Category Archives: Not your average writing

I’ve been avoiding blogging like the plague these days. Partially to blame is Facebook (FB). For some reason, I am strangely addicted to viewing pictures of my current and long lost friends that found me and vice versa through this new internet phenomenon that has taken the world by storm. 

FB works for me because I can keep in better touch with my family and friends back East, looking at the pictures they post of their kids, and we seem to connect better writing on eachother’s walls than just sending a boring old email or picking up the phone. They never call me, it’s usually me who does the calling, and usually they are never home, but we always have time to FB. It makes emailing more interactive and I feel more involved in their lives. 

I also FB with my pals who live a few blocks away. Maybe it’s because we are all so vain in showing off our pictures and who we are, and more importantly, how many friends we have.  It’s also fun to look at other people’s friends and reconnect with ones you thought had dropped off the face of the earth. I have reconnected with folks I’d forgotten about completely until I saw them on someone else’s friends list. 

I found myself looking up ex-boyfriends and friends from public school. What is wrong with me? Why am I suddenly so interested in my past? I’ve even reconnected with my former Christian friends, very hesitantly because of fear of what I’d see, fear of judgement, fear of the G-word. But curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to know if they are married with kids, and all of them are. Most are still in London (Ontario), some have moved either out East or West, but nowhere in between.  Even though my beliefs have changed, I am genuinely interested in them since we shared the most influential part of our lives together. I respect their beliefs if they respect mine.

I am agnostic after all, open to what others have to say, as long as they don’t go overboard and try to push their shit on me and say that George Bush knows what he’s doing and that yoga is evil. It’s all about balance, people. And balance is what I need, even with FB. I can’t spend too much time in that place or else I’ll get nothing done and spend countless hours writing about my past. 

For some reason, I’m feeling really angry these days. Maybe it’s PMS, yes, let’s blame my hormones. So I come to my poor blog to vent. I hope I’m not abusing it too much by just coming here to complain and whine. The poor thing is gonna have no self-esteem left by the time I’m finished. Happy stuff sucks anyways. It just pisses every one off.

The first ember of my rage was sparked on the heels of public transit, particularly Translink and Vancouverites. I do praise the locals for embracing the transit system and not driving, preserving every little bit of oxygen that remains in our environment, but since there are so many of us crowding into our under-staffed, under-supplied buses and trains, we should learn to travel without killing eachother. A new form of road rage is emerging – bus rage.

We have a lot to learn from our neighbours to the East. They know how to move fast and efficiently on their busy, well-used systems. Our West-coasters however, as polite as we Canadians are, don’t practice good street etiquette. Etiquette sounds all lame, polite and typical Van-cewver-ish. Maybe I should rephrase it to plain street sense. Let’s start with a list. Don’t you just love a good list? Your inner Joy Lass is gloating.

1) Get outta my way!

If someone  is walking down the street and you look like you’re going to smash into eachother, at least make an effort to move out of the way. Just assuming the other person is going to move, especially if there is oncoming traffic to her right and a huge tree to her left, will not just make that person move out of your way, and don’t fricking expect her to climb that tree to get outta your way!

2) OFF means the same as ON

When getting onto the Skytrain, let the people off first. The same rule applies to all elevators. Pushing your way into the car like there is a bomb about to explode behind you makes it really tough for others who actually exist on this planet besides you. These doors do have timers with enough seconds to let people on AND OFF the car in good time, and in case you hadn’t noticed, there is a warning sound that let’s you know when the door will frickin close! Elevators don’t have this sound, but also give enough time for people to get on AND OFF in good time. Oh, and if you’re worried about being crushed to death, the door will stop if you stick your arm out. Ah, the wonders of technology.

3) Don’t be afraid of the back.

When you enter the bus, don’t all congregate at the very front. I know the luggage area is very exciting as well as standing beside the great driver himself while setting his little alarm off, but they designed these new buses to accommodate more standers at the middle and back of the vehicle. Drivers are starting to get vocal-chord damage from asking people to “Please move to the back of the bus!” The B-Line drivers are getting carpal-tunnel syndrome in their index fingers from constantly pushing the button that gives the pleasant female-voice version of the same command that no one listens to.

4) Don’t get too comfy

If you’re sitting in a cozy two-seater closest to the aisle and the person beside you needs to get off, simply moving your knees an inch to the left makes it impossible for her to get by, and you wonder why she is suddenly sitting on your lap.  Again, effort here can go a long way. Stand up, for crap’s sake. As hard as this is to believe, you are not too  important to have to move for anyone else. I know you are bitter because she got the window seat first, but if you move, that seat is yours!

5) Speak, human, speak, but nicely. 

Again, this applies to the cozy two-seater situation. If you’re sitting closest to the aisle and need  to ring the bell, don’t just reach over aimlessly bashing your arm into the other passenger’s face while you yank that rope. This is where conversing with your fellow human being actually comes into good use.  Saying, “Excuse me please” or even asking the person to ring it for you is much less likely to get you killed on a rainy Monday morning during rush hour.

6) Crank it down! 

Thankfully drivers don’t allow boom boxes on board like they did in the eighties. Well, they did in London ON, anyways. But you wouldn’t know it nowadays because some dudes crank up their MP3 players as if they were stone deaf. I think those are the boom boxers of yesteryear, wanting everyone to hear their horrible taste in music, usually consisting of Asian pop, gangsta rap or heavy metal. If you know who you are, we all don’t want to hear your music, and you are stripping your poor eardrums! Sometimes I can hear your music above my own headphone noise. Maybe I should crank mine up too, but then I’d go deaf and it would be a choir of tinny headphone music for an audience of naked ears. 

