carrie carm: full of charm.

Books read from December 2013 to December 2014, listed in order of completion.

2014-12-28T22:23:00.000-08:00

This list does not include books started but not yet completed (Sucker Literary Anthology Vol. 3, Sandra Ridley's Post-Apothecary and Fallout). Sometimes I wrote short reviews of them on LibraryThing (similar to Goodreads, but it doesn't have a name that reinforces the insipid, insidious positivity-all-the-time stasis quo in its own name).

1. The Miracles of Ordinary Men by Amanda Leduc
I am loath to resort to the standard book-reviewing clichés. But they creep in.

How many times can I say something is beautiful without calling it "beautiful" but without resorting to "magical", "profound", "deeply important", or "urban fairy tale of loneliness and family and sex and self"?

The Miracles of Ordinary Men left me breathless. I couldn't put it down, and several other book review clichés. It made me grateful for being able to read, and grateful for Leduc existing and having worked so hard to create this. A beautiful, brutal, complicated and disturbing tale, it reminded me of Angela Carter's work, as well as Jason Hrivnak's The Plight House. And Wim Wenders' film featuring angels, Wings of Desire. Not the one with Nicholas Cage, the first one, auf Deutsch. I have long been fascinated with angels and devils and reality and reality's mutability, and this novel was a fantastic exploration of so much of that.

2. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

3. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

4. Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler
A vampire tale, but not the usual vampire. not the usual tale. Related in feeling, but not in theme or story: Jim Jarmusch's film, Only Lovers Left Alive. A movie with vampires, but not really about vampires, except kind of.

5. For Today I am a Boy by Kim Fu
Sparse and beautiful, this novel aches with loneliness, but in such a good way: elegiac, sort of a novel-length poem filled with intimate moments and a profound examination of family.

6. The Cell by Stephen King

7. Joyland by Stephen King

8. No Kidding: Women Writers on Bypassing Parenthood edited by Henriette Mantel

Flippant, instantly forgotten essays by female comedians about not having kids. I didn’t read the summary of the book before getting it out of the library and mistakenly assumed it would be the American equivalent of Nobody’s Mother, an excellent collection of Canadian women’s writing. It wasn’t.

9. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
A friend’s mom recommended this one. It is so good. You could read this book, then watch Man on Wire, a most excellent documentary, if you are into creating thematic book/movie pairings.

10. Projection: Encounters with my Runaway Mother by Priscila Uppal
This could be required reading for all those numbnuts out there who equate “mother” with “saint” or “hero”. Just because you gave birth to someone doesn’t automatically make you a smart, good, or kind person.

11. Music of the Swamp by Lewis Nordan
Lewis Nordan has created quite a magically brutal world in Music of the Swamp, told through the eyes of Sugar Mecklin. A tragic comedy of a boy growing up in the southern US, with parents who are maybe not so good at parenting, or living, but are good at surviving. So many descriptive, beautiful, crisp poetic moments.

12. Anatomy of a Girl Gang by Ashley Little
This very quick read is a disjointed novel told in the voices of different members of the titular gang, and the anthropomorphized voice of "Vancouver". While effective (and enjoyable to read how different characters would report the same details quite differently), the "Vancouver" voice comes across as cheesy and preachy and effectively ruins the gravity of the subject and the story as a whole. The print run also had some production errors (a graphic was missing, then printed over text on another page, etc.).

13. 11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King

14. Still Alice by Lisa Genova

15. Pop Goes the Weasel by James Patterson
This was horrible. Melodramatic. I picked it up at my parents’, someone had given it to my dad. Ugh. You want crime? Try anything by William Deverell instead.

16. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
Here is a passage from the novel that perfectly illustrates the experience of reading it:

He came home from the pool and took a thirty-minute nap. It was a deep, dreamless sleep, his consciousness switching off as soon as his head hit the pillow. Afterward he ironed a few shirts and handkerchiefs and made dinner. He grilled salmon with herbs in the oven, drizzled lemon over it, and ate it with potato salad. Tofu and scallion miso soup rounded out the meal. He had half a cold beer and watched the news on TV. Then he lay down on the sofa and read.

