Lesson II: The Swiss Kiss for Dummies (i.e. North Americans)

It is now time to move on from Lesson I, which dealt with the UN Intern Conversation. By now, you should have it mastered after what has most likely been several weeks of highly intensive practice. In fact, you may not be aware of the exact number, but I would estimate it has probably come in handy roughly 100 to 500 times in the past three weeks.

“Lesson II: The Swiss Kiss” is specially designed to guide the North American newcomer to Geneva. Europeans, feel free to read along; In fact, it may help you to understand the shy, awkward movements of North Americans when you lean in for what, to you, seems a perfectly natural three kiss greeting.

The Swiss Kiss*

The Swiss kiss three times: left, right, left (or is it right, left, right….) in a rapid rush of flesh hitting flesh, stubble against acne, hard cheekbone on dimpled fat, smooth skin on soft wrinkled bags. Aromas of garlic, parmesan, strawberry chewing gum and cigarette smoke flirt with each other in the small passage of air between two faces. Potential for missing makes the endeavor thrilling or terrifying.

Being a North American, I am certainly no expert on the Swiss Kiss and have little authority whatsoever to give instruction on the intricacies of the tradition. This being said however, my identity as a Canadian means I can sympathize with the plight of the non-European who, when confronted for the first time with the challenging task of rapid neck rotation, lip puckering, and precise head placement, is left feeling overwhelmed and out of touch. As North Americans, we  feel at home with zero-contact greetings and farewells , including head tilts, smiles, shoulder shrugs and hand waves. Mini hugs are common among girls, but kissing is reserved for romantic evenings watching the sunset, and other such intimate occasions.

It’s not that North Americans are incapable of mastering the skills needed to perfect the Swiss Kiss. But the situation is made particularly complicated by the fact that a large portion of the Geneva population  is non-Swiss and thus the Swiss Kiss is made frighteningly unpredictable. For instance, what do you do when you meet a French person (land of two kisses) who has been living in Switzerland  (land of three kisses) for several months? Or an Italian (land of right, left, right. Or is it left, right, left and the Swiss is right, left, right? Or, actually, is it just two?). Or a German (land of one kiss… or two)? Ad almost infinitum.

Although at first it may seem counterintuitive, the most challenging situation is actually when one runs into a fellow North American who has been in Switzerland for longer than two weeks but less than a year. This individual will often be suffering from what is known as a “greeting-identity-crisis,” or an intense internal battle regarding his affiliations with meager head nods versus his newer Swiss sensibilities. When in the acute phase,  this condition can cause erratic and, at times, dangerously illogical greeting behaviours. When approaching a suspected sufferer, move with caution, eyes on alert, head ready, poised for quick action and change of course. To determine this individual’s chosen method of greeting, you should be aware of the following potential indicators: slight head shifts (to right or left); fear in the eyes; downward glances or abrupt disruption of eye contact; leg twitches or movement of the feet; elevation of the shoulders, which may be a sign of an oncoming hugging motion; head tilts; cheek elongation;  smile motions; lip biting, a sure sign that the Swiss greeting has been rejected – don’t take it personally; and complete withdrawal from the situation which can take on several forms that will not be addressed in the current memo.

The complications surrounding the Swiss Kiss are compounded by the fact that not all situations call for its usage.

Here are a couple definite dos and don’ts: (note, this list should contain about 50 to 100 more descriptions of the intricate rules of usage).

a)      Do not employ the Swiss Kiss when you see someone on a regular basis in a regular place. For example, do not go into work each day expecting to kiss all your colleagues. This might illicit glares or create underlying feelings of annoyance. Furthermore, you could develop a form of mouth tendinitis from over straining the delicate muscles on the sides of the lips.   However, when you meet regular people in a non-regular place (dinner party, market, airport, small water vessel, etc.), the Kiss is considered polite and you will be frowned on if you screw it up.

b)      Do not engage in kissing when you meet a group of purely North Americans and you are all new in town. The Kiss would just be trying way too hard. However, if you meet a group of exclusively North Americans some of whom have been in Switzerland for a considerable period, the Kiss is a means of recognizing their increasing native-hood and acknowledging their authority as a “quasi-local,” at least in relation to yourself. In this situation, the Kiss is highly preferred and will help set you apart from other less-educated newbies.

