When the internet was first formed*, everyone*** rejoiced at the magical creation, unaware of the most certain doom that would result from its creation. Innocently created as another medium for communication, the internet quickly became associated with dangerous and immoral things, such as stolen identity, pornography, and the sale of canned unicorn meat ('excellent source of sparkles!'). Having taken away our need to leave the house for food, clothing, immoral activities, or social interaction, the internet effectively groomed a generation of humans whose abilities do not exceed the frightening dexterity required to drink, eat, and operate a laptop mouse-pad at the same time.
Now, the creators of the internet could easily have seen these results coming. But what no one could have predicted was the incredible opportunities for passive-aggressive behaviour the internet has provided us with. There was a time not so long ago when passive-aggressive attacks didn't extend beyond intentionally taking 3 hours to put up a shower curtain because you secretly felt your roommate should be doing it for you. Now, the internet has reached a point where you can:
-write a passive-aggressive facebook post attacking an unnamed person for their unreasonable criticism of your inability to care for your cat (you know who you are!!!)
-have a several-week-long email fight with a coworker about whose job it is to refill the photocopier paper with cleverly placed patronizing emoticons preventing you from ever having to admit that you're fighting ('see the smiley face? it mean's I'm kidding!).
-document said email 'conversation' and dedicating a youtube episode to it because you know you're right
-write an impassioned blog post implying that all your facebook friends mindlessly re-post any patronizing, anti-feminist quote they find mildly clever whilst simultaneously suggesting that you are the only one who was smart enough to a) realize the true meaning of it AND/OR b)figure out where the quote originated.
-even greater still, one of the targets of your blog post will inevitably be reading your blog, unbeknownst to you, and will then apologize to you via facebook for posting such a silly quote without admitting that they have read your blog, thusly secretly accusing you of the sin of passive-agressivity*****. You can then up the ante by writing a follow-up blog post discussing passive-aggressive behaviour without ever having to admit that you are the one doing it, which is sort of apologetic if you read it in the right tone (it's meta-meta-meta narrative!).
In the end, this is much more effective in creating enemies than failing to put up a shower curtain ever was. I'm surprised that more wars don't get started this way.
*There are several vague and highly contested theories on how this happened, much like Genesis. I believe that it came about when two free-range phonelines pushed up against eachother like techtonic plates. Others believe that it is actually created by human beings and that the scientific tectonic phone-line theory was created in order to test our faith in humanity**.
**of course, the content on the internet is itself a much greater test of my faith in humanity.
***like maybe the 13 people who knew about it
****These are most definitely all facts. I took a Computer Science course on website building two years ago when I realized Biology was not the only science I could take in university. So I know these things.
*****Which is totally a word.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Whatever you give a woman...
One of the more irksome quotes floating around on Facebook lately has been this:
"WHATEVER you give a WOMAN, she will MAKE it GREATER. Give her SPERM, she will give you a BABY. Give her a HOUSE, she will give you a HOME. Give her GROCERIES, she will give you a MEAL. Give her LOVE and she will give you her HEART! She MULTIPLIES and ENLARGES what she is GIVEN. So, if you GIVE her CRAP, be PREPARED to RECEIVE a TON OF SHIT! ahaha...I hope to see every girl on my friends list re-post this."
Originally a quote by Erick S. Gray that was mildly amusing when taken in context, overuse of the quote and capslock has morphed this quote. When I read it, all I can see is a disembodied voice congratulating women for being universal ATMs that work in a whimsical, inconsistent and rather disturbing way: put in food, out comes meal. Put in house, out comes home (...). Put in love, out comes heart(?). Put in crap, out comes more crap (??) and put in sperm, and out comes babies(well, sometimes). This causes me to envision a world in which sperm has become the main currency* and is popularly used on the blackmarket to purchase children. But I digress. While the quote may have some resonance for some women, it certainly isn't universal for womankind and I hope I won't have to see every one of my friends (male or female) repost this. I've created a counter-quote which has far more resonance for me:
"Give me SPERM, and I will avert my eyes and walk away QUICKLY. Give me a HOUSE, and I will be confused because I ALREADY HAVE ONE. Give me GROCERIES and I will ask you why you aren't making your own damn MEAL. Give me LOVE and I may give you LOVE in return (but probably not a HEART transplant). I hope to see every person on my friends list make up their own statuses for once so they don't have to repost things that sound CLEVER but really make no SENSE and have GRATUITOUS overuse of CAPSLOCK."