17. High Clear Bell of Morning by Ann Eriksson

18. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

A friend of mine calls this literary crème brulée. She’s not wrong.

19. February by Lisa Moore

20. This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

Some I loved (February. We Were Liars. For Today I am a Boy. The Ocean at the End of the Lane. 11/22/63. The Miracles of Ordinary Men. Music of the Swamp.) and some I didn't love quite as much, but liked them well enough to finish them.

Of these 20, 18 were of my own choosing. I won a free copy of Music of the Swamp via LibraryThing's monthly draw whereas free copies of books are given in exchange for a review. The other was Ann Eriksson’s High Clear Bell of Morning. I wrote a review of that for Room, a literary journal whose board I used to sit on. It will be in the spring 2015 edition.

Ten were written by men, 10 by women. I did not set out to be so egalitarian, gender-wise. Kind of weird, actually. A bit more American-centric than usual, too.

Hello.

2014-02-08T12:17:00.000-08:00

A lot of things have happened since my last blog post.

I am now full-time employed; a member of The Media. So when people complain about how the media misrepresents things, think of me. That’s me, helping to misrepresent reality. I take tremendous pride in being part of large-scale, orchestrated shenanigans.

My home was broken into. Things were stolen. Blood was left behind, so the thief was eventually caught, but I was not so thrilled about that, though I pretended to be because social expectations. I still don’t really care; I’d rather have my stuff back.

I learned that in such an event, my first instinct was not to call the police. It was to call Tom. Who was in the Yukon at the time, so really, calling the police would make more sense, but sometimes sense disappears.

I also learned that one should always say “yes I think someone is still inside!” when reporting a burglary, otherwise it will take two days for police to show up and take prints and file reports.

I hacked off over half a foot of hair from my head. No one [friends, co-workers, family] noticed.*

I became a bicycle commuter. I used to be very nervous about taking my old bike anywhere for fear of it being stolen, but then it was stolen out of my home. I still worry about my new bike being stolen, but mostly I’m just happy to glide through the streets.

I took out the steel ring I’ve had in the skin above my belly button for 19 years. It’s been slowly migrating out for a while now. I do not like the scar it left behind.

*from Tom: “I would have noticed, but I was busy bringing home bacon from the Yukon, where it is.”

here is a poem I accidentally wrote

2013-07-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

Job listing aggregators keep a handy list of job searches you've done recently. I hadn't checked this particular site in a while, guess the last time I used it I was having a "bad day".

here is a birthday card/bookmark I made a while ago.

2013-06-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

well, that was unexpected.

2013-05-15T12:13:00.002-07:00

Last year, I was super stoked to volunteer for DOXA, a documentary film festival here in Vancouver. I was going to work my 20 hours and use the shit out of my free pass. Due to the confluence of a number of events (soul-shattering job in a call center, very badly twisted ankle that has never really healed properly, random surprise visit from my dad), I didn't get a chance to see any movies aside from the ones I managed to glimpse while working my volunteer shifts.

But this year, THIS YEAR WOULD BE DIFFERENT, I vowed.
When I applied back in March, I asked for mostly evening and weekend shifts because I thought FOR SURE I will have a job by then. Ha ha ha. Funny me.

And it was different.
I had my schedule all planned out.
I would review each film. For writing practice, for proof of freelance writing capabilities. Discipline. Critical thinking exercise. Something like that.

But what I did not account for was the emotional toll of seeing so many films about so many fucked up situations in a relatively short span of time. Let's see: big pharma interference in AIDS treatment in Africa, how Google is taking over the information world, oxycontin addiction, family dysfunction, political corruption, migrant workers, gentrification, civil rights, shattered career aspirations .... and suicide cropped up in several of those.