I want to conclude by saying, YOU SHOULD NOT FEEL AFRAID OF THE SWISS KISS. In fact, in that rare instance when you are with a cheek pecking pro, the experience can actually be uplifting and confidence boosting. Also, fear of the Kiss has a smell like dog poop on a shoe, and nobody wants to smell like dog poop. So breathe,  smile, and emulate the actions of the best kissers: precise, sharp movements with an “I don’t apologize, ever” sort of attitude. Quick, easy, over, just like that.

*Note: let me clarify for those of you “double dummy North Americans” who are currently not in Europe and may be confused: this post is not about kissing kissing.

Popped Pastel Polos: Saturday Soiree in Geneva

A panorama of pale pastel popped–collar Polos, bobbing on the beach to Black Eyed Peas, illuminated by the glow of the setting sun and caressed by a mild breeze.  Dressed to impress – small alligators sewn on purple shirts, plaid and kaki and dark shades, hair combed, eyes scoping the scene, girls giggling and gawking and music pumping and hoping. Dresses and more dresses and beers and boys and beaches and bodies and beauties and boardwalks and bankers and bags of booze and barbequed beef and broken bottles and byes and hi’s and kisses and misses and wishes. Summer has come to Geneva, the Young and the Restless are out and about, the time to meet, mingle and mate is upon us, young ducks.

American bro-culture alive and well on the southern shores of Lake Geneva.

Highlights of the evening:

Best-dressed male award:  Flip-flops, light blue short shorts (and by short I mean short) decorated with charming small red and purple trains, or were they elephants or airplanes?, pearly white legs still mildly shell shocked after the long winter. Pink Polo, dark glasses and a hat of some sort (was too absorbed in the small trains/planes to pay attention to his head).

Conversation masterpiece: While conversations ranged from what to wear, to beer prices, to vacationing in Greece (when talking with bankers), to bankers (when talking with the CERN boys), to CERN boys (again with CERN boys who wish secretly that they were bankers but are ashamed to even have that thought), to walking in heels on small pebbles, to the etiquette of outdoor peeing in different cultural contexts, the winner of the evening goes to the following: a man who just may be the most obnoxious, arrogant UN employee I’ve met thus far.  One AM on a Saturday night and he is saying things like, “the aggregate DAYta are not conducive to extrapoLAYtion , thus it is unNEcessary to assume legitimate cauSAtion,” in this gratingly annoying British-ish accent (difficult to pin down exactly over Katy Perry). At my apparent disinterest in discussing the extrapolation of his DAYta, he drawled, “Oh I suppose I’ve just been in the system for SO looong” (i.e.  I am an incredibly intelligent man and cannot restrain myself from thinking about the intricacies of my numerous intellectual pursuits, but I know this cannot be expected of everyone, much less a girl). My own internal thoughts followed more along the lines of, ‘ Oh deeeeah I don’t give a flying bleep about your DAYta and its extrapolating extrapolation. In fact, I think you are an arrogant bleep who is under the false impression that the ability to string together grossly long run on sentences full of big boy words is somehow impressive.’   Sorry for the harsh criticism. Written in a moment of post traumatic stress and is thus a highly inaccurate presentation of this upstanding fellow’s lovely soul which I’m sure exists deep under the layers of excessive education and an over indulgence in Harvard degrees.

Most treasured memory: hearing the phrase, “correlating extra-differENtial logarithms to the crisis averse probaBILities of the indigenous MATrix, while simulTANeously elaborating the standard proCEdures of counter-revolutionary exPRESsions on a multi-variant PLANE, thus provoking a subSTANDard response signal and eLIMinating the potential for procedural prePARedness.’ (say this in your head with an annoying accent).

What to improve before the next OC party of Geneva: work on mastering the giggle.

Lessons learned: Desire is the root of all suffering.

Shells of Home

I was born into that generation that carries its home on its back. Like human tortoises trudging along, pots and pans and memories shoved in a suitcase or hanging, invisible to the eye, over slouching shoulders. I am packing up now, squeezing home into a shell: a toothbrush, a pair of shoes, a credit card, an ID. Those other parts of home – the smell of washed hair, the taste of fresh bread, the clink of wine glasses and the tinkle of laughter, the touches of breeze through an open window, the feeling of comfort, safety and familiarity one has around a friend and in a place – those pieces we are bad at packing. No amount of bubble wrap, no “fragile” sticker plastered to the box can prevent most of it from slipping away, leaving just a silky strand of memory in place of tangible experience. Like a floating bubble whose inevitable pop leaves just a picture to be imagined in place of its previous physicality.

