Mark Dailey, you hardly knew me

I almost came out of my blogging moratorium two months ago when I saw Mark Dailey on Front Street. It made me smile too much to ruin with my ramblings.

Goodbye Mark Dailey, man of my childhood confusion. City TV movies are not the same without your scathing commentaries. I'll miss you!

Working on my fitness

I told myself that I'd go for a run today.  Naturally, I decided to blog my favourite songs to work out to instead.  Fair trade? Ten for your fitness playlist:


Shooting Stars / Bag Raiders

For the warm up.  The only problem with this song is that it was featured on a McDonalds commercial and so all of my runs start with a Mac Attack.




Good Vibrations / Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch

Before my endorphins kick in I am usually miserable.  Luckily, this is the happiest song ever written.



Eye of the Tiger / Survivor

By now you're almost 10 minutes in- if you're out of shape and irritable (like me) you still need some motivation to keep going.  Just remember that if Rocky Balboa can run the streets of Philadelphia during the cold winters, you can do this.


Rocky IV Training Montage / Rocky Soundtrack

If Rocky can run-climb the cold mountains of Soviet Russia and bench press his coach, wife and brother-in-law in a wooden wagon, you can do this.



No Easy Way Out / Robert Tepper

If Rocky can overcome the death of his dear friend Apollo Creed, you can do this.


 


Shipping Up to Boston / Dropkick Murphys

Because it reminds me of  hot Boston boys. Also, R.I.P. Billy Costigan.  Never forget.






All I Do is Win / DJ Khaled

Try to synchronize your leg movement to the "up, down, up, down, up, down."



What You Waiting For / Gwen Stefani

Keep running, you stupid ho.


 
Lose Yourself / Eminem

Imagine: The stadium lights turn on dramatically and light up the dark Texas sky. Someone says something inspiring (and peppered with curse words) to get through to your high school football team. Now we got a game to win, god damn it! You only got one shot, do not miss your chance to blow. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime! Get out there and show them what the Bucks are made of! Optional: If you need an extra push, imagine your nemesis from the opposing team unfairly tackles your only black teammate and gives him a potentially paralyzing injury.  The black guy makes a joke at his own expense and you laugh through your tears. He tells you to win this one for him.



Freedom 90 / George Michael

Cool down and get some water. You deserve it, champ!

You're welcome.

You really need to read this article. Oh, you're a movie director? YOU REALLY NEED TO READ THIS ARTICLE.

At 19 years old Jerzy Bielecki was sent to a concentration camp. Three years later he fell in love with an inmate, and the year after that they escaped together. This doesn't need to be filmed to win a Best Picture Oscar: the Holocaust, love, action, an escape, a tragic miscommunication and the kind of beautifully bittersweet ending that wouldn't leave even Mel Gibson's eyes dry. Print it, laminate it and read it when you need to be humbled.

Reality Bites

I am not a television snob. I am likely the only person alive that has watched every episode of More to Love - the fat man's answer to The Bachelor. That said, I am not here to wax pretentiously about how shitty reality television is. It has been a decade since Survivor premiered on CBS and changed my primetime schedule and PVR's Thursday nights forever. Ten years is high time to get rid of these reality tv cliches. I am encouraging every future reality tv show contestant to expand their vocabularies and please let these cliches die:

On the block
Meaning: In danger of leaving the competition
Origin: Street-wise adaptation of the phrase "on the chopping block"
Guilty of excessive use: Big Brother
Fun fact: Also the name of a failed reality show, On The Chopping Block.

Strategic
Meaning: Used as an adjective for any decision not based on personal motivations
Origin: The word "strategy"
Guilty of excessive use: Every single reality show that has aired to date
Fun fact: Less than 1% of reality show contestants have ever been able to work its root word into a grammatically sound English sentence.

Thrown under the bus
Meaning: To be sold out (often by a co-contestant by calling attention to another's faults in front of "the judges" or "the panel")
Origin: Common idiom
Guilty of excessive use: Top Chef, Project Runway, The Apprentice
Fun fact: Use this phrase whenever you are judged by judges whose job it is to judge you on the thing it is you are supposed to be competing to be judged on and it doesn't go well.

