Advice Column

Financial tips from a father to his daughter named "Charisma" given while biking along 4th avenue in Kitsilano: You can't save the money that you spend, Charmisa.

The pop and catch

I want a channel that just plays clips of people trying to take short pieces of toast out of the hot toaster.

Variations on a theme

I drew these ovens almost 3 years apart.

Either/or

If it feels good doodle it.

Doodling is not just for phone conversations and boring lectures, doodling is for always and forever.

Urban Intimacy

Down Arbutus, before Second, there's an apartment facing west with mid century modern lamps, and a mid century man. He sits in his corner chair, illuminated by the light, reading the paper during the evenings. I like to see him there.

On Broadway, between Fraser and Main, I saw a man as he went to the bathroom. It was 8:30, and still bright. I stepped over his stream of pee, so that I might walk all my way over to the next bus stop to allow him some tiny speck of privacy. And because I was grossed out.

I know some of my neighbours so well in some particularly intimate ways, but in most senses, I don't know them at all. I know the details of their sleep, their snoring patterns, perhaps only as well as a lover would. But I know nothing about their career goals, or whether they prefer to use butter or margarine.

Starting and then stopping

Remind your dear self that you are well loved.  Fortunately, you know some of the world's greatest. Be thankful for those rocks that show up in your mailbox at the precise moment you need them to.* And those other rocks. Your brothers, your mother, your best friends. Those reliable few. Those irreplaceable some. Those real keepers. Those ones who are real ones. Who answer their phone on the first ring because they're your real sugar angels. Your plum cakes. Who ask you to cook buttery pasta with them at the exact moment you are starved, and are in need of nothing more than buttery, eggy, really great pasta. Remind your dear self that your self is dear. Drink down that bottle of wine and enjoy your sourdough. You are wonderful and great and I really believe you're super duper. And everything that is the worst perhaps hopefully maybe makes room for something better maybe somehow. And who are we without hope? The lower-case "l" lord knows how hopeful I have been, and how hopeful I remain. Darn hopeful. In the best way. Here is to feeling okay when you're feeling everything but okay. And, more importantly, here's to those wonderful people who make you feel that way. To my friends and family who are impossibly great, thank-you, you darn shits, for being so overall lovely and amazing.

*My dear ma' sent me a great couple of rocks in the mail but I am without camera now. You will just have to come to Vancouver and see for yourself how stellar they are.