12 full length films (and a couple of shorts) over a nine day period, plus front line customer service, plus making small talk with strangers, plus trying to decipher the notes I was attempting to take, plus still dealing with my Other Life of searching for paid work, well .... I was exhausted. I don't mean tired. I mean I was dropping/losing personal items and tripping and falling (re-twisting the wonky ankle!) and waking up tired and fighting back tears in public places and forgetting to buy groceries and feeling weird about complaining about being tired from watching movies.

Plus through all of this I have been trying very hard to push away that asshole demon called Depression. I am trying that "Fake It Til You Make It" thing and holy shit is that tiring. I've been observing people to see what the difference is between them and me in that they have paying jobs and I do not. I have come to zero conclusions.

The festival was a really good experience. It was very satisfying to see so many people excited about documentaries, it was good to get out of the house, it was good to have a routine outside of myself. I spent a lot of time with my sister and her boyfriend because her place was only a few blocks from the main theatres of the festival. I had some good conversations with my fellow volunteers and festival staff. And then I became rather catatonic and very weepy for the last two days of the festival, abandoning my self-imposed film-watching-and-reviewing schedule and hiding at home to try and quell the increasing panic in my head over all the injustice and general horror that is out there in the world.

I might still write more reviews. I might not. It was thrilling to see my blog stats shoot up for a day when my review of The Manor was retweeted. I take what I can get these days.

Review of The Manor @ Vancouver's DOXA film festival

2013-05-08T13:05:00.002-07:00

As a filmmaker, it can be dangerous to put yourself in front of the camera. Rob Stewart placed himself firmly in his 2006 film Sharkwater and completely ruined it: the footage was fantastic, his irritating self-righteous narration was horrid. Nick Broomfield is another one who puts himself in front of the camera, much to my dismay. I have deliberately avoided anything with his name attached after seeing the Biggie and Tupac debacle of a decade ago.

But sometimes, it works. Sometimes, you can't imagine the film any way else. Shawney Cohen's The Manor is an excellent example of doing it right. Cohen's father owns The Manor, a strip club and hotel in Guelph, Ontario; it's been in the family for over 30 years. But the movie is not about The Manor, not exactly. It's about the family. Cohen's father is obstinate, and obese. Cohen's mother is also obstinate, and anorexic.

This is a super brave and ballsy film to make—filming your own family, showing the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful. There are so many lovely, sweet, funny, charming moments in here. And a lot of really hard, emotional moments as well—he doesn't even spare himself. Shawney's family, and the club's employees, have strong personalities, and the camera and editing showcase these characters so intensely, so lovingly, so honestly. The occasional boob or ass flash is really just a backdrop to a really profound and deeply emotional portrayal of a family, of a marriage. There is heartbreak and hurt here, but also so much damn love!

I've been raving about this film to everyone who will listen to me, and even chased Shawney down the street to tell him how much I loved it (right outside The Penthouse, a strip club on Seymour St, I like to time my stalking well). He did a Q & A after the film, which is why I love film festivals so much, being able to see the filmmaker and hear a little insight into the process. The Manor itself is a historical landmark and important to Canadian history—built in 1891 by George Sleeman (you'll recognize the name if you drink beer!), and I wouldn't have known that if not for the Q & A session, because googling "The Manor" gets you pages and pages of raves about how excellent this movie is.

If you have a chance to see this, please do. It is excellent filmmaking, excellent storytelling, and, well. Just plain excellent.

Review of Rent A Family Inc @ Vancouver's DOXA film festival

2013-05-08T12:28:00.000-07:00

Rent A Family Inc. is filmed in Japan (mostly Tokyo & its vast suburbs) and follows Ryuichi Ichinokawa, a man in his mid-40s who runs a business called I Want To Cheer You Up Ltd. He pretends to be other people. He is a stand-in when someone needs a father or a husband or boss for whatever people need fake relatives and fake authority figures for. One of his clients hired him and a number of his employees for her wedding: fake friends, fake parents, fake uncles, fake aunts .... which makes for some damn compelling viewing, let me tell you. He has a day job, or rather, he's had a series of day jobs, none of them particularly stable. He also has a wife and two children to support, and his family has no idea about his rent-a-person business. Nor do they care.

