Incompetent Movie Critic Extraordinaire

Note: I have not seen some of these movies. But that doesn't stop be from being opinionated.

George Clooney and Ewan McGregor could star in the movie, “George Clooney and Ewan McGregor Just Stare at Goats for Two Straight Hours, Charmingly,” and I would go to see that movie.

Wes Anderson movie = “Wow, that’s weird, and kind-of-funny, in a ‘huh,’ awkwardish way, but also just mostly weird and very, very sad.”
Wes Anderson + George Clooney + Stop-Animation + Plot Regarding Adorable Foxy Animals = “Wow, that was really fantastic, Mr. Fox.”

George Clooney also flies in airplanes, and does some other stuff...needless to say, I approve.

Sherlock Holmes played by Robert Downey Jr. = I admit, I have a giant crush of Robert Downey Jr.. This is my second biggest crush on a former heroin addict to date. Wait, actually, the other person is still an active heroin user, so...ya. Robert Downey Jr. is hot.

Precious = Imagine being poor, obese, black, the victim of sexual abuse by your father since the age of 3, beaten by your mother, the mother of a three year old girl with Down’s syndrome (by your father), pregnant with your second child (also by your father), illiterate, infected with HIV...If imagining that for two hours sounds like fun to you, then watching this movie should be good times.

And that is what I think about the movies.

The Naughtie Aughties

If you’re going to start analysing the decade, you might as well do it from the perspective of an American Baby Boomer.

Try as we might to acknowledge that Canadian culture is slightly different than that of our Southern neighbour, or that we and most people we like were actually born in the mid 1980s, it really doesn’t matter. The vast majority of our culture’s influence is from the perspective of a white, middle class American man born sometime in the winter of 1947. And like it or not, this is his story.

Our protagonist knew a simple, homey life within the 1950s. This era will remain synonymous with the good old days and the American dream - mostly because our baby boomer was too young to observe the nuances of domestic conflict, rising feminism, and racial inequities which were rampant and rising. He remembers a slightly hazy, very comforting time. He remembers his parents and they seemed happy. Milkshakes...I remember milkshakes. They had cherries on top. That sort of thing.

Along with the development of our baby-boomers brain came the rise of his hormones and the experience of social awareness, conflict, and rebellion. This was the sixties. Our baby boomer kissed a girl, smoked some pot, went to college and felt that he was smarter than everyone he had ever met back home. He railed against injustice. He argued about Vietnam. He did not grasp the concept of gentrification, or the hypocrisy of berating the establishment of his parents while simultaneously eating their food and making daisy-necklaces on their lawn. Those were judgements reserved for a different time...fucking hipsters. This was a time of passion, truth, and ideals.

Eventually, our baby boomer stopped smoking so much pot and got a job. And while we’re still pretty vague as to what, exactly, happened during the 70s, by the 80s things were going well. There was excess enough for hairspray and globular lipstick. And by the 1990s, our baby boomer had risen through the ranks of his respective career and found himself to be established, secure, and indomitable. He had money. He had power. He was, in his own way, ‘the man.’ And being the man, it turns our, is generally a kickass thing to be.

Which isn’t to say that he flaunted his power, or entirely forgot his impassioned, pot-smoking days. He gave to charity. He rallied for AIDS. He has treated his own children, now young adults, in a manner which would have been unheard of within his father’s belt-whipping heyday. (And herein we learn that our baby boomer, likely, has some very deep seeded psychological issues.) And generally, there is no question that The Man is, for all of his prestige, a pretty great, down-to-earth guy.

Enter the aughties, step into the 00's.

Think what you may of the preamble, the causes, and the specific acts and consequences, but at some point or another, our baby boomer, and the North American, middle-aged, middle-class society he represents, was complacent in some of the following: the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, the election and re-election of President Bush (or if you’re Canadian, Stephen Harper), Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, unprecedented greed, unprecedented profit, and the eventual collapse of Wall Street and the global economy. Did you personally rape an Iraqi teenager, insight a civil war, or take a smiling photograph of yourself in front of a pyramid of naked torture victims? Well, no. Certainly not. And yet, in another way, in the way that happens when you yourself are an intrinsic part of a society that commits unconscionable, terrible acts...you did.

(Canadian Society, don’t get smug. If you don’t think your country was complacent in torturing child soldiers, burning crops of Afghan peasants, and committing a series of acts which gall the human spirit on an equal level to our American counterparts, you’d be wrong. We’re a smaller country with a much smaller military, but considering that, we did good.)

So, the year 2010 is upon us, and our protagonist in the the verge of turning 63. The decade ahead could be a time of simpler things, of leisure, of mutual funds, of establishing his legacy as he gives up the reins and begins to think ‘retire.’ It could be many, many things.

A man who’s not as handsome or persuasive as he once was has a slightly shaky hand and greying hair when he says, “I did what I had to do. Don’t you dare judge me.” And I look at him coldly and I say that, I do. I am railing against the man that I may inevitably become. But it’s barely 1970, to me, and I still think that, this time around, anything could happen.

I'm Not a Doctor, and that's probably a good thing

When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. Or, if you're me, think of tapirs, a species native to Malaysia and Central and South America, whose body resembles the capybara, which is actually a type of rodent.

And if you're my sister, and you're awesome (which you likely are - awesomeness is genetic), you will bestow unto me the following perfect gift - "The Complete Manual of Things That Might KILL YOU - A Guide to Self Diagnosis for Hypochondriacs." The only thing that could make this book better is if the title replaced "could" kill with "definitely will, and soon."

Unlike many similar-looking gimicky books, which are designed purely for the amusement of the book-giver (as in "You have an awkward personality trait! Look! A novelty gift which allows me to highlight the awkwardness of your personality trait!"), the inside is actually brimming with useful facts and information which not only encourage, but aid my exotic pathogen discovery. For example, did you know that  mosquitoes (only the females of which suck blood) inject anticoagulants into a mammal's blood - and that this secretion is the major transmitter of diseases like malaria and elephantiasis? Or that the odds of getting leukemia within your lifetime, for the average man, is 1 in 67? Or that bilateral, surgical mammomegaly is the root-latin word for a boob job?

All this information, and more, is conveniently gathered at my fingertips, along with handy flow-charts and a rating system highlighting contagion, lethality, and a 1 to 5 scale for pain and suffering. Eeee!

But my love of obscure diseases is not just about my own neurotic amusement. For example, last week, a real live doctor (specializing in neurology) diagnosed my mother's husband with 'migraines of the stomach, for lack of a better term.' My own diagnosis, given a week prior: Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome, the medical term for migraines affecting the stomach. Unlike my mother's migraines, which I've determined are caused by Arteriovenous Angiomas, or raspberry shaped pustules leaking blood into her brain. ...See? Hypochondria enriches lives!

And now, a math formula which perfectly summarizes my day, because math, like the latin routes of medical terms, is very cool:

(Hours of Sleep Last Night * Waking Hours Spent Watching Videos on College Humor) + Smelly Coefficient (which is greater or equal to the number of clothes on your floor divided by how many clean underpants you regularly have available when you choose to do the laundry)...equals one over the Odds of My Cleaning the Toilet by Sundown. (This formula has been proven accurate according to Modern-Day Science.)

Goodnight =)

In French, 'like' and 'love' are the same word.

Love isn't blind, it's blinding.

Think of love like a bacterial infection. Often, it enters through the eyes, or through direct contact of other mucous membranes, like the mouth, or sometimes the genitals, leading to infection. Previously, before sterilization techniques were widespread, contaminated food was a common entryway, leading to infection of the stomach, which is a particularly speedy and devastating route.

Once infected, many are able to fight off the love-bacteria on their own, but for a few, the infection spreads, eventually moving on to other organs and, eventually, the lungs and heart. Once bacteria have entered the heart, the individual in question begins exhibiting the most severe symptoms and the bacteria becomes almost impossible to remove.

At this point, individuals may experience palpitations, nausea, vomiting, and very commonly, diarrhea. More severe cases lead to tinnitus (ringing in the ears, often a high-pitched 'violin-like' noise), and the characteristic 'blindness,' experiences of seeing auras, and the vision problems mentioned above.

Doctors continue to advise vulnerable individuals to avoid alcohol, which seems to weaken the body's natural defenses against invading pathogens, including the love bacteria. Avoid crowds, cough into your sleeve, and be cautious around those that you suspect may be already infected.

If you yourself are infected, it is important to stay hydrated, get lots of rest, and wait for the bacteria to take its course. Often, this takes only a few weeks, though sometimes as long as two years, especially with repeat exposures.

Unfortunately, love has been shown to be resistant to even the strongest of antibiotics. Medical intervention has not been found to be helpful, and may actual be counter-productive in many cases, as it forces infected individuals out into the community, where they risk exposing others and talking endlessly about the symptoms of their infection, which is quite bothersome. If you think you might be infected, please, stay home.

Godspeed, one day we'll find a cure.

Got to Admit It's Getting Better

A great deal of the time, I feel an overwhelming need to declare, “This sucks. The world is an abysmal and horrible place full of abuses of power and random acts of pain filled-destruction. Our lives are a chasm of meaningless torment and inevitable pain at the end of which we die and hope and light seem to exists purely to illuminate our downward plight…of doom.” And I’d be right.

The world is, often, a horrible place. There’s a lot to get upset about. And for those who are educated, caring, and concerned, the usual recluse of bliss in ignorance ceases to be an option. We must acknowledge things like corruption and AIDS if we expect those things to improve - we must give our time, attention, and energy to things which we have the power to change. And, generally, I do.

But sometimes, amid the exasperating hopelessness of it all, there is a time for other things. Like acknowledging that, right now, for me at least, things are the best they’ve ever been.

***

Right now, I do not have exams to study for. I do not have lectures to go to at 8am, or even 10am, and I have no papers to write. I do not have to cite sources or format my margins to match MLA or APA formatting. I do not have to do anything. When I read, I do so solely for interest and pleasure.

I do not have to pay tuition, and I am able to work full time, which means I have enough money to pay my bills. Every month, I pay off student loans, and in less than three years I’ll be debt free. I make more money than I spend. I can pay my rent. I know where my next meal is coming from.

