just chev

A class clown now poetically chronicling life as she sees it... with a bit of humor.

[justchev]

"Freeze Frame"; I read a few articles today about spacing your children, the US average being 30 months. While I was ready for another by that point, my husband wasn't, so we waited. Our children are 4 years apart and in weighing the pros versus cons, our family has come out in the positive. This spacing allows me to savor each moment with my son, to marvel at him like I did his sister, to take just as many photos as I did his sister, and to have a motherhood experience with renewed confidence. I could look ahead because I know what's coming, but for now, I just want to hold this frame and cherish it. #babyboy #newborn #snapshot #septemberbaby

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"The Business"; This one didn't make the Men In Cities series because when you have seconds to get a shoot undetected, the angle or perspective might be slightly off. I usually have a vision on my head of how I want a photo to look and capturing within that scope falls to chance in this type of photography. But artists can be critical and I look at this now with fondness. #menincitiesseries #lostfiles

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"Sharp"; Here's another straggler from the Men In Cities series. It was challenging and ballsy to get a shot this close but helped quell my fears of even whipping out a phone for a photo. It seems silly now but I was just discovering iphoneography and loving it.

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"High Speed"; The next few photos are part of a collection that never made it into my Men In Cities series 5 years ago. It's been great to look at past work and see what overflowing inspiration I drew from the banal and commonplace. In them though, were slices of life we never notice.

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The Beauty of Indifference: Part II

In my previous post on this subject, I began the exploration of imagery to represent atheism. I first decided I could live with the supposed regret of tattoos and impending droopiness of old age but the important issue was design. How could I make my disbelief beautiful?

In particular, science imagery of galaxies, planets or other science-based tattoos is a pleasing but ultimately for me, an indirect expression of what I’m trying to represent. I could get equations or chemistry formulas tattooed, but the message would not be the same. Previously, I touched on the idea that fables could be used to represent some moral tenet.

A colleague told me the fable of The Turtle and the Scorpion. The tale hit me deeply, as it highlighted the nature of my situation at the time. In it, a turtle is skeptical of a scorpion asking for help across a river. Other versions exist, but the one I heard was that no sooner did the turtle aid the scorpion to solid ground, was it stung. “I can’t help it. It’s in my nature.” Therein was the message that pierced me. Forgiveness had always troubled me as a tenet of belief. When do I stop forgiving and protect myself without holding a grudge? I decided that vigilance was a good middle ground. I thought of how when we help those plotting against us, we unknowingly aid in our destruction. What god has planned doesn’t matter if that person is in a position to materially affect your life. It wasn’t the devil, but the evil in people. Once you recognize that it doesn’t stop or abate no matter how gracious you try to be, you change your behavior. That skepticism of motives was essential.

World Turtle (1876), public domain

Turtles are generally a positively represented animal in mythology for their patience and wisdom. The classic tale of the Tortoise and the Hare yields the old adage: Slow and steady wins the race. I thought about the turtle alone, but I wanted to focus on how to interact with competitive (hare) or toxic (scorpion) people. Perhaps a turtle tattoo with the wearer’s greatest foes depicted? It an interesting concept. Decide which embodiment you want to be based on the circumstance. Slow and steady, cautious and decisive? Perhaps a tempting snake is your foe. It was open to alteration on that theme.

I thought of how that exactly represented atheism and it ended up being a motivating cautionary tale, a reminder to tag an enemy and learn to navigate around them. The skepticism aspect was present, but i wasn’t quite sold. I was getting somewhere at least. The journey continues… 

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The Beauty of Indifference

Put simply: I want a tattoo. Since I met my Fairy Mod Mother in college, I’ve been a fan of body modification. 

“Just buy a picture… Is anything really that important to you?… You’ll have this for the rest of your life… What will it look like when you’re old?" 

The last question struck me when I was about 23. A young family member had died and I kept thinking: What if you never get old? It made me consider that each tattoo was a snapshot in time and you may regret it in 10 years, like any other decision that alters your life or body, but at least you’d get the chance to make that mistake. Our lives are full of bad girlfriends, worse roommates, dead end jobs and poor investments. That stick-and-poke tattoo you got at a friends’ sleepover when you were 16? It’s hardly the worst one could do. 

