So much of the history of Canada is the history of the newcomer; because few written records exist of the Indigenous peoples in this country before the Europeans arrived, our impressions of our nation are almost always seen through the eyes of people experiencing each other’s culture for the first time.  No where is that more clear than at the Canadian Canoe Museum, which chronicles the individual struggles and  triumphs of people making their way through the land with little in common besides their mode of transport – the canoe.  

In comparison with the well-documented and celebrated histories of many nations, where rulers and armies race triumphantly across the imagination, Canadians often feel our history isn’t that exciting – where is our Taj Mahal, our Great Wall, our thousand-year tradition of literature? Faced with such magnificent accomplishments, we sometimes feel that there’s nothing in our past worth noting.  Which is why visitors to the Canadian Canoe Museum often find themselves surprised and overcome with pride when they view the exhibits, and realize that our history is as fascinating and filled with thrilling stories as any.

For new Canadians, there’s a sense of shared experience – those early explorers and fur traders left their families and culture to try and find success and good fortune in a new world, one full of uncertainty and new experiences.  There’s the welcome and guidance which the Indigenous peoples of North America offered to these newcomers, without whose assistance many early settlers would certainly have failed.  There’s the sense of adventure, of learning new languages, customs, and lands.  It’s a familiar story to people who’ve made the courageous choice to start a new life here in Canada, and a central part of the story of this country.

Far from being merely a building filled with artifacts, the museum is a house of stories; walking through the exhibits, both new Canadians and those who were born here feel a sense of connection to the people who built this country, to their hopes and dreams and vision of the future. You gain a new understanding of Canadian culture and values, and how those came to be.  Though the canoe is a simple vessel, it has shaped our cultural identity, and you don’t need to paddle – or even to have set foot in a canoe – to find a personal connection to the people whose livelihoods depended upon them.

A recent visitor to the museum from India wrote in our guest book “Your attempt to preserve the past only intensifies our desire to make Canada our home.” This comment touched the heart of many museum Staff members and Volunteers, and reaffirmed our goal to connect Canadians and those who love Canada to their heritage.  While those who’ve lived in this country many years may have taken our culture and history for granted, the Canadian Canoe Museum allows us all to see as it really is – something to celebrate, to appreciate, and to take pride in.

The Canadian Canoe Museum is open 7 days a week, and admission is free when you show your Peterborough Welcome Pass.  Come and connect to our shared heritage, and tell your friends and family about your museum experience!

To read the article as it appeared in the Newcomer Bulletin, please click here.

I live in Peterborough, ON, a mid-sized city with a bustling heritage downtown, a penchant for hockey, a lively arts scene, a smallish university and a college.  Bethune Street runs along the west side of downtown proper, and in terms of the revitalization of the downtown, it’s a bit of a problem child.  Once the edge-of-town railway corridor for trains bound to nearby Lakefield, it’s extra-wide for most of its length. Though where it runs through the old north end it’s mostly residential, down closer to the commercial district it’s industrial, rough-looking, and derelict in places.

This is a big problem for the city.  It seems innocuous enough until you really start thinking about it, but with the mighty Otonabee River on one side, downtown Peterborough sort-of has its back against a wall.  On the other side of the river, there’s East City, jurisdictionally a part of the City of Peterborough but realistically (and historically) a place unto itself.  With only the Hunter Street bridge as access (especially now, with the train bridge closed to walkers and cyclists), downtown is mostly speaking to the rest of Peterborough. To the north, it’s limited by a block of massive heritage institutional buildings, such as City Hall and the Armories, which are beautiful but put act as a barrier between the shops and cafes of the downtown and the heritage homes of the old north end.  To the south, there’s a slow trickle of business and some opportunities for development, but once you get to King Street and the Dieter and Darcy’s building, you’ve hit a wall in terms of how far pedestrians feel comfortable walking, with George Street at it’s busiest and a series of large-scale modern buildings that sit too far back from the road or have too few windows to make walking pleasant.

To the west, Bethune stands like a no-man’s-land between downtown and the affluent neighborhoods of The Avenues. Its presence drags down the streets around it, creating a barrier of run-down heritage homes, unfriendly industrial spaces, and a sense of emptiness that discourages people from hanging out or even walking through. Much as I love urban decay and the visible layers of built heritage, I think the city’s health will be best supported by some big changes – and they’re already under way. I often walk or cycle down Bethune, and it’s been fascinating watching these small changes impact the neighbourhood for the better, and encourage the kind of growth that will keep the downtown bustling.

Throughout the course of The City Walker project, however long that is,  I’ll be talking about Bethune Street, Peterborough, and other cities, and thinking about what makes a streetscape and a city a liveable, healthy place that fosters community.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback – leave a comment below to let me know what you think!

Elementary school had been, for me, completely brutal.  Our family moved to the village when I was in kindergarten, and in a place where many families could trace their roots back generations, we were strangers. And from that point, until my graduation in grade 8, I was a social pariah, an easy target for bullying, a weird girl in hand-me-down clothes who loved books and knew nothing about sports.