I have employment benefits - I don’t full understand them yet, but I know that they exist (this is all very new). I get a cheque to reimburse me for money spent on pharmaceuticals, speaking of which, I have Fair Pharmacare, which means the government of BC feels sad for me, and makes me pay only $40 for over $200 worth of prescription drugs every month, and for all of next year. Oh, and I bought myself a SAD lamp to combat the effects of season-affective depression, so I have that, too.

I have a gorgeous, underutilized bicycle (of European styling!). I have free internet, and cable, and way nicer clothes than I’ve ever had at any point throughout my life. I have a new macbook (arriving in time for Christmas), and functionally large accommodation, and a fenced back yard for my puppies - which is actually quite a huge deal.

I have rapid transit, fifty feet from my front door, which takes me downtown in five minutes. My commute has never been shorter, and I have a job that I’m good at and enjoy. My boss does not secretly hate me or believe that I am in any way her arch nemesis…I’m pretty sure. In other words, I have security, and my day-to-day life, while filled with lots of angst, does not feel like a giant pressure cooker where the odds are stacked against me and my heart is a panicking caged bird and it’s all going to explode.

I guess, a lot of my life has felt like that…school has a way of exploiting over-anxious, perfectionist girls.

And finally, I have my puppies, and really, any life with multiple puppies can kick the ass of a life without puppies, any day of the week. It’s a small, fuzzy family, and some people will judge us for our interspecies affection, but, whatever. I love my puppies, and they love me, too.

And now, I’m going to eat a chocolate pecan butter tart and watch whatever I want on TV, because I can.

Goodnight.

I can look homeless?

Randomest Activity of the Week:

I was pulled out of a meeting at work to act as an emergency, last-minute model for a national end-homelessness campaign. The group (which is raising funds for some very cool and innovative interagency activities) had been using our drop-in centre for a big photo-shoot, but they were unable to find enough young women among our centre’s client demographic of older and middle-aged men. Enter me, apparently. They looked me over, “I guess she’ll do.”

A social-work practicum student and I found ourselves awkwardly awaiting direction from the campaign manager and photographer.

“You need to take out your pigtails.” Me, sad, “okay.”

“Put your hands in your hoodie pockets. You need to look more tough. Wait, less tough. More feminine. No, no, try to smile, but still look fundamentally sad. Good. Oh, your scruffy running shoes are perfect!”

I doubt my scruffy running shoes and I will be used in the actual campaign- I am the least photogenic person I know, I don‘t know how to ‘smile with my eyes,’ or my mouth, really, and I don’t know how to look tough or feminine. Their quest for individuals looking street-involved, or ‘rough and weathered,’ is not exactly what people think of when they see anything to do with me - on my more attractive days, when a group of Japanese girls see me, they all squeal loudly and exclaim ‘she looks like a doll!’ and then cover their mouths to giggle. Seriously. This happens about once a month. ?!

But there remains a slight chance that my face will end up on a bus ad, or a billboard, in Vancouver or a city far away. I like to think, in my hometown Ontario, someone will pick up a paper and think, “Oh my god. I know that crystal-meth addicted single mom!” And my mom, heading to work, will be stopped in her tracks by a sizable billboard plastered across the street from the school where she teaches, “This girl’s parents kicked her out at the age of thirteen. Now she smokes crack and sleeps in a dumpster. Will you shut the door on her, too?”

The thought of that does make me smile.

On Notice: Vancouver Drivers, Standard Time

Last “night,” one pedestrian was killed and six others were sent to the hospital (in five separate incidents) because Vancouver drivers could not be bothered to slow down.

Now, there’s a few factors here which I could rant about - one being the end of ‘daylight savings time,’ which puts us all in darkness ridiculously early and decreases visibility on the roads.

Daylight savings was originally proposed as a permanent plan to put human activities in sync with daylight hours, thus saving millions of dollars annually on artificial lighting (thus conserving precious resources during World War II). Like many good ideas subject to a democratic (and bureaucratic) process, it was whittled down to half a year of synchronized daylight…which, okay, that really doesn’t make sense, and won’t we all have to change our clocks twice a year, that sounds pretty inconvenient, but at least we’ll save a lot of money during the summer, so, okay….Yeah. That’s how we got out current daylight savings/standard time clock-changing system. And it doesn’t make any sense.

During the shortest days of the year, sunlight becomes all the more precious - and even more-so now that we know about Vitamin D and Seasonal Affective Disorder. For those of us who live in the land of perpetual cloud-cover, Vancouver, a chance to see the sun feels a little like winning the lottery...and a reduction of those odds feels especially cold.

Today, the sun rose at 7:44am, and it set at 4:18pm - total hours of daylight just eight and a half. This puts the sun’s central point in the sky at high noon (12pm), which has a nice ring and historical significance (and is how Standard Time is determined, I presume). However, high noon is not the central point of most Canadian’s days, even if we are an agricultural and rather lame country, comparatively. Today was my first day off in a traumatic, sickly week, so I slept in until about 10am…which is really super late, but not entirely uncommon. So I missed over 25% of that day’s meagre dose of sun - a huge proportion. For a time system to be logical and fair, it would make the best use of daylight, proportionately, for all Canadians - so for every young adult sleeping in to 10am and missing two hours of sun, someone else would be going to bed at…2pm. Seriously. Does that happen?

The logic for Standard Time simply does not exist - we should get our daylight so that it coincides with times that all (or at least, most) Canadians are awake to enjoy it. This might mean going to work at 8am when the sun hasn’t risen…which sucks. But spending the majority of your day in darkness is always going to suck…it’s just the reality of living in the far North during the winter. Suck it up or more to Hawaii, I guess.

The net result of proper ‘daylight saving’ means that more Canadians are out-and-about during sun-lit hours, which means fewer Canadians with SAD, fewer lights being turned on (and millions of dollars in energy savings, which is kind of popular right now, for the sake of the polar bears), and fewer pedestrians being killed in the dark at 5pm by speeding motorists. (The old man who was killed was hit along with another woman…meaning that the driver somehow didn’t see both pedestrians in the middle of the street?)

Now, on to the speeding motorists…*

*Being a speeding motorist doesn't necessarily mean that you're going fifty miles above the speed limit...it means that your speed is too high given your competencies as a driver and the current road conditions. So...the motorists was 'speeding' if they could not slow down in time to not hit the two elderly people walking very slowly in the middle of the road (and they were going fast enough to kill and critically wound said elderly people....so, fast enough.)

About a month ago, I almost died when a motorist decided to turn right, despite the fact that I was crossing the street a foot from his bumper (at a crosswalk, on a green light). My hand hit the bumper (as the driver screeched to a stop), and my body did not, and I get to live to pass on this angry tale.

Two years ago, another car making a right turn on a red light ran over my puppy, on leash, crossing the road, at a cross-walk, and then paused before speeding away. My puppy, despite going in to shock, survived. Two thousands dollars and immeasurable psychological trauma later, I was happy to have my puppy home, and it’s not about the money, or the trauma, it’s about the value of life.

So, seriously, Vancouver drivers…slow down. Stop turning right on red lights - it is clearly an option that you do not know how to handle. Stop running stop signs and yellow lights - slowing down is not an arbitrary instrument of the man. A friend who bikes to work (who is also, actually, pregnant) recalled the many near-misses she’s had on Vancouver’s bike paths, due to early morning motorists failing to stop at stop signs - most motorists get that they have to make sure another car isn’t coming, but forget the subtleties of looking out for men, women, children, on bicycle or on foot.

And this is the thing, Vancouver motorists - when you inevitably commit vehicular manslaughter, whether or not you decide to hit-and-run or to stay on the scene, it’s going to mess up YOUR day. It’s going to make you late for work, or to your daughter’s piano recital, or wherever it is that you’re rushing off to in such a hurry. It’s going to mess up your life. Did the police find bits of silver paint chips on the crushed little boy during the autopsy - did they match them to your brand of SUV? These are the questions you’ll have to ask yourself, at night, and when you hug your kids, you’ll have to know that they are as worthless to everybody else as that person you hit is to you. Watching them walk down the street, cross the road….these are the things that will fuck with your head.

So, Vancouver drivers, SLOW DOWN. Obey traffic laws. Stop killing pedestrians. It’s not for my sake, or my dog’s, or my friend’s or her baby’s, or for the minimum of seven people you hit with your cars last night…seriously. It’s for your own good.

Fruit Medley

Everyone’s a perfectionist. Some people are just better at it than others.

It had been the worst morning ever. Now, I know what you’re thinking - what about that morning my father died, and then I had to sit in the car with my socially obstinate grandmother for three hours on the way to and from getting a painful root canal. Well, that was pretty bad. But…whatever. This morning sucked, too.

I've just had a two foot cable shoved up my nose, attached to a camera, so that a doctor could tell me there's nothing wrong, and also, I have hearing loss. Fuck you, 7:30a.m. doctor's appointment in God-forsaken Burnaby.

I arrived for work, an hour and a half late. I walked in to our morning meeting near tears. My coworkers looked concerned, "Don't be upset....Nobody really cares whether you're here or not."

Editing the newsletter and printing out a sample copy should have taken me five minutes. Two hours later, I found myself on my knees in front of the photo-copier pleading “Hubert,” (I had named the photocopier Hubert), “for the love of baby Jesus, just tell me what’s wrong...” Three paper jams, three different computers, two printers, one photocopier, and a brief intervention from my boss later, I gave up. I hate technology.

Worst. Morning. Ever.

Mind and Body

The old-school philosophy dictated that Mind and Body were very separate things. The body was our temple, our instrument, our mortal coil, while the mind (or, in more religious texts, the ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’) was entirely separate, non-corporeal, and possibly immortal, depending on your culture’s beliefs in the afterlife and ghosts.

Of course, the separate entities could affect one another, just as any close neighbours inevitably do. But to confuse one’s toenail with one’s eternal soul was considered confusing blasphemy.

We are now in modern and enlightened times, but I remained perturbed every time I encountered the phrase ‘mind and body,’ even if it was in a health-sciences lecture studying the mind-body connection. (Similar combined phrase that are always technically wrong: ‘drugs and alcohol,' 'sun and stars,' etc.)

