My Christmas Wish

It's that time of year when everything on TV, the radio, especially the advertisements that blanket every surface within sight, are all about Christmas. And family.

This year Christmas is hard. It's the first one I'll have without my father. My father is not dead. But we don't speak, we haven't spoken in almost a year. I know this isn't uncommon, it's actually frighteningly common, but it's uncommon to me.

My father was my world when I was a little girl. He was a superhero. Before arthritis made running too painful he would don these electric blue spandex running pants every morning. He never jogged, my dad RAN. He wore a black fisherman's hat, with a peaked brim and I thought it was the coolest hat in the world. My father is also the greatest story-teller I've ever met. At bedtime he would tell me stories about his boyhood in Port Angeles, catching fish of mammoth proportion and running down backwood trails to escape marauding cougars (okay, well he never SAW the cougar but he claims that he heard it growling from the undergrowth), or he told me stories of teenage shenannigans he partook in during his salad days at the all-boys Catholic boarding school he attended. A friend once told me that my father could read the phone book and have everyone who listened hanging on his every word.

My father was the kind of guy who, if he was a stranger, you would meet and you would immediately take a liking to him. His purity of heart shone through every part of him.

Outwardly he was the image of respectability; steely grey hair, a moderate paunch that betrayed his love of good wine and good cheese (oh, and OYSTERS!), a slightly florid but kindly face and a movie star smile.

It's true that at times he drank excessively, his moves on the dance-floor can charitably be called "enthusiastic" and his love of the written word never translated into any finesse with interpersonal communication but my father....

He is the best man I have ever known.

A conspiracy of circumstances has made it impossible for us to speak but there is not a day that goes by when I don't ache to be swallowed up in his arms.

My father also gave the world's best bear hugs.

Maybe it's the season, the xMas cheer, the incessant carols, or the sentimental Tim Horton's ads that dominate every bus shelter, but I feel his absence so strongly.

Maybe I'm hoping for one of those hackneyed Christmas miracles. The kind where long lost family is reunited in a beautiful street side scene with plump snowflakes, dewey-skinned female protagonists and a script that gives the characters all the right lines to say.

It won't happen. This I know.

But every day from now until the 25th, I can imagine, I can believe, that I might get a Christmas miracle of my own.




Love you Dad.

Busboy, Bastard, Server, Slut

Helllloooooo!!!

It's been way too long since I've updated this puppy. I blame the merciless, relentless, heart-breaking, ball-breaking, tear-inducing, drowning-in-my-own-sweat patio season endured by all service industry folk in this smoggy, humid crucible otherwise known as downtown Toronto. It was a bitch.

Long hours were made longer by hangovers, lack of food, "creative" input from the corporate overlords and, of course, the single greatest problem with the restaurant business - the fucking GUESTS!!!

Ok, I've been in this business for around a decade and I've served every type of guest that crawls under the cruel sun. I've served Johns taking their Russian-emigre "lady friends" out for dinner before getting down to business (she usually spends the whole time texting delicately with her acrylic nails while he fidgets and nervously downs three beers before the entrees arrive). I've served sad old British couples who want to talk my ear off about visiting the _____ Museum but whenever I'm away from the table they don't speak to each other, rather, they stare silently into space.

Don't get me wrong, there are AMAZING guests out there who have touched my heart. Only weeks after same sex marriage became legal I served a quiet wedding dinner for a gay couple who had been together for decades and were finally able to make it official in the government's eyes. In some strange twist of fate that same night I was also serving a bachelorette party. The bride to be was a vacuous bottle-blond with an "I do hot room yoga" body and a bitchy expression permanently botox-ed to her face.

Any long-term service industry person will admit that we love and hate our guests by turn. They can make our night, pay our bills, make us laugh and remind us why we do this job and do it well, because the gracious members of society appreciate it.

But - oh LORD! - how they test us with their ridiculous questions and needs (NEEDS! NEEDS! ALWAYS you NEED something from us!!!!). Yes, it is our job to answer your stupid questions without making you feel stupid yourself. But we do reserve the right to laugh behind your back when you are gone.

Late in the summer I did an informal survey of my work colleagues and compiled a list which I call:

THE DUMBEST QUESTION YOU CAN EVER ASK A SERVER

These are some classic dumb-ass questions, yes, they're often used as indelicate entry points into more involved conversations but these questions remain, undoubtedly, ridiculous.

"Do you guys serve food?"

My imaginary answer: "No, that food you see the table next to you eating, that's prop food. In fact this whole 'restaurant' is an elaborate movie set. Wait...you're not an extra?"

"What's in a gin and tonic?"

My imaginary answer: "Tequila and orange juice."

"Do you have bathrooms?"

My imaginary answer: "No, we just pop-a-squat next to the patio and let 'er rip. But if you have a loose movement would you mind kicking some dirt over it so the flies don't get at it?"

"What is your coldest beer?"

My imaginary answer: "Well, since you asked, and clearly being an individual with refined tastes, we'll crack open the cryo-freezer in the back and you can have one of our speciality, 'absolute zero' Heinekens."

"Is that a real burger? Like a MEAT burger?"

My imaginary answer: "No, this restaurant is actually part of the militant wing of Greenpeace. Our mission is to foist non-meat burgers to an unsuspecting public as the newest vigilante tactic in our ongoing battle for world dominati- I mean, veganism!"

In a similar vein...

"That New York steak on the menu, is that a BEEF steak?"

My imaginary answer: "No, it's ostrich. Duh!"

