becoming lemonade

Near the beginning of each month, I’m going to try blogging about what pop culture I consumed the previous month. So here’s what I recall being into in January.

Watching

X-Files, because who isn’t? The first two episodes were poor causing me to question just how good this show objectively was. I’m realizing that Duchovny, despite the arty poster of him I had on my wall when I was fourteen (I know, ew), probably isn’t a very good actor. Anderson meanwhile is a brilliant actress but I’m not sure I can watch her anymore without thinking of Hannibal, a show I stopped watching because of what was happening to her character. Also, the conspiracy stuff is very depressing now that I’m an adult who knows more about the world than I did when I was initially obsessed with this show. And yet, when that opening credits plays you cannot wipe the smile off my face if you tried. I’m not a big nostalgia fan and I hate the person I was when I was an X-Files fan, but some part of my brain still loves the glee of those opening credits and the Mulder and Scully adventures they signalled. Plus the third episode is excellent X-Files at its very best. Recommend for: Original X-Files fans.

I finally started watching The 100 and am almost done season one. It’s a good thing I didn’t stop after the opening scene because man that was clunky. I was initially worried the teenaged blond protagonist would be insufferable and give me flashbacks of Revolution’s Charlie *shudder* but Clarke is great, complex and …an artist?! How often do you see protagonists in shows who are badass, morally complex leaders but are also artists. The supporting characters are mostly good too (although I’m not a fan of the evolution of Desmond Kane) and my favourite thing about the show is the vast number of female characters proving that you can take any character and make her female and your fiction will not only work but be awesome. I’m a fan of the meticulous story construction on this show. I’ve heard season two is even better so I can’t wait. Recommend for: Anyone whose not a misogynist.

My enjoyment of You’re the Worst came in just under the wire for my self-imposed deadline for this piece as I started season two on Sunday with my husband. We both loved season one and watched it separately towards the end of last year and I’m hoping we can watch season two together Sunday (Funday) afternoons when we have respite care. The biggest thing I have to say about this show is Gretchen is my hero. And to rank the characters from least worse to most worse I’d have to go 1. Gretchen 2. Edgar 3. Lindsey 4. Jimmy. Jimmy is the real worst, probably because he’s the most “normal.” Recommend for: Modern “adults” who have yet to feel like real adults; people struggling with mental illness and those who love those people.

I’m still watching The Good Wife, although I’m perpetually behind. Alicia or Margulies seem super bored this season and I would say that although Lucca was a fine addition to the show, I’m bored right along with them. And yet, I keep going. I wrote that yesterday and today watched the most recent episode (yay! I am caught up on The Good Wife for once). [Spoiler alert] The scene where Alicia admits her depression to new friend Lucca (although I wish the word “depression” had been used) and Lucca responds perfectly, was brilliant and made me want to go back and re-watch the build up to this point. I always thought the show was about Alicia going from being a good wife to a bad person. But perhaps it’s not about outward destruction but inward destruction, a journey to becoming a broken person not a bad one. Talks of the show ending this season are welcome as I am a fan of shows going out while they’re still watchable *cough* X-Files *cough*. Recommend for: People needing to watch something while they do the laundry or cross stitch.

Listening

The Hamilton soundtrack is again something I’m happy that both my husband and I are really into these days. I turn up the volume on “Wait For It”, an existential song, while he adores “Satisfied” and the Cabinet Battles and basically any song with rapping. I started listening to this months ago and was kind of iffy on it but the more I listen to it, the more I love it. Plus, it made me realize how unique and audacious democracy was at the time of the founding of America giving me a brand new appreciation for the country’s history. Recommend for: History fans, hip hop fans, musical theatre fans and anyone who likes things that are really truly dorky-awesome.

You’re Never Weird on the Internet by Felicia Day. I actually gave up on listening to this one. As much as I appreciated Felicia Day’s delivery, I found this boring. I’ll probably get back to it one day and finish those last 2 hours of listening. Recommend for: Nerdy normals.

Let’s Pretend this Never Happened by Jenny Lawson. I initially bought her second book to listen to and loved it so immediately that I stopped and went back to listen to her first book. Lawson’s writer’s voice is one of the most relatable I have yet to encounter. I really do love listening to people talk about their lives in audiobook memoirs and while most of the events of her life and mine (with one major exception) are very different, I find her so reassuring. Recommend for: Anyone with a mental illness or loves someone with a mental illness.