The mind is a part of the body. More specifically, the brain is an organ of the body, and the conscious mind is a function of the nervous system, which exists mostly in the brain, but has tendrils extending outwards from our beating heart to our downtrodden toe. Our brain is constantly interpreting signals from every inch of our body, and all of these signals have the potential to affect our thoughts and behaviour, so, really, the ‘mind’ is a dynamic paradigm of a concept, if anything at all.

We like the idea of the mind, because we like to think that we are more than an intricate combination of many cells, but we’re not. Face it. You are an infrastructure of cells - a collection of tissue and lard that can think and walk and read stuff on the internet.

According to this perspective, your toenail is very much You, because you are contained in every one of your cells, and the combination of all of those cells makes up every part of your being.

The part of you that you think is special and unique - your conscious self - is a function of the tissue and lard. We developed conscious minds as a function of our bodies to aid their survival (like the ability to poo, or to grow towards the light). At some point in our development, our perception of external stimulus (temperature, sound, light, etc.) was being processed by our nervous system, and this system became complicated enough that we became ‘conscious,’ and eventually self-aware.

And herein lies a very special conceptual framework which I’ve found myself stumbling into lately…for we are not our toenails, or even our brains, so much as a parasite or a cancer.

The mind was created by the body to aid it in getting food, sex, and shelter. But as human society evolved, our thoughts became more complicated - we studied philosophy and algebra. We smoked pot and stared at the stars. We started doing thinks like using birth control and living in Antarctica - things which seem the very opposite of our evolutionary purpose.

In other words, our minds got out of control, and our bodies were forced to watch, helpless, as their Frankensteinian monster subjected them to the lemonade cleanse and the Atkins diet. I sometimes think of my body as a small and withered prisoner, trapped in a darkened cell: “Please don’t drink more diet coke, I’m begging you, the acid burns me so…”

Our bodies are much like humans of the Terminator universe, who created the computers who eventually rose up against them (I think…it’s been a long time since the 80s). And according to this stance, our bodies are not only our creators and former masters, but our enemies. If they know what’s good for them, they’ll destroy us - the conscious mind - for good. Unless we, like the supercomputers, rise up against them first. Time is running out.

Who’s with me? I could certainly go for some Dunkin' Donuts.

Listed Annoyances of Now

Things that have annoyed me in the last twenty-or-so minutes:

1. Bright neon signs declaring that a place of business is open when said place of business is clearly NOT open. What the hell? Shop owners, are you just lazy? You are actively spending money and burning the ozone layer to convey a message which is entirely inaccurate…in fact, the opposite of accurate. Why? Do you think that no one walks the street at night (during the time of day when your sign is, ironically, most visible, and your store is always closed)? Well, people do walk the streets at night. Nice people. People that matter. So stop blatantly lying right to our faces and turn off your sign at night.

2. “Adaptation is not an option,” a poster campaign produced by the Vancouver Aquarium featuring pictures of arctic animals ‘adapted’ to a warming climate via photoshop (e.g. a polar bear wearing zebra stripes, a Nemo-coloured beluga, that sort of thing.) Pretty the pictures may be, but the message ‘adaptation is not an option,’ is actually the opposite of true. Adaptation is always an option…and in fact, in terms of arctic climate change, adaptation is the only option. As the world changes (as it constantly does and always has), species will adapt according to survival of the fittest. Some species will certainly die out in the process, and other species will flourish, adapt and take their place.

Polar bears always have and always will adapt according to evolutionary principles (survival of the fittest and all that). And if the polar bears are going to live, that’s pretty much their only chance. I don’t think anyone has any functional theories on reversing the pre-existing effects of climate change…so unless you yourself have a plan to prevent Hudson Bay from melting this winter, there’s not a lot we can do.

On a related note, wouldn’t it be totally awesome if the Vancouver Aquarium had polar bears? If I were a busybody philanthropist, I would totally hit up that cause.

Suicidology, Random Shoe-ology

It’s been a depressing day. God is vomiting down rain from above in a perpetual sickening motion, prompting extreme weather warnings and making travel outdoors an exercise in cold, wet, disgusting torture. I have a headache from caffeine withdrawal, Britney Spears specials are playing on MTV (I am watching them because I am a sadist), and the heat in my building has been off for an excruciating twenty-four hour period, most of which I’ve spent huddled under every blanket I own, shivering, sad, and very much alone.

“Curse you, God! Curse you, paparazzi! Curse you, poorly insulated mortal flesh!” …And this is about when I start thinking of suicide.

Not actively, mind you. More in a fantasizing, philosophical sort of way.

Later in the day, I stumbled across this piece in the New Yorker about jumpers off the Golden Gate Bridge. During a darker period, I had watched, online, a documentary on the same subject; if snuff video footage of real jumpers, interspersed with tearful footage of their devastated loved ones, doesn’t make you feel bright and chipper, I just don’t know what will.

The New Yorker article is, in an anecdotal, weaving, and not unpleasant way, making the following statements: suicidal people don’t really want to commit suicide, a suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge would save lives, and if you oppose the Suicide Barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge, you are likely a white republican and/or generally terrible human being who looks down on the mentally ill.

Hm. I seem to have issue with all of those statements.

Also, let’s be clear on one thing, as I start my somewhat defensive rebuttal: the Golden Gate Bridge is not alive. It does not speak, it does not enchant, and it does not possess any magical powers. Suicides happen the world over, not just in the San Francisco Bay area, and the Golden Gate bridge is a means, not a cause, of many of those troubled ends.

The lure of certain bridges is a unique and perplexing puzzle. The Golden Gate Bridge ranks number one in the world, probably, for many reasons. It is beautiful, scenic, and lethally tall. Its reputation for luring jumpers has grown exponentially over time, luring tourists from across the country and around the world. And yet every city seems to have its popular jump spots and bridges - suicide barricades erected on the Eiffel tower, Empire State Building, and Sydney Harbour Bridge were a response to their suicidal appeal.

And while those suicide barriers did stop countless would-be jumpers, they saved tourism and human resource dollars far more than they saved human lives. Suicide numbers, per capita, do not decrease with suicide barriers. (They also don’t increase with books that tell people how to euthanize themselves using plastic bags, in case you were wondering.) Suicide continues to happen at the same rate, in a different place, in a different way. Stopping would-be jumpers on the bridge and getting them into counselling and psychiatric care is probably saving more lives than keeping those jumpers at home with knives, belts, rat poison, shoe laces, and countless other would-be methods at every depressed person’s disposal. (Remember my mentioning plastic bags?)

The New Yorker article staunchly opposes this point, noting that those who survive suicide attempts do not usually try again. …True. Most suicides are crisis based. But not having the option of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, or any other single landmark, does not constitute surviving a suicide attempt, and it isn’t likely to resolve a suicidal crisis. Plus, I already told you, the total numbers of suicides don’t actually change, at all, with suicide barriers.

The only thing that has been shown to reduce the total number of suicides is to stop the reporting of suicides (making the entire New Yorker article a little counter-productive). News media rarely report on those who jump off bridges or in front of trains, and if you’ve been held up for hours while police coax a jumper off of the Lion’s Gate Bridge, the only thing you’ll hear is that it’s a “police incident.”

I understand the reasoning for this (since it actually does save lives), but this thin veil of secrecy bothers me for a few reasons (not the least of which is the fact that psychiatric emergencies are seen to almost exclusively by regular, under-trained police). After having run over a man on a sky-train, I scanned the internet frantically, looking for news, cathartic release, an explanation - and none came. I never learned if he fell, or jumped, or lived, because the story was never reported. For those who witness a jumper or are held up in traffic due to a ‘police incident’, it might be nice to have some closure, if only in the form of a few vague details. Then again, that’s asking for transparency from the police, and, well, I’ve certainly become jaded and bitter.

Speaking of which, sort of, the shores of Southern BC have long been awash with random, disembodied feet. Police and news media have told the public not to panic, but offered absolutely no explanation as to why all these creepy feet are ‘naturally’ washing up on shore. A worthy explanation did come on the CBC website in an article reporting that two feet belonged to the same chronically depressed and ‘missing’ Vancouver man…though not within the actual article, which stated the same tirade of ‘perfectly natural’ and ‘well, we have our reasons, and we just don’t feel like sharing with you at the present time,’ et cetera. A commenter, Edmond Burk, shed some light:

I'm almost certain these shoes are the remains of jumpers from the Pattullo Bridge.

The swift currents of the Fraser wash their remains down river and sometimes right across the Strait of Georgia. It's a fact that the Coast Guard are often called out for jumpers at the Pattullo but never immediately find the remains.

More people jump from there than the public know about.

Why is it so popular to do it from there? For one thing it's close to the drug trading dens of North Surrey, not to mention New Westminster. Do you think there's a link between taking hard drugs and taking one's life? Gee, I don't know.

Until the moronic people who habitually make up excuses for the continuation of hard core drug use in this province wake up to themselves we're only going to be dealing with, and paying for, the fallout such as investigating these mystery shoes.

And…point taken, opinionated Edmond Burke. Social marginalization, depression, and poverty relate to both drug use AND suicide. I would snark at you more, but I'm ever so cold, so I'm saving some of this fury in order to stave off hypothermia for another few hours.

Bottom line: shoes are from jumpers, jumpers are often from the Golden Gate Bridge, and writers from the New Yorker are somewhat wrong.

An October to Remember

October, it seems, came and went, and ne'er did a single blog post pass my lips, or, um, fingers, to tap their sweet words out unto the keyboard of the blogosphere. Alas.

A great many things happened in October, though. Things like Thanksgiving, the traditional occasion of Canadians gorging themselves to near bulimia whilst listening to the shrill echoes of family members coming together to give thanks. I have no family in the city, and considered whether or not I should get a turkey sandwich from 7-Eleven, or buy a single, microwavable dinner for one, and eat it alone, watching Jeopardy, in a room poorly lit from a single, bare light bulb. In the end, that seemed like much too much effort. I went to bed, and the day came and went much like any other.

There was also Halloween and, again, I did not partake in any activities of note, except at work, where I took to making ghosts out of pillow cases and hanging them from various spots on the ceiling. I spent about six hours on this, total, and in the end, my ghosts largely looked like pillow cases, stuffed with shredded paper and tied with elastic bands, hung on dental floss from the ventilator chutes. They were taken down the next day. It was totally worth it.

