, just not for me. I was getting frustrated with the neighbourhood and my lack of space and various other things. Compounded by a lot of conflicting feelings about where and how I want my life to be....I didn't have the best summer ever.

So, now, I love my new neighbourhood. It's close to bars and restaurants I actually go to, and I can walk to everything.

My new place is pretty nice, too. It was a block long walk home from the bar the other night. You know your night's been horrific when the DJ thanks you for dancing to everything they played the entire night. Every boyfriend gets into the habit of trying to drag me away from parties/dance nights at a reasonable hour or, ahem, getting wastey faced, falling in a ditch, and requiring an escort to a cab. I also sincerely hope that in my next life I'm reincarnated as someone who's a good dancer.

I don't know if there's some kind of sociological difference between the USA and Canada- but I've been approached by more guys in bars/coffee shops/bus/street/parties in Seattle in the past year than in my entire life in Vancouver, despite that I'm now decomposing faster than......a soggy bag of lettuce (that analogy is weaker than....a kitten....and so on). Also despite that I'm always wearing headphones. Maybe people are just more forward here?

That's not how we indirect Canadians work it. We'd see someone out at the bar, not introduce ourselves, stalk them online, and drunk message them. Not that I've ever done that, of course not. I'm pretty sure a frat boy that I met out at the soccer camp with the kids wrote a "Missed Connections" on Craigslist to me. I really attract the best: he wrote "luv ur soccer skillz, want to go 4 a brew?"

I think you can probably tell that I'm in a transitional phase where I'm trying to figure out.....a lot of things. I think in the past year or two I've consciously decided to calm down and be more productive, but something might have been lost in the translation. If anyone has any ideas on how to be an adult in their mid-twenties, I welcome your ideas. It's just like, I don't feel all that more mature (okay, considerably more mellow) than 5 years ago, but I still don't have it all figured out. I know I want something else, but I don't know what that is yet.

I promise this whole blog won't be all about me, unlike my last one (which, of course, still technically exists). I'll write something more interesting sometime. And by sometime, I mean next weekend.

Books

I was just reading the August 11 & 18 issue of the New Yorker and the fiction piece "The Dinner Party" by Joshua Ferris is rad. Read it here.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/08/11/080811fi_fiction_ferris?currentPage=all

Now that we're on the topic of the New Yorker, also read "The Lie" by T. Coraghessan Boyle here. It's from the April issue, and it's so good!

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/04/14/080414fi_fiction_boyle

Also, I began reading "After Dark," the latest release from Haruki Murakami, who is probably my favourite living author.

If you're one of the few who haven't read his work, do it. Begin with "The Wind up Bird Chronicle." The writing, even in translation, just gets under your skin. Sometimes authors, such as Hemingway and Nabakov, just kill me completely, and Murakami does that to me too.

Here is the New York Times review from 10 years ago:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800EED9133EF931A35752C1A961958260

Even though I studied English Literature, I don't really review stories and books unless I have some kind of specific response to them. Although, I do miss having built-in college friends around who read and talk about reading.

T




Just some views from the deck up at my cabin. Last week, I spent the week up at my cabin.
If there's any place that epitomizes nostalgia for me, my cabin at Sakinaw Lake is it. I've been going up there my entire life with my family and friends, since before the road to get up there was even paved. Our 1 acre lot and 3 bedroom cabin & additional sleeping cabin, has a big deck that overlooks the 7 km. long lake. The Sunshine Coast area is a funny mix of hippie locals and rich summering Urbanites with summer houses. The closest "big town" (there's not even a real mall) is a 45 minute drive away. I spend my childhood summers up here waterskiing, canoeing, kayaking, chasing around my big cousins, swimming, cliff diving, reading, boating, wakeboarding, playing soccer, and running. There are even 5 islands on the lake I made up all these "legends" for when I was 8 (the best being Pirate Island). The area is so cool, if I go on a 5 mile hill run, I pass the ocean and about 3 lakes.

I love being up there spending half the day being active, and half the day lounging around reading, drinking beer, and eating really good food (well the food is slightly better if you're a meat eater, then it's salmon and steak dinners, but the salads are good regardless).

I feel instantly relaxed when I go up there. It's like being a kid again. To be honest, most of BC kind of sucks. The Northern resource based towns aren't very culturally diverse and they're pretty ugly. The nature is great, of course. But, the only parts of BC I like to visit outside of Vancouver, are on Vancouver Island (Tofino for surfing and camping and Victoria can be fun, if slightly boring compared to Vancouver), the Gulf Islands, the Sunshine Coast where my cabin is, and of course, the Okanagan in summer. I miss those lakeside summers in Oliver too!

Remember biking around looking for local boys and running away when they talked to us? The Okanagan has some rad wineries and orchards, and the river dam in Penticton is pretty cool. I really want to go up again next summer. But, other than that, BC is kind of lame.

PS, I had another birthday recently (how come they get progressively less exciting? It hardly seems fair), so please lie to me next time you see me and tell me I don't look a day over 20. Hah!

Hopeful or hopeless?

So, I'm sure everyone's read about the "latte effect," that economic term that's been banded about for the last decade to explain the relatively recent tendency of middle class North Americans to fritter away money on daily non-essentials rather than save and invest.

