Where the boys are

It isn’t that I grew up alone in a world of boys and men. It isn’t that I didn’t have a mother – I did; a lovely, warm, home-made-cookies-on-a-rainy-day kind of mother. It isn’t that I didn’t have girlfriends – I did; the best girlfriends in the world, willing to write stories and have sleepovers and share my childhood cynicisms with me. It isn’t that I necessarily favoured sports over dress-up, or Tonka trucks over dolls, or Transformers over My Little Pony.

But, I was an odd kid.

Though I did have my girlfriends, they were long-distance confidantes, having moved away when I was very small. For the most part, on my street and in my school, I made friends with the boys. There were endless games of street hockey, baseball, Capture the Flag and Night-time Hide and Seek. There were summer-long bike rides to pizza places and baseball diamonds and air-conditioned drugstores where we could escape the heat to buy banana popsicles and ride home with sticky fingers. There were toy guns aplenty, GI Joes hanging from wires in various staged set-ups throughout our house and front yard, and various hockey nets, baseball mitts, skateboards and tennis balls thrust hastily on the front yard. There was always mischief to be had, tall tales to be told of what antics which boys had gotten into that day; and always, always the riveting cry of “CAR!” breezing along from the street to the tree-lined suburban backyards, beckoning any child who hadn’t yet made the trek over to that day’s street game.

And maybe I remember it all a little too nostalgically; in reality I know that I watched more of those street games than participated. And I know that the boys and I didn't quite share the same set of priorities. For instance, when I played with GI Joes I threw their weapons aside and made Scarlett and Snake Eyes get married. While my two brothers were choosing sides in games, one would always be the good guy, one would always be the bad, and I always elected to be “normal!" I never wanted to sink anyone's battleship, I made all my Lego and Fisher Price Little People go to church and school, and I had all my stuffed animals sit around in a semi-circle for story-time.

Still, I picked camouflage over pink; let my dog chew Barbie’s feet off so she’d be shorter than the other girls, and when my stuffed animals were done having stories read to them I would take my doll’s crib, flip it over and turn it into a prison so they could experience a lesson in survival.

While my girlfriends became doe-eyed for New Kids on the Block, I worshipped Ernie Whitt and crushed on Pat Borders. When the girls in my class were braiding each other’s hair, I was either watching them, baffled, or more likely, over at my friend Mikey’s house playing Excitebike on Nintendo. On separate occasions when I was pretty young, I asked my mom if I could get a boy’s hair cut (she said no), if I could try peeing standing up (again, no) and if I could wear swimming trunks instead of a girl’s one-piece (still, no). And it isn’t ever that I wanted to be a boy – I thought penises were bizarre and unattractive attachments – it’s just that very simply, I wanted to be treated the same as one. And even as a little girl, it felt like an eternal struggle.

For a while it had been okay. I was singled out but I was generally still included. And then an age hit and everyone seemed to notice I was a girl, and an imaginary line was drawn and I suddenly – and very quickly – had to learn how to make friendship bracelets, apply eye-shadow and figure out what purpose jewelry served. I was kicked out of the boys club. One of my best friends asked me to be his girlfriend, and in an instant I didn’t know how to act, or who to be. Confused by our swift change of roles, I chose to abandon him altogether, and felt for a long time that losing that friendship was one of my biggest regrets – and one of my biggest resentments.

And the girlfriends came and went; we got our periods and taught each other what we thought sex was and all realized that we wanted the boys to like us – that way. But I always couldn’t help but notice the crowd of boys in the corner, talking and laughing and sharing a secret camaraderie; a top-secret dialect that I no longer spoke.

The initial awkwardness of pubescent transitions led way to an adolescence that allowed young men and women to be friends again, but was punctuated by hormonal outbursts and angst, angst, angst. I liked being friends with boys again, but when they turned the tables on me, got dreamy-eyed in my presence and stumbled over their speech, I didn’t know how to react, and so I took offence. I knew the way that boys conversed with other boys. I had an idea of the vile, dirty jokes, and the crude comments that were made. I knew enough to know that they didn’t act this way around us – at least not the girls they liked. They changed. Became unrecognizable. It was kind of like we just appeared to them one day. They didn’t know who we were or where we’d come from; we just arrived from another planet, beautiful and interesting, but foreign and frightening. And it isn’t to say that I myself never liked boys who left me tongue-tied and nervous; it’s just that I had always known where the boys were; they on the other hand seemed to have forgotten I had ever existed previous to that very moment, or that I’d ever walked among them.

