So High School

Everything about this is hilarious to me

Being back in Hong Kong is sometimes so weird.

In this fast paced city, so much can change. Leave for a year and BOOM they’ve just built all these new buildings and your favourite cheap outlet is gone and French Restaurants have moved in everywhere (this is no joke…where the hell did all the frogs come from?!)

BUT *screechbangwaitasecond* so much can stay the same. I went to an ANZAC memorial service on Thursday with my parents and the Australian International School (where I went for the last four years of High School) was well represented by kids in hideous Green and Gold blazers. And Lo, who should I spy, but my old Headmaster who is still kicking it (with more grey hair) here in Hongkers in the same job. I bumped into so many people who are still here doing their thing – same old same old, you know?

The great thing about Hong Kong people is, no matter how long you have been gone and no matter how much has changed, friendships and conversations pick up right where they left off. Having a happy hour cocktail with a girlfriend after 2 years, it’s like I saw her yesterday. Meet my friend after the gym for some fatty fat fat Starbucks time, didn’t we do this yesterday? Oh no wait that was 18 months ago.

But being back in this city also reminds me of the High School times I had and all the stupid High School stuff we did. Like…remember in High School when someone could do one thing, and they were out of your life forever?

It’s sad that I’ve realized over the past few years I’ve become much more judgemental and quick to get angry at people or cut them out of my life. I wasn’t always like this. Even my dad has picked up on it, and to him, I can do no wrong, right Papa?

In High School and at University I was the easy going friends-with-everyone type. Maybe i’m getting older and more jaded? Dunno. Whatever it is, over the last few years I’ve noticed a change in myself that I’m trying to rewind. I don’t try to have enemies…

But there was ONE time in High School where I did cut someone out of my life with the words “Have a Nice Life” and remained until the last few years, extremely angry, and considered this girl my enemy.

It’s not a particularly interesting story and it’s definitely High School, but basically, a rumour got started while we went away on our grad trip that next to all the drinking we were doing (our parents knew about this…they knew we sneaked out to bars with our fake ID’s) we were also smoking *SHOCK* pot. Now, the reason this rumour got started was because of me. I had always had a VERY open relationship with my parents about what was going on, and they’d seen it all before, and I made some flippant comment about stoners on a phone call to my Mother, which she then mentioned to a friend (a teacher at our High School) in an anecdote which then BLEW UP into a huge escalando! (Goodness me Beatrice, the children have begun smoking Marijuana!)

Just prior to this grad trip, I’d been having a HELL of a year. My parents were splitting, it was my final year of High School, my brothers and father had moved to the other side of the world, my mother was battling an addiction and depression. Not a fun cocktail. And this girl who I had been close with for four years, suddenly turned around and accused me of being a snitch and a this that and the other and told me I had to call her parents and tell them I had been lying to get attention.

Well.

Nope.

At 18, despite being a very emotional and extreme person (which I still am to some degree) I decided, heart racing, that because she and I were moving to different parts of Australia to pursue our University degrees, to not engage in this drama. And I simply told her to have a nice life, and actually, haven’t really spoken to her in 6.5 years since we graduated. I bumped into her a few times over this period, and after the first time when she tried to talk to me, and I (extremely drunk) turned my back on her and faced a wall, have had (obviously) thoughts about why I acted the way I did.

In what mind-frame do you just decide someone is out of your life forevermore in a moment? Life is long and relationships are hard and tricky and messy and interesting.

I’d like to think that each year I get older, I also get a little wiser (pfffffft) and so, this year, being back in this great city for two months, with the opportunity to reconnect again with my friends and family, I’d like to work on being a little more normal when it comes to people and relationships.

Ultimately as humans (like bee’s…i think) our society and our self is built on relationships and interactions (unless you’re that Hermit guy in Wales…but even he has to buy his milk from somewhere).

So I will strive to approach people with more tolerance, and remember that at the end of the day we’re all human and we all make mistakes.

 

Family

Family is probably one of the most important elements of our lives.

Our family is our support network when all the rest of it turns to shit. They’re the people we turn to for support, and the occasional organ donation.

I would argue that a family is not defined specifically by blood. Sure I have those crazy cats in my immediate family (Mum, Dad, two Brothers) and the extended family like cousins, Grandmother, Aunts and Uncles, but then I have people in my life that are so close to me, they ARE family, even if we don’t have the same awesome last name (mine, not theirs).

I used to be jealous of people who had spent their whole lives in the same city as their big families, having get-togethers and dinners, celebrating birthdays and special events. Childhood friends and their parents who were like relatives they were so close.

But the last 5 or so weeks has really taught me something. It has been an incredible time of reflection as my life merges from one opportunity to another. June 12th will mark two years for me in Canada, and we just passed my half birthday (holy shit I’ll be 25 in 6 months!?) and I have had time away from my new home city and back in my old home city.