When someone asks where home is it becomes complicated, a laundry list of places and stops. But these days, most people ask where you’re from; everyone knows home as a physical place is becoming increasingly archaic. As a Canadian living in the States, almost no one has heard of the little village of Cowichan Bay on the eastern shore of Vancouver Island. When I explain it’s on the west coast of Canada, they generally respond “Oh, it’s gorgeous there! Why are you here?” They usually assume I am from Vancouver, still known as one of the world’s most desirable cities to live in.

What people know about the West Coast of Canada is that it’s beautiful. They may also think they know it’s cold, but that’s just one of those blanket terms that people use to separate Canada from other places, like Argentina or Australia. “Where I’m from is like Seattle,” I’ll say, “rain.” Americans know their own country pretty well, I’ve discovered. They are right about the beauty, though. I remember my mom saying that no amount of travel would unveil a more beautiful place. I’ve seen turbulent waterfalls, pale sandy beaches, mountains and cities, some of which are dazzling in their perfection, but none has the mystery, the majesty, the freshness, the abandon of the West Coast.

I remember walking through forests so deep it was like moving into the heart of a secret;  the air damp, heavy with smells of earth, bark, moss, excessive life. I remember the feel of rounded stones in my hand, the dull heat of the sun soaking into my body. Salted waves frothing in the distance, daring the naïve visitor to be swallowed in their jaws. I remember the excitement of going to the river for the first time each summer. The brush of cool, rippling currents against young, smooth skin, still pale from months shrouded under raincoats. Perched on a rock in the middle of the river. Goosebumps. Dappled sun forming spots of light on my legs as it speckled through Alders and Douglas Firs. I remember the eerily majestic face of Mt. Tzouhalem, sacred to the First Nations people and carrying memories of virgin sacrifices and vision quests in its deep rock features. Fragile poppies and white trilliums speaking of innocence, birth in an ancient place. Garry Oaks shadowing the flowers’ tender faces from the dry heat of the summer sun. Broom, considered an invasive species, clouding slopes with brilliant yellow. Maybe it’s the many myths and stories of haunting that give the mountain such an unshakable vibration of death, even as one witnesses the captivating beauty of life.

Today, Chief Tzouhalem’s mountain is crowned with a cross, a big steel one, painted white and littered with scratched graffiti. “Adam and Katie,” “<3 you always,” and other more obscene messages etched by teenagers sneaking up in the night to drink and tell chilling tales. The Catholic Church put the cross there in the 1970s, one more stamp of their dominance over the original inhabitants of the West Coast, one more reminder that civilization had conquered barbarism.

In fact, people think of the West Coast’s beauty, but  it is its history of pain that enchants it and imbues it with mystery.  The pain of the conquest, an ancient conquest of the First Nations people, but one that smells new, recent, continuous. A conquest whose “success” is evident today in poverty, alcoholism, teenage pregnancy and obesity. Downcast eyes, angry eyes, empty eyes. A civilization squashed and beaten under a newer, and supposedly better, one. It’s not like things aren’t changing, because they are, but it’s hard not to see the pain once one’s eyes have become accustomed to the beauty. Gruesome stories of sexual, mental, and physical abuse as young children were forced away from their families to live in residential schools on small islands and remote coasts, now haunted with memories of suffering and shadows of human brutality. Their language beaten out of them and Christian words put in their mouths instead; siblings separated; nighttime escapes and recaptures; diseases spread intentionally from one young body to another; forgotten bodies and unspoken deeds crowded in those spaces, living in the grooved bark of the Red Cedar, and the dark faces of jutting rock, heard in the relentless rush of waves, the whispering rustle of the wind.

Today, Duncan, the central valley town where Cowichan Bayers and other small townsfolk go to shop, is known as the ‘city of totems.’ Carved frogs and killer whales seated under ravens and bears form towering wood poles and draw buses of Chinese tourists. Sporting fanny packs and wide brimmed hats, they take shots of themselves standing beneath this replica of a culture celebrated for its ability to generate revenue for the town.

