Sh*t My Husband Says

(spills food on his new Hanes undershirt) "Damn. And I was going to wear this to the prom."

Workin' for the Man every night and day

So here's a question that's been coming up a lot lately: How do you define personal success?
For most of my life I defined success only in terms of career. A high-paying job, and therefore money in the bank and the ability to buy stuff, meant one person was more successful than another. That's why I went back to school and got a degree: education was supposed to increase the odds of getting a high-paying job. That's how I was raised. My mom sacrificed a lot to pay the bills, and in exchange I learned that work, sometimes, is the most important thing in the world. Work is what pays the bills, after all. Who cares if you're happy? That's why it's called work. "Welcome to the real world," as my mom's husband used to say.
The other reason I went back to school: my boyfriend at the time was working on a master's in architecture. His best friends were all working on doctorates. Some of them were globally-renowned scholars. All of them were extremely bright, enterprising, and "successful." Then there was me, with my laser-printed film school diploma, working 50 hours a week for a wage that toed the poverty line. I told my boyfriend that I felt "beneath" him and his friends. I wasn't on their "level." He told me that was silly, education doesn't necessarily equal intelligence... but that's the kind of thing you can only truly say after you've been to school, know what I mean? So I went back to school, because I didn't want to be beneath them.
Then H. entered the picture, and his worldview is so different from mine. He doesn't care about money or status or being "equal" with anyone. He doesn't feel the need to put on a show, or pretend to be something he's not. I can't necessarily say he's happy all the time, but it feels like he knows who he is. The other day a friend of ours described him as "just a completely genuine person." They said it was so refreshing to be around someone who wasn't pompous or loud or arrogant, someone who wasn't putting on a show or trying to attract attention.
Maybe this is the lesson I need to learn. I mean, I know my outlook has to change. I've graduated into one of the worst economies in years. Despite what the government says, people are losing jobs left and right. Professionals are taking jobs they're seriously over-qualified for, at drastic pay cuts, just to keep working. I mean, when I apply for a job, I'm competing against people with 10 or sometimes even 20 years more experience than me. It makes sense that people rarely call me back. If I define my life according to my title, or my bank balance, I'm always going to be unsatisfied. And if I set off in blind pursuit of titles and bank balances, ignoring the other parts of life, I might get rich... but I'll also lose all the things that make life what it is.
So I'm redefining the word "success." I still want "a job, a good job, one that satisfies my artistic needs" as the drunk guy says in Sid & Nancy. But a job isn't a LIFE, you know?
If you knew when you were going to die, what would you have to achieve in order to honestly say you lived well?

And Another Thing...

My class gave a (sorta) public reading last night, but I was cut due to shyness and time constraints. I had friends there, waiting to hear me read, and I feel bad I didn't do it. So here's what I would've read if I had been 1) not shy, 2) not sick, 3) not an hour late to my own (group) readings, and 4) not distracted by the old man blowing bubbles on the street. Anyways, here it is. Actually, here's a bit more... it felt like everyone went over their allotted time, so you know what? I'm gonna do it too.

Oh wait. Okay. First I should explain who everyone is. Henrik is my husband. Pia is his mom, Goran is his dad, Daniel is his brother. No, I'm not married to a famous NHL player, just a regular Swede. "Farmor" means "father's mother" in Swedish: "Farfar" means "father's father." Likenes is a small town in Western Sweden.

This is from chapter 1 of that book I keep saying I'm working on. The chapter's called "Christmas Traditions."