Eventually I got over my grievances and appreciated that it might be okay to have a man get nervous in my presence. I learned the tricks of the dating trade. I learned how to flirt, how to tease, what to say and when to say it. I learned that it wasn’t all that difficult. You play the game, you play your part, and then you go home to your respective teams and dish out the particulars. At the end of the day, your girlfriends are your home base, and though it’s not such a bad thing to have them there, if you’re someone like me, you can’t help but wonder what the boys are up to.

Eventually, dating becomes less of a sport and more of a pain in the arse, and you might even find yourself zeroing in on one person who makes you nervous – a single person to pair up with and share adulthood cynicisms with. And though it’s a wonderful, beautiful breath of fresh air – an incredible and fun new way of looking at male-female relating, I’m still learning that it comes with its own sets of challenges. Namely, boys sometimes still want to be boys.

What I’ve learned: there are times when a guy just wants to be with his guy friends. They may not be heading off to drink brandy, smoke cigars and discuss politics in the old boy’s parlours anymore, but they still want to get away. And maybe, to some women, it seems natural – it’s an opportunity for these ladies to retreat to their old home base; to go have umbrella-laden martinis with their former roommates and college girlfriends – their favourite people they gave up when they got involved with a boy. To me, it’s still a lesson in relating. Because I still want to talk sports, but my girlfriends aren’t always the most willing when it comes to discussing Zach Greinke’s sick slider or how the Yankees’ overindulgent new stadium may end up being their own curse (ok, maybe I’m not interested in all sports, just baseball). I grew up with brothers and little boy friends. On some days, guys still feel like my homebase - it’s just hard sometimes to recognize that they don’t see me the same way.

Some days, I forget that anything’s changed and I think I can follow them on their bikes into the sunset, wherever they’re headed. But I also know that some days, it’s just a guy thing, and I’m not invited. And I’ll admit that at times, I’ve let it get the best of me – an old familiar feeling recurs, and I feel like the door of my childhood has been slammed in my face, asking me to grow up and recognize my societal role (whatever that is).

But then I exhale, realize it’s not the 1950s, and know that we all need different things to make us happy. And I also need to realize that often, the lure is stronger than the reality – because I've also learned that sometimes all guys really do when they’re alone is tell dirty jokes, size up the waitress’s attributes and feel comfortable enough to pass gas, which, let’s face it, I can do without. Besides, it occurs to me that while I can hold my own in a group full of men anytime, sometimes I need to be alone with other women, too – there is another comaraderie there that is unique, and wonderful, and one that I now can't live without - and maybe it's time I spent less time worrying about what I’m excluded from, and more time delighting in those things I choose to include.

My junk box of shame

Call me sentimental, call me a packrat, or just call me weird, but growing up I rarely threw anything out. If I had written it, drawn it, molded it or built it – I kept it. I imagine it had to have either been my parents’ influence – my macaroni-glued-to-a-paper plate-and-then-enshrined-in-silver-paint masterpiece got hung on the wall every Christmas until I reached my twenties – or my grandfather’s tendency to hoard junk – at his place you were hard-pressed to find a space to set down your drink without disrupting his extensive collection of McDonald’s Happy Meal toys - that steered me in the direction of believing all creations were created equal – and all creations must be kept; forever.

There are many reasons why I am glad I, along with my parents, held on to a few gems. Since I was always writing, I have various awesome stories written at various stages of my development (it’s really fun to see how my writing progresses; although I’ve since discovered that most of my stories follow an eerily-similar story arc and either have the title of “The Three ___ (fill in your friendly barnyard animal here)” or else revolve around a camping trip where a few good and innocent people are maliciously attacked by some kind of roving, wild beast of an animal and barely make it away with their lives). Many of these are fun to hold on to and reflect on, because they invite a feeling of nostalgia; they represent a time when I was young enough to be cute.

But the fact of the matter is, if you hold on to everything – and I mean everything – eventually, you’re going to have to one day come face to face with a period of your life when you weren’t so adorable. Lucky me – I dealt with most of my teen angst through writing, and so every awkward and humiliating moment of those fun-filled high school years is captured with unbelievably fervent detail and forever recorded in the pages of my many journals (none of which I could possibly ever throw away – that would be worse than throwing away priceless macaroni art!) This, by the way, is how your box of creative masterpieces quickly transpires to become your box of shameful and horribly embarrassing secrets.