Going home
Meaning: Losing the competition
Origin: the English language
Guilty of excessive use: everyone
Fun fact: Contestants call anywhere without cameras "home." Big Brother contestants equate going to the "sequestered house" with going home, Survivor's jury members who stay on the island also refer to their departures as "going home."

I'm not here to make friends
Meaning: I am here to compete for the grand prize, I do not want to waste my time on pleasantries or civil conversation
Origin: Kelly of Survivor Borneo said poetically: "This is a game. Don't take it personally. You know, if people came here to make, you know, bosom buddies and, you know, lifelong friends, they should have gone to summer camp."
Guilty of excessive use: America's Next Top Model or any obnoxious reality tv show contestant that realizes that everyone hates them: see here
Fun fact: Everyone who wasn't there to make friends mentions the friends they made as something they gained from "the experience" in their exit videos. Alternatively, Top Model girls leave letters to the friends they weren't there to make.

The right reasons
Meaning: Earnest motivations to compete on said reality show
Origin: The outcasting of the first reality tv contestant to admit that they were on a television show with the motivation of being on television
Guilty of excessive use: The Bachelor, The Bachelorette
Fun fact: The Bachelor and Bachelorette contestants initially have no idea who they are competing to date, meaning the only "right reason" one can have for a dating show is desperation/loneliness.

Don't we all use pre-fabricated hearts?

The following is a blog I wrote in 2007 for a a class on "The Body and Modernity" that I found while I was poking around my old emails. The assignment was to blog after every class on any part of the lecture that struck us as interesting enough and raise questions on it. I can't help but be a little embarassed every time I read something I wrote more than 3 minutes ago.

In reviewing the clip of Dreams Money Can Buy during Friday's class, one lyric off the soundtrack made an incredible impression on me: "No man alive could ever survive a girl with a pre-fabricated heart." But what is a "pre-fabricated heart"? If a pre-fabricated heart is a way of classifying a heart that is insincere, who among us does not have one? Personally, in intimate social situations I run my gut reaction through a split second inspection line to ensure that my response is not socially awkward. I've been conditioned to monitor and censor my feelings from others as well as myself, and ask myself questions: Would my friends react like that if someone were to ask such a personal question? Should I be offended right now? Would someone attractively aloof be offended right now?

I am incapable of having a reaction without looking for the reassurance that it is a normal response; this is obviously a sign of some major insecurity. I can deal with that. I have friends that come to me looking for answers to similar questions; I know I can't be the only person who does this. If this is the case and we constantly test our feelings against social norms before openly expressing them, how do we determine which of our thoughts and reactions are really genuine? How can we know ourselves anymore? I'm a young female and these days that allows a certain amount of expected insecurities, but there is still something unsettling about this: What about those of us who react openly without adherence to the social norms and outlines? Assuming we are aware of these boundaries, do we purposely ignore tham for novelty's sake? Are those reactions just as "pre-fabricated" as mine? Do we all use pre-fabricated responses? If all of my relationships and friendships are based on these pre-fabricated responses, is any of my social contact genuine?

Make a Wish

One of the most fascinating things I learned in my youth was that if you are terminally ill you can use the Make a Wish Foundation to do whatever you want. I vowed that if I died I wasn't going to go out like some punk bitch. I had to be prepared to wish for something that no one else could get their hands on. I thought about and settled on the following options after years of serious consideration.

3. WWF

Wrestle in a main event, despite being a pre-teenaged girl.

2. Appear in an 'N Sync video

I know this sounds like any thirteen year olds dream - and to be fair, yes, I thought of it when I was thirteen - but there is STRATEGY behind it:

- With one music video appearance I would definitely meet the group. At that point it was almost certain they would be charmed by me and we would be life long friends. 1st point.

- Everyone would wonder who that cool girl in the 'N Sync video is. 2nd point.

