Tag Archives: Love

When in doubt, just spray shit gold and other lessons I learned planning a wedding.

March 24, 2018 By in Humour, Life, Toronto Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
When in doubt, just spray shit gold and other lessons I learned planning a wedding.

Guys, it happened. I.got.hitched…

… Not entirely by myself, Dan was there too but whatever, mere trivial details.

It’s been nearly a year since the partner and I decided to senselessly tie our lives together for all eternity, so that means we’ve had almost enough time to slowly collect the lost pieces of our souls and pay off those soaring Visa bills.

We’re also at least 80% recovered from that terrifying bout of wedding planning PTSD. I am happy to say that we can now look back on whole experience with warmth, a smile, and only the occasional shudder.

You learn a lot in the year leading up to your wedding – about yourself, your partner, your relationship, and just how long it takes until one of you completely and wholly implodes from the stress of it all.

So first things first: what did Dan and I learn about each other’s coping mechanisms?

We learned that Dan likes to internalize his stress, bury it deep in the far reserves of his psyche, plaster a smile on his face and act like everything is perfect, all the while suffering from bouts of dangerously high blood pressure.

I, on the other hand, I prefer to release stress slowly, over the course of many months in the form of passive aggressive comments and mature declarations like, “Why did you make me do this?!” and, “Fuck the fucking wedding industry and everyone associated with it.”

So now that I’ve made it clear how unqualified we are to offer advice, gather around and listen to all this advice!

Here’s a not-so brief compilation of the things we learned planning a wedding:

1. Smile and nod at everyone’s opinion and then completely ignore their advice and do whatever the hell you want to do.

I don’t know why a throwing a wedding is open-season for people to offer unsolicited advice on literally everything but OH IS IT EVER.

But guess what? None of those people are the two of you. If you’re signing up to get completely financially rinsed all in the name of one perfect day, then that day should reflect the two of you in exactly the way you want to be reflected. The day will not be made or broken by your entree choice or where you source your flowers.

Stand firm. Eat what you want to eat. Smell the goddamn flowers you want to smell.

Your grandmother had her time.

NO ONE WANTS POT ROAST ANYMORE NANNA.

2. No one cares about your décor but you.

Ok this may be a bit of an exaggeration. I have been to weddings where I’ve heard people critiquing the décor, but here’s a little secret: everyone really hates those people and how did they even get invited to your wedding in the first place?

I think if you surround yourself with good humans, they may remember that it looked “nice” or felt, “warm.”

BUT if anyone you know actually spends his or her time getting into the nitty gritty of your table arrangements or colour scheme, then those people are lame and shouldn’t get to go to fun parties.

I think what people remember most is the feeling in the room, and I guarantee that feeling is going to be a hell of a lot more positive if you didn’t just blow $5000 on candles.

Which leads me to my next 2 points:

3. If you think you’re above IKEA, you’re not. And closely related:

4. If you think you’re above Dollerama, you’re definitely not.

I made Dollerama, HomeSense, Michaels and IKEA my bitch on a regular basis leading up to the wedding.

If you took a gander at the absurd Visa statement I mentioned earlier it’s just those four stores, on repeat, for three months. I can’t imagine what our wedding tab would have looked like if I didn’t opt for the DIY ghetto-chic décor options. But again, no one cares if your candles are made by the wax of purebred bees, or if your linens are 7000 thread count.

And it begs repeating: those people who do care, really suck.

5. Things to cheap out on: midnight food. Things to not cheap out on: a photographer and a live band.

It’s very important to note for all future event expenses that drunk people will eat literally anything that’s put in front of them.

I’ve awoken the day after a night out to realize at 3am the night before I just poured Sriracha on plain rice crackers and went to town.

Cold corn straight from the can? Yep.

Makeshift nachos comprised of just goldfish crackers and melted cheese? Check.

So don’t spend your money on artisanal pizza or fancy midnight sliders, as I guarantee the same person dancing shirtless on the floor is not going to appreciate the tang of red pepper relish on their delightfully tiny burger.

HOWEVER, a solid live band or DJ is pivotal to success and good party vibes. Are people going to be soaking in sweat rocking out to Counting Crows or are they going to be sitting at the table rolling their eyes while that one Uncle dances the Macarena?

Is it actually fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A?

N.O.P.E.

Also, spend the extra dough on a good photographer/videographer. I’ve had friends spend so much time and energy and money planning their weddings only to be disappointed in their pictures.

That day is a goddamn whirlwind that has you spinning in circles, too over-stimulated to really absorb any one thing. I promise when you blackout for 7 hours and come to at 2am sitting on the floor of your hotel eating a bag of Doritos still in your wedding dress, (No? Just me?) you’re going to want to rest easy knowing someone properly recorded all your memories for you.

6. Make a budget. Then tear up that budget while cackling evilly like everyone else in the wedding industry who is just out to slowly and methodically castrate your bank account.