Case in point: a couple weeks ago, while rummaging through my parents’ basement for old photographs, I came across my own pink box of personal junk. Excited, I brought it upstairs and thought I would proudly toot my own horn of childhood genius by narcissistically riffling through my collection of personal goodies in front of all who was gathered. But before I could select an appropriate piece to share, my boyfriend snatched the first thing out of the box and started to read it aloud – as it turned out, it was titled “Mr. Right” and was more or less a laundry list of all the positive features I was looking for in the “perfect man.” And not a list that I made when I was like, seven, where the features might include such attributes as “he should have a cool bike” or “his mom should like me and give me milk and cookies when I come over.” No, this was a list I made in high school. Old enough to use phrases like “should always be intuitive to my feelings,” and, “ideally, medium to muscular build, with a tan,” and “dry and witty sense of humour, but not so funny that he overshadows my jokes. Also, he can not have more than 3 tattoos.” Perfectly embarrassing, and I snatched it right back out of his hands and placed it back in the box. Then I wrapped the box in many rolls of tape, put it in a corner out of view and told everyone not to speak of it. So much for my narcissistic nostalgia – there are some things better left unremembered.

Realistically, I know there is no point in getting embarrassed over such a lame list. So I was envisioning my dream man when I was 17. So what? I should probably be more embarrassed over the fact that I used to keep a list of all the boys I’d kissed, or the fact that I kept a pros/cons list I made in 3rd year university when I met four guys in one weekend and used a homemade spreadsheet to figure out which one was the most “dateable.” (Personal favourites from said list include a con for “Chris” that read, “he does not like the film Napoleon Dynamite” and a pro for “Curtis” that was listed as “he kept telling me how hot I was.” Something tells me by university I still hadn’t progressed much on my priorities when it came to finding Mr. Right).

I should also probably be more embarrassed about a letter I once wrote when I was 23 about how much I hated my boss at the time – which my boss later found and read, or the letter I wrote when I was 12 to Jonathan Taylor Thomas declaring my undying love – which my mother found and read, or my journal entry when I was 14 about my giant crush on my brother’s friend – which my brother found and read (or so I think… I never could prove that one).

The point is, when you’re somebody like me, there’s no such thing as real privacy (let’s be honest, all you ever really need to know from me you’ll probably find after you’ve fed me 2 shots of tequila with a side of bar lime anyway – I like to spill my own secrets when intoxicated (and yes, it only takes 2 shots)). But writing is therapeutic (for me, anyway). For some reason, I need to do it or I’ll probably spontaneously combust. But I know the risks involved; as soon as it is recorded, and documented, it’s out there for the taking. It’s the same reason Inspector Gadget’s memos always self-destructed after he got them; there’s always the potential that they’ll get into the wrong hands (although I’m not sure why Chief Quimby never learned to not be around when those memos exploded).

Still, there is the “controlled exposure” effect. I still think I’d prefer to voluntarily offer up selected information rather than have someone stumble upon my rantings in my private spaces. Which is possibly why I’ve turned to blogging a little bit more and have been writing in my journal a little bit less.

There is something to be said for keeping some things private; which is why for now I’ll keep the pink box sealed, duct taped, and stored in some dark, unassuming corner.

Unless, of course, it’s tequila night - and you’re buying. Then all bets are off. :)

I’m just not that into bullshit gimmicks – your 15 minutes are up

In 2004, you may remember that a thin little book written by a couple of no-namers shot to fame practically overnight when God herself (Oprah Winfrey) decided to showcase the book on the Oprah Winfrey show. The reason you’ll remember this is because 5 years later, 2 million copies sold and a February 2009 release for the film, we’re still talking about He’s Just Not That Into You.

Seriously. Still.

Before I say anything else, I have to admit that while I’ve read excerpts of the book, I haven’t read it cover to cover (mostly because about 3 pages in, I realized the size of Greg Behrendt’s ego was too big to voluntarily force down my own throat). So I don’t mean to come off as one of those lazy extremist pundits who criticize without doing their homework, but with 11 chapters all beginning with “He’s just not that into you if…” and all of 165 pages of passive-aggressively telling women over and over that while they’re “superfoxy” (all of them?) they are also, in fact, stupid and desperate, I think I can safely assume that I get the gist.