Reading

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. It will likely take me all year to read this behemoth of a book, which I downloaded onto my kindle. I’m reading it slowly and am just starting to get a handle of the four main characters. I especially have enjoyed the descriptions of their lives and the work they do. One passage about how a character photographed his friends was so lovely it inspired me to get back to that goal of photographing the people in my life.

A note on movies

We are a perspective deficient society. We complain profusely about traffic and our Starbucks baristas and the drops of rain. We have become fond of calling things “The Worst” and generally hyperbolizing everything that goes wrong. It’s simply impossible to keep the daily cruelties of life in perspective, and be in fact grateful for them.

If you’re complaining about the mundane crap in your life, then you have a pretty good life. But you don’t realize it. And that’s kind of tragic.

As a person who has suffered from depression, I have had a perspective disorder for my entire life. People have constantly in my life tried to comfort me with “well at least you have your physical health/you’re not homeless/you don’t live in a war torn country/etc.” They try to cure my depression by telling me my life isn’t that bad. And to be fair most of my life has been pretty great. But having depression prevents you from seeing the greatness in your life (and yourself). People ask you what you’re depressed about and you hate the question because there is no answer to it. Depression is a huge betrayal the brain enacts on you because it causes you to be so deeply affected by…nothing. Nothing other than an imbalance in brain chemistry.

We live in a depressed society. Because I’ve had depression, I’ve failed to have perspective on life even more so than the average bear. It wasn’t until life itself threw some real tragedy at me that I was able to really see through the depression and see life for what it is. I’ve learned that real complete and global change in your life can come instantaneously. I’ve learned that my ultimate “the worst” is my ongoing search for an urn for my daughter’s ashes. Yes, indeed, baby urns and by extension baby coffins and baby funerals are THE WORST. I’ve also learned that complaining about the little things in life reveals your privilege. Because it is a complete privilege to have a life so good that you even care about the little complaints. Because for most, when the real tragedy hits, second-term miscarriage, SIDS, cancer that has spread throughout the body and brain, you don’t have the emotional energy to care about the Starbucks barista screwing up your order.

But you do have the energy to care about the heart that barista drew beside your accurately spelled name. Because on the flip side of perspective is that during tragedy, the little kindnesses and moments of joy mean more than the big things in good times. I’ve spent the day in Hall H at SDCC on a Saturday. For a pop culture nerd, that’s the pinnacle of joy and indeed that room was electric with happy nerd energy. I’ve met many of my idols. I’ve had my dream wedding to my dream guy. I’ve had the big joys in life. But when the nurse asks you if you would like some toast at 4am, a couple hours after you’ve given birth to and held your dead daughter’s body, and she brings you the most perfect toast you’ve ever had complete with jam, peanut butter, juice and milk, it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you; when the family member who you’ve accompanied to the appointment in which she will learn what the treatment for her cancer will be reaches out and rubs your back while you’re both waiting for the doctor and says “Oh nothing. I just want to say thank you;” when your Chinese grandma-in-law takes joy in carefully flipping through your cookbook to marvel at the photos; when your baby niece asks you to hold and hug her for the first time: these are the ultimate joys in life. They crush those big moments.

This is a piece about a cliche. But you really need to experience true life, true tragedy, true hardship and the true joys, and really let yourself experience it, to learn that cliche or not, it’s the truth that perspective matters.

So the next time you complain about the traffic, consider the lives of the people, and their loved ones, who were in the car crash that caused your traffic headache. Next time you complain about the rain, consider the hurricanes that have taken whole families with them. Next time you get mad at your barista, consider that she may be having a bad day too.

Hey SDCC goers! This will be my fourth SDCC in a row and although I'm not as seasoned as others, I thought I'd share my preparation to do list and packing list in case it helps anyone out.

My to do list today is pretty simple: -load TV onto my iPad for watching on the plane/while waiting in line. (For others, this may include loading comics onto your tablet.) -charge all the things! (For some this may include backing up all the things.) -Print out my badge bar code and all tickets to extra events such as Nerd HQ and Nerdist. -put together a PDF with pics of my shopping list to share with friends going in case anyone else can grab an item for me.

