Tracy Wright: The light that will never go out.

On June 23rd, 2010, I received an email I'd been hoping was a long way off. Tracy Wright, the brilliant, beloved Canadian stage and screen actress, had passed away the day before. While it was far preferable and much kinder to hear it from Don McKellar, her husband and frequent collaborator, than to see it on the news (as so many others did), there was simply no way to dull the pain of hearing that she had lost the fight against cancer, and that we in turn had lost her.

I've long neglected this blog for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that I've not had a lot to say. It's still too raw, too surreal, to say much of substance, but if anything could move me to write again, it's Tracy. I'll never do her justice, but that won't stop me from trying.

Back when I was just a little kid, Tracy lived in the third bedroom of our apartment. She and my uncle had been dating for some time, and my family adored her, though perhaps nobody more than me. She had a crazy way of doing things, and was a constant source of laughter and music and cheer in our household; she was a fantastic playmate for me, too, and was certainly creative when it came time to watch over me for an afternoon. One of my mother's favourite examples of this took place when I was only three years old: Upon returning to our apartment from an afternoon out, my mother greeted Tracy and me, and asked how we'd spent the day.

"Oh, we did some singing," Tracy replied. Mom naturally assumed that I'd been giving ever-patient Tracy the preschool version of opera by way of Sesame Street, until Tracy added, "Heather, sing the song I taught you for your mom!"

My mother smiled and waited to hear some familiar kids' show tunes, but instead, she was surprised - and endlessly amused - when I opened my mouth and began to sing Ronnie Hawkins' "Who Do You Love," just the way Tracy had shown me to belt it out.

For anyone who doesn't know the song, and isn't sure why hearing it sung by a three year old would be hilarious, have a listen:

Yep. Tracy was the best kind of zany. She was the poster child for the saying, "To know her is to love her." And I did. We all did. Had she and my uncle chosen to get married, I couldn't have asked for a better aunt. And, marriage or not, she had already become very much a part of our family.

[ Above: My Uncle Dan and Tracy, circa 1981 - I'll ask around to see if I can verify the date - on one of our many trips to High Park. ]

[ Above: Letters to me from my Uncle Dan, who never neglected to tell me somewhere in there that "Tracy says hi!" Click to enlarge. ]

As it turned out, marriage wasn't in the cards for Tracy and my uncle, and over time we all lost touch with her. We knew she had gone to pursue a career in acting, and every so often we would catch a glimpse of her in a movie or on TV, and we would wonder aloud how she was doing, if she was happy, and I always wondered if she ever thought of me, or even remembered me. Even as a young girl I knew she was one of the funniest people I would ever meet.

Fast forward many years. After taking a couple of film classes in university, I began watching movies more critically, and it wasn't long before I discovered the genius that is Don McKellar. When I first saw his 1998 masterpiece, "Last Night", it shot straight up into my Top 10 Favourite Movies Of All Time, and has never lost its spot. Of course, there was an added bonus to the film, too: Tracy was one of the stars. I loved her role; I loved the way Don wrote it, and I loved the way Tracy brought it to life. She had a sweetness and a vulnerability to her that made the audience connect to her, and she carried those qualities with her into other roles. Even now, when I mention an indie film in which Tracy appeared, friends who aren't as familiar with her work will ask which part she played, and invariably they'll follow it up with, "Oh, wow - she was my favourite character!"

In the summer of 2005, I happened to catch a movie after work one night. It was called "Me And You And Everyone We Know", and I knew nothing about it aside from having heard that it was being very well received by audiences and critics alike. Imagine my surprise when, only a few scenes in, there was Tracy, larger than life on the big screen in front of me. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, but the performance that really stood out for me (and made me cry right there in the theatre) was hers. It was then that I decided to roll the dice and write her a letter, telling her how much I'd loved her portrayal of Nancy, who has what I and many others feel is the most poignant scene in the film. I figured that, even if she had no recollection of who I was, she deserved to get accolades for a job so very well done. I took a shot in the dark with the address I chose, enclosed a photo of a family wedding in which she'd been a bridesmaid and I'd been the flower girl (cheesily circling each of us and scrawling, "There's me...and you...and...well, you know how it goes!" on the back), and sent it off.

A few months later, having very nearly forgotten that I'd posted that letter, I came home from work one evening and - lo and behold! - there was an email awaiting me, what she called a "long overdue reply" to my letter. She had even put "tracy wright - thanking you for your letter" in the subject line; that was how unassuming she was. She never expected me to remember her (!!!), and said that she was so happy to hear from me: "i thank you again for your kind words and for making the effort to write. i remember you very fondly as a little girl. i am amazed if you remember me at all actually....you were pretty young. but, i always thought you were a special kid. [...] i didnt have a lot of experience with kids ... but, in any case, it was something i felt. so there." I couldn't help but smile. She also made mention of the current happy state of her life, and once again she showed how completely modest and unassuming she was: "i am in a relationship with don mckellar (he's the guy who directed 'last night')and we live together in a nice house with our adorable little cat pinky. [...] so....life is pretty good."

Yeah, I was fairly sure I'd heard of that McKellar guy. And to find out that they were living contentedly in a lovely part of the city made me very happy. She'd always been so good to me, and she - the queen of the understatement! - deserved to have her life being "pretty good," at the very least.

We stayed in touch over the following five years, and I was lucky enough to see her perform Daniel MacIvor's fantastic play, "A Beautiful View", with Caroline Gillis.

[ Caroline and Tracy in "A Beautiful View" ]

It was lovely to see one another again after so many years, and it was an honour to meet Caroline and Don, both of whom were very important people in her life. With Tracy, you always got the feeling that, if someone had gotten her stamp of approval, they must be pretty extraordinary. When she introduced me to Don, I considered that proof positive. They were a match that was a delight to behold.

And this is where the story turns tragic.

I happened to catch an interview with Don on "The Hour" one evening at the start of 2010, and noticed that he was wearing a wedding ring. Intrigued, I did a quick Google search, and was over the moon when I read that he and Tracy had tied the knot after so many years together. I immediately sent her a sappy email brimming with my congratulations and wishing them both nothing but the best.

The email I got in response, only hours later, was devastating. Yes, she said, she and Don had gotten married, and it had been a very happy occasion...but she added that she wanted to tell me something before I heard it from anyone else. She'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few weeks earlier, and the prognosis was not good. I felt as though someone had kicked me in the gut. This wasn't fair. She was so young and healthy and happy. And, selfishly, I wanted more time with her, more chances to see her perform, more everything.

I set about doing the only thing I knew how to do: I started sending her little things in the mail. Postcards from my travels. A chocolate bar with the wartime slogan "Keep Calm And Carry On" emblazoned across its package, which, as she pointed out in her thank-you email, made it "not only delicious, but inspirational." I happened to meet up with her friend Bruce McDonald, another great Canadian director, while acting as an extra in his upcoming film project, and I asked him to pose for a photo with me where we'd wave at the camera and I'd email it to Tracy to make her smile. It worked; I got a message back the next morning thanking me for thinking of her.

She fought hard right up to the end. She finished more than one project while she was still well enough to do so, and has therefore left us with things to which we can look forward. Hundreds upon hundreds of people turned up to her visitation yesterday - so many, in fact, that the messages of love from her friends and family in the condolence book drained the ink out of two pens in 3 hours, and I'm sure the third pen (which was the one I left for others to use before heading out) was well on its way to running dry, too. As I said to Don and several others, it was a true testament to Tracy's impact on the lives of everyone she touched, that so many words of love, kindness and sorrow were being left that they were demanding a fresh supply of writing implements.

That's just the kind of woman Tracy was.

Whether you had the great fortune of meeting her, or have enjoyed seeing her on stage or on screen, consider yourselves lucky. It's rare for a Tracy Wright to come along in life. I'll be forever grateful that she was a part of mine, and whenever I miss her - which will be often, I know - I can put in one of her movies and remember everything about her that was talented, and lovable, and completely, thoroughly unique.

I can remember her, Tracy Lauren Wright, as the light that will never go out on the Canadian stages she graced, and in my heart.

In lieu of flowers, a donation in her honour may be made online to the Toronto Arts Council Foundation, or in person/by mail at 141 Bathurst Street, Toronto M5V 2R2.

ETA: Another big loss for Canada befell us when the great Maury Chaykin passed away on July 27th, 2010, his 61st birthday. For a beautiful piece written by Daniel MacIvor about both Tracy and Maury, please check out "Blue/This Is Was".

Also worth noting: "TRIGGER," Tracy's project with Daniel, Don, Molly Parker, and Bruce McDonald, will be screening at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12th, 2010 and will open in other theatres two weeks later. It will be a lovely way to remember her.

