flux

April 30, 2013 — kimli

I find I’m spending most my time these days waffling between extreme nothing and extreme OH MY GOD THE WORLD IS ENDING. After six days of nothing (hence my radio silence), I’m suddenly awash in apocalypse and frankly, I don’t care for it.

I’m being vague For Reasons, and I apologize. Additional details will be forthcoming as soon as I get everything sorted out one way or another: you’re either going to get a lot of whining that things are horrible and boring, or a lot of freaking out that I’m in over my head and I don’t know what to do. So, one of those. Happy mediums are for pussies.

Since I can’t fully make words of my current catastrophes, here are some things I have been thinking about lately:

  • After many years of being a die-hard fan, I’ve taken down the various Dresden Dolls prints I had in our house. I still love the band and have many fond memories of the Strong Feelings I experienced while listening to their music (not to mention a raging girl boner), but .. frankly, I’m tired of Amanda Palmer. What was once a massive crush and adoration has aged badly into some hardcore eye-rolling at the never ending antics. It feels as though everything she does is an Antic, and I just don’t have the energy or spare time to keep up. Too many words about everything. Too many videos. Too many TED Talks, too many “LOOK AT MEEEEEE” moments, too many terrible poems about people in the media. I’m tired of every word and movement being a call to arms to her fans to give, and I’m tired of the SO NAKED aren’t you shocked at my audacity and I’m tired of the ukelele. Just .. tired. I’ll always love the Dresden Dolls, but I’m a little over Just Amanda.
  • I’m worried about my womanly tubes. My Weapon of Spermal Destruction expires in September, and I have to either a) get it replaced, b) have it removed and free ball for a while, c) remove it and go on another form of birth control, or d) have The Conversation about getting my fucking tubes tied already. I’m not looking forward to any of this, really, and I’m also over-thinking things a lot. Like, more than usual. As in:
    • In my experience, doctors refuse to tie tubes because they assume women are fickle creatures who will change their mind re: babies the instant the procedure is done. I’d like to yell “BULLSHIIIIT” from the top of my lungs and do a dance and wax many poems about why this is stupid, but .. is it? It seems like I know far too many people who were once proud soldiers of Team No Babies, but one day they DID change their minds and now babies everywhere. It’s hard to argue against the idiotic notion of “you’ll change your mind someday” when I’ve seen it happen first hand – assuming that it’s not fucking ridiculous in the first place to paint all women with one very narrow brush – so how can I tell my doctor the idea is wrong when most of the time, it appears to be right?
    • Am I refusing to have babies out of sheer stubbornness? What if I DID change my mind but I’m refusing to acknowledge it because I don’t want to be one of those women who changes her mind? My god, what if everything I am today is simply because I’m too pig-headed and stubborn to follow the rules? Who am I?
  • That one worries me, because I know myself well enough to know that if one day I woke up and said “hey, babies”, I wouldn’t go through with it because I’d be embarrassed to change my mind. Yeah, I’d deprive myself of (according to some) the reason for my existence, just because I’ve always said otherwise. Can I stick to a plan, or WHAT? Seriously, though, I’m not having babies and you can’t make me and even if one day I did want them I wouldn’t have them because FUCK YOU IT’S MY LIFE MOM NOT YOURS.

Fantastic. I’ve made it this far in life as a 14-year-old emo kid with no end in sight.

Too much heavy thinking for a Tuesday – I’m going to go buy some makeup to fool myself into feeling pretty.

i may never know

Posted in This Stepford Life. Tags: , , , , , . 6 Comments »

je me souviens (frustration)

April 24, 2013 — kimli

I am now convinced that getting a UK Visa – hell, LIFE ITSELF – would be a thousand times easier if only I wasn’t from Quebec.

