Giant heads, tiny bodies

Went to the Ron Mueck exhibit at the National Gallery this afternoon. Unbelievably believable 3d renderings of human subjects. Each sculpture begged me to come closer, challenging me to doubt its likeness, while also threatening to start breathing, to look up at me, to reach out in desperation. Spooning couple, below, was one of my favourites. Love and sadness. Something familiar. Also the most lifelike.

Email addict.

I woke up to my phone ringing at 8:15 am this morning. My dear friend Julia had miscalculated the time her flight from Halifax came in (oh, that pesky one hour time difference), and she was waiting at the airport. We had a breakfast date, and I was her ride. I was happy to hop out of bed, throw on some clothes and come get her, skipping my morning ritual of email, coffee, newspaper. In that order.

Driving Without Coffee (DWC) is a dangerous offence I don't take lightly. But tough times call for desperate measures. So I got through it. But not checking my email - now that turned out to be a bigger problem.

When I got home around 10:30, after breakfast and running an errand, the Carleton email server was down. It was already much later in the day than I'd usually be checking my email for the first time, so this was not okay.

"We're experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later." Later? Like, in a few minutes? Okay, I thought to myself. I can check in a few minutes.

A few minutes later, no email. Huh.

I wasn't waiting for anything in particular. I was just all alone in my apartment, as per usual, with my email a fundamental link connecting me to the outside world. Without it, I was just a girl in a messy apartment with a cell phone. I tried to distract myself. I kept the page up and kept hitting "refresh". Nothing.

Around 3pm, I called the computer tech at the university. No, it wasn't just me. No, he didn't know when it'd be back up. Yes, they were working on it. Thanks. Goodbye.

At this point things were getting bad. Not because I needed my goddamn email, but because my dependency, my sad and useless addiction was so blatant, so shameful. I'm the same person who un-installed both Second Life and Facebook after having each for a few days only. I don't want to be that person. Real people. Full sentences. A sense of self that does not hinge on a computer interface. These are things I value.

But I have clearly failed. I should have already known. M. should have tipped me off while teasing me in December, when I'd go to check my email one more time before falling asleep (crawling OUT of bed to do so) and he'd look at me as if I'd become a monster.

The server's back up. I didn't even miss anything important. I think I'm going to go on a internet diet. Maybe later.

A gay old time in "Funtreal"

After four months of living 2 hours away from Montreal - or Funtreal, as my play-on-words-loving pal Brianna decided to re-name it - I finally made it down for a night. Went to a charming hole-in-the-wall Brazilian restaurant where I was serenaded by a lovely Brazilian dude with a moustache (see below) and an extremely eclectic range of musical influences, much to my delight. Also got my dance on, but was very sad that they'd switched from baby Michael and Stevie Wonder to Latino beats by the time I checked my coat and hit the dance floor, beer in hand. Talk about a let down. Still, jolly good time.

Credit for the pic goes to my friend Brianna. I think.

Who wants to buy an electric toothbrush?

No, seriously. I won the goddamn thing at the Baute Christmas gift exchange, and each time I used it it terrifies me. Why would I want to feel like the dentist is probing around in my mouth twice a day?

Oh, yeah. It's used. Just a little.

...I'll cut you a good deal?

What Makes a Cartoon New Yorker-Worthy?

This entertained me today. I've often wondered on what basis the New Yorker decides to publish various cartoons. I have to admit, sometimes I feel like I just don't get it. Although that's probably the point...Anyway, check out this article in the Washington Post about how the New Yorker cartoon editors do their job.

Zoom. Zoom. And more zoom.

Thanks to this video, my kid brother has now added flying to the list of evil and destructive consumer behaviours he refuses to partake in - a list that previously consisted of drinking alcohol or coffee, eating meat or chocolate...basically all the good things in life. But in all honesty, the video says a lot about modern day transportation. And pollution, if you can push yourself to consider the consequences of so many friggin' airplanes shooting non-stop back and forth across the planet. It's true that by flying on any given day an individual can pollute more effectively than by any other means. Yaay disposable income!
The sad thing about this video, as my little brother pointed out, is that a lot of people who watch it probably just think it is cool. Nevermind what it's actually showing us in terms of environmental costs. Scary, but true.

This cat has nine lives.

After Christmas, lounging in a makeshift bedroom in the den in my parents' farmhouse, I got around to checking out Second Life, the 3d virtual online world that gives regular Janes and Joes a chance to do it all over again. Sort of. Each user creates their own "avatar" - a self-created virtual character who can sunbathe on a beach in a foreign land, start a business, go shopping for outlandish things or screw a stranger with a giant colourful penis outside his (or her) pants. Not only are avatars spending considerable chunks of real-life individuals' time -they're also making their way into wallets. In the last 24 hours alone, Second Life's website tally says over $1,000,000 US dollars have changed hands through the program.



The only way to check out Second Life is to get a (free) membership and create an avatar. So I did. Her name was Audrey Vacano, and she was a "city chick" (what? I only had a few prototypes to choose from, and considering one was a fox...like the animal...city chick sounded pretty alright). Once I edited her appearance to suit my taste, I realized she looked a lot like me, but with green eyes and bigger boobs. She was dressed awfully modestly for Second Life - many avatars, I quickly learned, wear leather, spikes, lingerie, the above mentioned prosthetic external genitalia, or nothing at all. A sign of what kinds of goings-ons are common in Second Life? Perhaps. Perhaps, if I were a good person, I would have bailed as soon as I had the chance. But curious as I am, I ventured on.

The program begins with a training world, designed to teach you how to walk, talk, fly (yes, you can fly), teleport, use items, etc. Impatient and insistent that I was NOT getting involved with Second Life beyond the role of curious observer and journalist, I skipped most of this. Which meant that once in the "real" program, I had a tendency to run into walls and get stuck desperately on the muddy bottoms of large, unidentified bodies of water. Once I accidentally took my shirt off while talking to some dude in fake Amsterdam. I was generally incompetent and pathetic. Maybe if I had a little more video game experience I would have been better off, but alas, I never was a video game nerd. It's too bad, really.

All of this to say Second Life is, as I should have realized, all about sex. Of course there are tons of places you can go that have nothing to do with sex - like parks, model airplane hangers and I love Jesus cafes...but generally, the mood is one of rebellious sexual freedom. It's all anonymous, virtual, perhaps a little careless.

Which brings us to the obvious question: is having sex with a virtual stranger cheating? I couldn't help but wonder what real-life dissatisfaction leads people to do these things. Are they having sex online because they have a hard time getting it in the real world, or are they in stale, unhappy relationships and are looking for relatively-harmless alternatives? If they are attached, what does their participation in Second Life mean? In an era of virtual reality, what constitutes adultery?

I didn't let myself ponder this question for too long. I deleted the damn because it plain freaked me out. Weird.

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.