I also want to give credit where credit’s due – I saw the film this past weekend (with a group of girlfriends, of course – because this is what girls do?), and it wasn’t quite the sexist, offensive piece of tripe I’d expected; quite frankly I think the Hollywood screenwriters saw the writing on the wall and transformed the narrow-minded book into a (slightly) more honest portrayal of dating today – from both a male and female perspective – before Behrendt and Liz Tucillo had the chance to be exposed as what they essentially come across as in the book - 1950’s-style admen asking women to get back to the kitchen. As I read in one review, playing to women’s insecurities might work in the self-help aisle; you need a little more flair and little more depth to make it work on the big screen.

So, while writers Behrendt and Tucillo are busy rolling around in their giant pools of money, I couldn’t resist the urge to offer up my own 2 cents before this incredibly long spat of 15 minutes are finally, actually up (though I won’t hold my breath; in our originality-deprived market, I wouldn’t be surprised if “Nope…he’s STILL just not that into you” hits theatres next year (would you be shocked?).

All I really want to say is very simple (though what I have to say isn’t a six-word marketable catch-phrase, so it may not be as popular). Dating is a giant pool of grey; it isn’t black and white, and it isn’t a mash-up of right and wrong. It may be full of games but it isn’t full of rules – at least not ones anyone should feel pressured to live by. And most importantly, dating need not be the kind of gender-war Behrendt and Tucillo make it out to be. This book doesn’t empower women to find the right man; it divides men and women – making men out to be the machine, and the women the ones reading the manual on how-to-use. Are we really that out-of-touch with each other?

How is this not obvious to all those women who see this book as their dating Bible; the one single portal into men’s brains?

“The guy I went out with last week isn’t calling.”
“He’s just not that into you.”

Am I the only one responding with, “duh?”

So, because one guy was honest with a woman, told her the truth instead of sugar-coating the problem and dancing around it (which, admittedly, many women do with their girlfriends – and I don’t think it’s that women don’t get it, I think it’s that we’re afraid of being harsh), we think this guy is brilliant?

A simpleton guy made a simple observation, got a response, and capitalized on it. He took one example of women not reading men's signals, and exploited all relationships everywhere by saying his ONE rule applies to ALL situations. He took women’s insecurities, naivety, and anxiety and sold it back to them, with a big, fat, in-your-face “you are a loser” title on it. He’s not that into you. He’s into something better. And he, my dear, calls the shots.

Personally, I don’t think Behrendt was trying to be all that malicious; while I think he could have been laughing all the way to the bank, I don’t think he was. I don’t think he realized the fools he had taken women to be; I just don’t think he’s that bright. I think he was one guy with one experience; I think all the rules and all the stories come directly out of his dating life. Women read it and recognized it because we’ve all dated that certain type before. The commitment-phobic alpha male bad boy – or whatever you want to call him. Chances are we have wasted time on someone who “just wasn’t that into us.” And maybe he did want to pursue us, and maybe he did get turned off when we became the female aggressor. But where’s the part in the book that says, but if THAT kind of behaviour turns YOU off, maybe you don’t want an alpha male at all? Why this generalization that all men are the same? Aren’t men offended by this?

Look, there are some truths in the book, and some advice to heed – like, women far too often will make excuses for a terrible man and a terrible relationship, and those women do deserve better. What’s problematic is the book’s backwards logic that tells you “it’s just the way men are; learn to read the signs.” Bad behaviour is given a green light. Men will be men. Hearts will be broken and lives will be disrupted. And there’s nothing you can do about it. He won’t get in trouble, so you may as well accept it and move on to the next guy. “There there, little girl. Don’t look for us; we’ll find you when we’re ready to be good.” And we’re SURPRISED when SO many beautiful, intelligent, interesting women DO settle for bad behaviour from men? We’ve just argued that it’s a case of boys being boys! If we’ve accepted it, why would there be any recourse? And if ALL men are capable of this, as the writers seem to argue, then what’s the point in dumping Slum Guy A when Slum Guy B is a carbon copy?

At the beginning of the movie, I confessed to my girlfriends that I didn’t really want to see this movie, to which one of my friends responded “you don’t want to see this? What kind of girl are you?!”