And then there are the delightful conversations that we service slaves get to have with the more obtuse members of society. Conversations where stupidity persists beyond the initial idiotic question and we are forced to respond with barely restrained condescension.

The following is a conversation I personally witness between a bartender at my work and an elderly Chinese woman. It was a ridiculously busy night and patience was scarce. Bear in mind we are a SIT DOWN, serve-you-at-the-table restaurant, not a corner store.

Woman: "I want an iced coffee in a can or bottle."

Bartender: "We don't sell those. We're a restaurant."

Woman: "I want coffee to go."

Bartender: "We don't have to go cups."

Woman: *points at another guest's drink* "What's that?"

Bartender: "Pineapple juice."

Woman: "What other juices do you have?"

Bartender: "I can do either apple or pineapple juice to go." (These juices come in individual bottles.)

Woman: "I'll have two apple juices and two coffees to go."

Bartender: "We don't have to go cups."

Woman: "Are you a manager?"

Bartender: "No."

Woman: "I want to talk to a manager!"

Most industry staff accept the give and take, love and hate nature of the business and in the long run allow themselves to be comforted by vast amounts of booze and the fact that most of our income is tax free (that's right!) but every once in a while a guest takes it too far and actually insults one of us, by proxy, all of us, with their ignorance.

My restaurant has two menus; a black jacketed food menu and a brown jacketed drink list. Several months ago a coworker was serving a party of 10 in our dining room. They had arrived in good spirits, all wearing sailor hats for some mysterious reason, and proceeded to eat and drink their fill. Unfortunately some drank significantly more than their fill. What had started off as an amicable server-guest relationship turned sour when my coworker attempted to cut off some of the drunker members of the party.

That's when shit got real.

Apparently when the party had sat down the server had told them that food was listed in the black menu and drinks were listed in the brown menu. No harm, no foul, simply providing information. But when she later decided to stop serving certain people alcohol (which is her legal obligation, not just her legal right) a WHITE female in the party told her she "didn't appreciate the racist service."

Yes, RACIST service.

"She called it the 'black' menu and the 'brown' menu. Some of the people in this party were really offended. Some of the people in this party are LAWYERS!" Blah, blah, blah.

I think all servers and bartenders have at one time or another been called incompetent, and maybe even deserved it, but this woman's vicious, drunken tirade showed true ugliness.

Of course this is a rare exception. Generally the abuse and idiocy levelled at service industry workers slides right off, some of us even enjoy it. And generally we're pretty happy people; we eat well, we drink well, we live it up, we have sexy (slutty) coworkers and we're usually sleeping in our warm beds while 9-to-5ers are commuting to their grey-walled cubicle hell holes. So sure, we'll help you kill some brain cells with liquor after work and take your abuse. But just know that when you see your server laughing with the bartender as she picks up your drinks, there's a decent chance she's laughing at the fact that you just ordered a drambuie "neat."

Terminal Hospitality

I've been feeling a little guilty of late that I've let my once beloved blog lie fallow for an entire month. That's an entire month of lying in bed watching on demand episodes of Dateline while eating pasta out of a cast-iron pot while my ass fat incrementally expands into ever larger pools around my inanimate body.

Well, not quite.

There was the April exam-bonanza-period and then, once school was all wrapped up, I felt the need to do nothing for a little bit. In part because I'm extremely poor but I also think we underestimate what goes on in our subconscious when we are apparently doing nothing. Sometimes it's healthy to let the dust settle a little bit and appraise the field of battle. Then, once the horses have been watered and the soldiers provisioned, set forth once again into the great abyss/cosmic adventure known as life.

With school all done and the balance on my credit card inching closer and closer to its limit the time has come to launch myself full throttle into the disastrous chaos of the restaurant industry.

Fortunately it was easy to secure a job. With the name of the famous, temperamental TV chef listed as the last employer on my resume I breezed through three interviews and landed myself a job at a brand new restaurant scheduled to open after the May long weekend on the moderately polluted shores of Lake Ontario.

This job will mark my first venture into the cultish world of corporate employment, my company owns roughly a dozen profitable Irish pubs around the greater Toronto area. And it wasn't long before the cold, inhuman grasp of corporate culture grabbed me by the throat.

Which is not to say that working for a corporation isn't without benefits.

The company I now work for operates a famous and well regarded craft brewery here in Toronto. So on a drizzly morning last week all 50+ front of house employees gathered at the flagship brewpub for several hours of "beer tasting." Now I put 'beer tasting' in quotations because, as seasoned a drinker as I consider myself to be, I'm not really TASTING my liquor before noon. Oh, I'm DRINKING it but the passage from cup to stomach is a rather murky journey.

A prominent beer writer lectured us about the differences between ales and lagers, the finer points of dry-hopping and gave us a brief history lesson on the origin of the term India Pale Ale.

(Apparently this term was applied to regular English pale ale that was shipped to India. The beer was heavily dosed with hops which, though now a vital part of beer production, were added as a preservative. This is how IPA's developed their signature hoppiness. By the by, Keith's is NOT an IPA!!!! It's commercial quality shit juice.)

At 11 a.m. the group dispersed and released me, feeling rather saucy, out into the world. Whereupon I promptly returned home and took a nap. More beer tasting followed, this time in the evening (thank god!).

My fellow staff and I sat elbow to elbow at long trestle tables 'agitating' modest pours of amber liquid in our glasses before shoving our noses inside and making snobby declarations such as; "Hmm, burnt caramel." "Very hoppy with a funky bitterness in the mid-palate."

