128| flailing.

i am flailing. it has been very nearly a week since i blogged. my job is redunant, but my work has ricidulously high security. so, blogging has been left to evenings and weekends. but evenings and weekends are taken up now with friends and family and all sorts of necessary things. none of which are bad, but they are very time consuming.

this weekend, for example, started with a very lovely evening celebrating the anniversary of one of my professors. man, she knows how to party! it was held at a really cool, ecclectic cafe nearby, and there were lots of nibblies and bevvies, and great music. moreover, jen is quite good at hosting. she was really able to introduce people fully and trying and find little connectors between them (for me, this meant finding myself amongst a really cool professor of political science and an archivist). honestly, andrew didn't feel at all awkward amongst the learneds.

it reminded me about the purpose of marriage, and being present in the moment. sounds funny, sure. but truly, it reminded me of all the things to look forward to once the glitter has fallen off and the wedding blogs become a less regular part of my life (eep).

today involved andrew working, me running and running errands. by the time he got home, he was zonked. we went out for pizza and beer, and it was nice. but, he was tired and has called it a night, even though i wanted serious one-on-one time.

oh well.

next weekend, we're at a friends' cottage. the week after that is andrew's mother's birthday, my convocation and visit one of three from my parents. i haven't figured out yet how to deal with all the sh*t my father has thrust upon me. nothing about this is cut and dry and our wedding only two months from now, it's become a whole lot less so. blarg.

all of this is to say, i'm sorry that i've been blogging less. really, right now i want to be blogging more.

122| lists.

clearly, i'm in a blogging mood today {i also have fifteen minutes to kill until the end of my work morning and the much anticipated lunch out}.

so, what did i do with the first five of the fifteen minutes? why, i looked at the knot.com, of course, like any insane bride would. right then. there are one-hundred-and-eighty-four things on my "list" to be completed. i checked off all the ones that i thought didn't apply to me/him/us/our wedding/our party {as my father is now calling it, because there are no aunts, uncles invited, and therefore it can't possibly be a wedding}.

there were still twenty-one things. more manageable, sure. but twenty-one things. it's still a lot of pressure to do and check and make and think and participate in this grand scheme.

actually, there were only twenty. i left one unchecked because i thought it was the most ridiculous thing i had ever heard. ever.

Brides: Choose your bridesmaids' accessories (shoes, gloves, etc.) and either purchase or pass along purchasing information.

you know, because my bridesmaid is not twenty-three and cannot make these types of decisions on her own.

when she {steph} was in town this week, we went to a nice trendy dress shop and bought her a nice, cute dress, that she looks incredible in. she wanted to buy it right away. i told her we should take a second look. and we did. but in te end, she was right. and i trusted her. and she will look incredible. without. doubt.

the strange thing about the knot is that it is so redunant. you're supposed to do the same things every month. it doesn't make a lot of sense. the words "submit your wedding anouncement" appears in five different sentences in five different months {although, i think the knot assumes that we are supposed to have engagement announcements and wedding announcements as separate entities. we have neither, thankfully}.

it reminds me of the instructions on a box of tea:

1. open box
2. remove sachet of tea
3. boil water
4. unwrap string from sachet
5. procure cups and teapot
6. place sachet in teapot
7. when water has reached its boiling point, pour water into teapot
8. let tea steep
9. once the tea has steeped to your liking, pour into cup(s)
10. enjoy
11. remove tea sachet before the tea becomes too strong

it's tea, for heaven's sake. and that's kind of how i feel about this wedding business: as long as i am married at the end of the day, and as long as i have had my share of cake and ice cream, i will be very, particularly delighted and it will have been a marvelous success of a wedding.

image my own {from where i hope to have our photos done.}

119| in the margins.

i like talking about marginalization. mostly because i believe such a dialogue is healthy, and somewhat necessary to putting an end to marginalizing groups and individuals.

meg is talking about feminism and weddings today. it makes me ridiculously happy.