People often speak about the idylls of childhood as though kids are innocents, and being one is an unrelenting exercise in pleasure, play, and freedom from responsibility.  I can’t identify; childhood for me was an endless round of fears, from what new taunting, theft, or physical violence was going to be inflicted upon me at school, to the ever-present money problems at home that formed the backdrop to everything else.  When I look back, I remember stress, anxiety, and depression; I retreated further into my books and was dragged resisting out of bed in the mornings to go to school.  On the walk, I would often daydream about falling and breaking a leg, the idea of avoiding school for a week so appealing that I longed for injury.  

I didn’t have anything that I’d call a ‘friend’ in elementary school, so there was no one to turn to in moments of fear or frustration. The teachers were either oblivious or complicit, with the exception of Mr. Kelsey, whose classroom was a refuge of learning in a desert of stupidity.  In one memorable incident in Grade 5, my teacher called me a liar in front of the class for insisting that there was such a thing as a sand dollar - despite the fact that I was holding a photo of one. Every interaction left me bewildered and afraid.

Look, I don’t know what kind of kid I was – maybe I was annoying, or odd, or whatever – but no one deserves the kind of treatment I got.  I often left school in tears, sometimes sneaking back home after my parents had left for work.  My attendance record was awful.

When the opportunity came up in Grade 8 to audition for the Arts Program at PCVS, I leapt at it – in my case, I was certain that the devil I didn’t know couldn’t be any worse than the devil I was already subjected to.  I knew I couldn’t continue on with these same tormentors at TASSS; I couldn’t even contemplate a future where I rode a bus and went to class every day with these horrible kids.  The very thought induced a despair I can’t articulate. Getting accepted into the program was the best news I’d received in my young life.

Going from being the lone weird kid at a rural elementary school to being one of a group of weird kids at an urban high school was a freedom that I had longed for but never imagined could be mine. Intellectual pursuits were encouraged, being cultured was admired, and my hand-me-downs suddenly were transformed from the markers of a poor kid to vintage cool.  I went from being the kid who’d been skipping school since Grade 1 to having perfect attendance in Grade 9.  A quick five-minute walk brought us to all the theatre, visual art, and culture we could ask for. I felt like Cinderella, stepping into the Prince’s ball.

Sure, there were still bullies; we got called ‘Art Fags’ more times than I could count, tripped in the hallways, taunted and pushed.  But we outnumbered them, and my new freedom gave me the confidence to stand my ground and face them down.  In 1995, when PCVS established its Anti-Bullying Committee (a group of parents, teachers and students that I’m proud to have been a part of) and surveyed the school, we were surprised to learn that the majority of students felt safe and had little to report. From what I understand, they’ve continued to nurture that kind of environment, a place where students of all types can find a place to fit, to learn safely, to grow into adults who go on to shape not just our immediate community but also the national dialogue.  While bullying has become a high-profile issue in the past few years, PCVS has been proactive in dealing with it for nearly twenty.

When I heard that they were talking about closing a local high school, I didn’t worry much about PCVS; every argument, from capacity to student performance to good city planning stood behind keeping my alma mater.  When I heard that they were leaning towards closing TASSS, I felt that they were making the right choice.  A dated building from the late 60s, with asbestos and sinking architecture in the suburbs of Peterborough, TASSS was operating at half-capacity.  It made perfect sense.

But in what seemed like a fairly sudden turn, the Trustees voted to close PCVS.

Like many in the community, I was stunned.  The arguments for closing PCVS seemed senseless – one trustee mentioned the lack of playing fields (students have used Nicholls Oval without problems for decades), another cited the absence of a robotics program.  Protests began immediately, and involved the whole community – from downtown merchants to community members, alumni, and current students.  The suggestion that the Integrated Arts Program would be moved to TASSS was met with fear as TASSS students began writing threats and insults online.  A rally to protest the decision at Queen’s Park in early December drew 500+ participants, and despite freezing rain and raspy voices, remained loud and strong for hours. A video created by PCVS alums Brown Meadow Bird and Jared Raab drew tens of thousands of hits over a few days, now standing at 126,000 and climbing, and brought national and international media attention to the proposed closure.

The Ministry of Education has appointed a facilitator to review the decision, and money brought in through a fund-raising concert is going towards a legal challenge.

I’ve heard a lot of people’s opinions about the situation, and a lot of angry reactions to the idea that Peterborough needs PCVS, and while I can answer their arguments from an urban planning, financial, and academic standpoint, today I prefer to say simply, from my own experience, that I needed PCVS.  Kids like me need PCVS still.  It saved my life and my future.  It put me in a position to become a confident and competent adult. While the arts are central to my life, and I’m grateful for the opportunities I had through the Arts Program, much more than that is the safe space PCVS gave me to dream, to attempt, to accomplish and to flourish.

As long as I have breath to use, I will protest and work against any acts or decisions that lead to the end of that safety.