You know the rule for converting Celsius to Fahrenheit? No? Me either. But Google tells me you double the temperature then add 30.

…Yea, wedding budgets are a lot like that. It’s a daily punch in the vagina/nuts so just make sure to wrap your head around that before you dive in.

I don’t know if people in the wedding industry are assholes, geniuses, or some combination of both. All I know is at some point in the planning process you too will find yourself getting inexplicably attached to a certain type of stupidly adorable dessert or table runner, lose all sense of logic and pay triple what you should for it out of some completely misguided sense of “need.”

You think you won’t. You think you’re above it.

So did I.

But then I went and spent $120 on 24 of these because Pinterest told me I should:

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No one is above it. 

7. Outsource as much as you can.

I know this contradicts the part where I said the wedding industry is a sadistic motherfucker, but the only thing worse than getting help is taking it all on yourself.

Case in point: me.

I decided early on that to save money I would try to do as much as I possibly could on my own. This meant dealing with vendors and throwing linens on tables and yes, crouching on my balcony in 5-degree weather spraying everything I could find gold.

Beer bottles or vases? You tell me.

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And I don’t know, maybe I saved some money, I couldn’t really tell you.

But I can tell you it made me a goddamn nightmare to be around.

Because if I’m being completely honest, taking the reigns had less to do with saving money and more to do with one of my more charming, delightful qualities: being a bit of a control freak who insists on doing everything herself, rejects all offers of help, and then complains she’s doing everything alone.

Remember that time someone shackled himself to me for the rest of his life?

What.a.sucker.

8. IF you relent and give the future husband a to-do list, include supporting photographs, a carefully laid out Google map, weblinks, a firm timeline and pre-programmed daily reminders.

Don’t get me wrong, I found myself one exceptionally good dude. It’s just that whereas my timeline is very much, “Now. Immediately. Today. This minute” his is much more, “As long as it’s done before we’re walking down the aisle, I have been tremendously successful.”

So perhaps I should have trusted that his to-do list would have gotten done without my near constant harassment and enraged/frustrated sighs…

…But we’ll never know.

Because I didn’t become a passive aggressive control freak over night, I’ve had years of practice perfecting it!

I’m also not sure he’s come to terms with the fact that even if the end result is flawless, if he doesn’t do it precisely my way I consider it a swift and mighty failure, so that’s also fun.

BUT to be fair, Dan has a tendency to be incredibly self-congratulatory and sort saunter around without an ounce of humility when he does accomplish the one small task I’ve been stalking him to do for three weeks, so I like to think we’re equally infuriating.

That’s why we’re married guys! A crippling fear that no one else could stand us.

9. Once the day starts, try to just roll with the chaos.

It really is the most tired of clichés but the whole day does just fly by. So look up once and awhile, and try to accept this day for what it is: literally the last time you will ever be one-half of the centre of attention ever again.

After this it’s usually kids and frankly once that happens no one will notice or care if you’re in the room ever again.

Breathe. Get a respectable amount of drunk. And enjoy the damn spotlight.

E.

I became an #Instawriter and everyone thought I was screwing with them

September 30, 2017 By in Humour, Life, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
I became an #Instawriter and everyone thought I was screwing with them

Guys it’s been ages! It’s been way too long since I posted up in Jimmy’s Coffee and wrote something long enough to warrant the title “blog post.” Which is of course a TRAVESTY for all my loyal follower… singular.

But what can I say, when your blog doesn’t have any obvious theme, or direction, or consistent subject matter outside of sporadic tales of some city chick’s life, it doesn’t pay you da cash money. And when it doesn’t pay you, it unfortunately takes a back seat to the things that do.

So blah blah *insert stream of excuses here* – I’ve been getting my Real Estate license, yadda yadda, planned a wedding and it took over my entire human existence – YAWN.

If it’s two things I know for certain in this life it’s that:

  1. Everyone is busy and,
  2. No one cares how busy you are.

But I, like everyone else, am a slave to the September guilt, which for some reason, feels more like a new year than the actual new year.

Blame it on the fall foliage or pumpkin spiced everything, but that bratty little bitch in the back of my head has decided to resurface in a BIG way, being all, “hmmm, what form of regret can I torture you with today?”

So chalk full of that late-2017 guilt, here I am, typing away.

That being said, I have been writing… on Instagram that is.

I started up a little side project there almost a year ago that couldn’t be more the antithesis of everything I write on this bad boy.

In fact, one of my best friends, upon reading it for the first time, had this eloquent feedback to bestow upon me:

 “Wait… are you fucking with us?”

As if I had gone to the trouble of creating an entirely separate writing portal solely for the purpose of mocking the whole #Instapoet phenomenon…

… Which, quite frankly, is definitely something I would do (so in retrospect I suppose her reaction was warranted).