Tonight we were back for MORE training. The session started with a three page written beer exam full of trick questions.

e.g.

Question: Is it a matter of importance whether beer is made with spring water?

My answer: Yes. The mineral content of water will change the taste of the beer and certain beers require a certain flavour profile in their water to achieve the desired beer-style characteristics. For example a British ale should be made with hard water with a high mineral content whereas a pilsner should be made with soft water to evoke more floral characteristics.

The right answer: No. Tap water can be treated so that it mimics the characteristics of spring water.

B*llshit!

This was followed by an enlightening training video, something right out of one of the great cult films made about blue collar misery such as 'Office Space' or 'Waiting.'

The video's inspiring title is "Service that Sells!!!" and the affair is narrated by a fat American who jabs his finger directly into the camera while exhorting "THAT'S service that sells!!!" or "That's NOT service that sells!!!"

He encourages us to "make our service sizzle NOT fizzle" and to push guests ordering take out over the phone to buy drinks and desserts. Overlooking the fact that someone who has the unwelcome task of picking up a large takeout order for the weekly "special office lunch" does NOT want to be responsible for/carrying in their car anything that might either spill or melt.

He drones on and on but eventually shows his true (evil!) colours.

"Restaurants employ bussers who, unfortunately, have to come in contact with the guests. The guest experience is lessened every time they come into contact with one of these people. They're fizzling, not sizzling. Guests who ask a busser for a refill will almost always get the response 'Not my job!' or 'No habla!'"

The room erupts with laughter.

Of course this douche-bag probably doesn't realize that the Mexican busboy he is accosting for his refill of unsweetened ice tea is probably PRETENDING not to speak English.

I know I would if this wooly barbarian was breathing in my face with congealed bits of bacon leftover from his fully loaded potato skins clinging to his gums.

Ah, the industry! I love it, I hate it. But whether I like it or not it's kept me in cold beer and Bangladeshi-made H&M threads for years. Getting back into its hateful, seductive fold is like a coming home.

To end my tirade I leave you with a message written by my crazy downstairs neighbour on the communal whiteboard in the hallway of the apartment building. It's kind of sad but if I didn't document her insanity no one would ever believe me.

And "Lucas" is her perpetually yapping bundle of canine horror i.e. her dog.

Social Graces

Let me start off this post by venting about this absolutely atrocious Scrabble hand I pulled. I mean, just look at it! Who on earth pulls five E's. Needless to say I lost the game but ONLY because of this severe handicap in the lady luck department.

The term paper/exam season madness is raging full boar on campus these days. I my diet has degraded to a constant intake of coffee, sugar-free energy drinks, diet colas and crunchy snack foods that I can stuff in my maw while also pounding away on my laptop keyboard. I haven't been to the gym since last week, the energy drinks have turned by piss a curious shade of nuclear yellow and for reasons I can't explain or justify I've been listening to Josh Groban songs on YouTube. All in all I feel slightly off kilter. Maybe this is a creeping kind of psychosis brought on by high levels of stress and a near lethal daily caffeine intake.

NO MATTER! Though if I have a heart attack the next time I drag my ass to the gym I wouldn't exactly be surprised.

But other more troubling (and certainly more important) thoughts have been crowding my mind of late.

Maybe someone out there in cyber space has an answer for this question that I have to admit has stumped me for quite some time.

I've been to several house parties in the past, complete with food, music, drink, company, that at first seemed entirely normal. After a few strong cocktails of course there comes the necessity to use the loo. Everything's going fine, the bathroom looks clean, as I sit and do my business I replay all the cool things I said to the hot actor fellow as we hovered near the spinach dip. Enjoying the memory I mindlessly reach to grab some TP and - GASP! - lo and behold, there's none there! Panties still in position around my ankles I search desperately for kleenex, towelettes, ANYTHING! that is within arm's reach. But of course there is nothing.

Quashing my irritation and with the determination that this sorry state of affairs is not going to ruin my night, I do the only thing a woman can do, shake dry. Not a perfect solution but it will do. Now I turn my attention to the sink. Probably best to wash my hands even if I didn't have the chance to wipe.

Getting the hands wet, checking make up in the mirror, inspecting teeth for embarrassing particles of food - okay, looking good!

And of course the soap tray is empty. Peeling back the shower curtain with my dripping paws I inspect the bathtub area for any sign of cleansing material, hell, even body wash would do. Nothing. Under the sink amidst the clutter of dusty cleaning products and disintegrating bath bombs ... still nothing.

Well, nothing to be done I suppose. I'll just have to dry my hands and hope my hypochondriac friend has some hand sanitizer in her purse.

The empty towel rack stares at me with cold mockery.

After a clumsy wiping on the unfriendly vinyl surface of the shower curtain or a series of dabs on the overly fuzzy toilet seat cover I return to the party feeling soiled, like the girl who steps out for a cigarette out back with that guy and then comes back brushing leaves off her knees.

The host swoops by riding a wave of social euphoria; "Heeeeyyyyy! Good to see you! Are you having a good time?" "Well actually--" "Good!!! Oh- Oh my God, I've got to talk to ______. So glad you could make it!!!"

And with that they've flitted away. I wince as I see them shake a newcomers hand in welcome. If only they knew!!!

So why do people do this? Throw a party ... with PEOPLE who are DRINKING and will eventually need to PISS!?! Is it a sadistic inside joke? Do they flounce around their party revelling in the fact that they know everyone's hands are coated in an imperceptible layer of shit particles? When the party wears on and the drunkards start molesting each other do they silently rejoice in the utter filthiness of it?