In the words of the PCVS school song:

Lift up your heart and let our your voice,
Here we belong and here we rejoice,
Fighting, Singing, Marching, Swinging,
Onward to Victory! 

This has easily been one of the busiest years of my life, and I’m thankful to have come through it with relative equanimity. A busy year at the museum meant that I’ve run more discrete events this year than I’ve ever done before, and I’m proud of that: receptions, exhibit openings, memorial events, National Canoe Day all came off well.  Dan teamed up with boxer Manny Paquiao to record and release a new version of ‘Sometimes When We Touch,’ and we re-designed Dan’s website, which made April and May a month where I’d come home from work and immediately start work again.  The festival was beautiful, with a near-sell-out crowd for the Good Lovelies, great weather and music all weekend, and our biggest attendance yet (and our most beautiful graphic design ever!).  When it looked like Artsweek was in danger of folding, I broke my ‘no new volunteer projects’ rule to make sure it went forward, and while I wished for better attendance, it was a great program of really solid local arts producers who got paid decently for their work.  The Ontario Council of Folk Festivals conference was a lot of fun, and getting to host a workshop and present the Contemporary Album of the Year award at the Canadian Folk Music Awards was awesome.

I also bought myself cross-country skis and a bicycle this year, and have quietly become one of those annoying bicycle people who are so fanatic about the sense of freedom you get while riding around the city that you wish they’d shut up already.  I’ve gotten better at playing ukulele, I started going to the Improv drop-in at PAPA, and I auditioned for Pride and Prejudice (and got a call-back, though it’s not for another week).  I went to four weddings and saw beloved friends get hitched in the most beautiful setting imaginable. We got four little chicks from the local co-op in the Spring, and now get four eggs a day and endless entertainment from our pullets.

There’s been heartbreak and stress, too, that I’m not going to re-hash, but I have a pretty good life, and I’m grateful for it.  I have a family that are willing to jump in and lend a hand when I need help, and friends whose successes and triumphs I’m excited to watch.  I’ve got a grouchy, paranoid black cat who sometimes curls up in my lap, purring.  I’ve got jobs I love and enjoy, and now, as I pass on the mantle of festival ED, I’ve got the free time to pursue my own artistic endeavors.  There’s a lot more that I want out of life, but I recognize that what I’ve got now is pretty wonderful.

In 2009, I promised myself a few things for the decade that I hoped would lead to a better life, and better circumstances, than I was in at the time.  When I look back at where I was a mere two years ago, I feel like I’ve progressed leaps and bounds.  So instead of making flat-out resolutions for 2012, here’s some guidance (for myself) for the year ahead:

Advice

A lot of people I know are happy to dish out advice, solicited or no, and I’ve allowed the opinions of friends and family to steer me wrong in the past.  Most of it is given with good intentions, but almost all of the advice I receive isn’t relevant to my situation or goals.  One of the most successful strategies I’ve used in the past few years is to consider the source. Does that person have a life I want to emulate? I mean, I may like you, but I doubt I want to be like you.  Lots of people give me advice based on how they think I should be, how they want me to be, how their life is, or conventional wisdom.

But I’m not conventional – I don’t want kids, I abhor empty status symbols (big weddings, big cars, big houses, anything with a logo), and I have a strong conviction that you can make a lot of money while loving the work you do and being a decent and ethical human being. So the social pressure to ‘settle down,’ find a mate, and get a ‘real’ job doesn’t apply (yes, some people that I know appear to think that working for a respected national museum doesn’t count as a real job – I think it’s because I like it so much, and obviously, any job that’s fun can’t be real).

Enthusiasm

I love people who express enthusiasm, whether it be about their own projects or someone else’s. The only thing better than having my own exciting project to enthuse about is hearing someone else get excited about their’s (within reason, of course: we’re all guilty of going on a bit too much sometimes). I’m starting to think of cool as a social disease; someone who reacts coolly to every plan, goal, and accomplishment, even their own, is a terrible person to be around.  Yes, sometimes enthusiasm makes you seem goofy, and if you’re over-sensitive about your dignity, it must be terrifying.  But lack of enthusiasm is a deep, bottomless pit of hipster emptiness, and it’s contagious.

I want to be surrounded by people who genuinely love what they’re working on, and who don’t cut down the people around them in the name of cool. If that means that all of the people around me in future are awesome, excited dorks for their work, that would be grand.

Drafts, re-writes, rehearsals and corrections

Something I’ve known about myself since I was a very young woman is that I like process.  I love strategy and revision. I love developing ideas and editing.  As an actor, I love rehearsing more than performing (I really love performance, but rehearsal is better).  In a city whose arts community makes a virtue of slack, revels in instant art, and brags about not rehearsing, I’ve struggled to find like-minded collaborators or a place to fit, and it hasn’t really worked out.  I feel like that’s changing – the arts community is changing (and it’s about fucking time), and my own prospects are changing.

