Girl-ish

The first band I ever really loved was a band called Placebo.

The 10 Worst Films I Ever Paid Actual Money to Watch in an Actual Theatre

Please note: This list is not a complete rundown of every terrible movie I have ever seen in a theatre. All bad films are not created equal, and some are downright delightful. For example, I paid real live human dollars to see The Scorpion King, and while that film is undeniably bad, it revels in its own ridiculousness so cheerfully that I love it anyway. (The fact that it stars The Rock, one of the most effortlessly charming human beings ever to live on this our planet Earth, is also helpful.) The films listed here are terrible, but not terrible in the same way as a film like, say, The Room, a movie so joyously bad it has its own kind of special magic. These films are terrible in the way that eating a poorly prepared hamburger is terrible—they are unpleasant, unsatisfying, and make me feel sad that I have wasted my money.*

Some Brief Notes to Self

At least one thing you really, really love right now is going to turn out to be total crap. Remember Garden State? Remember how deeply and unreasonably you loved Garden State? Remember when you rewatched Garden State as an adult instead of a Teen With Feelings and realized it was sentimental claptrap? That will happen again. Accept this, and try not to let it discourage you from loving things as deeply and unreasonably as you can.

Looking up your exes on Facebook is never the merry romp you think it’ll be.

Assortment

I am four years old. My age is a thing that I am quick to tell people, even strangers; it is one item on a long list of facts that make up who I am. For example:

I have one sister, who is five, not four.

We live with my mother, who is older than four or five. We also live with my father, but only sometimes.

I am afraid of wolves and crocodiles and the alien from E.T., although I feel very guilty about this because I know that E.T. is a good alien and he can’t help looking like a scary monster.

I like apples and cheese slices and Michael Jackson.

I looked at the sun during an eclipse, even though my mother told me not to.

I have a best friend, and she is the prettiest girl I have ever seen. We play a lot of games, but one of my favourites is when we pretend to be Jasmine and Aladdin, using a couch cushion as a flying carpet. My best friend is always Jasmine, and I am always Aladdin, and I protect her from evil genies and sorcerers and assorted other villains, some of which I have liberally stolen from unrelated children’s media, such as Biker Mice From Mars.

I am tall enough to reach the counter now, but not tall enough to open the cupboard above it.

The 20 Best Books I Read in 2016

I initially wanted to write this post about all the books I read and loved this year. Then I looked at the list of what I’d read and was like “yeah, no.” I managed to pare it down to twenty. Here they are!

Some Problems I Have with Women’s Clothing

During my late teens and early twenties, I wore men’s clothing almost exclusively. There were a few reasons for this. One was that I had a lot of Complicated Gender Stuff happening at the time. Another reason, and one more relevant to the post at hand, is that women’s clothes are the absolute fucking worst. They are expensive. They are uncomfortable. They are all too often emblazoned with age-inappropriate Disney characters. None of these things were qualities I looked for in clothing—I liked to be cheap, comfy, and Disney-free. As a result, I stuck to oversized T-shirts and baggy jeans for as long as I could.

I wear women’s clothing now, but I still think that most of it is the absolute fucking worst. Here’s why.

How to Friend

It is a truth universally acknowledged that making friends as an adult is really, really hard. As a child you could just ask someone outright if they wanted to be friends with you, and you could make your selection based on who wore the coolest backpack. Adults cannot do this, because they rarely wear cool backpacks, and because it is embarrassing. In fact, making friends as an adult is an inherently embarrassing task, and should be strenuously avoided if possible.

Alas, sometimes forming adult friendships is a necessity. The following post contains a series of helpful hints, tricks, and tips for when food, cats, and binge watching media content are no longer enough.

Weird Things I Have Cried About in My Life

I was really hungry and couldn’t properly assemble a Walmart futon.

Well, Shit

On the day after my 16th birthday, George W. Bush was voted in for a second term. I remember watching the poll results on a school computer and panicking, thinking that this couldn’t be happening, people couldn’t be this stupid again.

But, of course, they were.

I went to bed last night fairly sure that I would not wake up to a world where Donald Trump was President, that divisiveness and bigotry wouldn’t win the day.

But, of course, they did.

I’m Canadian. A lot of the decisions that Trump makes will not directly affect me. But they will directly affect the lives of people of colour, of women, of queer and trans people, and of immigrants. A man whose platform was built on the promise of a wall. A man who has been accused of multiple accounts of sexual assault. A man whose speeches were nothing but bluster, racism, and white noise. That man is going to be the leader of the free world.

That man was chosen. People listened to him and decided that he was the one they wanted.

That’s the world we live in.

And I really have nothing left in me to say.

Ode to Difficult Library Patrons

Most library patrons are delightful. A few are not. Here is a song for those few, to be sung to the tune of “Ode to Joy.”