The beauty of the banal

This picture makes me very happy. The colours and Jodi's facial expression and the crappiness of the goods. A small moment in time taken seriously and photographed to look important.

You deserve a break today

A sense of entitlement is often all you need to get every little thing you ever wanted. In Kerrisdale evidence of this is everywhere from the ample free parking, to the flocks of Lululemon encased teenagers with more money than fashion sense. If you find yourself in the mood to eat McNuggets and not confront any thorny social issues choose the Kerrisdale location of McDonalds located at the corner of West 41st Avenue and East Boulevard.

This tony location caters to an entirely different demographic and the evidence is everywhere. The lovely post and beam construction is more reminiscent of Disneyland California Adventure than the usual utilitarian box crouching at every other intersection.
The first floor contains a discrete ordering counter placed off to one side of the main dining area and is angled back so as to not intrude upon intimate dinner conversation. You will find the full McDonalds menu on offer here including all of their most reactionary dietary options. A further nice touch that the experienced McDonalds diner will enjoy is the considerate turning down of the annoying food preparation timer beeps.

If you are seeking a cosier dining experience, playful neon signs direct you upstairs to enjoy the heated exterior patio or a table in front of the gas fireplace. Throughout both dining rooms you will find that the tables and chairs are not affixed to the floor allowing you all the freedom you need to get really close to your fries.

The pleasant ambiance continues with many coherent design touches. Hand coloured artist’s renderings of the character buildings of Kerrisdale grace the walls. The interior lighting is, for the most part, soft and flattering. The clean, pleasant smelling bathroom features fragile dropped light fixtures that have not been torn out by the roots. Expensive stone tile flooring that is not gummy with grease is featured throughout. Drug deals may go on here but they are transacted between people who don’t really need the drugs or the money.

Parents should however take note: there is no playground at this location. It is my suspicion that little Ethan and Brittany’s parents may just be a little bit more litigious than is the cultural norm should their children fall and brain themselves on a plastic statue of the Hamburgler or get a nasty staph infection from a pee contaminated ball room. The children who eat here are properly grateful just to get the delicious food without the usual yucky nutritional concerns – for them it is the exception after all and not the rule.

The servers at this location look marginally less oppressed than most. They are cheerful and careless in a way that is appropriate for a kid with an after school job. The usual underemployed immigrants, exhausted looking pensioners and mentally challenged “team members” are conspicuous only in their absence. The social balancing act that we have come to expect from McDonalds seems apparently to have been exchanged here for something a little easier on the eyes.

Given the usual customer, this may be the only McDonalds in Vancouver where an insistence upon hot french fries will be greeted with resigned compliance rather than incredulity. If you can project the proper local attitude of imperious entitlement and scorn you may well get the best Big Mac you have ever had. You have to really own the part though - they can smell a fraud like they can spot a fake Fendi, like zombies can sense your emotions.

The only real disappointment with this location is the drive-thru. It is very unreliable, especially after midnight when the ability of the staff to speak any language at all abruptly disappears and you will never, ever get what you order, your change will be wrong and you will be laughed at. For take-out go to another location.

(Posted by request - for Kevin)

The Hazards of Oversharing – A Cautionary Tale

Setting personal goals is all very well, but be careful who you share them with. Once you share them, people will start expecting you to follow through. This can be a serious drag.

Last year I apparently forgot who I was for a day or two (pro-am bather, unapologetic sitter-outer, lover of the nap) and decided that I wanted to do the Grouse Grind at some point in the future. Emphasis on future, that mythical day which never arrives. I compounded this error by sharing this “goal” with others.

My friend has recently become a totally different person – he has gone from being a lovely sedentary soul who could always be relied upon to not suggest anything overly strenuous, to being this highly active person who does things like jogging. Jogging - I even dislike the word. He now calls me up and describes the things he has already accomplished with his day while I am still in my bathrobe eating toast. After years of knowing him, the phrase I most often find myself saying to him lately is, “Who are you and what have you done with Kevin?” I realized that the exercise and increased oxygen uptake had also clearly improved his famously bad memory when he suddenly remembered my words about the Grouse Grind from last year. Shit.

I could have gotten out of it by going on and on about what the Grouse Grind represents from an anthropological perspective as pertains to Vancouver – this exercise obsessed, it’s ok to wear yoga pants to fine dining establishments city; a city where it is easier to buy rain gear for your maltepoo, moodle, malti-doodle whatever - than it is to find a decent bookstore. I could have done that, but it would have been bullshit. All I knew about it was what I had heard, and I had heard that it was scary hard – like vertical. I also knew that friends who are in incredible shape boasted about doing it in what sounded to me like a terrifyingly long 45 minutes. This did not bode well for me.

Kevin has also become annoyingly persistent as his ability to do reps has increased, but I did manage to dodge it for a few weeks – excuses like “Oh, It’s too hot” and “I don’t want to do it after work” and “No, no you go on. I don’t want to slow you guys down.” He called me on a cool Sunday and said everyone else had bailed and did I want to go with him – he called my bluff basically.

I had a tiny personal crisis in that moment. I didn’t want to do it, but I also didn’t want to not do it. I have other things on my list of personal goals that are hard and scary, and I didn’t want to not do this thing as it seemed to imply that I might never follow through on those others, and some of them actually matter to me.

