Category Archives: Pop Cult-ure

Smash That Subscribe Button

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Back when the kids were in elementary school, my favourite fundraiser – even considering my eight solid years running the Scholastic Book Fair twice annually – was the magazine fundraiser. I loved choosing magazine subscriptions and I loved the getting the happy little surprise in the mail a couple times a month.

The mail! Sob. Canada Post is currently on strike and I am just hoping it gets resolved soon. All my holiday cards are ready to go when the strike is over (GODSPEED), but in the meantime, last week pre-strike I mailed several (non-David-penis) postcards, and I have honestly no clue where they are in the mail process. If you receive one, will you please let me know?

Anyway. Back in the day I had quite a few magazine subscriptions and I loved flipping through the glossy pages. I still have pages of recipes I tore out of Canadian Living and I would incorporate interesting postures from Yoga Journal into my classes. My mother-in-law gifted me a subscription to O Magazine for my birthday for over a decade, which is a lot of What I Know For Sure. That is where I got the idea for Nicole’s Favourite Things. I’m just like Oprah! Except for a few small differences.

Of course I don’t subscribe to print magazines anymore – who does? – but I realized that I do have a lot of subscriptions in lieu of that: podcasts, newsletters, and, of course, blogs. Every once in a while I will do a housecleaning to unsubscribe from such things that no longer interest me or bring me joy. I was doing this the other day – why does Substack automatically sign you up for newsletters you may be interested in? I’m not! Why did I think that podcast that spirals me into despair was a good idea? It isn’t! – when I started thinking about subscriptions I actually pay for. There is a lot of free content out there, but there are a few things that I value enough to pay money for.

O-oooohhh Listen To The Music

As a family we have the paid plan for Spotify, and it is worth every penny. Sometimes I think of Teenage Nicole with her tape recorder, trying to catch songs on the radio to record mix tapes. There would always be some DJ chatter before or after the song, or the entire opening bars would be missed completely as I scrambled to record. I had mix tapes made from friends’ cassettes or, in some cases, vinyl albums, and the sound quality would be just as good as one could expect. If someone told Teenage Nicole that she would spend her forties listening to any song she wanted, no matter how obscure, no matter how niche, no matter how, frankly, weird, at any time, well. Teenage Nicole would have been thrilled.

In addition to that, I allow myself one, and one only, Patreon subscription to a podcast. My rules for choosing this podcast are threefold: it must be independently produced, it must have bonus content for Patreon subscribers, and it must be something that actively makes my life better. Currently, this subscription belongs to Forever 35, but before that, it was Gen X, This Is Why, which I only stopped subscribing to because they ended the podcast.

Content With The Content

I really believe that writers should be paid for their work, but also, a person could go broke paying for all the good content out there. I have a number of free subscriptions to Substack newsletters, but I pay for two: Laura Bray’s The Cozy Library, and the Fug Girls’ Drinks With Broads.

I have been a Laura Stan for many years now – her writing is so gorgeous, and you must, you MUST sign up for her newsletter, at the very least her free edition – and I am lucky enough that she is now not only a good friend of mine, but also an inspirational writing partner!

As for the Fug Girls, I have loved their fashion commentary and celebrity gossip for years, but they offer a lot of bonus content for paid subscribers, including deep dives into weird vintage cookbooks and tours through really obscure museum gift shops. In other words, content that is right up my alley.

Language, People

Time has no meaning anymore and so I can’t tell you how long ago, exactly, my son and I upgraded to the paid family plan for Duolingo, but I am currently on a 994 day streak with 65 weeks in the Diamond League, so I’m guessing it’s probably a couple of years ago. But how worth it that upgrade was! I spent six months prior to our trip to Italy learning Italian, which came in very handy. I refreshed my high school French before we went to Quebec, and I can now converse (albeit slowly) in Spanish. I don’t follow anyone on Duolingo except my son, so that he and I can go on “quests” together each week. Bonding!

Beauty…

Speaking of quests, I have been on a lifelong one for Hair Happiness. I could probably employ a therapist for a significant amount of time just to talk about hair issues, but instead I use that money for a couple of hair-related subscriptions that have improved my life immeasurably: Nutrafol and Prose. I’ve talked at length about Nutrafol and I will say this: in 2022, I was in a very low emotional state about my thinning hair and bald spots. I mean, obviously! No woman wants to go bald! But since starting the supplement I have had so much less hair shedding, and a lot of hair growth. It really worked for me and I wish they would sponsor this blog because it is expensive. Worth it! But expensive. I have a six-month subscription because, being in Canada, I have to pay for shipping and this way I am only charged for it twice annually.

I just had a sudden feeling of panic: Nutrafol comes via Canada Post. Pardon me while I go do some ujjayi breathing and reassure myself that the strike will be over by the time my next subscription comes. Breathe. Breathe.

Anyway. I also have a subscription to Prose hair products, which I love. I also love that I can pause the subscription or change the amount of time between deliveries, depending on how fast or slow I’m going through them. For someone who is very, very sensitive about her hair, these two product lines have been life-changing.

…and The Beast

Sometimes I feel low-level guilt that Barkley was the recipient of fancy, all-natural dog food that I had to pick up in a specialty store, whereas Rex gets Purina One. What can I say? Rex is almost 100 pounds and goes through five cups of dog food a day, to Barkley’s one and a half, which certainly factors into the decision. Well. I never once brushed Barkley’s teeth nor did I walk him for ninety minutes a day, so I guess things even out.

Because Rex goes through so much food I buy the 14 kilogram bags, which last about six weeks. Because of their awkward size and shape, I find them nearly impossible to lift and maneuver into a grocery cart. Once I tried to heave the bag into the bottom of a Superstore cart, and ended up accidentally launching the cart – sans dog food – down the aisle. I now use the subscribe-and-save function at Amazon; I don’t have to think about it, the food is always available, and I only have to drag it to the pantry if no one else is home to lift it.