Pia points to a yellow farmhouse.
“This house? My uncle used to live there. He hung himself in the attic. He thought he had cancer.”
Goran asks if they have yellow houses in Canada. I say I can’t remember.
Concrete blocks sprout like weeds along the side of the highway. Henrik says they’re remnants of World War 2, preparation against the Nazi tanks that moved through the Swedish countryside. Why didn’t they take them down after the war, I wonder. They look so out-of-place.
Henrik had told me his grandparents lived way up in the mountains. Nothing really there except trees and snow, and maybe some wolves. At night, he said, you could hear the wolves’ howls on the wind. You could hear the sun set, hear the snow fall. The closer we get to Likenes, the more I notice the rusted farming equipment, abandoned houses, and boarded-up shops on the side of the road. Decay with no renewal. Like the land wants to be forgotten. If I had been looking for Likenes on my own, I wouldn't have found it.
We turn left onto a dirt road. By this time it’s snowing, it had been snowing in the mountains for a long time, and the car jolts back and forth over the banks and dips in the road. We pull up in front of a tiny red cabin.
The cabin has a small porch at the front, and there are some decorations hidden under the snow: a metal globe with an arrow on top, some kind of sled, a stack of wood. A wheelchair ramp leads up to the front door. Behind the house is another red building, smaller than the first. Henrik tells me this is the “guest house.” Beside that, a large building that could only be a barn. I wonder if the grandparents ever had animals in the barn. Henrik tells me they used to, but not now, because they’re old and there are too many wolves around.
Farfar opens the front door before we have a chance to knock. He smiles and winks at me in that grandfatherly way, his thick slippers shuffling across the wood floor. He’s a tall man, taller than I expected him to be, and his hand is shaking when I take it in mine. His eyes light up when he sees Henrik. “Heyhey!” he says, and throws his arm around Henrik’s shoulder.
To the left is a tiny kitchen, and everyone in it is doing something: a white-haired man scoops coffee into a coffee maker, a short woman in jeans folds cold-cuts onto a plate. Pia gets to work peeling potatoes. Goran takes a seat at the kitchen table, and Henrik sits down beside him. Daniel and I stand in the doorway. Right in the middle of the room, the elderly Farmor holds court from her wheelchair. There’s barely room for all of us to stand in the kitchen, let alone sit and drink coffee and chat. But it is warm. So warm. And inviting. No-one wants to leave, but the kitchen is too small to hold us, so Henrik, Daniel and I are sent to the grocery store for a Christmas cake.

I’m sure I’ve had happy Christmases, but I can’t remember them anymore. My most vivid Christmas memories are the bad ones, like the time my stepfather almost knocked over the Christmas tree because mom couldn’t find the engagement ring he'd hidden in the branches. He proposed to her by saying “fuck, you’re useless. Do you get it? Do you understand what I’m asking you?”
Or the year I decided to learn how to cook. So instead of giving gifts, I bought a giant turkey and invited the family to mom’s house for dinner. My step-grandpa went on a tirade about the “Jew Conspiracy,” then turned to my grandpa Lyman and said “Lyman, that’s a Jew name, isn’t it?”
Or the year stepfather and his friend helped me move into a new apartment, then drove me home from college. The friend was drinking beer, driving too fast, throwing bottles at street signs. I asked him to slow down.
“Fuck,” he said, “you’re just like your mother.”
In his mind, this was the worst insult ever.

We had to drive to the next town over, Susslebeck, to find a grocery store. On the drive, I asked Henrik and Daniel about their grandparents.
“Have they always lived in Likenes?”
“I think so,” says Henrik, “they grew up across the street from each other.”
He points out the car window. “Right over there, that’s where grandma lived. And grandpa grew up across the street from her. And when they got married, they built their house… well, yeah, they’ve always been here.”
The Klarälven River winds parallel to the road, thick with ice, yellow and cracked and dangerous. It doesn’t look like ice at all. The road is muddy. In the distance I see plumes of smoke rising from chimneys.
“And up there is the ski resort,” Henrik says. “It’s, like, brand new. All the German tourists come here.” I look up, but the sky is cloudy, and I can’t see anything.
The grocery store is empty save for the cashier. Ours is the only car in the parking lot. We buy a marzipan cake with a picture of Santa on it, but it doesn’t really look like the Santa I know.
By the time we get back, dinner is almost ready. A smorgasbord has been set out with fish, meatballs, sausages, cheese, boiled potatoes, pickled beets, and more things that I can’t remember. No turkey except for some cold cuts. No gravy. A giant dining table has been set up in the living room. Henrik, Daniel and I (the “kids”, they said, though I was the youngest at 27) move all the chairs into the living room, leaving a path for grandma’s wheelchair to get to the head of the table. Then we take the fancy china from the cabinets, grab our plates, and get in line for food.
The pickled beets are surprisingly good. The homemade potato sausages take some getting used to. Farfar winks at me across the table as he eats. He does his best to communicate with me through smiles and hand gestures: a small bow of the hands for “thank you,” a tip of the wrist for “would you like a drink?” and so on.
Henrik’s family have so many questions about Canadian Christmas. Do we eat fish at the Christmas table? Do we drink julmust? Do we get a visit from Tomte, the Christmas elf? Do we exchange gifts? I do my best to answer each question as simply as possible, with “yes” or “no”, so Henrik doesn’t have to translate for me. Sometimes he still does, though, when they look at me with that blank gaze. I wonder if that’s how I look to them too.