on the other hand, a local columnist in london {ontario} and i have been picking our battles this weekend over his ethnocentric column from a week ago. the column talks about his experience with a family of either "romanian or lebanese" origin, haggling with someone at a sears outlet store. hardly newsworthy. his assessment of the family as weird and his mocking of their experience was indeed very ethnocentric and hardly empathetic to the culture shock they likely experienced. anyway, it has resulted in a back and forth of comments from myself and from the blogger and a discussion about ethnocentricity and the marginalization of minorities in North American journalism. the discussion was interesting, even if i didn't change his opinion {it ended with "you're wrong, kate! you're wrong about canada and you're wrong about journalism-- i'm not sure if he realized that i'm a communications & canadian history major.}

| image yushimoto |

114|

“Success is never final. Failure is never fatal." 

i'm sitting in the library, where i should arguably be reading on rock and roll as a cultural practice. however, it's been a sort of a bitch of a day. but, only because i'm allowing it to be. the train was forty-five minutes late, i happened to try to do all my errands over lunch, forgetting that the rest of the world eats around then to, and it turns out my application for graduate scholarships failed. 

given that the application was a yes or no sort of deal, and that the scholarship was in the neighbourhood of 10K per year, it feels a bit epic on the fail scale. but, failure is an event. not a person. and i should arguably be celebrating the opportunity to create more debt for myself {debt, which will be paid off much sooner than most, because it will nonetheless be on the small side}. as unfortunate as it is.

i now return to my regularly schedule program of reading, wrting and editing in such a fierce way one would think that i were a monkey at a type-writer.

i promise, that this blog will become more wonderful in the coming weeks.

113| reminiscence, present

i have but one exam this term, my final exam, of undergraduate school. it's tomorrow {today} at nine a.m. go figure, one exam and it's a saturday morning.

the topic is easy. introduction to canadian studies. and the exam is only worth 35%, a fraction of a half-credit course. and i'm doing quite well in the other 65% of the course. it's not that i don't want to do well in the exam, because i do. but between my sizeable term paper on bowie, and the end of my government contract, i have had more on my plate than was manageable.

so, here i sit at three a.m., some six hours before my exam, contemplating the last four years of studying, and exploring. reminiscing before it's over. a girl i had courses with will leave for her first full-time job in the north tomorrow. and, i of course, am cramming for this exam. except not really.

because if university has taught me one thing, it that knowledge is power, but being quick off the draw in acting on that knowledge is possible more important. 

right now, however, all i can think is "man, when i lived in residence, i could get upten minutes before my exam and stroll into the room in pyjamas". but for the part where i never did that.

|image vermontferret |

78| in which the rabbit hole opens, and kaitlin falls through.

subtitle: what the f*, part two.

i ought to create a separate label for the parental front. but i'd rather blog about other things, so that's why i don't. that said, the emails and conversations this afternoon were all sorts of no-good-terribly-bad. which makes for two of those days in one week...australia, here i come!

backstory: my father, an investor, refused to tell me for the last five years what my finances were like {six figure, dizzying numbers it appears}. once the market toppled over itself, he was outted. not only was he outted about his mistakes financially, but he and my mother were unable to contribute to our wedding, which they desperately wanted to do. at the same time, he had a proverbial carrot hanging over my nose for the past five years in the form of "do-what-i-say-or-you-will-never-see-your-investments" bullying. to be honest, as awful as losing that money was, i wasn't well acquainted with it, and i quite prefer the freedom that came from being financial independent.

now that you've read the fine print: my father sent me an email today {in response to my email about convocation}, in which he reiterated his "right" to do my taxes for the year. his rationale being that as of 2009, i will be "a poor college student" and therefore my taxes will be easier, and this year's would be too difficult for me to do. so, i called him and told him that i would listen while he explained to me why it was so imperative for him to do them, and that i would then explain to him why i needed to deal with them this year.

without boring you over all the small details, this resulted in a small shoutfest in the rideau centre {for shame}. i got him off the phone, and then proceeded to talk to my mother, which led to a discussion about weddings.

in addition to financial management, my parents and i also have very, very differing positions on weddings. the thing is, my parents are just that stubborn that they have threatened not once, but twice now, to not come to the wedding if they don't get their way. why don't you just stamp your feet and pout like a four-year-old {or at least society's depiction of four-year-olds.}

while on the phone with my mother, my father wrote me a scathing email about how grateful i should be {and, i am} that i am so fortunate to have had the money that i had, and how god-forbid we "punish" them {my parents} by not inviting the 75 people they had in mind. it was a really awful combination of guilt trip + bullying, which both my parents are known for. he went on for paragraphs about gifts from the past, and how it should all somehow equate to him still having financial and/or emotional control over my life.

i really don't get it. but i do know that these issues are bigger than a blog post could ever explain. and thankfully, my parents are nowhere near internet-saavy enough {nor are their friends} to understand how to find my blog, if they ever wanted to.

