megfowler.com

I don’t like butterflies.

If you read my site very often, you know this is painfully true.

No, I don’t think they’re graceful and pretty. I think they look like hairy men in frilly dresses. Did I mention they’re hairy?

But moths?

WORSE.

Sure, they’re generally smaller, unless you live in a jungle somewhere, and then all I can do is ask you, Why?

Sure, they have nice-ish wings, if you like batik or early 70’s upholstery.

But the hairy and ugly factor? MAXIMUM.

We’ve been plagued by (the normal) Vancouver summer moth crop around our home, the presence of which indoors is exacerbated by our tendency to leave the deck door open unless we’re sleeping or a swarm of killer bees is headed for the window.

Either one, really.

The thing is, I think they’re getting bigger, these moths. I can’t decide whether or not to blame global warming or steroids in milk or the revenge of nature on mankind for all-wheel-drive vehicles, but there you have it.

Big moths. Big, nasty moths.

On our walls. On our ceilings. Hiding in curtain folds, ready to spring into action when we turn on a light.

See Moth bounce off the light! Bounce, Moth, bounce!

See Moth make a horrible clicking noise that causes my skin to crawl! See him singe his wings! See him die in a gnarly heap on the coffee table!

Ewwww.

Damn moths. I don’t like ‘em. I don’t want ‘em. I’m done with ‘em.

Especially in cars.

Today, I commuted to work with my lovely roommate. My lovely roommate doesn’t usually have to drive too far to get to work (I am the commuter of our hetero lifemate family unit), but today she had a course away from her branch, so we decided to make the trip together.

This is usually really fun. We stop to get coffee, we sing along with the radio, we talk about how tired we are… magic!

Unfortunately, less than five minutes into our trip today, Catherine turned, looked at me, and screamed.

AHHHHHH!

I was a little taken aback (though not totally unaccustomed to this behavior) but soon saw the genesis of her horror when a moth flew from my side of the car to her head.

Then we both screamed.

AHHHHHH!

Then it landed on the gas guage.

AHHHHHH!

Catherine yelled at me to hand her a shoe that was sitting in my footwell, but soon followed it up with a more anguished cry.

“YOUR ARMS ARE TOO SHORT!”

AHHHHHH!

Indeed, it was true. I was flopping around like a penguin trying to reach her shoe, until finally she lunged to grab it.

The moth was now sitting coyly on the speedometer like he was some sort of fellow commuter named Darryl who wore Dockers, listened to Rush, and liked to play online poker until the wee hours.

But he would soon know how tragically unwelcome he was on the voyage.

Suddenly, Catherine realized that she couldn’t get into the small space beyond her steering wheel with a shoe.

AHHHHHHH!

Wait, though! There was a sock inside the shoe that would do the trick. And do the trick it did.

Lo, the moth died.

And lo, he left a mess all over the sock that killed him.

AHHHHHHH!

Gross.

Safe to say, we really needed our coffees once we got them.

But not as much as Darryl.

In the last two days, I’ve added releases from the following to my iTunes:

Mark Ronson
Jill Scott
Sufjan Stevens
Ocean’s 13 OST
Spoon
Wilco
MuteMath
Peter Bjorn and John
Kenna
Pearl Jam
The National
Lily Allen
Amy Winehouse
Ray Lamontagne

I love new music (even if it’s just new to me.)

LOVE.

So what’s on your iPod/CD player/car stereo/8-track?

Do tell.

Having a rain warning in Vancouver is like having a donut warning at Tim Horton’s.

We’ve had rain for a few days now.

It’s not too cold outside — mostly muggy, temperature normalish — but I think the whole scene makes it seem as though the weather were a bit more chilly than it is.

Even after a week of sunshine, it only takes a day to become re-accustomed to those ominous charcoal tufts of steel wool floating overhead, broken up by tiny bits of blue whenever one of the clouds forgets the “overcast” mandate laid out by Environment Canada.

This is Vancouver.

We rain.

Even in July, when everyone else on the West Coast (and the East Coast, for that matter. And the parts in between, dammit!) is wandering about in a bronzed, be-shorted bliss, we know that even the brightest day can end up feeling more like November.

I mean, I’m not asking you to feel sorry for us.

We’re awfully pretty as a result — our grass stays green, and our streets don’t feel like dustbowls — and the precipitation is good for keeping our forests safe from the fires that often ravage dry areas in the summertime.