I know it's a little gross and I'm even reticent to mention this disturbing social phenomena but I've been present at parties like this several times. Anyone who knows me personally is aware that I'm not exactly a prude but there is something decidedly unwholesome about organizing a social gathering in your home and then not providing people with the means to be sanitary.

To finish I bring you the most hilarious realtor sign I've ever seen. It's been up for months along the route I walk to my cousin's house from the Yorkdale subway stop through Toronto's bastion of orthodox Jewishness. I don't know if it's the bad pun, the cheesy pot o' gold graphic or the hardcore beard action on the headshot, but the sum of the parts is beyond priceless.

"The Power of Christ Compels You!"

Today is a soggy, dreary day in Toronto.

You can feel that spring is just out of reach like when at the end of an action movie the hero tries to save the bad guy from falling into a crevasse/cauldron of boiling lava/bottomless mine shaft etc. and their hands almost, ALMOST grasp each other but at the last minute the ledge gives way and there's a lot of shouting "nooooooooooo!" with agonized expressions contorting in an extreme slow-mo close-ups.

The snow is still clinging to existence though only in sad little piles where once it was heaped into drifts. As the snow has receded the sins of litterbugs are gradually revealed. Errant dog owners who didn't clean up after Fido and allowed God's dandruff to bury their surrogate child's rectal excretions now litter the streets in various stages of decay. Toronto's healthy (and by that I mean large) population of smokers have been decorating the ground all winter with their discards and the pavement around the entrance to the local dive bar is especially carpeted with a plethora of butts (strangely enough so is the entrance to the Ryerson business school). The snow that remains is sad and filthy from being constantly bathed in car exhaust and it is clear that this year's winter is on its knees at last.

BUT! as I said today is gloomy and threatening to drag my mind, which is already fantasizing about weekends in cottage country and the season of constant sweating yet to come, back into the dark months that I'm already forgetting about.

So what better way to divert my mind (for some reason writing my poli-sci essay about Israel and Palestine isn't exactly "diverting") I decide, for no particular reason, to have an EXORCISM MOVIE-A-THON!!!

And I'm honestly shocked how many exorcism/possession themed movies there are out there. First I watched 'Case 39' a rather vapid Renee Zellweger vehicle that showcases her usual squinty-eyed, pouty mono-expression to fullest non-effect. Zellweger plays a social worker who winds up with the devil incarnate (in the form of a cute little brunette) living in her house.

Then 'The Last Exorcism' a mockumentary about a charlatan reverend who brings a camera crew out to duelling banjo country to show them that exorcism is nothing but a fancy parlour trick that only fools rubes and products of generational incest. Of course things don't go to plan! Dun-dun-daa!

And lastly 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose' which styles itself as a smart legal thriller with some B+ acting talent in the leading roles. A priest goes on trial after Emily dies from her unsuccessful exorcism and a sassy, power suit-wearing chick lawyer must defend the priest who performed said unsuccessful exorcism. She's tough, sexy and an agnostic ... but not for long!

All these movies were made within the last three years, another one with the eternally creepy Anthony Hopkins came out last year as well. And that is just what my lazy ass can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure a halfway diligent Google search would reveal that there have in fact been dozens of films in the exorcism/possession genre released in the recent past.

But what puzzles me is, why?

The only "possessed" people I've ever met were either born that way or were under the influence of a healthy dose of alcohol or narcotics. Who, in North America, that you know PERSONALLY, has every met a person possessed by the devil? I feel confident saying NO ONE!!!

So why this ridiculous fascination, why this elaborate mythology surrounding a practice that has absolutely no connection with our lives? Those of us who are of European decent, are we merely shedding the indoctrination of centuries past? The Inquisition, the accusations of witchcraft, the suspicion of things we cannot explain. Is this how we, as modern, logos-oriented beings reconcile the fact that a hundred and fifty years ago we were locking people up in sanitariums for being "hysterical?" We turn this coiled monster of superstition and mistrust that lies dormant within us into a quaint cinematic device with its own cheesy conventions. Conventions like the young girl in the tattered night dress, the shaking four-poster bed, the contortions and the requisite crucifix waving.

Clearly these stories still hold a fascination for us as a culture, we enjoy indulging in them even if on a surface level they are not part of the fabric of our beliefs. Maybe the child within us still wants to believe.

When you're a young child and have to get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night you do so with extreme trepidation. You know you shouldn't be scared but you still are, so you move quickly and quietly, like you're on a mission. Finally after you make those last quick strides and you jump back into the warmth and safety of bed and have the covers pulled tightly around you. You little chest and heart pump double-time with excitement because now co-mingled with that fear of darkness/boogeymen/creaky floorboards is the pleasure that comes from a rush of pure adrenaline.

It could be argued that superstition is the embodiment of this fear/pleasure complex. And since we're now adults and can't openly admit to such foolishness we pay an outrageous $13 to sit in a dark movie theatre and pretend we're kids again, hiding under the blankets.

Fast forward!!!

I wrote this blog entry over a week ago but for whatever reason I kept forgetting my camera at home and so had no photos to accompany the post. But today is St. Paddy's Day and I had a super sexy photo shoot with a pint of Guinness this evening. Black nectar to quench my black-Irish thirst. Erin go Braugh!

Amateur Korean Porn Stars

It's time to return to one of my favourite blogging subjects; my profound and enduring hatred for my obnoxiously loud neighbours. My apartment building is small, only four units total, so I do have the rare pleasure of actually knowing all my neighbours but somehow, instead of making me feel some kind of solidarity with them it only makes their lack of consideration or social grace all the more intolerable.

