Is Vancouver still my beloved Vancouver?

I'm back in Vancouver, for now, and despite an aching back and extremely tiresome jetlag it's nice to be back. I have to say though that I'm a bit spoiled with living standards now, and everything just seems a tad run-down to me. I'm not used to the great distances either, and I keep miscalculating how long it takes to get downtown. What I'm enjoying the most is the food. Every meal I've had out so far has been very tasty. It is so nice to have some variety again instead of just uppity fillet mignon with potatoes on the menu. One is able to go to a regular restaurant and have a meal sized salad. The other day I had a salad consisting of greens, blueberries, almonds, cranberries and goat cheese. My whole body let out a grateful sigh.
I do wish that I was more mentally present. I've been so dazed and confused that I feel like I've regressed about 20 years when it comes to social skills. Wish I had more time. So little time, so many things I want to do and so many places that I want to visit.

Then there is the non-stop rain that is Vancouver. Raincouver. Oh well, I knew it would be like this before-hand. It always is this time of the year.

Oh, and I finally got to visit my beloved Purdy's and buy a small bag of heaven. They wore those neat, little white gloves when they served me as well. It was expensive but so worth it. 5 years of longing for that chocolate. It sounds pathetic but it really is spectacular.

It has been great to see my best friend. Just wish we had more time together.

All in all, I'm not sure I'm really as in love with this place as I once was. Even before I left I was able to recognize and acknowledge its downsides, and I still do. Regardless, I still do want to buy a house here and settle down.

Anyway, enough for now. I'm using dial-up. Blast from the past!

The things you see when you take a walk

I was out walking with Kelly this morning. We started out by walking through the tiny forest here in the residential area. Kelly enjoys it because there is a lot to sniff and I release the flexi leash so she has 6 meters of freedom.
There it was, in the middle of the trees and bushes: a chair with the seat missing, a toilet paper roll hanging on a branch next to it, and some used toilet paper underneath the chair. Obviously someone created their own little outhouse right there in the middle of a residential area. As far as I know there aren't any homeless people here, but I suppose you never know. It could be some kids that like to hang out there and drink. Whoever it was, I think it was quite an ingenious idea actually. Very resourceful. Amusing, seeing how it's located about 10 feet away from the road. Amusing and odd. I like odd. Odd is very appealing to me.

As we emerge out of the tiny forest and hit the pavement we encounter the usual glass shards from people breaking bottles and the glass on bus shelters. This is not so appealing, especially not if you have a dog and the dog cuts up its paws. I just don't understand it. What is so amusing about breaking glass? This is a global fascination, and I do believe it's a male thing. For some reason, younger guys find this so cool. Spending your Friday and Saturday night getting hammered and going around throwing empty beer bottles or vodka bottles on the ground must be the ultimate kick. Even more exciting is tackling a bus shelter and smashing its glass so that the entire pavement is covered in shards for people and animals to step in. You know you're really living when you do that! It's right up there with doodling nonsense on walls and public property. How cool! We're all so impressed.

As we move on we walk past an empty ketchup bottle that's laying on the ground. Did someone sit there and just squeeze the stuff right down their gullet and then toss it aside when it was empty?

At 11:00am the church bells rang, and once again this heathen did not attend service. I always tell myself around Christmas when I attend Christmas mass that I should start going to service more often, but then I never do. Not that I believe that God exists only in church, but it can be uplifting to go.

I didn't see it this time, but I used to walk through this tunnel where somebody had cleverly written on the wall: "I piss here". I thought that was rather ingenious too in its own, crude way. It might be childish and I hate public urination, but that somebody would write that on a wall is amusing.

By the way, at this supposedly fancy party I went to on Thursday, guests were standing outside urinating on the wall. There were perfectly good washrooms inside but for some reason they felt they needed to piss outside. And not just on the ground, but on the wall! Why the wall? It's much less likely to wash out with the rain there. If you're going to piss outside, at least do it on the ground. But no, guys do it on the wall. It just goes to show, no matter how much money they earn or how advanced they are in their career, give a guy a few drinks and he'll show you that he's just as much of a bozo as the next person. Deep down we're all animals controlled by the id lurking underneath the surface.