I have families sequestered (like a squirrel) all over the world. I have friends all over the world who love me and only want the best for me. Some of them I have known for a long time, some for a short period of time, but in each city, there are those who are like brothers and sisters to me. That is how deep our friendship runs.

I always thought I was different somehow because my family is scattered far and wide over the planet.

I have spent some incredible time with my Mum over the last few weeks, an Awesome inspiring woman who I haven’t seen a whole lot of over the last 2 years, and my Dad, a steadfast, loyal, clear-headed guy who I haven’t seen a whole lot over the last 3 years.

My Dad and I have always had a special relationship, but truthfully over the last ten years it has been difficult. When we moved back to Hong Kong when I was in High School, my Dad started working in China 5 days a week, and we didn’t get to see too much of him.

When my parents split, my brothers went to live with him, while I, in my last year of High School, stayed in Hong Kong to complete my exams, and then fucked off to Sydney for four years of education in destroying my liver, (ah…memories).

So it has been wonderful to be back in Hong Kong with both my parents for the first time in 7 years. This city is so unique for me because of the time of my life we lived here. I look around at all the familiar places (the park bench where I had my first kiss, the bar my underage girlfriends and I snuck into, the restaurant my newly graduated friends and I drew out our life plans on the paper table cloth..)

Being back here has given me the wonderful opportunity of asking myself: Well…What next?

It’s so comforting to know that there are unlimited options and groups of people all over the world waiting to accept me with open arms for the next bit of my journey and adventure.

I’m excited to see what happens.

“Improvise”

A Star Nosed Mole one of the stranger creatures on our beautiful planet

 

January 2013 marked 11 years since my family moved to Hong Kong for the second time. And although it’s just my mum who lives here now, and I’ve lived in Sydney, Australia for four of those years and Toronto, Canada for two, Hong Kong feels the most like home. Perhaps that is why, I always feel like I’m re-finding myself when I am here. This is the city of my first true love, my first night out, some of my oldest and closest friends. I can be away for a year and a half, and still navigate myself around like I never left. I think I walk these streets in my dreams, and years melt away when I see those familiar faces. Expat brats are one of a kind people.

It’s probably unsurprising then, that I value the advice I get when I’m here. There are a lot of older and wiser people than me, who’ve led very interesting lives that live here. And I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by love and by people who want to see me succeed, and only want the best for me.

This evening I went for a few cheap cocktails with Miss J. I met Miss J exactly ten years ago when we were both in High School and when we both signed up to do the Hong Kong Youth Arts Festival production of ‘Footloose’. What an experience. Forty five of the most frustrated Drama/Musical Theatre geeks from all the different High Schools in Hong Kong, thrown together into one huge all singing all dancing production.

We spent hours together at rehearsal, and hours hiding in the bowels of the Shouson Theatre in Wan Chai. We were just kids, chasing our passion and singing our hearts out. Bonds were formed that have continued to this day.

So back to the cocktails. Miss J has her head screwed on pretty straight and to me, it seems like not much fazes her. I could say “J, i’ve decided to sign up for the Mars cruiser expedition. I’m leaving in 8 years and I’m not coming back” and this girl would take a breath, think about it and then say “Ok. great.”

She rocks.

So tonight when we went for a few drinks and I was telling her (for the 100th time) that I don’t-know-what-I’m-doing-with-my-life, and-I’m-24-and-OMG-who-am-I?-And-I-Like-Toronto-But-what-about-London?-Or-New-York?-Or…

And after listening to me rant for a little bit, sipping on her Lychee Bellini, she put her hand on my arm and said “Paris…do what you always do…just Improvise.”

…..

I felt like this girl had just transfigured into Buddha at the Bar and an ethereal light was beaming out of the top of her head and bouncing around the room.

Improvise.

Right.

Life is a series of Improvisations. Things happen, you go with them, you make decisions and you get on with your life.

I never realized that was what I was doing. I kind of thought things were just happening in my life that were a random series of events. Which is kind of what happens in Improvisation, an offer is made and then you run with it. There is no saying no in Improv, you can take what is offered and transform it into something else, but you never just stop.

That isn’t how life works.

Okay maybe it was the three (very strong) cocktails, but something suddenly clicked in my brain.

I’ve decided to go with the flow and continue to accept the offers that open to me and not put too much pressure on the way the story pans out.

After all it’s all just a bit of fun.

 

Money or Dreams

This week has been tumultuous. I’ve been all up and down like a birthday clown coming off meth, and GEE WHIZ has it been fun for the people around me. Props to my boyfriend for not breaking up with me (thanks guy, you’re great), and props to my family for not changing their last names and going into hiding to get the F away from me.
The reason for the moody mood-ring emotional rollercoaster? Why, dreams of course. Splendid Rose-glasses-tinted dreams. The kind that mean you are like a bloodhound on a scent when it comes to jobs and opportunities and real life. The kind of dreams that wait impatiently in the back of your mind whispering:

“why haven’t I been realized yet? What are you doing? Every day you don’t do something valuable is another day closer to death.”