Yet, despite the pain, some of the scars are fading in the gaze of the First Nation youth. This is their home.

Is this my home too? Or is it just a rented home, one that sees family after family move in and move out. Was it only on loan? Can I check it out again like a library book, or have I reached the maximum number of renewals? I wonder how it would feel to go back after years of being away. Would it recognize me and I it? Or would we be like old friends, held together by memories but separated by the current reality of evolved difference?

Now I am living in Washington, DC, the capital of the United States. Crisscrossing streets, intersected by circles – Dupont, Washington, Logan – lead to monuments of the American Dream. The Capitol, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Library of Congress, the National Archives. The history of a vast country crowded into buildings and statues. The present struggles of a nation sitting in the front seat of the global affairs rollercoaster crammed into the same hallways, alcoves and meeting rooms. It is a beautiful city, but not the raw, haunting beauty of the West Coast; somehow history cannot be captured in buildings they way it can be remembered in nature.

DC is a city built for people like me, human tortoises who cart their homes in one year and pack them up the  next. Young college grads emerge out of houses here like worms squirm out of freshly turned earth. Flocks of Matts, Zachs, Katies, Amandas and Trishes crowd behind narrow row house doors and tidy bricks. Swarms of  New Englanders, Michiganers, Alamabamites and Californians bustle about Whole Foods, waiting in absurdly long lines for African Americans and Hispanics to ring through bottles of kambucha, kelp chips and French rolls.  In the mornings we commute on bikes, on foot, by bus or metro. Whatever the chosen mode of transport, we have music playing in our ears, personal soundtracks to make our lives into movies, to expand our narrow range of experience into a vast cacophony of emotion. We feel important, dressed in suits and skirts, a purpose, a job we are needed for, somewhere to go. We walk, not realizing that if we stopped going all those things wouldn’t matter anymore.

And yet I love this city – this rest stop.  I love its vitality; its tall, thin houses that have sheltered so many; the almost ethereal  presence of the Washington Monument. This of course is just one narrow slice of the city, one person’s small reality.

Perhaps what links DC with the West Coast is how it is split down the middle – Whites and Blacks; politicians, businessmen, professionals and the poor, the immigrant. A series of worlds piled on top of each other, squished together in physical space. We have Black neighbors but we are friends with the White ones. We come and go; they stay.

And now I am going. My room is bare. Only a few hours ago there was a little home – a bed, plants, pictures on the wall; now there are only glistening floors and white walls echoing my footsteps. My shell is full, crammed shut. Moving on to somewhere, a self imposed migration.

Written May 2011, Washington, D.C.

“UN Intern Survival Kit – Lesson I: The UN Intern Conversation”

As most of you probably know, I have now taken flight (literally) from Canada and have descended upon the sunny (actually rain-drenched) shores of Lake Geneva. I will spare you the details of the transition, in part because there is not much to say, but mostly because I don’t feel like writing about it. As an intern with one of the many international organizations in this city, I am back on the treadmill (at least for a few months until I finish my internship and once again become a direction-less, penniless, homeless, hopeless little soul trudging through the trenches of middle-class, middle-twenties existence).

To begin, I would like to launch right into it: “The UN Intern Survival Kit,” a flagship publication on the ins and outs of intern life in Geneva, sure to be a fascinating and enthralling read (DON’T PANIC, this whole blog is NOT going to become one of those dry chronicles of interning with the UN. UGGGGGY.

The following guide is intended for new interns looking to learn the ropes, and will be added to periodically.

UN Intern Survival Kit

There are several things you need to know as a UN intern. Let’s start with the most basic: The UN Intern Conversation.

Usage: Use for meetings with other UN interns. (Can be modified for meeting expats in general).

Frequency of use: Approximately 25 times per week. If you attend things such as “UN Drinks,” approx. 50 times per week, depending on your networking savvy.

The Conversation

Intern A. “Hi, I’m Keritolinikasamilia”

Intern B. “Hi….Keritalinka?” speak in soft voice so as not to offend or sound stupid. Another option is simply to nod and smile.

Intern A. “Keritolinikasamilia”

Intern B.  Don’t try to repeat name again “Beringanorasit.”

Intern A.  Nice to meet you. Where are you from?