*and oh what an interesting life that would be. I don't even want to go into the consequences of sperm-currency.
"WHATEVER you give a WOMAN, she will MAKE it GREATER. Give her SPERM, she will give you a BABY. Give her a HOUSE, she will give you a HOME. Give her GROCERIES, she will give you a MEAL. Give her LOVE and she will give you her HEART! She MULTIPLIES and ENLARGES what she is GIVEN. So, if you GIVE her CRAP, be PREPARED to RECEIVE a TON OF SHIT! ahaha...I hope to see every girl on my friends list re-post this."
Originally a quote by Erick S. Gray that was mildly amusing when taken in context, overuse of the quote and capslock has morphed this quote. When I read it, all I can see is a disembodied voice congratulating women for being universal ATMs that work in a whimsical, inconsistent and rather disturbing way: put in food, out comes meal. Put in house, out comes home (...). Put in love, out comes heart(?). Put in crap, out comes more crap (??) and put in sperm, and out comes babies(well, sometimes). This causes me to envision a world in which sperm has become the main currency* and is popularly used on the blackmarket to purchase children. But I digress. While the quote may have some resonance for some women, it certainly isn't universal for womankind and I hope I won't have to see every one of my friends (male or female) repost this. I've created a counter-quote which has far more resonance for me:
"Give me SPERM, and I will avert my eyes and walk away QUICKLY. Give me a HOUSE, and I will be confused because I ALREADY HAVE ONE. Give me GROCERIES and I will ask you why you aren't making your own damn MEAL. Give me LOVE and I may give you LOVE in return (but probably not a HEART transplant). I hope to see every person on my friends list make up their own statuses for once so they don't have to repost things that sound CLEVER but really make no SENSE and have GRATUITOUS overuse of CAPSLOCK."
*and oh what an interesting life that would be. I don't even want to go into the consequences of sperm-currency.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
The Eleshirt
When my boyfriend first showed me a picture of the Eleshirt he wanted me to make for him, I thought ah, what a hilarious and unique way of ending a relationship. As everyone knows, the number one key to keeping a relationship alive is to never bring sweaters into it.
There are two main ways to end a relationship using sweaters. In one scenario, one party of the relationship becomes far too attached to a noteably dorky sweater. In newer relationships, this simply means that the offended party will conveniently 'lose' the ugly sweater party's phone number, thus saving them both the pain and embarrassment of having to appear in public together with said sweater. In a more committed relationship, the offended party will either be ridiculed by his or her friends for allowing the ugly sweater party to continue wearing said sweater, or the offended party will take matters into their own hands and conveniently destroy the sweater in the wash. The loss of this sweater will haunt the ugly sweater party, betray the sense of trust in the relationship, and ultimately allow the relationship to fall apart altogether.
In another scenario, the Offending Party will knit, sew, or otherwise create an ugly sweater and then give it to the Offended Party as a gift. The Offended Party must thusly either be overjoyed with the sweater and appear in public wearing it, or end the relationship immediately. If the Offended Party goes with the former option, his or her willpower will be slowly worn down by the inevitable torment that he or she will suffer at the hands of non-sweater-wearing parties (ie Everyone Else), and will eventually destroy the sweater out of shame, thusly destroying the sense of trust harboured between the Offending and Offended parties, the strain of which will ultimately end the relationship.
Some of the greatest relationships have ended over sweaters. Little known fact: There was a scene at the beginning of Gone With the Wind in which Rhett Butler shows up to the Twelve Oaks Plantation Barbecue in a dorky sweater which one of his Ladies of Scandal had given him the day before. Seeing Rhett in the offending garment, Scarlett decides she can never be seen with this man again. The following 25 years of pursuit on Rhett's part and avoidance on Scarlett's are entirely based on this incident, and not on Rhett's unfortunate reputation. However, the producers of the movie realized that this issue would hit far too close to home for most of its viewers, and decided to cut the scene in order to avoid suffering their audience undue emotional trauma.