Rape? Not rape? Don't Ask Amy: Defaulting To "YES"

I'm not normally moved to write about something such as this in a public forum, but after stumbling across a link yesterday, one that detailed the story of an "Ask Amy" column in the Chicago Tribune which blamed the victim of a rape (yes, the college student was a victim, Amy said, first and foremost of her "own awful judgment" for daring to drink at a campus party)...I can't not write something about it. I could so so in my private blog, but everyone over there has already seen the shocked Twitter updates and so on. It's better to say it all here.

I think it was the somewhat frustrating conversation I had with my parents after reading all of this "Ask Amy" garbage that made me realize it wasn't a subject I could just shove aside and forget about. My mother and I have discussed similar things at length throughout my life; we've debated, argued, agreed, and most importantly have just talked about it. About rape. About power. About what is and isn't okay. We haven't always agreed on every point - hell, we've had some pretty bizarre arguments about what is "proper" for a young lady to do - but that's not what matters, from where I stand. She raised me to be able to discuss these things and be critical and careful in both theory and practice.

My father is a bit of a different story. It's not because he thinks differently than I do; he's quite possibly able to become even more angry at the thought of a man thinking he has inherent rights to a woman that he clearly does not. He's the kind of dad who - no word of a lie, here - used to park down the block from my date's house, thinking I wouldn't see his car, just in case. In case of what? I don't know. I'm not sure what he thought he could do from his car to help if my date decided to attack me mid-movie in the rec room. But damned if he didn't sit out there and read his book, believing himself to be in "stealth mode" (even though I always caught him when I'd be getting into my car to drive home), just in case his little girl found herself in danger at the hands of a guy he didn't know well enough to trust. (I sort of wonder if such a guy exists, actually. I'll have to ask him if there's ever been a guy I've dated that he truly trusted not to harm me in some way. Hmm.)

Did I mention that he was doing this stealth-driving act while I was in university? Yeah. Did I mention that my mother has always seemed quietly pleased that he did so? Yeah.

And, all in all, I can't say it ever made me angry for long. They weren't trying to ruin my fun or police my social life; they were trying, in their possibly insanely overprotective way, to make sure they were there if I needed them, because they both knew that bad things happen and that some guys can't be trusted.

The trouble we ran into during our conversation about the "Ask Amy" situation yesterday stemmed from a very organic place. My mother knows what I mean when I say, "I wish our society didn't just assume that a woman defaults to 'yes,' and that she has to kick, bite, and scream 'NO!' if she's going to avoid being touched or grabbed or spoken to inappropriately by men." (I should probably qualify that by saying that I do not think all men are inherently evil. For the purpose of this post, I'm discussing the men who do think they have these rights, and who don't feel they ought to take any responsibility in what happens if a woman's resistance isn't "strong enough" or...whatever.) During the conversation, I made reference to something that had angered me last year: "The Open-Source Boob Project". I'd break it down if I could, but you're probably better served if you go to the link and read up on it (this post in response, written by a friend of mine, is excellent, too; there's something of a "highlight reel" posted here, along with a link to the response essay entitled, "A Modest Proposal: Open Source Swift Kick to the Balls Project"). It did have that same feeling of "Women Default To YES!" to it, although it later came out that the whole situation had been poorly explained, and that the writer of the post is not an evil, woman-hating predator.

Even so, it just happened that this post and its ideals surfaced only days after I'd been sexually assaulted in my workplace. The "Project" would have riled me up no matter what, but the timing certainly made it worse. The man who assaulted me was very clear about the fact that he thought he had every right to put his hands all over me, and that, because I hadn't backhanded him yet, he could just keep going. Never mind that I was in shock, or that I was afraid it would only escalate further if I angered him; it was my perceived halfhearted refusals to let him go any further (he'd gone plenty far enough, thanks) that seemed to embolden him, as though I actually needed to knock his teeth down his throat for the word "NO" to mean anything to him. Telling him to stop, to let me go, making excuses so I could escape his grasp...none of it worked. I only got away from him when he, rather dementedly, interpreted my "NO" and "MY BOSS IS RIGHT UPSTAIRS" as "You'll have another shot at me tomorrow when we're alone, I promise!" In the end, I don't care what it was that allowed me to get my wrists free of his hands. I got free. And I was the one who went through hell for months afterward, being persecuted by the insensitive police officers who didn't seem all that interested in my case if it wasn't "real" rape or if I didn't feel strong enough to go to court right away. On top of that, after my employers had to change things around to accommodate me and my (apparently ridiculous?) security needs, I was fired from my job only three weeks later. Draw your own conclusions there. It might be telling, too, if I add that I was forbidden to tell any of my coworkers - all of whom were female and had to walk a good distance to their cars alone, in the dark, right outside the very building where this guy worked and where the assault had taken place. They didn't want to "cause a panic." Yes. Better to leave them totally blind and not know that there was a pervert with access to their office. We wouldn't want a panic.

Anyway. Tangent. Yes. My point, though, is that I'd told my mother all about the Open-Source Boob Project, and how much it bothered me that, even if the guys involved in the original post didn't feel "entitled" (even though discussing the fact that women who go to comic and sci-fi conventions dress provocatively for the men's viewing pleasure certainly smacks of it, doesn't it?), it was still a slap in the face to many of us who hadn't really thought about it before...but yes, our society does think that a woman's default is set to "YES." What we have to go through to prove that we mean "NO" is ridiculous.

I hadn't ever discussed that whole issue with my father. He was with me the night the police came to get my statement, and he did his best to comfort me when I cried about how I just couldn't understand how someone as strong and (apparently) intimidating as I am gave off the signals to this guy that it was okay for him to grope and kiss me in an empty stairwell. (See? Victim-blaming, done by the victim herself!) But he's not as tuned into pop culture as I am (and as my mother therefore is, as she's usually the one who gets to hear all of my ranting), and he doesn't have the front row seat that we do to just how pervasive the Yes Default really is.

For that reason, his immediate response to the "Ask Amy" situation was to go into Mr. Fix-It Mode, which seems to be common among the men I've known. He was full of solutions about how this particular fraternity should be handled, and what this victim needed to do, and so on. None of what he said was wrong, but it missed the broader point. We still live in a society that is completely permissive as far as things like this go. This girl went to a frat party, told this guy she would NOT be sleeping with him, had several drinks, still said no, took the guy at his word when he promised he wouldn't make a move on her and would just take her to lie down when she started feeling unwell from the alcohol...and when he raped her, she was still so unsure about whether or not it WAS rape - because, as she said, she wasn't physically strong enough to kick or punch him, and could only verbalize her rejection of his advances - that she wrote to an advice column to ask if she was really a "victim."

It's encouraging to see the amount of outrage directed at this Amy woman's response, because it hits the nail on the head. Some of the comments had me chuckling darkly.



"If you are a drunk man, it's not your fault that you rape someone; if you are a drunk woman, it's partly your fault if you are raped. LOGIC FAIL."

"Because rape isn't a choice or a deliberate action: it's a bodily function, like throwing up on someone because you drank too much. Which is also embarrassing, especially if you've 'done it before'."



How could Amy possibly live with herself after advising this girl to confront her rapist to clarify what actually happened that night in order to ascertain if it was, indeed, rape??? WHAT THE HELL KIND OF ANSWER IS THAT??? What woman, who already carries the shame of the attack (because it's rare, I've found, to come across a woman who's been assaulted and who doesn't at some point ask herself if she somehow did something to "deserve" it - myself included), would want to face her attacker and talk it over???

I don't know if men, even the most well-intentioned of them all, will ever really understand what it's like to have the very real concern constantly in the back of their minds that today will be the day that someone will violate them. On the subway. In the parking lot. At work. In their driveway. Women live with knowing that there are far too many people out there who believe that, unless you're walking around screaming "NO!" at the top of your lungs 24/7, you are somehow giving permission. The way you dress, the way you walk, the places you go, the oh, so absurd idea that maybe you want to go shopping alone on your way home from school or work. Newsflash, gentlemen: Women are even less "allowed" to do things the way they'd like to do them than men are in saying or doing sexual and demeaning things to those women. It happens to us every day to some degree. EVERY DAY. We - none of us - have the luxury of setting foot outside of our houses without thinking about the precautions we have to take. I tried to explain that to my father. He tried to understand, but he always ends up back in the same place: "The guys I've known my whole life have never thought they could say or do those things and have it be okay." Well, that's good to know. I like knowing there are lots of men out there who don't think women are their property. I'm certainly fortunate to have so many men in my family who have such respect and empathy for women; not many people are as lucky as I am. But just because you haven't heard it, or seen it, or been surrounded by Bad Guys, does not in any way mean that they aren't waiting for one of us outside the grocery store, or that otherwise "well adjusted" men don't suddenly think that a girl getting drunk at a college party equals permission to do whatever he wants to her. And my father knows this, too; why else would he be parking one block down to make sure I was safe when going on a date with a guy he hadn't met yet?

