What, Me Worry?

Sitting at Christmas dinner with friends of the family last week, I found myself in a personally shocking situation. In the eyes of others, I have become that girl. Or that woman, whatever you choose, as I am perhaps on the cusp of being considered a woman by all now. I thought that happened at age thirty. But whatever. I suppose when I was 15, I thought I became considered a woman by all at the age of 25, but as I breeze by the arbitrary markers without actually feeling remarkably womanly or mature, I keep pushing them back. I’m 27. Turning 28 in the coming month. And I don’t feel remarkably womanly, still mostly girly – stuck hovering somewhere between identifying with Lindsay Lohan and Kim Catrall.

But in my folksy hometown at Christmas dinner I am surrounded by married couples and their children, who they are raising to be wonderful little people to be around. Some of these kids I babysat while I was a teenager. And I love these people, because they are different from me but they feel so familiar. And to them, I have now become that girl (or that woman.) I’m the single girl approaching the age where they all fear for my ability to find a proper suitor for marriage. No prospects in sight, working a nine to five in the big city, coming home to a rental property with no pets and no responsibilities and no joy. I didn’t even bring the topic up, and still I found myself, for the first time, in this conversation:

J_____: Well, don’t worry, as women get older they tend to look for something more stable and less romantic.

Me (internally): Uh, worry? Right now, sweetie, I’m just worried about how we got onto this topic of conversation. How the hell did we get onto this topic of conversation? Is she about to pontificate? I gotta get out of here… Is dinner ready yet??

Me (externally, with raised eyebrows): Ahhhh…

J_____: I mean, I suppose I found my husband when I was older than you are now. So you really have nothing to worry about.

Me (internally): Again with the worrying. Did I say I was worried? Do I look like I’m worried? Well, I probably look worried now.

J_____: But he was a diamond in the rough. And they’re out there, you know, those diamonds in the rough. You just have to be on the look out for them.

Me (externally): That’s good to know. Pass the wine, please.

J_____: But you’ve got plenty of time, so don’t worry. You’ll find the right one.

Oh dear, this is some sort of folklore cliché, what people have started to view me as. This is so uncomfortable, I was thinking. I am now being viewed as the icon from Sex and the City or Bridget Jones’ Diary. Urban and educated, but single and somehow sad and unfulfilled.

Here’s the deal that I wasn’t going to go into with a friend of the family’s older sister because I didn’t want to engage her on some sort of defiant level, trying to prove that the life I was leading was not so worrisome or the prospects so bleak as she assumed. Who knows, perhaps she was only trying to express her own love of her great diamond-in-the-rough-husband. And if so, good for her, but I’m not worried. I date. I’ve met some guys in the past year that I’ve been interested in. Nothing has worked out for very long and that’s probably because at this point in life, everyone’s carrying some baggage onto the plane. Yes, I’ve been stood up but I’ve also given out my fair share of “not interested, keep looking.” I’m even casually on an internet dating site, which so far has led to a whole lot of nothing, but at least it’s an option. (I’m still trying to forget about the date with the pyromaniac. Long story.) There are days when I’m lonely, but those days are few and far between, and when they happen I know exactly which friends to call for some great company. And I don’t view this single stage of my life with any sort of permanence, because I don’t ever see any stage of my life as having any sort of permanence.

Life is fluid and full of surprises. The longest I’ve been able to devote myself to anything so far was four years of university in the same place. Mostly I find I have about a fifteen month cycle before things shake themselves up and re-arrange themselves again. I am actually a remarkably adaptable person, and when new opportunities come along, I tend to run with them. I am well-educated, well-traveled. I enjoy my job and love my friends and family. So worried? No. Clichéd? No. Willing to put up with the occasional implication that I ought to be worried? I guess so, but I’m not about to actively engage in the conversation.

There Once was a Girl...

All right then, let’s attempt to do this whole personal background thing.

Name: Jenn (With two Ns. Yes, it’s important. When you have a name as common as mine, the little things that help you distinguish yourself are important.)

Nickname: Nerdifer, or Nerds for short. My father wonders why I let my friends call me a nerd. It’s a term of endearment, I tell him. And really, it is. It came from a friend I met in Japan. And when I was in Japan, I really was the nerdiest of the bunch, by a long shot. The group of ex-pats I surrounded myself with were a strange combination of diplomats’ kids, gai-jin superstars, and societal drop-outs who’d found their degrees on Khao San Road. Not an engineer in the bunch. Just me. When the nickname was bestowed upon me it felt perfect. I was just at the point where I was ready, at long last, to embrace my inner-nerd and let it shine and let that be me. When I came home to Canada I tried to encourage old friends from university to call me by my new nickname. (“No, really, it’s okay! I like it!") They protested, claiming that I was no nerdier than the rest of them. True. But after two and a half years back home, it’s starting to catch on.