Intern B. Well….I was born in Thailand, but my mom is British so we lived there for a while and then we moved to the States. But actually I grew up mainly in Poland, and recently I’ve been studying in Dublin. Oh and did I not mention that my dad is half Thai, half Kenyan?  And you?

Intern A. “Wow, that’s so awesome!” Sound excited. “It’s kind of hard to say, really. Born in Italy, raised in Argentina, moved to Sweden around 10, then back to Argentina (my dad’ a diplomat). Did high school in India and then my undergrad in New York. Now doing my Master’s at Oxford.” Give a little laugh as if your origin story is pretty weak.

Note: Modify to reflect your origin. If you are someone who comes from only one to five places, make sure to embellish the story with educational attainments in other countries, prolonged travels or other life events that can up your multi-culturality.

Intern B. “Wow, that’s so awesome! You must speak so many languages 🙂 !!”

Intern A. Give little shrug and smile as if it’s nothing: “Just Italian, Spanish, Russian, German, Portuguese and English, of course! Oh and French.”

Intern B. “Oh I really want to learn Russian! Yeah I’ve been getting by on Polish, English, Thai, French, German, Italian, Arabic, Chinese  and Spanish. But Russian is so cool.”

Note: Again, modify to match your language knowledge. If you only speak one language, you should consider ending the conversation here with an excuse like, “oh got to run, getting a call from my dad in Sudan.” If you have rudimentary knowledge of another language (such as hello, my name is…, shit (and various other swear words), love, no, and other fairly useless driblets of vocabulary) mention this as one of your languages (unless you have a realistic fear that your conversation partner might make you speak said language; for instance, if that language is their mother tongue  (often this is difficult to assess as they may have 3 mother tongues) don’t mention it as one of your languages).

Intern A. “Wow! How many is that?” Count them in your head while using your fingers to keep track of each language.  “Like 9!”

Intern B. “haha yeah…” shrug bashfully. So how long have you been in Geneva?

Intern A. “Just over two months. And you?”

Intern B. “Oh I’ve been here for six” Now you can really assume the tone of a condescending” local “ as you have earned the right with your longer sojourn in Switzerland. “And where are you interning?”

Intern A. “ At the UNSPRDOCIS.”

Intern B. “Oh wow! Yeah I’m at the UNHRUPDVORTD”

Note: Never admit ignorance of an acronym’s meaning. This is utterly crucial if you ever want to get anywhere with your life)-See glossary (coming soon) for more information.

Intern A. “So how do you like Geneva ?”

Blah, blah, blah, as you can see the conversation is a little dry, so I have omitted the middle sections as they might actually bore you (I sure hope not though!). But in a nutshell, the conversation will now proceed to exchanges of opinions – Geneva is either great, or it is nice but small and kind of boring (although you will find that 99% of people modify their criticisms by praising the summertime in Geneva). Following this, the scintillating dialogue will invariably progress to discussions of how expensive the city is. Food prices might be compared with those of foods in origin countries (this may be half the world, depending on your conversation partner). You can’t go wrong here as long as you state several times in a faux-shocked tone (as if your conversation partner were the first person, other than you, ever to make this observation), “I know, Geneva is just sooo expensive!!”

Following this, you have several options for discussion: Past travel, concrete future travel plans, future travel dreams, past studies, current studies, future studies, career goals (although don’t reveal too much as you may need to compete with this person at a later stage in the job race), and of course you can certainly revert back to languages.

If you make it this far without excusing yourself from the conversation, congratulations! You are a natural networker and will make it far in life. Give yourself a mental high five and move on to the next intern, we’ll call him or her Intern C. Repeat above conversation and then progress to Intern D, E, F, G, H, I, J, and so on.

Tara Brian gets TB

I few posts ago I alluded to an infectious disease that I kind of had. Well here’s the story summed up. Sorry if it’s confusing, it was written last year in a state of border-line insanity due to excessive degrees of boredom (basically I was diagnosed with tuberculosis in DC just a month or so before moving back to Canada).