7) The one-sided conversation-listener goes mad. 

You thought I’d never get to this, didn’t you James? CELL PHONE USAGE! I’m all for cell phones, but if you must use them on the bus (that means MUST, not discussing lame details about your bad sex life), keep your voice to a normal level. Just because you can barely hear the person on the other end, doesn’t mean he or she can’t hear you. Yelling won’t make you hear better, and if you are having connection problems, wait until you are off the bus in consideration of people forced to listen to you. And if you choose to carry a cell phone and listen to your separate MP3 player at the same time, make sure you turn your phone off or put it on vibrate so it doesn’t ring loudly forever while you remain blissfully unaware of other passengers trying to get your attention.

8) Keep your brats at bay. 

If you have children, tell them to stay with you and stay seated. Running around screaming on the bus is not cute and  is very annoying to other passengers, especially the ones who chose not to breed for a very good reason. If your child doesn’t listen to you, eparenting classes are only a penny and leashes are available at pet stores.

9) Young doesn’t mean strong.

If an elderly person needs to sit down, don’t ask the youngest person in the crowd to give up her seat, especially if she has about ten heavy bags full of groceries. There are plenty of middle-aged people willing to stand. Even a few old people are willing to stand! Not all of them are helpless, and some of them get offended if you offere them a seat just because their hair is grey.

10)  Ew, stinky!

One more just to make the list even. If you’re going to eat something, make sure it is not tuna fish, McDonald’s, fresh pizza or rotisserie chicken. It just makes everyone else either ravenously hungry or incredibly nauseaus. Try to eat before or after the bus ride. There are germs floating around in these human-crammed  metal tubes-with-wheels anyways, so it’s better for everyone that way. Incessant chewing noises are gross too. Don’t get me started about being squished beside someone with bad breath! And bathing regulary is a real treat for regular transit users, especially those with virgin noses.

There. I think I said it all. I think I should post this at the front of each bus. If you can think of anything else, feel freel to drop a comment. Ah, I feel better now. Thanks blog-bitches! Wow, that was 1300 words. I must have been really mad!

So the show is said and done. It all happened so quickly. All those long nights crouching over my portfolio book, choosing, printing, gluing, ripping, regluing, studying, reading, finding mistakes, reprinting, swearing. People came and went from my table, I answered their questions, they left. One woman came, stared at my poster of the black sheep in a herd of white sheep, squinted, and ran away. Some just silently browsed two pages and left after I said hello. I feel, … empty … dissatisfied. After all the hours of my work, couldn’t anyone at least try to read at least one full page? There wasn’t too much to read. There was only one sheet of 14 point-sized text  with a balanced amount of white space per page, and I had lots of pretty pictures of my graphic design. People like pictures! 

Maybe I’m being too hard on myself. So many people came and went, it’s really hard to remember all who looked. And many times, I got so lost in conversation, there could have been many people actually appreciating my work. 

I’m finally where I want to be, and I don’t feel done. I feel a great sense of accomplishment though, but I still feel dissatisified for some reason. It’s the human condition. We are never, ever satisfied. We are like a virus. We consume and consume, take, take, take, and still want more. What do I want? I don’t know. To be a good writer and designer recognized for her work. To be famous ? Maybe.

But I can just see it. I will spend countless hours burning my ass into my desk chair, typing my novel. It will be accepted for publishing, maybe even sell well, if I’m really lucky be nominated for some award, but I still won’t feel “done.” I guess part of being human is never feeling done. We are always striving to improve, to better ourselves. Our goals are always changing, always growing into something we didn’t expect in the first place. If we weren’t like this, we’d get bored, we wouldn’t evolve, we wouldn’t learn. We’d remain stagnant, like a foul-smelling standing pool of water. Yuck.

I guess we won’t feel done till we’re done. Done like dinner. Done like dead. Finished. Kaputz. Life is a never ending bafflement. Is that a word? Yup. I just checked. If anything, I’ve learned how to use a dictionary!  

My mood has lifted, thanks to Sarah M. and reading countless blogs of friends, colleagues, and strangers. Blog reading is therapy, arm-in-arm with the right music.  I know I already posted today, but I just had to tell you about this blog post. 

It’s about how to do a presentation the right way, and how NOT to use Powerpoint. Students of D. Warnick’s PR class could easily offer about ten suggestions off the top of their heads, but this link has really great advice. It explains how the software can be inefficient and distracting, how the brain works when listening to others, and how to sell your presentation. 

Check it out. My favourite tip was “Bullets are for the NRA.” How memorable.

I am too tired and beaten to come up with any original thoughts. Nothing inspiring or witty from me today. Don’t come here for happy thoughts. They’ll come eventually, just not now.

Sarah McLachlan can sum how I feel much better than I can:

The winter here’s cold and bitter,
it’s chilled us to the bone.
We haven’t seen the sun for weeks,
too long, too far from home.
I feel just like I’m sinking,
and I claw for solid ground.
I’m pulled down by the undertow,
I never thought I could feel so low,
and, oh, darkness, I feel like letting go.

If all of the strength and all of the courage
come and lift me from this place.
I know I can love you much better than this:
Full of grace, Full of grace, my love.

It’s better this way,
I said,
Haven’t seen this place before.
Where everything we say and do,
hurts us all the more.
It’s just that we stayed too long
in the same old sickly scheme,
and I’m pulled down by the undertow,
I never thought I could feel so low,
and, oh, darkness, I feel like letting go.

If all of the strength and all of the courage
come and lift me from this place
I know I can love you much better than this:
Full of grace, full of grace.

I know I can love you much better than this.

It’s better this way.