Last semester there were a couple of loud, drunk Ryerson students who liked to go get wasted at the bar, especially on Thursday night (the pre-weekend) and come home to blast Euro-house music mixes at 3 a.m. But at least they were nice if I ever ran into them in the hall and usually after exceptionally loud or late nights there would be a humble apology scrawled on the whiteboard next to the front door.

However, in December the kind alcoholics moved out.

Let it be said that the corridor in my building is narrow, moving furniture through it is a nightmare, getting my desk up the stairs was a nightmare of Biblical-plague type proportions. So I understand when people bash into my door at the top of the stairs inadvertently from time to time. One night during exams there was repeated buffeting against my door as if some idiot, who didn't realize the door was locked, was trying to home-invade me to steal my stereo. My irritation mounted. Every couple of minutes an elbow or anonymous inanimate object would connect thunderously and shake my door almost off its hinges.

As luck would have it I had no groceries in the house and had to step out to the supermarket. Lo and behold a couple of "kids" were moving in all their worldly belongings. The foyer was cluttered with Ikea furniture partially disassembled and tacky framed posters.

As I exited the building I greeted one of my new neighbours.

"Hi, my name's Rebecca. You're moving in?" A dumb question I know, but sometimes stating the obvious makes a convenient ice-breaker.

The kid looked at me like I'd threatened him with a knife.

"Oh ... hi." Pause. "Uh ... I'm kind of busy. I'll talk to you later." And with that he carried on hefting a hideous shelving unit into the building.

Now, I try not to judge people. After all everyone HATES moving day, it's stressful, it's tiring, you don't know where any of your shit is, something is going to get lost and something ALWAYS gets broken no matter how much wadded up newspaper you use. But despite all that when you're meeting your new neighbours for the first time it behoves you to BE F*CKING POLITE!!!!

So the new upstairs neighbours and I didn't get off to a great start. But they keep odd hours and I've never run into them in the hall or at the post boxes since that first fateful encounter. Fine with me. And that would be the end of it if it weren't for the noise.

As far as I can tell it's a couple of guys and one of their girlfriends. Whenever they come home for the night, usually between midnight and 2 a.m., there is a spastic flurry of female giggling that accompanies the progress of their leaden footsteps as they ascend the staircase. Now this may not sound annoying but imagine you're trying to fall asleep or masturbating or (rarely) actually trying to study for school.

Once my evil neighbours are home they stomp around as if they were trying to scare away demons or practice for their summer jobs as grape stompers at a vineyard. I've lived in apartments for the last decade, for the most part peacefully co-habitating with a plethora of different people as diverse and numerous as there are stars in the sky. But my current upstairs neighbours have to be the most inconsiderate bastards I've ever shared a roof with.

Last Friday at around midnight there was some kind of mass hysterical convulsion going on, they were thumping so forcefully that my ceiling fan was actually shaking back and forth. To add insult to injury their invasive stomping woke me a little after 8 the next morning, that's right, SATURDAY! Anyone who wakes me up before 9 on a Saturday is in my shit-book for a long time.

Tonight the couple came home around midnight and after thumping up the stairs proceeded to have loud repetitive sex, presumably on the floor since I could hear a slightly uncomfortable amount of detail. It's now almost 2 a.m. and the girl is screaming in a weird sporadic bleat that could be either arousal or panic, I can't be sure.

As usual I'm sure I'll sit here in bed steaming about my neighbour's total lack of consideration for the fact that they live in a building with OTHER PEOPLE. But by the time morning rolls around I'll be too tired/distracted/apathetic to write a passive-aggressive note of dire warning on the whiteboard in the hall and I'll simply let the matter of their bizarre and boisterous nocturnal activities slide.

My neighbour on my floor (also located below the domicile of ridiculous childishness) is going to be of no help. K, who's very nice, smokes enough weed to put an elephant in a coma so I'm sure he's not the least bit disturbed by the fact that amateur porn could be in the process of being made above us.

So what am I going to do about my situation? Probably nothing. But God does it feel good to bitch about it!!!!

But to end on a positive note below is a picture of my first EVER ROYALTY CHEQUE!!! This is the holy grail of writers the world over. It is something we all dream about but never dare hope to see. That is to one day get PAID for our writing. Transcendental!

A World Away

I have been one bad, bad, BAD blogger of late and instead have been devoting all my waking hours to deciphering convoluted readings from my political science course packs or trying to make sense of the Millennium Development Goal tracking websites (both enterprises are futile I do not recommend attempting either). So I apologize that I allowed such silly diversions to distract me from my beloved blog. I mean, it's just school right? Right.

And wrong. This semester I'm getting to enjoy something I like to call "school+" like school on steroids.

One of my professors this semester is the somewhat famous Stephen Lewis. He runs the ... wait for it, Stephen Lewis Foundation in Africa that tries to combat the spread of HIV and provide services to those infected and the orphans that AIDS has left behind. He was Canada's envoy to the UN for a while, he sat in the provincial legislature in Ontario etc etc etc. All in all he's a well-informed, international humanitarian BADASS!

This past Monday Mr. Lewis was not present at the beginning of lecture. Why was this you may wonder. Is Stephen in a manicure appointment? Hungover? (no wait, that's my excuse) Watching back episodes of Jersey Shore?