Except I didn’t do it to mock, or to ironic. First time for everything folks!

Said Instagram account is super emotional, and vaguely poetry-esq if I thought I knew how to write poetry. In truth, I have always assumed poetry is just regular writing but pressing the Enter Key way more, so there’s that.

You should definitely follow me there if you like quote-of-the-day websites, and kittens, and cuddling in soft blankets while reading quotes and petting kittens.

Here she is:

@vodkataughtme

Click above to enter the flip-side of my brain, where I think things like this:

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And this…

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Oh ya, and this doozy…

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Seriously, I’m barely recognizable.

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Told you, my brain is one scary little muthaf*^ker.

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So why did I do it you ask? Is it because I had always has a deep-seated want to become a super famous Instagram influencer, get sponsored by Tim Horton’s and have my writing compiled into a trendy book to sell at Urban Outfitters for $30?

Ummm, HELLS YES, that is the millennial dream after all.

Nah, I mean this is the first time I’m even mentioning its existence to the general public, so clearly I’m not in it for the followers or the free face masks.

I did it because I knew I wasn’t writing enough, and short little snippets of half-assed thoughts are easier to put on paper than these long-winded beasts I call blog posts.

It’s a good brain exercise and also allows me the opportunity to dig down into some of the deeper wells of what makes me tick.

All kidding aside, the truth is this:

I’ve always suffered under the premise of being “one thing,”  or of having only one dimension to my personality (see: last photo).

Everyone who knows me knows that I have a tendency to hide my feelings under layers and layers of sarcasm and sass.

But here’s a secret: I’m also highly emotional. Strip away that last coat of sarcasm and you’ll come face to face with a human puddle. The girl who most recently found herself loudly crying to a Levi’s commercial (*sob* “They really ARE for everyone – young old, gay or straight” *sob*)

I find a lot of things beautiful in this world, and I also find a lot of thing wholly heartbreaking. On any given day I am bombarded by images of tragedy and hurt and of wonder and appreciation.

The nice thing about not having any semblance of a “brand” is that no one is telling me I can’t write about all of it.

I am a realistic romantic. A control freak who loves a good free fall. A highly organized mess.

And as you can imagine, a god damn RIOT to live with. Dan loves playing a good round of, “Which of Emma’s personalities do I get to be married to today?”

Sometimes what I find interesting involves a woman with zero self-awareness walking down the street pushing her dog in a stroller, and sometimes it’s sitting in a living room having a conversation with my girlfriends and being awestruck by the fact that I get to call these strong, intensely loyal, ambitious women my people.

Sometimes I want to scream at the top of my lungs at the absurdity and violence and cruelty in the world, and sometimes I watch people being so selflessly kind to one another that I think if we all stopped senselessly hating each other so much we might actually have a solid shot at this humanity thing.

So I do the only thing that makes sense to me: I write it all down.

The magic and the mess.

The hilarious and the painful.

To sum it up, I’m going to stick with doing both.

This blog will stay what it is, i.e.:

  1. Advice no one asked for from someone who has no right to give it.
  2. An intimate look at the inner workings of a relationship/marriage that my husband never gave me permission to write and only ever succeeds in making him extremely uncomfortable.
  3. My continued blissful ignorance at the two points above.

In turn, my Instagram account will stay what it is:

  1. Basically the word equivalent of the weeping emoji face.

But, like, still follow me I guess? Because how else am I supposed to get that prime Urban Outfitters shelf space next to Unicorn floaties and pineapple EVERYTHING?

K thanks team.

E.

The Couple’s Travelling Rules

January 11, 2017 By in Humour Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
The Couple’s Travelling Rules

Once upon a time I wrote the Couple’s Cohabitation Rules. Because you know, at that point Dan and I had lived together for a whole year, making me the obvious choice as expert on cohabitation, and like, relationships in general.

Just kidding, we’re literally flying by the seat of our pants every.single.day.

But, with 2.5 years of condo living under us, I do feel like we’ve got the living together down. A lot of our success can to attributed not to our personalities or deep maturity and superior conflict resolution but instead to:

  1. Being on completely opposite schedules so we only really “live” together three days a week and,
  2. Having four of Dan’s best friends live within a two-block radius which makes our 800 sq. ft. condo seem like a normal sized human living arrangement, not one built for tiny Toronto hobbits who are comfortable with zero personal space.

Point is, we’ve worked it out. We know each other’s ticks and buttons and only exploit and poke at these once every 8 to 10 days.

But travelling together? That, my friends is a WHOLE other ballgame.

And to be clear, I’m not talking about some all-inclusive resort vacation where a gentleman named José serves you your 7th mojito of the day while you lather on the SPF 80 and talk about how “dry” the heat is down south.

On these trips, you spend the bulk of your time discussing what a beautiful country Mexico is despite only seeing one stretch of private beach, and your only interaction with a local is knowing they make a really dope towel swan.