I like to imagine the voice whispering in the voice of Darth Vader, “psssh Paris, caaaaaw, what are you doing pssssh, cawwww with your fucking life pssssh.”
I digress.

So I’ve been temping here and there…whatever it’s boring… I mean it’s not that boring, I’ve worked in some cool companies, made some new contacts, you know the usual…and this week the Temp Agency (which has been excellent and kept me busy) contacted me and asked me if I’d be interested in being put forward for a job outside of the Creative Field. The role sounded like boring admin, but here’s the kicker… the money was excellent.

I had to have a good grapple with myself. I gave up a cushy admin position back in August to pursue my dreams of Film and Television. I’m young, I don’t really have any commitments, but HELLO it’s been exhausting scraping by each month. A part of me was really really REALLy attracted to the offer.

And then Darth Vader exploded in my head.

Literally, the Dark Side was calling me, but in this case the Dark side was the corporate world, the world of 9-5 and boring KILLMYSELF office politics. Stability. Health care. Benefits. All those words which must mean a lot at some point.
But not today, and possibly not tomorrow, and possibly not for the next few years.
It is stressful trying to keep a positive attitude about going after what you love (especially when a lot of other people seem to want it too), but there is also knowing in your gut when something is the right or wrong path to take. Do I want to wake up in ten years and realize that I’m unhappy? NO.

Would I rather keep slogging it out, working for free, getting involved with lots of projects and running myself ragged in the hope that I will get to where I want to be?
I think so.

But it is a tough balance, and on the days where I have to pay my rent, and phone bill, and internet and buy my Transport for the month and still try to budget for food and entertainment… well on those days I think about just taking a day job.
And then I remember that this my life and I only get one shot at it, so I better make the most of it…yada yada cliché, read them in Morgan Freemans voice. So I hoick up my falling down ratty old jeans, eat my stir fry for the fourth day in a row and keep going.

Because one day Money and Dreams might just go hand in hand.

The Next Five Years

“Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans” is something my father has been known to say on occasion, but which google reveals to be a John Lennon quote/song lyric. Never is that saying truer than it is for the month of February, which at 28 days most years, goes by in a flash. Here we are March 1st and I’m thinking, we should probably take down the Christmas tree.

My Mum wrote a very funny blog earlier this week, about how she feels she is just hanging around in the waiting room of life. She’s 43 years old and all her children have fled the nest, and she’s not sure what the next twenty years will look like. Well funny that, none of us do.

A day after reading her blog, a package I sent myself six weeks ago arrived. During the Christmas break back in Hong Kong, I spent some time going through some of my old stuff that has accumulated in my mothers tiny apartment. I found my old school blazer (which was gigantic on me in year 12 and now sits the way my work blazers sit…ever an indication of aging and thickening) old programs from Musicals I was in, and I found precious newspaper pages on which I featured.

When I was 15 and living in Hong Kong there was a section of the South China Morning post called “The Young Post” and for a period of time they had different groups of kids (I think they started with 9) come in, photograph them in a couple of different poses, and then send then get them to respond to certain questions. The idea was that you would vote one kid out of the young post every week.

I only lasted 3 weeks or so. My downfall week, the question was “tell us a joke”. My parents had a thick book of politically incorrect jokes that used to sit in our bathroom (wildly inappropriate for children, but hey, I learned a lot about sex and sexual interaction from that novel!) Now, I know what you are thinking, I went ahead and did the one about the Nun and the Irishman. WRONG. Because somewhere in the back of my rude-joke-packed-mind I realized that these jokes were hilarious but also WILDLY inappropriate for the young post, I looked up online, “politically correct, lame jokes,” and came up with the following, which I used as my answer:
“What’s brown and sticky? A Stick!”

I was eliminated. Well Fuck.

But that isn’t where our story ends today. The question before the one that ended my career as Supreme Young Person of Hong Kong 2004, was “Where do you see yourself in 15 years?” And I answered the following:

“Wow! I’ll be 30! Well I hope to be working in a creative Job, maybe Acting because that is something I have always loved, living in some far away exotic place, with some really hot guy.”

Well.

This year I will be 25 and that means it has been ten years since I wrote that.

Let’s check in.

I am certainly living in some faraway place; Toronto is NOT exactly close to Hong Kong, and I’m not sure what I would have defined as exotic back then, having lived the majority of my life in Asia at that point. Compared to the busy, loud, crazy city that I consider my home…snow covered everything is pretty exotic. Eh?