However serious my dear friend was, what I find the most alarming in all of this, is the expectation that if you’re of a certain age, female, and straight, then you must sip Cosmo’s, quiz each other on whether you’re a Carrie or a Samantha, shop at Banana Republic together and never let the conversation topics get any heavier than relationships, beauty or clothes. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of that – it’s just so limiting. It reminds me of being a little girl with my She-ra lunch box and my aversion to pink; when all the little girls in my class got together they wanted to make friendship bracelets and braid each other’s hair. I didn’t get it. And maybe it comes down to my childhood anxieties about never being a girly-girl and therefore never really fitting in, but I think that grown women have a bit more to them than this.

Truthfully, I’d like to see women up in arms about this book, and by extension, the movie; instead it has been taken for pop-wisdom. And I think it comes back to the fact that men and women feel awfully confused about the opposite sex. Which is kind of funny, because I really don’t think we’re all that different. But there sure are lot of books, movies, articles and popular ideas out there that would tell us that we are. And there are a lot of people making a lot of money off of it, too.

One of the few diversions from the book in the movie is a male character obsessed with a girl who’s been leading him on, but who’s clearly “not that into him.” Chances are, if the average woman reflects on her dating history, she’ll find a guy or two (or more) who were into her when she wasn’t interested. And chances are, she didn’t treat each of them with the greatest respect, either. We all go through phases of growing up and learning how to treat people and how we want to be treated when it comes to relationships. It comes down to emotional maturity, and self-esteem. Some people are mature enough to tell you they’re just not into you; some aren’t. Some people have the self-esteem to not take it personally when they don’t get a second date, some turn to ___ (fill in your guilty vice here).

The point is, you don’t need to turn to a cheap gimmicky book to get the answers on love. And if you’re whole life’s happiness is wrapped up in the idea of finding your paramour, then you don’t need advice on dating, you need advice on living! Enjoy your life. The rest will come.

2008 Wrap

A Tribute to the Year that Was
2008 - A Wrap

Well, it has now occurred to me that keeping up with one's blog is kind of like keeping up with one's correspondence with friends - it's a joy to keep in touch but it's a bitch to make the effort. Thank God for Facebook status updates and the opportunity to use the two-byte very-public wall post to prove you're still interested in your friends (and friends of friends... of friends) lives: "I hear you're pregnant again! (Hope this one was planned!) Congrats!"

But in the blogging world, there are no shortcuts to staying up to date - I have learned the lesson the hard way that you really have to put in the effort and blog ALL the time if you want to keep your blog interesting, relevant and visit-worthy. And you really can't show up a month late and blog about things that happened forever ago - that would be like going into my Outlook calendar and putting a new appointment for something that happened last month just because I forgot to put it in. It does make my social calendar reflect me as a busier and therefore more interesting person, which is why I do it, but also, it's kind of pointless. So if you're going to blog, you must only include the most up-to-the-minute, relevant social commentary.

Unless of course it happens to be the end of the year, in which case you can get away with a year-end summary of the year's events. Which, in this case, works out kind of conveniently for me.

Before you furiously start hitting the Back button to avoid a lengthy recap of recession woes, elections, Palinisms, coalitions, snowmaggedons and underrage Olympians, I want to tell you right now I'm not here to go into great detail over the year's major landmark events (such as the US' first black president) major disappointments (pretty much the entire 2008 box office? I'm sorry, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull actually made a profit?), or major shockers (Heath Ledger died!!??). Frankly, being the narcissist that I am, my Holiday Wrap is all about me. In no particular order, here's some of the best and worst moments for me in 2008:

#1 Quarter-Life Crisis

In 2008, I turned 25. This apparently means I've moved into an entirely new bracket. Gone are the days of checking off the 18-24 box in those free surveys that you fill out for fun to pass the time (anyone?); I have moved to a new box: the 25-34. Yikes. The world of refined tastes, enhanced cash flows (at least in theory) and friends with babies. No longer can I get away with wearing mis-matched socks to friends' houses, eating fish-sticks for dinner, or waking up with yesterday's make-up smeared across half my face in someone else's bed (not that I ever did that). The 25-34 box is all about maturity, elegance, and "grown-up-ness" (also you should start working on a more refined vocabulary by this age). This is also about the time when university-age kids whining about how much life sucks because they have to get up for Friday morning classes start to gnaw on your nerves, all-night benders followed by routine trips to your favourite porcelain god start to lose their lustre, and you start hearing your favourite songs being played on the easy-listening adult contemporary stations. Eek.