In addition to expressing my creativity through various mediums (like this blog), recently, I’ve been thinking about what’s important enough to mark me. Well, atheism is. It’s the basis from which I build my creed and foster the humanism in me that says I am very good without god. Before getting pregnant with my son, I consulted with the extraordinary John Sultana on a design. 

johnsultana.com

I originally wanted an atheist symbol in dot work. I didn’t know how I’d heal since I already had a keloid, so I postponed the tattoo to make other modifications beforehand. Upon researching atheist tattoos further, however, I found them all to be variations on similar design or theme. They were boring and unimaginative. I was discontented. Is this what I really wanted? 

I happened upon a blog post (”What is a Skeptic Tattoo?”) in which atheist tattoos were referred to as "aggressively antagonistic” and tactless. It suggested they could be “alienating” in their bold message. By contrast, religious tattoos and symbols were much more aesthetically complex, artful and solemn. But was that fair? Religious imagery had hundreds of years to develop. Whole artistic movements centered around depiction it’s tenets, tales and imbued it with that gravitas. Atheism, humanism and in this case, skepticism, did not have equal and opposite attention. Although I was rubbed a bit by the post, it brought up a point to consider: Can disbelief be beautiful?

I reasoned that instead, I might take from fables or stories representing value systems. I avoided pedantic atheism by concluding that my creed was mine to craft. No rules. Then the idea came to me… John Sultana is know for his geometric blackwork and if I was to find something of meaning, I would marry a more abstract principle with the artist’s style. I hope to realize the vision someday, but until then, I’ll explore more meaningful humanist and atheist imagery to share with you. Stay tuned.

[justchev]

Your daughter has the best of both worlds.

Someone said this to me in a supermarket and I knew he was trying to be nice, but I couldn’t help to examine the implications I could not very well discuss at that time in the soda aisle.

After watching “Dark Girls”, I told a fried that my daughter was too black for white people and too white for black people. She would, for many of her days, have to justify her blackness to everyone and would even have to discover what blackness even meant. Over two years ago, I had composed a piece about the history of my blackness and deleted it. I couldn’t conceptualize what I was trying to say and had not yet learned enough about race to clarify my statements. I’m still learning, but my daughter has a different struggle ahead. As of now, I don’t know what to tell her.

The man’s implication was a deep one, not a compliment, not meant to insult yet revealing a painful reality. What did it really mean? She got to shed the negative and embrace the positive. She could be apart of a lively and dynamic black culture, have “rights” to the music and be part of the scene. Her blackness was her ticket to the vernacular, her license to speak on the black experience and her seat at the beauty parlor. She even had the coils.

But she also had the baby hairs. She had the light skin. Both black and white would crown themselves arbiters of her blackness. She would be subject to colorism in black communities and microaggression in white communities. Someone would deliver her a complement and give a backhanded insult to someone who looks like me. Even though she looks like me. Only paler. She’ll have to navigate those touchy waters, reminding herself not to play into agents of divide.

But she’ll have the hazel eyes and the medium brown hair which logic would say is mediated by simple Mendelian inheritance but be coded as an ironic, exalted otherness. One of the pretty ones. One of the good ones. She may, if she wishes, mask her blackness and step into a world of privilege where she can knowingly blind herself to black struggle. She won’t garner suspicion or need “extra customer service” in a high-end boutiques. Or a shit one. She won’t have naps to shear. Cameras will be set with favorable capture of her skin tone as default.