As for the job…at this point I’d take any job as the endless weeks of Temping blur into one another and my sent inbox fills with more and more desperate and unanswered emails, (I’m totally kidding, I’m still working towards the creative thing and have actually had a couple of non-creative job offers suggested to me, which I have politely turned down. I didn’t bust my ass being poor and interning for the last 6 months to give up and take yet another Admin job which pays the bills, but kills my soul.)

And as for the really hot guy thing, let’s not even go there. You don’t want to hear me gush about Canuck boyfriend and he’d probably de-friend me if I did. But I think I’m on-track with that one.

But the next five years is going to be pretty huge I’m guessing. There is obviously no way of knowing (because 2 years ago I would have never thought I’d be where I am today), but the one thing I do know is that life is an ever changing thing. You can never get too comfortable with the way things are, for better or worse, and it’s always for the better in my opinion.
I find it interesting that my Mother feels rutted in her life when she is still in the prime of it. I get it that the hands on child-rearing faze of her life has fizzled, but she never gets to stop being our mother (sucks to be you) and she never gets to stop being a part of her already fairly eccentric family. Maybe that’s her problem (and I suffer from it to) there are days when things just seem too calm and normal.

And that is freaky.
The good news is that she has the next generation to look forward to. Maybe not in the next five years, but, thanks to stupid biology, certainly in the next 15. And she’s already threatened to be the grandmother that feeds the grandkids sugar and lets them stay up late and gives them money to sneak out to concerts and will generally be considered “cool” and therefore loved more than me. Stupid ungrateful unborn, un-conceived children.

I guess we’ll just have to see where we’re at, twenty years from now.

The Fourth day of the New Year

I for one buy into all the New Year resolutions brew-ha-ha. I’m no fool. I know that realistically this time last week I was no hugely different person (although I was in Hong Kong having a pretty sweet-as time with my family), but there is something about the “New Year” that really does it for me. The idea that things are new and shiny and that the slates are wiped clean. That appeals to me.

I’d like to think that one has the ability to change their destiny, and when you feel like you are stuck in a funk, then something as simple as a change from 2012 to 2013 and taking the time to re-evaluate your priorities is extremely important.

I was also told years ago that the way you spend your New Years Eve is the way you will spend your year. It is one of those stupid things that I heard in childhood and has stuck with me like gospel. I spent New Years Eve working an event with my family (dressing up as crazy Medieval characters), and the following day I was travelling. So following that logic, my 2013 should be filled with a) lots of work, b) lots of family c) Creativity and d) Travel.

I hope so. Family is so incredibly important to me, which may strike you as odd considering I live a comfortable 15 hour flight away from my closest family member. But that is the life of the expatriate that I have to embrace. I am an expat brat through and through, and I’ll never be happy unless I’m moving around sampling the world around me.

Yes, it gets exhausting and I get tired. Last night I cracked the shits (which is an Australian expression meaning to lose it, or to get angry and hysterical…not any other fun thing you can think of) and said that I wanted to go home (which home you ask…ahh?).

But at the end of the day I do love being an Austraalien in Canada. It isn’t easy, and it especially is frustrating when you are job seeking like I have been and feel like you are getting nowhere. But i’m not ready to move back to Australia or Hong Kong at this stage. And although I am secretly desperate to move to the UK, or NYC, I think it would be a foolish move at this point.

So for now I must content myself with the piles of snow and the polite Canadians.

But it certainly was interesting to be back in Hong Kong for the christmas break. It is amazing how some things can change so dramatically in 18 months and some things can stay so the same. Walking around, navigating the streets, bumping into people, it was like I had never left. But then a couple of my favourite shops had disappeared and there were new trendy shops in my area (Sheung Wan in Hong Kong used to be the antiques district, and when my Mum moved there 6 years ago, there were carpenters in the street and a couple of vegetable vendors, all of which have been muscled out for trendy new “concept stores.”)

It was weird to go to Hong Kong and then to come back to Toronto. It really solidified Toronto as “home” for the moment. All my stuff is here, my boyfriend, my phone bill…all the commitment things, ya’know?

But I was glad to be coming back. Too many of my Expat Brat friends moved back to Australia and are stuck there a bit now. They have better jobs than me, but they don’t necessarily plan on living the Expat lifestyle anymore. And I do. I love Australia and I miss my friends, but I’m not ready to end up there yet.

I suppose it doesn’t matter where you are so long as you are happy.

Well…here’s to being happy in 2013.

End of First rant of the year… for now

Things I know nothing about: Weddings

So it turns out that I’m old enough to know people who are my age that are getting married.

I feel like I’m not alone in this. You’re just a twenty something minding your own business and then BAM on Facebook a girl you went to high school with but don’t really know got engaged. Then there are the wedding pics 6-12 months later. Weird. But okay it’s on the periphery so I can deal…HOLY SHIT ANOTHER ONE!