As for my packing list it includes: -baby wipes -hand sanitizer -toiletries and deodorant(!!) -granola bars -tea and a travel mug -sharpies -extra sharpies -comics and magazines for signing -my small camera -my DSLR and extra zoom lens -my phone and iPad -my passport -my medication -advil and tylenol -all the chargers -sweaters for inside where it's air conditioned -a portable battery charger for my phone (and anyone else's) -folding chair -poncho in case of rain -sunglasses and sunscreen -tickets and badge barcode print out -cash, credit and wallet -stylus for signing Square interactions -earbuds -cough drops -poster tube -backpack -shopping list and schedule -extra comfy worn in shoes -bandaids for possible blisters -all of my Orphan Black t-shirts (I will, for the second year in a row, be representing my favourite show exclusively) 

I have a friend who likes to sample a bit of everything in life. Her desire to try everything is an admirable one, but it irked me when it came to television. She said she liked to see a few episodes of all the notable shows. At first my completionist self was appalled. You either watch all of a show or nothing at all. I was worried her surveyor ways were preventing her from experiencing anything in depth if she was too focused on breadth.

Then I went to the ATX Television Festival and learned that soon there will be 407 scripted shows on television and streaming. Depth is dying. Breadth is reigning. There is simply too much television that I am missing out on for me to continue as a completionist.

If I want to continue to be a TV geek as I am proud to call myself, I have to keep up. For someone devoted to the medium, I actually watch very little television. Part of that is that the time commitment of a new TV show is starting to scare me. I like my largely TV-less life of writing, socializing, reading and internet-ing right now.

My completionist self had a revelation: I don’t have to complete every TV show I watch. I don’t even have to complete the ones I only sort of like or the ones the critics love that I feel obligated to watch. I like the knowing that comes from being familiar enough with a show to join the conversation or read some criticism of it but I don’t need to be an expert. It’s not all or nothing. I’m simply falling too far behind.

I’ve seen the first season of The Americans and it’s not for me, but I’ve seen enough to feel familiarity with it enough to not feel like I’m missing out. I’m skipping the dreaded FOMO. I’ve also watched two and a half seasons of Mad Men, enough that I could get something out of watching the finale while following Twitter and feel a part of that major television cultural moment.

So I have a new television quest: watch a bit of every notable show, an episode or two, then only continue them if I can’t stop watching. My short-term list includes The Leftovers (I’ve seen the first episode and liked it enough to keep going), The 100, Outlander and Person of Interest. My long-term list is, well, longer. Now of course the truth of TV is that it often takes several episodes or even a full season for it to hit its stride, for it to become itself. I will keep that in mind for shows that don’t immediately grab me.

This new mission also gives me permission to not go back and return to shows I watched a few episodes of and don’t feel very compelled to return to. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Friday Night Lights are ones that come to mind. So if I watch a few episodes of a show and find a hard time returning to them, they go to the bottom of the list.

Too often we are obsessed with caring or not caring about what other people think of us. Some people care too much, some people care not at all. You are considered confident to not care about what others think of you. This is either a selfish or selfless thing. To not care, is to be selfless and purely confident in the self-image. So yeah, I kind of applaud those who don’t care whether others think they are rude or kind as long as they have their own self-image set. I care too much what others think so I am envious of that confidence.

But the not caring what others think has always struck me as problematic. I could never put my finger on it until I saw this article. I agree that it doesn’t matter what others think of you. But it does matter how you make others feel.

Whether we like it or not we are fundamentally social animals forced by biology to live in a community. What others think of us concerns the self. What others feel because of us and our actions concerns the other person. I believe strongly in kindness and empathy for all. “Kindness can change the world” is a slogan on on of my favourite shirts I bought almost a decade ago and has been my philosophy on Facebook since I opened my account.

