Here’s to the firestarters
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Proverbs 29:18
We all may be alive in the technical sense of the word, but could it be possible that we all carry parts of ourselves that have died long ago?
When we were children, we loved without abandon, questioned without hesitation, dreamed without guidelines and lived without limitations… But then we “grew up”, and much like the proper adults we were expected to be, we put walls around our possibilities and became “realistic”.
But How much of us died because of that?
Somewhere along the way, many of us have lost our drive for life and settled for mundane mediocrity. Have you ever looked at middle-aged people earning minimum wage in dead-end jobs and wondered what series of events led them to where they are today? Surely they didn’t dream of being a Wal-Mart greeter when they were a child. What happened? What went wrong?
Et Il a mangé le bébé!
I’m going to be honest here: I am not one of those people who enjoys sitting through videos of children doing so-called “cute” things. Most of the time, I just don’t find it as cute as other people seem to. I’m not sure what it is—maybe they have to be related to me to activate that particular maternal gene?
Having said that, this little French girl by the name of Capucine is just so adorable it melts my icy heart and I can’t stop watching this video. So watch it, especially if you’re like me. And stay until at least 1:51, because that has to be the cutest expression I have ever seen.
There is a reason I post this here, by the way. So watch it and then keep reading.
Selfless love
The other day, I was talking to a friend about relationships and dating.
“You know, sometimes I just find this whole thing so depressing,” I said. “There is always a catch to the good ones, you never have any attraction or chemistry with the ones who are perfect for you, and then there are those who want you but are no good for you—where are the ones who are just as good for you as you are for them?”
“Taken,” He replied. “Taken by girls who don’t deserve them.”
Have you ever wondered why this appears to be?
Most women, at some point in their lives, have made The List. The List, for those who aren’t familiar with the term, is a list of things a woman wants in a man. Smart, good-looking, hard working, sociable, wealthy, influential, drives a nice car, has shiny teeth—whatever is on it, The List varies from woman to woman, but they all have one, either in their heads or on paper.
A couple months after my 16th birthday, my parents gave me a purple notebook. I still have it today. I entitled it “Chanel’s handbook for life”, and in it, I made lots of lists. I made one on the person I would like to be, my priorities in life (and what they should actually be), the perfect way to balance my time and energy, goals I want to achieve in my lifetime, things I want to do in my lifetime, life lessons I have learned, things I need to change, etc. etc. And then I made The List.
Of elections, conventions, and republicans
Early tomorrow morning we’re off to Salt Lake City, Utah to attend the 6th annual XanGo Convention. Some of you may recall that I went last year and it was an absolute blast—and also like last year, that invitation to stalk me down still stands.
This year we’re driving down instead of flying. This is what my mother had to say about that:
Me: “You know, tonight is election night and tomorrow morning we’re going to be driving through a Republican state to get to an even more Republican state…”
My mother: “Oh no! If Obama wins, there will be violence on the road!”
And she was totally serious. Aren’t Canadians cute?
Meanwhile, I’m curious: Who do you think will win the 2008 U.S. Presidential election tonight, and why?
Turn down any date invitation with ease and grace! A how-to guide by Chanel.
The subject for tonight’s lecture can be easily twisted to fit in the same category as rich people whining about the complications of having too much money; a non-issue. But don’t be fooled—it is a real issue for many women, an issue I feel it is my personal duty to address with my timeless wisdom.
I’m talking about unwanted advances from men. Sometimes it’s the sweet guy you recently befriended who is clearly into you while you are just trying to be friendly. They ask you out for coffee or something. You cringe a little on the inside, because hello, you don’t like him like that.
Maybe you accept, because you’re nice or whatever. I always duck and dodge.
As I was sitting in the dentist’s office today, contemplating life’s mysteries, I had a stunning revelation: Maybe instead of spending time coming up with new and creative ways to avoid men and escape their unwanted advances, I should get a boyfriend. Preferably, a fake one. Even better if he was gay, married or into someone else. Fabulous if he was all three.
Last words
For the last couple hours, I have been listening to a life struggle on the brink of death.