- They would probably ask me to sing a part in the song. 3rd.

- The song would be a huge hit and I would be immortalized.

1. Saturday Night Live

Initial wish was to host. Later, in my late teens, I decided I'd be pretty content to appear as an extra in sketch. Present day's form of the dream is just to observe the cast and writers for the week as they prepare for the show. Secretly this wish still relies on the power of my charisma to make some new friends in high places.

On the Road with Hanson

When I was eleven years old, Hanson and MuchMusic were the two most important things in my life. That is, until I discovered something even more incredible: The Internet. The internet allowed me quick and convenient access to these loves of my life without buying another Bop! or BB again.

I logged in to Yahoo! chat and found a room called HaNsoN **** ZaC LuVerz. I was at one with my people. Wait a tick... did mine eyes deceive me? Was there a user named ____zac____? It had to be a coincidence...but what if it wasn't? What if my chance to talk to Zac Hanson was staring me in the face and I was passing it up like an idiot?!

My breathing became heavily impaired and I was faced with an incredible decision. Would I call my best friend and tell her that I was practically hanging out with Hanson or would I continue to chat online? I didn't have a second phone line and internet was only available via dial up at the time. It was an easy decision, I could just show off afterward.

This was one of the most thrilling experiences of my pre teen years. Another noteable was being in an official Yahoo! chat with Chris Kirkpatrick (the ugly one from 'N Sync) who answered my question (!!!). I remember being angry at myself for not having the common sense to use my full name as my username. If I had, Chris would have read it and known that I exist. I'd probably come up in a bunch of conversations with Justin, right? Alas, he'd only know me as 'yeyeyewhawha' from Toronto.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious that ____zac____ wasn't Zac Hanson when he told me that he was on the tour bus chatting to me, "so technically [I] was on the road with Hanson." I am fairly certain that that kind of technology did not exist in 1997 but my Christmas gift to the 11 year old me is a promise to never ever confirm that.

White Christmas Trees

I check the clock on my computer, I've still got forty minutes before home-time. My foot shakes rapidly and I chew and re-chew a tiny piece of grape. I'm anxious and jumpy because I've just allowed myself to frame a poster of the Joker from The Dark Knight and now I must have it. This was an internal debate for two days - is it tacky, or is it so cool that it took me 2 years to think of? Now that I've decided it's the latter, I have to get out of here. How can I concentrate until I own it and have it on my wall? I can't be expected to be at my best until I can compare prices and sizes of frames. Naturally, I leave work thirty five minutes early.

I pick out a frame and find the poster at Walmart. It takes no time, I have the poster number memorized. They are finally safe in my cart. I feel like bear who has just rescued her cubs to safety. I can relax and look around.

My heart rate accelerates as I steer into the seasonal section. Christmas trees. Christmas decorations in every colour. I hear myself saying 'ZOMG' in my head but I am too excited to self-loathe. I contemplate the different varieties of Christmas trees for about half an hour before I text a couple of friends and reach out for help:

Are white trees stupid or are they haute couture?

Nearly an hour passes. I am confused by the idea that although I'm fairly certain I have an extreme opinion on white trees, I don't know whether it is that I love or hate them. I had the same struggle a few days ago, why don't I know what I like? I realize that it happens all the time. I think trends are ugly until I see them on a well put together girl at the mall who I decide that I need to become. I buy everything she's wearing and expect my life to be complete.

My text message replies don't make my decision for me. Self reflection is forgotten today and the cheapest green tree joins Heath Ledger in my cart.

Can a girl get some recognition?