Time, of course, has been a huge factor in keeping me from being able to devote myself to my own artistic process; for the past eight years or so, the folk festival has sucked up a lot of my available time, along with other volunteer commitments.  But yesterday I started a new project, a podcast about urban planning in our fair city (yes, you don’t think that sounds fascinating, but it’s what I think about most of the time). And yes, the first pass is about as rough and useless as it could possibly be, but the germ of the idea is there.  It needs a lot of work and thought, from the actual content of the podcast itself to delivery methods and promotion.  You won’t see the product any time soon, but it’s coming.

Improv

Oh my god, do I ever loathe improv; I’m so bad at it.  But it’s good - reminding myself how to fail and keep on going and fail some more and keep on going and try a bad idea and throw it away, over and over.  It’s simultaneously horrible and… well, I was going to write awesome, but it’s not. It sucks.  It’s like the part of a workout at the gym where you just want to lie down and die, but you keep going anyway.  I hate it I hate it I hate it. But it teaches me a bunch of lessons that I need to keep learning. So I should be going to the Improv drop-in – if not weekly, then as often as I can manage.

Acting

Theatre was the only thing I did from about the age 14 to my early twenties, when I flunked out of theatre school because I hated it so much.  It’s my first love, and nothing else comes close.  To have spent so many years not acting has more to do with how horrible theatre school was for me than anything else, but I’m over that now, and there are opportunities to be onstage or in front of the camera springing up.  Nothing makes me as happy or challenges me as much, and it’s high time I get back in the ring.

Writing

A few years ago I found myself trying The Artists’ Way, a book for blocked creatives who want to get moving again.  It introduced me to the concept of the Morning Pages, three pages of longhand writing that you do once a day (I’m not a morning writer, but that part’s not important).  When I remember to write every day, I know myself better, and the better I know myself, the more likely I am to make choices which support my overall well-being.  I’m a bit of a compulsive writer anyway, but I’m not always writing to a purpose, and when I stop writing daily journals I tend to drift away from my goals.

Friends

People think I’ve moved out of the city, and there’s a good reason for that; I’ve been too busy to anything but work, and I almost never see anyone unless we’re working together. I miss my friends, near and far, and I need to get out more, both here in town and in Toronto, Cobourg, and around the world.  I want to travel more, and have time in that travel for hanging out instead of just working and running.

I want to say thank you to everyone who helped me this year.  I achieve nothing on my own, and without the help of my friends and family, I’d be no where.  I need people who understand, or who try to, and support me, and get what I’m trying to accomplish, and I’m very lucky to have those sorts of people around me (and not very many who are the opposite).  People who put up with my flaws –  I think out loud, and talk too much, and interrupt too often; I endlessly delay making definite plans to get together because I’m not sure when I’ll have time; I never return phone calls or email; I don’t say thank you enough, though I am really, really grateful; I show up and drink all of your whiskey; I take charge, even when it isn’t my place to do so; I’m always the last one to leave the party; I tend to make my opinions sound like facts and facts sound like the word of god.  There’s more, I know.  My imperfections are legion. And you guys put up with me anyway; it’s pretty amazing.

Maybe those are resolutions; whatever they are, I hope my life over the next twelve months and beyond will be guided by them.  There are so many things I can’t plan for, and no one knows what the future holds. I’ve had a crazy year, a busy year, an exhausting year, but it’s been chock-full of work I’m proud of.  My heart is full of love and gratitude, my head is full of plans and goals, and my life is full.  Perhaps it’s greedy to ask for more, but I’m going to do it anyway.

So to everyone, near and far, I wish you a very happy and prosperous new year; may 2012 be the year that exceeds your dreams.

Behind the Keene Hotel was a chicken coop; a pretty sturdy, impressive thing with a fenced-in yard overgrown with vines.  I idly wished for the days when they kept chickens there, but didn’t pursue it; the new administrators were taking things in hand, and attendance was improving.  There was less time to poke around and daydream.  But I think the idea of chickens stayed with me.

A few years ago, I saw a news report about backyard chickens in Toronto; I saw the small backyard and the cozy coop – an Eglu – and the seed of an idea that had laid dormant in my mind burst forth.  But time and money haven’t been plentiful in the past couple of years; I had to wait. As the snow began to recede this year, it occurred to me that the time was probably right to pursue my own little flock.

So in late March, after doing some reading online, I went down to the local Co-op and ordered 4 chicks from Frey’s Hatchery – two Rhode Island Reds, two Black Stars.  And then, instead of settling down to wait, I fussed over the things I needed to buy.  I read and re-read articles, forums, and posts.  I scrounged for tips.  And I came up with lots of divergent opnions, and no decent guide for my teeny flock.  So I thought I’d write about the process myself, partly to record what I did, partly to help other small-flock owners with their first order of chicks.

Obviously, I’m a total newbie at this, so I can’t say I’m any authority; please be sure to consult widely before taking the plunge yourself.

It is legal?

