The Fanstastic Ms. Fox

 

Dear future Amy,

 

I'm writing you from Oslo - or rather, on a train between the Torp Airport and Oslo.

 

I honestly don't know what to do here. I feel lost. I am very far away from home right now. I don't know what I'm doing here. I think I've had just about enough of travelling. I suppose I could kick back here. I suppose that I will. Museums? Forests? Urban stuff? Screw it. Let's use the space to make some plans. Plan some art. Enough travelling! Let's have a retreat.

 

Unless the museums are cool. Then it's time for musems.

 

It's a lesson for next time. Pack light. Stay short. Hostels. Air BnB. Book ahead. Look for deals. Plan the itinerary. By a phrasebook. Have a map. Lookup airport locations before you go there (fuck you Ryan-Air, fuck you¹). Arrange to ship the heavy and useless objects with whomever leaves first, or don't bring them. Know how much your luggage weighs. Cut down on superfluous crap in the backpack. If shopping for a laptop, get a light one. Don't count on getting meetings in other countries. Shop at grocery stores and take-aways. Look up transit options. Stay with friends. Rent a bike. Get a notebook or otherwise lighten the backpack. Get clothes that dry quickly, and wear them until they dry. Know that debit won't work abroad. Bring a second phone and get a god-damn local SIM card. Know that cancellation insurance only applies to emergencies. It doesn't actualyl let you cancel your flight. Book tickets further in advance. Bring laundry soap. Bring tupperware. Stay in hostels with a kitchen and a common room. Bring sheets. Don't break in new orthopaedic insoles on the road. Practice the language. Read signs. Infer words. Make friends in hostels, but know that they'll leave if you stay too long. Know what makes a good hostel. Buy transit tickets in bulk. Bring sunscreen. Bring soap. You can't eat dairy² and won't buy factory farm, and even shellfish will be out if you're a vegan next time, so plan accordingly (again - grocery stores, kitchens). Find a way to get cardio. Bust though jet lag. Meditate or chill before sleep. Sleep early. Rise early. Get outside early. Set specific blocks of time for work email, and don't bother with periodicals until evening.

 

Do these things and you'll have a great trip.

 

Now. For the other stuff.

 

You need a community. People to eat with. A place to work. And a clean and quiet house to live in. Likely together. But you need community. It will make you feel better.

 

You also need to stop throwing your brain at the wall. Remember than time on Main Island, where your brain was fizzing like a carbonated hornet's nest? Yeah. That. That's not a good way to think. The world, as you may have noticed, is vast. You cannot fix it.

 

I repeat. You cannot fix it.

 

Trying is good. Thinking of improvements is good. But hinging your happiness on something that you just can't do? That's not good.

 

You understand that if you just focus on something, that you can be really good at it. Seriously, the world is your oyster. FSCS has been in business for what - two months? Three if you count the founding, but that wasn't business. And already, it's turning over! You've been studying scenework for a year? And you seconded that role on HBO. Also: sculpture. Also: busting ass in nonprofits. But you do need to pick. You can't do all the things. You will break down. See those activists who are just a little older than you? And how they they break down? Fold? Collapse? Are felled by mystery illnesses? Don't be like that. Stay strong, rested, capable, focused. This means taking care of your mind.

 

I know that you have a thousand ideas in your head, and are trying to figure out how to get them out of you. But you will have to choose.  Sorry.


And I know that you are genuinely afraid of what will happen if you don't make change. That's reasonable. We talk about how "each us is is very small" or how "change was inevitable," and that's a kind of salve, but that's not always true. Some of the things you've done - maybe they wouldn't have happened otherwise. The Fed? Brooke, Kent and Beth, could have handled Lu's. But would they have met? The Switch - well, maybe someone else would have made it - ten years from now. And as for cohousing? What you're suggesting now isn't that radical. A worker-owned corporation is socialusm by another name. Without you it will still happen. Differently. Later. Maybe not as well, but - in some form - it will happen.

 

On the subject of RL. That was a spear through your heart wasn't it? To have someone that brilliant fall so hard, and for her to lash out and cause as much pain as possible on the way down.... And that is what she's doing: causing as much pain as possible. Every word in those emails was calculated to hurt. Everyone else can see that - everyone else could see the instability years ago, but you, sister, were blinded. Blinded by hope.


Move on now.
 

1. I am now mostly done my post-bachelor's. I'm taking a grad course next semester, and then any two upper division or grad classes.

2. There's a wallpaper store just West of the Astoria on hastings. It has a giant neon sign that reads "PAINT" on both sides. The "T" on one side is busted.

3. Speaking of the above, some worthwhile things require pain and sacrifice. While blend electrolysis stings like a bitch and drains my wallet, the real loss is this: I will never again be able to even try to grow a goatee. This will remain a dim memory - and a blurry photo. Except when the inflammation from electrolysis forms into a musketeer-beard-shaped rash.

4. Journal mostly locked down until CFS shit is over

5. Results of the experiment with inducing menses are as follows
- feels right - cycling hormones linked to feelings of embodiment and self-comfort (yay!)
- breasts no longer hurt all the time (yay again!)
- PMS sucks (expected)

6. Healthier psychological stage reached. Capable of retrospect without anger. Feel strong need for community.

7. Will not be running for another Executive term at Student Society. May run for part-time at-large position. I will avoid full-time work plus part-time classes or vice-versa in the future.

8. You know what's tasty and easy to make? Potatoes boiled in coconut milk and a bit of yellow curry. What's easy and healthy? Aloo gobi made with canned mashed spinach and potatoes not boiled in yellow curry and coconut milk, plus a little mustard. You know what's a cheap fast-food snack? Veggie "French" sandwiches at either Ba Le Vietnamese Deli (around 700 main and 120 Kingsway). You know where's a good place to go for a meal? The Cafeteria at the downtown campus of Vancouver Community College.

9. Losing your passport and then your citizenship card sucks. I cannot leave the country - and getting a new passport requires a citizenship card. Dammit. Forms printed out.

10. Speaking of healthier states and embodiment, I feel much more comfortable doing exertion now. I enjoyed my time in the weight room. And I want to go dancing - especially somewhere sly* (a Firefly term meaning "Queer"), or maybe kinky, or even better, anywhere with music that's actually to my tastes. I'm not that picky.

11. If you have not done so, register for Phamacare, preferably online. If you were on the lower end of the income scale to years ago, and have spent over $300 on medication, the BC government-people will send you a cheque next Spring - but only if you register before January. You can do this online. All you need is your care-card (which I have not lost) and your taxable income from two years past (which I did, but I phoned in and they were helpful).

12. Dating is now more awkward, as you can imagine. But it's easier now too. Better to get shot down than never know.

13. It's hard to isolate the source of heat-loss in one's apartment.

That is all

Before venturing into the land of the damned, I require a protective amulet.

Erk - uh, too much Prehistory of Religions for me!

I should say before I go to Ottawa for the CFS conference, I want to get my ears pierced. I'm looking to do this on Monday.

Any suggestions on where I should go? Where I should avoid?


In any case, my Prehistory of Religion class kicks ass insofar as it takes "an experiential approach to the foundations of human spirituality."

Or, in other words, "assignment due in week 2: talk to a tree. Week 3: find the sacred axis in your house, and report on the closest thing you've had to an ecstatic experience. "

And so on.