Weekly Reading

Long Island Compromise. The very first thing you have to know is something I discovered about 1/4 of the way through the book: “Long Island Compromise” is a euphemism for “doing it up the butt.” What a wild title, and yet it is so appropriate, as basically everyone in this book is getting fucked up the ass, mostly figuratively, but also in some cases literally. The second thing you have to know is that this book is a work of art. I can’t remember the last time I read something that is such a statement about society without being a tiresome bore of a lecture. This book MOVES, and the characterizations are all so incredible. I could not tell from one page to the next where it was going to go. It starts out with the kidnapping and subsequent return of a Jewish family’s patriarch, and the remainder of the book deals with the fallout from that one-week incident. It deals with wealth and inherited wealth, trauma and inherited trauma, class, secrets, and viciously brutal choices and decisions. At first glance this book is about the old adage about wealth-building, in that “the first generation builds the house, the second generation lives in the house, and the third generation burns the house down.” But it’s so much more than that. Plus, it is hysterically funny; a few times I laughed so much my husband thought I was reading David Sedaris. I cannot say enough how much I adored this book. It’s absolutely brilliant. Big thanks to the beautiful and talented Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) for getting me to bump this book up on my TBR, and for being amenable with all my messages about it (Suzanne, omg, it means doing it up the butt!).

After Annie. This was a moving story about the year following the sudden, early death of a woman, and how the new world is navigated by her husband, four children, and best friend. It was well-written and compelling, but whoa, I have read way too many books lately that deal with the aftermath of untimely death. I think this is my fifth in less than a month. Time for something light, or, at the very least, something that does not discuss the devastation that results from a person dying prematurely and unexpectedly.

I have a pretty fun and exciting week ahead of me: it’s Full On Festive Season around here, and so the tree is going up, I have a very fun outing with the girls, and holiday baking and treat making has officially started. Yesterday I baked a warm gingerbread cake with caramel sauce, and it was absolutely perfect – the recipe was from my friend Julie’s cake cookbook (HI JULIE). My son very kindly reminded me that I have had this book for almost two years now and STILL haven’t made every recipe, as I have vowed to do. I’ll get there! One cake at a time. I hope you all have a delicious, festive week. xo

Don’t You Get Me Wrong

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I was just finishing preparing dinner the other night when I heard a very familiar guitar riff. I left what I was doing to run to the living room, which sounds dramatic, but it’s literally five steps away.

Rewinding twenty-seven years or so, I was modestly famous among my friends in grad school for my uncanny ability to identify a song – title and artist – by hearing only the first half-second of the opening chord. We Are Family! Sister Sledge! I would yell at Name That Tune Night in the grad lounge. I Am Woman! Helen Reddy! My abilities meant our team consistently came in first, although I don’t think I would be able to do that now, with any kind of modern music. And by “modern,” I mean music that came out this millennium. Maybe I’d be able to identify some Pitbull or Eminem, but even so, I would have to hear at least thirty seconds of a song before accurately naming it.

But essentially any song from the last century I’m good at both identifying and also singing all the lyrics to, and when I heard that familiar guitar whine I was excited because I knew Jesus Christ Superstar was on TV. Why now? I have no idea. I always think of it as an Easter show, but here we are, in September, learning about the Crucifixion.

The very best part of Jesus Christ Superstar is the beginning, when all those hippies are getting ready for the play. I could watch the overture over and over. I love seeing them create – and strike – the set, and getting into their characters. I also love Herod’s Song – who doesn’t? prove to me that you’re divine, change my water into wine – but honestly, the whole musical is kind of bland to me. Don’t you get me wrong but other than three or four songs, I think the music is boring and the whole thing is kind of a downer. You might be saying to yourself well, consider the subject matter, but the American war of independence, political corruption in Argentina, and a creepy disfigured man living underneath an opera house who is obsessed with a young ingenue singing his arias are not exactly uplifting either, and yet I love every moment of Hamilton, Evita, and The Phantom of the Opera.

I love musicals generally so I was very excited to be invited to watch Mamma Mia! with the girls at my friend Carolyn’s home theatre (HI CAROLYN). When I say “home theatre” I mean she actually has a literal theatre in her home. It’s one of the most incredible things I have ever seen inside someone’s house. Anyway, given my deep love for disco generally and ABBA specifically, it was surprising that I hadn’t ever seen this before, but I hadn’t, and I found it absolutely delightful. PIERCE BROSNAN AND COLIN FIRTH. Rawr. That girl seems too young to get married, I thought, like the aged woman that I am, but what a fun movie. Plus, did I mention Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth.

It occurs to me that there are many, many pop culture mainstays that I have never observed myself, although I am well aware of their contribution to our society. For example, I have never seen a single episode of Cheers, the movie Groundhog Day, or Star Trek in any iteration. I have never watched Gilmore Girls, Dawson’s Creek, or The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, although I can to this day rap every single word to Parents Just Don’t Understand. Okay, here’s the situation, my parents went away on a week’s vacation…

Everyone could save time by just assuming that the answer is “no” when wondering if I have seen any film or television adaptation of any book, ever, other than Little Women or a Jane Austen. I reread Bridget Jones’ Diary so many times that I have parts memorized, although now it seems very dated and quite toxic. I have never seen the movie, though, because I loved the book so much at the time that I couldn’t bear to see anything changed, even if Colin Firth WAS in it. That’s right, Mr Darcy himself couldn’t change my mind.

Weekly Reading

I have SO much to talk about this week, in terms of reading. Here we go!

The Burnout. This is a very cute, light read about a woman named Sasha who is suffering burnout at work; after a small breakdown she heads for the beach that she frequented as a child to stay at the once-fancy hotel. The hotel has gone through some rough times, and honestly the hotel staff and description of the issues are hilarious. She meets up with a man who is similarly burned out AND also frequented this same beach as a child. You can probably guess what happens! Let’s not overthink this. It’s just fun. 

Every Last One. This is the type of book I like thinking about more than I liked reading, if that makes sense. It follows a family in a small town in which there are many interconnected characters – kids’ friends’ parents are the parents’ friends – and a massive tragedy strikes. I thought I knew how things were going to go in this book and so I was very surprised when, after kind of a sleepy first half, there was a massively dramatic event halfway through. I think if you’ve ever parented teens you will recognize the particular challenges involved here, even without the tragedy. But the book begs the question: if you build your entire life around your kids, what happens when they aren’t around? I found myself thinking about this book a lot, but as I said, I didn’t love it. The writing style hops back and forth in time, which is interesting but can be a bit confusing. It’s a little slow and sleepy, even with the Big Dramatic Event.