In my area, as far as I understand, the bylaws regarding chickens say that you can keep them, as long as they’re pets rather than livestock.  I think it would be great if the City of Peterborough changed the rules to reflect current mores; in the past, keeping a kitchen garden or livestock was considered ‘common’, and that just isn’t so anymore.  Provided that people are responsible flock owners, there’s no good reason that you shouldn’t be able to keep laying hens.  I’m interested in working with other local chicken-keepers to propose to council that they change the bylaws; until that time, my pullets are pets.

Costs

At the scale that I’m working with, this may not be an economical venture in the short-term, especially when you factor in electricity.  With a larger flock, you can recoup some of the costs via farm gate sales of eggs. However, there are a lot of one-time purchases, and if I keep on with keeping chickens, it’s potentially a worthwhile investment. So far, here’s what I’ve spent:

$28.00  Chicks (4 – shipping, taxes, small order fee)
$1.68  Chick waterer (the kind you screw on a mason jar)
$1.13 marbles to put in the Chick Waterer so they won’t drown (doesn’t actually seem to be much of a concern)
$12.42 Chicken Feeder (3lb hanging type)
$38.13 Heat lamp, and 175 W bulb, cheap thermometer
$13.49 Chick Starter Feed (25kg bag)

Brooding Pen

I read about a thousand posts and articles about brooding pens, fretting over the size, etc.  What I used in the end is a small home-made animal cage that we had kicking around, built of wood and chicken wire, set up in a part of the sewing room that isn’t high-traffic but is high visibility.  It measures 1’6″x2′, and seems to be more than enough space.  I’ve lined the bottom with paper towel, underneath which is chicken wire, and then to protect the floor I lay down some newspapers.  I read somewhere that chicks have an easier time sleeping under a red heat lamp, so chose that colour.  Now day and night our front window is lit red, which in our neighborhood might easily lead to misunderstandings, so we’ll see!

Fiddling with the damned heat lamp and thermometer was an exercise in frustration; I switched thermometers and have mostly been adjusting to suit the chicks, rather than the suggested temperature.
The cats were initially fascinated, but are now pretty blasé.

Arrival

I got a call from the Co-op on April 5 saying that my chicks would be in the next morning between 9am and 10am.  I made my final adjustments to the brooding pen, putting in the feed and the waterer, and adding a teaspoon of sugar to the water, which I’d been told to do the first time to pep them up after the trip. I popped over at lunch on April 6 and picked up the smallest of a pile of cheeping boxes, stopping quickly on my way to the car to take a look.  When I got them home, I turned on the heat lamp, and grabbed each chick one at a time, dipping their beaks in the water to teach them where it is before releasing them. They settled in right away, figuring out where the feed and water was in no time, cheeping softly and walking around the pen.

The next day, one of the chicks was emerging as the bully of the group, pecking at the others, and one was missing a patch of feathers; bad signs.  I took a look at our little fuzzy friends, and it turned out that three of them had blocked cloaca, a problem which reoccurred over the next day.  Known in backyard chicken circles as ‘pasty butt’ (a phrase I type reluctantly because it sounds so cutesy), this is the result of diarrhea drying and blocking the orifice that chicks use to eliminate waste, known as the cloaca or vent.  I’ve read that diarrhea in chicks happens as a result of stress or medication, and I tried two complementary cures: first, gently wiping the cloaca with a paper towel and warm water to loosen the dried stool, which took a little patience but wasn’t difficult.  Secondly, I added a teaspoon of plain, unsweetened yoghurt to their feed, mixing it well.

I’ve read that chicks would normally obtain probiotics from pecking at their mother’s droppings, but since these chicks are hatched in an incubator, they have no source of probiotics.  If I’d know this in advance, I probably would have set out some of the yoghurt mash earlier.  In any case, the mash seems to have cleared up the problem; the bully chick, of course, is the one who had no difficulties with diarrhea. We’ll keep doing it every other day for a week or so; the chicks love the mash, so at least they get a bit of a treat with their treatment.

5 days old

Today my chicks are 5 days old, tentatively named, and thriving.  They’ve already developed wing and tail feathers and are starting to look like birds rather than chicks, flapping their wings to get away when you try to hold them.  It’s pretty adorable to see them stretch a wing, or lean back to send a sip of water down their throats.  I’ve set up a couple of roosts in the pen, but they’re not quite at the stage of wanting to roost yet.  They’re developing fast, but they’re still babies, and if you can get one to gentle in your hand she’ll often fall asleep there, nodding off like drowsy babies of all sorts will.

We’re not very far in, but so far they’ve been very little trouble.  We change the bedding in the pen about once a day, and usually clean the waterer about that often as well.  We’ll upgrade to hay or pine shavings as bedding soon.  They’re very quiet for the most part, and at worst there’s a gentle cheeping in the background. I don’t find, with this few birds, that there’s much of a smell, but that may change as they get older. I’ve got weeks to go (thankfully) until I’ll need to have the coop built, but I’ve got a spot and a design picked out, and I’m hoping to do it with reclaimed wood and keep costs low.

