through my letterbox today….hrmmm, what’s this then??

huh.

i flip it over.

ah right. it’s time for the metropolitan police’s annual spy on your neighbour campaign! not that you’d know immediately from reading it that it’s from the met – what’s with the almost invisible logo?

as i may have mentioned, i live in a heavily muslim community. coinkydink that these are being distributed here?

good thing then, that i live directly next to this.

yup. that’s dozens of bottles of propane, and big sacks of fertiliser. oh, and they flytip too. perhaps i should call? i’ll “let the specialist officers decide” if the fact that it’s next to a hardware store is important. after all, “we don’t believe any call is a waste of time”, and don’t let that 13% terrorism conviction rate fool you: terrorists live amongst us.

(eta: i’d like to point out that i spent some serious time googling to find any evidence on whether this kind of scaremongering has lead to substantive police leads or arrests. i could find none. i suspect because there is none.)

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sometimes it’s difficult to explain why i run. and yet a 12 year old has managed to put into words what i so often can’t:

Why I Like Running
When I step outside, I go to the trail; and I start running down it, arms pumping, legs moving, and heart beating fast.

With speed, the wind rushes through my hair as if it is going to miss a train. With each step I take, I pack the dirt deeper into the earth. I see birds in the sky, flying. The bright sun shines, glistening on my cheeks, and I feel the warmth. I see little creatures and animals creeping around in the woods, for I blink quickly, not wanting to miss anything. Intensifying, the enjoyment level continues to rise, and I love running that much more.

I feel free, and no one can come and get me. Most of all, I feel happy, and at peace. I am in a place of independence because I am depending upon myself to push through and not stop until I know my goals are fulfilled. Doing, I know what needs to be accomplished at that point in time.

Just like when running, I do not stop, which is what I intend to do in life. When I start something, I will finish it.

Running gives me a sense of everything in sight; opening my eyes to new things and experiences. That is why I run, and that is why I love it.

Competition
I run to compete. Against others yes, but that’s really not who and what I run for. I truly run for myself.

I want to see if I’m up for the challenge. Sweating, I run with focus and purpose. I tell myself to not stop running no matter how bad I feel. Running is more mental then it is actually physical, and if I constantly keep feeding my brain with positive thoughts, I know I will be okay. I think of nothing but running and what is going on second by second; moment by moment. Until I collapse, I will not stop.

Pushing, every fiber of my being works together to not give up. Questioning, if I will make it. However, quickly throwing that idea out of the window and watching it smash to the ground. Knowing, I do what needs to be done, and I won’t let any distractions get in my way.

Competing, I run against me, myself, and I. My motivation keeps me going, and I won’t be a quitter. I enjoy testing my abilities of how well I can perform, and I love a good challenge.

Marathon
Ever since my dad ran in the Steamtown Marathon, I have dreamed to do the same. He is the one who inspired me to start running in the first place, and he is the one who is inspiring me to run a marathon when I get older. I don’t know how hard it will actually be, but I assume it will be difficult. However, I still plan to do it. Could it be drive, that pushes me on to run a marathon? Is it a fire burning inside of me that wants to be fulfilled? I do not know until I try it, which is why I want to.

Just thinking about it, my mind races. Wondering, my mind searches for answers. Would I complete it? When would I run it? I am curious, and I want to run it so badly. I want to feel a sense of accomplishment and achievement.

Running, step by step my feet would move forward. Through all 26.2 miles I will run through the grueling pain and all that follows. Then, I will cross the line ending in a speeding finish. And then, my urging aspiration will finally be fulfilled at last.

The Last Stretch
All of a sudden, with the last few yards, and the finish line in site, I get this bolt of energy, just like lightning striking. The adrenaline is pumping in my veins and throughout my entire body.

I run straight ahead, feet kicking up dirt behind me, legs racing at the speed of light. I feel unstoppable, and nothing and no one can slow me down. Whistling, the wind rushes in my face.

Suddenly, I realize that I am almost there, almost at the finish line. Burning, my legs hurt like crazy and they just want to stop running. But for some reason, I don’t stop. Persevering, I cross that finish line.

Once it is all done and over, I feel my heart pounding, knees shaking, and body aching. So much energy just sucked right out of me like a drink through a straw.

However, there is something inside of me that can’t wait till the next day, to do it all over again. Something inside of me that keeps pushing on. Something inside of me, that keeps on running.