Long Island. This is the sequel to Brooklyn, which I recently read, and despite the title, it mainly takes place in Ireland in 1976. After our protagonist Eilis discovers that not only has her husband slept with another woman, that woman is pregnant. The pregnant woman’s husband is going to just…deliver the baby to Eilis and her husband to raise, as he will not raise a child who is not his. What? Well, Eilis does not want anything to do with this baby, but her in-laws – who live next door, I feel seen – do. This strange storyline is the reason Eilis decides to go visit her mother in Ireland, who is turning 80, where she reconnects with an old flame. My friend Hailey (HI HAILEY) described this as a book where the characters have big emotions and face big issues, but the author only skims the surface, and I think that’s a perfect description. But, as with Brooklyn, I was left wanting more, wanting to know what happens next. And I didn’t get that. Maybe it’s the setup for another sequel.

We are now officially in fall! Happy first week of fall, friends! xo

Six Wildly Random, Semi-Related Things

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Gnot Cool. I enjoy the podcast Decoder Ring, and this past week they had an episode about The History of Lawn Ornaments, and the first half of it was about garden gnomes. I am here for this content! Earlier, CCR (HI CCR) sent me this article about a group IN KELOWNA called the Gnome Restoration Society. At first I was charmed by this idea, then I read it closely and realized that the society TOOK a man’s gnomes, repainted them, and returned them. Doesn’t that feel a bit presumptuous? If I looked out my window one morning and my gnomes were gone, I would be absolutely furious, and/or depressed. Then to return them, all repainted? Keep your hands off Salvadore, Gnome Restoration Society!

What Could It Be? At least twice a day I think about an interview I heard months ago of a woman who is in an open marriage and wrote a book about it; it was one of the wildest, and kind of saddest, things I have ever heard. During the interview she spoke about her husband; she said there was one thing that she would NOT do, sexually speaking, that her husband wanted her to do, and so he enjoyed his part of the open marriage with someone who would do it. My question is, what could this possibly be? She had already talked about her enthusiasm for the following: three-ways and multiple partners at a time, pansexuality, oral, anal, BDSM, spanking, sex toys, dressing up, being tied up, tying her husband up, pornography, filming and being filmed. What else is there? The reason I think of this at least twice a day is that the product that she recommended for the listeners is a waterproof, wipeable dog blanket that is used to cover furniture to protect it from muddy paws, dog hair, and the like. She, however, does not have a dog. She uses it as her sex blanket. I mean. Okay? I guess there are a lot of fluids involved for her, maybe more than I generally think there are. Anyway, I guess I was influenced, not for a sex blanket, but for my actual dog, and not for furniture, but for my car. I found something that covers the back seat and keeps it clean because wow, Rex is pretty dirty after our walks, particularly now that he cools his paws in the creek and then walks on the dirty, sandy paths. But seriously. WHAT ELSE IS THERE?

Hitting The Floor. Listen, it’s not his fault. Rex has giant furry paws and he cannot help being so filthy. Well, it’s partly his fault, because when I’m gardening he rolls down the bank beside the garden, over and over, and that bank is not watered, so he ends up constantly covered in dead grass, which ends up all over the house. This is in addition to all the dirt and sand that gradually falls out of his paws during the day post-walking; well, I feel like I could hire someone to vacuum five times a day every day, and that might keep our floors clean. MIGHT. As it is we are all constantly grabbing the vacuum or broom in a vain attempt to keep from being ankle-deep in filth. We have a very clean and tidy, organized house with the exception of our floors. Our Roombas just are no match for this, we have to do it manually. Well, I remember when Barkley died and the floors were clean; I don’t want that trade-off, so I guess we will all just keep cleaning in the hopes that the floors wills stay clean for more than 30 minutes.

Attack of the Killer Squash. I have never grown a pumpkin before and the plant is literally taking over the garden. Every single day it’s extended its tendrils a little further, and has a few more flowers and tiny tiny pumpkins on its extensive greenery, and I know what I should do is trim it down, but I don’t want to. I want to see what happens. Also, I’m not Almanzo Wilder here, I am not going to start feeding a pumpkin milk so I can win the blue ribbon at the county fair; if I end up with dozens of tiny pumpkins, well, it will be perfect for the upcoming Decorative Gourd Season.

My zucchinis and butternut squash plants are massive as well; all of these were grown from seed and they seem to be in a battle with the pumpkin.

Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma. It was serendipitous timing that this book came up on my library holds, because there has been a very upsetting revelation recently with regards to someone I deeply admire. If you know me at all, you can probably guess to whom I am referring, but please, I beg of you – I AM ACTUALLY BEGGING, FRIENDS – do not broach the subject with me. I do not want to discuss it, not now, and possibly not ever. But I did find this book extremely helpful for me to process my very complex, very private feelings, as it deals with separating art from artists. Can we separate the art from the artist? If we can, should we? It’s a very nuanced and thoughtful book, the thesis of which is that there is no one answer, and every individual person’s history will inform their reaction to such behaviour, which feels like an obvious conclusion, and yet it was one I appreciated. The author is a memoirist, and can’t seem to help herself – this nonfiction book took a memoir turn in the latter third. I wasn’t surprised to see that the examples of women who were “monstrous” were those who sacrificed their maternal and familial duties for their art, as she drew parallels with her own life, which, okay? In terms of the book, that seemed like a real choice, particularly since the examples of men were true examples of monstrous behaviour: rape, violence, pedophilia. Perhaps the author is making a statement on how men and women are viewed in general by society, and how judged women are for things like not paying enough attention to their children, and how venerated men are for being manly geniuses, who cares if they are violent, mean, and abusive – Picasso and Hemingway are two main examples. It is sad, of course, that Sylvia Plath neglected her children and then killed herself, but that does not seem to be even close to being on par with, say, the actions of Bill Cosby. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe that’s the whole point. Anyway, this book was well worth the read, for me, and gave me a lot of things to think about.