76| when is enough too much?

i had an interesting conversation with my trainer on tuesday, in which she asked me if i was going to the gym everyday. i told her what my activity routine each week was:

• monday, tuesday, friday, saturday: gym
• wednesday: ultimate
• thursday/sunday: rest, with a good bit of walking or what-have-you thrown in

come summer, i will add sometime-monday and definitely-tuesday ultimate to the mix, and scale back my gym days by one.

well, my trainer didn't think this was quite enough, and was suggesting that i "step up" my routine on thursday and sunday to include a jog. puh-lease! i love how exercising makes me feel. but then again, i also quite enjoy a good walk through the neighbourhood breathing at a normal pace. srsly.

i get that she had my best interest at ♥, but last week, my workout routine was such:

• monday, tuesday, thursday: gym
• wednesday: two games of ultimate, both played without any girl subs {chalk it up to just under three hours of hard running}

why didn't i go to the gym friday. or saturday? or at all until tuesday?
because my body was f*ing tired.

so, please, don't ask me to do enough if it's too much. because chances are, the long-term outcome will be worse than if i do just the right amount.

ps: i've already lost just under 10lbs in three weeks. so, really, i hardly feel like i'm not doing enough.
pps: there is no such thing as a beautiful picture of "exercise". believe me, i looked.

63| schemes, be gone!

when andrew & i first got engaged, we waited an awfully long time to tell people. we got engaged six weeks after first meeting. it sounds crazy, but i file it under "when you know, you know".

when we first started wedding planning {a full fix months into our relationship}, i had envisioned this as our colour scheme...

i think this was the second colour scheme we had talked about. the first being tiffany blue and bright red.

can i tell you how absolutely, utterly exhausted i am of colour schemes? i was talking with my bridesmaid* about dress colours, and the dress that we both love doesn`t come in a green or red that i like. furthermore, our invitations don`t have a hint of red or green. lastly, i think our flowergirls** would look better in green, but then, they wouldn`t match the bridesmaid.

all of this is to say, screw the scheme. i want our wedding to be pretty, and fantastic. but i don`t need to stay within the lines of the colouring book for goodness sake.

sara was talking last week about the first thing that people say to you when you get engaged: "oh! that`s wonderful! let`s see the ring!" {sometimes without the "oh! that`s wonderful" part}. i really feel as though the second or third thing that is said is "what`s your colour scheme?".

wedding industrial complex, i truly hope that this recession takes a nice big bite out of you. reality, i need you appearing in my dreams a little more often. please.

*singular because my other bridesmaid ditched me for a trip to italy. not that i am holding a grudge. goodness no. it`s merely that i asked her some 18 months ago.
** we have two because we have two of everything. except bridesmaids. oh well.

58| canned heat

disclaimer: i'm sorry for how long this post is, but i can't seem to get a javascript "jump" to work. anyone who wants to help in this matter, it would be greatly appreciated.

i had a very weird afternoon, which seems appropriate, given how sane my morning had been.

{pre-amble}: i worked seven years in retail and i have seen a lot of customers who unjustifiably get angry, just to get their way. while i don't believe that the customer is always right, i do believe in giving them the benefit of the doubt, especially when it comes to things that are sensitive, personal matters, such as finances, relationships, politics, and so forth.

my personal trainer {call her jenna} left the studio a few days ago, with no notice, and no opportunity to finish our sessions. jenna was downright awesome, so i was a bit sad to hear she had left, and i was a touch nervous about meshing with a new trainer. the club set me up with another trainer {call him eddy}, with whom i met for the first time today. i decided to do a bit of research of eddy, to see what sports he played, if we had anything in common. to be honest, my first reaction was that he was the opposite of jenna in many ways, but i wanted to keep an open mind about things.