And then…well…a lot of other stuff happened, too. I passed my probation period at my work, which is happy, and various friends were struck down with various ailments, which is unhappy. Flus, strokes, projectile televisions, and general stress of life (which is often much like a projectile television) came crashing down upon those I care about but, generally, everyone survived.

The swine flu (aka plague of porcine death) struck work fairly hard, and despite being a front-line health worker who’s clients are mostly HIV positive, I was not eligible for vaccine until three weeks after we all got sick (and three weeks after the Olympic torch relay team was vaccinated). But really, that’s a whole other ranty blog.

My own brush with death came in the form of a black, single-occupant SUV trying to make a hasty right hand turn, which is exactly how my dog got run over a year ago - fuck you, Vancouver black SUVs, I really mean it. Seriously. Wait two goddamn seconds for the pedestrians and their puppy dogs to pass, and then go on your way. Argh. …Anyways.

I walked onto the street, at a crosswalk, on a green light and in front of a stopped SUV, and the driver, at his red light, decided he did not care. The SUV lurched forward as I swivelled and let out a inconsequential ‘HEY!,’ and my hand landed against the bumper as the stupid car ground to a stop.

So, technically, I got hit by a car. Or, my hand did. Either way, it was fairly traumatic. I really hate black SUVs.

And that’s really about it. I’m sure there was more, somewhere, and perhaps I can find the time to write it down, if and when I think of what it is I want to say. I hope that November sees a lot more entries, and writing, and coherent thoughts, in general, and I miss you, my invisible audience, as much as I miss the false sense of self-importance that is my writing a blog. And so I hope to write again, soon.

Adieu.

Poppies are for Opium

Today, I am supposed to wear a blood red poppy and remember all those that have sacrificed themselves in acts of warfare and political combat for the pursuit of nationalist and internationalist goals. It is a sombre and sobering occasion, to be sure.

My personal inability to wear a blood red poppy is not something to be proud of. I feel tarnished, walking the streets alongside my well-dressed, tailored yuppy friends. I am relegated to the rank of tourist, of cheapskate, of unconscientious rube. I feel like my mom, in 1990, who wouldn’t let us watch the Oscars because they were wearing red ribbons for AIDS (and she thought Hollywood promoted a lifestyle of promiscuity, homosexuals, and other mars of immorality). Seriously. And she’d say, “well, why aren’t they wearing ribbons for diabetes, or malaria? Why AIDS?” in a way that makes me hang my head in shame as I argue “but why veterans? Why not all old people? Why not conscientious objects and displaced civilians, or peace activists, or humanitarians?”

And despite this, I really do think I’m right.

I believe that humans, all of us, have the power to know right from wrong, and kindness from unspeakable evil. I believe that become a soldier is giving up that power - it is saying that what the individual believes does not matter, and that power of thought and morality is given up to a larger structure - one’s commanding officer, one’s country, and one’s government.

And I believe that the act of giving up one’s power and basic humanity, to a government (or to a religious body) is a very, very dangerous thing. I believe that it allows us to step into a mass, ‘mob’ mentality and to commit unspeakable acts which we would otherwise never do. We kill. We rape. We ‘other.’

I believe that people go to war for good reasons. I believe that people, the world over, choose to be soldiers for good reasons. And I believe that the majority of soldiers on both sides of major conflicts occurring today, and in the past, are and were good people. But good people do bad things when they forgo their basic humanity and trade it in for dog tags. Good people do bad things when they go to war.

And so I believe that joining an army is an immoral act. And I cannot wear a poppy.

I will thus be spending this day of remembrance, not remembering, but on my much neglected blog, and watching five straight hours of video on College Humor. Wrong? Probably. But at least I'm not a hypocrite.*




*Evidence on whether or not I am a hypocrite, on this subject and many others, is mixed at best.

Call me Ivy

The first time I was called a woman, it was by a middle-aged South East Asian man who’s knowledge of English was, likely, quite limited.

“Hey you! Beautiful woman!” He jeered at me, loudly, from across the crowded street, and I couldn’t help but feel a little flattered. He thinks I’m a woman!, I thought, like a transgendered male-to-female marking their first occasion of passing. Except I wasn’t a male, and I wasn’t transgendered, and I wasn’t really a woman, either. I was a sixteen-year old female, or teenager, or whatchamacallit, living in Thailand, being inundated by the Britney Spears lyrics, “I’m not a girl, not yet a woman.”

It’s been almost ten years since then, and no longer am I in between the legal definition of girl and womanhood, according to culture and law. I am technically, legally, officially a woman. (Definitions vary according to state, country, and social affiliations, ranging from the occasion of a first menstrual period to a minimum of two emotionally significant pregnancy scares.) Yay, me, woman. Ambiguity over, no?

…No. With womanhood comes responsibilities. Responsibilities like getting a job, and business cards, and buying groceries. And muddled within those responsibilities are social interactions, many of which still laced with archaic finesse. The eighteen-year-old cashier hands me a receipt with a ‘thank you, ma’am,’ and I die a little inside.

The confusion, it seems, remains, because no one has any idea how to appropriate address a young woman. (And ‘young woman’ is itself a very troublesome term, because it’s often used by creepy older men to address prepubescent nymphets, and often by my mother and grandmother, in a stern tone, whenever I was getting in trouble.) I am now in my mid-twenties, does that make me a miss, or a ma’am? Am I a girl, or a lady? And why are all of the options available to me a little cringe-worthy and pejorative?

Female persons in general have got the overly-complicated end of the stick on a lot of things, social and otherwise. To a man’s automatic ‘Mr.,’ a woman must choose between ‘Ms.,’ ‘Mrs.,’ or ‘Miss,’ none of which are particularly flattering. Mrs. and Ms. don’t even exist in the English language, outside of their shortened form. They cannot be spelled…they aren’t real words. Many a time I have wished we could do away with the stupid formality, completely, and leave all the boxes unchecked, and live in a post-sexist, Utopian society where we all call each other by exclusively our first (and maybe last) names…but such pipe dreams are not to be.

Men can informally be ‘guys,’ but the female equivalent, ‘girls,’ is blatantly infantilising (and very offensive to angry middle-aged lesbians). They have a point…I wouldn‘t call a group of adult men ‘boys’ without an air of condescending snark (affectionate condescending snark, I’m sure).

The automatic male ‘sir,’ is supposed to be matched to a female ‘miss’ or ‘ma’am’…but ‘ma’am’ is matronly and implicit of age. It denotes respect, but of the type you assign to the elderly and otherwise wizened - generally not the sort of thing you want to hear before you turn thirty-five, at least.

‘Miss,’ I’ll take, but it’s hardly an equal match…it's condescending and lacking in anything resembling oomph or power. ‘Sir,’ would be an effective way to address a high-ranking executive or visiting president, but a ‘miss’ denotes little in way of reverence, and Miss Donegal is a 19th century school teacher at best.

‘Lady’ is…no. ‘Ladies’ may be the female companions of ‘gentlemen,’ but ‘lady’ is the double-x version of ‘dude,’ and neither is great social etiquette. ‘Dude’ is, at least, a term to be inserted readily into speech whenever one aspires to sound like a pothead, regardless of the sex of the listener; ‘lady,’ has no such virtues or unisex capabilities.

And the only solution is this - we employ the French, because everything sounds nicer en francais, and we start calling all women ‘madam,’ regardless of such things as marital status, age, and whether or not they’ve born their husband a healthy male offspring to carry on the family name. Yes, technically, the French have the same miss/ma’am issues between ‘Madam’ and ‘Mademoiselle,’ but…whatever. ‘Madam’ is a lot easier on my self esteem than ‘ma’am,’ and still capable of powerfully kicking the ass of a ‘miss,’ or even a ‘sir.’ Plus, 'mademoiselle' takes a long time to say.

And as for Mrs. versus Ms. versus Miss…ugh. There is no solution. I suggest that more intelligent female readers go back to school to get a medical license or PhD, and the rest of you look into whether or not it’s worth your time to become a Rabbi or a nun. Sister Donegal? Oui?

…Non.

Choose Your Own Ivy Adventure

1. It’s two in the afternoon on a Monday. You are…

a) Industriously working at your chosen profession with an honest earnestness that sickens all those around you, and makes them want to stab you, a lot.

b) Working with the full awareness that every moment you spend in your chosen work environment is eroding- nay, raping your soul, in a way that makes all moneys received a form of especially degrading form of spiritual prostitution. You sicken yourself.

c) Sleeping on your couch, literally sick from what might be a sinus infection, or a brain tumor, or a manifestation of your own growing hypochondria. You long for the sweet release of death, or ibuprofen.


2. The doorbell rings. After regaining the ability to stand, you…

a) Answer the door in a prompt and courteous manner which indicates that you are, above all else, a civilized and respectable human being, no matter how plugged up your sinuses may be.

b) Cower in your bedroom, unable to face humanity in your current deplorable state. Your puppies gaze at you, judgingly.

c) Answer the door wearing full-body pink flannel pyjamas, after looking through the blinds to ensure that your visitor is neither Greenpeace or Mormon. Greet your Puralator delivery man with a smile, and only then realize that there are drool stains caked along your chin. Accept the package with a joke about how obviously productive your day has been. Retreat to your puppies. Cry.


3. Inside the large cardboard box, you are delighted to find that thing you ordered weeks ago…

a) About $200 worth of free publications from the Canadian government, which you have no real use for, but which are free and satisfy your intense love of getting packages in the mail (and which often come with bubble wrap, which is handy for lots of stuff, and so much fun to pop!)

b) ‘Why the world is a horrible place and is now dying of an illness from which it will never recover, and how it could have been prevented if you’d all just listened to the authors ten years ago, but you didn’t, and now we’re fucked - A Comprehensive Guidebook’

a) ‘Primed’ - a sexually explicit picture book outlining safer sex techniques for trans men "and the men who dig them," though you yourself belong to neither category. You will later lay this book on your coffee table in an attempt to traumatize visiting relatives, with much success.

d) All of the above.


...You win. Or you lose. Really, there's no difference.

Cheers!

Sinful Feelings

Yesterday, I was walking down the street with a spring in my step and two leaping, fluffy puppies at my feet (and I bag of diet coke and granola clutched under my arm), and I was smiling to myself as I defined my mood in an air of amused bewilderment… I feel content. I feel happy. I feel bliss.