Get yourself a resort vacay, and the worst you’ll have to worry about is boredom, and what on earth you’re possibly going to have to talk about at your 3rd a la carte meal of the day.

If that’s your bag, all the power to you; I get the draw – it’s easy and you don’t have to plan/think about anything.

It’s just not my thing. Trips like that make me lazy, and prone to pick fights over stupid stuff that doesn’t matter, like where José is with my 8th goddamn mojito.

No, I’m talking travelling. The kind where you have to move from point-to-point, and therefore deal with planes and boats and delays and uncomfortable amounts of back sweat and an overall lack of Wi-Fi to distract you from each other.

Dan and I just got back from Belize, so again, that whole seven days of traipsing about together makes me the obvious choice as expert on couple’s travelling.

Man you guys are SO lucky I’m here.

So here I present to you, my guide:

THE COUPLE’S TRAVELLING RULES

AKA a step-by-step guide to avoid committing spousal murder in a foreign country 

1. Force your significant other do things they hate so when you get in a fight at least you have an excuse.

Listen, Dan is very laid back, and there’s not much he doesn’t like. But HIGH on the short list of things that give him the heebie-jeebies are:

  1. Planes
  2. Sharks

So obviously on our trip to Belize I made sure we flew in a tiny 10-person plane and went snorkeling with sharks.

It’s very rare I get to see Dan freak out, and I find it extremely comedic when he does.

So for the 30-minutes we spent riding a baby plane over open water while he stared directly into the aisle and I soothed him with such calming, reassuring words as, “Dan, look out the window, look how high we are, look at how deep the water is, isn’t this plane SO SMALL?” I was extremely happy and amused.

Similarly, listening to your 6’4” significant other scream bloody murder into their snorkeling tube when their foot accidentally touches a stingray makes for some serious entertainment value.

Try it sometime, comedic gold I promise.

In turn, Dan made me… do absolutely nothing I hate. Because what is he INSANE?

Plus I don’t have any obvious fears other than organized sports so as long as he didn’t try to get me to join a Belizean softball team we probably would have been ok.

2. Don’t compare your current trip to places you’ve been without the other person as this makes you an obnoxious show-off.

Ya, about two days in I started to say “Oh man this road really reminds me of…” and Dan exasperatingly cut me off to exclaim, “Let me guess, Cayman?!” and I realized I was being THAT person.

So referring to the above point 1, I of course just kept doing it until he lost his mind.

No I didn’t!…

… But I thought about doing it, because if it’s one thing I think we can all agree on, it’s that sometimes I am an intentional asshole.

3. Get those #whitepeopleproblems out of the way REAL quick.

The beginning of our trip got off to a, “rough start.” And by this I mean,

  1. We didn’t get to the airport early enough to get coffee, and
  2. For approximately 13 seconds I thought WestJet was out of cheese trays.

As easy-going a unit as I like to think Dan and I are, if you wake us (me) up at 5am and deny us (me) of our (my) coffee and snacks and you would have thought our worlds (my world) was ending.

By the time you actually get to another country and have successfully changed into a bathing suit and flip-flops all those little things seem so silly and ridiculously dramatic.

… mostly because, as it turns out, the plane had both cheese AND coffee. Phew.

4. Invest in Air Conditioning.

There was a time in my life where I thought roughing it was fun, and that I could get by with just a mattress on a floor and a fan.

And I did! …Get by that is. Somehow all without contracting a flesh eating disease or bed bugs. I mean, when travelling abroad, I lived in some hovel-like conditions.

Very crack-den chic.

Turns out that’s all I need when travelling alone and only having my only personality to deal with in the morning. I mean, back then, who cared if I woke up haggard and hating everything? I could take as much time as I wanted to face the general population.

This is NOT what you want to do when you have to sleep next to another human.

Especially when said human is a giant, sweaty man-furnace who actually wants to interact with you within three hours of waking up.

We learned that lesson circa 2014 in Costa Rica when I made Dan stay in a very sketchy hostel that lacked many basic human amenities, like water pressure, linens, or any type of airflow.

Sleeping with a mattress spring jabbing him in the back the entire night was not the key to a successful romantic vacation.

Although again, did provide me with some serious amusement. It wasn’t my back after all.

5. Talk to other people.

Like, a lot. You’re on a trip together for sure, but I wouldn’t suggest going about it in a #nonewfriends kind of way.

I don’t care how in love with someone you are; 24-hours a day for seven days in a row with one other person is a lot. You need some human buffers. Mix it up, mingle, and take a two-hour break to lie alone in a dark, quiet hotel room so you don’t daydream about “accidentally” drowning each other on that sunset cruise you thought was a great idea when you booked it five weeks ago.

You know, the usual, healthy relationship kind of stuff.