It’s Belle. I had one of those magical Costco trips, wherein I entered the store to complete chaos: lineups snaking down the store, aisles crammed with people waiting for samples, an inability to get from one aisle to the other without cart road rage, until I finished shopping, at which point there were no lineups at all. I sailed over to the checkout and the fellow who was boxing up my groceries said, in the most genial way, “Hi! Who’s your favourite Disney character?” It reminded me of an interview I heard recently where a woman talked about her hatred for small talk and social niceties like asking how are you? This should, in the mind of the interviewee, be abolished. It is useless, she said, and she related a story about how she used to hang up on and threaten to break up with the man she eventually married, until he stopped asking her how she was. It struck me as terribly pretentious and also, we live in a society? Asking other people about themselves, even in the most banal of ways, shows that you are not a narcissistic asshole? However, I will concede that there is only one real answer when a stranger asks how are you, whereas there are many answers to what’s your favourite Disney character, so I think this guy might be on to something. After all, he would probably see thousands of people a day. I related this to my husband later, and he wondered if it was only Disney movies, or if the entire Disney universe is included – Star Wars, Marvel, Muppets – in which case I might have to amend my initial response to include Miss Piggy.

Take a Break! Run Away With Me For The Summer. It’s time for my Summer Blog Break! Take care of yourselves, friends, and I will see you in a couple of weeks. xo

Five For Friday: The 1988 Version

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My writing partner Laura (HI LAURA) has been using her old journals and diaries for writing prompts, which in theory would be a great idea for me to do as well, had I not shredded and thrown out all of mine from my childhood and teen years. It’s probably for the best, honestly. No one needs to remind themselves of such misery. Even though I think of the years between fifth and ninth grade as being the absolute low point of my life, Laura convinced me to look back at my old yearbooks, in lieu of my long-lost diaries, and to write about a moment in time, 1988.

The yearbooks have a page in the back for students to fill out, things like Favourite Subject, and Best Friends, and also – weirdly – “Most Gorgeous Guy” and “Best Looking Girl”. Did the purveyors of the yearbook really think that we needed to know who were “The Jock” and “The Jockette” in the years to come? I guess they did. In any case, it was an enlightening journey, going back 36 years, to one of the least-joyful years of my life.

  • I don’t know what you were doing in 1988, but I was finishing seventh and starting eighth grade. The junior high years are universally miserable, aren’t they, but I feel they were particularly so in the 80s, and even more so for girls. Age thirteen is a tricky age to be in any case, what with the angst and the complete lack of self-esteem and the desperation to fit in and belong; there are friend crises and romantic crises and clothing crises, and everything in the world seems like it is just poised to constantly thwart you and break your spirit. And as if the generalized agony and misery of seventh and eighth grade were not enough to destroy a girl’s soul, the styles in 1988 finished them off. I am going to make a bold statement right now: no one, but no one, looked good in 1988. There was just no chance. If it wasn’t bad enough to have acne made worse with the use of St Ives Apricot Scrub followed by Sea Breeze astringent, hairstyles that surrounded our poor little scoured faces were insane. Who decided that spiral perms with bangs teased to be vertical were a good idea? This is when we were made aware of the diminishing ozone layer, so we all traded in our aerosol hairsprays for pumps, which we used to make our hair into literal walls. When gravity started to take its inevitable toll on those bangs, we rallied by holding them straight up and spraying them until they dried into a solid form. Why did we do that? What were we thinking? Who came up with this ubiquitous hairstyle?
My Grade Eight yearbook photo
  • I’m not going to say that fashion was worse than the hairstyles – what could be worse than vertical bangs? – but it was pretty bad: loose-fitting jeans that were rolled or pinned at the ankles, which is generally an unflattering silhouette, gigantic tees that were tucked into those jeans, and Keds or their knock-offs, with no socks, which necessitated a toxic amount of baby powder sprinkled inside to keep the feet relatively odour-free. In my school, there was one type of denim that was acceptable, and one type only: Levi’s, with the red tab. Wearing an orange tab would result in incessant teasing, and wearing literally any other kind of jean would make a person a social pariah. At my school, there was no room for variety.
Definitely Levi’s, with my Garfield sweatshirt
  • I loved – and still love – all kinds of music, and I would make mix tapes from the radio, so that every song would be slightly cut off or have the radio station’s jingle or the DJ’s voice fading in or out. My favourite band from that time was INXS, and that was also the first concert I ever went to. Following that, I had concert fever and would go to see any band, at any time. Those were very inexpensive endeavours; I think most concert tickets were under $20, and I was a pretty in-demand babysitter at the time, albeit one who made $2.50 an hour, and so the money that I didn’t spend on hairspray and Cover Girl makeup went towards concerts. 1988 was also the year I got into Depeche Mode and retro music like The Beatles and The Doors.
From the Peer Leadership Program
  • When it comes to non-music pop culture, I was glad to have my yearbooks to remind me of my favourites. According to them, my favourite movies in 1988 were Heathers, which, if I thought about it, I could have guessed, and Rain Man, which I absolutely would not. Rain Man, really? Who knew? When it came to television, I loved The Wonder Years – also, if I thought hard enough I could have remembered that, I’d probably still enjoy it today – and Head of the Class. Gun to my head, I would have never come up with Head of the Class. All I remember, mostly, is that the teacher was the guy who was Johnny Fever on WKRP, and Robin Givens, who was married to Mike Tyson, was a student. Oh, wait, you guys, I just googled it and apparently Dan Schneider, the gross abusive pedophile (allegedly), was also on that show. You are dead to me, Head of the Class. Not that I remembered you prior to this exercise, but still. Dead. To me.
Student of the Month
  • In 1988, the whole city had Olympic Fever – the whole city, it seemed, except for me. If there is anything more contrarian and eye-rolly than a thirteen-year-old girl, I don’t know what it is, but I was So Sick of Anything To Do With The Olympics, MOM. I mean, the most prestigious international athletic event taking place in your own city, who cares, am I right? I did enjoy the figure skating, though, and was able to take in an event to see Canada’s sweetheart, Elizabeth Manley, and also the battle between Katarina Witt and Debi Thomas, the latter of whom had a shockingly terrible life, post-Olympics. She was a fabulous skater, though, and that was also the year of the Battle of the Brians, and of Gordeeva and Grinkov. But other than the figure skating, I could not have cared less about the Olympics, and was extremely salty at being forced to watch speed skating practices as a school field trip. I was also annoyed at the joy of the city-wide celebration when the Flames won the Stanley Cup the following year; It’s Just Hockey, WHO CARES (sorry, Darren, if you’re reading this, I’ve grown since then, and also, HI DARREN). Ah, it’s hard to be thirteen. Everyone is irritated with your attitude, and truth be told, YOU are irritated with your own attitude. My strange contrarian attitude towards anything that brought happiness to the city makes my listed “Ambition” even weirder: I wrote that I wanted to be a mayor. Not THE mayor. A mayor. I do not remember ever being interested in the least in municipal politics; maybe I just wanted to keep out all sporting events from the city (or town, I guess) I ruled over? Who can say. I do find it strange that I didn’t list my ambition as being Prime Minister, or even a Member of the Legislative Assembly; I stopped at “a mayor.” I’m generally a Go Big or Go Home kind of gal, so this is puzzling, to say the least.