Oh no, these are human type excuses. Super people, like Stephen Lewis, have super human excuses for missing things. In this case Stephen Lewis was flying back to Canada from the Democratic Republic of the Congo where he was present at the opening celebrations for the 'City of Joy' a housing community for survivors of the vicious rape campaign that has been waged in the DRC for a number of years. This is of course what I did with my weekend too, I just took an earlier flight.

Lewis shows up about twenty minutes late. He comes straight from the airport with cumbersome wheeled luggage in tow as evidence. He has been travelling for the last 30 hours plus but didn't go home to nap he came to class and when he stepped up to the podium he didn't miss a beat.

This new city of Joy has been built next to something called the Pansy Hospital, this is home to the only doctor in DRC capable of repairing the horrific damage done by the brutally violent rapes committed in the ongoing civil conflict. Lewis told us about women having entire clips of ammunition fired into their vaginas. And another woman whose brother was killed in front of her after he refused to have sex with her, her three children were killed also and she was gang raped. It's almost impossible to put the horror into words, it's even hard to write about them now.

But the opening of the city of Joy was anything but sorrowful. There was singing, dancing, a performance of the Vagina Monologues in French. The opening of the city of Joy was joyful.

And sitting in this giant lecture hall in the belching urban core of downtown Toronto I am lucky enough to get the tiniest taste of that joy. It makes you realize we're not just lucky here in Canada, we're STUPID LUCKY!

Those assignments that are due next week? Important but not life threatening. Stressing about how my ass looks in my jeans when they're fresh out of the dryer? Understandable but really quite silly. The Canadian passport that sits in a basket on my desk? Absolutely friggin' priceless. Having a charming-maverick-humanitarian-badass as a professor? One of the greatest gifts I can imagine.

On a lighter note the view below is from the rooftop lounge at the Thompson Hotel. I was enjoying a couple of beverages in their downstairs lounge with some hot lady friends of mine a couple of weeks ago. We were ready to move on to another spot so we asked the desk people if they could recommend a nice martini/wine bar nearby.

"Is it just the three of you?" She asked, trying to suss out if there were any masculine clingers using us a bait to gain entree.

"Yes."

She had a couple of words with the steroid-inflated goon wearing an earpiece who was guarding the elevators with his equally goon-ish partner and - whisk! - there we are strutting around a dead-sexy low-lit lounge with this spectacular view of the city.

Sometimes it's nice to be VIP, even if it's only for one night.

Wiki-what-the-f*ck

The year still feels freshly minted in these first few weeks of January and in the spirit of confession, turning over new leaves etc. I am going to reveal something that, once I thought about it, I was somewhat ashamed of. Despite being a curious person and the fact that I'm studying JOURNALISM of all things, I have never visited the Wikileaks website. Until yesterday that is.

Of course I've been getting the highlight reel on the six o'clock news like the rest of the world and I would smirk in righteous satisfaction at all the "diplomatic embarrassment" these leaked cables and reports caused in the hushed hallways of power. But for some reason (and please don't ask me why) I was content to allow the news to filter and emphasize whatever aspects of this phenomena it decided to cover in its broadcasts or print on its pages.

In Canada it seemed the majority of the media scrutiny levelled at the Wikileak cables was focused on the mild trash-talking Canada received from American diplomats. Apparently we're "insecure" or something (insert sarcasm here). And if it wasn't our fleeting national embarrassment at the realization that the global community doesn't consider us a superpower *gasp* the media focus was on the allegations of sexual misconduct facing Julian Assange in Sweden. Precious little else made the news that I saw.

However after visiting the Wikileaks website I realized what has American DOD lawyers scrambling to find a loophole to lasso Assange with so they can drag him off to Gitmo and throw away the key.

Linked on the Wikileaks homepage is the video 'Collateral Murder' that was originally posted in April 2010. At the time of its release I was probably sweating through an iyengar yoga class somewhere in northern India. If this video made waves when it was released to the public it certainly didn't cause a ripple in South Asia. If this was splattered all over the front pages and was being blared from banks of TVs on every street corner please correct my ignorance.

But I was absolutely shocked that I'd never heard this revealing video referenced in any paper or newscast in the months since.

I watched the shortened version of the video with nothing short of horror.

The video shows two Apache gunships firing on a group of Iraqis in a Baghdadi suburb. It's true some of them look like they could be carrying guns but they're not shooting anyone or acting suspiciously, they in fact, appear to be simply hanging out. The Apaches open fire on the group and huge clouds of dust immediately obscure the scene from view. When it clears the devastation is total, even with the grainy quality of the film the blood splatters on the pavement are clearly visible.

One of the Apache gunners spots the sole surviving Iraqi attempting to crawl away. The man's progress is painfully slow and it is clear that he has been severely wounded.

Minutes later a van pulls up and several men attempt to move the wounded man inside. The gunners, pilots and ground command explode in a frenzy of chatter. "They are trying to retrieve the weapons!" they shout back and forth though no one on the ground takes a step towards the corpses scattered in the street several metres away.

The rescuers succeed in getting the wounded man into the vehicle but as they attempt to drive away the gunners receive authorization to fire. Dust engulfs the van and it crashes into a wall.

When ground troops arrive they discover that there are two children in the van, both wounded and one near death. The soldier who discovers them requests they be evacuated to a U.S. military hospital, shortly after his request is turned down. The children are to be taken to a nearby Iraqi hospital where the quality of care is sure to be lower.

Despite that it is heart-wrenching to watch a clearly wounded man and his rescuers be mowed down by heavy fire from above these events would probably have been forgotten. And they were forgotten.

