I Can Explain... Everything Else

Personally, it’s been one hell of a week. On Monday, March 9, I was offered a job in Toronto as a Coordinator for the MS Society, which starts Wednesday, March 18. So this entire week has been a jumble of goodbyes, talks, and preparations. It’s been a roller coaster ride to say the least. To save some time, and to put everything into perspective, this week’s I Can Explain is a little different. Usually I choose one topic and delve into its history and significance. But this week, I’ve selected several quotes from my Facebook wall in which... I can explain... everything else:

¨ On Success: You’re not locked out unless you’re trying to get in.

¨ On Glee: The band on Glee is called New Directions... is it supposed to sound like Nude Erections?

¨ On his relationships: I did a four year BA and dated a girl for 4 years. Then I did a one year MA and saw a girl for 10 months... based on this pattern, if I ever want to get married, I may have to become a professor!

¨ On Casablanca: People often debate why Ingrid Bergman chose Paul Henreid over Humphry Bogart. I kind of felt like Ingrid played a wishy washy jerk that leads both men on and they deserved better. So I liked the ending. Bogart puts her on the plane and then hangs out with his buddy.

¨ On nudists: Can nudists be strippers? These are the things I think about...

¨ On hobbies: In an interview with Esquire, Robert Duvall said: "A young actor once asked me, ‘What do you do between jobs?’ I said, Hobbies, hobbies, and more hobbies. It keeps you off dope." I think we all have those days where we just need to keep going.

¨ On teeth whitener: I tried teeth whitening strips today and I can only assume they taste about the same as the drain in a male locker room... funky.

¨ On passion: It’s kind of like love. It has no purpose. It has no reason. It can not be explained. You can not tell what it is or describe it in detail. All you know is the fact that without it your life would be a little emptier and that with it your life is complete.

¨ On difficulties: Life’s crap comes in piles.

¨ On blood donation: I donated a pint of blood in less than 6 minutes. I think if I was shot, I’d squirt like I was in a Quintin Tarintino movie.

¨ On the election: On election day, I was running a polling station. My favourite elector was a little old woman in a wheelchair. She took her ballot, shrugged, and said, “I guess its time to go with ‘eeiney meeny miney mo!’”

¨ On palm reading: I had my palm read yesterday and was told my love line is very short, my wealth line is very faint, and my friendship line was wide and shallow (suggesting I’d have a lot of friends, but would never really let them in). Let’s hope palm reading is wrong.

¨ On relaxation: I may be a child, but I’m going to spend my Tuesday evening with a rootbeer float in a bubble bath while listening to raunchy Kevin smith humour.

Check back in two weeks for more I Can Explain!

I Can Explain... Coco’s Beard

We had quite a couple of weeks: Prince William, the likely-future king of Britain and its Commonwealth, married Catherine Middleton; Osama Bin Laden was caught, shot, and buried at sea; Canadians voted into power a majority Conservative government; and the Philadelphia Flyers and Montreal Canadians were both eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs disappointing all the women in my life. Yet I have nothing to say... no wisdom to impart or original viewpoints to unveil... on any of these subjects. So today, I’ve decided that... I can explain... Conan O’Brien’s beard.

Conan O’Brien is the old host of The Tonight Show. This ginger man, who is on occasion affectionately known as Coco, grew his wiry, red face-cover during the 2007 writer’s strike as a sign of solidarity with the Writer’s Guild. He shaved it soon after the strike ended, but let it grow out during off season. Then the Leno/O’Brien drama happened and Conan lost his show and the spotlight on January 22, 2010. As a way to sort of reclaim his identity, he re-grew the beard and started his comedic The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour.

During a 60 Minutes appearance, he joked, “Okay. So I lost The Tonight Show, but I'll show them -- I'll stop shaving.”