A Redenção de Cam (The Redemption of Ham) by Modesto Brocos, 1895

I think of her internal conflict and the many racial issues she has to navigate as a racially ambiguous black woman. She will have complex occasions of exclusion and inclusion where she must decide who she is and her “right” to be there. As she is now, she will be exoticized and fawned over like a creature to be admired… and sickly, bred for the public’s collective admiration. Perhaps the old man knew I’d understand all he meant, that things would be for her like they weren’t for us darker folks. But that’s a problem. Her skin, hair and eyes should not have to be a ticket to full citizenship. So when that nice, elderly black man, perhaps a lifetime of race issues weighting his statement, told me my daughter would have the best of both worlds, like the Quickening, I was instantly imbued with the hardships she would face and her struggle to define herself in a world of incomplete labels. I smiled, pretentiously guffawed and said, “Oh thank you.”

[justchev]

Falling Out of Love

I recently had a sort-of break up. It was the quiet type where you've gone back and forth time and again, only to come to the same conclusion: this may not be working. But it's been a long time and you don't know if the history is strong enough to overcome your present needs. 

I'm may be breaking up with To Do lists. 

I've been writing down my day's plans since college and probably before then. I liked the feeling of knowing tasks and assignments got done. It was a methodical way for me to manage a busy day or week. Sometimes I even cheated, writing something down minutes before it was completed. A silly thing, I know. 

But almost twenty years later, after becoming a wife, mother and breadwinner, that list is a bitter reminder of all I haven't done. I used to swear by To Do lists, but now I'm not sure. There is so much more than “Wash dishes” on my lists nowadays. They include daily tasks in which I often lapse, weekly routines, professional project deadlines, potential proposals, creative endeavors, decorating ideas, decluttering initiatives, waste reduction, shopping, cooking and and AND… I'm exhausted. I'm trapped by all I need to accomplish, want to do and hope to be. That list used to be such an elegant companion in my adolescent and younger adult years. I secretly imagined I accomplished more than most with my faithful partner. Now I resent the multitude of things I never did even though I was so determined in the beginning. My To Do list and I are growing apart and I can't stand to look at it. 

Perhaps it's me. Perhaps I expected too much of a little handwritten list on scrap sheets of paper. Maybe it was my mistake to put all my hopes and dreams into that list without realizing why we ever got along in the first place. It was never meant to make me a well-rounded cook, zero waste goddess, professional badass or enviable craft maiden. It was supposed to take those few, core, urgent items I needed accomplished to keep progress forward. I used to see my goals stretch on like an ocean and it was my coxswain at the stern, directing the charge. 

Now, I see the wreckage of all I haven't done. Laundry pilling up, toys askew, a disorderly office and and AND… I'm defeated. I briefly thought about creating weekly lists of what I had done, but that seemed the other side of the coin. At the end of the week, I would gaze despondently at what little I had done. Choose your poison. 

I've decided to leave the list I have now, the country cottage I turned into a downtown skyscraper. I'm not forcing my whole life's duties into where it can't fit. The other week I sat down at my computer, composed my old fashioned To Do list on a paper scrap and in a matter of hours, accomplished it all. It was the best and the most productive I had felt in a while. The office was still a mess, but I hadn't even noticed. 

It's back to basics. Back to waking up, imagining the day's possibilities and writing down what I intend to do today, not in two weeks. It may even help my memory by putting all those hopes and dreams into a reverberating circuit so they don't die. No more lingering on the digital list. 

A picture frame with a Lorax quote has been sitting in my daughter's closet since her second birthday party. She'll be four in a few months. I glanced at it while writing this and decided it was something to do today. And just like that, the picture got hung. One more little thing off my list.

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"Solitary"; Alone time is great for self-reflection and focus. I used to crave this solitude all the time and needed it. Now with a growing family, I have to find quiet time in between tea parties and talking politics. The difference now is that alone doesn't have to mean lonely anymore. :-)

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"Hatchet Man"; It's interesting to observe someone's conduct and attempt to pinpoint their motives. When we're young, we imagine that every slight is against us. We take things personally. But getting older and wiser means recognizing the bigger picture. I was introduced to the term "hatchet man" by a colleague and that particular man's motive was to break down a rival from the inside so it could be made an acquisition. Beware the hatchet man...

