The lifestyle parka

My first winter in Ottawa is fast approaching, so naturally I decided I needed an overpriced, uber-insulated, fluffy-like-an-eskimo's parka to get me through it. I found a beautiful tna 3/4 length coat from Aritzia; grey with a big faux-fur hood.

With temperatures dropping to "feels like below zero" last night, it was time to get out my fancy coat. But when I finally read the owner's guide/price tag on the thing, I realized I was ill-equipped to own such a stylish piece of merchandise.

This is more than a coat. It is a lifestyle. It has an exterior cell phone pocket, a change purse, a special pocket with "head phone loops" for the mp3 player I don't own and a pocket for the lip gloss I don't wear. It's all there in the manual! What have I bought into? I just wanted to be warm!

Of course I'm going to wear this beautiful coat anyway, because it's cold and I'm not idiot, but I just wanted to ask, what happened to simplicity? Why does buying a winter coat need to mean buying into a hip, young, consumer lifestyle? Am I allowed to wear the thing without even owning an iPod? What will I put in the tiny little lip gloss pocket? Paperclips?

Mike?

I am not the only one living on the 2nd floor of my building. There is also a guy. His name is Mike.

I am better acquainted with Mike's parents than I am with Mike himself. When I was moving in his mother was here, scrubbing every inch of his apartment with the overbearing love that sends a mother to antiseptic extremes. A nice lady. Chatty, bubbly. She was worried about Mike's stove; it was a gas stove and she was concerned because she'd never had one before and she thought the smell was awfully strong, and did I mind coming over to smell it?

I saw Mike once. It was in September, maybe a week after his mother emerged victorious in the Great Apartment #2 Clean-a-thon. He had a boyish face and a red complexion, and kindly told me to use the empty shelves outside his door if I wanted. Said he was quiet and hardworking, and was happy to hear that I was living alone and likely to be quiet as well.

Now. Quiet is one thing. But Mike is so quiet that sometimes I think he might be dead.

That afternoon back in September was the last time I saw Mike. I left him a note shortly thereafer, asking him if he wanted to share wireless internet with me, and received no response. I figured he'd rather anonymously steal from one of the neighbours, which I couldn't blame him for.

Once I heard Mike taking a pee. Our bathrooms share a wall - of course I tried not to listen, because, quite frankly, it was gross. Another time I heard a young woman's voice in the hall, and the jingle of keys. His girlfriend, I assumed.

Besides those two occurrences, the only reason I know Mike is not dead is because a pair of shoes appear and disappear on the botton shelf outside his apartment door. Broken in airwalks; green and black, and probably stinky.

We've been living on the same floor of a house for almost three months and I have only a few measley pieces of evidence to verify Mike's mere existence. Troublesome, indeed.

What to do about Mike. I hope he is okay. If something terrible had happened, and his body was rotting away next door, surely I would smell it? Should I go over and check on him? Would that be creepy of me?

Maybe Mike just likes his space. Maybe he has a rare skin disorder and is too embarrassed to leave the house. Or maybe he's albino and will melt if he sees the sun, so he waits until everyone is asleep before slinking down the stairs and out into the world. On that note, maybe he is a vampire. I better make sure I lock my doors.

Oh, Mike. And here I'm saying you're the weird one? Maybe we should be more worried about me...

Dear theory, I miss you: A journalism student's lament

I know we drove each other crazy. Sometimes you were impossible to understand, and I would stay up late racking my brain, desperately wanting nothing but to "get" you. But beneath the jargon, the verbosity and the made-up words, you were passionate, altruistic, even emotional. You weren't dramatic or sensational, you weren't even time-bound or competitive. All you wanted was for everyone to get along.

Now that I'm stuck here with Truth and Attribution and Clarity, and I miss you, I really do. I hear about you from other people - namely M., who knows you so well he is starting to create you - and I felt a twinge of jealousy - or is it guilt?

It's probably best that I got out while I could. But I hope I never get over you.

"All those white folk there havin' a ball."

I hate the mall.

I went in today for three things: 1) a Murikami book for my little brother's birthday, 2) a mini desk recorder, even though I'm not really sure what that is, and 3) a plug for my hand-me-down digital camera, so I can finally upload the photos of me drunk in my Halloween costume.

What I got: 1) a plug that doesn't work, 2) a clueless staff member at The Source who didn't know what a mini-disk recorder was and sales associates at both bookstores who had never heard of Murikami, 3) screaming children, tacky Christmas everything, Santa Claus, line-ups, more screaming children, and 4)really annoyed. I hate the mall.

I'm going to go Adbusters here. I know we're sick of hearing it by now, but considering the overwhelming popularity of crap we don't need, there is obviously still a need to remind people that IT'S CRAP WE DON'T NEED! And the thing is, we really do believe we need whichever item of said crap happens to be on today's shopping list: a new dress for that party, a basket for the living room, another pair of shoes. We don't.

Before the Halloween party this year I dragged a new friend into Zellers for a last-minute costume accessory: pink tights. (No, I didn't need pink tights. I know.)

"My, you are an efficient shopper!" he remarked, chasing me through the aisles of Halloween candy and pillows and women's underpants.

"Yes," I said. "I hate shopping."

"Really?" he replied, in his always-animated-like-Robin-Williams voice. "All shopping? Even clothes shopping?"

"Yes," I said. "I think it's stupid."

"Oh." Silence.

I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I realized he didn't have a clue how to respond to that. Apparently not many women in his life feel that way.

Needless to say, we're still getting to know each other.

Anyway, I'm going to have to go back to the mall to return the plug. It's on the floor near the door so I won't forget about, where it's likely to get covered up by all the crap I don't need that's lying around this joint.

Patriotism is contagious

Toes numb, hair soaked, fingers red and shaky, I stood watching rows of Canadian air, military and navy personnel marching to the National War Memorial for the Remembrance Day ceremony. I have to admit I felt something. I'm not sure what did it was - maybe the sweet old veterans, frail and smiling, or the young cadets, too small for their uniforms and slightly out of line. Maybe it was the young soldiers, who may have just returned from Afghanistan, or might be going soon. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for children's choirs and bagpipes.

But the point is that something happened, and I suddenly felt that maybe war WAS glorious. The music, the children, the flags, the rain, the old geezers...all of it culminated in an unfamiliar sense of patriotism that made me want to support McCrae's dangerous demand to "take up our quarrel with the foe".

I found myself thinking that there MUST be a reason they do it. These young men, these kids, they must see something I don't see, understand something I could never understand. I wanted so badly to believe there was a good, justifiable reason to fight death with more death, to kill civilians, to sacrifice our own citizens under the guise of mythical terms like "democracy" and "freedom".

There was too much love there, however misguided, to believe that it is all for naught. Never mind if I actually do.

Sweet cynic.

I finally came up with a blog name. This is amazing.