When someone says to me "I'd like you to make me the kind of sweater that my mother would have forced me to wear in third grade and which will probably give you nightmares forever, and yes I will wear it in public," I have to wonder how exactly he thinks this fashion choice will pan out.
Regardless of how awe-inspiring it is, the Eleshirt provides a trifecta of sweater complications, because not only is it a dorky sweater which Colin will most likely insist on wearing in public and in my presence (see Scenario 1), but it is also a dorky sweater which I have made for him and so he has to wear it in public (see Scenario 2).
Most importantly, aside from the small number of guys who also live on bodybuilder and will recognize the eleshirt as a tribute to an internet meme, everyone will see Colin in this shirt and will see me standing next to him and will assume that I have forced my boyfriend to dress like a five-year-old. Pedestrians will lean over to him and whisper "Get out while you still can" as they walk by. I will have to make myself a large shirt with an explanation of why I have made this eleshirt* so that I can escape all blame.
*In exchange for a free movie ticket to watch a half naked blonde Norse god fall in love with Natalie Portman and then smash a lot of things with a hammer.
**I must also say that the crafting community deserves to see more tutorials done by this guy.
There are two main ways to end a relationship using sweaters. In one scenario, one party of the relationship becomes far too attached to a noteably dorky sweater. In newer relationships, this simply means that the offended party will conveniently 'lose' the ugly sweater party's phone number, thus saving them both the pain and embarrassment of having to appear in public together with said sweater. In a more committed relationship, the offended party will either be ridiculed by his or her friends for allowing the ugly sweater party to continue wearing said sweater, or the offended party will take matters into their own hands and conveniently destroy the sweater in the wash. The loss of this sweater will haunt the ugly sweater party, betray the sense of trust in the relationship, and ultimately allow the relationship to fall apart altogether.
In another scenario, the Offending Party will knit, sew, or otherwise create an ugly sweater and then give it to the Offended Party as a gift. The Offended Party must thusly either be overjoyed with the sweater and appear in public wearing it, or end the relationship immediately. If the Offended Party goes with the former option, his or her willpower will be slowly worn down by the inevitable torment that he or she will suffer at the hands of non-sweater-wearing parties (ie Everyone Else), and will eventually destroy the sweater out of shame, thusly destroying the sense of trust harboured between the Offending and Offended parties, the strain of which will ultimately end the relationship.
Some of the greatest relationships have ended over sweaters. Little known fact: There was a scene at the beginning of Gone With the Wind in which Rhett Butler shows up to the Twelve Oaks Plantation Barbecue in a dorky sweater which one of his Ladies of Scandal had given him the day before. Seeing Rhett in the offending garment, Scarlett decides she can never be seen with this man again. The following 25 years of pursuit on Rhett's part and avoidance on Scarlett's are entirely based on this incident, and not on Rhett's unfortunate reputation. However, the producers of the movie realized that this issue would hit far too close to home for most of its viewers, and decided to cut the scene in order to avoid suffering their audience undue emotional trauma.
When someone says to me "I'd like you to make me the kind of sweater that my mother would have forced me to wear in third grade and which will probably give you nightmares forever, and yes I will wear it in public," I have to wonder how exactly he thinks this fashion choice will pan out.
Regardless of how awe-inspiring it is, the Eleshirt provides a trifecta of sweater complications, because not only is it a dorky sweater which Colin will most likely insist on wearing in public and in my presence (see Scenario 1), but it is also a dorky sweater which I have made for him and so he has to wear it in public (see Scenario 2).
Most importantly, aside from the small number of guys who also live on bodybuilder and will recognize the eleshirt as a tribute to an internet meme, everyone will see Colin in this shirt and will see me standing next to him and will assume that I have forced my boyfriend to dress like a five-year-old. Pedestrians will lean over to him and whisper "Get out while you still can" as they walk by. I will have to make myself a large shirt with an explanation of why I have made this eleshirt* so that I can escape all blame.