Don’t get me wrong – I am proud to be from Montreal and of my heritage; I am just ENDLESSLY FRUSTRATED at how complicated it is to get any official information out of the Province of Quebec. What evil deeds could I possibly do with a marriage certificate from 1910? What havoc could I wreak with a century-old death certificate? How will my figuring out where I came from lead to the ruination of all of Quebec? Obviously, it won’t – but judging by the number of hoops you have to jump through to get anything at all out of the government, one might start to think they’re some sort of sleeper agent with as-of-yet undiscovered powers that could end the world.

Or maybe it’s just me.

I can’t find a marriage certificate for my grandparents. Hell, I don’t know if they ever made it official. I can trace Edith’s family (the right Edith, or at least closer to being right than Fake Edith) from the UK to their immigration to Canada in 1893 via the 1901 census, then nothing until she shows up listed as “Mrs. Edith J Wangzilla” on my granddad’s war records. I literally have no idea what happened to her between 1901 and 1914 (when my dad was born), and after 1917 when my grandfather died.

“But Kimli”, you say. “Surely you can just request the information from the government! Each province has a department that deals with this exact thing!”

This would be where the whole “being from Quebec” thing gets really fucking complicated.

Like most provinces, Quebec allows you to request copies of official documents for a fee. It’s all very simple, really: set up a verified user account, and away you go!

To set up an account, all you need is:

  • Your Social Insurance Number
  • Your Revenu Quebec Access Code
  • Your Notice of Assessment Number

.. yeah, you need to be living and working in the province of Quebec in order to request copies of documents. Because no one would ever leave Quebec, right? Not at ALL. For ANY REASON.

My only option appears to be to fill out a form and mail it off with copies of my personal information and a wad of money and hope that something happens. Unfortunately, this is where my overall lack of knowledge comes back to bite me in the ass: the form wants me to provide the date and location this marriage took place. I don’t KNOW that information. I was hoping they did, which is why I’m requesting it. They can deny me for any reason – spelling a name wrong, missing a date, cheering for the wrong hockey team, Tuesday, a bad mood (they’re allowed to veto genealogy research as a valid excuse for wanting this information) – and it’ll cost me $45 for each stab in the dark I attempt. If I was in Quebec, I could go to an office and get some help, but I’m far away so I can’t. And no one can go for me; they won’t allowed a lawyer or notary to request info on someone’s behalf. Has to be me, and since I’m not the direct child of someone I’m requesting info on, I can be veto’d. But they’ll keep my money!

This is so frustrating. I keep finding awesome things that are no help to me whatsoever – for example, I found the burial announcement for my aunt, who died when she was 3. I had her name wrong the whole time (thanks again, dad’s foggy memory – I don’t care that you were barely two when she died, you’re supposed to know this) – Muriel Hazel Wangzilla was born in December 1913 and died in February 1917 (which was a terrible year for poor Edith Jane – lost her daughter and husband in the same year, then seemingly vanished herself). I found my dad’s marriage record to his first wife, which lists both his parents as deceased. Cool find, but doesn’t help me at all: I specifically need the marriage record of John James Wangzilla to Edith Jane Corn(e)s, and I CAN’T FIND IT. I can’t find my dad’s birth record either, but I’m less concerned about that – mom has the original. I’m working on Edith’s birth certificate, but I also need one for John James .. and getting records out of Nova Scotia is a whole other ranting blog post that I just don’t want to get into.

I now understand why it was so hard to get a copy of my birth certificate out of Montreal. I was correct in my assumption that no one got one – when checking in with other wayward Quebec babies, we all received an official non-official baptismal certificate (or nothing at all if you were a heathen) which is good for exactly squat. I don’t know if I’d even be able to get another copy of my birth certificate if I needed it, so I should probably relocate mine from it’s current hiding spot and into a vault or something.

Quebec, why you gotta be so complicated.

I do not feel so hot. I hope my cold isn’t morphing into something deadly and terrifying, because it would be fucking impossible to get a death certificate issued in my name.

Posted in This Stepford Life. Tags: , , , , , . 3 Comments »

guilty pleasure

April 21, 2013 — kimli

I’ve been vastly preoccupied over the last three weeks, for what could be the worst reason ever: when I’m not at work or sleeping, I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2.