6. Try not to feel that bizarre vacation relationship pressure to be completely different people. 

It’s this weird idea we all have that trips are supposed to bring out the perfect versions of us. This relationship ideal that as soon as we cross international waters we immediately revert back to first date status – just a couple of horny teenagers experiencing moment after moment of unfiltered romantic bliss.

Like when we get home and people ask what we did on our trip we’re all supposed to sigh, smile and say, “Oh us, I can’t even remember the activities, we were just busy loving each other.”

Screwwwwwww that.

Yes, I absolutely agree that it’s easy to be happy and easygoing when you remove all of life’s everyday schedules and complications. But it’s not as though you get to another country, look around and think, “Ok…palm trees, check. Sun, check. Let’s just throw on some R-Kelly and slow dance for a week.”

Or I don’t know, maybe some people are exactly like that; I’m just not one of them.

I instead, really love to completely self-destruct under moments that feel like they “should be” romantic.

The night of New Years Eve in Belize, we were standing on the beach as fireworks went off. Dan put his arm around me for what must have amounted to a tenth of a second, and the whole thing just felt so overwhelmingly cheesy I immediately went into Robot-mode and had to disengage.

I always have these out-of-body experiences in those moments where I end up way too aware of just how much we must resemble a 1990’s Made-for-TV movie.

And why do I care you ask?

To that I say, I have absolutely no idea, but I’m sure my future therapist will have a TIME digging into that mess.

Throw me into a spontaneous situation where I say, watch my boyfriend attempt to hoist his large body onto a very small inner tube unsuccessfully for a 3-minutes, leaving me in a puddle of my own hysterics and BOOM! Instant romantic moment I will forever remember.

I love him so much in those moments it’s silly.

But should he try to lie beside me and stare at the stars while I don’t know, the ocean makes bloody ocean sounds around us, and I will go so inside my own head about how ridiculously, “A Walk to Remember” we look and definitely find a way to ruin that moment.

… In a mature, adult fashion of course – i.e., by loudly proclaiming “EWW!” and then barrel rolling away from him.

Really nice stuff here; Good luck to you, future doctor of my brain.

6. Drink Drink Drink Drink Drink Drink (set to Rihanna’s Work)

The only thing that ensures you’ll black out and fall asleep before you go and ruin romantic moments?

Cheap tequila.

After all, what’s more romantic than a slurring corpse?

On that pleasant note, happy romance and future travels together kids!

E.

Homo6ixuality: Toronto Pride

July 4, 2016 By in Toronto Tags: , , , , , , , 1 Comment
Homo6ixuality: Toronto Pride

Toronto, this weekend you proved why I speak so highly of you. I’ve been burnt out on you this summer, spending my weeks trying to find ways to spend my weekends away from you – at lakefront cottages, at homes close to cottages close to some body of water (at times I would have settled for a kiddie pool and a sippy cup full of alcohol if someone offered).

Anything to step momentarily outside the chaos and High Rises, the metal and ritualistic burning of money that accompanies summers here.

But then you go and have weekends like this one, so full of love and beauty and progress and pride that I wonder why I ever wanted to leave you.

Here’s the thing I’ve always known about you Toronto: you are not a city that is content on riding on the coattails of progress.

You define progress. You set precedent.

Toronto, you are only the multi-racial, multi-sexual city you are because you have not just accepted or accommodated differences, but have encouraged them. You have enveloped these people in all of their diversity warmly into your arms and whispered, “Welcome, you’re safe here. This is where you belong.”

And Toronto, you have PRIDE.

Yesterday you were beautiful. You were a city at its best, most enlightened self.

You were on fire.

Because Toronto, if it’s one thing I’ve always respected the fuck out of you for it’s this: you know love is hard enough to find and maintain without having to fight for the right to feel it.

You know that life can be cold and love is rare and when two people find it that should be celebrated for its rarity, not ridiculed for its existence.

You have understood, long before other cities, that the support of friends and family is important but so is the support of the larger community. That truly powerful cities, the ones with heart, will protect love in all its forms and allow it the possibility of thriving, rather than extinguishing it with declarations of, “That’s not the right kind of love.”

You are the city where my mother felt comfortable taking me to pride parades as a toddler. Where yes, I definitely have clear memories of naked old men marching and being beelined in the head with condoms being thrown from floats.

But  I also have memories of beautiful women holding hands, and men of all shapes and sizes kissing each other tenderly, and hoards of people laughing and dancing and strutting in celebration.

And because of that, because you are a city that holds one of the Top 5 Pride Celebration attendance records IN THE WORLD, and because I was raised in the thick of it, I got to grow up thinking what everyone now seems to be realizing:

That love is love is love is love.

You are a city that is part of a larger country that finally elected a Prime Minister worthy of the respect of the gay community; a man who looks at the residents of his country in all their diversity and represents their rights. A man who marched in the parade yesterday so unabashedly giddy that people screamed triumphantly and wept uncontrollably (or was that just me?)