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Making Modifications

Janet Jackson’s Velvet Rope was an important album. When it was released in 1997, I was grappling with the messy, emotional and convoluted existential examination of adolescence. The album spoke to a deep and sore psychic pit derived from my need for acceptance and specialness. Having her as an idol highlighted the underestimated importance of representation, with her talent, sensuality, confidence and beauty serving as a conduit to help me settle into my being. At the time, I was the type to imagine freedom, independence and self assurance instead of weddings, so Velvet Rope was as bold as I wanted to be. That concept was reiterated in its unapologetic references to female masturbation and bondage, which shattered my sexual cloister.

Not only did I connect with the message but the album’s aesthetic. Janet’s pierced nipple and septum were things of beauty and defiance. While I didn’t learn the term “body modification” until much later, it opened up a realm of personal expression. I had a keloid from an infected piercing gun debacle at 7 years old and was burdened by fear that it would occur again and grow out of control.

After meeting my Fairy Mod Mother in college, my interest in modification flourished as I hitched onto a stretch of her journey which included two tattoos and three piercings. I stood by in admiration and with moral support but wasn’t in a position to afford it or be bold enough to hide it from my parents. I wasn’t ready to travel with her. I made due with daily visits to ModBlog and complied an impossible wish list. I had almost resigned myself completely until I reached a personal turning point after my daughter was born. I stopped giving a fuck and decided to delve into body modification once again with the serious mission of defying my fears. I’m a woman of science and of course, did my research. 

I began with my possible propensity for form keloids. Generally, the medical consensus was to stay away from piercings or tattoos altogether. My decision to reject that assertion meant looking into compression bandages and silicone-based healing ointments to slow hypertrophic scar formation and heal wounds cleanly. Round and round I went until I started looking at advice from actual piercers. My first lobe piercing was done with a gun that used a blunt piece of jewelry to tear through my lobe. It made an uneven and jagged wound that I erroneously cleaned daily with alcohol, per the pediatrician’s recommendation. It got infected and after it resolved with medication, the holes remained open and bilateral keloids formed. One was exophytic or grew outward and the other formed an moveable pearl. I was still skeptical when I noticed that my C section scar had begun to flatten out from its raised position. That gave me hope. Keloid formation is unpredictable, but I hadn’t grown a bulbous mess, I’d gone the other way. From that point I was confident that with proper care like use of salt soaks or mild soaps, I would be fine.

During my recent trip to Montreal, that one little thing I got was a second lobe piercing done by the cheery and beautiful Michelle, formerly of MTL Tattoo. She recommended a lower placement than normal since I have a prominent anti-tragus and while it rubbed me wrong for a day or two, in the end, she was right. I had been determined to get this piercing done because I knew I’d be in Philadelphia a few months later and would visit the only shop I really trust to do the work I really wanted done…

I was satisfied with my ability to take care of a basic piercing and planned to get additional work done at Infinite Body Piercing, the shop that my Fairy Mod Mother introduced me to. John was my piercer and we spent time talking about my attempts to be pragmatic and informed when embarking on a body modification journey. He absolutely put me at ease. My second lobe piercing was as I expected and much like the first. But the real nervousness came from finally getting a piercing I wanted since I first picked up Velvet Rope: my septum. I laid back and John took his time to mark his point at the sweet spot. The piercing itself hurt and made my eyes water, but was no more uncomfortable that the lobe. I opted for a retainer to keep it out of the way while healing and felt a sense of completion. 

I finally did it.

[justchev]

How Do We Fight Back?

With yet more coordinated acts of violence against civilian targets, while the sophisticatedly equipped can find out who and by what means, the most pressing and debated facet is why. Why? Children, concert revelers, joyous comrades, lifelong friends, lovers, loners… everyday people, slaughtered with no clear motive or pinpointed target. They are all targets.

These attacks kick up flurries of debate in social and family circles worldwide with common refrains referencing the harm inflicted upon us by religion, the need to heavily arm or unilateral ban gun ownership and speculation of what a world future holds based on our response. I’m an observer and a thinker. I would rather untangle the conflict and lay it out to understand it, thereby surmising possible points of resolution. It’s a lot of work. It takes evaluating the logic of arguments, exploration of history and analysis of context to piece together a multidimensional picture that crisscrosses time. By doing this work, I feel we have a better chance of arming ourselves against an enemy that does not die: ideology.