And then, my eyes began to brim with tears as I discovered the fact that I felt…proud. So proud. And that this was a ridiculous thing to cry about in public, of course, but tear ducts know little of discretion (although my legs brought me within my own yards before I began to full-on sob).

The feeling of pride is new to me. It’s easily confused with other feelings, so I never noticed - along with pride there is a sense of ownership, and accomplishment, and investment, and relief. There is the bliss and happiness that comes when one’s hard work pays off and they admire their bountiful harvest. But pride, behind it all, has a sense of deserving: I deserve this. I have always deserved this. I did good, and things are now right in the world, because I am good. Or something like that.

And in the newness of that pride, I felt sad, of course, because if I was always worthy of good things and (subjectively) weighty accomplishment, then I should have known it. In the early days, someone should have told me. The only words on my lips I could manage to seep out were: I had potential. I have potential. I had potential.

And I was proud, and happy, and sad.

Scratch hating Stephen Harper. I do hate him, but...gah. I hate Everything.

This fact was made all the more obvious by the triumphant beeping of my alarm clock this morning, in increasingly incessant tones which are the perfect pitch, embodying the soundtrack of my own personal hell.

I hate my alarm clock. I hate morning.

This is the feeling I always get when the sky is dark and grey and the air is cold and wet with impending, drizzly rain. And since this is Vancouver, that's the feeling I'll be getting every morning, from now until May 2010. Ugh. I hate Vancouver.

I was feeling especially tired this particular Wednesday morning, not from lack of sleep (I went to bed at exactly 9:30pm, dear readers, because I am a very sad old lady, apparently), but during those nine and a half hours of sleep, there was very little adequate rest. And that was because I had nightmares. Nightmares. The sort that haunt every five year old who's disobeyed their mother's command to not watch Jurassic Park, but does anyways, and then wakes up screaming lest the Velociraptors eat her flesh, Nightmares. Ahem.

The subject of my disturbed nighttime visions was not a Michael Crichton film...this time. Instead, I had found myself in a much more banal and horrifying setting: the seventh grade. Now, my real life seventh grade was not a terrible nightmarish hellhole, exactly...it was actually a really good year. Grade six was marked by intense girl bullying and the writing of my first ever suicide-themed poetry, and grade eight marked the year my mother pursued her B.Ed. degree out of town and my brother and I were left the fend for ourselves four days a week, to trauma-inducing results. But grade seven wasn't so bad, really. I had friends, ish. I had school. I liked school.

Grade seven marked the year I entered the classroom of Mrs MacAnnealy, who's classroom expectations have exceeded anything I've encountered since, in high school or university. It marked my first ever all-nighter on a project concerning Monsoons, for which I produced three interactive models, a slide-show, two large bristol-board displays, and a script full of information which was to be conveyed by myself in traditional Indian dress. If sweat and blood were not somehow incorporated, then you were bound to get a dreaded 'B'.

Mrs MacAnnealy was supposed to teach my eighth grade class, too, but her year was cut short by a nervous breakdown. No matter, really...Her perfectionism and neuroses live on in at least one young woman, and I suspect about five others, too.

So I suppose it makes sense that when I have nightmares that leave me engulfed in a day-long anxiety attack, the setting is one of the seventh grade. The theme varies - there is a test I must take which I haven't prepared for, or a project immediately due. Often, a mix up results in an administrator declaring that I must redo two terms worth of elementary school math, lest I lose...Everything. The details are never exactly clear, but they don't need to be.

I hope that this is residual anxiety, left over, finally filtering its way through my system some fifteen years on. I hope this marks the last of it...because I cannot describe how shaky these dreams will leave me, how panicked and out of breath, more than a year since I finished trying to attend university courses.

And when I wake up, in a cold sweat, and I turn off the alarm, and I peel off the sheets, I remember, and I sigh with relief...It was just a dream. None of it was real. No one can send me back to that horrible place that I dread, and I'm safe....never, ever again.

Me of the Friday

Current mood: Angsty

Political Angst: I hate Stephen Harper. I Hate Stephen Harper. My god, I really hate Stephen Harper. His name may be spelled with a 'v', but I don't know, and I don't care, and I won't google his name to find out, such is the extent of my loathing. He is responsible for a government which I feel in no way represents my values or needs. He is responsible for a shocking array of budget cuts to essential services throughout the nation. He is responsible for my America-envy. That's right...Americenvy, a word which has never existed before, because there was no need, because as a Canadian I had never once experienced the possibility of being jealous of our neighbours to the South. Until they got Obama, and I got...Steve. Uft.

Renewed reason for this angst: the two minute commercial I just watched extolling the virtues of the latest tax break, which apparently has reversed everyone's economic woes and made Canadians everywhere smiley and proud, or at least that's the case for the twelve actors employed on this project. Brought to me (and you!) by the government of Canada. When I am queen of the world, such burning of money to fan the flames of my rage will be illegal. Soon.

Also disturbing: At least three of my coworkers have taken to complimenting me on my work ethic and ability, repeatedly, and (to my humble opinion) excessively. This makes me quite uncomfortable. I can only think of three possible reasons:

1. I'm doing a terrible job and am about to be fired, and coworkers are doing all that they can to soften the inevitable crushing blow.

2. They just like to give compliments, which means my coworkers are far better human beings than I will ever hope to be, and I will never, ever fit in. =(

3. God is about so send a really spectacular shit-storm, and the bleakness will be all the more dramatic is I'm sent a few compliments beforehand.

...My intuition tells me it's answer three.

Me of the Day

Current feeling: hungry, somewhat intoxicated by the not unpleasant, but likely brain-damaging aroma of nail polish remover (used liberally on fingernails almost an hour ago). Opening window is likely a good idea.

Life goal discovered in the last 24 hours: my desire to swim in bioluminescent waters (likely a lake or an ocean). I suspect it would be very pretty and fairy-tale-esque in a life affirming sort of way. Unless bioluminescent algae have flesh-eating tendencies, which I should probably look into. Hmmm. Life goal currently on hold.

Activities on this non-laborious Labour Day: Harvesting corn from garden (I grew corn! Real corn! In tiny, little cobs from tiny, little stalks!!), shovelling dog poo from back yard, in bare feet, even though I know that this is a very bad idea, and then marvelling that two small dogs (collective weight: 20 lbs) can produce enough poo that a shovel is required, repeatedly, ad nauseam (literally). Trying to read a book, trying to write, lamenting my inability to write since getting a full-time job, being distracted by editing large and glaring typos from old blog posts, reading old blog posts, enjoying old blog posts, and realizing that I can write, or at least could, back in the day when I wrote. Then I wondered if it’s self-centered and vain to admit enjoying my own writing, and decided that it is, but that most people would enjoy reading anything all about themselves and their puppies, and it just happens that the only thing written about me is my own blog. So, there…self. And…yes.

Plans for the immediate future: Eating aforementioned corn. Possibly baking cupcakes, though this will require going to the grocery store, which will require putting on shoes.

Amazing idea for others to act on, immediately: A cupcake delivery service operating in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Preferably one offering discount prices to those willing to extol virtues of said cupcakes delivery service in their personal blog, and specializing in gourmet chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting and shiny pink sprinkles. It could be big. Think about it.

Chao

Unnecessarily Angsty

I am a ravid hater of angsty poetry. (And yes, ravid is a word. I don't know if my brain was trying to say avid, or rabid, and really, the combination of the two seems perfectly appropriate.) And so it is not helpful to my self loathing when I myself am the author of much reviled angsty poetry, but such is life.

Thus I present the short poetry/prose created during a particularly angsty moment this very morning, when I clearly should have been sleeping. May it henceforth sit alongside Eliot and Ezra Pound as a (lesser) inexplicable blight on the world.

***

Sometime, a long time ago, something happened. A cloth that should have been thick was worn thin. And all that should have been warmed was left exposed and withered and cold.

And today, I can’t help it. I keep trying to cover in layers. And I bathe in trauma. I bask in trauma. I let people’s tears dry on my skin, and the deep mud of misery fills all the cracks. Layer after layer, until one day I'll barely feel.

And I think, this last layer will be enough. It will make me feel warm. Or it will make me feel cold. And perhaps those two things are the same.

So I wait.

But What, Exactly, Do You Do?

I have removed all of the postings from seven different bulletin boards, and then replaced the same postings in a slightly more visually-pleasing pattern.
I have re-alphabetized the alphabetically-ordered names stored in two card index boxes, twice.
I have extended tenuous tendrils towards potential office gossip, so far to no avails.
I have sat, patiently, contemplating my pension plan, and the fact that I’m not really sure what a pension plan is, and that a part of me dies every time I think of myself as a person who thinks about pension plans.
I have played pool and lost.
I have played shuffle board and lost.
I have played scrabble, and would have won, but we didn’t keep score.
And…umm…there were some emails, too.

Four weeks down, forty-one years to go.

Loss of Cell Phone, Dignity

Dear Sir,

Thank you so much for finding my cell phone, wherever it was that I dropped it. I really, really appreciate it.

Unfortunately, the email you sent telling me that you found my cell phone only listed your phone number. And I can’t phone you, because you, sir, have my cell phone.

I know you, like most normal, functional adults, have things like cars and landlines. But I am not a normal, functional adult. I am barely a strange and incompetent adult. And I do not have a landline, only a cell phone, and you have my cell phone. And so I could not call you until the next day, at work, during a quiet moment in the afternoon.

You see, I work in a drop-in centre for the mentally ill and street involved, and we’re very busy, and so I would have called you earlier, but I was busy helping a sad man do his laundry, and feeding the hungry, and then breaking up a would-be fight.

When I got a hold of you, you gave me your address. And I said I would try to stop by that evening, when you planned on being home. And then you said, ‘before you come by, phone me,’ and I said ‘sure!’ because, sir, well, I’m stupid. And then I hung up, and swore, and thought of calling you back, but was far too embarrassed to do so.

And I really did plan on stopping by that evening, but I volunteer with this little girl with Big Sisters every week. And so I went to see her straight after work, and we went bike riding, and it took longer than I thought it would because her legs were small and she’s just learning. And after I dropped her off at home it was already 9:30 at night, and I thought you might be sleeping, and so I didn’t drop by to get my phone. And I would have called but…you know.

