Slavic Women are Hot

'Right,' you say, as you take in the title of this post. 'How is this news in any way?'

Well, it's not. But because I've recently completed an application for a confirmation of my Polish citizenship, I've been reflecting quite a lot on what it means to be of Slavic descent. Specifically, what it means to be Polish when I was born and raised in Canada and have virtually no understanding of Central European culture.

Today, I was once again pondering this odd new aspect to my life when I remembered that, years ago, I had copied out a passage on Slavic women from a book on Tamara de Lempicka, the Polish painter. This is what Alexandre Dumas had to say about Slavs of the female variety:

These ladies [are] endowed with a fineness of sensibility and an intuition far above the average, which they owe to their double inheritance as Asiatics and Europeans, to their cosmopolitan curiosity, and their indolent habits... these strange creatures who speak every language, hunt the bear, live off sweets, and laugh in the face of every man who cannot master them... these females with voices at once musical and hoarse, superstitious and skeptical, fawning and fierce, who bear the indelible mark of the country of their origin, who defy all analysis, and every attempt to imitate them.

So now, on the shallow end of things, I am of the opinion that it is totally hot and mysterious and awesome to be Polish.

The Annual Christmas Whinge; Also: Reflections on Various Incarnations of Joy

Christmas is a terrible, horrifying time. Every year, I allow myself to feel hope as December progresses - hot, spicy drinks, mince pies, pretty snow-dusted coniferous trees, wonderful drunken friends, and lavish, velvety decorations (preferably in a stunning crimson or imperial purple) lure me into a false sense of security and contentment. Every year, however, this lovely mirage dissipates on Christmas Eve (sometimes, if it's particularly bad, earlier on in the week).

Last year, Christmas Eve consisted of sobbing with exhaustion and defeat in Heathrow Airport as a young child vomited profusely (and really unexpectedly) on the floor next to me while a customs agent clawed through my underwear and confiscated a gift of cognac butter for my father, BEFORE sitting at a standstill in a British Airways cabin for three unexplained hours.

This Christmas, charmingly, is proving to be an inventive variation on a time-honoured theme (Kudos to the Cosmos! Really - I'm impressed). Something struck me today, though. In exchange for a nun paying for one of my recent transcript requests at Marianopolis College (I didn't have any cash, okay?), I had promised Sister Cleevely to donate some money to a charity this holiday season. The thing is, I HADN'T DONE IT (yet). Was this potentially the source of my bad luck? Clearly, I was godless and ungrateful. I was pumped full of blackened, bilious sin! I HAD NOT HONOURED A PROMISE TO A NUN. The only thing I could think of at that precise moment were those people dressed in red, standing outside Ogilvy's on Sainte-Catherine Street and jingling bells in what, I suppose, is meant to be a cheerful, encouraging manner. Yes, the Salvation Army people. They would get my money, on Christmas Eve, and all would be well.

Saying goodbye to Jess in NDG, I tore through Westmount and downtown. I double-parked on de la Montagne Street, to the consternation of all, and dashed to the front of Ogilvy's to shake out my wallet and absolve myself in the blink of an eye. Then, something terrible became apparent: the Salvation Army jinglers WERE NOT THERE. They had GONE. It was Christmas Eve and they had abandoned their posts. Standing desolately on the sidewalk, hoping I wouldn't actually see anybody I knew, I flashed on the realization that I had completely, and pretty much voluntarily, stumbled into the realm of the truly and utterly insane. How in God's name was this supposed to work? My life isn't built like a movie (a disappointing thing in itself, because it would be fun to be accompanied by a soundtrack). Dejected and worried, I collected the car and sheepishly made my way home.

So, as this holiday moves forward, I feel compelled to welcome each fresh mind-bending horror, whether external or internal, with a particularly sarcastic and slicing comment on joy. The only thing is, I can't even remember what this mean little quip is supposed to be. Is it 'Oh, unbridled joy?'; 'Oh, boundless joy?'; 'Oh, unending joy?'; or 'Oh, joy unrelenting?'