Everyone in the household is invested in this project; from the cats to the humans, there’s a lot of interest and excitement.  While I’m paying the costs associated, others are helping out by cleaning the pen and getting the chicks used to being handled.  Only a few days in, there’s already a lot of affection for our little flock, and I look forward to watching them grow into mature birds.

I’m happy to try to answer any questions you have about raising chicks – though it’s early days yet, I feel like I’ve learnt a lot.

*I’m happy to report that, in addition to having a terrific garden at Fitzpatrick House, the Lang Pioneer Village chicken coop was cleaned up and inhabited by a small flock last time I visited.

The thing about roller derby is, at the beginning at least, a really open sport.  It’s growing in popularity, but still relatively few people have played.  The skill level varied, at Friday’s practice, from a few women who’d played before to those who’d rarely (if ever) skated.  It’s a bit of an outlay for skates and protective gear, but people of all ages and body types are welcome; you don’t have to be young or athletic, or have a certain build or height.

For someone whose team photo is pretty tough and whom I imagine is a hellion on the track, Lucid Lou is a patient, affable teacher whose ability to really communicate the basics makes her an excellent coach.  I watched her talk new skaters through their very first movements, correct mistakes in a constructive way, and stay supportive of the newbies while pushing the more experienced skaters to new skills.

Over the course of the two-hour practice, I went from loving shooting the women ((so much more fun than shooting a person at a mic, no matter how interesting their talk or how good their music), to envying them and wanting to get out on the floor myself.  There’s something so powerful about roller derby; it combines so many things I admire.  They seemed transformed from regular people with kids, jobs, and student debts to tough, physically resilient women moving with power and some grace (the grace will increase; give them time!).  It was inspiring to see so many women of such different backgrounds and physicalities out on the floor, looking strong and confident.

In a time when so many women are reaching back to an imagined ideal housewife of the 50s (I like that aesthetic too, but do your politics have to match your outfit? Those crinolined, white-gloved ladies were second-wave warriors in the 60s, y’know),  it’s nice to see women of all sorts reaching occasionally for their inner Tank Girl. That, to me, is the essence of feminism; to sometimes be a mom, sometimes a bookish Star Wars nerd, sometimes a tough bitch on wheels, but having the choice to decide to reject whatever parts of the archetype don’t work for you.  To define yourself as a multi-faceted individual, rather than be defined by some things you do or choose.

In short, it was awesome.  You won’t find me lacing up anytime soon (I have kind-of a busy year ahead of me), but I’ve been bitten by the derby bug.

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFKIYO3OpF4]

When I was in high school, the advice, invariably, was to go to university. For what, to what end, and how you were going to pay for it didn’t matter; you should go to university, case closed.  If you did, you’d be set for life.  No one seemed to have any information past that, but it was confidently stated, and since they seemed so certain, it only troubled me occasionally. It was my plan: Step 1, get a B.A. Step 2, apparently set for life.

I did, however, have to learn to be more practical.
“In the Real World,” they’d say “they don’t make exceptions or give extensions; you have to follow the rules.”

My choice to be a Classical History and then English Lit major was also considered impractical, unless I was going into teaching.  Since the very thought of teaching made me want to curl up in a ball and die, I was ‘tsk tsk’ed over by everyone who talked to me about it.  ”What are you going to do with that degree, then?” They’d ask. I didn’t have an answer. People advised me on what I ought to do (teach; change majors; change schools; quit school); some looked down their noses at me because I was so flighty, willful, and wayward.

In university, of course, I found that people do indeed make exceptions and bend or break rules. If you ask politely, and are honest, university professors will often give you extensions.  No “My grandma is sick,” just “I have a lot of work and haven’t been able to get it done yet; can I hand it in next Monday instead of today?” It pretty much worked all of the time. In my mind – already pretty suspicious of authority, anyway – I started to wonder what else I’d been told about the Real World had been an outright lie.

I really enjoyed university – I learned a lot, had mostly excellent professors, and spent my time outside of school learning as well – how to shoot/edit video, promote live events, all sorts of things. I had all kinds of varied jobs (costumed museum interpreter, youth shelter mentor, life drawing model) because I impractically held out for something interesting, rather than something normal.  I volunteered for local organizations and helped out on friends’ projects.  It gave me the space to experiment with different skills, to talk to people about my ideas, to bounce arguments off of learned brains and see if anything would stick.  I thought that this experience was useful, because it gave me lots of transferable skills and taught me how to think independently.

I was still, I was told, being unpractical and unrealistic.

I graduated, miserable under the weight of people’s advice.  Eying my student loans, poised like the sword of Damocles over my head, and the terrible job market here in town, it looked as though I ought to have listened.  People shook their heads over me, obviously feeling the schadenfreude of those who warned you, but you just wouldn’t listen. They’d tell me about job postings; secretarial, temp, call centre.  Practical, normal work, and some people live and thrive in those jobs. But I kept my eyes open, and held out hope for something good. And it often came.