my sessions with the trainers have been one hour in length, the idea being i get an opportunity to do about 40 minutes of weights, 10 minutes of core strength training, 5 minutes for warming up and 5 minutes for stretching.

first of all, i mentioned my concerns to eddy about transitioning into a new routine, and he basically brushed the comment off. turns out, his routine was super different from that of jenna, and i felt like i was back at square one. secondly, he was too much of a cheerleader for my liking: he really didn't care too much about my posture in the way that jenna did, and i really haven't the slightest clue how many repetitions i did at what weight, because nothing was written down.

i felt like the first half of my workout was more or less a waste of time, but i figured i only had a few sessions left, so what the heck, right? wrong. eddy took me over to the area with the mats to stretch out. one stretch in, the following conversation ensued:

eddy: so have you given much thought to pursuing training in the long term?
me: not at this point, financially i can't commit to something like that {bearing in mind that my training package was 14 sessions for $300, which is the downpayment for a personal trainer after you take the inital package}
eddy: oh, well what's your financial situation like?
me:i don't think that's your business
eddy: that bad, eh?
pause
eddy: well, could you aska family member to help you out, or do you have a line of credit you could look to for a downpayment?
me: it's really not any of your business what my finances are.
eddy: well, actually it is.

the conversation went on for the second half of my workout, the entire second half! eventually, i told him that i was a student, paying my tuition and planning my wedding {the first time i said "planning a wedding", and when i repeated it, his response was "oh, i thought you meant planning someone else's wedding". boys, seriously.}, but i really didn't feel like it was any of his business, and to be quite honest, he left me pretty upset, more because he kept prying.

so, i went and talked to the club manager, whose response was two-fold:

• "we instruct our trainers to teach their clients the importance of personal training in a long-term fitness goal"
• "you're being difficult, so why don't i just give you a refund".

i says, "pardon?". customer. service.

52| i type in short form, when i am angry/excited/thrilled {pick one}.

i hate short form, especially in terms of chatting or instant messaging. i only use it, either when i am:

1. in a rush
2. incredibly angry
3. thrilled

my facebook conversation with steph was one of those occassions {the fact that this is worthy of a blog is a sign it doesn`t happen often}.

on my parents, money, and taxes:

me: he {my father} can`t give me money, because he has none to give, but won`t let me be financially indpt. or, rather doesn`t want me to see how much of my money he *actually* lost.

(oh, btw, my parents--the broke ones, as opposed to the rich
ones--are going to fìng hawaii for two weeks, like wtf?)

on my parents tendency to see me as a sixteen year old, rather than a twenty-two year old:

yeah, it`s not that which bothers me, as it is that they haven`t
gotten the memo that said `your daughter is financially independent of you,
therefore you have no right to criticize how she spends her money, nor can your
micromanage the rest of her life through infantilization"

okay, maybe i don`t use shortforms as much as i thought. i just type fast and try to be poetic.

|credit e3|

33| a most miniscule glimpse.

every morning, i get off the bus at bank and albert, grab an americano from my favourite coffee shop and schlepp my stuff three blocks to my office. about two blocks in, i was stopped by an rcmp officer, a mountie if you will.

and so it began, ottawa's circus maximus, the preparation for the arrival of american president obama. for the past three days, there has been an nbc van outside my office {which is across from parliament hill}, and the crowds this morning have been building around the building. i think about this in terms of a miniscule glimpse, both in terms of glimpsing at the president {not likely} and also a somewhat satirical glimpse into what a security state in canada would look like. the mountie stopped me and asked me what my business in the area was. i shook my head, told him i worked in the chambers building, and moved on. but by no means could i take this attempt and state control seriously, even as the officers were stopping every vehicle on the road, because vehicles are much more likely to harbour terrorists.

either way, i think {no matter how much i adore obama} that this visit will further a post-colonial {read: americanized} canadian identity, and will remind me why i really can't stand canadian media.

yes, we can {overdo it with media coverage of obama's visit}

credit hankins

28| studying stones.

how was your weekend?

