Today is the birthday of the best blog in the world
Once upon a time I was a stupid kid and my friend Kira who used to blog over at the now-defuct 'manicidiosyncratic' showed me this thing called 'blogging'.
It wasn't the pussy LiveJournal shit I'd done in high school which was boring paragraphs no pictures and no reason for anyone else to give a shit.
This was a bustling community of interesting people who had long-distance internet friendships and connected through the stuff they published online.
she told me about the best blog out there, the busblog and the dude who wrote it, Tony Pierce
and she said "if you read any blog read the busblog" so I did.
I still do. Every damn day.
Probably because out of all the blogs out there the busblog is the only blog that, I think, still keeps it real.
It's still kinda raw and gritty and though it's not as debauched as it used to it it's still a damn good read every time.
It inspires me to keep writing this pos every once and a while.
Recently I was told that I should start shaping my blog to be more professional and less about my life and my thoughts and that scared me a bit. This slice of the internet is who I am and I had a crisis of confidence of sorts and I said to Tyrone
"what do I do? I have a career now but I don't want to just stop being who I am online" and he said
(no word of a lie)
"what would Tony Pierce do?"
which is why I'm still writing to you in the way that I've (almost) always written to you.
So happy birthday busblog. Thanks for making blogging cool and for keeping it that way.
Biggest hearts to you, Tony. Always.
xox yr girl Shaner
Re: the fast-food walk out on August 29th
When I was a youth I worked a string of minimum-wage jobs in fast food joints, most noticably when I worked for McDonalds full-time the year after I graduated high school.
I hated that job.
I was treated like shit, the hours were shit, the customers were (largely) shit, management was shit... everything about it sucked except my coworkers, most of which were young people like me.
Except Maria, our older badass morning lady. Who showed up at 5am like a boss Mon-Fri even though she had two kids who she never got to see between her full-time McJob and her other part-time gig somewhere else.
We all respected her in a work-mom kind of way.
One day not too long after I started working there she came in to work late, which was unusual, and looked like she'd been crying.
She told us that one of her kids had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Her little baby. She was heartbroken.
Luckily though, she said, she lives in Canada where a lot of that stuff is paid for or subsidized so she and her husband could afford to pay for all the doctor's visits and insulin and etc her little one would need for the rest of their life.
She thanked her lucky stars that she had a husband who had a job and contributed all he could and that she lived somewhere where the combination of her minimum-wage job and universal health care would be able to provide for her family even with this new burden.
I thought about Maria when I read the Washington Post article about the scheduled fast-food walk out on August 29th.
I thought about
all those people who get paid less than she did back in '05/06 even though it's 2013
who don't have any health care at all
who are working to support their families
sometimes without any help
working way too many hours to try and make ends meet
and
who really, really need things to change.
I hope they're able to get what they want.
*image via Salon
Friday was Charles Bukowski's birthday
even though he's dead but you probably knew that. It's important, I think, to remember stuff like that anyway. People who move you should always be remembered. Bukowski moves me.
I started reading Ham on Rye over Christmas break and it was the first Bukowski novel I've owned and read which is embarrassing to say out loud.
A few months earlier I was getting my hair done and my amazing baber at Hunter & Gunn, Mason, told me about when he lived in an awful, dingy, dark apartment. It was in the basement of a sketchy building with old, yellowed plastic venetian blinds in the windows and he talked to me about reading Bukowski at night.
"You have to read Bukowski" he said "you'll fall in love". So I did.
The feeling of love I get when I read Bukowski is the sickening kind. It's heavy like when you lock eyes with someone across the room and your stomach sinks into your toes. It's good but in a way that makes you feel not yourself.
Bukowski is harsh truths. It's the side of people we don't want to read about or would rather pretend isn't there at all. Reading Bukowski isn't like reading about serial killers and bloodbaths and people we can distance ourselves from. Pretend like we're different.
The personalities in his books are us in all our filth. Our hate. Our depravity. The disgusting things we think about each other. The fucked up and awful things that we do to each other for no reason.
Reading Bukowski leaves you feeling hollow afterward. Like someone came and scooped out your humanity while you were turning the pages.
Even though I'm a few days late, today I'm going to have a stiff drink and read Post Office.
It feels appropriate.
Almost got hit by a car on my run
I was running along the sidewalk on my way to meet Katand there's a pedestrian crosswalk at Balmoral and Young
one of the ones with the white painted lines so you know who has the right of way
that thing
and I looked to my left and saw no traffic
on the the right in the incoming lane there were two cars and one of them was turning left
onto Young
and I paused for a second and he waved at me, one of those "go ahead" motions
so I stepped out into the street and as that happened a car came swerving around the corner
some flashy silver thing
I think it was a BMW based on the hood ornament but I can't recall
and he slammed on his brakes and stopped a foot or so from my left leg.
I looked at the guy in the car and he looked back and me
with this mutual disgust and hatred
me, for his reckless driving in a residential area in a school zone
he, for, I don't know, having to stop quickly?
for having the evidence of his own recklessness pointed out to him in such an
obvious
physical
way?
who knows.
After a pause I kept running because what could I do, really?
kick the hood of his car
yell
scream
YOU ALMOST SHATTERED MY LEGS YOU IDIOT
go on at length about how he would have definitely put me in the hospital
broken at least several of my bones
and how I would have sued him and taken him for all that he was worth?
No.
There's no point.
As I jogged away it struck me how lucky I was that he hit his brakes
or that I had waited that one second to check with the other car
and how often
lately I've been telling myself that I'm lucky because my life is good
but those are all things I've done.