I remember a lecture in high school where my counsellor told us how much money we would have thanks to compound interest if we could just save that 5 dollars a day we spent at Starbucks.

Well, anyone who knows me that I'm hopeless with money. I don't even have a wallet. Really. What's the point of a wallet if it just contains receipts, anyways? Everyone warned me about the dangers of credit card debt. Of course, the second thing I did when I was 19 (the first being buying a beer) was to sign up for a credit card on campus. And....another one. Just google "instant gratification" and "generation y" and hundreds of articles will pop up discussing how my generation (yes! just made the cut for Generation Y, apparently) forgoes saving and working hard to achieve the "American Dream" in favour of....yes, instant gratification. Yes, we are in the era of text messages, fast food, fast...everything.

I actually am the opposite of fast. Anyone who would spend a morning happily reading the New Yorker at a coffee shop or perusing a farmers' market for the perfect heirloom tomatoes is obviously not in too much of a hurry. However, I epitomize my generation in the financial department. In a Women Studies and Media class in college, I made a zine which explored the fatalistic and self-destructive tendencies of the generation that came of age in the 1990s.

I used my 10 year old crush, the character of Troy Dyer from Reality Bites (hey! I was ten) as an example of the fatalistic tendencies that characterized the 1990s generation with quotes such as: "There's no point to any of this. It's all just a... a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know... a quarter-pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter become a cackle... and I, I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt."

In the post-post grunge era, ideas like this have become seriously cliched. But, when I was a preteen/young teen, movies like Trainspotting and books by Douglas Coupland were a part of my cultural upbringing. It was all about the experience, not the future, baby. Let's not even delve into the self-destructive tendencies of the grunge era, since I'd rather not beat any dead horses today (I am a vegetarian, after all).

I had a relatively idyllic childhood. I love my Mom, Dad, and sisters (especially now that we don't fight over clothes), and I grew up in a nice suburb, in a nice house, on a nice street, with an awesome pool. My Mom and Dad have always worked hard to provide for us and, I suppose, our family, albeit Canadian, epitomized the upper middle-class American dream. So, why am I not pursuing this dream for myself?

I have never had any aspirations of a life beyond 25. When I was a teenager, my goals in life consisted of moving out of the suburbs, travelling, going to shows, getting an apartment downtown, and reading lots of books. Basically, all I've ever wanted was to have fun experiences and a good time. I've never been able to picture myself with a house and family. Maybe this comes from living in a time of relative economic abundance and political freedom.

My fear of commitment extends to future goals.

After watching lots of ads on TV telling me that I can start a Registered Retirement Savings Plan for just 25 dollars a month, I made one monthly payment of 75 dollars.

Of course, 3 weeks later, it was Friday and I had seven dollars in my bank account, so of course I went to the bank to attempt to withdraw from my savings plan in order to fund weekend plans. That was my last sorry attempt at saving for the future.

The only time I can motivate myself to save is if I have big plans within the next 6 months- travel, school, or moving. For me, those little daily indulgences that fritter away my retirement are what make life worth living. I personally wouldn't want a house in suburbia if I couldn't afford to buy brie, wine, and records on a Sunday or pay for beers and a show on a Thursday.

Maybe this is partially due how house prices have skyrocketed in Vancouver over the last decade. With the median house price in Vancouver approaching 1 million, owning a home seems like a pipe dream. Of course, salaries have not kept up with the inflation. Due to various economic factors (deindustrialization, two income households, etc.) that I'm really not qualified to discuss, owning a home in the Pacific Northwest seems to be restricted to the wealthy.

When I told my Grandma how much I spend on groceries and dinners out, she was absolutely shocked. I admit it, I waste money. I have expensive tastes. Somehow, meatloaf and potatoes just doesn't appeal to me as much as a salad of arugula, pine nuts, blue cheese, and avocado.

For whatever reason, it's hard for me to envision my future. My dreams have always been a bit left-of-center; I could see myself banging away on a typewriter in Paris in 20 years or living in a house with an orchard in the middle of nowhere, but I just can't picture myself driving a minivan.

Perhaps this fatalism comes out of growing up in an era when the world seems to be on the brink of environmental disaster. When you look at the projected effects of global warming in 10 years, it's difficult to imagine having children.

For whatever reason, perhaps these little indulgences that deliver instant gratification are really just a coping mechanism to distract us from the apparently imminent combustion of the earth.

When I look at documentaries on the 1960s social revolutionary era, I find myself on the verge of tears (yes, even cynical unromantics cry) at the heartbreaking idealism apparent.

I would love to feel that kind of optimism that the world is going to change. Hell, I'd love to feel the kind of optimism about love that the two Columbia students who wed in the midst of the overnight sit-in at Columbia in the 1960s must have felt. It makes me feel nostalgic for an era I never even experienced.

Instead, what characterizes my generation is a kind of tired cynicism. Maybe we all just have unrealistic expectations. If I had been born fifty years ago, I probably would've been married 4 boyfriends ago (although the thought is horrific). I wouldn't have had any illusions about spending my twenties searching for a "soul mate," I would've just looked for a good provider and stuck it out without any searching for something "exciting".