I refer to a fly that is trapped somewhere in my room. I don’t know precisely where he is, but I can hear him. Once every minute or two, he frantically attempts to escape from where he is stuck. It makes a buzzing sound. In the last hour, that buzzing has become less frequent. All I can think is, gosh, that noise is irritating. I hope it stops.
Do you know what it means when the buzzing sound stops? It means the fly is DEAD. It means that there was a living creature somewhere in my room, struggling to stay alive, and I sat by listening to his death pleas, doing nothing, and the only thing that crossed my mind was, “gosh, that noise is irritating”, followed by, “hey, I should blog about this!”
If this fly was a human, you’d be coming at me with the police and handcuffs. If this fly was a dog or cat, you’d be coming at me with pitchforks and PETA. But this fly is a fly, and everyday in the world people are putting flies out of their misery, and nobody bats an eye.
If we bring humans, household pets and household pests down to their simplest form, they are all lives. They are all alive. They all have eyes. They all have hearts. They all even have nervous systems. Earlier this month, I dished out a small portion of my savings fund to save my rabbit’s life. There are people in the world who hunt rabbits for fun. Who am I to decide who’s more superior to live?
White flag
There will always be people in the world who will try to tear you down.
We don’t always mean harm, even if we cause it. It has been said before that we can only hate the things in people that we ourselves have within us. Sometimes, we lash out; problems, clutter and baggage in our lives can wear down our abilities to be empathetic and cut our human patience short.
Sometimes, it’s just a matter of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. There are times in life where we are more quick to snap; more quick to find an outlet to release our own frustrations and shortcomings on to someone else. One day we’ll feel bad that that outlet had to be you.
The little brown house
In my neighborhood, a couple blocks from where I live, there is a little brown house that sits on the corner of two streets.
Long before I ever moved to this neighborhood, I used to know a girl who lived in that house. Her name was Lauren. She was in my first grade class. She wasn’t very popular. I remember that occasionally, some of the meaner girls in our class would tease her. I can’t remember why. We were friends.
I still know where some of those mean girls are at, today.
First grade was, according to most of my former classmates’ account, a great year. (I say “according to”, because unlike my classmates, I was still recovering from The Worst Year Of My Life.) We wrote and illustrated a school newspaper, had a class store, studied way too many insects (Madame Yvonne was exceptionally fond of them) and sang a whole lot of French songs, songs like C’est L’Halloween.
Before the school year was over, Lauren’s mother died from a brain tumor.
And this is why I take public transit everywhere
On the way home from Surrey tonight (DON’T EVEN SAY A WORD), a girl sitting across from me on the Skytrain started a conversation with me. It began with a comment about a fighting couple that had just gotten off and ended with the story of how she had just broken up with her boyfriend of twelve years.
They have two kids together. She always paid for things like groceries and utilities. He always paid for things like the TV and the barbecue. Guess who got what.
Breakups are always so messy. The Dividing Of The Stuff makes it all that much harder.
But damn, 12 years? And two kids?
It kind of made me realize, shit, the things we go through for happiness.
For the things you wanted to say
As seen scrawled into the back of a stall door in the ladies washroom at a rest stop off the I-5 North:
TRUE LOVE WAITS
For what?
A confirmation number
I love reading the things people write on the walls in the stalls of bathrooms.
At first glance, most bathroom graffiti typically looks like trash—you know, the usual suspects of “JESSICA WUZ HERE” and “JT+BS FOR EVA”—and if you take it for face value, it’s nothing more than that. But if you really think about it, everything written on those walls has a story behind them. People do everything for a reason, even if they don’t consciously know the reason for it at the time.
Whenever I read the things people write on walls, I simply can’t help but wonder about the author’s life: Are JT and BS still together? What’s Jessica doing now? … And when you read particularly chilling words like “I can’t take this anymore”… Are you still hanging in there?
It’s such an odd thought, looking over a cluttered wall and knowing that many, many people have been exactly where you are, and of all those people, some of them felt particularly impressed to write something on the walls surrounding them. They’re each strangers to the next, all going through different things in life, some coming in, some going out… But the one thing these strangers all have in common is the wall. They wrote on the wall.
We’re not all that far apart from each other as may we think.
What’s the most memorable thing you’ve ever seen on a bathroom wall?