Until Reuters started asking what had happened to their cameramen. It turns out that two of the men in that apparently menacing group of Iraqis were journalists and were carrying not guns, but cameras.

The wounded man inching his way along the pavement after the initial attack was Saeed Chamagh a Reuters photographer. His Reuters colleague, Namir Noor-Eldeen, was killed in the initial assault. As ground troops arrived on scene to secure the area one of their Humvees drove over Namir's body as it lay in the dust.

The internal U.S. military report on the incident named all the Iraqis killed as insurgents.

Now I'm not suggesting that Wikileaks is perfect, nothing is. They editorialize and their bias is very clear. But if you strip away the commentary and look at the hard images you're left with a chilling portrait of a war. The war in Iraq was founded on Colin Powell's deceptive report to the U.N. about the presence of WMDs and on fabricated ties between the Iraq and al-Qaeda. It begs the question, where does the deception end? And with unprovoked acts of violence such as the one depicted in 'Collateral Murder,' will the paranoid imaginings of the U.S. Department of Defence become a tragic self-fulfilling prophecy?

The release of the 'Collateral Murder' video changes nothing in the grand scheme of things but I would rather know than not know the truth, no matter how ugly and confusing it turns out to be.



On a lighter note, due to my abject poverty I've encountered another one of life's magical firsts; my first time visiting a food bank, yay! The university runs a community food room and I've included a picture of the haul I'm allowed to take home on a weekly basis. Due to the over-representation of soup and soup-like products in the food bank my salt intake (and no doubt my blood pressure) has gone through the roof. And since canned/packaged goods tend to be somewhat lacking in flavour it forces you to get a bit creative. Below is my version of egg-drop Mr. Noodles soup with peas. Sodium-licious!

My not so Masterful Cleanse

When I look back at 2010 I feel like the year tossed me around like a rag doll. The highs were high, but the lows were crushingly low. So to start the new year I've decided to do something I swore I never would. Something that I used to mock people for because it's so masochistic and unnatural ... I'M GOING ON A CLEANSE.

And not just any cleanse, the Master Cleanse! *ooooohhh* *aaaaaaaahhhh*

So the way this breaks down is that for 10 days, essentially, you don't eat. Every morning (or when I wake up) I mix a teaspoon of sea salt into a litre of hot water and drink her down. Over the course of the day I am allowed to drink a "lemonade" made of fresh squeezed lemon juice, organic maple syrup and cayenne pepper. And as a special treat before bed, organic peppermint tea.

I know that you're all salivating like junkyard dogs as you read my sumptuous menu for the next ten days. And I'm with you, this whole thing is absolutely absurd. I love food, I love the way it tastes, the texture, the preparation, hell, I even love grocery shopping.

So why am I doing this? After all the drama of the past year I want to put my best foot forward into this one. Discipline and patience have never been my strong suits but who is to say they cannot be learned; that we can't age like wine, that is become deeper and more complex.

So here we go!

DAY 1

Didn't really feel hungry all day like I expected to, though that might have something to do with the big family dinner the night before (and oh I hit that cheese tray hard!) and the enormous salad I scarfed down at 10 p.m. in a last minute sprint to empty my fridge. All my relatives winced when I told them about the salt water part but it's actually not that bad. If I close my eyes it almost tastes like bullion.

The "lemonade" however is almost cloyingly sweet and I had to chase it down with equal amounts of water. After drinking two litres of the stuff, it's just gross. I also put double the amount of cayenne in my tea today ... whoops! It gave me a bit of a kick that's for sure

I felt a bit headachy all day but otherwise not bad, but then again it's only day one.


DAY 2

Slept terribly with horrible vivid dreams of being robbed by junkies. In my dream I wander around with my empty wallet in my hand repeating "this can't be happening." Then I'm in an open cockpit helicopter trying to steer it through electrical wires and tree branches as it skims over a road crawling with traffic. There I am hauling on a joystick for dear life when I realize that someone else is steering. After I wake I still have the slight headache of the night before.

All the Master Cleanse websites promise that I will be "bursting with energy I never knew I had" after I complete my stint of 10 days without solid food. But the cleanse itself creates an almost paralytic lethargy.

I was feeling alright today until I walked to the library to grab some movies (when you're poor, you do what you have to). And even though it's only a few blocks I was absolutely exhausted when I returned home. I haven't gone to bed at 9:30 since I was in grade school.


DAY 3

Again with the bad dreams, this time it was a work nightmare. Anyone who has worked in food service knows that serving nightmares are highly traumatic. There was so much yelling, chaos, people coming and going without paying, no sections, no manager and then I forgot someone's pizza order!!! Bah, horrible. I keep sleeping longer and longer into the afternoon as well, not good since I have to get back on a "normal" schedule next week when classes restart.

I spent the day puttering around the house but since I've been sitting so much in the last three days (due to lack of energy) my lower back has begun to ache. With determination clenched between my teeth I managed to finally tackle the dishes which have been sitting, stacked, on my counter for four days waiting to be done.

Towards the late afternoon my blood sugar started to dip so I poured myself a pint glass of the Master Cleanse "lemonade." The liquid was so sweet that my tongue felt like it had been stung and I could feel that a fuzzy coating of sugar had coated my teeth.

Now I don't have a sweet tooth to start with. If I'm having an expensive, fancy-dancy meal out on the town (on someone else's dime obviously) when dessert rolls around I will always forgo the tiramisu and port - I'm a cheese plate and whiskey kind of girl.