You’re huddled under the covers rocking yourself to sleep thinking, “Okay but I never really knew her that well…” and then BAM, someone you do know well gets engaged.

Why are these people doing grown-up things when I can’t even use that blender I bought (It’s 10 speed okay…it’s really tricky).

Well. Ever since moving to Toronto I’ve met quite a few married people and they are quite normal and functioning. Granted that most of them are about 4-5 years older than me, (war wounds of dating a guy in that age bracket with lots of friends) but I’ve never really thought about it because they are already married and it kind of just seems like they’re a couple, but one of them has a big hard rock…and one of them has a pretty ring on her left hand. Did you see what I did there? That’s what we call “innuendo” or “an attempt at a dirty joke.” (WELL IF SOMEONE JUST HURRIED UP AND HIRED ME I WOULDN’T BE HOME ALONE WITH THE HEDGEHOG THINKING UP THESE TERRIBLE PUNS!)

I digress.

When I first started living in Toronto and started dating lovely Canadian boyfriend, he introduced me to many of his friends. One couple in particular I hit it off with, simply because they may be a crazier couple than Canuckboyf and I. It was love at first opening line when the female half of the couple sat down next to me at an event (at which I knew NO ONE and had literally been dating Canuckboyf for a month) and basically told me how she just wanted to get drunk and that we should go find the booze.

So we did. And may I say, the evening got less intimidating from there.

Anyway, we had some crazy fun nights with these two and then earlier this year the male half of this couple had some kind of revelation that he is dating one of the coolest chicks around, and proposed to her.

That’s so exciting!

Oh no wait! WHAT? That is TERRIFYING!

Yes. My reaction is over the top, and maybe you’re starting to think that I’m just a commitment-phobe. Fine. Yes. I have been known to run away from people that love me in the past, but that’s not it. This is more my fear about growing up and having to be a real person, rather than the fear of actually being with someone you love. I love love. I love the hollywood pre-packaged love. I like to look at pretty dresses and cakes and shoes and there were a good many years where one of my favourite parks in Hong Kong was my favourite because you could go on Saturdays and watch all the wedding photo’s taking place. I like wedding things.

But in my head I just finished High School…even though it has actually been six years, and I didn’t know anybody back then that was getting engaged or getting married and in my mind I still don’t. I’m still trying to pretend that I’m a child even though I’ve been allowed to drink and vote for over half a decade. The fact that I do a lot more of the former and very little of the latter just goes to show where my head is at. Maybe my wilful refusal to learn to drive is also a clue.

Regardless, I am turning 24 on Wednesday and that is something I have to face. I also know someone getting married. Fine. Breathe in, Breathe out.

A future picture of me on my wedding day

Yesterday I went to a bridal brunch. And it was really beautiful and lovely. It was the first bridal thing I’ve ever been too, and although internally I was freaking, I attempted to sit at the table like a calm lady, eat items from the delicious buffet and tried to not obviously eye-up the present table. I hoped mine didn’t look wrong. It wasn’t from the registry where I could buy my friend some towels or some bowels (the only available items), but was instead a couple of indulgent treats – the kind of thing I’d like to get.

Shall I rant about Registry’s? No, maybe another time. But seriously. I get the functionality of one. I do. But there is nothing exciting you can say about a steamer or a cake dish covering…whatever. Maybe one day if I get married I’ll be like “THANK GOD for the registry and my friends XYZ who got me this wonderful steamer.” Then I’ll tie on my apron, and clean the house waiting for my hardworking husband to come home so I can fix him a scotch and make him his dinner while telling the children to Shush and do their homemade jigsaw puzzle I created at my craft group.

At the table I was at for the bridal shower, were two girls who had recently-ish gotten married, and another girl who got engaged about a month ago. I felt like I was from another planet (more than usual) when listening to them talk about cake designers and venues. Maybe I would feel less like a fish out of water if I’d been to a wedding before and could make certain nodding motions about things like certain bands and dresses…but as it stands, I haven’t and I am mystified about things like that. The only contribution I could make to the girl discussing all the cakes she tried was…

what was your favourite flavour?!

Because honestly, that’s the only part of the conversation I could understand. CAKES?!!? CAKES HAVE FLAVOURS!!
Quick Paris, get involved! Ask about Flavours!

When she answered that she couldn’t choose, I still internally high-fived myself because hey, I asked a question in the right context and got a response.

Socializing WIN.

Weddings are exciting, and it’s exciting when people get engaged. It kinda feels like high school when we’d all freak out when one of the girls got asked out by one of the boys in Year Five and they were official after recess. Except this time it’s going to be LEGALLY official and somebody somewhere is dropping some serious dollars to make that happen.

Also it hopefully won’t be all over by lunch!