Happy Birthday to me

Celebrated my birthday today. It was the same as every year. Baking during the day and some friends coming over at night. Amazing sandwich cake. Sandwich cake is one of those incredible inventions. I could live on the stuff!
Pretty small affair, which is how I like it. It's okay. Comfortable. Every year though I dream of doing something radically different, such as renting a hot air balloon and having a spa day, or even taking a trip somewhere like London or New York, or somewhere warmer like Greece. Never happens though. It's way out of my budget. This is a lean time of year for me, financially. It would be nice though. At the very least I'd like to go bowling on my birthday, but for some reason this never happens.
Is it such a big deal anyway? It's just turning one year older, which by now isn't really a reason to celebrate. Do we even stop to ponder why we celebrate? I feel about 10 years younger than I really am. I never really grew up, at least I took my time to reach the maturity level I'm at right now. When I was 20 I was still living at home and had never even had a boyfriend and thought that growing up was a fate worse than death. Starting from the age of around 15 and onwards I was afraid of adulthood. I wanted to remain a child, yet still get the respect and acknowledgment that an adult would get. I wanted to be recognized as an adult but still stay a kid. The truth was of course that I was still just a kid, regardless of what I thought.
Oh to be able to turn back time and go back 20 years. I'd do so many things differently. 20 years ago I was still a kid and still had time to buckle down and study and choose a proper high school program. Man, if I ever have a kid like me, I'm going to make them study and aim high for their future. They're not going to be allowed to just drift along like I was. The only thing I had going for me was my writing. I barely even cracked open a book during my elementary school days. I realize now that how you start out really does effect your life decades later. Had I been more ambitious and studious and more self-confident I probably would have studied while in elementary school, and gotten into an academic high school program rather than a practical one. Instead I didn't discover the joys of learning until university. Oh well, you can't change the past. Maybe whatever happens is meant to happen. I read somewhere that "everything is as it should be". Wise words.

I'm less cranky now

I was cranky when I wrote my last blog. I had had too much to drink, the results of an open bar I suppose. I hadn't eaten dinner either, which probably didn't improve things. However, the message of my latest entry still stands. I meant what I wrote, even though I might have expressed in an angrier tone than I normally would. On the other hand, what's wrong with some anger? Isn't writing supposed to contain our true feelings? I hate how civilized I've become lately. I sometimes wish I could be 18 and totally clueless of how people perceive me again. I'll try to make it a point not to be so cautious with how I express myself. Not everyone has to agree with my opinions.

Went to a stupid party

It was a launch of a new venue for a company. Open bar, loud as hell and full of annoying people. The only two people I felt drawn to were two Chinese guests. I'm more of a Vancouverite than I had realized.
I tripped and fell over some speaker stands, as I was walking underneath the stairs. It was quite embarrassing. A couple of skanky looking women laughed at me. I should have asked them what was so funny but I was too busy collecting my pride. My elbow and knee also hurt.
I really don't like Swedes. I have such a hard time with them. I think I was supposed be born in a different country but was born here by accident. Glassy eyed women who on the surface appear to be classy and posses an icy veneer of beauty, but who are in fact just as skanky and one-dimensional as your regular North American skank. Those Swedes who claim Swedish girls to be so much more full of substance than North American girls are grossly biased in their judgment.
Then there are the men, who are equally skanky and empty. They need at least 4 drinks before they're able to muster up the courage to give a girl a provocative glance, and even when they do it's a pathetic look across their beer bottle. Tattered jeans hanging halfway down their ass and some dingy shirt, a lame hairdo and a lousy attitude... take me now! Yeah!
Man...there's a reason for why I didn't get a boyfriend until after I left Sweden.