There is no logical conclusion to this post. I wish there was. I'm not a good enough writer to tie this up in a neat little bow. What I can do, though, is leave it off with a link to an essay that I came across while reading all of this "Ask Amy" crap, one that, maybe, if I read it to my Dad, would finally make things make sense. The fact that I've been on the unfortunate receiving end of two "Not Rape" situations (I won't discuss the other one publicly, because - as bizarre as I'm sure it would sound to most - I don't want to ruin the life of the guy involved, despite that experience being considerably more...well, it was rape, I've come to understand, but still... That one gets left alone) makes this essay that much more poignant.

Read it here: The "Not Rape" Epidemic. Pass it around. And I sincerely hope you know someone - anyone - who hasn't had at least one of the things described in Latoya's essay happen to her. I'm not sure I do. And that makes me want to cry.

[ETA: Amy has addressed her critics with the lamest non-retraction/apology ever. I sincerely hope the Tribune fires her sorry ass for this debacle.]

Musings on Dunbar's Number: When do we "max out" on friends?

On Friday, June 13th, 2008, a 20-year-long friendship came to a sudden, though not unexpected, end. I'd thought it was one that would last a lifetime; people don't generally see each other through so many of life's obstacles, victories and rites of passage only to toss aside one's partner in crime. Precisely how something that had seemed so fireproof went up in smoke within only a matter of months is a mystery that will confound me for years to come, if I let it. It is, perhaps, energy best spent elsewhere - I'll get to that - but the fact remains that I learned a solid and valuable lesson from the experience: There is no such thing as a sure thing. Oh, and as a TV show once told me (I listen to what the television says, you know), "Trust no-one." Damn straight.

I preface my ponderings about Dunbar's Number with that bit of background mainly to exemplify one of its biggest points: Damage to our innermost social "ring" can knock you off your axis for an incalcuable amount of time, and you might surprise yourself with what measures you'll take to try to rebalance yourself. All of our "social networking" and society's sudden, strange fixation with "collecting" friends as Readers or Followers might be a direct result of us trying to fill a void - one that should be reserved for only a very few VIPs - by stuffing as many acquaintances into it as technology will allow.

"But what the hell is Dunbar's Number?" you're thinking. You don't really wanna read on if I'm going to babble and analogize and never explain the theory. I don't blame you. So here's the quick and dirty Wikipedia definition, for a start:



Dunbar's number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person. Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restricted rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar's number, but a commonly cited approximation is 150.

Dunbar's number was first proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who theorized that "this limit is a direct function of relative neocortex size, and that this in turn limits group size ... the limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity is simply on the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained." On the periphery, the number also includes past colleagues such as high school friends with whom a person would want to reacquaint themselves if they met again.



That is only one facet of the theory, of course, but at its basest, it shows us that we all have a limit on how many balls we can juggle, and how valuable our nearest and dearest are in the grand scheme of things.

If you're like my mother, your immediate reaction is to say, "Uh, no. My social circle doesn't come close to a hundred and fifty people." But when I started to elaborate - "Think of your Christmas card list, and all of the people who are offshoots of those people!" - my Mom had to admit that it sounded more plausible with an expanded definition. I used the analogy of our own personal universes having orbits around them, or Bohr's rings, each populated by different "levels" of people in our lives. The innermost ring, for most, would include a significant other, or one's children, siblings, or best and oldest friend. The next ring would feature other close relatives and friends who are central to one's life. The next might have longtime colleagues or in-laws. And so on. It's a highly personal thing, the organization of one's particular universe, but you get the idea. Once you start to extend it to include the other people who exist in your sphere, in whatever capacity - those you know through work, old friends you only see once a year, people you've met through your boyfriend/best friend/boss - it's not hard to imagine 150 as being a reasonable middle-ground kind of number.

I'd never heard of this theory before a few days ago - odd timing, really, since I hadn't realized that it was the anniversary of the annihilation of that aforementioned friendship upon which I stumbled across Dunbar. Of all days to be learning about the delicate balance of our social circles and the damage that can be done if an inner ring is somehow disturbed, I had a one in 365 shot that it would be that day. I hadn't even recognized it as being a day of any significance until I was reminded by someone about where I'd been a year ago that night, and things all fell into place from there. And yes, the theory is correct about just how whacked out your social connections can get when a fundamental party is obliterated by circumstance (death, divorce, drama). I'd experienced it before I knew that it had a name.

The theory goes on to explain that we, as social creatures, are in a constant state of flux - the outermost rings of people coming and going, changing in their composition or their degree of importance to us - but that it is more important than most of us realize to keep some semblance of sameness to, if nothing else, the sheer number of people we're trying to juggle. With the onslaught of new social networking media, like Twitter and Facebook, we're bombarded by (or is it "with"?) the minutiae of more and more of our most distant contacts every single day...and it's screwing with our heads. Those of us who used to have close-knit circles of only our dearest friends and family, numbering nowhere near that magic Dunbar figure, are now in constant contact with people who would otherwise be relegated to "work friends" or "old schoolmates" or people we had simply shed as part of the process of growing and moving on. That's not to say the internet hasn't been an amazing tool, helping us to reconnect with countless people with whom we'd lost touch and being able to pick up where we left off; I don't know anyone who doesn't have at least one happy "you'll never guess who found me on Facebook!" story. But there's a flipside to that element of our lives: The energy we each expend nowadays, trying to maintain all of these new or revived relationships, can be exorbitant, and I know of a startlingly high number of people who suffer from what I call Facebook Guilt. It's that feeling you get when you see how many messages have been sitting, unread, in your inbox for days, and the endless little comments or virtual gifts left for us each day - kind and thoughtful though they almost always are - that makes turning on your computer start to seem scary as hell. It's the cyber-version of drowning in paperwork. Throw Twitter into the mix, add in your 24/7 availability via text message on your cell phone, and the capability to IM anyone from anywhere...and I'm betting your number has soared well beyond 150 and into the realm of "holy HELL how do I make the BEEPING stop?!?"

It's not just me. Honest.

So Dunbar has applied the whole "apes grooming each other" thing to us humanfolk, and has postulated that we're in danger of being driven crazy by too many people in our sphere or having parts of our lives and personalities neglected if we have too few. A line from "Trainspotting" has come to mind frequently as I've pondered my own circle of friends: "It's a tightrope, Spud. A fucking tightrope." Truer words have ne'er been spoken. As our Contact Lists grow longer, our time spent cultivating the face-to-face variety of friendship grows inevitably shorter, and eventually we'll all find ourselves either loaded down with 400 expectant people or a scant few who can be bothered with us since we blew them off to catch up on our unanswered email or ignored them as we texted furiously under the table at dinner.

I didn't have to think for long before I could say with absolute certainty that the number of people in my life who deserve to be slapped with the Truly Important To Me label is laughably higher than 150. I say that not to boast nor to complain, but rather to marvel. I didn't do an actual headcount, but I didn't need to. A quick scan of the people who can read my locked blog + the number of contacts on MSN + the list of cell numbers stored in my phone + the friends and family on Facebook = a metric crapload. (I mean that in a good way.) The majority of those people are ones I've known either long or well (or both) and would never want to "lose" in a Dunbar shuffle. I think that puts me in the realm of Critical Mass. And one might make a good argument that spending so much time tending to so many, and wanting to keep up on the details of that many lives, has (and still could) cost me some of the relationships I've had since before I became @prettyh. Would I change it? Nope. Do I recognize the insanity of somehow really knowing such a high volume of people, and the effort it requires to be an active participant in their lives? YES. And since most of them (you might be one of Them, if you're reading this) are in the same boat, I think it's safe to say that they realize it, too. Thank goodness for that; I'm lucky to have a mightily forgiving lot of inhabitants in my life, all of whom know that the expected turnaround date for an email response or a phone call or a ReTweet or a night at the movies has grown exponentially longer because our social circles have exploded.


(Anyone who knows me at all just laughed aloud at the idea of me voluntarily making a phone call. It was just an example.)