(June 2011)

Pseudo-solitary confinement number two. That’s what the nurse who showed up unannounced this morning at 94 Alberta  Street, Barrie, Ontario prescribed. “Just for my own protection,” she said, referring to a massive industrial-looking mask which she strapped over her face to pronounce my sentence.  Pseudo-solitary confinement number two means reentering that blah state known as complete and utter, soul-sucking boredom. It means lounging around the house like a trapped gold fish. It means hours of internet surfing, book reading, and attempted stabs at creative expression which are unfortunately killed prematurely by the mind-numbing effects of the aforementioned condition: boredom. Laziness settles in like a stealthy disease, turning a living human into a sort of mushy potato. Days that used to be filled with activity become shortened into useless hours spent listening to the tick of an overhead fan, or watching the world go by from a small attic window – that, in my case, doesn’t open.

The pseudo-solitary confinement number two sentence is the result of tying to transport dangerous goods (supposedly) across an international border (yes, Canada counts). The dangerous goods to which I am referring are microscopic smidgens of infectious tuberculosis bacteria that are most likely sequestered in the five feet four inches and 126 pounds of a particular human body, christened in 1986 as Tara Brian – a name whose initials are mysteriously prophetic of the diagnosis to come 24 years later. Pseudo-solitary confinement number two is a particularly aggravating prescription because of that fact that said infectious person was already shut up a month ago in a large row house on the corner of P Street and New Jersey Avenue, Northwest in Washington, DC. Those two weeks of porch stooping, neighbor spying and copious amounts of online TV were apparently not enough to prove Tara’s harmlessness. At least the Canadians didn’t think so. In fact, the experience taught Ms. Brian that if you ever really need a doctor’s attention, tell them you have an infectious disease. The service is exceptional. Rather than waiting in emergency room lines or booking appointments six months in advance, an infectious disease suspect is shuttled right on in for an array of tests, examinations and taking of medical histories. The only drawback is having the unseemly appendage of a stuffy blue mask strapped over one’s face. To top it off, all this treatment is free, important to Tara, an uninsured waif.

Things don’t get complicated unless you try to resist treatment (logical when, despite coughing into tubes and getting needles inserted through one’s ribs,  the doctors still can’t find the nasty little bacteria) or you decide to move to another country. Well, in my case, not decide so much as get shuttled to the border by an expiring work visa. Things got messy when I wanted to postpone starting treatment until I could get more tests done to confirm the diagnosis. Lack of U.S. insurance (and possibly no Canadian insurance), an expiring visa, two countries’ travel regulations, an antibiotic-phobic mother and a freaked out me, Miguel from the Centers for Disease Control who possessed a particularly appealing Spanish-accented telephone voice, buses, cars, new roommates, leases and the whole thing was one big messy mess of a messed up mess. Add to that leaving best friends behind, abandoning a small and vicious but adorable kitty, saying goodbye to the Washington monument and Tryst Café and harboring strong convictions of looming death.

Settling

A few weeks in and I am starting to dread going to work. It’s not the early hours or the minimum wage; it’s that the monotony of putting books on shelves gives me no choice but to enter into my thoughts, and right now my mind is a mess. A tangle of dendrites and axons gone haywire. Hopes and fears and wants and disappointments and nostalgia chopped up in fragments and scrambled together like eggs on a Sunday morning. I find myself wishing I could close down my mind for a few hours, put up a “will be back at 2pm” sign and go on vacation for a while.  So I start playing games with the books, scanning shelves in time with the pulsing techno music they play before the store opens or noticing that each section has a different colour scheme – sexuality is red and pink, astronomy is black, women’s health light pink etc.

The job does have its perks. Take feeling blissfully annoyed at co-worker Wendy, for example. A chubby, large breasted Australian girl of about 25, Wendy takes her job very seriously, at times acting like she is a doctor in the ER and not a merchandiser whose greatest responsibility is to make sure the stack of “Who Ate My Cheese?” is roughly the same height as the stack of “Spirit Junkie: How to be happy all the time and experience miracles.”

The other day I found Wendy a little cross with me, something that is bound to happen at some point.

“Whuse scanner is this?” she snipped, picking up a black device we use to make sure books are shelved  in the correct section.

“Not sure,” I said, with perhaps too much cheer in my voice for the apparent gravity of the situation.

She stared at me then back at the scanner, a confused and disgusted expression coming over her face and her chubby legs tottering in the indecision of the moment.  Finally she turned and put the scanner on a nearby kiosk, such a simple choice after the long moment of paralysis.