This film is a study in alienation. Husband and wife barely communicate, husband/dad either sleeps or stares at the TV or Internet when he's at home, there seems to be very little interaction or emotion between the father and his sons—yet Ryuchi says he cries at the weddings he attends as a fake relative or fake employer. This man has emotions, very strong ones, and they are all completely hidden behind his stoic Japanese demeanor. It is heartbreaking to witness the interior damage that people can do to each other, shutting down instead of listening and talking with one another.

Rent A Family Inc. is fascinating. And sad. And fascinating. It's been 4 days since I saw this film with my sister, and it has left a very deep impression on both of us. The fact that this business exists is mesmerizing all by itself, but then to see the lonely life of the man behind the business, and his family living their disparate, rarely intersecting lives .... it's beautiful, in a very tragic way.

Finding Vivian Maier

2013-02-18T09:05:00.002-08:00

This looks like a movie I want to see:

via Susannah Breslin.

jest wont to tall u that your are staning.

2013-02-02T11:56:00.000-08:00

i think this guy has a thing for brunettes. and lululemon. and eye contact. and he's confused about his age.

2013-02-01T11:52:00.000-08:00

you asian me white.

2013-01-31T11:40:00.002-08:00

I read books.

2013-01-26T09:36:00.000-08:00

“I once asked Neil the question directly: What’s the right thing to do when someone dies? He thought about it, then said, “I don’t know.” Not the answer I wanted, but after a moment he added, “I think you have to struggle with it."

Curtains by Tom Jokinen, p. 267
Random House Canada 2010

“You were married?”

“No. Well, not at the time of her death. I was insufferable long before we lost her. Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you."

The Fault in Our Starsby John Green, p. 286
Dutton Books 2012

sometimes I like people, sometimes not so much.

2012-12-07T16:32:00.000-08:00

On today's bus ride there was a man sitting across from me who kept up a barely audible patter of angry, vile language. I wasn't sure if he was talking on a hands-free device or talking to himself, but as he got up to leave, I realized his vitriol had been directed at me the whole time.

He leaned over and said very clearly in my direction "You're a nigger loving pig. Disgusting."

I didn't make eye contact with him the 15 minutes we shared the same public space, and most certainly did not look up as he towered over me. Still, I was calculating where to hit him and how to defend myself if his verbal violence turned physical.

I was one of those urban automatons in my black coat, staring down at my smartphone, seemingly oblivious to my surroundings, expressionless, city-stoic.

Seething with adrenaline.

Martha Marcy May Marlene

2012-12-06T11:41:00.001-08:00

Have you seen the movie Martha Marcy May Marlene? I saw it in August. It's been haunting me.

It's a movie with an unsatisfactory ending, so if you like neat and tidy, this is not for you. I am a fan of abrupt endings, or non-endings. No resolution? Gimme.

I became a nocturnal animal this summer, watching movies or reading until the sun came up. My life ceased to resemble something with structure, aside from watching Golden Girls reruns from 1 am to 2 am daily. Those ladies sure eat a lot of cheesecake. How's that for structure?

So, middle of the night, watching this movie, I talked to my TV, admonishing the main character more than a few times, telling her what to do, how to get help, how to solve her problems. Because it's always easier to tell someone else what their problem is, what they need to do to solve that problem, right? And Martha has a lot of problems.

It's about a young woman who leaves an isolated (but not so isolated, it's strange) community/cult run by a frightening man, the kind of person who walks softly and smiles sweetly and looks normal, but is not normal, and neither are the people he's surrounded himself with. It's all quite disturbing.