It wasn't my ever-expanding clan that rendered my decades-old friendship extinct; the death of that relationship was inevitable, with or without 'net access. But I've seen it happen to other people, trading precious RL moments for a chance to bask in the adulation scrolling across their computer screen. I suppose the whole point of this blather is to say that we've lost sight of our Number and why it should matter to us. We expect ridiculous things of ourselves as we try to mete out the appropriate amount of time and attention to each and every member of our worlds and, without proper perspective, we're constantly in danger of denting our Inner Rings by letting the weight of the Outer ones crush toward the centre. Which is us. We are at the middle of our own universe by its very design; people are in our orbit. And we are in theirs. And we're no good to anyone if we're spread too thin, spending countless hours ignoring the relationships in front of us in favour of sending mass forwards to our 6,342 "closest friends." A tightrope, indeed.



Does it shoot all of my credibility to hell if I confess that I Twittered about this very subject only days ago? Ahem.



Take a good, hard look at your Number. Count your rings. Ask yourself if they're prioritized correctly. If the answer is no, it's time to back away from the mesmerizing pull of seeing lives in 140 characters. If the answer is yes...well, then, you're probably a lot further ahead of the rest of your pack. And Dunbar would be proud of you.

The days of the true rock concert experience are dying.

My 2009 summer concert list is getting rather unwieldy.

• Coldplay - tickets are bought (show is July 30th)
  
• Depeche Mode - tickets are bought (show is July 24th)
  
• Nine Inch Nails/Jane's Addiction - tickets aren't on sale yet, but I have a crack team working on snatching up a few when the time comes (show is June 2nd)
  
• U2 - no onsale date yet, either (whyyyyy did they pick the lousiest possible venue??? Show is on September 16th)
  

And those are just the four major contenders; there will surely be others. Thank goodness I'm only actually paying for two of these at a time. And the Depeche Mode ones are actually a gift from my parents, which is a damn good thing, since they're $115 each. Compare that to the $50 apiece we paid for Coldplay, and it's outright despicable, really.



Oh, before I forget (and completely off-topic!), I'm putting out a call to all:
What's your favourite conspiracy theory?
Is there one (or more than one??) that you've always kinda thought had some merit to it? I'm doing a little research into some of the more popular ones, and was thinking of doing a few blog installments about them, so tell me which conspiracy theories fascinate you the most, or which ones are completely ridiculous (and why!), and I'll get around to compiling a few posts looking a bit further into 'em.


Back to the concerts thing, then.



Remember the good old days, when TRUE FANS would line up the night before or the morning of the tickets going on sale? When you'd befriend other fans in line and you'd see them again months later at the concert? Remember when people had to do more than sit on their lazy asses and click a mouse to go to a show? All of those things, that effort, really did add to the experience. Now scalpers get more tickets than fans do, and venues add an extra $20 to each ticket for "convenience charges" and so on. Mark my words: The days of the truly great rock concert are dying, my friends.

The craziest ticket-getting experience I ever had was the bitterly cold January morning when my boyfriend Doug and I lined up to buy Pink Floyd tickets. We were actually going to see Billy Joel that night at Maple Leaf Gardens (this was 1994), so having to get up that early on a Saturday morning and then make the trek in a blizzard downtown in 12 hours was...not an exciting prospect. Still, it was PINK FLOYD. It was the "PULSE" tour, in support of The Division Bell *swoon*, and nothing was going to stop us from getting those tickets. There was no such thing as Ticketmaster.Ca or .Com, but you could do it by phone, if you were a wimp. This was also before the random wristbands; you had to haul ass to prove you were worthy of those good seats, damnit. And there was also a limit of 4 tickets, EVER, per person.

What we didn't know, though, was that things were different that morning than they usually were when we'd gone to buy tickets at the record store. Usually the store employees would open the mall doors enough for us to at least wait inside for an hour or two, even while the whole place was still technically closed. So I hadn't dressed for -30°C temperatures. I had normal boots on, and a normal winter jacket, sure, but I didn't have a scarf or mittens or a hat, and the wind was bitter enough that I should have been wearing tights and extra-thick socks as well. We had to stand out there for two hours, after all...and that's enough to kill you if you're not dressed for it. (I was also a skinny little thing then - just shy of 5'6" and not even 125lbs. No natural insulation whatsoever.)

After the first hour, my feet started to hurt so badly that I actually began to cry, and my tears froze at the corners of my eyes. Doug had been holding me as close to him as possible, but that didn't help my feet, obviously. So he had to leave me there (I'd only gotten my driver's license a few weeks earlier!), drive to my house several blocks away, and ask my parents for whatever they could give him so he could rush back to me and wrap me up in layers. By now I was getting those telltale white spots on my face, and the pain in my feet....GOD, it was INDESCRIBABLE. The people in front of me in line weren't in much better shape; they were two college guys who were wearing blue jeans and their leather jackets from school. The three of us took turns shielding each other from the wind, but mostly they felt sorry for me, this pathetic little 17-year-old girl with big blue eyes and frozen tears who kept trying to sing "Comfortably Numb" along with them so none of us would pass out.

When Doug returned, he was the hero of the hour: My Dad had sent over a couple of extra sweatshirts and pairs of thermal gloves for the people around us, and my Mom had given Doug money to stop at Tim Horton's to get a whole tray of hot chocolate. Oh, it was bliss. He wrapped a scarf around my face, pulled a toque down over my ears (they hurt like a sonofabitch, too), helped me put on an extra pair of socks, and stuffed my hands into the biggest mittens I owned. He'd gotten 8 cups of hot chocolate, so everyone we'd befriended in this terrible melee was so grateful.

By the time 9:59 a.m. rolled around, and the line began to move toward the door, I could barely walk. Doug dutifully dragged me along, with the help of one of the college guys who'd gratefully taken one of my Dad's sweaters, and the normal inside temperature of the mall felt, comparatively, like we were entering the mouth of hell as we hobbled through those doors.

There was an unspoken code in those days: When you got your tickets and came back out of the record store, you would announce to everyone in line behind you which section you'd gotten, so everyone could calculate which seats were left and so on. Sometimes, if you'd spent enough time together and had become friends while you waited, you might even try your luck at getting tickets for all four of you - two and two, of course, to better the odds, but it still saved precious seconds from ticking away for those people behind you. In this case, though, we opted to go it alone. We wished the college boys good luck, and we watched like hawks as they stood at the Ticketmaster counter, trying to read the lips of the girl behind the register. As it turned out, we all got really good seats, and the guys waited for us outside the store to give back the clothes that had probably saved them from freezing to death. They promised they would remember this, and that they'd see us 7 months from now at the show and would make it up to us.

That night, while we sat at Maple Leaf gardens singing along with Billy Joel, I had to fight back tears because my feet and legs still felt like someone was stabbing them with red-hot knitting needles. But the concert was fantastic, and the fact that I enjoyed it anyway really says something.

Fast forward to July 5th, 1994. January was long forgotten, as was the miserable weather we'd endured to allow us to end up at Exhibition Stadium. It was a gorgeous summer night, and Doug and I were over the (dark side of the) moon about seeing Pink Floyd. We had watched A Delicate Sound Of Thunder on VHS so, so many times, and we were ready to have this experience firsthand. Our seats were breathtaking. And it was the final night of an annual tradition in Toronto - the Symphony of Fire - so we got to watch a most extraordinary fireworks show before the concert began. The stadium was right on Lake Ontario, and the moon was full, and it was just...idyllic.

Not long before the show started, I was startled when something landed in my lap. It felt like...clothes. I looked around and couldn't tell in the throngs of people who had thrown it. And then I lifted it up. It was the Division Bell concert t-shirt. Seconds later, Doug got hit in the face with one. And then we saw them. Our college guys! They were only about seven seats over from us, had spotted us earlier, and had gone to the concession to buy us these shirts. They hadn't forgotten the payback they'd promised. It was lovely. We convinced the couple next to us to switch with these guys, and so the four of us were able to bask in the glory of the opening notes when David Gilmour first came onstage.

It didn't hurt that they'd also brought the purest pot I have ever smelled. They offered, and we declined, but I was rip-roaringly high off the secondhand smoke, which made Doug laugh, because I kept bursting into happy tears and saying, "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!" whenever the lights turned into green lasers. (The inflatable pigs with the floodlights for eyes FUCKED ME UP, though.)

There were no email addresses to exchange back then - not really - so at the end of the show, we simply thanked our new/old friends for being so generous, and they thanked us again for rescuing them on that wintry day, and we parted ways. I still have the shirt, and so does Doug.

These are the experiences we miss out on nowadays. Hiding behind our computers, selling our tickets on eBay, waking up two minutes before the onsale time hits... It may seem perfectly normal to some of the younger folks reading this, but you're missing out. You truly are.



I have always wanted to tell that story. I'm glad I have. Am I the only one who's had such a fondness for the way getting tickets used to work???