This little trip down memory lane was fun, but it has left me with more questions than answers. For a much less weird foray into the past, don’t forget to check out, and subscribe to, Laura’s Substack – she’s a gorgeous writer with beautiful art and thought-provoking essays, plus prompts for writing and journalling. I hope you all have a great weekend, perhaps one thinking of your own 1988, or your thirteen-year-old self, or maybe even your hopes and dreams of one day becoming the mayor of a random municipality. xo

Sassy, Sea Breeze, Stationary, Smoking

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This week I read, and was completely absorbed by, a book that was set in 1998, and I think that is the reason I have been awash in nostalgia. I don’t know what you were doing in 1998, but I was in grad school, taking step aerobics classes, and crushing it during Name That Tune night at the graduate students’ lounge.

I was so good at that game back then, and I could still crush it now, probably, provided all the tunes would be pre-Y2K (remember Y2K?). Disco? I can get down on it. 1970s folk or classic or mellow rock? Take it easy. Anything with a synthesizer, guitar riff, or drum solo? Yes. Grunge, country, pop, rap, techno beats? I can name it all. But I’m pretty hit and miss once we get into the 2000s, and I’m much more miss than hit when it comes to anything at all from the past decade; unless it was featured on the Peloton, I probably haven’t heard it.

There is a Peloton instructor who frequently teaches 80s themed rides, in which she always says that she admires us Gen Xers, who left the house with only “keys and a dream.” It’s true; if you wanted to meet someone at a bar, you just had to use your home phone to call their home phone, and then hope for the best. You had to look up places on a map, and if someone failed to meet up with you, then they failed to meet up with you, and that was the end of the story. You might find out later what happened, or you might not, but in any case, there was no way at all to track down a person. Or hardly any way. I remember when I worked as a waitress, sometimes I would get a phone call for a person desperate to get a message across to another person who was ostensibly in the restaurant, waiting. I would walk through the restaurant, looking for a person of the description provided for me. Are you Cheryl? You are? Dave’s going to be late.

In 1998, I had had an email address for about a year, and mostly I was the recipient of really stupid jokes, chain letters, or erroneous information about how antiperspirants caused cancer. It’s not unlike social media, to be totally honest. I did use it in a pen pal kind of way, though, to keep in touch with people who had moved away.

I still use email in this way for my former yoga students; one octogenarian lady in particular sends me very long emails about my old classes and all the people in them, and I send her long emails back about my life now. There are gaps of a week or more between our emails, which makes it feel like those long-gone pen pal days; she even starts every email with “thank you for your long letter,” which I love.

I was always a person who had a lot of pretty stationary and a lot of pen pals; I would write to my cousin Nikki in California (HI NIKKI), and most of these letters were about boys we liked and our summer vacations. I wrote to all my camp friends; if there is anything more intense and bonding than a week of summer camp when you’re thirteen, I don’t know what it is. I kept up that correspondence for years, even if I never saw that person again.

It reminded me a lot of something I heard about on a podcast recently, about what the hosts called “Little While Friends,” people you have an experience with or are friends with for just a little while, but you end up having them on your social media forever. Around 2010 or so, any time I met someone new, I would end up adding them as a friend on Facebook, which means that a solid percentage of my Facebook feed is made up of people I barely know, but I feel like I know, because I have experienced their entire life journeys over the years. I know about their kids, and their divorces, and their remarriages, and an alarming amount about their dietary and fitness odysseys.

That said, I do love Facebook, there’s no better way to keep in touch with people from my past and present, people who I feel warmly about simply because we have shared life experiences. Some of those life experiences are less savoury than others, but they are what makes us who we are.

My friend Jen (HI JEN) sent me that photo, circa 1992, which made me think of a meme I saw lately, about our high school signature scents: mine was cigarettes and Vanilla Fields perfume. I haven’t smoked anything in well over three decades, and I feel low-level shame that I ever smoked at all, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who carried perfume and mints after hanging out at the smoke doors at school. Isn’t it crazy that there WERE smoke doors?

Does anyone else remember butane curling irons? It says a lot that we didn’t accidentally light ourselves on fire, with all the smoking and excessive hairspray that was necessary for those weird hairstyles of that time. And beyond that, some of us were bringing butane curling irons to school – not me, but I coveted one. I had to make do with scrunching my hair in the girls’ washroom and spraying it with Aussie Sprunch Spray, then setting it with Salon Selectives. Given that I always had a lighter with me, it’s incredible I didn’t just combust right there. It’s probably good that I never had a butane curling iron.

I just discovered, upon googling, that butane curling irons are still in existence!

One thing that I wish was still in existence, or, at least, that I had kept some of my copies, is Sassy magazine. Sassy was, and remains, the best magazine for teen girls, because it treated them like actual intelligent humans. One of the most impactful articles I ever read in my young life was the one that they put out to explain the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm, an event that, naturally, caused me much stress and anxiety. This article detailed the war from all viewpoints, including the Iraqi people and, separately, Saddam Hussein. It was the first time I had ever read anything that showed anything other than a North American point of view, and it was absolutely eye-opening and formative, and made me realize that things were not always black and white, and that what I read in our media was not always the whole story.

In addition to increasing my information about the world around me, Sassy was instrumental in the creation of my skin care and beauty routines. Unfortunately, the girls of the 80s and 90s were sadly misled. Much has been said about the “Sephora Teens” of today, with their Drunk Elephant products and their anti-aging serum usage at age 17, but I think they have the right idea. After all, where they are moisturizing and pampering, we were scouring our poor faces with St. Ives Apricot Scrub, followed by the sting of Sea Breeze astringent; it’s no wonder we were plagued with acne and redness. Suz (HI SUZ) reminded me of that weird little product, the Buf Puf, which we used for EXTRA exfoliation, and we should all be in awe that we didn’t erase our faces altogether. Maybe this was the precursor to today’s Instagram filters, where girls and women filter so much that facial features become obliterated. We were just trying to obliterate our faces physically, rather than digitally. Or maybe that was what we were doing with those deep cleansing mud masks that would dry and crack on our dear little faces, leaving trails of whitish dust in our wake.