There’s a photo of me at the house in Likenes. I don’t know where it came from, but when I see it, tears spring to my eyes. On the wall above it, there’s a family portrait from the last Christmas Henrik had been there.
“Every year we take a Christmas picture. It’s a silly tradition, but it’s kind of nice too,” Henrik said.
“Why didn’t they take one without you?”
“I don’t know. And they should have. That one, up there, was a really bad Christmas. No-one’s smiling in that picture.”
Pia is in the kitchen washing dishes. I want to be helpful, so I offer to dry. After drying, I hold up each dish so Pia can point to its home. Farmor occasionally says something from her corner of the room, an occasional mention of my name followed by extra syllables.
The woodstove is raging. We open the window to let out the heat, and I notice some blue birds frolicking in the snow. They are the bluest birds I’ve ever seen.
Once the dishes are put away, we take a new family portrait. We position ourselves around a small plaid couch. I sit on one of the arms. Pia and Goran sit next me on the couch. Henrik and Daniel stand behind us. I make sure to smile.
The five of us pile back in the car for the drive back to Hogboda. It starts snowing outside of Torsby, and we have to go very slow through the mountains. I fall asleep on Henrik’s shoulder, and he on mine. In the background, Goran quietly hums along with the radio.
When we get back to Hogboda, everyone changes into his or her pajamas. Pia makes a pot of coffee. Goran turns on the TV. The parents and their children gather to watch ski jumping, or a hockey game, or an Agatha Christie movie: I’m not sure which, because I’m upstairs, saying I need to sleep. But I don’t need to sleep. I just need to be alone, because I don’t want my new family to see me cry.

My mom used to tell me I pushed the wrong buttons. She worked fifty hours a week, commuted an hour and a half each way. She didn’t have the time or energy to argue with him every single night. She never said it, but it was implied: he’s wrong, but it doesn’t matter. Do what he says and don’t question it. Don’t make things harder on her than they already were.
Sometimes, no matter what I did, he yelled at me. Sometimes even when I agreed with him, he called me names. “Bitch” was a favorite: “Twin Peaks,” because of my large chest, a close second.
It’s strange to sleep in a house where you know you’re not wanted. It’s even worse to know you have nowhere else to go.
My mom used to tell me when I moved out of the house, everything would be better.
“We’ll all be happier when he has me to himself,” she’d say. “That’s what he wants. That’s how much he loves me.”

Blast From the Past, yo

I finished university yesterday. No, really, I did. The only thing left to do is put on the cap & gown, pick up my diploma, and maybe drink some champagne. So this morning I woke up full of energy. "I'm gonna find me a writin' job," I said. But you know? Writin' jobs are few and far between. And they all want "writing samples." What's up with that? Haha.
So I was going through my old files, seeing if there was anything I could punch up and use as a writing sample. I thought maybe a book or concert review, a press release, a formal report... you know. Whatever. Anyways, I'd forgotten about this, but the last time The Cure played in Vancouver, I wrote a review of it. And you know what? I like it. My workshop didn't seem too thrilled, but I think that's cuz they weren't really "The Cure's target market," if you know what I mean.
So I thought I'd post it here, for your reading enjoyment: here it is!

Amanda Thomson
May 30, 2008

The Cure, May 26th 2008, GM Place

You know you’re in the presence of a musical legend when the act of walking to stage left or stage right elicits shrieks of joy from five thousand people, young and old, male and female. You know you’re watching a legend when within the first five seconds of a song, the crowd is moving as one vibrating mass. You know you’re watching a legend when the mere raising and lowering of a hand can make people cry.