The Annual Christmas Phone Meme!

I'm reposting this from my LJ after several successful years of hilarity. The only difference is that, because this is public and searchable, I shan't be posting my number right here for the world to see. Instead, if you'd like it (or want to direct me to yours), leave a comment here with your email address (or email me), and we'll do it that way. Also: For those who are able to see my Facebook contact info, you'll find the proper number there!

Now to the post, then...

Guess what time it is?


It's time for the

Annual Christmas voicemail meme!

Get out your phones!

I don't remember who started this, but we've had so much fun with it over the past few years, I thought I'd open myself up to it again. So many of us hardly get to talk these days, and what could be more festive than a message from a friend??

THE RULES:

• post your phone number in your blog/on Facebook so your friends can call and leave goofy messages (you can identify yourself, or, as a number of you have done in the past, you can mess with the recipient's head by being anonymous and simply leaving hints about who you are). A lot of you already have your numbers posted in your contact info, so just throw it into a note for friends to see!
  
• make sure you don't answer your phone - this is for MESSAGES, not conversations, seeing as everyone's busy at this time of year & probably can't sit still long enough to have long (and expensive!) chats with half of their friends list!
  
• if there's a good time at which to call you, specify it in your post (say, 8 p.m.-11 p.m. in your time zone, or all day Christmas Day, etc.), so people know when they'll get your voicemail/when there's no risk of waking anyone up/etc.
  
• make sure you check out your friends' blogs/Facebook notes etc. for other willing victims and call them too! Sing carols, tell jokes, ramble incessantly... Whatever you want to say or do, do it!
  

So there you have it. Ask for my number. Call me. I shan't be around my phone at all on Xmas Eve day or night, nor on Christmas Day, and there's no danger of it disturbing anyone, so you can call any time today, all night tonight (yes, even 4 a.m.), or tomorrow, if you like. It's open 24/7. And no, it's not my cell phone, because we all know that's been ALWAYS buggy.

Now have at it! Most of you already know I have the world's best outgoing message. And I'll check in on my comments and emails later to see who among you have done the same...'cos if you post this, I WILL CALL. [/Field Of Dreams moment]

LET THE MEME BEGIN. POST YER NUMBERS AN' WIN A PRIZE.

(If you consider a call from me a "prize". HAH. But I take requests, and I may sing, or recite verses. I'm like a box o' chocolates, folks. And, apparently, so are you - I get the weirdest calls from you guys... They amuse me so. Some of them are still saved from two years ago, even!)


Happy holidays, everyone!

Mishmash: Linkspam, Terry Fox Run, and Mom's MRI!

Where to begin? I think I should first send out a HUGE thank you to everyone who's pledged in my name for the Terry Fox "Run" I'm doing in 6 days. You guys are amazing! I'm really, really grateful to all of you & I promise I'll make the donation worth your while. I also plan to thank each of you personally after I've accomplished this feat (it being a big deal because of my feet - ha!), but for now I must at least acknowledge those generous donors who've supported me thus far: Jerri, Stacey, Tierney, Matthew, Ian, Vanessa, Kathryn, the McCluskeys, Sara, Dale, and my Mom... I hope I'm not forgetting anyone! I'll make sure each one of you gets to see a wrung-out, gimpy photo of me after the fact. ♥ You've all outdone yourselves!!

Speaking of my Mom, many of you know she's been having a pretty rough time, health-wise, since January, and that she had a much-dreaded MRI this morning (her claustrophobia had prevented her from getting the first one done back in April - it's shockingly common for people to freak out and not get through this test). Well, SHE DID IT, and I applaud her bravery. Even without some of the comforts she'd been promised, which were taken away from her at the last possible second (i.e. me being allowed to go into the room with her; an extra-powerful sedative that she chose not to take after all), she kept it together and we're all so relieved that she can finally relax...and maybe this MRI can tell us more about why her health has been so bad for the past 8 or 9 months. YAY, MOM!! No-one should ever underestimate the guts she has.

Okay - it's MASSIVE linkspam time again! I love getting all those half-amused, half-enraged messages from you guys that blame me for you not getting anything done on the days when I post a bunch of weirdly fascinating links. But, hey, it's Monday! Who wants to accomplish anything on a Monday?? (I know; I use that line for every day of the week. Case in point: last Wednesday's endless list of urban legends!) So sit back and start clicking:

• TIME: Top 10 Scandals of 2007 - These range from U.S. politics to Michael Vick's pit bulls. One highlight reminds us of that totally whacked-out astronaut chick who stalked her fellow NASA dude across the country while wearing diapers. Makes you wonder what the 2008 list is gonna look like, doesn't it??
  
  
• TIME: Top 10 Break-Ups of 2007 - ...and they're not all what you think! Sure, Justin Timberlake was bound to make the list, but George Dubya and Karl Rove? Aww. I never knew they had a widdle womance goin' on. (This IS coming from TIME Magazine; they had to keep things at least a little political.)
  
  
• TIME: Top 10 Viral Videos of 2007 - If you feel the need to hear that alien-boy shrieking LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! just one more time, this is the list for you. My favourite? DAFT HANDS!! I'll never stop being amazed at that.
  
  
• TIME: Top 10 Awkward Moments of 2007 - I don't mean to hassle the Hoff, but, dude, that drunken hamburger-eating video defines awkward. Hearing Alec Baldwin's infamous "rude little pig" voicemail to his lovely daughter gets a nod, too. Oh, and the one that made #6? None other than...
  
  
• Britney's Jaw-Droppingly Bad '07 VMA Performance - God, it gets more painful every time I see it. I figure it's timely that I post this video once more, since she barely made a ripple last night *yawn* when she kicked off the show with one whole line. Gimme gimme more, Brit. Srsly.
  
  
• Anderson Cooper Doesn't Care About Scientologists! - Someone call Kanye! Oh...wait...never mind. Anyway, I love seeing my TV boyfriend ruffle people's feathers. Especially INSANE PEOPLE. Which brings me to...
  
  
• The scariest Tom Cruise video ever - How bloody annoying is that awful Mission: Impossible loop in the background??? AUGH. You've probably already seen Cruise Control's video, but have you seen the brilliant spoofs done by Craig Ferguson and Jerry O'Connell? I'm amazed they're still with us. And that allows me to neatly segue into...
  
  
• "SAVE KATIE!" group buys tickets to her Broadway show - And from the sounds of it, they're the only ones. (Does anyone really think they can rescue Katie - oops, sorry, KATE - from Xenu??)
  
  
• David Duchovny Screwed Around A Lot - REEEEALLY?? *eyeroll* I don't think anyone actually bought his "no, I swear, I was only addicted to internet porn!!!" protestations as he slunk off to rehab. I say no, no, no.
  
  
• Robert De Niro says F*#K OFF to film - ...and here's hoping that spells the official end of Mel Gibson's career!
  
  Now to finish off with a few more entertaining lists ('cos I know they're you're favourite)...
  
  
• 5 Cheap Tricks TV Shows Use To Keep You Watching - No surprise that the first photo you see is from LOST.
  
  
• The 5 Most Obviously Drug-Fueled TV Appearances Ever - I don't know...I think Crispin Glover is really just LIKE that.
  
  
• The 6 Most Gratuitously Cleavaged Women on TV - While I'm pretty sure "cleavaged" isn't a word, there really isn't any better way of putting it.
  
  
• The 7 Most Unforgivable Grammy Snubs Of All Time - I'm still gritting my teeth over #6. What the hell??
  

All right. Enough. It's probably Tuesday by now. I hope you found some entertainment in that mixed bag o' links, 'cos if you didn't...well, cripes, they were the best I had at the time!!

I'll close out by saying that, if you were still planning to pledge a couple o' bucks for my Terry Fox Walk-Don't-Run (only 6 days now...egad!), I'm still gratefully accepting donations! You can do it one of three ways:

• If you see me in person (though I admit it's rare to see me in the wild), I have a pledge sheet and an envelope!
  
• You can DONATE AT MY TERRYFOX.ORG SITE & they'll send you a receipt.
  
• If you hate using your credit card online, but you have a PayPal account, feel free to transfer funds to me (prettyh@sympatico.ca) straight from your bank account! You can even use this handy button, which immediately puts your money into my Terry Fox Fund.
  

THANK YOU, AGAIN!!

Sick Chicks and The Spoon Theory

I've been updating this thing far too often in the past couple of days. But one more for the road, because there are so many people who have no comprehension of what it's like to have a chronic health issue. I've lost friends over it, as they've taken personally my inability to be the social butterfly I once was. I do better these days, since we've sorted a few of the kinks out, but some of my issues have been with me since birth, and to be in my life means you have to know that my limitations aren't something you should ever take personally.