I have never been a huge fan of MMOs. I tried playing Everquest and World of Warcraft, but it didn’t hold my interest at all. I did, however, get into the original Guild Wars in a pretty big way: not because it was an MMO, but because I could play it by myself. I started playing GW when I was neck-deep in casting and IRC, and I spent every waking moment online talking to or at other people – so I started playing Guild Wars to get away from it all. It was touted as an MMO you could play alone, which truly appealed to me: I had no interest in playing with others since I did that all the time, and I had no interest in meeting people through the game because I already knew too many people. GW1 allowed you to “hire” NPCs to form a party, so you could complete group quests and goals without ever needing to communicate with another person. It was awesome.

In the time between GW1 and 2, I had switched from PC gaming to console and Mac computers. Seriously bored one Saturday night, I decided to see if GW2 (which launched last September) was going to be available for Mac anytime soon. To my surprise, it already was – so I handed over my credit card, made an account, and (some two hours and 18GB later) started playing. I haven’t stopped. GW2 doesn’t have the “talk to no one” aspect I loved about the first game; I run into other people all the time. I still don’t have to talk to them, but eventually I’ll need to start finding people to team up with for the group quests and I don’t wanna. Other people are scary. I can kill all those things myself. I’m enjoying it, though. I’ve only got one character, a level 72 Sylvari Elementalist – basically, I’m a plant who likes to play with fire.

 

i'm a plant, wearing plants as clothes. it's basically a vegan meat dress.

i’m a plant, wearing plants as clothes. it’s basically a vegan meat dress.

Every once in a while someone says something ominous to me about dragons, but as near as I can tell the goal of the game is Centaur Genocide. No matter what map I’m on, Centaurs are coming at me and making fun of my two legs, which in turn makes me set them on fire. Not personally having anything against Centaurs (or lizards), I feel kind of bad about killing them all. I also feel kind of bad about the amount of time I’ve played – I’ve been playing for three weeks, and I’ve sunk 108 hours into it. That being said, I’m kind of glad I had the game this weekend – it gave me something to do other than lay around pathetically and moan about my death cold. I killed things instead! A much better use of my time, even if it’s training me to be some sort of killing machine who throws fire balls at people in real life.

I’m somewhat ashamed, but not really. This can’t go on forever – I basically plan to finish the map to 100% and be done with it. I’ve got no desire to PvP or start a new character or find out why people hate Centaurs so much – I just want to clear that damn Fog of War off my screen.

Goals! I have them!

Oh, that made me sad. It’s okay though! I’m sick!

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bad timing

April 20, 2013 — kimli

Most of the time I’m able to escape whatever horrible ailments befall Ed, but not this time – I’m sick. He had a terrible cold that kicked his ass all last week, and yesterday, I caught it. My throat is on fire, my head is swimming, I’m sore all over, and there is congestion where there ought not to be congestion – I’m sick and I’m miserable about it: not so much because I have a cold, but because this is likely the SINGLE WORST DAY IN THE HISTORY OF DAYS to be unable to leave the house. By being Patient Zero, I am missing out on the following things going on in Vancouver today:

  • Record Store Day - all of these local stores are participating, and I wanted to check it out
  • Vancouver FanExpo is happening downtown at the Convention Centre, and as a well-rounded nerd into all things nerdy, I should be with my people (except without being all awkward)
  • Make It Vancouver is at the Croatian Cultural Centre – it’s one of two major local handmade craft shows (Got Craft? being the other), and I wanted to go play
  • It’s gorgeous outside – perfect for wandering around through various festivals and events
  • It’s April 20th – the annual 420 celebration is at the VAG this afternoon, and it’s always an amusing contact high/picture taking time
  • I have a Groupon for my favourite boat rental place in West Vancouver that expires in two days, and this weekend was my last chance to use it
  • Lori is leaving Vancouver and having a goodbye/buy our crap drop-in today, and I want to say bye :(
  • It’s the last two days of a big sale at Sephora, and I wanted to stock up on a few things
  • Re-Fashion Vancouver is today only in Yaletown

There are other things I’m probably forgetting, but I wanted to do so many things this weekend .. and instead, I’m a mess. A sad, unwashed, highly contagious, cranky mess.