This was the scene at Vancouver’s GM Place this past Monday night, as Goth rockers The Cure took centre stage. The concert was the band’s first time playing in Vancouver since 1997, and even though the show (originally scheduled for October 2007) was delayed a few months, the crowd was more excited than ever. Take this piece of dialogue from the teenage girls behind me:

Oh my god, oh my god, if I see Robert Smith I’m going to scream and piss my pants.
Really?
Oh my god yes. And if they play The Walk, Fascination Street, From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea, A Forest… I’ll shit myself.
So basically if they play anything?
If they play any song, I’m going to faint. Oh my god. I’m fucking freaking out right now.

Over the course of a three and a half hour set, Robert Smith and crew DID play all those songs. Luckily, the girl behind me did not shit herself. She did scream a lot, I think… I can’t be too sure. I was screaming pretty loud too. With a set chock-full of hits like Friday I’m In Love, Lovesong, Just Like Heaven, and Let’s Go To Bed, how could any self-respecting person with dyed black hair NOT go a little nuts?

Bassist Simon Gallup and drummer Jason Cooper were low-key, leaving Smith and guitarist Porl Thompson to take over the stage. Thompson sauntered like an alien drag queen in full PVC, black makeup, and the biggest, reddest, glittery-est platform shoes I’d ever seen. Anyone who can walk in those shoes, let alone play a three and a half hour set without stumbling, has in my book earned the title of “guitar god”. But of course the real star of the show was Smith, who despite being a seasoned professional with almost 25 years of touring under his belt, was as shy and awkward (and endearing) as a three-year-old meeting one of mommy’s friends, clutching one of his many guitars as if it were the hem of her skirt. When he moved from centre stage to the left or right, the crowd erupted into screaming, arm-flailing animals. At one point he looked at me, and our eyes met, and… well, no. I’m sure he didn’t actually see me. But the collective consciousness in the stadium was such that we all knew Robert Smith was our best friend.

About half an hour in, I noticed that the songs sounded… different: more rock, less pop than the album versions. What was it? There were no keyboards; Smith played all the synthesizer lines on guitar. I have to say I liked it. One of my big complaints with The Cure’s older material is how the use of piano, saxophone, etc – staples of 80’s music – really date the sound for today’s ears. Replacing synthesizer with guitar made for a rougher, edgier, more contemporary sound.

It was a hard rocking, no-frills kind of set, with a minimum of video screens and on-stage banter. As the band moved into their encores (three in total), the transitions became faster and faster until the last set – a mix of early 80’s B-sides like Killing An Arab and 10:15 Saturday Night – flowed seamlessly from one song to the next. The band ended in true Cure form with a third and final encore of one song, (my all-time favorite) A Forest. Did Robert know it was my birthday? Did Robert know I was waiting for that one song? Of course he did. He is my best friend after all.

I

had the strangest dream: my childhood had been stolen, and was hanging on the wall of an art gallery. Photos, video clips, restaurant menus, gas cans, dead animals... everything I've ever discarded in my life, stapled to the wall of a small room.

I have nothing to declare

...except my genius.
...or maybe bankruptcy. No! Just kidding!