Superpowers

If I could have any superpower I want I would like to be able to flap my wings and fly like a bird. I often dream this, that I am able to just flap my wings and take off. Often I fly really high up, but for some reason I have to flap my arms really hard in order to get up and actually stay up. In these dreams I'm often running from some assailant, and flying is my way of escaping. Wouldn't it be cool to really be able to fly. It must entail such a sense of freedom. In the dreams it's a mixed feeling because I'm often afraid of the height when I get really high up there but at the same time it is so empowering.

Another super power that would be empowering is being able to move objects with your mind - telekinesis. I've been watching "Charmed" from the beginning lately, only the first few seasons though since I think it jumped the shark when Prue died. I don't normally go for these types of shows but there's something so fascinating about superpowers, particularly when it involves females having them. I can just imagine having telekinesis and being attacked by some asshole while walking alone outside at night, and surprising him by throwing him on his ass 50 feet. If I had the ability to move objects with my mind I'd walk the streets late at night hoping to get attacked just so I could dropkick my assailants. It would be my pleasure to rid the streets of raping vermin. How cool it would be if all of us women could have this superpower, so that we women could walk around like free human beings and not have to feel afraid to go out by ourselves at night.

Oh well, in the absence of superpowers I guess we'll have to settle for martial arts.

I come down a tad too hard on Sweden

I know I criticize Sweden and Swedes a lot. Sure, there is a lot here that I don't like, but my irritation has more to do with me than anything else. It's not Sweden I'm angry with, it's myself, for moving back here. Things were just fine when I was living in Vancouver. I had a whole other appreciation for my native country as long as I didn't have to live in it. My anger now is more about me and less about Sweden. It's not a bad place to live, in fact it's pretty great if you compare it to a lot of other places. It's just not my place. I may have been born and raised here but I never really felt like I fit in. I began picturing myself living in North America from the time I was 16. Originally I felt drawn to the U.S, but after visiting Canada, I realized that was the only place I felt I want to live in. I still do.
How odd is that, that you can grow up in one place and feel like you belong in an entirely different one. I'm not sure if I believe in karma, but if I did, I think I must have lived somewhere in North America in my previous life. It felt so natural for me to live there for some reason. When I first arrived there it felt like I was alive for the first time in my life. That melancholy was gone.
Anyway, I do have a lot of issues with Sweden. I think I have a love/hate relationship with it. Perhaps a like/hate relationship, since love is too strong a word to describe my sentiments about Sweden. I like it just fine as long as I don't have to live there. My roots are there but it feels like my future is elsewhere.

Like a fish out of water

Ever thought about how insecure we suddenly become when we find ourselves on a different turf than our own? Visitors are usually insecure, unless they're German.
In Sweden, the service quality is generally rather appalling if you compare to North America. In North America, if the service is bad people tend to scream for the manager. Even if there is a slight problem, some people still scream for the manager.
If you suddenly applied European standards of service in North America, people would be screaming for the manager all the time. You'd barely be able to hear your own thoughts because the restaurants would be full of "Can I speak to the manager!'s".
Yet when North American people come to Europe, they don't appear as confident as they would on their home field. I have had waiters here in Sweden who have been downright sarcastic in the way they treat their customers. And shame on you if you ask to take your leftovers home with you, even though you did pay for it. No, it's just not done here, not without some shame as you ask the question. Here, being a waiter/waitress in a restaurant obviously carries some status, some power. The same goes for clothing stores.
Despite the quality of service that North Americans are used to, they still don't complain when they come here. Why is that? Is that because waiters tend to be more friendly and polite towards tourists, or maybe their English prevents them from being overly rude? Or could it be that visitors are almost always intimidated when they're out of their natural habitat?
I know I'm like that. I tend to let things slip that I wouldn't naturally let slip. I have experienced terrible service in Belgium, for example, but rather than get angry and let the store clerk have it, I started crying a while after my store visit. That had its reasons though, since I had been backpacking around Europe for almost 4 weeks together with 2 friends who didn't get along at all, with me or with each other, and I was physically and emotionally exhausted.
Even so, when we're tourists we are meek. I think we must subconsciously think of foreign places as unknown territory, and so we lose some of our usual gumption.
It's like we don't have the right to complain, because it's not our country, or our city. Thus, we put up with a lot of unnecessary crap.
Although it depends on where you are. I'm a native Swede, yet when I go to restaurants here and receive poor service, I hesitate to complain. The reason is that it's not done as frequently as in Canada, nor to the extreme that it is done there. Here, it's like the waiters and clerks are in charge, and the customers are at their mercy. Sure, you can complain, but you might end up with spit in your food if you do. I was surprised when a relative of mine from Sweden was visiting me in Vancouver, and we went to a restaurant and my steak was raw. Naturally I had the waiter take it back. I wasn't rude or obnoxious about it. My relative was freaking out though, saying "Ooh, now we'll get spit in our food!!" I asked him why he thought so and he said that that's what they would do in Sweden if you sent your food back. I was surprised, since I was used to North American service, where the customer is in charge, where restaurants and stores depend on their customer service.
It's just interesting how insecure we are when we're out of our natural element.