But BLECH to raincoats in warm weather.

And BLECH to the kind of humidity that makes me feel like condensation is forming on the insides of my lungs.

And BLECH to sudden cloudbursts that make you wish you hadn’t worn a white tank top.

And BLECH to making plans to do anything outside and having those same plans change within a half hour because monsoon season sets in over lunch.

Someone emailed me once to ask if I talked about the rain in Vancouver to scare off tourists so I could have this beautiful city to myself.

And oh, ho ho… we Vancouverites joke about our reverse PR strategies all the time.

But no… everyone is welcome to come here!

Just don’t look surprised when you see that they sell raincoats at the airport, and all your shoes start making squooshy noises when you walk, and dust settles on your sunglasses where you left them on the table a week ago.

(Is it working?)

I mean, damn.

Well, hello.

It’s been a while since I last saw you, but my, my, my.

When we get together?

Sparks. Magic. Gallons of coffee. Mild sunburns.

BLISS.

I know, I know… it’s still a couple of months off. But I don’t think there is a single thing wrong with anticipating the deliciousness of you for as long as possible in advance.

And I’m quite excited — this time, I’m going to get on an airplane to start you off, rather than a road trip!

I mean, we LOVED the road trip, Vacation. We literally never ran out of things to talk about, and with the exception of deadly hot dogs, the possibility of scorpions, soul-melting heat, creepy men in hotels, and the people of Fresno, every moment brought us joy and relaxation.

Unfortunately, two weeks of driving was probably much less relaxing for Catherine than two weeks of playing DJ and clutching giant milkshakes was for me.

Go passenger side! Woo!

This way, both of us can have the same amount of time to chill, and we can force Eric to chauffeur us everywhere we need to go. YAY!

Eric? Is a good driver. Seriously. You should see him merge. Oh… wait. I guess you were there.

(Now, my only concern with the airplane thing, Vacation, is that my sinuses and eardrums tend to explode if I even LOOK at one, but I’ll just swallow a box of antihistamines and chew a Costco case of gum each way. And maybe scream epithets and random prayers during ascent and descent. All good.)

Really, what I am looking forward to most is the feeling of being away.

Of being warm and dry and sun-baked, like a lizard on a rock.

Of being free.

Of being separate from all the pressures and demands and questions and rituals of daily life.

Of having nothing to do but what I WANT to do, and no one to answer to but my fellow vacationers, who probably won’t mind that the beach and Peet’s coffee figure strongly into my plans for pretty much every day we’re in California.

For a non-vacation-y kind of girl, I’m getting really good at figuring out exactly what I need to escape. I assume I’ll only get better. And maybe even go some places other than San Diego (though really? SAN DIEGO, LET’S GET MARRIED.)

When we embarked on our getaway last year, I was hoping to get some distance from a long series of heartbreaking experiences that had left me raw, exhausted, and broken. I was trying to work out (not always effectively, mind you) issues with my health and my history — along with my own seeming inability to truly get past things that were holding me back.

I didn’t feel carefree.

I didn’t feel like good company.

I didn’t feel like anything I could do in the space of two weeks was really going to change me, even though I was willing to give it a valiant try.

But it did.

Oh, did it ever.

With every new freckle that appeared, I felt like my insides were shedding scars. With every goofy picture I took, I felt like my perspective was shifting slightly. With every lungful of fresh air I took in, I felt like I was re-learning how to breathe.

I couldn’t have done that sitting at home.

I’m not saying the ten months since then have been a cakewalk, or that road trips can cure anything that ails you (though I’m tempted to say that.)

What I AM saying, sweet Vacation, is that I can’t wait to see you again.

Love you forever,

Meg

Within the space of an hour, you get visitors from Dolce and Gabbana headquarters in Italy, Scientology headquarters in New York… AND NASA.

Huh.

So tired.

Tired enough to lose track of myself on the way to work, and get off at the wrong stop.

Tired enough to sign an email, “Mwf.”

Tired enough to require small hydraulic lifts to keep my eyes open.

Tired enough to be on my fourth cup of coffee and feel NOTHING.

We were up a little late last night, listening to music, eating ice cream, watching Alias DVD gag reels and generally harassing one another. And while I can usually stay up pretty late without repercussions, I think my body is finally starting to object to my habits:

WE ARE NO LONGER 25. WHERE IS THE BED?