The opening scenes were claustrophobic, a slow, creepy montage of still shots that were not still. Vignettes. Fade in, fade out. Glimpses of life on the commune. Edits that make you think this is all a bad dream, a hallucination that lasts the length of the film. It was the worst kind of horror movie, the kind where the monsters aren't easily identifiable, and reality blends easily with not-reality. Subtle, insidious, the movie unfolds in a series of slow, isolated shots and things unsaid and gestures and miscommunications and oh so much sadness. And the ending is ... unsatisfactory.

Sometimes when you need help, like you really really really need help, it is hard to realize that you need help, or maybe you realize you need help but you don't know how to ask for help. I wanted to help her, fictional character that she is. But I couldn't. She was trapped in my TV in the middle of the night. I couldn't get her out.

If you watch it on DVD, there is a 10 or 15 minute short film as an extra, the idea that eventually became the feature length film, and it's good too. Some of the elements in there would have been helpful to have known for the main feature, but both stand alone quite capably, with the short providing some creepy insight into how cults lure new members in.

If you've seen the movie (the short, or the feature, or both) I'm interested in knowing what you thought of it.

for female writerly/art types.

2012-12-01T22:41:00.000-08:00

Are you female? Do you fancy yourself a writer? Maybe you don't just fancy it, you really are a writer. Maybe you are a woman, and you are not a writer, but you are an artist. Room is a journal published in Canada, but you don't have to be Canadian to submit. All the info you need is below, and you can click on the notice to head straight to Room's website.

Get criminal, ladies.

And if you don't want to submit but you would like to read some noir poetry, click right here.

look, I hate to point out the obvious....

2012-11-17T20:25:00.002-08:00

.... but when most people hear I have a degree in library and information studies, they say "oh! a librarian! you must love books!" And yep, it's true, I do love books, but loving books and having a library degree? You can have one and not the other. Librarians don't sit around reading books all day. They are too busy trying to get other people to read books, not to mention making books accessible to people who want to read books. And many librarians don't even work with books; information comes in all sorts of interesting packages that need to be organized and accessible. But yeah, the standard knee-jerk response to a random person learning one has a library degree is usually "Oh, I'd love to work in a library, I love to read!" or "You must love to read!" or blah blah blah.

Yet when I apply for a job in a bookstore, and despite the robots at the monolithic corporation "carefully considering" my application ..... somehow the chasm between "library" and "books" is too large. I've even worked in a couple of bookstores; I have actual real-life book store experience.

Oh god, books. I do love books. I loved them long before I ever entertained the notion of getting a degree with "library" in it. I read a lot of books. I read about books. I write reviews of books. I know a lot about books. I read graphic novels, zines, books of poetry, books of short stories, novels, non-fiction, books for kids, books for young adults, books for fancy pants intellectuals. Science books. Horror books. Cook books. I fucking love books.

I volunteer for a literary magazine where I proofread and copy-edit other people's stories and poetry—the sorts of things that tend to end up in ... books! The other people at the literary magazine, people with far more experience than I do, have even praised my copy-editing! Some claim to even enjoy my book reviews! I also get to be A Decider, reading submissions and deciding whether or not they are good enough to possibly get published.

So, you know, this is all very funny that I can't even score a seasonal job at a bookstore.

Ha ha ha.

Getting a job is all about timing.

2012-11-05T07:47:00.000-08:00

Even when you send off an application within hours of the ad being posted. even when it seems like the job was made for you. even when the guy who wants you to do the job says you are perfect for the task. timing. how's your timing? my timing is terrible.

I'm going to print this out and post it on the Carrie's Wall of Almosts.

Temendous! you just need to know a lot about this amazing.

2012-11-04T03:34:00.000-08:00

I found these in the section of craigslist where people post their own resumes and make desperate pleas to find work.

2012-11-03T15:57:00.000-07:00

burying the dead: Dawson City, Yukon

2012-11-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

Tom told me that I would love Dawson. The big fake façades on the storefronts. The boardwalks. The cemetery. He was right. I liked everything.

Especially the cemetery.

Grave markers with gates.

It feels lonely there. Desolate. Markers so old and weathered they've become blank again.