So this one time I was at a public swimming pool in the kiddie section (it's a great place to start - nice and warm) and I was playing a game of tag. I was trying to turn a corner when I saw a little asian boy playing a weird little game with himself. He was flailing his arms and legs around underwater and all I could think was, "what a stupid game...it looks like he's drowning!" I then realized that it was very likely he was drowning; his feet couldn't touch the floor. I felt a little uneasy pulling him out because he may have been having a great time playing his freaky little game, but I grabbed his forearm with one hand and pulled him out. The poor little guy clung on to my arm. Instead of holding him, I dragged him with that one arm until we got to the lifeguard. "Lifeguard," I said. "This kid was drowning!" She picked him up and he puked up some water then some idiot came and claimed him (how do you leave a three year old unattended?). I waited for the lifeguard to commend me for saving a child's precious life but to no avail. I got no recognition! She didn't even mention that I pulled him out or spotted him. I stood there until it became awkward and the conversation was long over and eventually slinked away. No chocolate bar or newspaper thank you, no nothing... Ungrateful bastards.

"All nighter"

2005: Studying for an exam

I alternate between 20 minute reading periods and 1-2 hour breaks. I fill up about a page of messy notes and feel accomplished. My friends and I take every chance we can get to leave campus to get coffee (“Yo, I need coffee. I been reading this shit for hours, guy”) or food (“Yo, I’m gonna drive through Wendy’s, you want anything?” – to which I reply, “I’ll just come with you, I been reading this shit for hours guy, I need air.”) We catch up and have a serious conversation.

My eyes begin to burn from fatigue so I go home. I don’t sleep, caffiene kills me. I wake up the next morning after 2-4 hours of interrupted sleep, feeling and looking like shit. I want to die. I drink Redbull and ignore food.

I go to school a few hours early in a very carefully comfortable (but not yet slobby) outfit. It takes me more than five minutes to perfect the messy/afterthought ponytail look. I quiz and get quizzed by friends off of our study notes. I write the exam in my signature style; lazy, rushed and one of the first to finish.

At home, a boy talks to me on MSN. My answers are very carefully nonchalant and late so that it doesn't look like I'm only talking to him (I am.) I complain that I hate MSN and I only use it for homework. Really, I have never talked to most of my new friends on the phone. After a few other messages, my friends decide that the "[campus] study crew" deserves a night out after exams (cool people go clubbing.)

I say goodnight when my friends say they are going to sleep. I make sure to stay awake for the 3AM Project Runway repeat.

Close Encounter

I am ten years old and shopping at Pickering Town Centre. I'm leaving Sears to enter the mall and I see a familiar looking old guy. I'm not sure what his name is but I feel like I definitely know him. I sigh and my stomach drops because I hate saying hello to family friends. I hate air kissing people I barely know, and I have to be polite because they are my parents' friends.

I try to avoid eye contact. It works a little too well and I'm suspicious. What's this guy's problem? I go from suspicious to highly offended when the old guy walks right by me.

What the hell? I fume. I turn around to get a good look at him, try to figure out who he is. I mentally rehearse my speech to my parents about their rude friend. After my flash of rage I have a moment of clarity; I realize who he is and how I know him. Old guy's not a family friend at all. I recognize him because he is Mark Dailey, City TV news anchor.

My first swear word

Characters: John, Calvin, Ginny, Me
Setting: Fleming Public School baseball diamond/field, c. 1996 Four children play with a tennis ball.

The bell is rings and secretly my stomach begins to turn because I hate being late - but naturally I am too too cool to care about those things, so I continue to play. It's kind of exhilarating. The ball is accidentally thrown over the fence in to "Out of Bounds" territory. It slides down a steep and weedy hill.

At this point I really don't want to lose the tennis ball (what will we play at afternoon recess?) but I kind of just want to go inside. I've already rebelled for today and it is pretty damp outside.

John & Calvin discuss and decide that Calvin will go past the fence OUT OF BOUNDS to get the tennis ball. Internally, I flip out. Externally, I turn my earmuffs backwards to look cool.

We watch Calvin get the ball from behind the chain link fence.

John: "Shit."

Initially, I'm shocked to hear a swear word from a peer. Until this point we've only said "flip" and "frig" if we're seriously pissed. Since I am obviously a hot shit bad ass who wears backwards ear muffs and is late for class after lunch, I assume my new personality is cool enough to swear too:

Me: "Shit, guy."

That's how it happened!