Tagged: Thoughts
Paper Moon
- by admin
First fell in love with this song when I was living on Strathcona
in a house with too many rooms
which only accentuated how lonely I was at the time.
It's easy to fill a room with the sound of your own voice, or
alternatively
the sound of nothing at all.
It was a weird time.
Kind of like how right now is a weird time.
So it feels fitting that I should find myself listening to it again.
Sometimes you write for other people
- by admin
Sometimes you write to other people.
Sometimes you're writing for yourself.
Sometimes you slam poems into yr iPhone while folding marketing materials at work.
Sometimes you scribble them onto papers and let them go in the wind off the Osborne bridge on yr way home.
Sometimes you hope they reach the right people.
Sometimes they do.
Sometimes they don't.
Sometimes you wish they wouldn't.
Sometimes you wish they hadn't.
Sometimes (most of the time) they're all we've got.
How we should react to Fred Phelps' death
- by admin
Since the news broke of the death of the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church I've seen countless Facebook posts, tweets, and Reddit comments, and images about the subject (see below).
People have posted about picketing his funeral, harassing his family and desecrating his grave.
Reactions like these, so vitriolic and cruel, make me sad.
Because I know we have the capacity to be better than this as a society.
I know that we can take the pain and confusion that the members of the WBC made us feel and let it go. We can understand that these people, however much they may have tried to hurt us or people that we love, don't deserve anything but our sympathy.
If we feel the need to react at all (and honestly, most of us shouldn't) we should make a point to be thankful that someone who was clearly so hateful and spread such sadness doesn't feel the need to do so anymore, and that whatever was raging inside him that caused him to lash out at the rest of the world in the way that he did is now silent.
One of my favourite quotes on the matter is from the always-wise George Takei:
"Today, Mr. Phelps may have learned that God, in fact, hates no one. Vicious and hate-filled as he was, may his soul find the kind of peace through death that was so plainly elusive during his life.
...
I take no solace or joy in this man's passing. We will not dance upon his grave, nor stand vigil at his funeral holding "God Hates Freds" signs, tempting as it may be.
He was a tormented soul, who tormented so many. Hate never wins out in the end. It instead goes always to its lonely, dusty end."
In the end, it is our actions that define us. They defined Fred Phelps, and they will continue to define the members of the Westboro Baptist Church.
It is at moments like these when many of us are able to make a defining choice: do we engage in hate-speak, condemning a man that most of us have never met? Or do we take the higher moral ground, and act like members of a civilized society?
I'd like to think that most of us will do the latter.
I wish I could go back to
- by admin
the weekend sitting in a living room in the almost-dark
listening to Treeful of Starling
while you sang along
and I smiled
contented
watching Tyrone in his lucha mask being outrageous
in the next room.
Then I said
"I love him"
and you said
"I know. You both have something special.
I feel lucky to be able to be around you guys"
and I said
or maybe just thought to myself
we're all so lucky.
Let's be penpals
- by admin
"Nothing good ever comes in the mail."
I find myself saying that a lot these days.
It's almost always bills which are out of date
or mail for the old tenants
or nothing at all.
Which is, in a way, worse.
Last year I took part in the 20Something Bloggers 2013 Postcard Exchange and had a blast.
I made some new friends.
I got some cool stuff.
I was actually excited to open my mailbox when I got home.
And I'd like to do something like that again
just a bit more... ongoing.
So I'll tell you what.
If you wanna be penpals, shoot me an email at alyson dot shane at gmail dot com with yr address and I'll write to you.
Maybe I'll send you a postcard, a short letter, whatever
and then you can write back
and we can have a nice time waiting to see what's in the mail when we get home.
her
- by admin
To beat the cold on the weekend Ty and I made thin crust pizzas and curled up under blankets and watched her which is the latest film from Spike Jonze that has audiences swooning.
I wish I could disagree (no I don't) but I don't.
I loved it.
The sets with stark backgrounds and pastel shades and high-waisted pants and hairstyles that hinted that this wasn't quite in the present.
The contrast between the too-happy workplace and Theodore's crumbling personal life.
Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Theodore, a man who seems to be fading out of his own life due to his inability to face his own mistakes.
ScarJo's voice, of course, perfect as the voice of the OS, Samantha.
As well as how compartmentalized the movie was. The film focused on Theodore's experience with the OS and only revealed small snippets of the effect that a sentient operating system was having on the larger society.
I liked it that way. The movie focusing on Theodore's life was complex enough and I feel it would have detracted from the overall feel and message if the plot had tried to tackle a broader range of issues and subjects in such a small time frame.
Because ultimately her is a movie about a lonely man who does what a lot of lonely people do: they fall for the wrong person. They try to fill that gap in their heart with something that they shouldn't.
In Theodore's case it was a charming, cute operating system, and the way the Jonze frames their developing relationship makes it seem so completely plausible. Watching the film I couldn't help but think
"Yeah, that makes sense".
It's to utterly, terribly human that it hurts, and it serves as a reminder of the complexity of our emotions.
How we can't help who (or what) we love, and our relationships are entirely our own interpretation.
But the biggest lesson that a viewer can take away from this heartbreaking, beautifully sad story is this:
Small phones win out in the end.
On Winnipeg, and negativity
- by admin
One of my most popular posts is a post I wrote praising Winnipeg a few years ago. I still stand by it.
But I didn't always.