Conan had the beard for nearly 15 months. Even after being picked up to host his own show called Conan on TBS, he kept the beard and it became one of his staples. That is, until Will Farrell got involved. Farrell, in partnership with the show, started to send in video clips in which he angrily describes the beard as a “big red mistake.” He threatened to rectify this mistake by coming onto the show and shaving off. While it was all a big marketing ploy, it became quite an amusing beard versus Farrell rivalry.

On the May 2, 2011 show, Conan pre-empted the Farrell shaving by describing his children’s reaction to their father’s forthcoming shaved appearance. He told them, “The man from Elf is coming to take daddy’s beard.” Their reactions were divided.

Conan’s son simply replied, “Things come, things go.”

His daughter, on the other hand, began to cry and hugged him tightly. “Your beard is part of you. If you take away part of you, you won’t be you anymore,” she explained through her tears. (I can relate. My father, who has had a beard for nearly my entire life, shaved his one summer when I was a toddler. I cried for hours because there was a strange man in our house.)

After a commercial break, Will Farrell arrived with particularly short hair himself. He told Conan that he wanted to attack his face, and sported a razor blade which he stared at longingly for the majority of the interview.

“There is nothing going on in this country other than the fervour... to shave that beard,” he exclaimed at one point in the interview.

After another commercial, they rolled out a platform with what appeared to be a barber’s salon, complete with 1970’s Playboys and combs in blue water. Farrell pulled out his shaver named Excali-beard, which he said “ran on pure righteousness.” The shaving itself was incredibly awkward and looked quite painful. Afterwards, Farrell observed, “I made a terrible mistake.”

Personally, I grew a full goatee by the time I was 16 years old and had a full beard by 17. And that beard has stayed on my face (other than two brief stints of bald-facedness so the girls I was dating could see what I looked like without it) more or less ever since. My beard, like Coco’s daughter said, has become a part of who I am. It has been grown to cover flaws, to express individuality and a sense of identity, and (at least partially) out of not wanting to shave my entire face every morning.

As for Conan’s beard, I think he looked better with it. But each beards has its symbolic value and Conan’s beard’s value was in the number of viewers he could get while I comedian shaved it off.

Act Your Age... Moving to a New Home

When you’ve lived nomadically as long as I have, the idea of “home” becomes a far more abstract concept.

Technically the last place I rented and could call my own was in 2009. It was a sweet little three bedroom apartment that I shared with the girl I was dating at the time and another couple. With its hardwood floors, distinct white Greek pillar, and mirrored liquor cabinet, it was a place that I could call home.

But I’ve been bouncing around ever since. I moved to Ontario for a year to take my MA and lived between my Aunt’s house (which always felt like her home that she was generously sharing as opposed to a place I had dominion over) and my new Quebec girlfriend’s apartment (which she made very clear was her domain). I lived on a futon in August 2010, then various apartments and hostels in Europe in September, and then rented a room in my sister’s flat as I waited to hear back from job applications.

This sort of lack of place affects a person. You adapt and “home,” as I said above, becomes a more abstract thing. It becomes a feeling... a sense of place in the world. I’ve said for some time now, that arguably the last place I really felt at “home” was in Vatican City. I went with Andrew (my best friend), Natasha (a friend since elementary school), and Emily (the Quebecer I’d dated for around 9 months). We’d set aside a whole day for the Vatican, so when we arrived at noon to a line that literally spanned the courtyard, I was content to just stand and wait patiently.

And as I waited, I felt truly at home. It was a feeling I’d never felt before and haven’t really felt since. Reflecting on my history, I was content knowing that everything I’d done had led me to this spot. Projecting into the future, I was hopeful knowing that there was still so much more to see and once the trip was over the fulfilling challenge of finding a job and making my relationship work would be ahead of me. And in the moment, three of the people I loved the most in the world and I were waiting in line to see a place I’d wanted to visit my entire life. There wasn’t anywhere else I wanted to be.