Craving beer and cinnamon buns

For the past month I have been craving ice cold beer and cinnamon buns. I don't even like cinnamon buns all that much. I only like them if they're warm.
I've always liked beer, even as a kid. My parents let me have non-alcoholic beer, or it may have been 0.5% alcohol or something to that effect. I loved it. My mom does as well, so I suppose I may have inherited it from her.
This past month though, the craving for cold beer has been incessant. What's even more odd is the craving for cinnamon buns. One could think I was pregnant. You could trust me to have an impossible craving such as beer, if that was the case.
And trust me to crave two highly fatty and carb-ridden things. Why can't I ever crave things like carrots or celery?

The hills, it gives me the chills

I was jogging on the tredmill at the gym a couple of weeks ago. There are only 5 channels on the T.Vs there, and the only thing even remotely watchable was MTV. "The Hills" was on. I have seen the title of that show float around in the gossip sections of various newspaper, but never really known what it was about. I knew that someone named Heidi had a major role but that was about it.
I didn't have headphones on but even without sound I was still able to tell that this show might perhaps be one of the dumbest shows in the history of television, and that's saying a lot.
These incredibly plastic looking people acting shallow and stupid, with every conversation so obviously scripted because everything was so awkward and feigned. Not a genuine emotion in sight. That Heidi person was the worst among them all.

The question is why this show has reached such popularity. Why? I don't understand it. I will never understand how these reality shows have become so interesting when we all know that most of what goes on in them is scripted. If it was reality it'd be a different story, but it's not.

Like those shows where lonely farmers are looking for their perfect mate and has women write to him and gets to pick out a handful who get to spend time with him on his farm. In the end he has to pick one. Are you going to tell me that people can actually fall in love in front of a whole camera crew, and that what they say and do isn't scripted. Any moron can see that it's all carefully planned. And what dignified woman, or man, would allow herself to be in competition with 4 other women over the affections of a man, in front of millions of viewers no less? You'd have to perform a lobotomy on me first, which is exactly what they appear to have done to that Heidi person on "The Hills".

I just do not get the love that people have for these shows. Most people know it's all a show for the cameras and most people are ashamed to admit they watch them. "I was flipping channels and I just happened to come across this show and since there was nothing else to watch I ended up watching it". "I watch it, I know it's stupid, but I can't help it". See, I even did it myself in the beginning of this post. Only in my case I can honestly say that I don't care if I ever watch "The Hills" again.

The secret crush

Sucks ass big time.