*In exchange for a free movie ticket to watch a half naked blonde Norse god fall in love with Natalie Portman and then smash a lot of things with a hammer.
**I must also say that the crafting community deserves to see more tutorials done by this guy.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Food and Writing
Of the 9 or so jobs I've had since I was of legal working age, 7 of them have been in the food industry. The other two have been office jobs. I've found that a curious thing happens when I work in the food industry. It begins to take over my non-working life: invading my dreams*, affecting my choice of reading materials**, and working its way into my creative sphere. The office jobs didn't have quite the same affect***; whether that's because these jobs were so low-stress my mind could let go of them after 8 hours of work, or whether they were just so boring I did not feel the need to pursue them in my spare time.
When I worked at Animal Tracks, I started scripting a comic book detailing A Day in the Life of a Fast-Food Cook. When I was at The Madison, I started several short stories about the conversations I had with the residents. I was at Goodies for a year, and in that time, managed to get 50 pages into a novel about sugar-based humanoid life forms that tumble through a portal into the parallel universe we call Winnipeg only to discover that the goings-on of the bakeshop that said portal was situated in directly affected Life as they Knew It in their own little world. Most of this was scrawled on the backs of discarded receipts during slow days at work****. Of course, each of these projects ended as soon as I switched jobs. I did try to keep that novel up (I had just gotten to the part where they discover that the temperatures of a Winnipeg winter makes their bodies brittle and then someone's nose falls off, and they need to sneak back into the bakery and glue it back on with melted chocolate ganache. What fun!)
Anyway, my current job has left me with the ambition to create a chap-book of cupcake poetry. So far I have one. I managed to keep it in perfect iambic pentameter, until line 14, when I decided it wasn't going to be a sonnet after all, and then it became a mishmash of different syllabic emphases. Enjoy.
In Praise of Cupcakes
I will not claim to love these cakes I sell,
nor cherish our outstanding clientele:
the shrieking children overfed, cake-high,
who wipe their noses on the glass and cry,
the deer-legged women who will quake in fear
and ask “how many calories in here?”
the place is madness, this I will admit.
I once loved cake but I got over it.
And yet I praise this one discovery:
to give away one cupcake will save me
from paying for my drinks, the plumbing bills;
my drycleaning is free, so are most meals;
I’ve learned my dentist fancies buttercream,
my hairdresser prefers chocolate praline;
my ex-wife’s lawyer loves lemon meringue,
so does her maid; she eats it all the time.
So while cupcakes may be the death of me,
while cake gums up my eyes, invades my dreams,
and though I wish I could forget about them
truthfully, I cannot leave home without them.
*When I worked at Baked Expectations, I found that no matter how late I got home, I had to unwind for an hour or so before going to bed or else I'd end up washing dishes in my dreams as well
**For instance, while sitting in the waiting room of the chiropractor's office on Wednesday, I brought along The Whimsical Bakery Book for light reading instead of the usual young adult novel.
***Alright, so I did go vegetarian after working at CFGB. But I wasn't about to write a novel about it.
****I also collaborated with the evening counter attendant to create confectionery-themed versions of pop songs. I remember redoing 'Sexy Back' by Justin Timberlake, but unfortunately can only remember one line of it now: "I'll make you bake cookies if you misbehave".
When I worked at Animal Tracks, I started scripting a comic book detailing A Day in the Life of a Fast-Food Cook. When I was at The Madison, I started several short stories about the conversations I had with the residents. I was at Goodies for a year, and in that time, managed to get 50 pages into a novel about sugar-based humanoid life forms that tumble through a portal into the parallel universe we call Winnipeg only to discover that the goings-on of the bakeshop that said portal was situated in directly affected Life as they Knew It in their own little world. Most of this was scrawled on the backs of discarded receipts during slow days at work****. Of course, each of these projects ended as soon as I switched jobs. I did try to keep that novel up (I had just gotten to the part where they discover that the temperatures of a Winnipeg winter makes their bodies brittle and then someone's nose falls off, and they need to sneak back into the bakery and glue it back on with melted chocolate ganache. What fun!)