That’s the thing about home. When it stops being a building, it starts being something else. Something internal. Something we create in our minds. Maybe it’s an event, a moment... a person. My home stopped being a building a long time before I visited the Vatican. It started to be a grad office as people entered and exited like whispering ghosts... barely seen and only noticed when they so chose. It started to be a girl in my arms, favourite movies shared between friends, or a nightly trip to 7/11 for soda-based Slurpees. It became the smell of Emily’s coconut body lotion.

Of course, circumstances change.

For the past six months, I’ve lived what I call a transitional life (a life of waiting... knowing that during any particular week I may get a job and move across the country). I feared setting roots knowing that I’d likely have to rip them up upon finding full-time employment. At the same time, everything that I may have considered “home” sort of stripped away. It was six months of break ups, unemployment, and job applications; I’ve felt for a long time that I wasn’t yet home.

Because of this, I find myself sitting in my boxers in an empty apartment with a dim light bulb in the corner, my mattress on the floor, and an otherwise empty abode and yet it does not upset me that I’ll be leaving this place for an unknown future. Instead, what I sit contemplating is the friends I’ll be leaving behind if I do move away. Because despite not being able to set roots, one does without any real conscious effort. Whether it’s watching girls belt out Hanson lyrics with obnoxiously catchy glee in the front seat of a maroon Civic, a weekly tradition that persists even when it seems to have run its course, or preparations for a wedding that’s been a long time coming; one finds him or herself in moments where home stops being a house and starts being all the little intricacies that make up our lives.

Maybe I’m getting sentimental given this new transition. Come April 30, I’ll officially be moving out of the flat, which has already been emptied of furniture. I’ll be moving into a friend’s basement for a few days while I fulfill my role as Deputy Returning Officer on Election Day. From there, it’s a mystery. I’ve interviewed for six jobs in the past two weeks, all but one of which will be out of province. So I continue to wait and in the mean time, I’ll live on couches or go to my family’s house in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Whatever the case, I’ll be building a new home soon enough.

I relate back to you, my audience, as you too may be venturing into a new unit or a retirement home. The building that you’ve lived in for a portion of your life... a building filled with memories... with nicks and scratches that make it yours and yours alone... may be sold and all your possessions packed and moved to a one bedroom dorm-like facility.

But I remind you, as I’ve learned over this past two years of nomadic living, that a “home” isn’t a building. It can be something so much more. Sometimes it’s your family who are there when you need them. Sometimes it’s a girl in your arms that makes you feel like yourself more than anyone else.

And sometimes, home is just a car full of friends uncontrollably singing “MMM Bop.”

“I am a writer, writer of fictions; I am the heart that you call home.” – The Engine Driver by The Decemberists

Act Your Age... Getting a Massage

First appeared in the April 29 issue of Retirement News Weekly

I’ve never really been great at relaxing. Sure I’ll often put on a movie or watch television, but I’ll also likely be puttering around my computer, looking up jobs, or organizing documents at the same time. My multitasking is so frequent and distracting that if I want to read a book, I’ll go have a bath so I feel like (well I may be just reading) I’m also getting relatively cleaner and accomplishing more than one thing.

It’s with this in mind that I’ve started on my road to self-improvement... top of the list: learn to relax. My friend recently got a massage and highly suggested it. So while the idea of a stranger touching me (the idea of anyone touching me and not being able to reciprocate) freaked me out slightly, I booked an appointment at the local massage school for the next afternoon.

I arrived at the Canadian College of Massage & Hydrotherapy (CCMH) with a few minutes to spare. I paid in advance (which seemed a little fishy) and then sat in the lobby with a clipboard and a questionnaire. They wanted to know if I had any major health problems or skin conditions, assumably so: a) the masseuse wouldn’t end up with some form of leprosy or b) to prevent a patient from keeling over mid-massage and scarring a masseuse for life. I suppose it could also have been: c) to adjust the massage to accommodate, and perhaps even treat in someway, a medical condition... but I digress.