The cemetery is really a collection of different cemeteries, each section a bit different. Some parts a little more modern, a little tidier. I liked the weathered, falling apart sections the best. There is even an open air archives:

There are two binders tucked away in wood boxes, with stories of the Dawson dead, like Thomas Hourie, the man Louis Riel surrendered to. The historical relevance of Dawson is kind of goose bumpy surreal. Wild west, gold, violence.

The stories in those binders were amazing, taken from oral histories and newspapers, with murders and suicides and violent living and violent dying. I am pretty certain the local archives could make some money by printing a book version, straight up, don't even need to pretty it up with photographs, just all those great stories. I would buy that. Put a sign up at the cemetery saying where to buy the book. I would have bought that book.

There were lists of the dead, the people buried there. Age at death, date, and reason. Cancer, Accidental, Edema, Natural (what is a natural death? are there any listed as Unnatural?), Execution, Heart, Suffocation, "infection-bowels": I would buy a book that has those lists. That is my kind of book. Do it, Dawson.

Even the view from the cemetery is amazing.

A good place to be dead.

this is what applying for a minimum wage job these days looks like, in case you were curious

2012-10-26T19:51:00.000-07:00

These screen shots are from the automated system one must navigate for a part-time cashier position at a drugstore chain. I like how they don't even care enough to update the minimum wage information: minimum wage in the province of BC is $10.25 per hour. Well, except if you are a Liquor Server, then it's $9.00.

Yes, please tell us about a time when you were dealing with a difficult customer. That time when you closed your eyes, covered your ears, and waited for them to go away.

That last question is the best, isn't it? Answer this question, because you are a robot, and your answer will never deviate, depending on when the last time you ate was, or when your next break is, or if this is at the end of your shift, or if it is at the beginning, or if the customer in front of you is mentally unhinged and screaming at you, or the person who paged you is a jackass, or ..........

The screen shots below are from a large book and 'lifestyle product' selling chain:

There is no mention in the application process that there is a 73 question questionnaire at the end that will take you 25 (or 74) minutes to complete until it happens to pop up on your screen when you think you are done, you know, after you have entered all of your previous relevant jobs one-by-one with the month and year you started and ended, your employer, your job title, responsibilities, and reason for leaving:

"Because my boss was a cunt/asshole/crack addict/mentally ill"
"Because suicidal ideation was becoming a part of my daily routine"
"Because I was accepted into grad school and never thought I'd have to work at a place like that again"

The language they use is so lovely: why IS it important to always try to do things right?
Obviously because we all want to model a strong work ethic and positive behaviours.
Positivity wins everything. Positive positive positive positive.

Yes indeed, I sure did learn a whole lot about what it would be like to work with this company. I had an inkling an hour ago when I started the process, but this questionnaire really closed the deal for me.

Well, I sort of already had an idea of what it might be like to work for this company based on that time when I was in one of their stores and noticed that their corporate office-approved signage describes their paper products as "stationary", not "stationery".

And I still hope I get a call from either one of these places. Preferably both.

Lowe's Mortuary: Dawson City, Yukon

2012-10-19T06:54:00.000-07:00

As a tourist town, Dawson does it up right and has a lot of storefront historical displays. Heritage displays? Museum pieces?

My favourite was the mortuary. Lowe's Mortuary. This was mere steps from the hotel Tom was living in for the past couple of months.

People say Dawson is haunted. But don't people say everywhere is haunted, really? I didn't see any ghosts. Or hear them. Or feel their presence. Maybe I'm just not attuned to the correct psychic ghostly wavelength.

I want to know more about the associated furniture stores. What furniture is associated with undertakers? How about a hutch to go with that dead body you got there? Maybe a dining room table?

That Dominion, with their absolutely peerless cavity fluid. It must have been so much fun to make up this mortuary display. Do they change it up? What about sun damage to the documents and furniture?

How many times was this "Head" identifier used in Dawson? How often were dismembered bodies or parts showing up at the funeral home? Or maybe this was for autopsy purposes.