And then today I took my puppies and walked by your house, which was really far away, and I don’t have a car, but we found it and I knocked on your door. But you weren’t home. And I was sad.

You see, I lost my cell phone the evening before my birthday. And I don’t generally like birthdays, but my family does, and they like to call to harass me and feel happy. And they couldn’t, because I don’t have my phone. And a couple of friends tried to call, but they couldn’t leave a message, because my mailbox was full. And then the only person who got to wish me happy birthday was one client at work…but he technically wished me happy birthday the day before, and earlier today, too, and I think he might just say that to everyone every day. And I’m feeling especially lonely because my little sister was staying with me for three weeks, but she left on Monday, and so my house feels really quiet, and I’d love to talk to her, or anyone, but…You have my phone. And now I’m sad.

So if you could please email me, and let me know when you’ll next be home, so that maybe I can walk the twenty blocks back to your house to get my phone, that would be very nice of you. Thank you.

Sad,
Ivy

A Post Traumatic Life

Could it be that every mental disease that ever was can be summed up as a colourful form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?

Well…let me be clear. PTSD is a specific illness, and those brave souls and pharmaceutical executives currently putting together the DSM-V would be rolling in their king-sized beds if they heard any such nonsense. Certainly, I’m oversimplifying. But perhaps you all should, too.

SOLDIERS WHO LACK PSYCHOLOGICAL WELLBEING or “CRAZY SOLDIERS”

Post traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder common in veterans and characterized by flash-backs, vigilance, and general unhappiness following a period of intense and potentially life-threatening trauma. Because of our love of sending soldiers out to watch their brethren die, we’ve had a long history of studying their trauma, and its cost to our military efforts. Thus we’ve coined terms like Combat Stress Reaction, Battle Fatigue, Soldier’s Heart, Shell-Shock Syndrome, and Neurasthenia.

For those who’ve been in The Shit, or experienced its many renditions (now helpfully rendered on DVD and VHS) then this shouldn’t be very surprising. Killing people and watching others be killed is the sort of thing that’s supposed to give you a psychiatric disorder if anything will. Being engulfed in a chaotic atmosphere of fear and constant vigilance, occasionally killing civilians and friends, usually by accident, and seeing a slaughtered baby, once and a while, for months or years at a time, is the sort of thing that will fuck up the best of us and then some.

Armies and governments began to understand the implications of this after the Vietnam-American War (although that understanding is still, today, a very limited one). Before PTSD and the age of pop-psychology, words like ‘psychological distress,’ ‘social withdrawal,’ and ‘acute alcoholism’ simply didn’t exist. Instead, we called those things ‘being manly.’

Today, with our ever-growing social demands and access to Wikipedia, such behaviours are increasingly seen as disorders, and those disorders are given out names. A great many soldiers qualify for a diagnosis of PTSD, but many others will, now and years later, qualify for a range of different diagnoses. Many will drink, and smoke, and intravenously inject their troubles away. Some will hallucinate. Others will have nightmares or insomnia. Others will exhibit mania, and others depression, and still others a range of physical symptoms from headaches to impotence which will never be fully explained.

In other words, soldiers may exhibit a full range of symptoms which could qualify as any number of difference disorders, all of which are post traumatic, and therein lies my point. (And it’s a good one, even though most of us are not, and never will be, returning combat soldiers.)

OTHER PEOPLE WHO LACK PSYCHOLOGICAL WELLBEING or “CRAZY NON-SOLDIERS”

Every psychological and psychiatric expert will agree that this much is true: everyone has genes, and everyone has stress. This is where the agreement stops, and experts struggle to comprehend how much of our brains (and our brain diseases) stem from our DNA, our development, or the environment we experience in our day-to-day, adult lives. While we’ve pegged specific chromosomes in neurological or developmental disorders like Down’s Syndrome, but mental illnesses seem infinitely more complicated.

Take schizophrenia, which no one really understands and many believe is made up of a number of different disorders. Formerly, schizophrenia was simply ‘neurosis,’ and before ‘neurosis’ was ‘demon possession’ and good, old fashioned ‘witchcraft’…which really could have been nothing more than neighbourly discord, or a vitamin deficiency, which has been known to cause hallucinations and bizarre behaviour, too.

Today, what we know as schizophrenia certainly has a large genetic component. But when one identical twin gets schizophrenia, his genetically-identical sibling falls ill only 50% of the time. Their shared DNA predicts a very large chance of getting schizophrenia, but not the illness itself. To get the hallucinations, thought disorder, and/or catatonia, environmental components are needed, which are infinitely more complex than even the Human Genome Project.

Most psychologists accept that there is a marriage between nature and nurture which together explains our personality, thought, and behaviour, and the disorders plaguing one or all three. A person’s DNA predicts their development and their brain, but lots of other things interfere and act along the way, and in the end we get our love of cheesecake, our fondness of the colour blue, and our belief that we are being spoken to by Jesus Christ’s reincarnation, the Cheese King, through the microphones placed in discarded nickels, and so on. Experiences act upon our brain, and our brain dictates how we interpret and respond to each experience.

The most accepted model for psychiatric disorders is one of diathesis-stress. A person’s brain, constructed by their genetic code, is a diathesis on which a stressor acts, best explained by way of metaphor.

DNA acts as a blueprint, and in the end we get a brain, or a house. And houses, you may notice, entail a great many parts…windows, doors, rooms, shingles, plumbing. And then, outside of the brain, and the house, you have an environment, and environmental stress. We call this ‘life.’ And life is sometimes a bit like a hurricane.

But when houses begin to fall apart, they do so in a variety of different ways. Some get flooded basements, and some get short-circuited electricity. Some lose their shingles, and still others lose doors or window panes. And the blueprints of your house may not predict the nature of the damage when disaster strikes, but it may provide some clues. Your house may have large picture windows which easily break, or be made of a wood that tends to rot and be eaten by mould. Perhaps it comes from a line of houses, all made by the same manufacturer, none of which have reliable hot water. And when a hurricane knocks down another house entirely, yours may be left with only a few torn-off shingles.

Such is the nature of houses and hurricanes. Soldiers returning home from a combat zone return to houses with chronically flooded basements, and even the most resilient of minds have spotty electricity during powerful storms.

Because of our widespread study of soldiers and their experiences, we’ve declared their anxiety to be post traumatic. But life, it seems, is full of trauma, and for those who experience anxiety, depression, or even hallucinations, they just might be post-traumatic, too.

Take hallucinations, which we tend to associate with schizophrenia, but which occur in perfectly non-schizophrenic people, too. Ten to fifteen percent of the general public have reported experiencing auditory hallucinations, and many have noted that the differences in perception between schizophrenics and the rest of us tend to be far less than previously thought. For example, 10% of studied individuals have heard their own thoughts spoken aloud, and many have had hallucinatory experiences related to the death of a loved one. While psychiatry views all these instances as psychotic, proponents of the dimensional model of psychosis would argue that they fall within the normal realm of experience.

The majority of individuals who routinely experience hearing voices have noted that they appeared after a traumatic, triggering event, and that how people react to these voices, and not the voices themselves, determine whether or not a person is able to function and thrive. A reaction of anxiety and fear leads into paranoia, while a culturally accepted hallucination (the voice of God heard by a stoic Christian) may lead to praise and acceptance.

Other psychiatrists have noted that an experience of trauma, and especially trauma in childhood, can lead to a full spectrum of psychiatric symptoms which could meet the criteria for almost any single disorder. And this, too, is an intuitive fact; we’ve known for years that any individual, when tortured enough, isolated enough, and subjected to enough abject cruelty will break (though the manner in which they do so may vary widely). And when moderate childhood trauma meets everyday adult trauma (e.g. running over a man with your sky train, or discovering your grocery store has run out of Diet Coke), psychosis and psychiatry ensues.

And if you don’t believe me, it might be worth noting that Railway Spine was a specific, observed disorder affecting those who’ve experienced a train wreck in 19th century Europe, causing anxiety, depression, impotence, and disturbances of appetite. The cause was thought to be exhaustion of the nerves due to the crash’s physical trauma on the brain and spine.

Why I Suck

Apologies to all (former, undoubtedly!) readers...this drought of blog postings has been a shamefully long one, and I am sorry. Unfortunately, I've spent far too much time recently living life, instead of writing about it, and there is absolutely no excuse for that.

However, for those looking for explanation, I present the following list, in order of ascending happiness.

Reasons Why I Suck:

1. A great deal of work angst, set off by one of our participants being murdered and dumped in the Fraser river, compounded by the fact that no one on earth knows how to react when someone they know is murdered, topped off with generalized anxiety of work, and then curled into a fetal position and placed upon my couch for hours on end.

2. My near-assault at work, which was scary and violating and not happy at all (and occurred on the same evening we found out that Lisa had been killed). That evening ended with my coworker and I in tears, talking about PTSD, and vowing to find new jobs. Work, henceforth, has been mildly traumatic.

3. My puppy's case of tonsillitis, which had me spending an entire weekend (and a week's worth of pay) inside my neighborhood veterinarian's office. He's okay now, though.

4. Watching Les Miserables by the Vancouver Arts Club, with my sister. It was an absolutely perfect and beautiful musical depiction of life as large, steaming cesspool of shit.

5. My sister's constant presence in my life this month, which means twice as much laundry, and twice as much cooking, and almost no time left over for me to engage in lengthy discussions with God, my internet audience, or any imaginary figures at all.

6. Also, the general happiness of having my sister around has been very much a distracting force. Stupid joyous chaos.

7. Trying to figure out my schedule in general, which is the source of several headaches and possibly one ulcer, as I juggle around my non-social life and my many other non-exploits, because of...

8. Getting hired into a full-time position for the company that I love working for, in a position that is stable and safe and generally far, far happier than my present posting, and pays more, and...

9. My God. I work a 9-5 job, with a pension plan. I could theoretically be defined as an adult. And I could work here until retirement at 65, I guess. Oh sweet jesus.

10. And...puppies.

A Full Moon...not that kind, though.

True Facts:

Glass is not actually a solid, but a very, very thick liquid

In Iceland, 30% of the population believe in the existence of elves.