I’ve never really been one for the telephone; as Stephen Fry says, it’s a fantastically rude device that interrupts you no matter what you’re doing.  There may have been a brief period in high school (just before the Internet reached my little village) where you may have found me on the phone for hours at a time, but one can hardly be held accountable for the stupid shit one gets up to in high school.

When I cancelled my cell phone and put the damned thing away for good, people responded with shock.  How can you live without it?! They marveled.  What if there’s an emergency?!

My response is that I rarely feel the lack, but that my stress level since ditching the cell has decreased enormously.  My voice mail was always full of passive-aggressive messages about how I never answered my phone, and rarely held anything that wasn’t a demand that I do something for someone.  People expected that no matter what I was in the middle of, I should halt everything to receive their very important call.  They wanted something from me, and they wanted it now, and their request would not keep.  It was a matter of life or death.

Of course, it never was.  In the three years I had a phone, the biggest emergency that ever reached me via that device was along the lines of  ’We need more milk.’ But the sense of urgency with which people left messages was enough to make anyone think I live a life of high drama and am in involved in affairs at the federal level.  Don’t worry darlings; if the Prime Minister needs me that badly, he won’t call.  He’ll send Mounties.  And a spare horse.

I kind-of marvel at the tremendous gall of anyone who ribs me for never answering my phone, as if I’ve got nothing better to do than  sit around, waiting with fevered anticipation for their phone call.  Even if I didn’t work or volunteer, if I was a complete lady of leisure, the idea that you assume you ought to be able to interrupt my day, my train of thought, or my conversation with someone else in order to forward your own agenda is a bit astonishing to me.  But, like most people, I work, I volunteer, I have an artistic practice and I have a social life.  In a word, I’m busy.  We’re all busy.  We’ve got work to do.  So why would we jump to answer the phone?

I often joke that men can’t multi-task, but the truth is that none of us really can.  Good work is only accomplished through uninterrupted stretches of focus.  It means that if I want to write a grant, plan an event, or get in some serious thinking about a thorny problem or a bright idea, I need time and space that isn’t interrupted by the beeping, jangling, tweeting and fussing of the various devices and people around me. I suspect that this might be why you find creative, productive types up and working at all hours except the ‘normal’ working ones.  You need to be safe from interruption to do really fine, concentrated work.

The only way for me to get things done is to manage people’s expectations of when they can get a hold of me, and the answer I’ve come up with is never.  You can never get a hold of me via a phone.  It not quite a hard-and-fast rule, but it’s pretty close.  Email is somewhat more reliable, but there too I’m not consistent.  I know it’s inconvenient for other people, and in that respect is perhaps a breach of etiquette, which I really do feel bad about.  But if you like me, or respect the work I do, I hope you’ll understand that this is the only way for me to do it.  If you can’t understand that this is how I work, we probably can’t work together. And that’s okay, because there are probably millions of people ready to jump for their phones at any moment whom you can work with.

And I’m not saying everyone can or should follow my example; for some of you, it’s unthinkable or impossible.  I respect that.  But can you clear an hour a month? An hour a  week?  A full day? Any time where you say to the people of Earth ” I really need to knuckle down and do some good work, please leave me the hell alone.’  Try the middle of the night, if you can’t find another time.  Stay up and make something.  Don’t let other people fritter away your time  with their priorities.

At some point in the future I’ll probably get a cell again; Torontonians get very uncomfortable around anyone without a cell, as though perhaps you’re unstable and might violently explode at any moment (it’s okay guys, really.  I won’t.).  And I won’t deny that it’s convenient to have the option to make a cell call. But when I do return to the land of the constantly-connected, my number will be available on a need-to-know basis, and my conversations will be short and informational in nature.  And I won’t have voice mail.

Right now, as I type this, the phone that connects to my land line is stuffed under the pillows of my bed to muffle the ringer.  I’ve got a long list of things to do today.  And no where on that list is ‘answer the phone.’

This post was inspired by something Pete Forde tweeted the other day, and by reading part of this Lifehacker article this morning.

There’s a lot on my mind these days.  Architecture.  Cholera.  The way cities disintegrate and rejuvenate, like fields cycling through harvest years and fallow years. How to be in the right place in the right time.  I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, which was a great read and chock-full of fascinating ideas. I’ll probably write more about it in the future.

2010 has been a  terrible year for so many people I know, but I have to say it’s been a pretty great year for me. Perhaps it’s just my basis for comparison, but for the first time in ages, my life is feeling sturdy, grounded.  I work for good people (the Canadian Canoe Museum and Dan Hill), I have fun, meaningful work, I make reasonable money.  I got those jobs through my own merit, but also through the efforts and recommendations of friends to whom I’m terrifically grateful. The Peterborough Folk Festival was marvelous – probably the most successful year in our 21-year history, with glorious weather and 9000+ attendees.  I took myself off on a trip in November, and it didn’t strain my resources (yes, pictures coming, I promise!).  I’ve got my debts, but I’m making good progress. And I have lovely communities to draw on, who support me when things are bad and celebrate with me when things are good. It’s a pretty nice life.