But, being the Libra that I am, in my effort to balance out my default pessimistic outlook, I have tried to see the silver lining in all of this abysmal aging process. For one, I can now get into 25+ clubs! Don't think this is that special? Spend one night at one of these clubs and it occurs to you that you are in fact the youngest, and therefore, by default, the best-looking person there! hurrah! Note: You're also the youngest and probably the most annoying person there. Don't waste a good thing by getting drunk and embarassing everyone. Apparently the 25-34 box is all about drinking WITHOUT the intention of getting drunk. This takes some getting used to.

Finally, my last recommendation for surviving the Quarter Life crisis is to simply date someone much older than you. They might make fun of you for having been in diapers while they were rocking out to Genesis, but you can always remind them that they are going to die first. (Just kidding, honey).

#2: I got a job! Unfortunately, it sucked!

This year I joined (and left) a company that gives new meaning to the phrase, truth is stranger than fiction... er.. maybe truth is funnier than fiction. Only, it wasn't actually "ha-ha funny" to work there. More like... "this job is so unbelievably awful I can almost find humour in it?"

But, as I did recently leave this job (and have since started a new one - more fun stories to come I'm sure), I have had the privilege of being able to look back and reflect on some of the most memorable aspects. I've decided that the following is what I'm going to miss most of all:

My desk. Or, more specifically, the location of my desk. My office was home to the always aesthethically-pleasing cubicle maze system. Ahh yes. These cubicle facades can be a tricky business, especially if you employ a staff of people who don't seem to quite understand scientific realities such as depth perception, the power of sound waves, or the fact that out of sight does not necessarily mean out of ear-shot. These walls seem to be present enough to invite the fantasy that there is in fact a barrier -- and therefore within the confines of said cubicle you're safe (and somehow encouraged) to reveal every inappropriately personal detail about yourself that you possibly can -- while also not quite present enough to prevent everyone in a 30-foot radius to hear all about who dumped you (again), who you plan on *expletive"-ing this weekend, and what colour chunks you spewed out all day Sunday after your cousin's gongshow of a birthday party Saturday night. Sometimes, in life, you get to learn way more about people than you ever wanted to - and though I may have spent about 5% of my day doing real work, I'll always cherish the other 95% I spent being involuntarily exposed to way, way TMI.

#3. Movin out and movin up.

With the job came another landmark - moving out of my parent's house. And this was not psuedo-moving out, like I did to go to university where my living expenses were still covered by my parents and my only purpose in life was to think for myself, write some papers and roll out of bed for noon classes (yes, I was that annoying kid who complained about it too) - this year I actually left. Left to never return. Exhilarating, yes, but also daunting. Mostly because, as I also turned 25 this year, I actually had to learn how to cook (see above on how fish sticks are no longer acceptable food fare).

Learning to cook proved interesting and challenging. I got to know ingredients I had never met before - I must have paced up and down the produce aisle 15 times before I finally caved and asked the teenaged stock boy what cilantro looked like. Luckily, being the teenaged stock boy that he was - he had never even heard of cilantro, so I got to give him a condescending look instead of the other way around (whew). And I felt even better when I took a cooking class and watched one of my classmates spend 8 minutes trying (unsuccessfully) to open an upside down can of kidney beans. Thank God my growing up on tuna and ravioli taught me at least the right-side of a can.

Though I may still be a slow-learner when it comes to cooking great meals, the important part is I AM learning (things like - when you go grocery shopping with a long list of ingredients and chicken is the most essential ingredient in your dish, don't forget to buy the chicken).

Anyway, a lot of other things happened to me in 08, but I'm tired of writing and if you're still reading this, you're probably considering suicide, so I'll stop here.

So, that's all folks. I'll try harder to be a more diligent blogger in 2009.

Best of luck. Here's hoping the dwindling economy doesn't piss away your life savings. Happy New Year!