This random and nerdy behaviour followed a really lovely dinner out with Eric (even though we had a showdown as to who would get to order the paella and ate the most garlic-laden hummus on the face of the earth and also? I looked like a vagrant in my damp, rolled-up jeans and sketch hair.

Fortunately, Eric did not point and laugh.)

He is going home today, and that’s a good thing, since he’s really annoying.

I’M KIDDING.

No, we’ll miss him (WAAAAAAAHHH), but I’ve also radically neglected my laundry and cleaning and general life maintenance to take on the “San Diego party lifestyle” for a week. I actually wore the same shirt twice without washing it the other day, and that NEVER happens to Captain OCD (yes, I know washing things too often is bad for them. SO BE IT.)

Besides having the Eric about, I’ll miss being a part of Catherine’s nocturnal angst. When I would accidentally brush by her in her sleep (on a futon on the floor in my bedroom during Eric’s stay) or come into the room after she’d gone to bed, or even just move on my bed, she would thrash violently and make horrified noises and grimace in disgust.

It’s honestly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, and she never remembers it in the morning. OR SO SHE SAYS.

I should start sleep pinching people. “What, I WASN’T AWAKE!”

Anyway, I’m too mentally garbled to offer much of value for now, but I do have some invasive and personal questions for you to answer!

YAY!

1. Do you do anything weird in your sleep?
2. What is your favourite word today?
3. If you could choose one smell to smell right now, what would it be?
4. Last three songs that played on any musical device you own?
5. How is the summer treating you?
6. Does the term “lunchmeat” horrify you, too?
7. Why do I keep smashing off my big toenail in random incidents?

A month or so ago, Catherine and I were driving along in her car when a song came on the radio that gave us both pause. Not because it was extraordinarily awesome, and not because it was extraordinarily bad, but because it was just so… typical.

So typical that it stood out.

See, I’ve long been of the opinion that girls today are being screwed over by popular music just like the girls in my generation were… except MUCH, MUCH MORE SO.

The lyrics aren’t getting any worse per se, and the women aren’t any more tarty than they once were (though you could argue that, at which point I’d offer you the full Samantha Fox discography, plus a reel of Tawny Kitaen rolling across the hood of a car in a Whitesnake video and Loni Anderson on KWRP) but now the messages are being couched in self-empowerment.

We’ve been Madonna-ized. Without the cone bra.

But.

The song in question:

There’s more to me than meets the eye
so come and look inside
Go deep…
‘Cause beauty’s more than skin deep

Okay, try and ignore for a second there that they rhymed “deep” with “deep”, and that there are two full cliches in the space of four lines.

When you read those lines, you think, “Well, that’s good! There is more to me than meets the eye! And beauty is more than skin deep! Yeah! Boys! Check me out — I have substance, even if I don’t own a thesaurus!”

Then you get a little more understanding of the kind of girl we’re talking here:

Don’t need to know the kind of guy
who’s quick to drop the fly
Wham bam!
That ain’t who I am…

Ah! So you’re not planning to date within the NBA? Good for you.

Then it kinda falls apart.

Don’t a-let my booty beauty
be the only reason you wanna ride
Don’t a-let my hottie body
jack the fact that I got a lot more in mind

It sounds good — I mean, you want people to look past your hotness to your internal awesomeness, right?

But was anyone really paying attention after you said “booty beauty”?

This is the dilemma of late teens/early twenties/(oh, who am I kidding) early thirties women today.

We’ve turned into nudists screaming at people not to stare at our bits.

“I am proud of my body! I love my body! Look at my sexual empowerment! Do you see my ass? It rocks! HEY! STOP LOOKING AT MY ASS! BEAUTY IS MORE THAN SKIN DEEP! BUT I DON’T BLAME YOU, THESE JEANS MAKE MY ASS LOOK AWESOME!”

It’s a little confusing.

Then we get to the chorus:

If it’s just the physical
It would be sensational
But if you really got into me
You know you’d be insatiable

I get the whole point: I’m pretty freakin’ hot and you’d be lucky to have me but DID YOU KNOW I ALSO CAN DISCUSS CAMUS AND HAVE A CERTIFICATE IN THAI COOKERY?

Why do we always need to make such a point of our sexual identity in the first place, though? Why do we have to be so bluntly, obviously, blatantly hot as hell and THEN, once we are SUPER SEXY WHOA, be something else, too?