Instead, I find myself wondering if this is it? I frequently say that I'm a total unromantic, but maybe the problem is that I am too much of a romantic. Don't tell me you haven't gone looking for your own "Before Sunrise" moment in Europe. Something about a night spent chatting over wine on a Greek ferry or up by the Sacre Coeur just makes it so much more romantic than a date at a coffee shop in the Pacific Northwest. And sure, I've had amazing nights on travels where I've stayed up all night talking and dreaming about moving to a new city to be with this amazing new person....but, maybe, just maybe, everyone gets a little boring after a while?

I always thought that one day I'd meet a cute boy who was funny, well-read, unpretentious, intelligent, and laid back. That we'd both like to play scratchy records, go for beers, go on hikes, go out dancing, watch foreign movies, and support our local Community Supported Agriculture. And that he would be the type of person who liked his own freedom and his own personal and physical space to explore his own interests- and allow me mine. Someone with who you could spend an entire rainy afternoon inside playing music and reading and writing and not even need to talk. And sometimes we'd go out together, and sometimes we'd go out by ourselves. And we would like to travel and go on adventures and be spontaneous enough to move to Europe, just because we felt like it. And of course, we would be crazy in love with each other. I told my Mom all of this, and she told me those were a lot of unrealistic requirements. True, true.

Real Girls Eat Meat

For some reason, people always ask me why I am a vegetarian.

If anything, at this point, it's partially habit. I became one originally for moral and idealistic reasons, but it's been so many years, I don't even know what a hamburger or steak tastes like.

The most convincing reason to stay one seems to be the environmental effects of the production of meat. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, if every American gave up meat for one dinner a week (what? they don't? do people like this exist?), then it would be equivalent to taking 5 millions cars off the road. Of course, those figures are based on the traditional factory style method of meat production, not based on meat from environmentally conscious local farms.

However, figuring out where meat comes from and how it's regulated is a whole problem on its own. Spending last summer in France made me appreciate the methods of farm production and its emphasis on eating locally. But, that's more part of European culture than North American, anyways. It's so complicated navigating the most morally conscious way to consume meat and produce. For example, the demand for grazing land for cattle in order to feed the North American appetite has absolutely ravaged previously usable farmland and rainforest in South America and Africa; but their economies have now become dependent on the continued exportation of meat. Unless their economies are diversified, the financial consequences of not purchasing meat from South America and Africa are comparable to the environmental consequences of purchasing from them. Anyways, ya'll have heard this song before, I'm sure.

I've struggled with veganism. I've read absolutely horrible things about the dairy industry and cringe when I think of the hormones present in dairy products. I've been a vegan for months on end before, but I always cave in Europe, and since the 2 week New York pizza binge in July, I'm completely off the wagon. Unfortunately, I really love artisan cheeses. When I think about a frittata with goat cheese, fresh basil, and sundried tomatoes, I start mentally making a grocery list.

That being said, I probably eat 90-95% vegan. I do believe it's the healthiest and most ethical way to live, and I hate to be the high maintenance person that looks for vegan wines and asks if the bun on the veggie burger in the dive bar is vegan. But, if someone invited me over for a brie fest tomorrow, I couldn't say no.

Now that I'm on this roll, I have, admittedly, been craving seafood lately. Although I've cut out red meat for the better part of two (!) decades, seafood has been my weakness (save for the one time on my first date with a boy when I was 18, when he thought vegetarianism meant you could eat lamb. I should've taken it as a sign things weren't going to work out). I can't cook it to save my life, but lately, I don't know if it's the late summer sun or what, but I've been having lobster, halibut, and crab fantasies. Ugh.

I just want to bang on a drum....

So I'm almost at the end of my summer work.

Now comes a period of unemployment, which I will hopefully use to finish that writing I've been meaning to, and then, after that, a job hunt.

I hate job hunting.
I have had many fun & frustrating jobs.

I have worked at coffee shops, a spa, a film production company, restaurants, the government, as a nanny, an English teacher for Japanese teenagers, for the Kidsafe project (a summer daycamp for underprivileged children), and....as a professional road line painter.

My only actual career skill would probably be the line painting. Before I got sick of working with misogynistic men and destroying the environment along the Sea-to-Sky highway for the 2010 Olympics, I had a lot of fun that summer driving a two ton truck, figuring out blueprints, and programming a line painting machine. Everytime I see lines on the road now, I notice mistakes and inconsistencies.

I'm in the middle of a mid-twenties existential crisis, if you haven't noticed. I'm not interested in any jobs I'm qualified to obtain, and I don't really like doing boring work 5 days a week from 9-5.

I told my parents, who do want me to return to Vancouver, that I will cave and return if they find me interesting work, such as at a film production company. I always felt that one day I would wake up and some career would just fall into my lap. I used to have aspirations of effecting positive change in the world or making films or writing stories....and now, a part of me just wants to take off, live in a beach hut somewhere, and forget about ever being career ambitious.

I'm giving myself one year, and if I don't make it......dum dum dum....then comes graduate school. But if anyone wants to make a break from North America with me, I can be swayed.