This brings me on to something else - some reflections on these varieties of jubilation. All of these expressions for joy are pretty... weird and menacing. 'Unbridled' and 'boundless' joy only make me think of out-of-control, mad sheep running amok in an open field; maybe of horses foaming at the mouth, too. It is a joy that is mindless and all kinds of unstable. 'Unending' joy sounds a bit blah, in the same way that you'll always have to pay for parking in town, or that you'll always have to deal with human stupidity or things clogging the sodding drain. It's a joy that gets boring because it never, ever changes. Joy 'unrelenting' is my favourite, though: boy, does that sound scary. Constant, endless, hammering, possibly drug-fuelled, joy. The joy that eventually drives a person insane by building up to such a tremulous pitch that your mind fractures and/or your head explodes. I'd like to think of it as the manic-depressive king of right royal rejoicing.

That's enough for this Christmas, I think. But I guess things are looking up in the sense that my holiday wishes aren't coming to you this year from the Holloway Road. That, my friends, is most definitely a pretty good thing (although perhaps Nick Hornby would disagree. But sod that).

Merry Christmas.

x

Pet Peeve of a Lifetime

I haven't posted much in quite a long time, and that's entirely the fault of Facebook. That's right, I've abandoned my blog because I love Facebook more.

But anyway, I'm flying to Montreal tomorrow morning for a short holiday. And I just want to complain about packing. Because I fucking hate packing - it is the bane of my existence and it makes me feel sick and twisted inside. It makes me want to throw myself down on the floor and actually launch into a full-scale tantrum. It makes me moan and whinge like nothing else. If I could pay anybody to do anything for me, I'd pay them to do my packing.


(moans and whinges some more)

Bad Parenting Skills

Sadly, whilst I was boozing it up, turning 25, and being vaguely depressed about various things, I failed to notice that this little blog turned 1 on April 18th.

I'm really sorry I wasn't there for you, little one. Here, this gin and tonic will make you feel better. OK, OK, I'll fix you three.

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day, of course, has come and gone a long time ago, but I still couldn't resist posting this photograph once I managed to prise myself away from Facebook:

These are some of the chocolates that greeted me when I tore into my Valentine's Day chocolate box (purchased not by some dreamy guy with an endearingly nerdy streak and cute but sophisticated glasses, but by my bosses). For those of you who have somewhat mercifully never been exposed to the sciences, these are chocolates covered with INTEGRAL CALCULUS FORMULAE (formulas?). I don't know whether it was because the chocolate was covered in math talk or because Tom and Gill bought the candy box at Boots, but this chocolate tasted awful.

Months have gone by since I stood over the open box and gaped at these candies, yet I still marvel at their existence. Who thought this was a good idea? Was it a weird inside joke? Are the crazy formulas supposed to symbolize the complex nature of love and relationships? (If so, this isn't much of a success for me because I actually remember calculus as an easy subject, thanks to my excellent teachers M. Leger and Prof. Fleischer [the latter always eager to remind everyone that his name translates from German as 'The Butcher']). Did some weirdo think these formulas were aesthetically pleasing enough to be stamped on a food item? WHY WOULD YOU MAKE MATH EDIBLE?

This reminds me of a mildly funny anecdote regarding calculus and sex, but I hardly think I can repeat it here.

^_^

PS. Zach Braff and I are cool again.

Christmas Wishes from Holloway Road

Last week I was returning home from work in the evening, walking from Holloway Road tube station down Holloway Road. It was cold, and I yearned miserably for a bus.

This is what happened next:

I fell into the annoying habit of constantly looking over my shoulder for a bus, hoping with each passing minute a cheery red double-decker blob would career over the horizon and speed me away from gritty Holloway Road to moderately less gritty Axminster Road. Now, everyone knows that it is impossible to keep oneself from squinting down the street and positively willing a bus to appear out of the invisible fabric of space and time. In a normal neighbourhood, no one would comment on such behaviour.

In Holloway, however, when I turned around to peer down the road, the man walking behind me screamed: "What the fuck are you looking at?"

I ignored him (of course) and then made a tremendous show of repeatedly looking behind me, hoping to convince him that I REALLY WAS looking for potential public transport and that he was a colossal self-involved demented idiot.