Since my friend-bride got engaged, Canuckboyfs flatmate also got engaged, my friend from Hong Kong who lives here got engaged, and another of the Boyfs close friends from High School got engaged. If they so choose to invite me to their weddings, that is another 3 weddings in the next 12-18 months. I guess it’s something I’m going to have to start getting used too… Anyone for a Cake Platter Cover?

At least nobodies pregnant yet…

Paris

 

 

Dream a little dream of Me

Woke up an hour before my alarm this morning because of an extremely vivid bad dream. Because I start work at 7am, this makes the hour of my sit-up-gasping-in-bed moment around 5 am. I try to roll over, try to shush my pounding heart, but there is no quieting the mind when you realize you have to be up soon anyway. And that the nightmare you just had contains some truth to it. So rather than lie in the dark in anguish counting down the seconds…why not get on the internet and Rant?

My Mum says that I put too much stock in my dreams, always trying to understand what they mean. And she is right. I have always respected and wondered at underlying meanings in dreams. Just last night, my very cool and not-weird-at-all Roomie told me about a dream she had where she was an elephant. She spent quite a while trying to search for meaning online. Well then. See Mother. It is not only I who quests for meaning.

I get that dreams are our brains processing thoughts from our day…or our minds unwinding – working through the slough of our conscious-self (Google had this to say: Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.^[1] The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, as well as a subject of philosophical and religious interest, throughout recorded history. – Thank you Wikipedia).

While I try not to let my dreams affect my waking life, when something in my REM cycle makes me sit bolt upright at 5am, it’s definitely time to re-asses a situation and figure out what it is that so startled you and hurtled you into consciousness.

In this instance, the dream was about the loss of a relationship that I hold to be very important in my life. I dreamt that an event had already occurred which had ended this bond, and I was powerless to stop the ensuing shit-show. I bumped into the person and all they could do was look at me in disgust and walk away. And I was left with that heart-creating-scar-tissue feeling you get when you feel like you are so sad you might break in half.

For someone who has always been a bit of a control freak, change is difficult (I know it’s ironic considering I love to travel and move around) and change that is out of my control…well I have always struggled with that one. Better to be the one calling “DO THE HOKEY POKEY!!” than the kid on the side who suddenly finds out it’s Hokey Pokey time.

I know that you can’t value yourself by the people in your life, you are a separate entity that works towards being the best version of you you can be (theoretically) but it’s hard not to get that path entwined with the paths of others. You are born into a family grid automatically, intertwining with those around you, you go to school and get mixed up in those friends lives, you fall in and out of love twisting up your journey even more. Those people around you become so important, and I know the quotes about when you are born, you are born alone and when you die, you die alone, but for this brief shining wonderful life on Earth, your People are your measure, they are your community. People often make assumptions about you in regards to the company you keep, so it is not wholly stupid to consider the people around you.

At the end of Year 12 I went on a Grad Trip, and during this trip, I had a slow realization that the people I was with were very different from me. I felt like I didn’t fit in with them, and with all of us headed to different Universities in different parts of the world, I wasn’t sure if we would be friends later in life. When I got back to Hong Kong, and one of my best friends and I got into a HUGE fight about something that had happened during our self-exploratory week away, I basically told her to “Have a nice life.” And I cut her off.

In the past 6 years, I can safely say I’ve thought about that every 6 months or so. I haven’t really spoken to my ex-friend since (apart from bumping into her once or twice) but I always kind of regret it. It’s been more years since High School was over than the years of friendship we actually shared during those confusing adolescent semesters.

But the rapidity with which I closed myself off to her surprised me. I have a stubborn streak it’s true, but I have never considered myself a cold, hard-hearted person, and that is how I treated her at the time. Granted there was A LOT of other shit going on in my life, but I sometimes struggle to wrap my head around how I just DECIDED to break that relationship.

A similar situation arose almost two years ago, but I was on the other side of the friendship being ended. The details aren’t important, but I was very sad. I got caught in a crossfire fight between two friends, and for some reason, was cut off like a dead limb from one of them.

It is painful to be sure, to lose someone so totally that is still alive and actually around, but I think the message that awoke me this morning with sweaty fuddled realization is that perhaps I need to strive to be more independent and less reliant or invested (are those the right words) in the relationships around me. People come and go from your life in a fluid natural journey, and you can’t hold on too tight.

Or maybe I need to stop taking all this cold and flu medication as it’s making me have really weird dreams.

Dunno.

I guess I’ll get up now and go to work.

End Rant

Tell me I’m Pretty

If there is one saving grace to retail (and it’s a stretch to even suggest there is) it is not, as may be expected, the 50% discount on clothes (because it just makes it that much easier to SPEND your hard-earned cash there), for me, it is in fact the customers.