Dislike.

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dove and the art of manipulation

April 17, 2013 — kimli

This morning’s unscheduled transit scrimmage derailed me from posting about the other topics I had saved up for wording: my guilty secret, and the main reason I started this morning out wearing my (purely metaphysical) ranty pants. Since I’m already made of outrage, I’ll just carry on:

The internet was abuzz yesterday with the release of Dove’s new “Everyone is Beautiful” campaign, featuring a sketch artist tasked with drawing unseen (to him) women as they describe themselves, and again as described by other people. The women then got to see the two images, and realized they are far more critical of their appearance than others are – people see you differently than you see yourself and we should all celebrate our uniqueness and beauty and butterfly rainbow kittens for us all.

Nice sentiment. Too bad it’s a calculated load of shit.

When I watched the ad – with an admittedly already-critical eye – I couldn’t help but notice several things:

  • Hey, look at all those conventionally attractive people!
  • Hey, look at all those conventionally attractive white people!
  • “I have a round face” was stated as a negative
  • “She had a nice thin <whatever>” was a compliment .. twice
  • That sad, plinky music and grey lighting is doing a lot to set the mood – I can’t help but wonder how this would feel with a polka or 70′s porn music

Turns out I’m far from the only one having these thoughts: something fishy is afoot in their pretty, pretty paradise. It’s a nice idea, I guess, and sketch artists are crazy awesome, but the execution is pretty damn shallow. Also, everything else that’s wrong with the situation.

I posted this on Facebook this morning, and I’m just copying it here because I’m lazy and also angry about PAX tickets (I can’t get any):

As noble as the “we’re all beautiful!” campaign is, we have to keep several things in mind:

  1. We’re being purposefully manipulated by a marketing team to sell PRODUCTS. Tell me, do you really spend a lot of time worrying how your armpit skin looks? Dove sells a product that’ll “fix” it, along with a series of commercials designed to make you think people are judging you on the appearance of your pits.
  2. In eastern countries, where brown skin is the norm, Dove sells “Whitening Cream” because “white skin is beautiful”. There is so much fucking wrong with this that I can’t even.
  3. The parent company that sells Dove also sells Axe. That’s right: one team makes millions telling you you’re all beautiful; another makes millions selling you as objects who exist solely to arouse odiferous men.

So yeah, as much as I too could use the occasional reminder that I’m not as ugly as I think I am, I don’t buy it when it comes from Dove.

Even if Dove is trying to uplift everyone’s self-esteem, even if it works and no one ever feels bad about themselves again, even if just one girl realizes she is beautiful no matter what they say (words can’t bring her down), you HAVE to remember that Dove is a manufacturer of products, owned by a company that exists to SELL THINGS. At the end of the day, their one job isn’t to make us feel good – it’s to profit. Profit off your fears and insecurities. Profit off telling us we’re all beautiful with one hand, while telling women with dark skin to lighten it in another, and using women as sex dolls to sell toxic sprays in a third (they have many arms).

Do you really want your feels to be manipulated by a company that thinks your armpit skin could use some work?

I don’t.

Get bent, Unilever.

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bus rage

April 17, 2013 — kimli

I am one of the politest motherfuckers you will ever meet: I’m the stereotypical Canadian who will go out of her way to say “please” and “thank you”, will bend over backwards to be accommodating, and is absolutely mortified at the thought of being rude. So you can bet your fucking ass that I said “excuse me” while trying to squeeze past someone on the bus this morning to make room for an elderly lady to exit the packed row, because it’s ingrained in every fibre of my being. To not have said “excuse me” in that moment would be like forgetting to breathe. I don’t need to think about it, because I just do it. I say “excuse me” so often and for things that no one can hear or see that many times I’ve had to explain why I just said “excuse me” over nothing at all.