The idea of drinking nothing but this stupidly sweet nectar for the next week was too much. And waking up every morning feeling like a tubercular invalid when really I'm in the prime of my life wasn't worth it. For what? To lose a few pounds and flush out the toxins from my already healthy and vegetarian diet? I don't THINK SO!

So I poured the rest of my tea down the drain and took myself out to a movie - WITH POPCORN. And as the glorious joyful feeling of being alive returned to me it became clear to me that life is punishing enough without creating false obstacles and hardship for myself. And anything which unnecessarily takes away my joie de vivre for a single day isn't worth it.

In the words of the Beatles; "Life I love you, all is groovy."

Cheers to a beautiful New Year!

If Cuba were a Feeling

The first thing that struck me as the plane descended through the fluffy whipped-cream clouds was the barrenness of the country below. Most of the land has been cleared for agriculture but lies fallow spreading out in acre after acre of monotonous grassland. Driving into Havana for the first time the buildings and streets are eerily empty. There are people, of course, but everything feels sparse. It's vaguely reminiscent of one of those zombie apocalypse movies where the protagonist wakes up out of a coma to find a shell of a world, with buildings and infrastructure, but no people. We pass a large stone structure built in a classical style with corinthian columns flanking the grand entrance, 'Hospital Central' is etched above the door. But as we drive by I see that the windows have no glass, they are dark lidless eyes into emptiness.




In the heart of the old city there are more Cubans, drawn by the scent of tourist dollars. Everywhere you turn is a salsa, rhumba or folk band serenading you (whether you will it or not) and passing around the hat. There is all kind of ridiculous Che Guevara paraphernalia for sale, wood carvings of sensuous female figures, maracas and poorly made fridge magnets. Shopkeepers half-heartedly call you to look at their wares as they sit in their door-frames, hardly stirring.

During all my time there I couldn't shake the feeling that there was an underlying sadness, or resignation, permeating the country. The small bursts of vibrancy that I saw were all staged for the benefit of the tourists, "LOOK! Look at our cheerful people, so full of life. They live for music and dancing! And they are so, SO happy you see YOU!!!"

The town of Remedios offered, what I felt, was a genuine look into the true nature of Cuba. The town is tiny with almost no tourist infrastructure and is off the well-worn path trod by the all-inclusive resort crowd. Every December 24th they have the festival of las Parrandas, the town divides into competing neighbourhoods who each build their own float over the course of the year and on the appointed day their efforts are set up in the central plaza. At night they will be lit up with hundreds of coloured lights and the barrios will battle by shooting off hundreds of firecrackers.



Naturally there were a few tourists there but this was a distinctly Cuban affair. And it bore no resemblance to the happy-go-lucky routine portrayed by those living off the scraps from the tourist table in Old Havana. There were no "authentically dressed" wandering bands of musicians, there were no women clad in the all white garb of Santaria offering to tell your fortune. The street vendors at las Parrandas fell into three categories; meat-on-a-bun (or plate), booze and assortments of trinkets that are hardly novel to any North American, things like hair elastics and cheap plastic toys.

I think it's safe to say that on festival days we all celebrate that which we cherish or desire most. As I live only blocks away from Toronto's Eaton Centre I feel confident saying that Canadian Christmas is an elevated celebration of "stuff." It's our culture. However in Cuba there is not the option to buy bushels of unnecessary gifts and an overabundance of cookies and/or chocolate.

As I sat smoking a cigarillo on a bench in Remedios' central plaza I watched the people around me. Families, groups of friends and overly amorous young couples talked and laughed. Almost everyone I saw was well on their way to getting completely and utterly WASTED! Now I know New Years in North America isn't any different but at las Parrandas there wasn't that bacchanalian rowdiness that characterizes our drinking holidays (St. Paddy's anyone?) it felt more ... serious. Like everyone was on a mission. If someone didn't have a double tall can of Bucanero Fuerte beer in their hands it was likely because there was a 26er of Havana Club hiding by their feet. Yes, yes, everyone was having a good time but there was this strange drive underlying it all, this need to for one day (via alcohol) forget.

The morning after las Parrandas I walked to the main plaza again to find a taxi. The side streets leading to the square were awash in human shit. Evidence that late into the night inhibition flew the coup.

I don't mean to sound down on Cuba. The generosity of spirit and voluntary kindness of some of those I met was overwhelming. Coming back from the beach on Christmas day my taxi driver wordlessly pulls over at the side of the road. He returns with a bulging bag of oranges and with a shy smile he offered me one.

Cuban art explodes with emotion and dynamism that is sorely absent on the streets of its cities and towns.

Cuba feels like a country that, many years ago, bravely toppled their tyrannical government and then heroically stood up to a nation that could have crushed it with a militaristic flick of the wrist. It is a country that now identifies itself so strongly with those acts and that time that evolution as a society has been impossible.

Over breakfast one morning, Damayi, the hostess of my casa in Old Havana spoke of how there is no opportunity for the young people, no motivation. She pursed her lips slightly as she spoke about her own son and that he moved to Mexico to make a better life. In her entire apartment there is only one picture, it's of her son, and as I scarfed down my morning eggs she brought the picture to the table for me to admire.

On the one hand I didn't see a single advertisement the entire time I was in Cuba, not one. But on the other hand, I also didn't see a single internet cafe, or even a computer for that matter that wasn't running on DOS (for those who remember what that is). It's true that Cuba is free from corporate meddling but how is that price being paid?

I found Cuba to be a country of beautiful, idealistic, sadness. The revolution served a great purpose but a purpose that is no longer there.