I suppose it comes down to this:

The culture we’ve developed for young women has made blunt-force sexuality synonymous with empowerment, and THEN asked those same girls with the visible thong and two-foot cleavage to make sure that men notice their hearts, too.

(Well, I guess it IS sticking right out there…)

How about we don’t dress them up like Paris Hilton, and then ask them to tuck a copy of the Iliad in their hobo bag?

How about we keep Joe Francis away from institutions of higher education?

How about we tell them to ignore any man who needs reminding that they have a brain?

Don’t get me wrong — I LOVE a good wallop of chemistry to get things going, and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying that chemistry and sexuality in general. Girls can like that physical spark as much (or more!) than guys. And perhaps I own one or two shirts that don’t come all the way to, say, my chin.

Sex is not a bad thing. (Unless Joe Francis is involved.)

But I’m tired of watching young girls try and be everything at once, and only succeeding at communicating one aspect of who they are because we’ve taught them nothing about subtlety or true self-respect (or how to put on clothing that covers their drafty parts).

Maybe I’m just getting old.

Or distracted by my own hotness.

It’s hard to say.

LOOK AT MY NAVEL! I KNOW DEAD LANGUAGES!

Apparently, all you need to get across the border successfully nowadays is, uh… me.

Or so Catherine must have believed, according to this exchange on our way home from Seattle with Eric last night (oh, didn’t I tell you he was in town?):

Border guard: Where are all of you from?

Catherine: Vancouver, Vancouver and San Diego.

Border guard: (looking a little concerned) Where did all of you meet?

Catherine: (turning bright red) Uh… we met on the Internet.

Border guard: (looking much more concerned) You all met on the Internet?

Catherine: Yes! Wait… no! She and I didn’t. She was my boss.

Border guard: (Eyes narrowing) What website did you meet on?

Catherine: Oh… um… it wasn’t actually a website, really. She’s (pointing back at me) actually a successful blogger!

Meg: (kicking Catherine’s seat) Oh my gosh!

Border guard: (smirking) Oh?

Catherine: Yes! She has a lot of readers! And she’s also on the radio sometimes, too!

Border guard: Really?

Meg: (kicking harder)

Catherine: Yes! She’s on Crave sometimes, reading stuff from her blog.

Border guard: That’s the new station, right?

Catherine: Yes! And you can find her blog at MegFowler.com!

Meg: (dying in the backseat)

Eric: (dying of laughter)

Border guard: Any alcohol or tobacco?

Catherine: Nope!

Border guard: (laughing) Go ahead, then.

Just like that, we were through.

And that’s not even the weirdest thing that happened to me all day.

While standing near Pike Place Market in the Emerald City, trying to figure out our next move, I happened to lean against a nice mailbox that seemed to be standing there for nothing other than my convenience and comfort.

Oh, how wrong I was.

After talking for a few minutes, I noticed that Catherine looked a little tired of just standing there in the hot sun, so I went to offer her my mailbox.

However, when I started to move away from the box and send her there, she let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Then I saw Eric reaching for me in slow motion.

I continued to step forward, completely startled, until I saw something light and stringy out of the corner of my eye, stretching away from the mailbox.

From the mailbox to my ASS.

A giant wad of stretchy, warm, sticky gum, to be exact.

On my white shirt.

I backed up again quickly, and tried to de-gum myself with as little drama as possible, while Catherine and Eric tried not to fall into traffic laughing.

I mean, they were sympathetic, of course. But I also had blue gum all over my ass, so.

Eventually, after getting off as much gum as was humanly possible, I folded up my own shirt to cover up the sticky part.

I looked awesome, like one of those people with slightly askew clothing who you always want to fix, but can’t bring yourself to approach.

The second-to-last task of the day was introducing Eric to my parents, because he’d met Catherine’s mother, and I didn’t want to have to explain THAT to my mom and dad, who have been curious about the kid for ages.

What were the highlights of that visit, you ask?

My father bear-hugging Eric because “you only told your mom not to.”

My mother offering Eric a small clay statue of a “Canadian Beaver!” as a souvenir. (Yes, she was kidding.)

My mother eventually hugging Eric, anyway.

My mother trying to give me my late grandmother’s ceramic geese.

By the time we got home, we were too late to eat anything but Subway (which isn’t really a chic thing to feed your Californian guest, but hey… who said we were chic?)

I’m just on the radio sometimes.

And covered in gum the rest of the time.