The One with the Caffeine Addiction

Remember back when you just COULDN'T wait until you were a beautiful, (mostly) financially independent, grown person who spent the bulk of your time at a coffee shop hanging out with your friends? And no one else was EVER on YOUR couch!

I am waiting for that moment to materialize. I feel like I'm still stuck in the flashback scenes. Somewhere between fat Monica and pre-nose job Rachel.

What has instead materialized is, perhaps the entire opposite: an endless hell of assignments, slogged through with my friends, which drive an ever increasing need for coffee. People always joke about the diligent and overworked law student who relies on coffee when working and booze the moment they're done. Well, I'm never "done." And so, it would seem, I'm perpetually caffeinated.

I have been feeling under the weather this week. God knows I couldn't get through winter having only been hospitalized with the mumps. Regardless of fate's cruel plans for me, I'm sick now. Sore throat and cough. So I switched to green tea to sooth what ails me, as they say. I forgot, however, that my green tea is decaf. I had this brilliant idea that I would drink tea before bed instead of wine (ok, sue me, I lied about never being done), and so opted for decaf.

How did I remember this? Oh, after I failed to get through two consecutive days without a splitting headache.

This shit's real guys. Every time you watched Joey and Chandler goof around with Rachel at Central Perk, you were basically watching crack addicts hit the pipe to avoid the unsightly shakes and sweats of withdrawal. Without Central Perk, you'd basically have been watching Walk the Line.

If no one else is going to say it...

I'm just going to put it out there. It was beautiful and all, but Jennifer Lawrence's Oscar dress looked kind of like a very pale pink vagina.

Just.

Saying.

SheWolves and HeWolves: a gendered sweater debacle

I have a friend named Jon Silver, and he owns a remarkable wolf sweater. As a prank - albeit, not a very creative one - I contrived with my friend Anna and some friends of his to apprehend this sweater and get as many people as possible in our law school class to wear it. We take great solace in small pleasures in law school.

Jon's friend Stefan was first to show off the sweater. He looked truly dashing. I grabbed it from him the next day. The difference in response to our respective donning of the trademark Jon Silver apparel was remarkable.

Stefan, who I will grant is a little more reserved and low profile than I am in the class, received little harassment. A couple of people in the immediate area asked if he and Jon had had a slumber party, pondered who would be the big spoon, and moved on. The facebook reaction was similarly muted - a comment that Stefan was a mere imposter was probably the most heated of the luke warm commentary.

I mean, that may not seem like a mild-mannered thumbs up, but trust me, he's a reserved guy.

When I donned the sweater the next day, however, the tone of the dialogue changed. As did the venue. While Stefan was teased mostly to his face and a little bit on the comments section of his facebook picture, the questioning of why I had Jon Silver's sweater was conducted in the class' facebook group. For those unfamiliar with "facebook," that is the groups that sends an alert to every member whenever anyone posts something. So even uninterested parties, so long as they were in our class and in the facebook group, read the inquiry "Ok I'm just going to go ahead and ask...Sydney Robyn, isn't that John [sic] Silver's shirt? LOL It getting passed around now?"

The asking of the question wasn't necessarily groundless: it was certainly fair for there to be some curiosity. That was the point, really. And the question wasn't itself suggestive (though this individual didn't ask me about the sweater - he called me out in front of the class). The comments that accrued, before I had even noticed the initial post, took on a staggering amount of innuendo, however. For your unadulterated perusal:

 As the astute Caroline Alexa noted, no one insinuated that Jon had slept with Stefan. Weird, right?

I do not want to give the impression that I am brooding over this - I really like all the people involved, and I assume that this went in the direction it did under the belief that I can take a joke. I do not want to betray that impression - I LOVE comedy. It's the best. Who's on first? Exactly! etc, etc.

I was, however, struck that highly educated, socially aware individuals, (mostly) unbeknownst to themselves, engaged in exactly the sort of dialogue that illustrates why women are not taken seriously in jobs of equal standing compared with their male co-workers. Why women make less money than men. Still. For equal work. Why there is still the widespread belief that many sexual assault accusations are groundless and stemming from a woman's regret. A pervasive notion of women as sexual beings whose interactions with men are always, first and foremost, sexual. None of the men engaged in this dialogue are ok with any of these pervasive realities. But the tone set by these comments appears to condone it nonetheless. It is for exactly this reason we need to be aware of what realities comedy points to. Not to mention, how much funnier would this whole thing have been if it had been directed at Stefan, and not me? SO much funnier.

Jon Silver is a babe, but I just want to wear his sweatshirt. And so do all these people!

So I guess what I'm saying is that anyone can wear a wolf sweater, guys.
Let's keep sex jokes to private facebook threads.

Oh, and the Revolution. It's coming.

Devoted

I received the most interesting compliment today.

Despite of, or probably in response to, my rather ardent (and apparently off-putting) feminist values, an acquaintance of mine commented, "Sydney, you're going to be the best and most traditional housewife and mother. I can already see it."

I shrugged and rolled my eyes. I don't particularly plan on having children, but that's not really a discussion or debate to involve other people in, so I just let the comment slide as a bit of good spirited teasing.

Later that day, when I mentioned how hilarious I thought the comment was, he clarified;

"I don't actually think that you will or will not have kids or anything. I just get the impression from you that you're a very devoted person. That once you love someone, a friend or a guy, that you would be wholly devoted to them."

I thought that was a staggering thought. Devoted.