Sports, Economy and Uncle Scrooge

Not to be a conformist, but the topic on everyone's lips these days seems to revolve around the unstable economy, so I may as well go ahead and acknowledge it here. It's such a popular topic in fact, it seems to have taken the number one slot for "safe topic" at cocktail parties, family gatherings and awkward first dates; generally, everyone seems to agree that we're all in a bit of a pickle. There's something almost tranquil about that - the sweet, kumbaya-like joining of hands between staunch libertarians, lefty peaceniks and your friendly neighbourhood neo-cons as they together blast the government for offering now trillions of dollars in corporate bail-outs.

Still, I think this unity and togetherness will likely be pretty short-lived. Soon, we will look differently at our (former) friends who got to keep their jobs while we got the lay-off axe; we will decide that the poor little children with nothing at Christmastime don't really need our charity (at least not as much as we need to keep our money safe in our bank accounts); we will go out less, spending more time hunkering down at home. If the recession looms long enough, we're all at risk of turning our focuses inward; of becoming hermits; of shouting "Bah Humbug!" the next time someone comes tapping on our door looking to sustain the surface population. So much for Kumbaya.

I was thinking about this the other day when I heard some CBC sports pundit make a reference to the future of Detroit should the 3 major automakers go bust. "It will be a ghost town," he said. "And the Red Wings could be history."

Suddenly, even with all the apocalyptic rhetoric floating around these days and the comparisons to Depression-era times, the possibility that Detroit could go under and with it, a historic team like the Detroit Red Wings, I at last came to and said "gosh, goodness, this whole mess is actually quite serious" (or something like that) - and this, from someone who doesn't much care for hockey.

The potential loss of a pro sports team - a winning sports team - due to outside economic factors somehow struck me as tragic in an entirely irrational sense. People really are losing their jobs, and homes, and I am not for a moment going to argue that losing a sports team is at all comparable - it just seems tragic on a different kind of level.

In mentioning this to my brother, he was good enough to provide me with a link to Dave Zirin (sports-writer-phenomenon)'s blog and an interview he gave on MSNBC's Morning Joe to plug his new book, A People's History of Sports in the US. And once I'm techy enough to figure out how to post links or videos, I'll share these with you.

Anyway, Zirin was discussing just this topic of interest - that even during the Depression, sports was one place where people could go to escape their dire realities. They could scrape together some change and go catch an afternoon ball game. Now, pro sports depend on the corporate elite to survive: the entire lower bowl of the new Yankee Stadium is dedicated to corporate season-ticket holders; and how many of them will keep tickets as expenses in the face of today's economy?

Pro sports, the way it is designed today, can and will crumble under a destitute economy. For some reason that tugs at my heart strings (and not only as a sports fan - yes, I'm a non-hockey-loving sports fan); I think because sports have and do hold a special place in our history. I suppose I would feel the same way if the big studios stopped producing movies. We don't need these things - but having them there reinforces the notion that we're okay. If we make time for play - to leave the daily grind, to imagine a world outside of our own, to follow games and storylines that don't really matter - then maybe we can feel like we're all still kids playing baseball on the street. Eventually our moms will call us in to dinner; but for now, there's 2 outs, there are runners on the corners, and Casey's at the bat.

Don't we need moments like that?

Welcome, bloggers and bloggees

Welcome to my first post of my first blog, ever. Basically, you are right this second enjoying the fruits of my procrastinating labour. I should be doing laundry, buying groceries, ironing, packing my lunch for work tomorrow, cleaning my desk, doing my taxes (it's still 2008 right?), e-stalking (I mean, facebooking) my friends and enemies, and/or applying to jobs to meet my quota of rejected resumes for the week.

Instead, I've decided to attempt to join the ranks of my fellow techy twenty-somethings in forming a blog and writing about, pretty much nothing of interest to anyone other than myself (and even I have trouble staying interested most of the time). If nothing else I will have one place for all my warped ideas and thoughts to go, since my purse will likely soon collapse under the weight of my collection of bad ideas that seemed like good ideas at the time written down on multiple sheets of scrap paper (have I yet revealed how un-techy I really am?).

I'm not really sure how all of this works, or why anyone would read this, but should you have accidentally stumbled upon my blog on your way to a site that is actually useful in some sense, I'll do my best to entertain you while you're here (er, if you're entertained by one girl's strange criticisms of life, politics (mostly office and sexual), pop culture and the world in general as she trys to maintain sanity and find her god-given purpose in the apparently god-forsaken urban jungle. Enjoy.