As an atheist, all I need to know about the violent origins of religions are contained within their texts. Militant imagery is commonplace and one need only cherry-pick a verse with which to load their weapon when they can just as easily choose peace. That, to me, is too obvious an answer. There is much more.

Heavily arming citizens is not a solution since what we really ask for is the militarization of our society. We ask for sentinels at the ready, watchtowers and no windows. No citizen could conceivably maintain that level of attention without consequence to the mind and body. Only an extraordinary few can fade into the hum of a bass guitar and spot snipers simultaneously. In this temporal dimension, we feed off an existence instead of a full life. I am like Charlize Theron’s character in The Road, gladly going gently into that cold night with my demise at my hand instead of in a far off and tortured place. A Mad Max world is not mine. I would sooner give my tongue a skylight than struggle against a harsh and unforgiving landscape where I must noiselessly crouch among the brush to allude marauders. I’m not alone.

That’s why I want to fight now. To fight our enemy, we have to know them and ourselves.

It’s serendipitous that last week I read an article about the apparent superiority of French parenting. Their children are more patient and well behaved, with what we term discipline, more akin to educating in their culture. I concluded that their cadre or frame is not a method, not a label, but an ideology. They keep in mind the desired result and work toward achieving it. While I cannot qualify distinctly “American parenting,” I will say that we thrive on labels of permissive or strict, conservative or liberal. I have been complimented on my child-rearing from friends, family and doctors. I’m a “good mother,” but there is nothing accidental about the way my daughter has developed. As with the French, behavior is a matter of education.

I revisited this article and thought of how my parenting is governed by principles that dictate my response to challenges; so upon observation, the method appears inconsistent in the search for any label. When applied to recent events, one begins to see that we cannot box conflict into labels, but remember the governance of ideology. In our quest to find out why, we have to know the what. The what is not a Muslim, extremist or terrorist. We must start thinking of terminology derivation. We get to label the attackers terrorists, but what were conquistadors to indigenous people? Taking a moment to divorce ourselves from building simple black and white labels helps discern details in this conflict’s landscape. It also helps understand who is a potential target and what it even means to be a target. Is it as simple as being Westernized? What does being Western even mean to a teenager blowing himself up in a crowded theater?

We have to understand the ideology. And not just the personal stories of ISIS architects, members or the organizational structure but their mission. By what principles do they govern their actions? What result are they hoping to achieve and how will they go about responding to those challenges? In a way, we are tasked with deciphering the nature of their frame. As with French parenting, we want to find out the secret, the simple answer. Hate of Western culture and religious fervor are merely byproducts of that frame. Understanding that frame to defeat the ideology also takes acknowledging our possible contributions to their genesis. World conflict resonates through decades and what we did 50 years ago haunts us today, so untangling our role is a way to change their mission’s trajectory. Is it possible that economic policy, political sanctions or occupation plant the seeds? Make no mistake, this is not an indictment of the victim, but the recognition that an instigator may sign an innocent person’s death warrant with their actions. The temporal component cannot be discounted.

I don’t know why. I can’t begin to explain. But I do know that if we don’t find out, we’ll be here in this place of mourning over and over until it all falls down.

[justchev]

"Magic Hour"; In the late afternoon on Sunday, an interesting weather anomaly I've never seen before took place: a sun flurry. It is what it sounds like and is amazing to watch. It's my first video upload and it'll be nice to utilize it in the future. Any tips on apps?

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"We Are All Small"; Seeing my little one against the backdrop of a vast ocean reminds me I'm a speck of dust. Neil DeGrasse Tyson articulates it best in Cosmos that our kinship to each living thing can be a "soaring spiritual experience". Feeling small means knowing we're part of a vast array of extraordinary intergalactic life, large and, like every human being, small.