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this is me. just back from a 13 mile run the other day.

would you say i’m “underweight”, “normal weight”, “overweight”, or “obese”?

moreover, why on earth would you care?

there’s been so much “concern” lately about those who’re overweight. from michelle obama’s concern that her kids were getting chubby, to howard stern’s invective of “concern” over gabourey sidibe’s obvious obesity.

seems whenever anyone is overweight, the general public now think they have a right to be “concerned”. for their health, of course.

but let’s be honest and call it what it is: it’s not concern – it’s repulsion. we’re repulsed by fat people. we’re repulsed because we believe that the physique of someone’s appearance is a reflection of their behaviour. behaviour we find repugnant, and ascribe morality judgements to: lazy, weak, slovenly. and therefore we feel free to discriminate, punish and openly mock.

think about that for a minute. when it comes to physique, we believe someone’s *appearance* reflects their behaviour. how fucked up is that? we would never ascribe morality judgements to someone’s eye colour, skin colour, or height. we would never ascribe morality judgements to someone who had a different number of legs/arms/toes.

i hear you saying already, “but weight is different! weight is something that can be controlled by behaviour!” and maybe sometimes that is true. maybe sometimes it is not. but do we make morality judgements about people who are underweight? do we express concern?

we do, in fact – but in a very different way. we may call them “sick” or “scary” out loud… but we glorify them in the media and express admiration in lots of other ways. we may call them “sick”, but we are *attracted* to them. we think of them as strong-willed, disciplined, in-control. we’re often secretly jealous of their habits. in fact, as a society we *encourage* the disordered eating of the underweight by giving them lots of money to act, model, or sing. our “concern” is often the equivalent of high praise.

and the way in which we express “concern” about the overweight doesn’t even correlate to other public health issues, like drugs, smoking, drinking. walking down the street we may see lots of people smoking cigarettes but we don’t think, “ugh, i bet they can’t even run to catch the bus”. we see people drinking themselves into oblivion in the pub, but we don’t think, “they should drink more water!” we see people addicted to heroin and we don’t think, “if only they had more willpower – they shouldn’t shoot up between meals.”

people we don’t know kill themselves in front of us every day on drink, drugs and tobacco. people who overuse drink, drugs and tobacco don’t get publically stigmatised in anywhere near the same way as the overweight, and yet we feel perfectly comfortable judging strangers we think are too heavy.

we don’t look at a fat person and see someone who may be poor or disabled. we look at a fat person and think, “if only they would *educate* themselves. if only they would eat less and move more. if only they had some willpower.” we look at a fat person and intuitively believe we know something about their values, their hygiene, their work ethic.

we look at a fat person and are repulsed.

which brings me back to the question: why do we care so much? why are we so “concerned”? why the knee-jerk condemnation? what the hell does it matter to you or me?

a person’s health is between themselves and their doctor, if they so choose. a person’s weight is their own business, not yours or mine. a person’s eating or exercise habits are something we are not privy to. and yet we judge.

i’ll tell you why we care so much, why all the “concern”.

1. it makes us feel better about ourselves. the same old reason we made fun of people back in the schoolyard as children – we get an ego boost by putting others down. it makes us feel superior, self-satisfied to think at least *we* are not fat. if someone else is lazy, weak, or slovenly, then we, by comparison are energetic, strong and disciplined. feels good, don’t it?

2. it’s so easy. the thoughts are already planted there, the stereotypes are have been around since forever – we don’t even have to think up new ones. every fat joke, every snide comment about weight, has always been right out in the open. it’s no longer acceptable to say bigoted things about people of other races, but a fat joke has always been a guaranteed laugh. hear or see enough of that, and eventually it starts to sink in.

3. cloaking our “concern” under the rubric of “health” gives it a veneer of validity. of *course* we just want people to live long lives and be healthy. what’s so wrong with that? (never mind the skinny people living on cigarettes, diet coke and cocaine.) so we come up with platitudes like “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” and reassure ourselves that it’s not that hard to be healthy, and healthy people are not overweight. cool, that lets us go back to #1.