It's hard to believe that it was only five or six years ago that I could be out dancing every night, get home as the sun came up, go to work on no sleep, and still function. I often joke that I used up everything I had in my early-to-mid-20s. That's not to say I don't still manage, of course - I have a hell of a lot of fun when I set my mind to it - but it's less frequent, and more...thought out...than it used to be, by necessity. It's true for all of us, I'm sure; nobody's the same at 30 as they are at 20. But for me, and for some of my friends (you know who you are), it's more than that. Our bodies start howling at us to slow down, and my god, the price we pay if we don't listen...?

This is where I shut up and turn to blog entries such as "Is it worth the risk?", and websites like ButYouDon'tLookSick.Com, which features the amazingly evocative and now infamous (well, in my circles, anyway) "Spoon Theory" essay. They say it better than I ever could.

Normally I'd just link to this (as I did to the Feministe entry, which is well worth a look - it's all about why nobody should ever assume they know the solution to a friend's health problems), but because it's now only available as a PDF, I'm pasting the whole essay here. Please read it. If not for me, then for someone else you may know who "doesn't look sick".

---

THE SPOON THEORY (copyright 2003 C. Miserandino)
My best friend and I were in the diner, talking. As usual, it was very late and we were eating French fries with gravy. Like normal girls our age, we spent a lot of time in the diner while in college, and most of the time we spent talking about boys, music or trivial things, that seemed very important at the time. We never got serious about anything in particular and spent most of our time laughing.

As I went to take some of my medicine with a snack as I usually did, she watched me with an awkward kind of stare, instead of continuing the conversation. She then asked me out of the blue what it felt like to have Lupus and be sick. I was shocked not only because she asked the random question, but also because I assumed she knew all there was to know about Lupus. She came to doctors with me, she saw me walk with a cane, and throw up in the bathroom. She had seen me cry in pain, what else was there to know?

I started to ramble on about pills, and aches and pains, but she kept pursuing, and didn't seem satisfied with my answers. I was a little surprised as being my roommate in college and friend for years; I thought she already knew the medical definition of Lupus. Then she looked at me with a face every sick person knows well, the face of pure curiosity about something no one healthy can truly understand. She asked what it felt like, not physically, but what it felt like to be me, to be sick.

As I tried to gain my composure, I glanced around the table for help or guidance, or at least stall for time to think. I was trying to find the right words. How do I answer a question I never was able to answer for myself? How do I explain every detail of every day being affected, and give the emotions a sick person goes through with clarity? I could have given up, cracked a joke like I usually do, and changed the subject, but I remember thinking if I don’t try to explain this, how could I ever expect her to understand? If I can’t explain this to my best friend, how could I explain my world to anyone else? I had to at least try.

At that moment, the spoon theory was born. I quickly grabbed every spoon on the table; hell. I grabbed spoons off of the other tables. I looked at her in the eyes and said “Here you go, you have Lupus”. She looked at me slightly confused, as anyone would when they are being handed a bouquet of spoons. The cold metal spoons clanked in my hands, as I grouped them together and shoved them into her hands.

I explained that the difference in being sick and being healthy is having to make choices or to consciously think about things when the rest of the world doesn’t have to. The healthy have the luxury of a life without choices, a gift most people take for granted.

Most people start the day with unlimited amount of possibilities, and energy to do whatever they desire, especially young people. For the most part, they do not need to worry about the effects of their actions. So for my explanation, I used spoons to convey this point. I wanted something for her to actually hold, for me to then take away, since most people who get sick feel a “loss” of a life they once knew. If I was in control of taking away the spoons, then she would know what it feels like to have someone or something else, in this case Lupus, being in control.

She grabbed the spoons with excitement. She didn’t understand what I was doing, but she is always up for a good time, so I guess she thought I was cracking a joke of some kind like I usually do when talking about touchy topics. Little did she know how serious I would become.

I asked her to count her spoons. She asked why, and I explained that when you are healthy you expect to have a never-ending supply of "spoons". But when you have to now plan your day, you need to know exactly how many “spoons” you are starting with. It doesn’t guarantee that you might not lose some along the way, but at least it helps to know where you are starting. She counted out 12 spoons. She laughed and said she wanted more. I said no, and I knew right away that this little game would work, when she looked disappointed, and we hadn't even started yet. I’ve wanted more "spoons" for years and haven’t found a way yet to get more, why should she? I also told her to always be conscious of how many she had, and not to drop them because she can never forget she has Lupus.

I asked her to list off the tasks of her day, including the most simple. As she rattled off daily chores, or just fun things to do, I explained how each one would cost her a spoon. When she jumped right into getting ready for work as her first task of the morning, I cut her off and took away a spoon. I practically jumped down her throat. I said, "No! You don’t just get up. You have to crack open your eyes, and then realize you are late. You didn’t sleep well the night before. You have to crawl out of bed, and then you have to make yourself something to eat before you can do anything else, because if you don’t, you can't take your medicine, and if you don’t take your medicine you might as well give up all your spoons for today and tomorrow too." I quickly took away a spoon and she realized she hasn’t even gotten dressed yet. Showering cost her a spoon, just for washing her hair and shaving her legs. Reaching high and low that early in the morning could actually cost more than one spoon, but I figured I would give her a break; I didn’t want to scare her right away. Getting dressed was worth another spoon. I stopped her and broke down every task to show her how every little detail needs to be thought about. You cannot simply just throw clothes on when you are sick. I explained that I have to see what clothes I can physically put on, if my hands hurt that day buttons are out of the question. If I have bruises that day, I need to wear long sleeves, and if I have a fever I need a sweater to stay warm and so on. If my hair is falling out I need to spend more time to look presentable, and then you need to factor in another 5 minutes for feeling badly that it took you 2 hours to do all this.

I think she was starting to understand when she theoretically didn’t even get to work, and she was left with 6 spoons. I then explained to her that she needed to choose the rest of her day wisely, since when your “spoons” are gone, they are gone. Sometimes you can borrow against tomorrow’s "spoons", but just think how hard tomorrow will be with less "spoons". I also needed to explain that a person who is sick always lives with the looming thought that tomorrow may be the day that a cold comes, or an infection, or any number of things that could be very dangerous. So you do not want to run low on "spoons", because you never know when you truly will need them. I didn’t want to depress her, but I needed to be realistic, and unfortunately being prepared for the worst is part of a real day for me.

We went through the rest of the day, and she slowly learned that skipping lunch would cost her a spoon, as well as standing on a train, or even typing at her computer too long. She was forced to make choices and think about things differently.

Hypothetically, she had to choose not to run errands, so that she could eat dinner that night.

When we got to the end of her pretend day, she said she was hungry. I summarized that she had to eat dinner but she only had one spoon left. If she cooked, she wouldn’t have enough energy to clean the pots. If she went out for dinner, she might be too tired to drive home safely. Then I also explained that I didn’t even bother to add into this game that she was so nauseous that cooking was probably out of the question anyway. So she decided to make soup, it was easy. I then said it is only 7pm, you have the rest of the night but maybe end up with one spoon, so you can do something fun, or clean your apartment, or do chores, but you can’t do it all.

I rarely see her emotional, so when I saw her upset I knew maybe I was getting through to her. I didn’t want my friend to be upset, but at the same time I was happy to think finally maybe someone understood me a little bit. She had tears in her eyes and asked quietly, “Christine, how do you do it? Do you really do this everyday?” I explained that some days were worse then others; some days I have more spoons then most. But I can never make it go away and I can’t forget about it, I always have to think about it. I handed her a spoon I had been holding in reserve. I said simply, “I have learned to live life with an extra spoon in my pocket, in reserve. You need to always be prepared.”

It's hard, the hardest thing I ever had to learn is to slow down, and not do everything. I fight this to this day. I hate feeling left out, having to choose to stay home, or to not get things done that I want to. I wanted her to feel that frustration. I wanted her to understand, that everything everyone else does comes so easy, but for me it is one hundred little jobs in one. I need to think about the weather, my temperature that day, and the whole day's plans before I can attack any one given thing. When other people can simply do things, I have to attack it and make a plan like I am strategizing a war. It is in that lifestyle, the difference between being sick and healthy. It is the beautiful ability to not think and just do. I miss that freedom. I miss never having to count "spoons".

After we were emotional and talked about this for a little while longer, I sensed she was sad. Maybe she finally understood. Maybe she realized that she never could truly and honestly say she understands. But at least now she might not complain so much when I can't go out for dinner some nights, or when I never seem to make it to her house and she always has to drive to mine. I gave her a hug when we walked out of the diner. I had the one spoon in my hand and I said “Don’t worry. I see this as a blessing. I have been forced to think about everything I do. Do you know how many spoons people waste everyday? I don’t have room for wasted time, or wasted “spoons” and I chose to spend this time with you.”