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Montreal

My husband doesn’t ask for anything on his birthday. I’m the one who takes it upon myself to plan a short getaway or nice dinner to celebrate. Vermont and Miami were my ideas in years’ past, but he enjoyed himself immensely just the same. This year, he had one request: Dine at Joe Beef in Montreal. 

We had seen a profile of the restaurant on Anthony Bourdain’s The Layover and were blown away by their foie gras Double Down, a play on KFC's needlessly gluttonous monstrosity which replaced buns with two deep fried chicken fillets. Joe Beef used two decadent slabs of foie gras instead. We had visited Montreal twice before and were eager to go back to try Joe Beef (even though the dish had been discontinued) and L'Express, a French restaurant with a delicious octopus appetizer and a bit of old 19th century Midtown Manhattan flair with it’s black and white tile and sharp waiters. 

The day before my husband’s birthday, we made the drive up and I finalized the itinerary to pass the time. I coupled points of interest with acclaimed restaurants. I had warm and cool weather options for entertainment to maximize our ability to hit every spot. Brilliant. I know. The drive went well with my daughter scoring an A+. I had picked out Sparrow, a lauded Plateau-Mont-Royal area eatery for brunch for the next day and wasn't disappointed. Its short menu still left room for plenty of waffling about our selections for fear of missing out on a better dish. Delighted and highly impressed by our meal, a trip back before we left made its way onto the itinerary.

Okay, let’s hit the pause button. I’ve realized that I’m kind of uptight. I don’t like to fly at the seat of my pants on vacation. I want a plan. This derives from past vacations in which I got the ear-splitting and blood-boiling inquiry before I’d had a chance to take my first piss: “What are we doing today?” Then my husband and I would spend an hour looking up attractions. He would casually mention an activity and I'd worry it would be a waste as the sun was racing ahead of our tenuous non-schedule. So in addition to already being up late and a zero tension partner, I was like a spring under pressure. You ever worry that someone else isn’t worried? Guilty. From then on, I got academic with it. And I’m still getting better. For vacations, I have plans for everyday, whether it’s an activity or a chance to get sunburnt. Days can be swapped but I prefer most activities be completed. There is nothing wrong with that omigod stop being so judgmental you don’t even know me like that. LOL? Nevermind, I don’t know how that abbreviation’s proper usage. Bah humbug…

And now back to your regularly scheduled program…

After a plea from my uncle to go back to Ottawa, I reluctantly agreed, shifting my plans around to accommodate our venue change. One great thing resulted from our detour: A trip to the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Inside was a fantastic children’s museum that even I enjoyed. I was eager to visit more, but pitter patters plopped back to the fake storefronts and games every time. 

At the end of the children’s area was an exhibit on Terry Fox, a Canadian hero who endeavored to run across Canada to raise cancer awareness. He himself had become an amputee at 18 from osteosarcoma. He wore a custom prosthetic for running which was rudimentary device at best with an articulating knee and belt straps for quadriceps. A video looped at the end of the exhibit with him running. Just the sound of him running. There was a distinct rhythm to the clop clopping of his prosthetic against the pavement and it was eerie yet difficult to turn away. It was heartbreaking in a way that made you hope his courageous story had a triumphant resolution. Terry never made it to the Pacific.

***

On our way back to Montreal, I was eager to get items checked off the list and although the trip was for my husband, there was still one little thing I wanted for myself. In the meantime, we went to Parc Maisonneuve…

Montreal Botanical Garden and Butterfly Conservatory

Bug love at the Montreal Insectarium

***

We finally got to go to Joe Beef mid week. Our date nights are few and far between, so I dressed casually but stylish with my new Coach heels just because. The scene from the restaurant foyer smacked of a comfy and dimly lit farmhouse style dining room with checkered cloths and quirky wall decor. A short corridor toward the back led us to our reserved table where we stared expectantly at the chalkboard menu written entirely in French. Surely our rudimentary ciphering would yield win after win.

