Category: Uncategorized

You’ve Been Found Guilty of Being Female in Public

Real things that have happened to me while minding my own business in public:

  1. The path curves as I repeat to myself, ‘you’re almost home, just keep this pace.’ Training has been going well and I’m feeling strong; strong but tired and it’s hot out. Cars zip past me on the nearby roadway. A slightly beaten up red VW of some kind slows, the windows roll down as the five, likely sweaty, 17 year olds crammed inside start to bark in my direction before driving off laughing.
  1. Leaving a bar in the Netherlands around 4 in the morning I stand in the narrow laneway waiting for my friends. It’s the kinda place that would be intimidating had this been Canada and not the norm in my home-away-from-home. It’s my last week and emotions are running high; I’ve been drinking for hours and standing seems like a lot of work. Laughing as my best friends come out of the bar, a man walks by and grabs my ass.

Continue reading “You’ve Been Found Guilty of Being Female in Public”

She Stumbles.

I’ve been struggling to write lately.

It isn’t for a lack of time. I have made plenty of time to sit at my laptop with a browser open. I’ve watched the curser smugly flash on a blank document as if to say, ‘what? nothing? Come on, impress me.‘ Just to give in to the ease of distraction.

And it isn’t for a lack of topics, my head is constantly bubbling with things to write about. My head jumps from thought to thought and I ponder what I would say about it, how I could argue it, or why I feel so strongly.

And it isn’t because I don’t want to. For me, writing is cathartic and its therapeutic, it forces me to focus my energy, make a decision about something, and practice an art I want to be better at. Writing, makes me to decide what I think about things and why. I have to clear my mind of everything else and just ponder one idea.

So why the trouble?

Continue reading “She Stumbles.”

Snowboarding, Ego, and Unabashedly Being a Beginner

I went to Jasper last weekend to go snowboarding with some friends. Being from the south end of this province, I’d never been and was excited to ride a new hill.

Up until about a season and a half ago I’d been a skier. Sure I’d tried the old snowboarding gig on a junior high ski trip when it was the trendy thing to do but I got fed up with being so much slower than all my friends that I gave it up just as quickly as I started. I’d periodically tried again a few times on day trips but I just never really got into it. I thought to myself, ‘I don’t ski often so I may as well enjoy it when I do.’

I hung up the board and decided to keep my feet uncomfortably in rented ski boots with mis-matching poles. I have no complaints about being a skier though, I really like skiing, but I always had this nagging ambition to learn how to snowboard. I hated that I felt I would never be good at it. I needed to get over that. The trouble, though, was it meant spending days on the greens, the bunny hills, falling down, being awful at something, and not getting to go up the fun chairs with my friends to the powdery blue runs. Ugh.

Being a beginner is tough.

Continue reading “Snowboarding, Ego, and Unabashedly Being a Beginner”

When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be

by John Keats
When I have fears that I may cease to be
   Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,
   Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
   Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
   Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
   That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
   Of unreflecting love—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

A practice in prose.

Today’s the day

Today’s the day.

I thought yesterday was the day, but it wasn’t. I was wrong. It’s today.

Today’s the day.

Yesterday I was scared. Mom says that’s ok though. She says, even she gets scared sometimes. I don’t know what she has to be scared about. She’s a grown up.

But not me, not today. Today I’m going to be brave. Mom says its important to be brave.

“If we aren’t brave we never learn new things” Mom always says.

“and Samantha,” she says “you can be brave.”

Continue reading “A practice in prose.”

“HOPE” IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS

By Emily Dickinson
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

I only ever want the things I can’t have.

The other day I went for coffee with a friend of mine. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing. I was helping him out with a ride to his car and neither of us had anywhere to be, so lattes seemed the natural thing to do.

The weather had been edging on spring all week. It’s the time of the year where you start to ditch your winter jacket for something a little lighter, even though you’ll still layer a hoodie or two underneath. You stop worrying about leaving your gloves at home or if you have a toque nearby.

But this evening it was slipping back to the inevitable cold snap that won’t give up before Spring truly arrives. The sky was grey and the clouds were chattering about dropping some snow on our recently visible city streets. The situation seemed bleak and we were both tired.

Continue reading “I only ever want the things I can’t have.”

Is that sandwich turning you on?

SEXY

/’seksē/
adjective, sexier, sexiest.

1. concerned predominantly or excessively with sex; risqué: a sexy novel.
2. sexually interesting or exciting; radiating sexuality: the sexiest professor on campus.

SYNONYMS FOR SEXY

hot, inviting, mature, provocative, racy, seductive, sensual, sensuous, arousing

Sexy. To cause sexual arousal, and pique interest.

Wait. I know I’ve said it a couple times now, but lets just pause and think about that for a second. What comes to mind when you think ‘sexy’ (as spoken in a sultry, Jemaine Clement, Flight of the Conchords performing Business Time voice)?
Continue reading “Is that sandwich turning you on?”