in ontario, there is this fabulous thing called family day held on the third monday of february. it's maybe three years old, this idea. all the shops close, all the museums close. and everyone, except for federal government employees {which is all this city is made of} have the day off. so, the day off yesterday i had {even though i work for the government...}

a friend of mine gave birth on sunday, to her second son. i would use adjectives to describe him, but i don't know what he looks like other than a baby with dark dark hair and big eyes, that looks a lot like his older brother did about eighteen months ago. anyway, one of her friends made a comment about how wonderful it was, that the baby came just in time for family day. i says, pardon? because it would be a tragedy if the baby came in time for st. patty's day? {i'm sure baby's father would think otherwise, actually). i know this person was well meaning, but seriously, babies are not things to make political comments about {unless you have eight of them, by in vitro fertilization, and the doctor put 6 embyros in your body. and then you ask people for money *sigh*}.

anyway, enough soapbox for one day.

credit boopsie daisy

23| the lowest common denominator

subtitle: an open letter to all the magazines that haven't gone under {yet}

i hate, with the passion of a thousand burning fires , cosmopolitan magazine.

what i hate even more than cosmo is just about every other so-called women's magazine that tries to make women into a lowest-common-denominator. no such thing. and i understand that in the world of publishing {or the world of everything}, you're never going to please everyone. but as long as you're not repressing people i'm okay with that. i feel as though in the past five years many of my favourite magazines, and many great magazines that i didn't know i loved until they were almost gone {domino} have gone by the wayside, and then enter whatever the so-called most read magazine in that genre to scoop up the remainder of good-magazine's readership.

amanda at first milk was talking about sassy magazine yesterday, which falls under the category of magazines-that-i-never-read-but-wish-i-had. however, when i was 21 {which isn't as long ago as i make it sound} i too lost my first love, jane...also published by conde nast.

in light of amanda's post, i revisited the jane website today, which has been shut down for just over two years. a press release issued on the front page reads as follows:

Dear Jane Reader:
With regret, Jane and janemag.com are no longer being
published. In their place, we invite you to explore Glamour magazine and
Glamour.com.
We think you’ll love Glamour.com. Like Jane, it’s packed with
everything smart, sexy women want to know—about your body, your beauty, your
relationships … and more!
Sincerely,
Jane Magazine

this is the point in the mourning process where one moves from sad, and displaced, to furious that someone could even suggest that you could ever replace your precious hamster, or magazine in this case.

beyond my feeling of mourning over the loss of domino {which, i am presently ordering back issues of, because holy crap, where was this when i needed it}, i feel repressed by women's magazines. the ones directed at style and sex. the glamours, the cosmopolitans, the marie claires of the publishing world.

specifically, i feel repressed about my sexuality, and specifically with regards to the female orgasm {insert gasp here. no boys, it's not a myth}. cosmopolitan ran an article this month entitled "An orgasm almost killed her: We're not kidding". It was about a young girl who had a pre-existing heart condition, and was on the Pill. The Pill led to a blood clot as can happen, and the blood clot moved up to her heart during sex because of an increased heart rate.

so, basically, cosmopolitan is implying that women should not have orgasms, because you might have a stroke. simplified? perhaps. but to title the story "An orgasm almost killed her" is pretty irresponsible journalism. furthermore, the story talks far more about the orgasm's role than the role of the Pill or the woman's pre-existing heart condition. It's not that far {in my mind at least} from someone having a stroke after going for a run, and the publisher claiming that it was the exercise that caused the stroke, not the heart condition, or the clot, or the Pill.

i despise how a vast number of magazines have made women into some sort of lowest common denominator, and assume that none of us will ever give up the so-called freedom that comes with the Pill, so to blame someone's death on it would be media suicide.

i digress.

mostly, what bothers me about cosmopolitan, and glamour, is how blantantly hypocritical they can be. they talk about the empowerment of women such as marianne pearl and drew barrymore. they talk about how far women have come as a gender, and what womanhood means. but then, they turn around and offer forward a list of 75 ways to please your {male} lover. without getting into the sexual identity politics in america, why is it that the ratio of article on male pleasure to those on female pleasure is nearly 3:1? i would place sexual pleasure alongside the voting and property ownership as rights for which women have struggled on some level {political or personal}. that's not to say by any means that i think the sexual pleasure of a woman is more important than their right to vote. but given how far we've come on a lot of other fronts, i find our discourse on sexuality and pleasure to be incredibly antiquated.