Weekly Reading

My Last Innocent Year. Wow, wow, WOW! I loved this book so much, I don’t even know where to begin. It is an exquisitely but sparsely written novel about a young woman in her senior year of college who enters into a relationship with a visiting professor. Tale as old as time, right? WRONG. This was just so well done, and so real, that I did something I haven’t done since I read (and loved) Girls They Write Songs About: I slowed down the last few chapters because I didn’t want it to be over. It’s set in 1998, which, coincidentally, is when I was in grad school, and so this book gave me all the nostalgic feelings. It was just so resonant of a time in my life which was brief, but felt like an age, when it was all about small classes and big camaraderie, hard work and thesis writing, and also parties and romantic interludes, when we all were on a first-name basis with all our professors and knew a lot about their personal lives, which seems wild now. This book, though. The time period details are spot on. 1998 was also when Monica Lewinsky was in the news, which I have a lot to say about, but I will keep it to this quote from the book: “Monica had become every girl’s worst nightmare, the equivalent of having your seventh-grade diary read over the school loudspeaker or walking into class with a period stain on your pants. We identified with her, which should have made us kinder but instead made us mean.” This book resonated with me so much and made me wonder about paths not taken; every single character is so well developed and complex. I wish I could go back in time before I had read it, so I could have the pleasure of reading it again for the first time. This will be a reread for me in the future, I am sure.

The Women In The Castle. When I first read this book in 2018, I really enjoyed it and found it incredibly thought-provoking in terms of divisiveness between people in society. I don’t know if you remember 2018, but it was KIND of a divisive time? I saw this at the library (in large print, no less!) and thought I could do with a reread. After all, since my first reading we went through a pandemic, which has to be THE most divisive time in my memory, and also, here we are, deep sigh. I will say I enjoyed this book as much or even more than before, maybe because I knew what was coming. I will also say that, generally speaking, I think historical fiction is one of the hardest types of book to get right: the language and dialogue is tricky, and it’s often overwhelmingly difficult not to insert modern sensibilities into the past. BUT this book does an excellent job on both fronts – it can be a little “explainy” at times, but I think it’s really well done. It’s about three German women and their families who come together right at the end of WWII, through the efforts of Marianne, the widow of a member of the German Resistance. She brings in the other two women, both ostensibly widows of the Resistance, to help care for them and their families. This book really shows how people can contain multitudes, how complex humans and society can be, how people can get swept up and find themselves in places they cannot fathom, and, most of all, how interconnected we all are, and how we are all responsible for one another.

Well, it’s been a fun trip down memory lane this week; this week is going to be full of lovely things like a trip to the garden centre, lots of writing, and, most exciting, not one but two events with my lovely girlfriends. I hope you all have a beautiful week ahead of you. xo

That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be

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Many years ago I was in the playground with a friend and our children; she had an older daughter who at the time was in first grade, and so was not at the playground but instead in school. My friend said something to me that has stayed with me for years. Her daughter, she said, “…has a whole life now that I don’t know about, there are so many hours a day I don’t know what she’s doing or who her friends are. It’s just a whole life separate to me.” At the time, my children were 3 and 4 and it would be difficult to overestimate how deeply those words affected me. My life and my children’s lives were so intensely intertwined: they were in preschool three afternoons a week, it was true, but I knew every child that they knew, I knew those children’s mothers and where they lived, if they had a playdate I went with them, every single moment of every day I knew where they were and at least approximately what they were doing.

Life continues on its trajectory and here we are. It was university Reading Week, and my older son came home for it which was, of course, delightful. Fifteen years after that playground conversation, and my son has a life that I only vaguely know about. He makes his own appointments and does things that I have no idea he’s doing, like snowboarding and rock climbing, I only have a very cursory idea about his schedule and classes, I don’t know any of his friends, and I have seen where he lives only once, for three minutes, while he moved in. His entire life is completely separate from me.

Well, that’s the goal, isn’t it? Fly, little birdie.

A few years after the playground conversation, I was speaking with the grandmother of one of my son’s friends. She was a lively and vibrant woman who took care of her grandchildren while their parents worked. I was telling her that I was nervous to leave the kids with my parents for three nights while my husband and I went away for his birthday. I’d never left them for so long before, and I felt anxious and guilty.

She patted my arm and said it was good to do these things, after all, she said, time goes fast and one day I’d be looking across the table and it would just be my husband. She told me that she remembered exactly when that happened, she said Oh, it’s you. Hello.

That isn’t quite the case here yet, but I can see it in the distance.

Marriages and long-term partnerships are so interesting and, snowflake-like, no two are the same. I was thinking a lot about that this week while reading Carly Simon’s memoir. Now listen, I have always been a fan of James Taylor, but I think that after reading this that I kind of hate James Taylor? He sounds like an absolute nightmare to be married to; I mean, to be fair, he was an addict, addiction is a disease, but also he was one of those guys who really wants a mommy in his wife – he is Sweet Baby James, after all – and who seems to have deeply resented the time and energy Carly spent on their children, particularly their very young son who was very ill with a kidney deformity. That’s probably all I need to say to paint the picture, but of course, he was also having affairs six ways to Sunday, and whenever Carly would confront him with this, he’d say “It has nothing to do with you.” OH REALLY, JAMES TAYLOR. I mean, he had to get tested for chlamydia a number of times during their marriage, so it kind of does have something to do with her? What was incredible to me was that Carly took to heart something her father said, which was that the true meaning of being rich was being able to give, and not being concerned about receiving. If that is the case, then Carly Simon was incredibly rich in her marriage, and even in 2015, decades after it ended, she still writes about him with love.

Getting back to James Taylor and his many venereal diseases, I was really puzzled by something: how was it working? And by “it” I mean his penis. I am no expert here, but he was whacked out on heroin much of the time, and so how was he having sex with all these women? I assumed that there would be performance issues associated with so much drug use, but here he was, contracting the clap left and right.