4. it’s easier than thinking about and finding solutions to the root causes. trying to think about what it might be like to live in a neighbourhood without a supermarket is so hard. trying to think about what it might be like to be unable to exercise because you’re working two jobs and taking care of children is so hard. trying to think about how to change the industrial food industry which injects high fructose corn syrup into everything because the u.s. subsidises farmers for excess production of corn is so hard. trying to think about how to fix the economy so that one-in-five children don’t experience hunger growing up is so hard. trying to think about how to change the infrastructures of cities and suburbs which make it difficult to walk/bike places is so hard. trying to figure out how to reduce the prevalance of childhood asthma is so hard. trying to change the societal structures which make us more sedentary and less active is so hard.

in other words, we continue to be “concerned” about overweight people because it is easy, a cheap ego boost, and intellectually lazy to do so.

so when you looked at my pictures above, which category did you put me in?

the answer? i’m 5′ 3″, and i weigh 137 lbs. (62 kilos, 9 stone 11 lbs). that gives me a bmi of 24.3. put 3 more pounds on me, and i’m officially “overweight” at a bmi of 25.

not that it’s any of your goddamned business, of course. why, are you “concerned” about my health?

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and finally some answers.

it has taken a week to find out. even in days of fibre optic cables and internet video calls, sometimes the petty obstacles of distance and time get in the way. but tonight I was finally able to connect with kristin, who filled in the gaps for me of beth’s recent life and her death.

it seems that as tumultuous and despairing as her life often was… beth died peacefully in her sleep. a small measure of grace to dignify the passing of a remarkable soul.

and it seems like, with those answers, I can let myself mourn in earnest. because although I’ve known about her death for a week, I couldn’t let myself feel until I knew *what* to feel. she’d been gone from my life for many years – and now death has brought her back into it.

I’ve already eulogised her. and I’ve speculated on her possible death for so long. but the difference between believing something to be likely, and knowing it to be true, is measured in the weight of grief.

all these memories I’d forgotten I had keep flooding back with fresh tears. and now, who do I share them with?

she’s been gone for almost a year. I haven’t seen her in seven years. but tonight, she’s lost to me forever.

I don’t believe in god, and I don’t believe in heaven.

but for once in my life, I really hope I’m wrong.

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remember my friend beth?

i remember my friend beth. my generous, gregarious, funny, flawed, sweet friend beth.

i remember the tattoo she got that long weekend we spent in new orleans – a guardian griffin with a n’awlins crescent on her shoulder. she was a new yorker with a southern sensibility. she was equal parts impulsivity and fierce loyalty, protective to the core. her friends were her family, and she guarded those relationships closely. she would forgive her friends anything – any hurt, any slight, any neglect – the relationships came first, and her feelings came second. seems like she was always coming second to someone else, but that was her nature.

i remember the surprise birthday party she orchestrated for me – the only one i’ve ever had – because she knew how much it mattered. she had a way of honing in on the sensitive, achy spots in your heart, and tending to them. like a psychic healer, she always knew just what you needed most – a phone call, a gesture, a balm. she had a knack for knowing when you needed to talk, when you needed cheering, when you needed to be left alone. she was attuned to that kind of thing – she was always a caretaker, and when she cared for you she took care of you.

i remember her animals. i remember the day she got franny, her beloved golden retriever. franny was her first baby, but there were a lot more to follow. she could never turn away an animal in distress – sometimes to her own detriment. she didn’t always have as much money or space as she had heart, but there was no one else on earth i would have trusted more with the care of my pet. she would watch my dog when we went away and i always felt a bit guilty when i came back, knowing that she was probably nicer to my pooch than i was.

i remember her look. she was striking in that slavic way. tall and slender, all angles, with high cheekbones, dark hair and fair skin, and a red mouth – beth was never without her signature red lipstick. she had a loping walk – the kind you develop when you were real knobby-kneed as a kid, but she never outgrew it. she favoured classic tailoring, linens and silks and chunky silver jewelry. she had a closet full of crisp white shirts, but she liked to surprise people as well. a photographer friend of mine once used her as a model for a book cover he was shooting, with a blond bob wig and black gloves, very femme fatale, and she loved that. she turned heads without even trying, but she definitely enjoyed the attention.

i remember her generosity. she’d give you the shirt off her back, and she once very literally gave me the shoes off her feet. that generosity of spirit made you just want to soak her up, to drink it in like water. she often gave more than she had, and that sometimes left her in a hole – emotionally and financially. but if you needed something, anything, she was there. if you needed her tomorrow, she would be there yesterday. no hedging, no boundaries, no questions asked. it was that simple for her, and when you were around her, it made perfect sense. it was the only way she could live.