I guess I haven’t been working in customer service long enough to have a horror story about a crazy that walked off the street and into a rage at me because they were having a bad day (although there was a lady a few days ago who yelled at a co-worker of mine when she tried to “return” a pair of pants my store doesn’t carry with the tags snipped off).

I am a people person, a curious writer, and generally a nosy mole, who likes to try and find out what makes people tick. Don’t worry, I have already quizzed all my co-workers about their life stories (and stealthily tried to figure out how they got stuck in retail after having degrees…more out of horrified fascination than anything else…like looking at the blue flame welders use..bad for the senses but impossible to look away) and a part of the selling gig is to try and figure out what the client wants and how to get it.

The shop/chain I work for sells only women’s clothes and accessories and they are kind of corporate, but on the reasonably priced side. The shop is also located in an underground shopping mall on the PATH system (a rabbit warren-like affair that stretches underground through parts of downtown Toronto to prevent people from having to go outside in the freezing cold. It is like an underground city with clothing stores, banks, food courts…waxing places…juice bars…there’s probably a car dealership down there somewhere. I’m not sure why there would be…but I’m sure there is) and most of the customers we get work in the corporate offices stacked on top of us.

The ladies range in age from Intern-types fresh out of Uni, to the older working woman. And while there are customers I have connected with, and those that I haven’t, my favourite age group is the late thirties to mid forties/early fifties. These are women who ACTUALLY listen to what I have to say, ask my opinion, want to open the fitting room door and show me what they got.

Some of these women remind me of my Mum. They are mostly patient and not used to shopping for themselves so they are willing to listen to suggestions. They have money so they aren’t horrified by a sweater that costs $30.

A lot of them have body issues. A lady today who was gorgeous, Indian skin but with a cool British accent, told me she’d recently lost 19 pounds on some German diet I think she called the “Dukan”? She liked a little black corporate dress and she tried on the Small and the XS. She had a petite frame but you know what? She had a bit of a wobbly bit on front.

“My Kids did that”

She told me. And she tried on both sizes, got a belt to try to jazz it up, put a cardigan over it to see…and she just couldn’t sell it to herself. My approach to this crappy job is that I never want to be pushy. I am a natural talker and I’m honest. I am competitive so, I want to do well in any situation, but I REFUSE to lie and act like a simpering idiot. I was straight with her and told her it looked great but that it was a personal preference. I too happened to be wearing a little black corporate number and you know what? I have a jiggle round the middle too. AND I HAVEN’T EVEN HAD KIDS! No excuse.

This lady, who was super nice and interested in my Aussie accent told me that she hadn’t worn form-fitting clothes in a long time. She was getting used to her body again. She didn’t buy the dress, but I think she felt a little bit confident and sexier having tried it on.

Same deal with the lady who came in on Friday and need an after work drinks type shirt for a last-minute reunion at a pub. She grabbed an XL shirt and I made her get a large. She was shocked. I made her try it on and it wasn’t even tight. It was more form-fitting for sure. I told her the truth, that she had a great waist and that she should emphasize it. We chatted for quite a while and when she left, (after buying the shirt) she turned to my manager and said “I hate shopping, but i’ll be back because of her”, and she smiled and waved, even gave me a cheeky wink!

These women, who are still attractive, functioning, smart, hardworking people, come into a shop for 15-20 minutes and talk to me – blah, under functioning, retail-bum, Masters-holding random (who by the way used to dress appallingly), and they can walk away feeling good because somebody told them that something looked good on them?

I want to stand on the street corner stopping random people and tell them they look nice today, or that that colour suits them. If an item of clothing can put a spring back in their step, then maybe retail ain’t so bad.

Anyway, I’ll keep getting up and going back because I need to support myself while I do this internship and figure out WTF I am doing with my life…but if these ladies keep coming back…then maybe I’ll even learn to smile about it…

a bit…

Paris

Love and Lost in Translation

Ever since my first kiss at the age of fourteen, there has been a noticeable trend in the boys I have harassed. To say that they were all Asian would be to be forgetting Rick, my boyfriend of three weeks in Year 10 who was actually Canadian, Adam, who was half, David who was a quarter, Roger who was old-school Hong Kong British and of course, current Boyfriend Jered who is totally Canadian (thank god, says my slightly (and by slightly I mean occasionally and surprisingly) racist 88 year old grandmother who has never made it a secret that she’d like the shade of her great-grandchildren’s skin to be on the white side. – I’m not sure that my Dad has told her she has two homosexual grandsons and that Jer is Canadian AND Jewish, because really…what is she going to do with that information?)

“When I was your age, the Black people had to sit at the back of the Bus!” – My Grandmother, 2005.

Isn’t it surprising that racism and intolerance like that exists outside of people her generation? Although it is not totally forgivable in my  Grandmother (who, it has been pointed out to me, became very wealthy through her business dealings with the Japanese when my Grandfather owned a sporting goods store), she is an old lady who’s field of understanding and acceptance to new ideas has shrunk to the size of those god-awful ‘Current Affairs’ type programs that air in a specific time-slot to terrify little old men and women who go to bed at 6pm.