A Brief History: In my last year of high school, my English teacher gave us a quick, unofficial test that was meant to determine which side of the brain we favoured. Left=analytical. Right=holistic. Everyone in the class showed a clear dominance, except me. I was the only kid who was split evenly right down the middle between scientific and artistic. And that pretty much sums me up. It’s been my good fortune a lot of the times, but it’s also caused a lot of confusion because I will often try to dive into one side of my brain and ignore the other side. After a while the neglected side rears its ugly head, throws a nasty temper tantrum, claims that I have been paying it no attention and that this one-sided nonsense behaviour has got to stop immediately. The problem is finding the balance.

In university, I spent four years entirely on the left side of my brain and earned a degree in Chemical Engineering. I left music behind. I left reading for pleasure behind. I left writing behind. As I neared graduation, the right side of my brain kicked up a fuss and sparked a crisis of identity. The right side of my brain told me I didn’t like engineering and that what I really wanted in life was to be a writer. Problematic. But I listened to it. After a short year working full-time as an engineer, I cut the left side of my brain off and ran away to Japan to rediscover the other half of my brain.

In Japan I worked as an English teacher and wrote. A lot. Reams. Volumes. Epics. Teaching paid the bills without requiring any of my conscious attention. And the foreign environment gave me experience aplenty upon which I could expound. Most of the writing I was either unsatisfied with, being a perfectionist, or frightened about what people would think if I actually put my voice out there. So I kept the volumes to myself. And then I cut off my time in Japan without a real plan as to the rest of my life and when I tried to re-integrate myself back into normal Canadian society, I, well, I choked.

The next year and a half of my life involved a lot of unemployment, heartache, and dependence on the goodwill of patient parents. There was a doomed attempt at a life in Calgary, but I mostly found that I didn’t fit in there. Couldn’t find any friends. Couldn’t find a job. Couldn’t understand people’s points of view in Canada’s very own red state. And, of course, there was a boy. (Isn’t there always?) And that didn’t work out either. Eventually, I realized it was time to come home to Ontario and my Dad, thankfully, came out to rescue me and bring me home and my Mom, thankfully, housed me while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up.

When it appeared my choices were rapidly diminishing to either a) get a salaried job or b) declare bankruptcy, I chose option a). Option a) now has me living and working at my day job in the financial industry in Toronto. It’s a far cry from engineering, and it’s a far cry from being a writer but overall my life is starting to strike that balance between right and left that I have been searching for. I’m happy in Toronto. I like the urban life. I like the fact that I can see any movie in wide or limited release. I’m happy that I can find a yoga studio where the people know what they’re doing and are friendly. I have great friends here and it feels like more are arriving and developing every day. And the job doesn’t define me but gives me the independence to start to define myself.

Don’t Touch the Feet: The site is really the first time I’ve made my musings publicly available. Feel free to comment on it. I get a little gleeful with each hit and am very impatient to get some real comments on my stuff. The name comes from my own foot aversion. My older brother, A_____, used to lovingly beat up on me when I was little and if I didn’t squirm away he would grab my second toe and push down on a pressure point in it. It was all in the name of sibling rough-housing, and sure I invited it because I was a little brat and liked the attention from my older brother. And it has made me very sensitive to my feet, to the point where I don’t even like people looking at them because then I get all self-conscious and I can feel them. Plus, feet are just not attractive, certainly not mine. So it’s kind of a masochistic name, but there you have it. It kind of captures the feeling of baring my words out on the internet. This is me, squirming a little at the thought of being conscious of my self in a public forum. Just don’t touch the feet.

Why there?

Why there? Of all places in the world, why does the quake rock under the waters near the equator and propel the water towards the shores of a place in the world that already knows such poverty? Why does it hit a place where two hours notice could never ever ever be enough warning for evacuation? Where communications aren't sophisticated enough? Where there are no safe bunkers? Where there are no evacuation plans? Where there are mostly huts and bungalows and makeshift shelters for families already swollen and where children have no choice but to work for their family's survival? Why does it hit there and wipe everything out? And then wash it all away. And rip children from their families. And leave bloated bodies in the ebb. And leave a devastation that I have been fortunate enough never to experience. But I can see the humanity in the photographs and the video streams.