i remember her sense of humour. she was quirky and wacky light-years before quirky and wacky were cool. she loved a crude joke – crass, slapstick, that was right up her alley. she liked her humour unrefined and honest. she had a laugh that had a hint of snort to it, and sometimes it morphed into genuine snorting hilarity. which sounds unattractive, but it wasn’t – it was all part of her goofiness. goofy – that’s what she was. people can relate to that, it made her accessible and approachable and such fun to be around.

i remember beth as beautiful, tough as nails, vulnerable, rebellious, effusive, extroverted, resilient, self-destructive, warm, loving, scared and scarred.

last night, i found out that my friend beth has died. i’m still piecing together what happened. i’m still piecing together my heart and my memories. although we’d lost contact, i never stopped trying to find her, and i always figured at some point we would reconnect. that will never happen now, and all i can do is remember her as she was.

i remember my generous, gregarious, funny, flawed, sweet friend beth.

lynyrd skynyrd – free bird

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last night jonno and i watched “avatar”. not at the cinema, after paying £20 and dealing with the crowds and transport on a saturday night, as one might generally expect, but from the comfort of our living room.

yep, we download. and i don’t even feel a little bit guilty about it.

in fact, i’m quite glad after seeing “avatar” (which i found trite, formulaic, and downright corny [not to mention insulting on some levels]) that i did not spend an hour plus getting to and from the theatre. i’m quite glad that i didn’t have to worry about us not getting seats together. i’m glad i didn’t have to sit through a full *quarter-hour* of advertisements, and another 15 minutes of previews. and i’m quite glad that i didn’t fork out £20 for the ultimately disappointing experience.

all of these are factors which hold more and more sway in my decision about my movie-going (or not going) habits. it’s all become such a hassle. it’s all become so shamelessly overpriced (£10 for a ticket and another £5 for some popcorn and soda?!). it’s all become more about the marketing than the actual movie.

and it’s a model which no longer works. it’s outmoded. twentieth century. the idea that the filmmakers have a god-given right to hold you hostage and milk you for every penny in order to subsidise ever more ridiculously budgeted movies – well in the age of the bit torrent, i resent it, and i don’t have to put up with it. i’m voting with my bandwidth.

as are millions of others. a few years ago, bit torrents were the domain of the technically savvy. today, bit torrents are completely mainstream. sure, the enforcement agencies continue to try to crack down on torrent sites, with some success (mininova and the pirate’s bay having both recently gone under). but like a many headed hydra, more spring up to take their place.

and it’s not a new conundrum – the music industry has also faced the same issues. so one might ask, do i also download music?

no. and why would i? why would i spend time searching through dozens of torrent sites for a single well-seeded torrent of an album when all i want is one or two songs? why would i use peer-to-peer programs which are rife with bloatware and malware? why would i take the risk of downloading a virus from some unknown computer out there?

why would i do any of that when there’s itunes and amazon and emusic that allow me to easily download exactly the songs i want for an extraordinarily reasonable and addictive 99p per song? without risk, without hassle, without a second thought.

so here’s what would make me stop downloading movies: a digital rental of up to £5, that allows me to decide if i want to stay in to watch a film, that allows me to watch indie movies which i might otherwise have to wait for mainstream distributors to release on dvd to see, that doesn’t leave me feeling ripped off if i actually didn’t care for the movie, and that doesn’t try to fleece me with millions of unwanted adverts. and where nearly everyone has an “on demand” feature from a cable box, or has the ability to stream content over their computer, there is absolutely no reason this model can’t be done. it would cut also down on piracy and give the independents a wider audience.

what it *wouldn’t* do is force me to subsidise the next £300 million James Cameron piece of rubbish.

and i’m okay with that.