I am loathe to imagine this, honestly. James Taylor and his skeevy 70s moustache and greasy hair is not someone I want to picture intercoursing, as Detective Mettavoy once said in NYPD Blue and I have been waiting all these years to repeat. But I guess I am loathe to imagine anyone in a sexytimes situation; recently Stephany (HI STEPHANY) commented that no one talks about long-term partnered sex, and it’s true, no one does. I’m not going to delve into my own details about intercoursing here, mostly because my mom and several members of my extended family read this blog and I would like to have our future interactions not shadowed by extreme awkwardness. But I would like to circle back to my initial thought about marriage after the kids are grown and out of the house; this is the time to shine, in that department. Hello, it’s you.

Weekly Reading

Boys In The Trees. As mentioned above, this is a VERY juicy memoir written by Carly herself, and it is beautiful and lyrical, as could be expected from such an esteemed poet and songwriter. I knew going in that she had a stutter as a child, and her mom encouraged her to sing instead, which helped immensely, but what I didn’t know is she developed a stutter after being sexually exploited as a small child by the teenage son of a family friend. This exploitation went on for years and probably explains a lot about her later life. Also something that explains a lot: she was third born after two sisters, and she was “supposed” to be a boy named Carl, disappointed, her parents added a “y.” Do not even get me started on how enraged I am at the idea of “trying for a boy/ girl,” I have to actually do some ujjayi breathing just at the thought. Anyway, her parents did have their longed-for (RAGE RAGE RAGE) son after Carly, but they didn’t want him to GROW UP GAY in a house full of females (MORE RAGE) so they hired a male companion to teach him manly things. Where was her father, you may ask? He was busy. You see, Carly grew up in incredible wealth and privilege – her father is the Simon of Simon and Schuster! She grew up in New York and summered in Connecticut, spending a few weeks a year in Martha’s Vineyard, where, as a child, she met a young James Taylor WHO WAS ALSO GROWING UP WITH IMMENSE WEALTH AND PRIVILEGE. Honestly, I had no idea. Anyway, this male companion ends up a) fucking her mother to the point that she had an adjoining room with him while her father was just on another floor of the house, and b) spying on Carly and her sisters as they use the bathroom. So perhaps all of this explains Carly’s mellow attitude towards her nightmare of a husband, later on. There are many juicy details about the many sexy notches in her belt later in life, notably Warren Beatty, who really knew what was what in the bedroom, and Mick Jagger, with whom she had EXPLOSIVE chemistry, and who also sang backup on You’re So Vain. Who knew? Here’s what she had to say about that song:

Aha! So it’s more of a compilation of vain men. God, I love that song. Long-time readers will recall that this is my go-to karaoke song.

Hagitude: Reimagining The Second Half of Life. Speaking of birdies flying and the nest becoming empty, my friend Laura (HI LAURA) said the other day that she felt like when she became a mother, something shattered in her creativity, and now, as her daughter is away at college, she is at a stage where she is picking up those shards and putting them back together, rediscovering her creativity. I thought of that image a lot, reading this book. This is an interesting time of life for a woman. “…what we should be doing during menopause is gently and consciously letting go of one period of our lives, and slowly and mindfully easing the progression into another.” So says the author of Hagitude, an uplifting book drawing on European mythology about the elder period of a woman’s life, the vitality and meaning that can come from becoming a crone, a hag, a wise old woman. This is a dense book full of imagery and reclamation.

Here we are in the last week of February! Time just keeps its forward march, and here Friday is actually March. I’m hoping for a lamblike start to the month for you all, in every way. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Winter Solstice Edition

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Happy Winter Solstice, everyone! How are we all doing, on the darkest day of the year? I will celebrate by walking in the dark this morning as Rex has a grooming appointment at 8. A clean and fluffy Rex will be a highlight of this dark day; will I be able to keep him that way until Christmas? Who can say. Likely not. But anyway, today seemed like the perfect day to talk about Favourite Things, so without further ado:

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Winter Solstice Edition

New Home For The Holidays

After twenty-three years in a pretty small house, in which we had to rearrange the furniture in order to fit our Christmas tree, it is pretty exciting to have a spacious new home as the backdrop for All Things Christmas. It has been so fun finding little spots for all my decor; my holiday decorating aesthetic can best be described as Everything Everywhere All At Once. I have little things in every corner and windowsill, and it all feels so Merry and Bright, without feeling Claustrophobic and Cluttered, which, if we are being honest, is how things started to feel in our old house by the time Santa magically slipped down the metaphorical chimney.

We do not have a fireplace in this house and the lack of a mantel was the cause of some anticipatory consternation on my part last year, but I think using pretty ribbon to tie the stockings to the staircase hand rails is even better.

Part of my aesthetic can also be described as Sentimental Mom, and so I proudly display this cute candle set that my older son took a bite out of when he was eight months old and teething.

The Charlie Brown Christmas tree is nestled among the old farm equipment we have on display and, more festively, the little stuffies that used to hang on the knobs of the boys’ dressers; for some reason, the boys don’t want this as part of their room decor anymore.

Where’s Salvadore?

Many of you will remember when Salvadore first came into my life, the guys would move him into different parts of the house while I slept, just like my very own springtime gnome version of Elf on a Shelf. A few weeks ago I brought the outdoor gnomes indoors for the winter, and Salvadore has been springing up in the strangest locations. I’ll wake up to him covered in a pile of bananas, or in the vitamin cupboard, or masquerading as a Christmas gnome.

He’s literally Gnome on a Shelf!

He thinks he’s a present. Aw, he is. He’s a gift to all of us.

Speaking of gifts, look what Michelle made for me (HI MICHELLE!)

You must – MUST – check out her gnome Christmas party. Just prepare yourself. You may just spin off the planet with excitement, if you are a person who is Gnome Obsessed. Even if you’re not, it’s the cutest little thing you’ve ever seen. Is Michelle’s dollhouse just an evergreen Favourite Thing? MAYBE.

The Moving Pictures

I don’t watch movies generally; I usually fall asleep during them because I have become my own dad. Christmas is an exception! We all have Christmas movies that we must – MUST – watch every year, and mine are Elf and Christmas Vacation. But I also love what I think of as holiday-adjacent movies; I always watch my all-time Favourite Movie When Harry Met Sally around New Year’s, and I like to watch Little Women around Christmas.