Toronto, yesterday you were host to a pivotal moment in Canadian history – The 1st Canadian PM to march in a Pride Parade – how fucking cool is that?!

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And sure, you’ve set aside a section of your city to celebrating the rights of LGBTQ citizens, but expression of this sexuality is no longer confined to that space. More and more people are feeling free to express love and affection across your neighbourhoods.

It is not a city block that plays safe haven to this community; it is the city as a whole.

Toronto, after the shootings in Orlando you saw such a swift outcry from your residents, and the city ran deep with raw, visceral emotion. Empathy wasn’t a rare commodity and anger and sympathy ran across communities. We were not segmented that day but instead stood together in support.

And in an action meant to strike fear, we stood fearless. The overwhelming sentiment wasn’t panic that this could happen here but a firm belief that we would NEVER let it happen here.

We operated with the knowledge that Orlando may have been the actions of one man, but that one man was raised in a society that gave this ideologies legitimacy; that somewhere along the line he found support for this hate.

And Toronto, we knew you had to be better than that. You ARE better than that. You know that these beliefs cannot be fostered but must be squashed- by love, by proper education and by teaching support over anger at every turn.

And hopefully, Toronto, we will never have to deal with the emotional ramifications of a mass shooting because we will have built a city that declares that behaviour so intolerable, so outside the realm of possibility that no one would dare mess with the 6ix.

You are a city that knows one day these won’t even be conversations, or debates or arguments or fights. You know that if we continue on this path, by the time our kids are our age they too will feel proud to have been raised in a city that is trying to get the world to see sexuality for what it is: endlessly fluid; as a glorious spectrum rather than two opposing poles.

A city that knows one day “gay” or “lesbian” or “transgender” will simply be a characteristic, not define someone’s character; a city where if we raise our kids properly, we will welcome into the fold more tolerant group of individuals capable of choosing kindness over prejudice.

We will be a city that helps mould a country. We will mould it until we won’t require a rainbow flag anymore because a pride flag and Canadian flag will be synonymous.

Gay pride is Canadian pride.

And Toronto, yesterday you showed me your Pride and for that I am so endlessly proud.

Thank you.

E.

 

 

 

The Couple’s Cohabitation Rules

February 13, 2016 By in Humour Tags: , , , , , , 3 Comments
The Couple’s Cohabitation Rules

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, I was looking through some old emails the other day and stumbled across a list I had complied for my boyfriend when he and I decided to move in together in July of 2014.

At the time, I considered myself a relatively lone-wolf kind of character, and I was terrified to the point of being non-functioning at the premise of living alongside another human that wasn’t my badass female roommate. So, I set about making a list of rules that I thought would be the keys to a successful shared-condo relationship.

For the most part, looking back on it, I think it’s clear that:

  1. I’m oddly self-aware of my own insanity,
  2. We’ve followed most of these, and goddammit, it’s worked!
  3. This is my idea of Valentine’s Day-inspired romance.

So I present to you, my guide for successful cohabitation with a significant other, as written to my boyfriend Dan a year-and-a-half ago.

THE COUPLE’S COHABITATION RULES
AKA Dan and Emma’s step-by-step guide to not becoming a boring, emotionally-dependent couple with no lives

All the below will relate back to the main purpose of this list: as a young, relatively good-looking couple who have yet to sag and wrinkle in all the wrong places, we want to continue to want to see each other naked.

Here is how I see us avoiding being that couple whose only idea of date night involves an Italian shower, sweatpants and Netflix (please note use of the word “only” as sometimes HBO and a robe is what dreams are made of).

1.We will continue to have our own lives. Neither party ever has to feel obligated to invite the other out on his or her plans. Life will not end if I don’t experience a 4am hockey boy’s night where you drink out of lawn décor. Similarly, you don’t need to know the sordid details of my latest engaged friend’s wedding venue…and wedding song…and wedding dress.

2. Two words: Date night – Once a week. No excuses. New restaurants, bars and events are what runs this city and what fuels both of us. The moment we stop going out is the moment we stop being ourselves.

3. Don’t touch my laundry, as I’m never going to do yours. Towels and sheets are communal and will most often be done by you as you’re going to be astounded by the time I can survive between laundry sessions (a backpacker, hostel-dwelling attribute I haven’t yet shaken).

4. …I will try to do laundry more often.

5. We will never go to bed angry.

6. I will probably wake up angry a lot, and drop things, and spill things, and take 25 minutes to leave our place and still be pissed off because I’ll feel like you rushed me. But you knew all of this when you signed up…sucker.

7. Sex solves most arguments. Remind me of this when I’m being a cranky bitch.

8. Friends from out of town are always welcome to couch crash; I will even make them coffee in the morning and pretend their not interrupting my very delicate daily routine when I’m at my most emotionally vulnerable.