I hope that a peaceful sleep will come to all of the people affected by the tsunami sooner rather than later. I fear that it will not.

http://www.redcross.ca/

Dude, Winter Sucks

So yesterday it was a balmy, oh let's just say, -273C in sunny, happy Toronto. For those of you who can't understand how cold it is - it's kind of like existing in OUTER SPACE! And not like comfy, cosy outer space right near a solar system, or a cluster of heat-generating stars. No, I'm talking more like the absolute edges of the universe.

My roommate is Aussie and she looked at me in all honesty and said, "I'm not the only one, am I, that thinks that this is, you know, completely miserable, right? I mean, having my snot freeze is kind of unpleasant!"

I told her that no, we all thought this was kind of the definition of miserable. But I told her she has to keep it a secret. Because, as a nation, we have a reputation to uphold.

Humans are Complicated (or The Pentagram, Part II)

Human beings are not simple. They are complicated and their relationships are convoluted. And if there is a god in a heaven somewhere in a direction humanity has arbitrarily deemed "up there," well, then I'm sure the stuff that we humans spin makes that deity's eyes roll sometimes.

Back in university I got myself into a little social jam I like to refer to as "the Pentagram." It's a nice name - catchy with a little bit of shock value! And it basically refers to the fact that in a group of 5 otherwise normal and, I'm sure, nice people, we had all become so intertwined in our own relationship swapping fiasco that a backwoods incest supporter from Arkansas would have surely looked at the five of us and said "Peeeyoooo! Man, that ain't right!"

In fact, to get out of the Pentagram, my girlfriend K______ (not part of the Pentagram, by the way...) had me draw out on a piece of paper everybody involved and everybody's relationship to everyone else. And a diagram with five points, all inter-connected, ends up looking a lot like, you guessed it - a pentagram. The shock of it was enough to get me out of it. For the better, I have always felt. Thank you K______!

And lucky, lucky, lucky me that these were disposable friendships and relationships -- the kinds that develop quickly over the course of a few months and seem much deeper than they are in reality. Lucky me that these were not the kinds of childhood ties or eternal bonds I could not extricate myself from. I slipped quietly out the back door one night. No one said goodbye, and no one really missed me when I was gone. Phew!

Funny how life repeats itself. It's been the better part of a decade since I jumped out of the pentagram, vowing never to enter such murky social waters again, if I could help it. But hey, humans are complicated. And so here I am back in a remarkably similar situation. New players this time. More of them actually. Well, fewer boys, more women. (Drat - that puts me at a disadvantage right off the bat!) And it's not technically a pentagram this time, it's like some kind of convoluted Logic Game chart on acid!

But all in all, it feels much the same. A lot of he said, she said. A pair of best friends swapping up women when it suits them. (One of them a master in the art of manipulation if you ask me. But I'm admittedly not objective.) An ex-girlfriend who won't disappear. A current girlfriend with a real mean streak who has no time of day for the ex-girlfriend. Unrequited love. And some mild substance abuse, which never makes things easier.

Over a month ago I woke up and realized what was going on and thought "Dear lord, where are my sneakers it is time to GO!" And I tried to do exactly that. I tried to slip out the door in the middle of the night and hoped that nobody would miss me after I was gone. One would think I'd get better at these things with age. Alas no.

I still know exactly what's going on with this crazy crew. The ties cannot be cut altogether. 'Why?' you ask...

Wait for it...

Because one of the lucky gals is not only my bestfriend, she is my roommate.
Crap.

The Men of the Nuclear Power Plant

There is a strange phenomenon in my life. All the men seem to work at the nuclear power plant. Talk about your symbolism: never mind the obvious Homer references, how about the dangerous work environment? The radioactivity as a depletion of virility? Or, preferably, how about the fusion chain reaction as a metaphor for sexual potency? That one, I’d approve of. It just hasn’t quite worked out to be the case… yet.

It was about June when I met K____ at a party. He was a slightly geeky engineering type. (Right up my alley, I must admit. I have a track record.) We bantered a bit. He seemed more into me than I him, but a friend of mine bolstered my courage when she leaned over and whispered in my ear “he’s cute, go for the phone number.” I did. We had one date. It went well. We made plans to see each other again. He never showed. I proceeded to spoil his name as best I could in the dating pool. Silly boy – don’t you know girls talk? If you are currently dating a moderately geeky engineer who works at the Nuclear Power Plant and you suspect he might be this deadbeat, please ask and I will let you know!