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warning: what follows is a rant. a petulant, self-indulgent, unkind, stomp-my-feet-temper-tantrum kind of rant. look away now if you don’t want to read further.

it’s the kind of rant borne of two cruddy, miserable days. it all started yesterday morning when the tube was suspended – i had to walk to the rail station with blistered feet in heels, and when i arrived, i was greeted with the sight of a massive hoarde of people bunching up and spilling out of the station.

this is one of the things i hate about brits: the tendency when everything goes tits up, to just wait like a herd of lowing, passive cattle, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. (told you i was going to get nasty.)

and the fact that i hate that characteristic just irritates me even further when a service like the tube (a very expensive and ill-run public service) seems to go haywire far too often. and people just put up with it.

so i was in a crummy mood. they weren’t letting people into the rail station (even though the rail *was* running, unlike the tube), and they were letting a bunch of people out a side exit, and i saw a few people slip into the station through the side exit. hell, i had a rail pass (and therefore didn’t need to validate my ticket at the gates) so i tried to do the same.

only to get violently shoved by the rail employee. yes, i was physically assaulted by a guy in a fluorescent vest on a fucking power trip who shouted, “what’s wrong with you?! you’re jumping the queue!” (i wonder if he would have dared lay a finger on a male passenger?)

because really, that’s all he cared about. not the fact that i pay through the nose for a tube service that never functions properly. not the fact that i was severely inconvenienced and made late for work. not the fact that the rail service which *was* running, was being curtailed in the name of crowd control rather than expediency.

no, no. the fact that i jumped the fucking queue gave him the right to shove me with his shoulder like a linebacker and scream in my face.

(my formal complaint of being physically assaulted, is now being dealt with – had i not been so shocked, i might have had the presence of mind to call the cops at the time.)

so i got home, and i was annoyed all evening. then today, i walked out the door to see this:

this is the shit from the neighbours. they don’t seem to understand that the front of my house is not a rubbish dump, so they regularly engage in what’s called “flytipping” here – illegal dumping of garbage, refuse, waste, etc. they dump their household rubbish bags in front of my house. they dump their old furniture in front of my house. they dump computer monitors and old ironing boards in front of my house.

this morning, i was treated to several piles of accountancy textbooks they’d apparently decided they no longer wanted. so i shoved them back in front of their driveway, and went off to work.

i had another crap day at work dealing with other people’s incompetence. (gah – can’t *anyone* do their jobs properly??!) and then came home to the pile of books… moved *back in front of my house*, papers flying up and down the street. i stormed off to the hardware store on the corner (who abut the alleyway where the entrance to these people’s flat is) and asked them if they knew who was dumping the shit. turns out, they don’t have anything to do with the people living in the flat, but have just been calling the council to come clear away the rubbish every time. same as i’ve been doing.

so this is what happens: we all know who dumps the rubbish. the council comes and cleans it up. then they just dump more rubbish again. and my tax money pays for it. argh!!!!! it’s beyond infuriating.

and finally, to cap it all off, the postman decided in his/her infinite wisdom, to leave my amazon parcel outside my front door – probably because they were too lazy to make out the collection card and drag the parcel back to the depot. when i found it, the two books which i was soo looking forward to, which were supposed to be inside were long gone.

this is what happens, though, when you’re an expat – a bad few days turns into a bout of effing and blinding about what a shithole of a country you live in, how you can’t believe you live in such a back-asswards place that’s stuck in the victorian era, how you can’t wait to get out because everyone and everything is supremely incompetent. how the most mundane things (transport, litter, post) can’t even get done properly, the natives are cattle, and it’s all gone to hell in a handbasket, god save us when the olympics arrive!

the little (and not so little) annoyances pile up until they become a mountain of self-pity that you can’t seem to dig yourself out from under. the difficulties of daily life become magnified until you attribute them to an entire country and people who can’t possibly do anything right, and it would all be different *if only you lived somewhere else*.

and i do want to live somewhere else. i am keening to live somewhere else. this smae thing happened with new york, and it happened with boston – the familiarity really does breed contempt. but when it’s another country and culture, it’s just so much easier to say the brits suck, than to acknowledge that urban living can be crummy sometimes. the city closeness starts to press in around you until you feel you can’t breathe, but you can’t yet escape, so let’s blame everything on the british. you can’t appreciate any of the beauty of the city (look! historic buildings and sushi restaurants side-by-side! the river and the theatre and the lights and the multi-culti populace and the palace!) because you’re so busy staring downcast into the dirty gutters and breathing the bus fumes. i’m sure vancouver doesn’t have any dirty gutters and bus fumes, and it certainly doesn’t have any sucky brits.

this will pass. i know it will. but right now i’m looking down at the gutters. the city is squeezing the life out of me, i have no books, and there’s rubbish outside my front door.

bloody britain.

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