Most of all, I’ve stepped back from the commitments I’d made but was killing myself to keep.  I’ve seen worthwhile projects grow and become strong without me (Roots Music Canada and Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict come to mind as having particularly exciting success this year), but it’s a pleasure to know that I can look at them and say that I knew well enough when something was going to stretch my resources too far.  Much better than falling short, burning bridges, and being to proud or silly to admit that I was at the end of my rope.

January 1 is an arbitrary time to say ‘on this day, I start fresh,’ but all the cynical realists in the world can’t stop from saying exactly that.  It’s been a good year, but tomorrow I start fresh. I have some ideas brewing, some projects percolating, things I can mostly take at my own pace and see through.  Things that make my heart pitter-patter a bit with fear and anticipation, but that are achievable.   Again, I’ll be making sure to eschew any project that doesn’t serve my best interests or my current path; and sometimes, I’ll be saying no to great projects just because I haven’t got the time. I know so many interesting people working on interesting things; I get spoiled for choice, you know.

Anyway, I’m about to go get ready for a late dinner party, so I’ll wish you all a very Happy New Year. My best love to my friends, far and near, distant and close; let’s actually hang out this year, instead of just talking about it.  Okay?

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

Study upon study has shown that there are tangible, proven medicinal uses for Marijuana, yet we’re relying on alarmists who seem stuck in a ‘it’s fun, so it’s bad’ mentality.

I’ve never used pot (yes, seriously), but I can’t fathom why it isn’t legal.  Aside from having few if any reported fatalities due to marijuana use (none of the ‘Yes’ arguments at ProCon are clear-cut, and the ‘No’ arguments seem pretty solid, and the US Department of Justice seemed to think it was safe in 1988), having fewer negative side-effects than alcohol, cigarettes, or most legal medicines, it’s also difficult to cut and relatively easy to cultivate.  But even if none of this was the case, it’s a viable treatment for a host of illnesses and symptoms including inflammatory complaints, nausea and loss of appetite, epilepsy and FUCKING CANCER. It’s not like they just figured out it might help shrink cancerous tumours, either; that Harvard study I linked above was from 2007. While it’s not a human trial, I still don’t understand why it hasn’t been more widely publicized.  When they realized that the treatment for cholera was re-hydration with uncontaminated fluids, they didn’t wait a decade for studies on the effects of water on human test subjects; they just went ahead and starting saving lives.* I also don’t understand why they’re so focused on finding ways to give people this extremely useful and non-addictive drug without making them high.  Lots of commonly-used drugs make you high and affect your ability to perform everyday tasks, as well as often saddling you with an addiction that you then have to break once you’re healthy. If a drug offers a cure that’s also a pleasure but isn’t chemically addictive, I say fuck yeah. We routinely treat people with medication which makes their lives miserable and oftentimes horrible.  Are we punishing the sick? Would it be immoral to save or improve their lives and give them a pleasant high? I’ve read some articles that speak of the high you get from pot as ‘incapacitating.’ Now, I don’t have any direct personal experience, but pretty much everyone I know smokes pot.  And “incapacitated” doesn’t really describe most of them when they’re high.  In fact, I wouldn’t even necessarily concur with the stereotypical image of the pot smoker – lazy layabouts who get high and engage in Philosophy 101-style discussions. People I know who smoke pot are still in control of their higher functions, and can make intelligent decisions, perform tasks, and pretty well go about their day as usual.  I haven’t run any studies, but considering working in music is sort-of an informal education on how various substances affect a person’s drive and ability to work, I would conclude that pot isn’t incapacitating. You know what is incapacitating, however? Chemo.  It’s poison.  It decreases quality of life until I’m not sure how anyone manages to fight through and actually get better.  I’ve never had cancer, but if I did, I’d opt for the pleasant cure over the poison cure, if I had the choice. Sure, more studies need to be done, and I welcome that.  They haven’t firmly established that marijuana fights cancer, nor that it reduces seizures, or how best to administer it so that it works most effectively.  But humans have been self-administering marijuana for millenia without overdosing or getting addicted; I think it’s time for the medical and legal establishments to recognize that it’s less dangerous than many other legal drugs, including alcohol, cigarettes, aspirin,* or opiates. As a non-pot smoker, I’ll tell you the reason I don’t do it is that I can’t get over the idea of inhaling smoke (ew), and also I don’t really need another thing to spend money on.  But I think it should be legal. And this dithering is one of the great shames of our time; we could be helping people, but we’re hung up on ill-defined prejudice.  And that incenses me.     *Okay, different century, but humans have been toking long enough that we know it’s not going to kill you. Unlike aspirin, which can totally kill you. In fact, aspirin is more deadly than Swine Flu or terrorism.