However, friends who live 5-minutes down the street but are just so liquored up that they think our place is a warm, inviting alternative at 4am? That’s only going to end with me making my morning shake in a blender about 6 inches from their face.

9. Give each other space. So, so, SO much space.

10. That being said, let’s try to find some activities to do together.

You’re probably never going to leap at the chance to hit up a Pilates class with me and I’m never going to want to join you and three of your guy friends while you spend a gym session complimenting each other on your bods instead of actually lifting weights.

But relationships are all about finding some common ground and shared interests. Like…I don’t know…ice cream, or seeing who can sit motionless in one place the longest.

11. Pre-drinks? Yes. After parties? Depends how much we value our furniture (aka, not a chance and I’ll kill you slowly).

12. Speaking of furniture, continue to pretend you give a shit about furniture. This décor-obsessed attitude is unlikely to subside for a solid 6 months (cue disgruntled sigh).

13. We will not, “let ourselves go.” It’s an attribute of those who take their significant others for granted and who are lazy depressed fucks. Are we lazy depressed fucks who take each other for granted? NOPE, DIDN’T THINK SO (roar).

14. Keep a little mystery – the naked human body is a magical, wonderful thing…that is not meant to be seen in harsh direct lighting, or bending over to pick up laundry, or slowly sauntering around at 2pm on a hungover Sunday afternoon in an attempt to be enticing.

15. If you stop manscaping I’m going to stop waxing. We’ll see who wins that battle.

16. We’re not using seeing each other every day as an excuse not to take trips. My travel itch will never fully subside and you have a lot of the world to see. Let’s make sure we save some time (and money) aside so we never stop exploring.

Pretty much I see it like this: we’re two fairly emotionally mature, funny muthafucka’s who it seems like most people enjoy being around. It’s a natural consequence that we like being around each other. It’s all about the energy you give out in the world so let’s make sure the energy we impart on one another is as positive as possible.

As I keep saying to those who ask, you’re an easy person to be around so if I can’t live with you I’m probably just fucked….

On that note, can’t wait to start this little social-experiment with you handsome. Aren’t you lucky!

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Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone! May you all one day love someone enough to compile a completely obsessive compulsive list of do’s and don’t’s for your relationship.

xo

E.

These are the Hopes I Have for My Friends

October 2, 2015 By in Life Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments
These are the Hopes I Have for My Friends

I wouldn’t call myself introverted by any means, but I do enjoy a good reflection on life. And yes, sometimes these points of reflection involve a juicer and a four-hour cry, and sometimes they involve feeling down and out and devoid of all the good energy. We all have those moments. They suck, you live them, and then you move on.

But more often than those days, there are days like today, where I sit and think about everything I am lucky to have. I am fortunate that I definitely have more good days than bad, and am surrounded by some of the most fantastic humans to occupy this little earth of ours.

I’m not sure of many things, but this I know: I have the most beautiful friends. They are the most loyal, weirdest, laugh-until-I-spit-out-my-food-at-a-Sunday-brunch friends. They are the most spirited, driven, ambitious, gracious and humble friends. They are the sassiest friends; some of the most back-away-slowly-because-they’ve-gone-temporarily-insane friends.

For these friends, who can change my day with just a wink and a hair flick, who talk me off of every ledge and who listen (I mean REALLY listen) to all my ridiculous rants, this is the life I wish for you.

To the women in my life:

Fuck I adore all of you. I grew up a tomboy, thinking I would never have anything in common with females.

Dear God how you have proven me wrong.

You have proven women can be offside, and fall-off-my chair hilarious. Each of you gives me something to aspire to. I am in awe of all of you constantly; you are bundles of ferocity and positive energy. You have shown me that we don’t need people to pick us up and dust us off in our darkest moments; we are more than capable of doing that ourselves. But you’ve still picked me up, time and time again and for that I am forever grateful.

For you, you vibrant, feisty, vivacious little specimens, I hope so much.

I hope as you grow up, you continue to be protectors and supporters of other women, as you’ve taught me to be. I hope you continue to compliment other women without comparing yourselves to them. I hope you don’t pick yourself apart, say your fat when you’re not fat, or push and prod at your skin. Because at some point all of our asses will jiggle, all our arms will develop those weird little flappy skin wings, so we should probably just accept our fate, laugh, high five each other and let those little wings fly.

And know that when you call yourself fat, I’ll be there to support you in the mature, poignant way I always do: By saying, “Oh my god stop it, you’re SO skinny, I’m the fat one.” (Just kidding… we’re both hot).

I hope you understand and absorb every ounce of your own worth, and only let it be dictated by the strength of your own character. And never NEVER let this worth be shaped by some barely-good looking tool who decides to not text you back.

Let’s be honest, even you know he’s and idiot with a small dick. You deserve to be looked at with admiration and respect by someone with a bigger personality and a substantially larger penis.