Anyway, my current job has left me with the ambition to create a chap-book of cupcake poetry. So far I have one. I managed to keep it in perfect iambic pentameter, until line 14, when I decided it wasn't going to be a sonnet after all, and then it became a mishmash of different syllabic emphases. Enjoy.
In Praise of Cupcakes
I will not claim to love these cakes I sell,
nor cherish our outstanding clientele:
the shrieking children overfed, cake-high,
who wipe their noses on the glass and cry,
the deer-legged women who will quake in fear
and ask “how many calories in here?”
the place is madness, this I will admit.
I once loved cake but I got over it.
And yet I praise this one discovery:
to give away one cupcake will save me
from paying for my drinks, the plumbing bills;
my drycleaning is free, so are most meals;
I’ve learned my dentist fancies buttercream,
my hairdresser prefers chocolate praline;
my ex-wife’s lawyer loves lemon meringue,
so does her maid; she eats it all the time.
So while cupcakes may be the death of me,
while cake gums up my eyes, invades my dreams,
and though I wish I could forget about them
truthfully, I cannot leave home without them.
*When I worked at Baked Expectations, I found that no matter how late I got home, I had to unwind for an hour or so before going to bed or else I'd end up washing dishes in my dreams as well
**For instance, while sitting in the waiting room of the chiropractor's office on Wednesday, I brought along The Whimsical Bakery Book for light reading instead of the usual young adult novel.
***Alright, so I did go vegetarian after working at CFGB. But I wasn't about to write a novel about it.
****I also collaborated with the evening counter attendant to create confectionery-themed versions of pop songs. I remember redoing 'Sexy Back' by Justin Timberlake, but unfortunately can only remember one line of it now: "I'll make you bake cookies if you misbehave".
Thursday, May 5, 2011
How to survive accidental inebriation at work
About 2 weeks ago, I suddenly became allergic to something in my bedroom. I as of yet have not been able to pinpoint the problem. There is virtually nothing in my bedroom that cannot also be found in every other room of our house, so I can only conclude that I have become allergic to my own mattress; a problem that is very difficult to correct, especially since this mattress is only one year old and is the largest purchase I have ever made (barring University and travel expenses); I'm not about to remove it to see if it's the problem.
Anyway, this story has very little to do with my allergies except for the fact that said allergies have cleverly prevented me from realizing that I am also coming down with a cold. When I woke up this morning with a sore throat, I assumed it was the result of my trying to scratch the itchy allergens out of my own throat all night. In fact, when I started snorting out golf-ball sized wads of mucus from my nose, I thought that maybe my body had finally gotten hold of whatever was irritating me and was flushing it out. It was only when I got to work that I began to realize that I was being affected by more than my usual bedroom allergy.
By 11 am my throat was on fire. I tried to bravely live with the pain for about half an hour, then realized that no one at the bakery was going to have a good day if I continued living in such a manner. A short trip to the 'medicine cabinet'* revealed that the only painkiller we had on hand that day was a bottle of extra strength nighttime cold relief, celebrated for its ability to bring sleep to even the most irritated of patients.
Now, I am not known for my high tolerance when it comes to depressants; in fact, I am rather notorious for my lack of ability to tolerate them. So I should have known better than to go for a bottle of extra-strength anything, especially extra-strength sleep aid, 1 hour into an 8-hour shift in a place full of gas-powered burners, mixers with industrial-sized motors in them, and lots and lots of knives. And I really should have known better than to take 2 extra-strength painkilling sleep aids at once.
I did not know better. In fact, I knew so little that, half an hour after taking said sleep aids, when I began to feel like a box of crayons melting into a lump beneath a radiator, I was actually confused as to why I might be feeling that way. It took me a while to connect my suddenly pain-free throat to the fact that I was about to pass out in the strawberry buttercream.
Luckily, I was not the one in charge of operating heavy machinery that day, which would have made my body a weapon dangerous enough that I may actually have reported my medicating faux-pas to the boss and been relieved of my duties for the day. Deciding to instead stick it out until the medication wore off (4 hours later), my main job for the day became hiding my state of unintentional inebriation from coworkers, supervisors, and customers.