Ever since this night, I have used the spoon theory to explain my life to many people. In fact, my family and friends refer to spoons all the time. It has been a code word for what I can and cannot do. Once people understand the spoon theory they seem to understand me better, but I also think they live their life a little differently too. I think it isn’t just good for understanding Lupus, but anyone dealing with any disability or illness. Hopefully, they don’t take so much for granted or their life in general. I give a piece of myself, in every sense of the word, when I do anything. It has become an inside joke. I have become famous for saying to people jokingly that they should feel special when I spend time with them, because they have one of my "spoons".

---

This goes out to my own personal support group - you know who you are, LJers* ; how lucky are we to have each other, 24/7, no matter what else is going on in our lives? - and to my family and closest friends, who never begrudge me an extra hour (or three) off my feet, and who never presume to know exactly how I feel, and who love me all the same. I love you all twice as much for it.

*(Meli, Casey, Lucy, Shannon, Jenn, Joolie, Jessica, Seph, Carla, Jan, Matthew, Kim, Rachel, Polly, April, Alicia, Jillian, Vashti, Jess, Emily, Josie, David, Katie, Jason, JJ, Bri, Tiffany, Maggie, Aurora, Tierney, Crystal, Stephen, Beki, Sam, Mina, Linda, Cassie... I beg forgiveness if I missed any of my LJ Inner Sanctum. It's just the fog setting in. xoxo)

If you'd like to pass this essay along to others, please feel free - this button will help you send it or post it just about anywhere:

Terry Fox, the hero.

I'm a few hours late, but let's pretend it's still July 28th. Terry Fox's birthday. I'm up at my usual hours, watching a documentary put together by his family, and it's dawned on me that this is the first time in my life that I've allowed myself to know too much about the man who many consider the most famous Canadian to have ever lived...and certainly among the most noble and extraordinary. I think the subject has always just saddened me so much that I didn't let myself explore who he really was, and what he's really done. I was only about five years old when he died, and yet - just like the day John Lennon was shot - I have a remarkably clear set of memories surrounding the tragic news.

I'm not going to go into pages and pages of everything Terry accomplished. There've been hundreds of people before me who've said it better. But I feel like I should pay homage to him in some small way, because we - my family - have lost people to cancer, people who meant the world to us (and, oh, how egregiously that phrase is overused; one only really grasps its meaning when one has truly lost what we have. Many of you, sadly, know that to be all too true, having lost someone who mattered that much to you, too...). And Terry Fox, just some kid from Winnipeg, stands for the hope that, someday, others won't be lost the way people like Rose Marie O'Leary Stewart and Michael McCluskey were lost. In fact, there's little doubt in anyone's mind that what Terry did has already made a remarkably significant impact on cancer treatment and education...all because he decided to go for a run. And all he asked was for each Canadian to donate one dollar to the cause. I'm so proud, when I think of the movement he started, to be Canadian. Proud that his name is associated with my country.

I guess I'm just writing this because there's this fear that I have that people outside of Canada don't know who he is. Is that the case, I wonder? I'll have to ask my international friends if they've heard of him, and of what he did. In the meantime, though, a primer:

Terry Fox was an athletic young man with a lot of plans for himself, all of which got derailed at the age of 19, when he was found to have osteosarcoma. Despite a lower leg amputation to rid him of the original tumour, the cancer had already begun to metastasize, and yet still he decided he would run across our enormous country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, on a prosthetic leg and in failing health. He began his run in April 1980 in St. John's, Newfoundland, and while the tumours in his lungs forced him to stop in September of that same year, he'd still managed to run an astonishing 5,373km (3,339 miles) in 143 days. He'd made his way through Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Québec, and came to a stop here in Ontario.

(An aside: It still sickens me to know how Québec treated him. He was forced off the main roads - allegedly because "nobody spoke English and didn't understand his message" - and left to run on a barren, unpopulated path alongside the St. Lawrence River. Because of that, despite the 100+ kilometres he ran through that province, he raised only THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS from "La Belle Province". The only thing that makes me able to swallow the horror and disgust I feel about that is the knowledge that, when he stopped at Toronto's City Hall many weeks later, he was handed $100,000 for his charity.)

In the end, even after he had to stop the Marathon Of Hope in September 1980, he continued to lobby for donations. CTV held a telethon while Terry was hospitalized to receive chemotherapy, and the most amazing thing happened: the total donations that had poured in from his run and from the telethon reached over $24 million...which meant that his dream of having $1 from each Canadian had been realized.

And though he died in June 1981 from pneumonia, he'd lived long enough to see that, while the marathon had stopped, the message had not. His efforts alone had doubled the projected annual budget of the Canadian Cancer Society, and for that he was presented with the highest honour our country can bestow: the Order Of Canada.

I have friends who still run the Marathon of Hope each year (now simply called "The Terry Fox Run"; it takes place all over Canada each September), and while I've never done it myself, I think I should. I was born with deformed legs that cause me pain every day, but my god... What is that, really, in the face of what Terry Fox did? I'm ashamed that I've never done it. It's high time I did. I can't run, but I can walk, and the physical price I'll pay in the days following are nothing compared to what one 22-year-old boy did for millions of people.

I should end this on a lighter note. (I'm sure you're wondering how that's possible, but if anyone could add levity to a story, it was my Grandma, who herself would be a casualty of cancer only 6 years after Terry Fox lost his battle.) I'm sure I won't get it quite right, since I was so little when it happened, and I've not heard the second-hand version for a while, but I laugh every time I hear it:

On the day that Terry Fox made it into Toronto, his arrival caused people to gather in droves alongside his route, and his police escort always brought traffic to a halt whenever he would reach a highly populated city or town. My Grandma didn't drive, but she took a taxi to and from work, and on this particular day I suppose she'd gotten up too early to catch the news that Terry would be coming through our city that afternoon. When she got home from work, much later than usual, she and her Irish temper were on fire; she railed at my Mom and my uncles about how there was "some stupid bastard jamming up traffic and running down the middle of the bloody road!"

You can imagine the completely inappropriate laughter that would have come from her audience, and the horrified, sheepish expression on my grandmother's face when she was told who it was, and why her taxi ride had been so torturously long. And needless to say, my family has since been very supportive of the Cancer Society, all of us readily donating every year, our house always brightened by those annual yellow daffodils, and my Mom volunteered actively for our local chapter; my cousin Kristin also runs for charity and is a personal hero of mine for that.

And Terry Fox? Well, if he wasn't a hero of yours before reading this, I hope he is now. Maybe this year you'll want to join the Terry Fox Run, too. Or perhaps support me when I do it.

I can only imagine how proud that boy from Winnipeg would be if he could see what he started.

"My heart belongs to Daddy": The Virginity Movement and "Purity Balls"

A friend of mine posted a set of unimaginably disturbing links about "the Courtship Movement", which, as she pointed out, is well-intentioned but has somehow managed to flip the "squick" button for a lot of us. I'll be borrowing liberally from the links she used (and I hope she doesn't mind!), and adding my own editorials as I go.

Preaching abstinence to teenagers is not inherently a bad thing. In this sex-crazed world, it's important for kids to know that they do have the option to JUST SAY NO, and that it is nobody's choice but their own. I was a teenager in the '90s, and I seemed to run with a bizarrely "pure" crowd (I do hate that word; as was mentioned in my friend's original post, it makes it sound as though a girl/woman who has chosen to engage in sexual activity becomes less valuable somehow - "used goods", as it were). Yes, there was sex, but everyone in my group of friends was paired off, most of us carrying our relationships into university, and some of us beyond and into marriage/cohabitational bliss. None of us drank underage, there were no drugs, no smoking, no sleeping around... It sounds utopian and probably outright untrue, but there it is. I was there. I know. We were an aberration, I suppose; those of us who chose to have sex were responsible and monogamous, and those of us who chose not to weren't looked upon as "lame".

But therein lies my problem with preaching only abstinence, which is the central theme of books such as "I Kissed Dating Goodbye", apparently a popular read in this Courtship Movement. Kids will be kids; covering their eyes and not educating them about all of their options, and the most responsible way to handle each of them, simply isn't realistic. (I was going to add, "...in this day and age," to that statement, but I suspect there was just as much premarital sex happening in Jane Austen's years as there is now; the main difference is taking a literal roll in the hay on ye olde plantation versus "all those clumsy, sticky fumblings in the backseats of cars" - thank you, Dr. Hannibal Lecter.)