In August, I met J___ at a nightclub in Toronto. He was hot – as Sa___ would say, he was hot in a “Diet Coke construction worker commercial guy kind of way.” And he happened to be a construction foreman for a contracting company, working at the NUCLEAR POWER PLANT. The barbarians had just passed the no-smoking bi-law in Toronto and we were all either enjoying the feeling of going home at night not stanking of smoke, or trying to sneak in a butt in a huddle on the patio. Except for J___, he was lighting up in the middle of the club. I, bolstered by false courage yet again (do I give off the wrong impression of myself? Really, do I?) stomped right up to him and with a simple “I’m sorry, you can’t do that in here. You’ll have to follow me sir,” he was mine for the evening. Major points in the ‘fest on that one! (Although there was the unfortunate nickname he was given. And no, I’m not going to tell you.) We called back and forth for quite a few weeks, but he proved a little unreliable and eventually it fizzled out. I lost his phone number when my phone crapped out. I keep meaning to go through my old phone bill to ferret it out again. But I figure if he hasn’t called me…

I suppose I met Sc___ in March, but he was only a student then. He has since graduated and moved on to the real world. (At least that’s what my responsible brother calls it.) And where does he work? That’s right, the NUCLEAR POWER PLANT. Again, for a subcontractor. Perhaps the same one as J___. Wouldn’t that be weird? Anyway, Sc___ is possibly too good-looking for his own good, or his own worth. He’s one of those player guys who come dangerously close to coming off as creepy. But just when you think he’s going to turn the corner and go off down that dark, creepy path, he flashes you a little boy’s smile and you can’t help but forgive him. Now there’s a talent that can only be used for evil, I tell ya! I met him through a mutual friend on a random Friday night of no note, other than the fact that he was there and he was HOT. And flirting relentlessly with both my friend and I – possibly hoping for some double conquest, which was never in the cards! Turns out he mostly just annoyed me in the weeks to come, after the effects of his dazzling smile wore a little thin. Sc___ is not to be taken seriously. You just take him for a spin around the block and graciously pass him onto the next one in line. I have not actually taken him on that spin around the block, but not for lack of imagining it.

Of course, their paths have probably never once intersected. The plant is large and thousands of people are employed permanently, not to mention the numbers of contracters that mill in and out working on various projects. But in my head these three sit around the lunch table at work, munching on sandwiches side-by-side. They have a fictional Friday night poker league where J___ and Sc___ routinely take K____ for all he’s worth (which is not much.) And in times of trauma, these three, I imagine, save the world from NUCLEAR DISASTER. All without knowing how small the world game of Kevin Bacon actually is.

Someone trip Jonathon and Victoria

The Amazing Race this season is really getting a bit much to stomach. Please tell me, is there any feasible excuse for behaviour as reprehensibly rude and obnoxious as Jonathon the Entrepreneur? Didn't think so.

And in this week's episode, he dropped the shocking revelation that of course he and Victoria can't wait to have children! Yes, please, let's bring children into this volatile mix! Jonathon can barely stop himself from cuffing his wife (who, admittedly, whines a lot... still, no excuse.) while the cameras ARE RUNNING! How does he act when they are not being filmed around the clock? Someone call the Children's Aid Society and give them advance warning! Please!

Oh, and in case the names they have already picked out for their future children don't make the grade, how about these: "Duck" and "Cower."

Why I am Rooting for Eliza

Oh, Eliza, as much as you make me shake my head with knowing exasperation, I am hoping that you will take the Survivor crown this molten-lava-spewing season! She's annoying, she talks too much, she's useless around camp, she really likes being considered a smart little girl and she is disappearing before our very own eyes. But damn, do I ever want her to win it.

Let us all preface any discussion of how annoying Eliza can sometimes be with the simple disclaimer: she's only 21! TWENTY-ONE folks! That's all!

And guess what, she knows she can be annoying. That little exchange with her mother a few weeks back basically told us so. You remember - it's the one where Eliza tells her mom that she was going to get voted off in the first week because everyone on her tribe thought she talked too much, and then her mother said "Because you're so annoying!" and audiences gasped and thought "Wow! Eliza's mom is mean!" I assure you, Eliza's mom is not mean. She just knows her daughter very well. This is probably an exchange they have had all throughout Eliza's youth. Eliza's high energy levels and her natural inclination to show off her book smarts probably got her into some nasty situations when she was growing up. And it's my guess that Eliza's mom has never encouraged her daughter to be bratty, but also told her daughter never to apologize for being smart. The kid is pre-law. And Scout has even said she thinks Eliza's got brains. (Maybe not street smarts, for she still seems a wee-bit emotional for those yet. Give her time! And a million dollars wouldn't hurt, either.)