I simply had to avoid any task that would make it clear I was becoming a human strand of spaghetti. For instance, climbing ladders sounded like a particularly bad idea to me, and so, when I was asked to climb up to our top storage shelf and bring down a few stacks of boxes, I simply elected to fold more boxes instead. I made sure I was in a different room whenever someone needed to write out a gift tag for someone, as well.
Unfortunately, 3 hours into my Shift of Inebriation, I found myself trapped on the phoneline with someone who was even worse off than I was. Picture, if you will, one person who is high on cold medication and another person who is high on who even knows what trying to pick out a cake together. We spent a good 25 minutes trying to figure out what size of cake we would need to feed 30 people, what flavours it could be, what flavours it could not be, and why it could not be made to look exactly like the Beach Scene cupcake mural on our website, which was made for 150 people.
The moral of this story is: if you ever find yourself unintentionally high off of cold medication in the middle of a bakery, stay away from the phone.
*aka shelf that also holds rubber gloves and a pair of shoes that no one can identify
Anyway, this story has very little to do with my allergies except for the fact that said allergies have cleverly prevented me from realizing that I am also coming down with a cold. When I woke up this morning with a sore throat, I assumed it was the result of my trying to scratch the itchy allergens out of my own throat all night. In fact, when I started snorting out golf-ball sized wads of mucus from my nose, I thought that maybe my body had finally gotten hold of whatever was irritating me and was flushing it out. It was only when I got to work that I began to realize that I was being affected by more than my usual bedroom allergy.
By 11 am my throat was on fire. I tried to bravely live with the pain for about half an hour, then realized that no one at the bakery was going to have a good day if I continued living in such a manner. A short trip to the 'medicine cabinet'* revealed that the only painkiller we had on hand that day was a bottle of extra strength nighttime cold relief, celebrated for its ability to bring sleep to even the most irritated of patients.
Now, I am not known for my high tolerance when it comes to depressants; in fact, I am rather notorious for my lack of ability to tolerate them. So I should have known better than to go for a bottle of extra-strength anything, especially extra-strength sleep aid, 1 hour into an 8-hour shift in a place full of gas-powered burners, mixers with industrial-sized motors in them, and lots and lots of knives. And I really should have known better than to take 2 extra-strength painkilling sleep aids at once.
I did not know better. In fact, I knew so little that, half an hour after taking said sleep aids, when I began to feel like a box of crayons melting into a lump beneath a radiator, I was actually confused as to why I might be feeling that way. It took me a while to connect my suddenly pain-free throat to the fact that I was about to pass out in the strawberry buttercream.
Luckily, I was not the one in charge of operating heavy machinery that day, which would have made my body a weapon dangerous enough that I may actually have reported my medicating faux-pas to the boss and been relieved of my duties for the day. Deciding to instead stick it out until the medication wore off (4 hours later), my main job for the day became hiding my state of unintentional inebriation from coworkers, supervisors, and customers.
I simply had to avoid any task that would make it clear I was becoming a human strand of spaghetti. For instance, climbing ladders sounded like a particularly bad idea to me, and so, when I was asked to climb up to our top storage shelf and bring down a few stacks of boxes, I simply elected to fold more boxes instead. I made sure I was in a different room whenever someone needed to write out a gift tag for someone, as well.
Unfortunately, 3 hours into my Shift of Inebriation, I found myself trapped on the phoneline with someone who was even worse off than I was. Picture, if you will, one person who is high on cold medication and another person who is high on who even knows what trying to pick out a cake together. We spent a good 25 minutes trying to figure out what size of cake we would need to feed 30 people, what flavours it could be, what flavours it could not be, and why it could not be made to look exactly like the Beach Scene cupcake mural on our website, which was made for 150 people.
The moral of this story is: if you ever find yourself unintentionally high off of cold medication in the middle of a bakery, stay away from the phone.
*aka shelf that also holds rubber gloves and a pair of shoes that no one can identify
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