I have not exercised in so long I could not find my sports bra, I had to go to London Drugs to buy the right socks but I did get ready and we did drive and we did arrive.

The Grouse Grind is basically a woodland stairmaster. The trail is very steep, no two steps are the same height or depth, there are rocks and dust and pine needles, I had a really great view of all of these things because I did not lift my head the entire time. Sometimes the rocks and dust are slippery because there is so much sweat on them from the million people going up at the same time as you. If you are like me all of these million people will also pass you. You will become aware of this. If you are like me you will make a list of the people who pass you and your list will look something like this:

- the diabetic doing it for the first time
- the girl in flip-flops
- the girl in ballet slippers with rainbows and cherries on them
- the Sikh family in jeans
- the 50 year old man carrying a 6 year old on his back
- the 8 year old with a snoopy purse
- the guy carrying a ghetto blaster the size of a portable generator

Kevin was wonderful and patient and encouraging and I managed not to hate him as he bounded on ahead of me. Alone with the million people I set little goals for myself: I will not panic when my heartbeat renders me deaf for minutes at a time, I will not mind that I have pine pitch all up my back from leaning against trees to rest, I will not whine or throw up, I will not sit down once during this whole hellish experience and I will beat that guy with the pink water bottle. I finished that fucker in 1 hour and 44 minutes, I beat the guy with the pink water bottle and when I regained the ability to feel anything other than pain I was really quite proud of myself. After 20 years of living in this strange city I was at the top of Grouse Mountain for the first time and I got there on my own two aching, wobbly legs. For me, this was kind of a big deal.

I am a person who has said out loud “The only way I’m running on the seawall is if someone is chasing me with a knife.” I am also a person who has decided to do the Grouse Grind again. Who am I?

Why didn't anyone tell me?

It occurred to me last night that I might be a bit of a bummer.

I was feeling unusually bleak over the past few days and, as usual, went to my books for solace. I have a lot of books. When I approach my bookcase it is always the question “How do I want to feel?” that informs my choice. What I wanted to feel this time was happy, or at least happier. What I found was row after row of variously important books that all seem to have in common a central theme which I have heard termed as “the bummer epiphany.” I looked at my shelf of favorite novels to see, with some distress, that they are all very sad books. After 30 odd years of reading and book collecting I was noticing this for the first time. Weird.

I have never really thought of myself as more than averagely negative. Sarcastic, occasionally caustic, lover of scathingly observed irony, and given to enjoying the odd bit of schadenfreude? You betcha. But to see this manifest proof that I somehow witlessly sought out, purchased and read, and then later re-read, these beautifully written sad stories was, to say the least, sobering.

The thing is I openly disapprove of negative people and have even come up with a name for them – they are, in my lexicon, the Negadons. I imagine them as an oddly prehistoric creature, sort of a cross between a brontosaurus and Eeyore. They are large and they mope. They are difficult to escape and although not dangerous they stand too close to you which kind of freaks you out, they follow you around and just kind of sigh and look at you a lot.

I sat down in the middle of my library and I couldn’t believe it. I looked through my strange organizing system to find rows of bleak crime noir, J.D. Salinger, Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, William Styron and Steinbeck (in the American and sad section). Milan Kundera, Marguerite Duras, Tolstoy and Dickens (European and sad). Lots of Updike (in the relationships never work and now I’m old section). There was a cheerful, but meaningless in this context, children’s book selection – which only made me more depressed as, at least at some point in my life, I was clearly more carefree though oddly fascinated with stories about mice. There was 3’6” of Louis L’Amour but even these were representative of the Lonesome Dove, Cormac McCarthy, we can apparently even be sad in the old west phase. Jesus.

Tucked down low and wedged between editions of Granta and Italo Calvino there was a tiny lonely volume of David Sedaris called “Holidays on Ice.” Needless to say this book was a gift from someone who clearly knew what I needed years before I did. It says on the back that the book can be used as a coaster or an ice scraper and contains essays with titles like “Dinah, the Christmas Whore.” This was the perfect book that I needed. Thank you forgotten gift giver! I will build a happy section in your honour.

Nothing against Nebraska

There are days when you feel like you want to punch everyone in the ear. I sat in the middle of the foolishness that was my day and thought about escape, and road trips and the time I accidentally went to Nebraska. Despite an adeptness with maps I got turned around and ended up driving witlessly on dirt roads on the Lakota Sioux reservation. There were many wild horses but very few road signs. I ended up in Nebraska, which is a strange feeling when you have no desire to actually be in Nebraska. I found a hotel room on the interstate with a view of the interstate. My room came with a complimentary fly swatter - which is debatably not the best complimentary gift ever.

I drove around the town that night and took photographs of semi trucks, old signs, a deserted post office and the corn shucks that were tied around all of the lamp posts. The absence of people and the presence of corn shucks was decidedly eerie. I went back to my room and clutched my fly swatter, watched HBO and found that my proximity to the interstate was suddenly comforting.

In the middle of my stupid day all I wanted was to be in the presence of corn shucks, and I started fixating on my suddenly precious fly swatter. I came home and found it and I you can bet I am taking that fucker to work tomorrow.

Not your typical

And like a miracle this morning I got on the number 10 Hastings bus and it smelled like fresh laundry. Everyone was healthy, well dressed and awake. I listened to music with my eyes closed and felt cosy.