Here's where the squick factor comes in. Long have we known of events like the traditional Southern Cotillions, the coming-out parties that announce a young debutante's "arrival" onto the scene. Now, though, there are glitzy bashes that, on the surface, look just like a cotillion or a prom, but are something altogether different. And are, in my opinion, freaky as all hell.

Introducing "Purity Balls", in which girls of various ages pledge their virginity. To their FATHERS. (Also known, according to the Wikipedia entry on the subject, as "Father Daughter Purity Balls" or "Purity Weddings". Just...ugh.)

A quote from the article to which I linked above:

In a chandelier-lit ballroom overlooking the Rocky Mountains one recent evening, some hundred couples feast on herb-crusted chicken and julienned vegetables. The men look dapper in tuxedos; their dates are resplendent in floor-length gowns, long white gloves and tiaras framing twirly, ornate updos. Seated at a table with four couples, I watch as the gray-haired man next to me reaches into his breast pocket, pulls out a small satin box and flips it open to check out a gold ring he’s about to place on the finger of the woman sitting to his right. Her eyes well up with tears as she is overcome by emotion.

The man’s date? His 25-year-old daughter. Welcome to Colorado Springs’ Seventh Annual Father-Daughter Purity Ball, held at the five-star Broadmoor Hotel. The event’s purpose is, in part, to celebrate dad-daughter bonding, but the main agenda is for fathers to vow to protect the girls’ chastity until they marry and for the daughters to promise to stay pure. Pastor Randy Wilson, host of the event and cofounder of the ball, strides to the front of the room, takes the microphone and asks the men, “Are you ready to war for your daughters’ purity?”

Cue my gag reflex.

Until I read my friend's blog entry,I had no idea such parties existed. I'd always thought it questionable that nuns wore rings on their "wedding finger" to signify their marriage to God, and my stomach has always turned a bit at the sight of little girls walking down the aisle in miniature wedding dresses to meet the priest at the front of their Catholic church and become "confirmed" (which, to me, is synonymous with "owned") by the religion. But these are only my opinions; I feel strongly that everyone should have their own, and not have someone else's shoved down their throats (or in turn shove theirs down anyone else's). I am against organized religion (which is not the same as being against faith or spirituality; a lot of people make that mistake when I say such things), but I can, in many cases, understand why others choose to subscribe to a certain religion or set of beliefs.

This whole Purity Ball, thing? No. No. That I cannot understand.

To quote my friend's entry: "I'd be pro- these events, albeit with reservations re: the tackiness of turning an important private spiritual decision into A Public Display That Looks Like Yet Another Damned Prom, except for one thing: the girls don't make this promise to themselves, or to their God. They make the promise to their fathers (and here's an insider view that will explain why)."

She hit the nail on the head as far as one of the reasons this concept bothers me so much: These girls should be making this decision for themselves, or, if they're doing it in the name of their religion, making a promise to their deity. Wearing a ring that marks you as your father's property until you're married, though...? Oh, yep, there's that nausea again.

I realize that we incorporate parts of this into widely undisputed rituals in our lives already. The father who "gives his daughter away" at her wedding is, essentially, allowing his daughter to become currency that's exchanging hands, from one man to another. I'm quite sure it's not looked at that way by most of the people who do it - it's probably meant to be a sweet gesture, a moment where the little girl has grown up and left the nest, and her father is indicating that he trusts this new man to love her as much as he always has. But you see my point. And there's also the issue of a woman changing her name after marriage. She usually has her father's last name to begin with, and once the ink has dried on the contract wedding license, she takes her husband's name instead. (That too has always driven me INSANE, and mark my words: I will never change my name for any man, and my "chosen" name - the one I use as my pseudonym - is in fact my mother's maiden name.)

Anyway, back to the Purity Balls. (Doesn't that just sound wrong?) Here's an interesting article about these events also taking place for boys, and the differences between the two. As is pointed out early on in the piece, a woman's transition away from virginity involves an actual, tangible, physical change (remember all those lovely morning-after-the-wedding rituals that involve a man hanging his white sheets outside the honeymoon suite's window to show everyone the spot of blood, thereby proving he got himself a good one?), whereas boys remain physically "intact" no matter how much sleeping around he does. The article underscores the disturbing dissonance between a woman's purity (of body AND soul) and a man's integrity. Read it. It's...eye-opening.

All of this horrifies me. But I think my jaw hit the floor hardest when I got to this part of my friend's blog entry (in which she wisely points out that this guy can't write to save his life and makes it sound like he was 12 when he took his daughter out for a night on the town...): "Here's Jonathan Lindvall, explaining how he coerced his twelve-year-old daughter into putting him in charge of not just her sexuality, but her emotions: At age twelve, I took Bethany out to dinner one evening and presented her with a golden necklace with a heart-shaped pendant formed like a padlock. There was a small keyhole and an accompanying key. I presented the pendant and necklace to her and asked her to "Give me your heart" (Prov. 23:26). I explained that I wanted to keep the gold key as a symbol of her trusting me with her emotions. I specifically asked her to not entertain romantic thoughts toward any young man until she and her mother and I together conclude that he is God s choice to be her husband. (There is scriptural precedent for the young people involved to be consulted and consent to a marriage arrangement.) I explained that at the beginning of her marital engagement I would give the gold key to her betrothed, and that although she might not yet love him, she would then be free to aim her heart toward him. Bethany unreservedly entrusted the symbolic gold key into my care, and with it, her heart."

I'm well past nausea now. I think I'll have to ask my father about this. I expect he'll shudder and tell me he was just as happy NOT TO KNOW, thankyouverymuch. And where, might I ask, are the mothers in all of this???

I could go so much further in-depth than I have; my friend's entry certainly did, and provided even more astonishing - and, to me, disturbing - revelations about what's going on in my neighbouring country (and probably here in Canada, too, really). But I'll leave the links and those articles to speak for themselves, I think. And tonight, before I go to sleep, I will silently thank my parents for teaching me what I needed to know, and trusting ME to make the choices I needed to make as I went along, always letting me know they were there if I had questions or needed guidance. I am not betrothed to my father until some other guy comes along, nor do I have to feel guilty if and when I choose to enter into a relationship with a man, and for those privileges I thank my parents, not a god or a church or an organization that seems to be built around making independent girls feel like used up trash.

I don't know that I ever realized just how lucky I was until I read about the Purity Ball that never got thrown for me.

Control: a movie you ought to see.

It's been a while since I watched a movie that depressed me as much as "Control" did.

Despite being awake until some ungodly hour on Saturday night, I decided to watch - of all things - the movie about Joy Division's lead singer, Ian Curtis, who changed the face of new wave and then committed suicide in 1980. He was 23.

Joy Division was formed the year I was born, but I was lucky in my clubbing years that I was surrounded by DJs who knew good music and exposed me to all of it. I remember hearing "Love Will Tear Us Apart" when I was about 19 and thinking, Wow...that's a haunted voice if I've ever heard one. And at the time I had no idea just how right I was.

(The link to the song above, by the way, will take you to the real video on YouTube, which not only lets you hear the actual song in full but also lets you see the real Ian Curtis, versus the movie version, which is shockingly accurate.)

This is an amazingly well done fanvid-slash-movie trailer for "Control", which shows just how astonishing the actor, Sam Riley, managed to be as Ian Curtis. At some points I had to remind myself this wasn't a documentary.



Oh, god. The last 20 seconds of that have made me cry again. Oh, god.



I was telling my uncle about the movie after dinner earlier, and he's more familiar with New Order than Joy Division, but he knew, basically, who I was talking about. He made the observation that an awful lot of musicians seem to choose hanging as their method of death, and he listed off several right away: Richard Manuel (The Band), Peter Ham (Badfinger), Paul Hester (Crowded House - that one broke my heart)... And of course Michael Hutchence. Sure enough, I scrolled to the bottom of Ian Curtis' page at Wikipedia and saw two subcategories: Popular Musicians Who Committed Suicide and Suicides By Hanging. Which is just... I just sort of sat there for a while, not saying anything, and I put on "Isolation" to fill the silence in my head.



Mother, I've tried, please believe me / I'm doing the best that I can / I'm ashamed of the things I've been put through / I'm ashamed of the person I am



See the movie. Even if you've never heard a Joy Division song in your life. Even if you hate their music. It doesn't matter. It's one of the best-made films I've seen in a long, long time, and despite the obvious sadness of the subject, it would be a terrible shame to let that make you not see it. It's that good. Sam Riley and Samantha Morton and the whole cast are just...staggeringly fantastic.

Me, though? I need to watch something else now. Because the heaviness in my chest still hasn't gone away.