I chose my friends
my partner
my job
as well as the plethora of other decisions which have put me where I am
after years of hard work and stress
fighting and arguments and trying to smarten the fuck up in the process.
Which isn't luck at all, really.
That's just life.
Now, not getting hit by that guy in the car today
that was luck.
Or the universe working in its bizarre and unpredictable way
if you want to get fancy about it.
Because I don't think luck is something you earn, or create for yourself
it just happens to you
(or it doesn't).
Like tonight.
That was lucky.
I wrote a big mushy post full of feels just now
but I deleted it all because it was silly.
I don't need to write a big blog post about how
amazing
hilarious
stupid
offensive
and imperfectly
perfect
all my friends are
I assume that the photos and stories I share here and on other social media platforms convey that well enough.
But they deserve one anyway.
Even if it's only a short n sweet one to say
my friends are the best friends.
FEELS EVERYWHERE.
Last night: a recap
Gord and Karley threw a wicked shaker and I stayed up way too late which has resulted in a do-nothing Sunday which I really, really needed.
We did a bunch of tequila shots and it wasn't Jose Cuervo tequila which means that I didn't immediately throw up after doing it. Gord did, though, and that made me feel good about myself.
For a long time there was a Songza playlist on which was playing Rhianna and Britney Spears and nobody noticed until I brought it up and then we listened to gangster rap.
Kat and I made these wontons with shrimp and cream cheese and other good stuff in them and they were amazing and I ate too many of them and actually had to leave the kitchen so I would stop shoving them in my gullet.
I tried to learn to play cribbage and failed horribly.
Gord showed me how to make a tart except there were no eggs for the dough and we almost forgot about it in the oven and I don't actually know what happened to it after that. Did someone eat it?
Karley informed me that the sign of a functioning nuclear family unit is half-completed butterfly puzzles on the table and I almost peed myself laughing.
While on a walk to get smokes for Karley I kicked this weird box that had a pipe running to it from a fire hose and nothing happened so we walked across the street and then a weird man yelled WHAT ARE YOU DOING at us from his porch and we ran away.
This photo of Tyrone and I was taken and I fucking love how cute we are.
Realizing that the word 'enjoy' on their wedding invites was spelled 'engoy' and I laughed so hard I had to lie down on the floor for a second.
We also got totally lost on the way back and Gord didn't believe me when I found his street because you can't see the gazebo they have set up on their front lawn from two blocks away.
Ty bought me a chicken tendercrisp sandwich from Burger King and while we were in the drive-thru line some guy in an SUV passed out while waiting for his food so the line didn't move for a long time. I eventually got my sandwich, though.
Which brings us to today.
I was supposed to hang with my mum today and go have lunch in the Exchange District but she cancelled which means I've been lying around in my underpants watching Quentin Tarantino movies which is, it turns out, the only thing I'm capable of doing after last night.
Thanks, Gord and Karley Obama.
#ThrowBackThursday: My Friend Iceland
Today I became friends with Iceland.
It sent me a really cute email confirming that we are friends:
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It's possibly the cutest marketing campaign ever, since I am now basically enthralled and charmed by Iceland.
Especially this Icelandic Mother-in-Law who taught me to make plokkfiskur, which looks super tasty.
I heart you, Iceland. Let's be besties forever.
Especially this Icelandic Mother-in-Law who taught me to make plokkfiskur, which looks super tasty.
I heart you, Iceland. Let's be besties forever.
* First published on 10/18/10
Dave Stieb
This morning I listened to this on the bus and started laughing to myself and I scared the Asian lady sitting next to me.
She gave me these weird looks which said
"why are you cackling on mass transit what's happening"
because she didn't realize that back in the day I dated a guy from Ontario who was really into punk rock
and he would always go on about this band
called Sewing With Nancie
that he fucking loved
and Canada is such a small place that one of the dudes from that band is now living in Winnipeg and is one of my best friends
who, over wings and too much food after Connect Festival last weekend
in this awful Chili's in Saskatchewan filled with families and cooing babies trying to have fake Mexican-themed lunches
where we said FUCK and SHIT and talked about drugs
and basically made asses out of ourselves
he talked about how people LOVED Sewing With Nancie back in the day which he thought was great because
"we had two, TWO, fucking songs about the Toronto Blue Jays!"
and I remembered my Ontario boyfriend always going on about one of them when we would drive around in his car
which is what led to me listening to Dave Stieb on the bus this morning
and freaking out that nice Asian lady
because she just didn't get how ridiculous my life is.
On this day 48 years ago The Beatles released "Help"
Which in addition to being a great and hugely influential album holds a special place in my heart.
As a teenager I went through a really bad breakup. Saying I was a shitshow afterward is putting it lightly and I spent a lot of time sulking in my room and fighting with basically everyone.
I don't remember why my brothers were gone on one particular Saturday but my mum decided to take me out to do errands with her.
We weren't getting along at the time and I don't even remember where we went -maybe we just went for a drive, I don't know- but that drive is one of the few times I actually remember getting along with her during that period of my life.
We came home and my dad and I hung out in the basement and we listened to "Help!" on vinyl and had a really big heart-to-heart about my feels.
I wasn't really into opening up and talking about how I felt, but sitting there having a hot chocolate and a rye n coke (my dad is cool) and listening to The Beatles helped me open up and start to deal with shit.
That night was the first night in a long time where I felt like I had the capacity to be happy and listening to that album is a huge, important part of that memory. That album means a lot to me.
It still does.
HBD "Help!"