The idea that one might move to Asia with ones girlfriend (and subsequently wife), was, I’m sure, shocking to my Nana and Dah at the time that my parents did it (in the eighties). To have a new born there, let alone 3 and raise them all there seemed out-of-this-world, I am sure. Until a few years ago when one of my first cousins moved to the UK and my Dad’s cousin and his family moved to Singapore, my five person family unit was really the only one on my dads side that didn’t live in the Western Australian City of Perth.

But my rant today is not about my Grandmother, or the City of Perth (you’re alright Perth…look, you gave us the Wiggles!) but is instead about loving someone from another culture or country and the challenges that one may face.

It’s no great stretch to live in Canada as an Australian. SURE I feel like the popular kid at school because of everyone LOVES my accent (even though mines not so strong – must fake it to win friends) and yeah it IS pretty weird that I live on the opposite side of the world to that cute little island country who’s passport I posses, but really, there are lots of similarities between Aussies and Canucks and that is why they get along so well, and also why 99.5% of the population of Whistler is Aussie. We like you – you like us. It’s win-win.

So it’s weird when people think it’s weird that I live here. One of the first assumptions people make is that I moved here because of a boyfriend. When they find out about Jered, they nod their heads and go “ooooohhhhhh okay.” Like that’s the only reason for globalization and travel…to move your entire life from one side of the world to the next… for love. Hey! I’m not knocking it. One of my best friends is moving here in 7 days from the UK and one of the big factors is the love of her life that she has been long distance dating for two years. No big deal!

Just not my deal.

Don’t get me wrong, having a cool, hilarious boyfriend is a big plus on the Toronto experience. I won’t make your eyes turn to pus and melt by outlining exactly HOW cool and sweet and hilarious and adorable my boyf is, because, that’s just annoying when people do that, and that’s not why you came here. You came here for angry sweaty ranting, and that is what you shall have.

There have certainly been some strange moments between us as a couple. Probably the most surface issue is getting used to each others language and word usage.
J: Garbage
Me: Rubbish
J: Sweater
Me: Jumper
J: Ketchup
Me: Tomato Sauce (which always leads to the debate, “then what do you call Tomato sauce – like for pasta…Me: um…Pasta sauce?)

On these occasions I am left thinking of the scene in ‘Love Actually’ where dorky ‘Colin Frissel’ goes to Wisconsin and meets babes, and they all sit around laughing at each others pronunciation “Table!…oh its the same…”

But there is more to it for P+J than mere lol’s at language. J is Jewish, (as are most of my friends from my summer camp job) and as a result, I have been exposed to, and included in, lots of Jewish customs. I just had my 2nd Rosh Hashanah experience (which by the way – I still had to google to figure out how to spell).

I was TERRIFIED when Jered invited me this time last year. Okay, it was partly the idea that I would ruin the entire religious event by doing something embarrassing like…I don’t know…eating pork? (turns out J is more culturally than religiously Jewish and is actually an atheist and he loves bacon and all that jazz- phewph) and partly because I’d just started dating the guy and was suddenly going to meet his ENTIRE family (cousins, aunts, grandma et al). I spent quite some time researching online about apples and honey and stuff. I bought his Grandma some weird apple tea thing, and I think they thought it was really cute that I was trying.

The most frustrating thing for me over the last year was always feeling like a Class A moron when I didn’t know things that everyone around me just assumed I’d know. I had almost no religion in my life prior to being included in Jewish stuff, (although I did attend a Church of England Private School for four years when we lived in Sydney and had been to church on Easter) I had never been to a funeral before and never celebrated any holidays except for Easter (Chocolate eggs and the Easter Bunny!) Halloween (LOLLIES!) Christmas (PRESENTS AND SANTA!!) and New Years Eve (Booze and fireworks!)

So I had a lot of eye-opening learning experiences, like going to a Sedar (also had to google spelling) at passover and being presented with a plate of herbs and a bit of bone. (Jer..Jer.. do…we eat that stuff?) Or wishing everyone a Merry Christmas once before they all went on vacation…duuuuuurrrrp.

It hasn’t been a struggle, that’s not what I am getting at, but with a relationship where cultural exchange is involved, there is always going to be periods of adjustment, times where patience will be required, times where sensitivity must be employed. There are times where things are so different, you are coming from such different backgrounds of understanding, that the only thing you can do is laugh hysterically and move forward. And then you’ll find all the common ground you share and it will be a wonderment, that two people can grow up in such vastly different settings, on different parts of the planet, and still enjoy the same things.

End Rant

Paris

p.s

follow me on twitter @ohparis