Looks like Pierre wasn't the only writer in the family - Laura was his mom.

around town: Dawson City, Yukon

2012-10-18T06:25:00.000-07:00

The shops and restaurants of Dawson have false storefronts, just like an 1890s gold rush boom town, complete with unpaved road and boardwalks instead of sidewalks. Trucks instead of horses, the internet instead of the telegraph. There are even dancing girls at Diamond Tooth Gertie's, Canada's oldest gambling hall. I saw them on their last night of the season. It was excellent.

There are a lot of abandoned structures:

And of course the requisite secret society, all cities and towns must have at least one secret society, it's a Canadian civic ordinance:

For literary types, there is a writer's retreat in Pierre Berton's childhood home, and the Jack London museum, where you can look at Jack London's house:

I didn't go inside the museum, just walked around it and took some pictures. I didn't go in any of the touristy museums. I'm not even sure if they were open.

I don't remember ever reading anything by Jack London or Pierre Berton. Maybe some short stories in school? Call of the Wild? But now Klondike is on my list.

the museum of longing and failure: Dawson City, Yukon

2012-10-17T12:16:00.002-07:00

I went to Dawson City (population ~1300, + 60,000 annual tourists) for a few days in September.

On the plane ride up, I was given real food, and when it got cloudy and I couldn't see much out of the window anymore, I wrote a couple of letters.

Dawson is a lively tourist town in the summer. By the time I got there, almost everything was shut down.

Somebody else paid for the flight and my one night in a hotel room in Whitehorse. Sometimes there are perks when your spouse is hired by the TV production company he's been trying to get a job with for three years. Sometimes those perks include a visit to the Yukon. It was a 2 hour flight from Vancouver to Whitehorse, then a 5 hour drive from Whitehorse to Dawson with one of the show's producers: we listened to Hits of the 90s on satellite radio, and had an enormous cinnamon bun which looked impressive but tasted like too much dough, not enough cinnamon and sugar. I brought equipment with me, a camera lens worth 25 or 30 thousand dollars. Tom didn't tell me how much it was worth until I was up there; I come from a long line of worrywarts and Tom knows me well.

It was the furthest north I'd ever been, and I've been to some fairly northern Alberta locations, I ain't no city pussy, yo (yes i am); the plethora of trucks in the parking lot of the hotel in Whitehorse made me feel like I was home. Which is interesting, because on paper, Vancouver is my home, but they also say home is where the heart is, and I think I've lost my heart, so I am aimless and strange these days. I've had a weird and lonely summer.

This was one of my favourite parts of Dawson:

A window display in an abandoned bank. I wish I was a better picture taker. This museum of longing and failure was a tangible depiction of how I'm feeling these days.

a list of irritations, september 2012 edition

2012-09-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

Salary commensurate with education and experience.

This is a common phrase in many job advertisements. It is a time waster.

State the range of salary you are able to pay. This means potential job applicants can determine if it is even worth their time to apply. I won't waste your time, you won't waste mine. Why be coy and mysterious? This is not a fun game; this is survival.

Applying for a job that pays a decent wage - or sounds like it pays a decent wage - takes time:

Constructing a unique cover letter (this involves research into the company, could take 15 minutes, could take a couple of hours, depending)
Tweaking a resume. Take me, for example. I have a master CV that is 8 pages long. Depending on what type of job I'm applying for, I will put certain sections on my final 2 page resume that won't necessarily make it onto others. I have accomplishments, but not everything is relevant to everything.
Interview preparation, research travel time, arranging for time off if you are currently working (lost wages!), arranging for childcare, rescheduling other appointments: all of this can take a tremendous amount of time.

So show some respect to your applicants and state what you are willing to pay, because going to all that trouble for a job that pays less than what you need to live on, well. That's just serving up a sandwich of steaming shit and smearing it all over someone.