Needless to say, I am really looking forward to spending some quality time in suburbia, away from metropolitan freakjobs.

I hope everyone has a lovely holiday and I can't wait to see some of you soon in Montreal!

x

Zach Braff Annoys Me

I used to really like Zach Braff. He was kind of cute, kooky, and had healthy, fluffy hair. But then Scrubs became predictable and I tired of his idiotic escapades. Garden State was released and people only seemed to like it because of the soundtrack. And it was too quirky - it was all really contrived, I felt. The whole affair with Zach (not literally) was disappointing, because it was like getting to know somebody you looked up to and thought was interesting and cool, but slowly realizing that most of what s/he was doing/saying was lifted (sometimes subtly, sometimes not) from somewhere else.

When I stumbled across this image of Braff on Threadless, I knew that it was all over between Zach and I. Threadless is supposed to be the place for ordinary graphic designer-aspiring types to submit cool designs and feel good about our cool little community (mind you, I haven't actually submitted anything yet, I've just been thinking about it for a year or something and I think that makes me part of something, no?) and here is Zach Braff, barging into our (ok, 'their') special place and acting ALL SMUG about the whole thing. I mean, look at him. ALSO, he's using the valuable space to promote his latest film, The Last Kiss, and I think that's really cheap and... and... BRAZEN. He's standing on the set of Scrubs and for some reason that bothers me too. Like, we know that you're a movie/television 'star.' Why didn't you get somebody to take the photo at your apartment or something? Then maybe you'd be cool. At least act sheepish about the whole thing.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

* tears at hair *

Tales from Jupp

As many of you know, I am excruciatingly terrible at small talk. I'd rather sit across from someone in a peaceful, cozy, and understanding silence than embarrass everyone involved with inane and thoroughly useless chatter.

Working in retail, however, requires some casual mastery of the art of small talk. Up until recently, I exchanged only a few words with clients: "Can I help at all?"; "Do you prefer yellow or white gold?"; and "Would you like me to gift-wrap this for you?". One day I ventured into discussing-the-weather territory, asking a customer whether it was still raining outside - even though the entire shopfront is made of glass and I had only to glance to the right to answer my own vapid question.

Last Wednesday, a vaguely-distracted woman entered the shop, carrying a large bag and a motorcycle helmet. She had the air of someone who knew that she wanted to buy something, who knew that she must leave with some pretty object in hand, yet didn't know what it was that she wanted. She enquired about some citrine quartz and diamond earrings displayed in the window, and I proceeded to rummage around for them gracelessly, knocking over ring stands and a few gold bangles in my enthusiasm to make a good sale. She tried the earrings on and we had a short conversation about their qualities and merits. When she finally decided to purchase the earrings, I felt so cheered that I decided to work on my small talk skills right then and there.

I beamed across the counter at her and said, "It's so nice to treat oneself, isn't it?"

Some strange emotion passed through her features and I immediately knew that I had managed to fuck up this simple attempt at harmless, pleasant banter.

"Actually," she responded (really absently, I have to say), "I'm getting divorced."

Oh.

"Yes, I've just come from my lawyer's across the street."

Oh.

Quickly I summoned the appropriate facial expressions and murmured my apologies, whilst making a mental note to never attempt any form of casual conversation with customers (and anybody else, really, stranger or otherwise) EVER AGAIN. I said a final "I'm very sorry" as I handed back her credit card, to which she replied:

"Yes, well, I'm coming into a lot of money" (this followed by an intensely bitter laugh and ominous trailing off).

EEK.

Now, some might say that this exchange was not so bad - however, this sort of thing happens to me all the time. At parties, as I shyly clutch at my wine glass or stale hor-d'oeuvre, mustering up the courage and interest to begin a scintillating bit of conversation, I will ask an acquaintance about their boyfriend/girlfriend, only to be told that they broke up the very night before (this has happened to me three times). It is always when I make an especially concerted effort to be outgoing and chatty that these backfires occur. And so, like many other things of late, I am GIVING UP ON SMALL TALK.