Feminism and Writing

Here's something that's been bugging me: on Monday I'm in writing class, and we're work shopping this essay about two girls: one's a stay-at-home hippie earth mother kind of chick, while the other works in a giant glass building in downtown Vancouver, and the point of the essay is (to me, anyways) that career does not necessarily equal happiness, but then again neither does family. The last line of that article was about how feminism is supposed to be about choices - but that was the first and only time the word was used.
One of the guys in the class said that using the word "feminism" is a bad move because the word has a lot of "negative connotations", meaning when they hear it they think of man-hating bull dykes (my words, not theirs). They suggested the author take the word out altogether.
I said "nuh-uh", it should be the other way around, the article is ABOUT feminism and the word should be explored on a deeper level: what does it actually mean in today's liberated society? Most of the girls in class agreed with me (or blushed and kept their mouths shut), and the prof said the intended audience of the piece was female, so it made sense.
Here's the part that bugs me though: I said the word "feminism" and the guy sitting next to me moved his chair away. He was joking, of course, and moved it right back, but... I didn't realize feminism was so dangerous to young men. Maybe I'm spoiled from living with H., who's possibly even more of a feminist than I am, but I was really shocked by that reaction. I don't think I'm a militant anything, and I wasn't trying to push any agendas on my classmates. All I said was that the article was about feminism. Then he moved his chair. Then I said "I think that proves the point: it's a dangerous word, obviously a misunderstood one, so it should be explored further. Feminism's not about man-hating chicks burning their bras anymore: it's about individual choice, and having the freedom to live life however you want to. In fact, in the context of this essay I'd argue that the stay-at-home mom is more of a feminist, because she's being who she is instead of doing what people expect her to do."
I said it again: "there's obviously a lot of controversy surrounding this word, and I think exploring the controversy is a lot more interesting to a reader, so I say run with it."
And the guy next to me was like "I say avoid it, because it's opening a can of worms."
....and the author said "I think I'll change the scope of the piece: originally it was aimed at a female audience, which is why I kept the word "feminism" in there, but after hearing what the guys have to say I think I'll aim the next draft at a general audience."
And I felt like I failed. Not that I was pushing an agenda, because I wasn't, I was arguing about the article itself. I thought it would have been much stronger if it explored the dangerousness of the word "feminism". Maybe I'm biased, but I think the piece would be much stronger (and interesting) that way, and also, I don't think the story will WORK as well for a general audience. I don't know. Mostly, I've been agitated about the guy moving his chair away, because I really like the guy and didn't expect him to do something like that (even as a joke).
I'm sorry to keep going on about it, but there's one more part to the story. So last week, I'm having trouble with my own article (which is about derby: I've told you about that) because I don't actually get to skate with the other girls until the 26th, but my workshop draft was due this past Monday. So I have a meeting with my prof, and he says "okay, what are your options?"
My options were:
1) submit an incomplete draft
2) write around the actual skating (which I didn't want to do, because it's the best part of the piece)
3) expand the focus so the article isn't just about roller derby: I suggested making it about derby and burlesque, how they relate to Third Wave feminism (which I didn't know much about: it's a phrase I came across in my derby research) because there are a lot of similarities between the two things.
4) write something completely different in the next few days: I had a good idea, but he said right away I should do #3.

I agreed: it was the most compelling of the four choices. But, I said to him, the word "feminism" is loaded, and I don't want to be seen as the crazy militant feminist chick: writing about feminism at all is likely to get me branded as a man-hating lesbian. It happened last year, I told him, when I wrote about my trip to Sweden and how Selma Lagerlof's writing appealed to me more than Hemingway's. A guy said THAT statement made me a "female chauvinist" and I was like "whaaaa?"
So I explained to my prof that I was worried using the word "feminism", let alone writing a whole article about it, was going to get me branded. He says "you know, there's always going to be people who get upset. It doesn't matter what you do. You should worry when people AREN'T upset by your writing, not when they are, because if no-one cares, you're doing something wrong."
The proper thing for a writing prof to say. But now, after Monday's class, I'm very worried about the male reaction to my article. It's not like I ever say "men are evil" or "men are keeping women down" or anything of the sort: most of the article, when it touches on feminism, is about the idea of "femininity," not misogyny. Men don't really come into play in the piece, except in one section where I talk about how back in the 70's the players didn't own their own teams - they were paid a small salary, and the promoters (all men, that's just the way it was) reaped the profits. But now most leagues promote themselves, and most teams are structured as non-profit organizations.
But that one section, I describe the average 70's roller derby promoter as a guy with "oiled hair and mutton chops, smoking a cigar and wiping his nose on the sleeve of his leisure suit." Which is, you know, the sleazy 70's. But I'm sure someone will read into that, and once again I'll be branded a "female misogynist", and... why the hell do I let it bother me?
Because I feel like I have no friends. I talk to people in class, but I'm the oldest person in the class (minus the prof) by a good 4 or 5 years. Most of the time, I sit there quietly, reading a book, answering questions when called upon, but I don't speak up because a) I don't want to say something stupid, or b) I don't want to say something that comes across as unintentionally bitchy, misanthropic, or... worst of the worst... OLD. I just want to blend in, you know, make the class as painless on myself as possible. So rocking the boat by using the word "feminism" is a stupid thing for me to do. But at the same time, I want to write things that interest me, and derby is interesting, and in my research I found you can't bring up derby without talking about feminism. So basically I screwed myself, and we'll see what happens on Monday. Hopefully the critiques will be about my bad writing, not about my female chauvinism. But we'll see.
What do you think - is the word feminism loaded with connotations?