For many industries, there are no "standard" salaries. I have seen job advertisements for library, archives, and museum work that require a graduate degree and 2-5 years experience that pay anywhere from $13/hr for part-time work (under $13 000/year) to full time, benefits, and paid vacation at $67 000+.

Should

Oh man, this is a popular one. You should do this. You should do that. It's always so easy to tell someone else what they "should" do to "fix" a problem, right?

You should get your resume re-done by a professional resume person.
You should get someone who has a job to edit your cover letters.
You should volunteer.
You should go back to school/upgrade your skills.
You should change your hair.
You should change your attitude.
You should not stay up until 3 in the morning, the world spins on a 9-5 axis, don't you know?
You should maintain a positive attitude at all times.
You should tell everyone you know you're looking for work.
You should not get upset when people physically recoil when you mention you are looking for work.
You should not call yourself unemployed; it's too negative.
You should have a LinkedIn profile.
You should apply for more jobs.
You should not be so picky. (This is assuming the person is being picky. Whatever that means.)

I really hate the word "should", and not just in a job searching context. You should do this. You should do that. YOU SHOULD MIND YOUR OWN DAMN BUSINESS IF I WANT YOUR DAMN ADVICE I WILL ASK FOR IT FARTFACE.

You look younger than your age.

Um, thanks? I know youth is valued in our society. But I'm not sure how this is a compliment. Does this mean I am coming across as really immature? I have complained about this before, here and here. Perhaps one day I will regret that I have complained and will laugh ruefully at my youthful silliness.

pssst. Here are my secrets to looking young:

I wear sunscreen (when I remember to) and fear the sun
I drink more water than sodapop (except I think I drink more coffee than water)
I don't smoke cigarettes
I don't have children (I get lots of sleep)
I laugh a lot
I cry a lot (the continuous moisture keeps my skins* hydrated.)
I smoke a shit-ton of pot (scientifically proven to kill all those brain cells that cause aging)
I read books written for kids
I watch cartoons
I think about death on a daily basis (samurai style: I contemplate my own death every day; this makes me fearless)

But seriously folks (I don't really smoke pot, that shit's illegal!), my ULTIMATE SECRET TO YOUTH? Genetics. Make sure the people who created you have youthful genes. That one's the easiest to control, right? Biology?

*yes, all of my skins. reptilian, human... I heart typos.

Just a friendly reminder.

This seems to happen in business emails a lot. It's up to the receiver of the reminder to decide if it's friendly or not. Why not just: "a reminder." For example:

This is your reminder.

OR

A reminder: [put relevant info here]

Telling me that you're being friendly makes me think you are being passive aggressive and are gritting your teeth and fake smiling while you wrote your reminder, or say your reminder.

Throwing an emoticon behind it indicating a smiley face or wink or whatever is just icing on the passive aggression cake.

Or even better, why not be truthy and say: "This is a hostile reminder." Because you are probably going to be pissed when people don't get back to you or forget to do something, and probably feeling more than a little hostile. Truth in communication!

Moving forward

.... and its variants, like "going forward". I hate this phrase, and I cringe every time I hear it. It is redundant. From what I understand about physics, it is impossible for time to move backwards. You are stating the obvious every time you use this cliché. The worst part? I have found myself using it a couple of times. Each time I immediately stopped speaking and I'm sure an expression of mortification leaked its way onto my face, while the person I was speaking to was completely oblivious (except for my husband person, whose eyes got wide and pointed and laughed at me. I do the same to him. This is part of my youthful appearance perhaps, I have the sense of humor and social comportment of a 12 year old boy). This is just plain old shitty communication. Stop saying "moving forward". Where else are you going to fucking move to?

Passion. As in, follow your passion/what is your passion/[some sort of career-based thinger] is my passion. Etc.

Yep, I get that highlighted part above is what people mean when they talk about passion. But I either think of the Jesus passion, or the intense sexual love passion. I imagine blood and suffering and sex and church music when people start talking about their passions. So, use another word. Substitute "interest" or "fascination" or "enthusiasm". Just for me. Thanks.