…Also, he probably has mommy issues. Ok, I’m done.

I hope you never have to know the hurt of a disloyal friend.

I hope you continue to actually eat pizza and not just pose with it on Instagram like all those idiots we hate.

I hope you know you are never ever alone, not for one minute.

I hope you know that you are enough, and never stand for anyone who makes you feel like less than that.

If you’re one of the single ones, I hope you always let me live vicariously thorough your ever-changing, tumultuous, fun life because after living with someone for two years sometimes I just need to hear about that first date that ended at 6am.

I hope you only surround yourself by people who make you feel good about yourself. I hope that much like you’d cut away a significant other who made you feel bad, you trim your friendships down to those people who lift you up rather than dampen your spirits.

I hope if you want to have kids, you have a whole barrel of them. And if you don’t want to have kids, I hope no one ever makes you feel guilty for it. Growing up comes with an understanding that most of the time, just having the balls to make a decision is the hardest thing. Your choices are just that: yours; no one else has to live with them. So surround yourself with people who support your choices without judgement, regardless of whether they agree with them or not.

I hope for just one moment you let me tell you what a radiant beacon you are instead of laughing and shrugging it off. It’s too easy to cast aside the compliments and concentrate on the criticisms. Hear the compliments you stubborn little fool.

For those of my female friends in relationships, I hope you fight and battle your way to absolute bliss, and never ever settle for a relationship that is, “just OK” or “fine. I hope you stay, not because it’s comfortable or convenient or because, “Well, we’ve just been together so long.”

No, if you stay, I hope it’s because the person you’re with is YOUR FUCKING PERSON and you just can’t picture life without them. You don’t have to spend your life making excuses for why someone is acting like an asshole but is actually really great. You are a partner, not a mother, and definitely not a martyr. Please don’t dull yourself to let someone else shine.

You are vibrant, you are a force; you are God’s fucking gift to men so shine on.

To all my friends of the male persuasion:

If you’ve even managed to read this far, (I assume most of you hopped off board somewhere around “small dick”) I know you think it’s easy for women to get all ranty and anti-male in their trials and tribulations. But long before I understood the value of female friendships, my life was surrounded by men. I was, “One of the dudes” not so much by choice but by overall terrible haircut, glasses, and 11-year awkward phase. No one wanted to put their mouth on this mouth, so I became the friend.

You guys don’t have it easy either, and I imagine that’s not going to change as we get older. Sure I think I have some of the most ridiculously attractive and intelligent female friends, but for every one of them there is about 72 Toronto chicks who I would qualify as ABSOLUTELY FUCKING INSANE.

This city is full of women who ask what you do for a living before they even ask your name; women who want to be taken care of because they never learned to take care of themselves; women with horrific insecurities that you end up having to carry and placate; women who view other women as competition rather than comrades.

These are not my women, but they do exist in hoards.

… You know, those high maintenance, fake tittied club rats you all seem to fall victim to.

The men I consider friends are some of the most absurdly handsome, dependable, hardworking, passionate, hopeless dreamers. They are men who I see as having such bottomless potential to be relentlessly successful in their careers and personal life.

You guys are who I go to when I need a male perspective, or just someone to tell me to get outside my own head a little. Because sometimes everything doesn’t need to be talked to death; sometimes I don’t need the in-depth study of females, or to map out a SWOT analysis for every problem. Sometimes I just need to drink too much and hear one too many testicle story.

For you guys, I hope you eventually find one of the normal ones. The girl who makes you feel secure and valued rather than jealous and taken advantage of. I hope all your hard work and charisma pays off and you are eternally successful so I can continue to let you pay for drinks without feeling guilty (It’s OK if I do it because you know I’m sticking around for life and also pay you back in wing-man capabilities).

I hope you realize that although being a man comes with certain expectations – to be strong, to provide, to win at all costs- that you will inevitably fail. And I hope you know that that these moments of weakness are as unavoidable and important as the moments of strength. Sometimes you’ll need the picking up and I hope you know that this is OK.

I promise that when you fail, I’ll be there to pick you up and once again, let you buy me a drink.

I hope you never lose your sense of humor, because there’s something about a 50-year-old man who still finds the word “balls” funny that’s really quite endearing.

Oh and obviously I hope you a never-ending stream of good, consistent sex because isn’t that the most important thing after all?

And mostly, for all of you: The new friends, the old, the ones I’ve lost touch with and the ones I had falling outs with. Thank you. Thank you for being the people I can rely on, for being the humans I disrupt people sitting next to us by laughing loudly with, who listen and care and don’t check their phone when I’m speaking to them.

Next to my family I have been molded most by you. I trust and love and fight and mourn the way I do because of all of you, and for that I will always be thankful.

I hold all of you in such high regard. You are MY FUCKING HUMANS.

Thanks for hanging in there with me you beauts, I promise to do the same.

Love Always,

E.