I believe you should care how you make people feel with your actions and words. It matters not what they think of you but it matters if you have hurt them, helped them or simply made them feel emotions, good or bad. Being conscious of what others think of you matters not. But being aware of how you make others feel will certainly aid not only your relationships, show kindness to others and ultimately make this blue dot a better place to be stuck on. If you say something and that person reacts with hurt, you are just as responsible for that as if you do something and they react with gratitude and happiness. You can’t take credit for one and not credit for the other. Yes, you have every right to say what you want, but you cannot dictate how others react. If you have freedom of speech, the other person has and equal freedom to react to that speech.

I also don’t believe in the saying going around the internet that basically amounts to “say what you want to say” and “those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” Everyone matters. There is no division there. And be mindful of what you say because you don’t have a license to hurt others of any stripe. Yes, be yourself and the people who matter most will love you for it. But the same division between being yourself and saying what you want to say is similar to that of the thinking vs. feeling division. Being yourself ultimately concerns only you, but your actions concern others.

So check yourself, tune in to how you make others feel. You can’t be responsible for everyone, especially those strangers you pass in life that you’ll never see again. But do your damndest to ensure that you make others feel good because of you.

The internet, much like the universe and humanity itself, is a terrible, horrible, wonderful thing. In this dawning age of trolls, where the psychopaths are the loudest, the internet, once lauded as the great equalizer and educator, has become maligned. I am here not to deny that the internet can be a horrible thing but to say that it is also an ethereal “place” of real beauty. We can focus on the positive of the internet without ignoring the work to find solutions to eradicate or at least minimize the negative.

Now of course this is anecdotal, but I want to tell you the stories of two friendships as examples of the lovely side of the internet.

First is the story of my friendship with A. A long-time friend of my husband’s, I barely knew her before she moved away from my city. Before the internet, this relationship likely would have been quashed by the distance and the hand-scrawled letters that horses would have delivered to each other before 1992. In the nine or so years that we have lived in different places, we have seen each other maybe 3 or 4 times on trips to each other’s home cities. Yet in that time, we have become great friends. When I met her at the airport a few weeks ago to accompany her back to my place where she’d be staying with us for a week, it was like we had seen each other every day, not a year before. It was immediately easy, which is odd for my social anxiety-riddled self. Why was it so easy? The internet.

Over the course of these many years, we have come to understand each other because of our constant communication via social media. We keep up with each other’s lives through posts and connect through commonality and comments on each other’s posts. Despite spending so little time with her in person, I feel that she understands me better than most people I know. She has become an incredibly valued friend. The Internet did that for me.

A few years ago a different friend I see often told me about a great TV critic she admires. I started following him on Twitter and noticed he tweeted a lot about his wife L. I started following her. She was open about things that I too struggled with. So one day I thanked her on Twitter for being so open, telling her it helped me feel less alone. Soon after she followed me back and over the course of 2 years we have found a lot in common between us. Last year, after tweeting back and forth with each other for over a year, I met her at an event we both attended. She was instantly easy to talk to in person, breaking down those social anxiety and introversion barriers. I could have talked to her for hours. It felt like we had so much to talk about. When the annual event was coming up again this year, I hoped she would be attending and tweeted at her to ask if we could get together. She responded “definitely” and took the time out of her very busy schedule to have coffee with me for 2 hours. The fact that she took that time out of her busy schedule to spend with me made me feel very honoured and special. Again, talking to her was unbelievably easy and I was so sad that the conversation had to inevitably end. She’s the most effortlessly kind person I have ever met and probably the bravest. The only reason I met her is because of the internet.

I consider both women to be two of the brightest lights in my life and my friendships with both are entirely due to the internet. And I know I am not alone. We hear about the trolls, but we hear less about the even greater number of friendships being founded and fostered because of the internet, because of email, texting, social media, and video chatting.

I wasn’t too keen on this season of So You Think You Can Dance. Firing Mary Murphy was not a smart move and her replacements are not up to her standards of charm, coherence and knowledge. Plus the new “Stage vs. Street” motif is a little concerning in how it will really work. The show is a frankenstein version of its hey day, the producers perpetually changing it to resurrect ratings and these changes keep causing a loss in viewers. I only reluctantly was tuning in this year.

Until the opening of the second auditions episode which took place in Detroit. The “first audition of the day” was a fantastic and truly unique “jazz” (really contemporary) dancer named Christine Shepherd. She woke me up to the reality that no matter what state this show is in, it needs to be on the air to showcase incredible artists like her.