There is nothing so annoying and futile as having romantic feelings for someone and not being able or willing to tell them about it. It's such an enormous waste of time and energy. Trying to inadvertently maneuver your way into that person's life is not only degrading but makes you feel rather pathetic. If it's not a close friend it becomes even more difficult, because then you have to try and think of ways to see and spend time with this person without it seeming strange or odd. In my neurotic youth, not that I'm no longer neurotic, I'm just neurotic in a different way, I engaged in silly activities such as walking by the boy's apartment building, shopping in his bankrupt store just so I could get in his good graces, or hanging around places where I knew he might appear just in case he would show up, like a mutual acquaintance's house. As if I had nothing better to do with my time. I'd rearrange my whole day and blow off other people just for the mere chance that he might turn up and accidentally end up spending time with me. And once I did see him I'd act all aloof and casual, not to mention weird, since I needed to appear completely oblivious to him yet available and interesting enough for him to stick around. I needed to make it seem like I just happened to be there because I was passing by on my way someplace else and was just killing time.
If I was him I sure wouldn't find past me attractive. A chubby, round faced girl with frizzy unruly hair, large glasses and old lady clothes with huge shoulder pads. I used to wear my mom's and my aunts' old clothes. It was so bad that even my father reacted. For instance, I took to wearing this large, baby pink winter jacket that went almost to the knees, worn by one of my aunts back in the 80's. My father had to react that time and asked me: "Is that the kind of thing girls your age normally wear?!"
My personality wasn't much to write home about either. I was unbelievably shy and didn't say that much and when I did my nerves got in the way so much that I'd end up sounding cocky, surly and weird instead. Sometimes I'd even stutter. Sometimes I wouldn't even make any sense.
I was simply unattractive to the opposite sex. I was a seemingly sexless who lived inside her head, still do to some extent I suppose. But beneath the surface I was yearning for love and affection. Not sex. The only male I'd give myself to in those days was Elvis, had he been alive. No, I just wanted romance. And I went looking for it in the oddest places where I had a snowball's chance in hell of getting what I wanted. I think I only became interested in those who were either taken or were virtual strangers because it was safer that way. I could go on nurturing the perfect fantasy of how love was inside my head. Like Rosie O'Donnell said to Meg Ryan in "Sleepless in Seattle": "You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie!" That still holds some truth.
I've had those secret crushes since then too, as an adult, where I wasn't supposed to. They're like a drug. They feel great while you're around him but lousy at all other times, particularly when you wake up and smell the coffee and realize that it was all in your head, for the most part anyway. They haven't all been unrequited, but they've all been basically impossible. The one time I think I came close to the crush becoming reality, I chickened out and made another choice.
So, the all-consuming secret crush really sucks.

Family is family

I've never really hit it off with my relatives. I saw them a lot while I was growing up but it was always a conflict ridden relationship for me. I felt they didn't understand me and perhaps I didn't understand them either. They generally annoyed or upset me, made me feel like I was constantly being questioned and disapproved of, even sometimes reduced me to tears when nobody was looking. Yet I always liked those big family events. It wasn't a big, old happy family. We weren't the Waltons. Like in a lot of other families there was underlying hostility and conflict between people.
I suppose I took for granted that we would always be a part of each other's lives.
When both grandparents had passed however, each family kind of went their separate ways. Or perhaps some of them still see each other. I really don't know.
An event a few years ago made it rather impossible for my family to socialize with the rest of the relatives, and since then they have more or less disappeared from our lives. We can still see each other of course, but things have changed.
Anyway, I don't want to get bogged down by the specifics of that. The point is that I really miss being part of a large family. Especially around the holidays. As it is now, it's just me, my parents and my common-law. Even though we never really got along all that well and perhaps didn't have that much in common, there's a void without the relatives. It's rather empty at Christmas. To me, Christmas is a holiday that should be large, noisy and eventful, something out of the ordinary. Four people gathering around a quiet table is just like any other day of the year.
Then I remind myself that Christmas isn't about how many people there are around the table or how festive the house is. It's about the birth of Christ. It shouldn't really matter who or how many we are with. Christmas will come either way. Then I reconsider and go back to my previous belief that the holidays is a family ocassion. Then I realize that nothing can stay the same forever and that my extended family has changed and I need to change with it. Instead of relying on my relatives I should be creating my own family. Have children. Create new traditions. Traditions of my own. Because we sure can't turn back the clock. Neither is it healthy to gaze nostagically at a distant past and remember it in rosier terms than it actually was.