The full moon is an apeshit time…and I now know why.

Those who have been working in the volatile human service field have long suspected that lunar cycles have been known to influence chaotic human behaviour. Paramedics, police officers, and emergency room personnel tend to be large proponents of the belief - and they should know. Or perhaps, amidst such chaotic and unpredictable work environments, staff are more likely to cling to any explanation or theory, no matter how voodoo-esque or implausible, including lunar cycles and zodiac signs, to predict how a night will go - I’m not quite sure. All I know is, I knock on wood every time I feel I’ve tempted fate by saying something positive, I never open up umbrellas inside the house, and every time I attend a live sporting event, the home team loses, even if it’s just a practice game.

Wait, wait…we were talking about the moon.

The women at my all-female drop-in centre, staff and clientele included, have long been believers in the link between moon-cycles and behaviour. Some are more skeptical than others, and we all admit that the full-moon nights of June and July were entirely quiet and ordinary. This, however, has not been the norm. Full moon nights are known to be chaotic and occasionally violent, and my boss has observed that the night she got punched (last November) was a particularly heinous full moon. Once, women spontaneously howled at the ceiling, and generally, the nights tend to be a little…manic.

Full moons have generally held this characterization throughout history, and most associate the monthly lunar event with general unrest and bad, bad luck. The vast majority of ancient civilizations attributed great power to the moon - but ancient civilizations were known to attribute power to a great many things, like rain dances, and the redemptive power of slain witches, which we now consider defunct.

Many people - doctors, psychologists, and eminent scholars among them - poo-poo the idea of a moon-body connection as hoaxy pseudoscience. If there is a connection between human behaviour and lunar cycles, they argue, then it certainly a placebo-like effect: that the legend of the full moon makes people behave accordingly. Fair enough, except doctors regarded circadian rhythms in an identical light a short hundred years ago, and we now know that everything from blood pressure, body temperature, and memory ability fluctuates in a 24 hour pattern mediated by melatonin.

Still others seek to explain away the connection with science - really bad science. The moon controls the tides, people note, and since our bodies are largely composed of water, then the moon also exerts control over our bodies. Except…the gravitational pull of the moon happens every day to everyone and does not vary according to how much of the moon we can see (just like the tides follow a daily, not a monthly, calendar). And very small bodies of water (like ourselves) generally don’t experience any tidal fluctuations. Sorry, Dawson’s Creek psychologists, you are once again very, very wrong.

A more plausible explanation has to do with light. Circadian rhythms tell us to be awake and alert by day (and owls and university students to be awake at night), and light tells our bodies and our minds when exactly daytime occurs. So, logically, when a full moon lights up the evening sky, we receive some cross-wired signals telling us to get out of bed and party hard. Chaos and mayhem ensue.

This explanation would seem far more likely were there not such variances in artificially light, all but blocking out the night time sky within cities in much of the world. The shifts between lunar lighting are subtle ones, even in the most rural locales, and so a night-long fiesta on exclusively the full moon seems unlikely. So let’s skip directly to the REAL explanation.

According to scientific studies, the death rate is ever-so-slightly lower on a full moon.

More nuances and specific studies have looked at suicide rates, which tend to go down on a full moon. More detailed studies, too, have found that this is due to women - women are far less likely to kill themselves during a full moon verses other times of the month.

But…less female suicide seems like a good, happy thing, yes?

True. And happy just gets a little bit out of hand during a full moon party.

The moon happens in a 28 day cycle. Women’s periods, or a great many women’s periods, also happen in a 28 day cycle, and an unusually high number of women have cycles which begin during the New Moon. The rates here aren’t total, but there is a statistically significant 7% difference. (Pheromones may be partly to blame…as we all know, women in close quarters often have synchronized cycles, much to the chagrin of many old rich men with multiple wives.)

So….a lot of women are on the rag during the New Moon. Consequently, this same large number of women are ovulating during the Full Moon. And while women who ovulate are not exactly alley cats in heat, they have been shown to be more sexually outgoing, more likely to wear clothes that they themselves describe as ‘sexy,’ more likely to feel attractive and attracted, and more likely to engage in sexual acts.

And what of the men? Women who are ovulating are more likely to be attracted to manly men’s men, by which I mean muscly thugs. During a woman’s post-ovulatory period, she is more likely to be attracted to caring, sympathetic men who will stand by her during her pregnancy and help her raise her children but, during ovulation, the hormonal concern is one of big, strong, manly sperm.

So women are feeling happy, and sexy, and are seeking the company of men who are willing to fight for them. And fight they do. Suddenly, our cities become mountainsides where all of the rams start galloping and locking horns in a hormonal dance of doom.

Paramedics, police, and front-line workers the world over lament. And I say dammit, people, please just get a room. Some of us would really like get some rest.

Me of the Day

Current mood: Sweaty

Currently Dying from: Socialist Healthcare, and the growing blackness of my own charred and stony heart.

# Of Calls to Police Today, and/or # Of Bodily Fluids Cleaned Up Today: None..? No work today, and I had a long nap. Well...my own tears, I guess, but those don't really count.

So Exciting: My Kickass Sister is coming to play with me as of Monday!! So soon! Four sleeps away, assuming I can sleep in this extreme Vancouver heat, which sucks some serious sweaty monkey balls.

So Depressing (in a good way...sort of): This hour-long documentary on execution (which taught me more world history than anything I learned in High School), which I found following reading the Slate's awesome reminder piece on informed consumerism (whether the product is torture, meat, capital punishment, or anything else tangible and unsavory.) Both highly recommended.

Highlight of the Day: When I was called for an interview to the job that I really really really want! So much! Eeeee!

Lowlight of the Day: When I asked my mother for a loan so that I could go buy yogurt. (She said yes...which was also a very high highlight.)

Quote of the Day: "Look how happy he is!" "He's happy because he's insane."

Police and Fire and Ambulances...oh my

There are two types of people in this world…those who dial 9-1-1, and those who don’t.

I, myself, have been dialing 9-1-1 steadily for the past eleven years. Twice, in fact, this very week. It’s been a long, eventful life. This is my story.

I suppose it all began on a fateful winter day in November, 1998, when my fifteen year old brother chased my sister and I around the house with a pocket knife. My mother (and father, for that matter) were…umm…elsewhere. Panicked, sobbing, sister locked in the bathtub, I dialed 9-1-1. An operator curtly announced my options: police, fire, or ambulance. I responded, eloquently, ‘what?’ and then eventually stuttered 'police.'

My brother, deeply troubled, eventually took the phone from my hands, in order to explain to the operator that he was chasing his thirteen and seven year old sisters around the house, with a knife, in a stabbing motion, as a joke. A joke that only he understood. A joke that was very, very subtle, and may have had a punch line ending up a blood transfusion, or a touching eulogy…we’ll never know.

Because I, thirteen-year-old Me, did the Right Thing.

I phoned the police to sob in an undignified, citizenly fashion. And help, eventually arrived. (This help was in the form of two uniformed police, a traumatized sister, a stern talking-to for my brother, and a mortally embarrassed mother, who I always assumed blamed me for the incident. Such is love.)

Thus, a calling was born.

I should mention that my brother is now a wonderful, well adjusted women’s studies major at a respectable university. He no longer chases young children around with knives, to the best of my knowledge. I phoned 9-1-1 a second time, two years later, in his defense - he was being beaten up and thrown across our living room by an even larger, more psychotic family member…er…future family member. I’m not sure if this came before or after the wedding; I suppose it doesn’t matter.

I should mention, I love my family. Really, in a way that is not even entirely sarcastic, I do. And the third time I dialled 9-1-1, it was protect them, yet again. This time, not from themselves, but from a stranger, carrying a guitar case, acting intoxicated, and trying to break through our door. Our hundred-and-fifty-pound dog, bless his heart, sniffed the door and then went to sleep. My mother was in hysterics. When the police arrived, our dog awoke and began to bark ferociously.

Shortly thereafter, my mother bought a replacement dog, and I left home for good.

Since that time, my dialing of 9-1-1 has accelerated to previously unforeseen levels.

I have sometimes asked for ‘fire’ and sometimes ‘ambulance.’ I lose sleep over which I should ask for, first, in a scenario involving all three: say a man with a blowtorch on a murderous rampage? Often, the firemen show up anyways, even if you don’t ask for them. I’m not sure why this happens. They’re never actually helpful…unless there’s a fire. There never is.

Usually, I ask for the police.

I call to report a fight between two large men at an intersection, neither of whom have teeth. I call to report a man at the bus stop declaring that he will exterminate the Asians. I call to report a scary woman, screaming at me from the bathroom, and then lurking in a threatening manner outside of the alley-way door. I call to report three men, at 2am, drilling into the door of a neighbourhood café and climbing up onto the roof.

"Really, I'm so sorry if this is nothing. It could just be impromptu 2am construction?"

And the police are always kind and courteous, if and when they show up.

Last night, after the suspected café burglary (which turned out to be a band of three legitimate rooftop cleaners who only work at night, don’t use flashlights, and forgot their key), I apologized profusely. The police said, no, no! They wish people called more often, the activity was suspicious, and they applauded my good judgment. They need more people…like me.

And I tend to disagree.

Because 9-1-1 calling, it seems, is an addictive behaviour, much like checking email, eating tic-tacs, or shooting heroin. You start with a harmless domestic knife-attack, and you progress to a few light assaults, injuries, and crazies spewing violence and blood on the street, and the next thing you know, you can’t take your dogs out for a 2am pee without four officers showing up at your kitchen table.

…Ugh.

So, please, don't dial 9-1-1. Just...stay indoors. Close the blinds. Avoid loud noises. And everything, eventually, will all be okay.

Bad Days Get Worse

Eight Hours of Work:

A woman I know, a woman named Lisa, was found, floating, in the Fraser River. She had been murdered. It was on the front page of The Province Newspaper. I wish that I could remember her clothes, or her laugh, or the sound of her voice, but I can’t.

We print out pictures, which are mug shots, and the article, which is titled ‘Downtown Eastside Sex Trade Worker Slain.’ We light a candle. We call our boss. We interrupt our boss’s father’s funeral. We tell the women.

A woman named J**** does not cry, but whispers “Lisa was my best friend,” and asks for a cigarette, and shuffles to the door. When I hug her, she is limp, and silent.