Which one, you might ask, the one from the 90s or from 2019, and which is the favourite? You may also remember that I tend to loathe film adaptations of beloved books and I don’t know if I had a more beloved book as a child than Little Women. These movies are the exceptions! I love both of them and, like my children, I love them equally but differently, and just as I do not have a favourite child I also do not have a favourite Little Women. The one from the 90s is a pure nostalgic joy. If I need pure happiness, that’s the one. If I need to cry, I need only to watch the scene where Mr. March gives Beth a piano.

But the 2019 version is a love letter for the hardcore book fans. I think you need to be a real fan of the book to love this movie the way I do. Visually it is so perfect. So perfect! The sisters behave like sisters, the Hummels actually look like impoverished immigrants at the end of the Civil War, and the scene where Meg is at the ball, cutting to the scene where she has a grim financial discussion with her husband is pretty much cinematic perfection. We all know that Louisa Alcott was pressured to “marry off” Jo, which was how the sequel to Little Women – originally entitled Good Wives, although now it is just considered the second part of the book – was written. I love how the ending reflects Alcott’s true experience, and that it shows that Jo’s writing was her real love. The book itself is subversive and so strongly feminist, and the movie even more so. This is becoming a deep dive into the movie, which I didn’t want it to be, because who has the time, but I just watched it again and I love it so much. I felt like standing on a vulva-shaped soapbox with my ink-stained fist raised after watching it. The only thing that is a tiny bit jarring is the appearance of Bob Odenkirk as Father, which, what a casting decision that was. It takes me out of the movie EVERY TIME. Why is Saul Goodman here?

Let’s not get started on how Alcott’s actual father was a useless piece of shit who was FRIENDS WITH THOREAU. A less-successful Thoreau, if you will. We all know how I feel about Thoreau – do not quote that man to me, do not do it – so you can probably deduce my feelings about Bronson Alcott. Well. Is this Favourite Things or is it an Early Festivus Post? Let’s move on!

Oh, Miraculous Food

If you have watched a specific one of my favourite holiday-adjacent movies, you will immediately recognize that line, and it is one I think of almost every dinnertime. Miraculous food! I will say – and this is not a Favourite Thing, so bear with me, here I am in Early Festivus Mode again – I had a not-small degree of angst about a month ago when I realized that for the first Christmas in my forty-eight years on this planet, if there is a special holiday foodstuff I want, I need to procure it for myself. I know. I KNOW. Forty-eight is pretty old to discover Regular Adult Phenomena, and to shrug off the Spoiled Daughter Shawl, but there it is.

Here’s the thing: I prepare wholesome, delicious dinners every single night. FROM SCRATCH. I bake all manner of lovely muffins, loaves, and cookies year-round, and then I start leveling up every holiday season. I enjoy doing and eating all of those things. But I just kind of wanted some favourites without having to make some myself.

Well, boo hoo, you might be saying, and you would be right. There have been some Linus’ blankets wrapped around my sagging tree, which I deeply appreciate, but for the most part I have made peace with this and have womaned up to reality. Christmas dinner is going to be a joint affair between me and my mother-in-law; it will be at our house, and my mother-in-law is going to provide turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy, and since none of those are things I eat, I am going to provide side dishes such as Suzanne’s fall salad (HI SUZANNE) – with the addition of roasted chickpeas and dried blueberries, omitting the pomegranate – roasted broccoli, peas, and, naturally, kalettes. Hashtag kalette influencer. A widowed neighbour lady who has no family is coming for dinner and is bringing her signature German stollen, which I don’t believe I have ever had, and of course I have many sweets for us all to nosh on. There will also, needless to say, be wine.

Speaking of sweets to nosh on! I have mentioned my mint squares, and my gingersnaps and gingerbread. I made truffles, but I used mint chocolate chips for them and then dipped them in a mixture of melted chocolate and refined coconut oil. They turned out really well.

If you need a last minute, easy, fancy-looking treat, may I suggest bark? You don’t even need a recipe for this, although I will include some for Lisa (HI LISA). Here’s the deal: melt some chocolate. Stir in some crumbled up bits of things – Pretzels! Candy canes! Nuts! – and then spread the mixture onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. Put it in the freezer for 15 minutes or so, and then break the pieces apart, put in a cute tin, and voila. Festivity.

Holiday Re-Reading

I have a giant pile of library books waiting for me, but I put them aside for a couple of days for these three holiday re-reads. The Holiday Breakdown is a delightful little book about a writer who drives cross-country to escape LA and her writer’s block, to help her parents with their ailing ski resort. On the way her car breaks down in what appears to be a town from a Hallmark Christmas movie. It’s a fun, sweet read.

I read Holidays on Ice every year BUT you may remember that I dislike Sedaris’ fiction stories, so I only read the essays, with the exception of The Cow and the Turkey, which is hilarious. I skip from Santaland Diaries all the way to Dinah, The Christmas Whore.

My good friend Steph (HI STEPH) mentioned that she reads A Christmas Carol every year, and I thought I should do that! It had been YEARS. I searched out my copy that is so old my name is written in bubble letters in the front. I forgot how incredibly witty and descriptive the writing is; obviously, it’s a classic for a reason. My husband and older son also read it this week; it was the first time for both of them. “Scrooge is a total incel!” my son commented, and once you see that, you can’t unsee it. Anyway, we celebrated this literary milestone by all four of us watching the Muppets Christmas Carol which none of the guys had ever seen. I KNOW.

Outfit of the Month

There is never a bad time for a little black dress; it’s appropriate for almost every going-out occasion, festive or otherwise. The truth is I probably have a dozen or so in different weights, lengths, and styles, but I really love this turtleneck sweater dress. Paired with boots that I believe I bought in 2010, it made a perfect outfit for my night out with the girls to a candlelight concert (HI SAMMI HI JOY).

I wanted to give a little reminder that I have an Ask Me Anything form, so if there’s anything you want to ask, now is your chance! It will be fun way to start the New Year. The New Year that is only eleven days away, my goodness!

On that note, Happy Holidays, my friends. I am taking a little blog break to focus on the festivities; I’ll see you on the other side. Take good care. I wish you all joy, rest, love, peace, and the most delicious of the delicious treats there are. xo