Bleeding heart liberal...sort of...maybe not

All people are equal, regardless of background or how much money you have in the bank. Social status is utter nonsense and I get pissed just from hearing the term "class society". Nobody is better than anyone else and I feel like smacking anyone who claims this.

People has to come before profit and material things. Don't cut back on geriatric care and education because there isn't enough funding and then go out and build a new town square for millions of dollars. No town square can be that important. How does one justify kids being thrust into huge classes miles and miles away from their home because their local school was shut down due to the lack of funding, while in the meantime gobs of money is poured into making a town square more esthetically pleasing?
Esthetics is important, but people are a little more important, am I right?

In this respect I suppose I am a liberal. However, when it comes to crime and punishment I suppose I fall more in the conservative fold...perish the thought.

Last night I walked home from my parents across the field that I always cross, along with my dog. The still autumn air was echoing of voices of inebriated kids having house parties here and there. One of my biggest pet peeves. As we approach our block, we pass one particular apartment where there is a party going on almost every weekend. Loud kids were littering the lawn outside, having bullshit conversations and making a racket. I think to myself "Poor neighbours!".Minutes later, just as we got home, a cop car comes charging along the same path that we just walked on. My mom could see it from her kitchen window. She called me to make sure Kelly and I got home safely. While I'm on the phone with her, kids come scurrying out of that apartment building like mice from a sinking ship. It must have been a drug bust or an alcohol bust or whatever. Most of those kids were probably underage.

All I could think was "Good! I hope the cops catch them!"

See, in this case I'm certainly not a bleeding heart liberal. I have zero tolerance in this area. I have a special dislike, a very strong dislike, for people who throw loud, drunken parties without any regard for their neighbours. It really sucks when the person living below you is making a racket and people are throwing glass bottles on the ground, or maybe even trying your front door handle to try and get into your apartment. That's never happened to me personally but know someone who would always have drunks stagger into her apartment to use to the bathroom whenever her neighbour had a party. Sure you should be able to have parties, but does it have to be at your neighbours' expense? I don't think it's okay to have loud music on at any time of the day. My neighbours wouldn't choose to listen to Elvis Presley belch out "That's Alright Mama", thus I either use headphones or I keep the volume on a level where the sound doesn't travel over to my neighbour's apartment. Why can't everybody use this simple logic? You can't live like you're the only person around for miles. If you want to live that way, move into some cottage in the middle of the forest.

I have no pity in my heart for kids who act like idiots. Sorry. Not if they take their problems out on other people. If they go around smashing the glass on bus shelters or doodling on public, or private, property, I have no patience with them. I especially have no sympathy for kids who kill other kids. Like the case of a group of Swedish teengage boys who kicked another teenager to death. Kicking another boy in the head until he dies in a joint group effort, now that's the kind of action that deserves no mercy as far as I'm concerned. By doing that, they forfeited their right to rehabilitation. If one has the capacity to do that, one is beyond rescue. Let's try to save those that want to be saved. Because there are those kids out there too. My sympathies lies with them. Those lost kids who lack someone to turn to for stability and parental guidance, and who are basically nice kids who may get drunk or do drugs but who don't take it out on the rest of the world. You see them sometimes, taking a late bus home, baggy pants, ratty appearance, leaning against the window. Looking sad rather than aggressive. Sad gets to me, aggressive doesn't.

As for people who take their misery out on everyone around them, sorry...out of sympathy. I think those boys who kicked another boy to death should have been tried as adults and been sentenced to some hard jail time, not been given 1 year in a rehabilitation clinic.

I go through hard times too, we all do, but not all of us deal with it by ruining the lives of others or destroying public property, thereby letting the tax payers foot the bill.