I used to be one of those winter-hating, downtown-bashing, sad excuses for citizens who felt that the only positive aspect about living in Winnipeg was that I was able to bitch about it.
I used to think that moving to Toronto would solve all my problems. That it would make me happy.
Who the fuck knows why.
A bigger city doesn't make you a better person.
A different climate doesn't change your personality.
A subway system or some skyscrapers or more clubs to visit on the weekends doesn't improve who you are.
Only you are in charge of that.
This seems to be something that people from Winnipeg forget about. People I see on Facebook and on forums and in newspaper comments.
They become so obsessed with associating their identity (read: personal misery) with where they live that they blame their city for causing them to be bored, broke, stuck in a rut or otherwise unhappy with their lives.
As though a city is to blame for their own personal choices and mistakes.
When someone posts something negative about Winnipeg, I wonder if they realize that it's a reflection of themselves? When they say "eugh what a shit-hole! This city sucks!" do they realize that they live here. They're a part of whatever problems they feel the city has because they're a citizen here.
Any by rejecting their own personal responsibility they put down those of us who are trying to stay and make things better.
By saying "I'm better than Winnipeg!" what they're saying is "I'm better than everyone who chooses to live here. I'm better than you."
Because instead of trying to figure out why they're unhappy here they blame Winnipeg. And they run away.
(Or say they're going to, anyway)
Most people who claim to "hate" Winnipeg never seem to actually go anywhere. They stay here and gripe because it's far easier to bitch about it than to actually take all the steps necessary to move away.
This is because people's perceptions of their problems are so deeply-tied to Winnipeg that most people don't ever actually leave. It provides people with a reason to be upset, with an easy scapegoat.
"My life would be so much better if I left this place"
"My career would be farther along if I lived somewhere else"
"I'd be a happier person if I didn't live here"
I hear people make these statements and it makes me sad for them. That their happiness is contingent on a population size, on street names, on landscape.
What a horrible way to go through life.
Don't get me wrong -I'm not saying nobody should ever leave. There are a multitude of good reasons for anyone to move anywhere.
But a shitty attitude shouldn't be one of them.
"Enjoy the fuck out of it"
- by admin
is something that my friend Adam (on the right) says a lot.He's one of the most ridiculous people I know. Incredibly sweet and hilarious and rocks harder than anyone else, guaranteed.
Recently I was thinking "wtf am I going to do with 2014?"
'Cause even though it's a giant cliche a new year is always a decent reason to stop & reflect on yr life and where you want to go and etc
and I always try to take some time to think about wtf I want to do with myself.
To be honest, I'm working on being more positive.
But not in that fake way. I hate that shit.
That "like omg you guys it's SO. GREAT. HAHAHAHAHAHA OMG"
bullshitty way.
Fuck those chicks.
(and it's always chicks who act like that, isn't it?)
I'm talking about being like
"s'cool. I've got this, life.
I can handle this shit."
I'm going to do my best to not stress the f out when life gets tough
to channel my inner rock like Adam would do
and enjoy the fuck out of it.
Got an odd email just now
- by admin
From someone I haven't talked to in a long time.Someone who used to be a big part of my life and influenced me in many ways.
Looking back I can safely say these experiences (in the long run) taught me the kind of person I'd rather not be
fixated on money
close-minded
shallow
the list goes on
and we had a huge falling out a few years ago due to a sketchy and poorly handled situation.
I blew up.
I told them how I felt and left it at that. In the years since I haven't thought much about them
and when I do, it's through the grapevine and usually a story so ridiculous that I sigh, roll my eyes and think
thank god I don't talk to them anymore!
But I've been sitting here for the past hour or so staring at my screen
typing,
trying to figure out how to say what I want to say without sounding
callous
cold
and downright mean
because in the end, as it turns out
letting go is harder than I thought.
Regarding that double-suicide in Etobicoke
- by admin
where the elderly couple jumped 18 stories to their respective deaths together because the wife was in severe pain and didn't want to live anymore, and her husband didn't want to live without her, so they jumped from their balcony together.
I wonder how they felt.
(Euphoric? Scared? Filled with regret?
-Hopefully not the last one.)
I wonder if they cried.
I wonder if they held hands.
I wonder if I would do it, if it were me.
As morbid as it is I've thought about suicide a few times -not in the immediate future, but what it would mean for me as someone who will get old and whose body won't always be kinda nice to look at kinda work the way that it's supposed to.
It also makes me think about what it would mean for other people, and why they would make that decision.
It also makes me think about how we, as a society, view suicide.
It bugs me that most people look at it as something that only fucked-up people do. Remember that guy Martin Manley from a few months back who took his own life and put up a website about it? I read a mirror of the site when the news exploded and he seemed like a pretty level-headed guy. He knew what he was doing. But still we had (have?) this urge to paint everyone with the same brush because it's easy -I remember reading boatloads of comments about how he just had to be fucked in the head to even consider suicide as a viable option.
I think we have this reaction because death is scary and I think we're scared by the fact that people can look at death head-on and think
"yeah, I'm okay with this."
That doesn't make it brave, or noble, or any of that shit. But I don't think it makes it cowardly, or selfish, or any of the other things people call it, either.
It's just a thing that some people do that makes us sad.
Mostly because our society doesn't really give us the tools to cope with it. We see it as some sort of giving up, as rejection of life, which is something that we should always want.
But we don't always want it, and we shouldn't always have to.
It's fucked up, but by and large that's how life is.
Fucked up.