So when someone who is easily twice my height and width decides I DIDN’T say “excuse me” while trying to get past his massive frame and BODY CHECKS ME so hard I almost fall over, I tend to get a little upset.

As in “yelling argument on the bus” upset.

As in audibly calling someone a “deaf fucking asshole” upset.

At first I was (rightfully) bothered that someone had assaulted me, but now I’m equally if not more upset that someone thought I was rude.

FUCK YOU BUDDY, I AM NOT FUCKING RUDE

So, now I’m upset all over the place and I don’t much care for it. Turns out I dislike being body checked! Who knew?

 

Posted in This Stepford Life. Tags: , , , . 3 Comments »

wanderlust

April 14, 2013 — kimli

With three of my close friends currently wandering around Europe (along with millions of others), I find myself in a desperate state of “I wanna go to the UK”. I don’t have any trips planned, but I’m getting kind of pathetic in my antsiness – it’s almost as bad as my need to be in Vancouver, when I was stuck in Calgary. I wonder if I’m destined to roam the earth like some sort of shiftless vagabond, unable to stay in one place for longer than a decade. I lived in Calgary for 7 years, and have been in Vancouver for 8.5 .. is it time for another change?

That’s scary talk, right there. At the moment, I’d settle for a three-month work trial in London (and even then I’m getting way ahead of myself: this is all just wishful thinking, remember).

It doesn’t help that I’m ALSO feeling a strong need to do Paris again, but properly this time. Why hasn’t instant travel been invented yet? And why am I not free to follow my ever whim and fancy, no matter how ridiculous? Stupid responsibilities and limited resources, you’re harshing my buzz.

I have a team of wonderful elves doing extensive family research for me, and some new details have come to light:

  • My mother doesn’t remember being British (but to be fair, my mother doesn’t remember a lot of things), but this is still a conversation I really ought to have with some sort of consulate. No matter what my mom remembers or not, the fact remains that she was born in Malaysia under British rule .. that’s gotta count for like, two points.
  • Edith Jane Cornes born of Franklin Cornes the Coal Miner and Jane Scott the wife of a Coal Miner is definitely the wrong woman, so now I have the birth certificate of a total stranger which is kind of weird
  • It’s looking more and more likely that the right woman was Edith Jane Corns born of Samuel Corns and Harriet Gough in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England which is so British I could just drink tea
  • The Corns line can be traced immigrating to Canada as a family in 1893 and landing in Montreal, Quebec
  • The only reason I was looking up “Cornes” in the first place was because of my dad – he had typed out part of his life story, and that’s how he spelled it. THANKS DAD
  • The Corns had a huge family who all went on to create their own huge families – I probably have cousins and second cousins I don’t know about
  • Now I can’t have sex with anyone in Malaysia OR Quebec for fear of accidental incest
  • .. damnit
  • Finding my grandparent’s marriage certificate is proving to be enormously troublesome, and unfortunately it’s the one piece of vital information I neeeeeed if I want to – wishful thinking – apply for a UK visa
  • It’s not London, but yesterday I wandered to Point Roberts with some gnomes:
gnerms!

gnerms!

We also made a new friend:

this is trapper

this is trapper

As soon as he was on the beach, he came running up to us with a stick in his mouth. He dropped the stick, laid down, and waited: he was the politest damn dog I’ve ever seen, and super cute. We took turns throwing the stick for him before he got tired of us and went to play with some kids further down on the beach. There were many (okay, three) large friendly dogs there, and I got to pet them all.

So, now I want to go to London AND have dogs.

Sometimes it feels as though it would be easier to be happy if I didn’t have such dreams.

gnoooomes.

gnoooomes.

Posted in This Stepford Life. Tags: , , , , , , . 1 Comment »
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