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Maybe if we just let that out a bit....

Some people are upset with Toronto Star columnist Christopher Hume for saying seemingly unkind things about Halifax, the city in which I live:

“…one wanders around this old maritime city and can’t help but marvel at its urban potential. But first the streets must be reclaimed.

The irony, as always, is that Halifax is its own biggest asset. Compact and connected, it is in good shape for what awaits us after cheap oil. But in a world where monster trucks dominate, these qualities are liabilities. And so Halifax tends to look shabby and under-populated.”

He’s dead on the money. We bring in thousands of tourists,  and should they wander up from the historical harbour front  to the Spring Garden Road area, they often have to pass through Barrington Street and its papered up windows.

Hume also makes a point about Halifax needing to be “…rescued from the car.” Still dead on the money, but with a city council who can’t see their way clear to even a haphazard system of bike lanes, let alone a coherent transportation plan that encourages mass transit, bikes and pedestrians over cars, I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one.

Without rational direction and reasons for businesses to want to be located downtown, the urban core of  Halifax will, at best,  stagnate in its current state. At worst,  the brown paper blight of Barrington will spread.

I love Halifax – a marvelous city with smart, creative and warm residents. I don’t have to live here,  I choose to.  I reside, shop, and socialize almost entirely in the downtown area.  This city is like a beloved friend, and sometimes the best thing you can do for a friend is to tell her that her ass is hanging out of a skirt that no longer fits.

So, hey Halifax, I love you, but we really need to talk about that outfit. It’s just not working any more.

To be fair, I may have gotten it hammered drunk a few times. And I have possibly exposed it to one or two adult situations that, were my inner child registered with the state, would have seen me locked up for endangerment. But I swear I never laid a hand on the little Christer with the level of abuse that politicians have.

They gave it  candy and chips,  and made promises about better services, reasonable behaviour and tax dollars in safe hands. And when its back was turned, they kicked it down a set of stairs, got drunk and banged its mom. (That’s me.)

That’s really all I have to say.

That, and isn’t it odd that I refer to my inner child as an it? Not really when you gaze upon this picture of me as a toddler:

Me on the right...the one that looks like a boy with a vision impaired stylist.

Ah there we go. The death is complete.

The laminated mini notes for bad parking are some of the most popular items in the shop, so I  went ahead and made a few new sets. One features hilarious cute little bunnies saying the darnedest things; the other has greasy sewer rats giving bad parkers what for.

Eeeee! Cute bunnies!

Why did I make these? Well that’s the sort of woman I am…a woman with nothing better to do with her spare time than sit at her computer, quietly trying to squeeze out one more ounce of funny from her pores. Pores that are clogged with flop-sweat from having to be ‘on’ for you people 24/7.

Do you think I am funny all the time? Do you not imagine that I am a sensitive being? That maybe sometimes I like to sit quietly in the forest and contemplate how small we all really are? But I don’t sit quietly in a forest.  I sit at my shitty laptop, shouting out half-assed punchlines and clawing at my throat, feeling like I am suffocating out of sheer frustration.

That’s MY LIFE people. And it’s the way it is because of you. You, who never stop to imagine what it’s like to be a one-woman squirrel factory…shoving funny little furry fuckers out of my system like I am some sort of rodent who passes a litter every 35 days, give or take.   Like I just scurry into your attic and  squeeze out a pack of new babies because YOU ARE TIRED OF THE SAME OLD CARDS. MAYBE I WANT TO STOP HAVING SO MANY BABIES! MAYBE I WANT A CAREER! Maybe I just want to crawl into my closet for a while and cry the hot, salty tears of a clown. Maybe your desperate, clingy neediness has finally broken me.

Leave me. Just leave me.

PS – Don’t forget to check out the custom packs of mini notes!

Um, yeah. What he said.

This space is being given a streamlining spruce up by my sister, otherwise known as www.timeontaskva.com

It won’t be a big change except that the domain wryandginger.com will now bring you here, rather than the Etsy shop.  Once here, you will be able to choose from a lovely selection of posts about my various shortcomings, shop at the Etsy store, or even go to the other shop, wherein you will find a selection of W&G gear. Yes….you may wear me on your person.

So some of the links may be a bit spacey for a day or so and then all should be well again.

I’ve got a real dislike for Sean Connery. May I explain?

1. He Can’t Act.

Just saying you are an actor does not make it so. In the same way that Shania Twain can use the phrase “…as an artist…” and then produce masterpieces with lines such as “you’re a fine piece of real estate and I’m gonna get me some land,”  saying it simply doesn’t make it so.  Sean Connery plays Sean Connery in every film, and since he actually is Sean Connery, well… big deal. Please stop awarding him medals and prizes for playing his natural, gobby, misogynistic, two dimensional self.  It’s no stretch. For Christ’s sake, he doesn’t even bother to learn accents. I hear Meryl Streep offered to give him some tips one night at an Oscar gala, and he dealt her a hook punch that sent her ass over tea kettle into the buffet, leaving her visibly stunned. What effect such a punch may have had on her is unknown, but two days later she signed on for Prairie Home Companion. True story.*

2. The Above Mentioned Misogynistic Streak

At repeated points in his adult life, Mr. Connery has mentioned that there are confrontational, bloody-minded women who simply “want a smack.”  Well, if we’re working on the premise that people who annoy us continually should be dealt with physically, may I suggest sir that you keep an eye on the old pound of plums. For under this new system, I will feel free to kick yours back up far enough that they will only compound the difficulties people have in understanding your “Irish” accent, circa The Untouchables.  In deference to your Only Hit Her With An Open Hand policy, I will boot you only with the flat top of my foot, and not a pointy-toed shoe.

3. The Sharks in the Swimming Pools.

I've just wet myself trying to upload this as it is the scariest picture known to man.

I know what you are thinking…shouldn’t I be blaming my sister for this? After all, it was she who, upon noticing my enjoyment of the hotel swimming pool while we were traveling one summer, said “Hey what’s that shadow down there? Do you think it’s a shark?”  YOU KNOW I AM MYOPIC, KATHY! To the near-sighted, sharks are everywhere!  So, yes, on the surface she looks culpable. But  if you dig a little deeper, I think you will find that the very premise of a shark in a swimming pool is ridiculous. If there were a sliding scale of ridiculous, rainbow-flavored magician Doug Henning would be on silly-ridiculous end of the scale, and sharks in the swimming pool would be on the James Bond-ridiculous end of the scale. And as the best loved film version of Bond, Connery is clearly left holding the bag for that crazily intense feeling that can overwhelm a person as they swim toward the ladder which will take them out of the pool and to safety…or will it? Can you swim fast enough Cookie? Can you swim faster than a shark?  DID SOMETHING JUST BRUSH YOUR FOOT? DAMN YOU CONNERY!

4. This:

Zed the Brutal displays his tenuous front-knot.

This is the one exception to my love of hairy chested men. However, it’s also the shining example of exactly how an actor of this man’s caliber should have spent his career: in thigh high boots and a man-kini of bullets. Would that we lived in such a perfect world.

*Patently not true.