We always have the same tactic at a restaurant: We order different starters, mains and desserts and taste each other’s dishes to sample as much of the menu as possible. But our intrigue circled one dish in particular: cheval. For the non-Francophones among us, that’s horse. Yes, like Black Beauty. Or Secretariat. Or American Pharaoh. In that one dish was teetering the conflict of consumption mixed with dogged curiosity. I ordered it of course. 

Joe Beef is the type of place where you trust the instincts of the chef and their menu. They are allowing you passage into an realm of possibility and contemplation. When I received the horse, I didn’t know it would be tartare and atop a baguette, but split the yoke atop it and dug in diligently. It was delicious. Flavored with horseradish (zing!) and other spices I couldn’t identify, it tasted like a delicate red meat. No twang. No gaminess. Just delight.

After the foie gras and ham jelly toast starter for him, entrees of duck and chicken, we were three quarters of a tank full with just enough space to spare. By that point we were so filled with indecision that to choose desserts seemed unthinkable. So we didn’t. “We’d like two desserts. Your choice.” We received eclairs filed with a violet cream and a thin slice of a 30 layer cake flavored with hazelnut praline, chocolate and vanilla. Coupled with our cocktails and beer, we left fuller, happier and even with a recommendation from the waiter for delicious pastries at Kouign Amman. I decided this time on a single shitty photo for documentation. We saved the memories instead.

***

I couldn’t take as many pictures as I wanted during the trip as I had an antenna out for my still incompletely potty-trained toddler, her meal times and activity planning. Wound up? Screw it, YES. But after her horrendous behavior at L’Express (which she acted like a typical toddler instead of her usual old soul), a vacation's paradoxical ability to cause stress, I finally did get that one little thing for myself. Stay tuned for a complete post on it. :-)

[justchev]

Out of Hibernation

It was a trying winter this year with snowstorm after snowstorm significantly depressing my mood and damaging my psyche. I was feeling low and unmotivated to do much of anything. Add to that, my lab switched locations and the ensuing upheaval forced me to reform my skill set to compensate for a new workflow while working with a bigger and almost entirely new staff. The changes kept me thoroughly occupied with work challenges, staying level-headed and fulfilling responsibilities at home.

I was desperate for the smell of blossoms and that slight sizzle you get from a hot sun. I craved a breeze that would freshen my home instead of relegating it a dank dungeon. Even shunning my winter coat at some point in March didn’t do the trick. So I kept my head down and waited out the chill, but...

Spring is finally here. It’s a proper spring and not just a calendar label. This time always feels much more like a new start than the misery of January. It’s time to schedule family beach days, fruit picking at the local farm and clearing out the house clutter. I’m looking into more vegetarian meal options to incorporate healthier food that contains less “meat and potatoes” and more spinach and barley. My reasoning is that the variety in plant life makes our very singular and typical dinner choices illogically small. Plus there’s more in season now than just mushrooms. Sluggishly and slowly my winter chrysalis is shedding. Here’s to a new year (because I said so)! 

Photo taken at The Botanical Garden of Montreal.

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Sure, it’s humorous and delightfully vulgar in a way that appeals to my sensibilities as a sarcastic twit, but the article brings up an important point in its sea of F bombs: our energy expenditure is often inappropriately applied. We waste energy on minor squabbles at work, crabby people in convenience stores or our own small failures which keeps us mired in the mundane. Manson is careful, though, to let us know that just because you fuck bank is empty for The Great American New Year Slimdown™, doesn’t make you indifferent. It’s the equivalent of recognizing apathy, not hate, as the opposite of love. In both love and hate, being overly concerned or indifferent, the same is true: you still care.

Elements of truth are littered throughout in the way Manson succinctly summarizes a facet of the human experience. I myself have wasted far too many fucks in my lifetime and have been learning, over the last few years to be fuck wise instead of fuck foolish. I’ve cared far too much about what other people thought of me, if I was pretty enough, if I was too heavy, if I was a good enough dancer at a frat party… I’ve wanted tattoos since my mid teens but cared too much about what it would look like decades hence or if I’d form keloids. Now? I’m planning a design and already have a shop picked out. I’m doing research instead and accepting the risk because, well… I don’t give a fuck anymore.