Ann Patchett

In Game of Thrones, a person sometimes must pick a champion, someone to fight for them in battle. Recently this made me wonder, who would I choose to be my champion, right now in life, if it came to a modern battle of words? Who has the abilities to fight in more ways than one? But more importantly, who would I trust to defend me against attack until the defence was done? Only one person comes to mind really and her name is Andrea Warner. Why? While she is non-violent, I don’t know anyone who I would trust more with both sword and pen; she could defeat anyone in verbal combat if she had to, but only if she had to. The evidence for her will? She speaks her mind with care and intense empathy like no other I’ve met. She’s driven and gets the job, every job, done. She’s passionate in her beliefs, crafts and about the people she loves, a fierce fighter for good. I learn things every time I interact with her, about life, being a woman and even about being myself. Yet she herself is very open to learning. She has a rather large set of people in her orbit precisely because she attracts people to her with her honesty, kindness and genuine enthusiasm for people and what they create (she likes animals and flowers too, even though she’s allergic to both!). I’m probably one of a very many people who consider her my best friend. She’s just that good of a person. 

The evidence for her ability with a pen? Well it’s here (and elsewhere, as she is a prolific writer, but mostly, here). Andrea has written a book--We Oughta Know: How Four Women Ruled the '90s and Changed Canadian Music--and what a book it will be. She was tasked with writing about the four women who have sold the most records in Canada: Sarah McLachlan, Shania Twain, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. What she has written is a stunning collection of essays about these four women, and Andrea’s relationship with their images and music, in the broader context of the music industry, music journalism and culture as a whole. If you were alive in the nineties and paid attention to North American music, then you know who these women are and likely had/have an opinion of them. If you were a teenaged girl at the time, perhaps, like me, these women were crucial to your identity. Either way, these women are essential to Canadian and North American art. Andrea has written a book about my generation’s formative years. And now we’re all old enough and wise enough to understand, much as she writes, what was going on back then, really. As music was unrestricted for me as a teenager, it was essential to my growing sense of self. Regardless of my relationship with the author, I’ve been waiting 20 years to read this book. I expect you have as well, whether you were a teenaged girl in the 90s, or anyone. 

Here’s the full blurb for the book from Eternal Cavalier Press: 

“Between 1993 and 1997 Alanis Morissette, Shania Twain, Sarah McLachlan, and Céline Dion defied the odds to become some of the best-selling artists Canada has ever produced. From melodramatic romantic pop to gutsy, angst-driven alternative rock, these women not only changed the world of music and transformed the pop culture landscape but impacted their listeners on an alarmingly personal level. As a teenager, Andrea Warner divided the four women into two camps: Morissette and McLachlan struck an empowering chord within her but Dion and Twain seemed detrimental to the feminist she was becoming. Through personal, heartwarming, challenging, and exhilarating essays, Warner re-evaluates the impact of these women on her life as a teenager growing up in East Vancouver, the climate in which they succeeded, and their legacies. Equal parts music criticism, cultural analysis, and coming-of-age memoir, We Oughta Know chronicles the careers of Alanis Morissette, Shania Twain, Sarah McLachlan, and Céline Dion with detailed research, intriguing wit, and razor-sharp criticism. It invites us to think deeply about the pop landscape we often take for granted, asking us to confront our own biases and what we assume to be simply good taste. We Oughta Know is a powerful debut from one of the strongest young voices in music journalism and is a must-read for anyone who thinks they already know their stance on the construction of celebrity, media, society, and gender politics.”

Here are two excerpts and a review for the book:

First Excerpt from CBC Music.

Second Excerpt from Megaphone.

First Review from Lithium Magazine.

And here is the link to pre-order this incredible work!

"These characters were creatures of an America that believed itself a unilateral actor by necessity — even if so many of these characters were created before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The shows of the 2000s are deeply scarred by those events, by the idea that sometimes, it’s more important to be the person who takes action, instead of the person who considers all available options and emotions.... The 2010s empathy-driven series, on the other hand, see the search for human connection as the foremost goal anyone should pursue." - Todd VanDerWerff, Vox.com

“But somewhere along the way, they must have forgotten to hit the subvert button.” - Dustin Rowles, Pajiba