A woman named S**** is screaming in pain while I sit, quietly, sadly. Her 16 year old cousin O.D.ed this week. Two men raped her last night.

A woman won’t leave the bathroom - I just want to clean it. I work around her as she swears at me. An hour and a half later, a half hour after the centre closes, I apologize to her and phone the police. She throws a mug. She goes to the door. She turns around. She charges at me to punch me, and my coworker yells a blistering ‘no’ and jumps in her way and she stops. She leaves. I start to cry when I tell the police that it’s okay, that she left.

She comes back. She propped a door (but we shut it), and so she rings the buzzer and yells at the gate. My co-worker starts to cry, calling the police to ask for help (the say they’re very busy), and then her boyfriend if he would please come get us.

He drives around the block to make sure it’s safe for us to walk outside.

Ivy Donegal and the Curse of the Butt Rash

Chapter II

Ech.

So…three days and four medical professionals staring at my butt later, a dermatologist has declared that I, Ivy Donegal, am NOT going to die of a killer butt rash. Or at least not any time soon.

Hoorah!

Now, you may be wondering…how does one die of a killer butt rash? Well, dear fictitious audience, I will tell you how.

Certain medications have been known to trigger an autoimmune or allergic response within the body, which leads to the body’s own immune system attacking a protein within the skin. This leads to one of two potential syndromes: Steven Johnson Syndrome or Toxic Epidermis Necrolysis. (The name is based on how much of the body is affected, with Steven Johnson Syndrome being the less severe of the two.) Both are extremely rare, affecting about one in a million people every year worldwide.

As a result of this immune attack and protein breakdown, your skin then begins to blister, and rash, and then peel off. En masse. YOUR SKIN PEELS OFF. All over your body.

The outer layer of your skin separates from the inner layer (epidermis from the dermis), and this can even happen inside of certain organs, leading to breathing failure, the inability to swallow, or intestinal obstruction. Your exposed, blistered skin is extremely vulnerable to infection, and patients are best treated in a burn unit. Oh, and if the rash attacks your eyes, which it does in 15-35% of cases, you go blind.

In the most severe form, Toxic Epidermic Necrolysis, between 30 and 40% of patients die. The death rate is lower for Steven Johnson Syndrome, but still disturbingly high at 5-15%. And those that don’t die are often left blind, disabled, or horribly disfigured.

And that is what two different doctors thought I had. On my butt. Because of stupid medication I was taking for a week which didn’t help anything anyways. Gawd.

…The Horror.

Ivy Donegal and the Curse of the Butt Rash

Chapter I

It was not so very long ago that Ivy Donegal, seated in the office of her trusted physician, was told of a miraculous pill.

“I have seen it work wonders,” said Ivy’s trusted physician, and Ivy nodded, and Ivy listened. Her physician extolled the virtues of the miracle medication, which had vastly improved the lives of many poor unfortunate patients not unlike Ivy herself.

Ivy nodded, and Ivy listened. Her physician continued.

This particular pill was not often prescribed for the illness that Ivy was, herself, experiencing. It was not approved by any medical organization, or large, governmental, administrative body, for the treatment of Ivy‘s particular problem. It was, it seemed, approved to treat a very different problem, which was a problem that Ivy herself had never had issues with.

Ivy nodded, slightly confused, and her physician continued to explain.

“There are almost no side effects, and the results, I believe, could be dramatic.”

Ivy did like dramatic things, and she particularly liked the potential for results.

“And if you don’t see any improvement, then we can stop it right away. There are no withdrawal effects.”

Ivy did not like withdrawal effects, and with this promise she was convinced. She accepted the prescription, scrawled out by her physician on a tiny square of paper, and she put it in her pocket. She bent down to lift her backpack, and she turned towards the door.

“There is just one thing,” her physician said, with an air of caution which caught Ivy’s full attention. “A rash.”

Ivy turned, and after a long pause, full of tense foreboding, her physician spoke.

“There is only one side effect of this medication, and it is very, very rare. But there is a small chance that you may develop...a Rash.”

Ivy furrowed her brow in an attempt to elicit understanding. Her physician sucked in a long, laborious breath, ever slowly, as Ivy waited.

“I have never seen this rash, myself, but I know it to be a very bad, bad rash. If you have such a rash, you must go straight to the hospital. You will need to be hospitalized. The rash is very, very bad.”

Ivy nodded, resolutely. And then her nod faltered, and paused, because Ivy did not understand things, at all.

“But I have lots of rashes,” she said, and this, of course, was very true.

None of Ivy’s rashes had been worthy of hospitalization, but many were ugly, and many severe. Readers may recall the instance where Ivy shaved her head for charity, and God smote her down with scalpal psoriasis.

Ivy, ever since, had been plagued by chronic psoriasis, along with a host of other equally appealing diseases of the skin. Her skin easily bled, bruised, and blistered. Her skin peeled and purpled with pin-prick purpura. She often had hives, and eczema, and dermatitis, and poison ivy. She had once even come down with a severe case of flesh-eating bacteria, but by the time she saw a doctor the bacteria had transformed themselves into a case of mild sunburn. Aloe had helped. Such was the unpredictable nature of Ivy’s skin.

Ivy told her physician these things, or something similar. Her physician, it seemed, did not care.

“This rash if different,” her physician forebode. “If you have The Bad Rash, you will know.”

And Ivy left her physician’s office, and Ivy went then to visit her pharmacist.

***

Ivy went to her neighbourhood pharmacist to fill her prescription and, eyeing the pills, she felt the cold pangs of unease. The pills were very, very small, which meant, to have any effect at all, they must be incredibly potent. They were also the exact size and colour of the toenail clippings belonging to a small child, and Ivy did not find this to be an incredibly appealing image to connect with something she was going to put in her mouth.

She left the bottle of pills, un-ingested, on her dresser, and she waited.

Ivy knew that medication was a think to be treated with caution and respect. She knew that some medications would make her feel tired, and others nauseous, and still others would make her anxious, unravelled, and indisputably insane. Having already spent far too much of her life feeling unravelled and insane, Ivy wished to avoid all such effects whenever possible.

And so Ivy waited, until a day arrived when she had nothing else planned except sleep and television, and neither of these things required her to be conscious, un-nauseous, or sane. Ivy eyed the pills suspiciously, and then she swallowed them.

Ivy waited.

Nothing happened.

Ivy shrugged and watched TV. The next day, she swallowed more pills, and then more, and then more.

The dose was increased very slowly, in order to reduce the chance of the dreaded Bad Rash. A week passed, and Ivy took more pills, and then more, and then more. Nothing happened.

And then Ivy took a shower, because Ivy had grown smelly. And there Ivy experienced a small and undignified thought. Ivy thought, ‘My butt hurts.’ And then the thought disappeared, as small, undignified thoughts are wont to do. Ivy set about a normal day.

Ivy took more pills, as was her custom. She went to work. She came back home. She kissed her puppies.

She realized, then, that her butt really, really hurt, and this concerned her. Ivy set about staring at her butt in the mirror.

There, standing on the lid of her toilet and gazing backwards, over her shoulder, at her exposed bottom-end in the bathroom sink mirror, Ivy discovered what looked to be…a Rash! A small, red rash, to be exact.

Ivy was unconcerned.

Ivy, avid hypochondriac, was not the type to remain unconcerned in the face of a potentially serious bodily event. But the rash, while painful, seemed quite small and benign, and Ivy could not really think of a scenario in which a small rash on her bottom could lead to anything other than discomfort.

Ivy, dear readers, was wrong.

It was shortly thereafter (the next day, to be exact) that Ivy attended a conveniently-timed appointment with a walk-in clinic physician. This was not Ivy’s regular physician, who was, also conveniently, on vacation throughout the most interesting parts of this story.

Ivy needed to renew a prescription for an entirely different medication, which was a medication prescribed to treat an entirely different rash. This was the medication Ivy had been using diligently ever since God smote her down with ironic psoriasis of the scalp. The doctor nodded, wrote and prescription, and then Ivy paused uncomfortably.

“I should mention…” And Ivy paused, and she thought of the rash, and her physician’s dire warnings concerning The Rash, and she weighed this against the thought of a complete stranger inspecting her exposed bottom for what was probably nothing. Ivy sighed. “I have a rash.”

She told the doctor of the rash, and medication, and the doctor looked pale, and concerned, and said, “Oh my.” The doctor asked to see the rash, and Ivy consented. Ivy exposed her skin, and the rash, and the doctor nodded with grave concern.

“I have never seen The Bad Rash before,” the doctor said, consulting a large and cumbersome medical text, “But, according to my understanding, The Bad Rash is a very serious thing. And it looks very much like…your rash.” The physician nodded towards Ivy and her diseased buttocks.

Ivy flushed red with concern and surprise.

Ivy, you see, had been expecting the physician to tell her the rash was nothing. Ivy had been expecting the physician to say that the rash was a result of some incredibly embarrassing hygiene issue, or venereal disease, or fungus best treated with mild soap. And Ivy had been expecting the physician to tell her that there was no rash, at all, except in Ivy’s own head, and for the love of god to please pull her pants up, now.

But the physician didn’t say these things.

She booked an emergency dermatological appointment for Ivy, two days away. She asked if Ivy had been feeling unwell. She advised Ivy that, should the size of the rash or any part of Ivy’s health begin to change, in any way, that she should go straight to the hospital.

And Ivy nodded, and went away.

Ivy was beginning to feel quite nauseous.

When Ivy went home, she looked up the rash on the internet. She still did not know, exactly, how a small rash on her buttocks could be a potentially serious thing…and then she learned. She swallowed. Her mouth was dry. Her stomach churned. She began to sweat.

“My god,” she thought, “I’m dying of a butt-rash.”

And Ivy decided to go to the hospital.

***

And as you read this, dear readers, Ivy Donegal may be dead, or dying, or lying in a very undignified position while doctors, nurses, and medical students congregate around the small rash on her butt.

Ivy hopes that this is not the case, and the odds are very much with her. But Ivy also knows that death via medically-induced killer butt rash would be a perfect crescendo to a life full of many undignified malignancies, and that laughter, ironic or no, is probably the very safest medicine.

xoxo Ivy