I cannot remember the last time I received such a phenomenal compliment. It nearly left me in tears. I could not be happier to think that anyone could walk away from fleeting encounters with such an impression.

 "Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery. Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice. The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of love." - Morihei Ueshiba

Could I Go Veg?

I have been seriously considering and contemplating a question that has nagged at the corner of my mind as of late:

Could I become a vegetarian?

Anyone who knows me, is likely to laugh at this suggestion. I am from Calgary, where saying you are a vegetarian is likely to stir as much mingled derision and baffled curiosity as a proclamation that you practice polygamy. 

My family are meat eaters; our family dinners were the entirely typical meat/starch/vegetable composition. When my family went to a vegetarian restaurant when we were on vacation, my father, a grown man, pouted and sulked the entire time.

I dated a vegetarian. For almost three years. An at-home vegan, in fact (most of the time). And never once while we were together did I even consider embracing a vegetarian diet. Every time we went out, I revelled in the opportunity to order meat. An environmentalist, he would tell me about how much more environmentally sustainable it is to produce a pound of vegetables than it is to produce a pound of meat. The carbon footprint of a cheeseburger has been well documented. And the North American dependence on meat is a recent development that points more to a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses, right to indulgence mentality than any physiological need for meat protein. 

I should add (you're welcome, Chopper) that he is very fit. He lives an active lifestyle, he played and coaches rugby, he does crossfit. He was not anemic or pale or scrawny. 

Only once did I witness him yell at someone that he doesn't eat animals.

I knew all this, and yet...

I think I will openly chalk this one up to stubbornness. I was not prepared to abandon something I honestly liked, just because someone, and even someone I loved and respected very much, thought I should. The numbers didn't matter as much as "staying true to myself" did. And don't get me wrong, I think that is a very important thing in a relationship, and to his credit, John never got on my case about vegetarianism. I'm simply realizing more and more that the things I had been rejecting may have been entirely true to my priorities and sensibilities. The older I get the more I realize who I've been is not necessarily who I am. Not in a fluffy, self-help, fit-spo kind of way - in the sense that I have been (and I would guess many people are), in a lot of ways, the product of my parents. But as I form my own opinions and priorities and watch those diverge ever so slightly from the priorities of my family, making unique decisions about what course to take my life feels less like compromising some core sense of self.

But the question remains; could I become a vegetarian?

I don't think so. I think that part of the self I craft, not wholly distinct from my family, is one who is passionate about food. There is great vegetarian food, but most foodies will tell you that life without chicken stock is not much of a life at all.

But I had been thinking about cutting down on meat and animal products significantly. And why does it have to be one or the other? And while this very thought had been ruminating in my mind I stumbled across this TED Talk...


It's a post-modern world - fuck binaries. So while "no meat" may not be something I can reconcile myself with, "less meat" certainly is. And that's not nothing.

# 5: The Right Foot

I officially find myself tucked back, safe and snug in Toronto. Which I was really looking forward to, until I realized how utterly unprepared I was, mind and body, to return to the immense workload and intense pressure of law school. I'm jetlagged - a mere two hours behind, but what a difference that makes when you aspire to wake up at 6:30 - and both my mind and body are still staunchly in hibernation mode. I came home after class yesterday, utterly at a loss as to what I should do: I had been away long enough to forget the absolute necessity of getting myself to the library, lest I migrate my studying from my desk to my bed, and from there from consciousness to subunconsciousness.

So my plan of attack is as follows:

Take it one step at a time, and start your day on the right foot

"Thanks for that illuminating platitude," I'm sure you're thinking. It's really just a two-fold mindset. I think that, first, it's important to set fair expectations for yourself. For me, this means not beating myself about the fact that I haven't made it to my morning gym dates. My first step is to get my sleeping schedule adjusted, and forcing myself to run a day on 5 hours of sleep just does not strike me as the most effective or pleasant way to accomplish that. I could set myself an ambitious and unrealistic To Do list, and then just feel ashamed when it doesn't get completed, or I can put down some priorities, and do them well.

The second part of this mantra, is simply to make sure that I start my day with choices that give me positive energy throughout the day. Just because I'm stressed about being back at school does not mean that I should roll out of bed, throw on whatever, and drag myself to the library. I think a key to my personal sanity is my morning routine. When I start my day by either going to the gym or having a healthy breakfast, I just feel better prepared for the rest of my day. Making those first few choices to take care of yourself just makes you feel empowered to take on the day. Today, for me that means...

More on that monstrosity in future.

So start your day right, and realize your own initial limitations.

Drool

I don't often find myself revisiting a blog to stare lustfully at any given garment, but Caroline's Mode has had me doing just that with this dip dyed leather jacket by the UK leather aficionados, Muubaa. I hadn't heard of the design house before, but after painstakingly perusing their website (and drool-worthy blog), I have swiftly fallen in love. I am stuck in the uncomfortable position of wanting to reduce my use of animal products (I recently watched Vegucation and it's been resonating with me ever since) while my appreciation, and fashion's innovative utilization, of leather deepens and expands. There is something about the investment in leather that feels so adult, a commitment to a style, to a statement, to a piece - I love it. As I feel myself approaching other things that smack of adulthood - a profession, an income, a "home" - leather seems to be a silver lining.

The price tag is, of course, around 600$, so until the pay cheque I anticipate comes with adulthood materializes, this gorgeous jacket will stay snuggly in my dreams.