Sitting in the lobby, I started to obsess about what the masseuse would think of my back. This quickly became an awareness of how sweaty I was. I took off my jacket, mopped my forehead, and took a deep breath. Then, into the lobby walked Kimberly. She was a young woman; blond with a black CCMH polo shirt and plain looking greyish blue shoes with a white trim (how quickly I would become familiar with those shoes).

Kimberly greeted me and led me into the main massage room. It resembled a refugee camp... if refugee camps were created solely with massage equipment (and I’m sure refugees wish they were). Two rows of eight tables ran the center and length of the room with four students clustered at the end talking massage strategy (I assume). Running down both sides of the room, were curtained off sections. Kimberly lead me to the third section to the right (valuable information, I know).

In the “room” were two chairs and a table. At first, I sat on the table. Then, seeing her take a chair, I casually removed myself from this perch and sat across from her. To start, Kimberly conducted an “assessment.” She went over the health questionnaire and noted my high blood pressure.

“My doctor says it’s pretty normal, but whenever I donate blood it’s high,” I explained, “so I just keep an eye on it.” She nodded her approval and took note on the chart. She told me to stand straight up and face her so she could check my posture. She poked me in the ankle, hip, and arm. Then she had me face left and right and she repeated her prodding. Next she had me repeat her movements as she tested my flexibility. Again, she expressed her approval with a nod and an impressed mumble.

After all the tests, she finally asked, “So where do you want me to focus?” I kind of thought she would tell me the answer to that question. And all I could go off of was television.

“My back?” I guessed.

“I’m going to leave for a few minutes,” she replied. “You can get comfortable. For your back, make sure to take off your shirt.” Then she left.

Here I was now: in a curtained-off room with a bed before me, wondering if I should take off my pants. And it felt awkward. I decided to keep everything on, but my shirt and then climbed into the tiny bed. I giggled with amusement (the utmost manliest giggle possible, of course) as I got under the sheets and then rolled over onto my stomach. I pulled the sheet as high as possible onto my back.

Should I put my head into the hole like in the movies, I wondered. But before I could decide, Kimberly came back.

“Just get comfortable,” she told me. “There is no right way.”

That’s when the massage started. She pulled the sheet back and tucked it into my pants. The lotion was warm and she began on my lower back, working her way up. It tickled when she was doing my sides. And it became slightly awkward once again as she used her forearm to push into my shoulders and I knew that her breasts hung just above my head (Hey, nice shoes!).

Mentally, it took a while to appreciate what was going on. At first, I tried to reason out why this wasn’t akin to prostitution. Certainly, if I had a problem and was going to get a massage as treatment, that would be acceptable. But given I had no real complaints, it kind of felt like offering someone money to touch me.

It was only until I thought of Barney Stinson, a character on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, that I grew more comfortable. Picturing the womanizing lush, I felt like it just may be okay to not always be doing and pleasing and it would be acceptable to enjoy myself for two seconds. Then Neil Young started playing over the speakers and I really relaxed.

There were two interruptions during the massage. The first came when Kimberly’s supervisor stopped by and asked how she was doing. She explained that I didn’t have any major problems and she was just doing a relaxation massage. He encouraged her to continue to ask me if everything was okay (which I mentally disagreed with... I didn’t need the questioning) and then he went on his way.

The second interruption was my own fault. Forty-five minutes into the massage, my cell phone alarm started to go off and continued to ring until Kimberly brought me the phone. I apologized profusely, but she didn’t seem fazed.

Before I knew it, the massage was over. I thanked Kimberly, left my tip at the receptionist’s desk, and went on my way. My back felt... a bit sore. But for some reason, I felt... gleeful. I felt like everything was okay. For a brief period, I felt like things were going good. And that’s the joy in a guiltless selfish act every now and again. A reminder that sometimes, it’s not about other people or what’s going on. Sometimes it can just be about you, a quiet hour, and a back rub.