Yes, the tears shed at the last tribal council as she prepared to write Ami-with-the-secret-homocidal-tendencies' name on the parchment were really really really hard to stomach. But I have a theory on this one too. Eliza is catering to the jury vote! That jury is going to be at least four women, maybe more. And given that the "women's alliance" was the way everybody was supposed to get to the end, those women on the jury are going to be a little miffed at the final two for "breaking their word" to get to the end. And Eliza really had no choice but to go against that alliance in order to stick around. The kid is scrappy - she'll do what she has to to stay in the game! But winning the game requires the finalist to win over the jury. And that's exactly what Eliza is doing. She's spending her time and her tears with bullies while she keeps her vote and her mind focused on her own survival. Brilliant!

Essentially, Eliza is acting exactly how I would have acted in the same situation at the same age. She runs at the mouth and she's not much help with the lifting or the cooking or the cleaning or the gathering. But don't let that fool you into thinking she's not in her own head about her own game. I'm sure she is always thinking.

Hang on tight kid - immunity is all you need to think about now! The bullies are all gone now! Eat Ami's fresh supplies of manioc and don't give up!

An Ode to Jason Mraz

My love for Jason Mraz knows no bounds right now. I tell it to my friends this way: when I say I love Jason Mraz, I don't mean it in music appreciation sort of way - I mean it in a sort of stalker fan kind of way. I refer to him jokingly as 'my husband.' (winks.)

My first introduction to him was of course, via radio. I was on my way to Calgary (a doomed trip at best,) with my mom and the announcer had said "Stick around, there's a new one from Lisa Marie Presley coming up." And then he played "The Remedy," and I thought to myself that if that was Lisa Marie, she was bloody damned talented! (Editor's note, it wasn't and well, she's not really.) A few weeks later an acquaintance in Calgary happened to catch Jason as an opening act for Chantal Kreviazuk and she just gushed about him afterwards. "He uses his voice like a musical instrument!" I then caught him on a local Calgary entertainment tv show. He was moderately cocky and most definitely not entirely media trained. And I thought he kind of looked like an artier version of an ex-boyfriend I had. Like Sh___ would look if he flopped his ball cap to the side instead of putting it on backwards. After my doomed trip to Calgary forced me quietly back home to Ontario - where I belong! - I remember sitting on a friend's balcony and she put on a CD. I listened to the voice and right from the first song, I piped up and asked "Is that Jason Mraz?" She was so impressed that I could tell who it was without hearing the one song of his that they were kicking the snot out of on the radio and proceeded to absolutely gush over him. "He uses the word 'lugubrious' in a song! I had to look it up in the dictionary!" Apparently, this Jason has a knack for making girls gush.

And so it is my turn to gush. The buzz about this boy was too large to ignore. My friend bought me his studio CD and I have been in love with him ever since. He has been steadily creeping up my fluid Top 5 Celebrities I would love to, well, ahem, take advantage of, for over two years now, and I can confidently place him deservedly atop that list now. Numero uno. Congratulations Jason, you have usurped the place I had long reserved for Matt Damon and his beautiful smile!

And here's why. He doesn't hide behind his guitar like so many male singers do. I mean, I love John Mayer, but the guy doesn't really sing all that well. And he's good at the whole writing thing, as well. As stated above, he used the word 'lugubrious' in a song, a pretty amazing feat only equalled by See Spot Run's use of the word "acetaminophen" in their ditty 'Weightless.' I love the fact that Jason keeps an online journal, and I strive in my own writing to capture that focused rambling style that he has gotten down pat. His online journal entries are a sweet surprise to my days at work. When I check his site and find a new journal entry posted, it's as sweet as finding five dollars I never knew I had in my pocket. I love the way his songs make me think about all the loves and likes and prospects in my life, but never fully attaches themselves to one person in particular in my life. This is a good thing when things go sour between myself and said love/like/prospect. I was kicking the snot out of Jason's "Sleeping to Dream" song a few months back because it reminded me of my own life. When that little situation no longer conjured up happy little lullabyes, I could still turn on my Mraz and enjoy. Sa___ caught me bopping to my MD on the subway platform the next day and asked what I was listening to. "Jason," I replied. "Really?" she seemed surprised. "Well, yeah, I'm not mad at Jason!" I laughed.

He scats and jokes and flirts with the audience onstage, and by the time I have left one of his live performances, I am in the mood for writing some silly, insipid prose of my own. Dear lord, I am hooked.