“Well, it’s yur responsibilitey nauw,” she stated. “I dauen’t touch scanners, I dauen’t use scanners. Eva.”

She then picked up a stack of books and marched off, her skirt flapping just a little too high above her knees.

All in all, though, everyone who works at Pages is very nice. I would say there are four categories of staff. First off, there are the students – English, Art History, Business etc. Intelligent and bright-eyed they still have futures ahead of them. They talk about profs and classes and upcoming tests and don’t know that once you’re out, life throws a whole different game at you, a game with no syllabus, no teacher and no Spring Break. When I’m around the students, I really am just a retail girl. I am just what I present: a university graduate with no direction, no goals, and no ambition who, in their minds, probably did poorly in school and now just wants to laze around watching TV and saving up for a house with a white picket fence and shrubbery.

Then there is the second category of Pages worker. The 30 something intelligent young women who have degrees but have never really used them. The ones who have steady boyfriends and enjoy having a beer on the weekend and watching Ellen in the afternoon. The ones who put on make-up and feel beautiful despite the pounds that are starting to congregate around their middles. The ones who are nice and sweet but no one really knows where they’re going.  Many have two jobs – receptionist and Pages tasker; seamstress and Pages merchandiser. And then there’s me: barista and Pages tasker.

Third come the older staff – the retired people who want something to do, passionate book lovers, and those people who seem content to sell books until they drop. They provide a calming parental presence in the store; their up-beat attitudes showing they have reconciled their lots in life, come to embrace the world.

Finally, there are the youthful managers, who for some unknown reason have decided to dedicate their lives to retail. Their goals include pumping up sales stats with a strong promotion of Michael Buble books, sucking up to their superiors and maybe making regional manager someday. Wonderful people, just oddly content with a life pushing products on an over-consuming  world.

On a whole new scale is Doug. Uncannily resembling the Grinch in appearance, he is anything but in levels of enthusiasm and cheer. Perpetually smiling, Doug is the man who relishes the chance to announce sales over the PA system in a voice that sounds like a circus director; the one who begins morning staff meetings with an excited “good morning!!” and waits for us to respond in equally eager voices as though we were a class of 6 year-olds and not bleary-eyed employees wishing we were snuggled in bed rather than stuffing books in shelves and checking the prices on Christmas cards.

Written September 2011.

Retail Girl

 

Written August 2011

I’m just a retail girl now, I guess. I identify with books like, “Girl Behind the Counter” and “Who Flushed My Degree Down the Toilet?” I applied for a job at Pages Bookstore in Ottawa when my bank account balance reached about $603.00. The process was actually quite rigorous and involved an online test  with tough questions, such as: “when you meet new people you a) tend to be friendly and start up a conversation,” or “b) look down and turn the other way?”; and not one but two interviews. On the second interview I met Philippe, the store general manager, a balding man in his early forties with a mild French accent and a bulging belly, a marker of his successes in business.  We entered a long boardroom, where I was instructed to sit as far away from him as possible, as if I had some infectious disease (which I do – sort of,  but we’ll get to that later) or a case of dragon’s breath.

“So why do you want to work at Pages?” Philippe asked me, his eyes bulging a little as they burrowed into me.

‘Money,’ I thought, ‘discounts on books, maybe a few friends and something to do with myself other than mope and wallow in self pity.’ I didn’t say that, of course. Instead I mustered out, “Well, I worked at my university’s bookstore for four years and loved the experience. I am hoping to find something similar here.” My voice sounded surprisingly self-assured.

He nodded at my answer, and maintained a blank expression. Following a barrage of questions,  in response to which I continued to look at a poker face, Philippe decided I might be interested in his background and began telling me about his years with other companies. “I’ve been store manager here for three years now,” he said, sitting up even straighter and staring me down like I was some new minion in his empire.

“This is a flagship store,” he added, as if trying to ensure I correctly understood the extent of his accomplishments.

Indeed, located in the heart of downtown Ottawa, the store sees a steady stream of traffic and turns a hefty profit for the company, which has locations spattered across Canada. Inviting beanbag chairs and round wooden tables welcome rainy day readers and tourists seeking a break from walking. Benches tucked in back corners become temporary homes for local hobos and fertile ground for séances and masturbation. Books crowd shelves, little windows into worlds. The history of human knowledge and discovery hidden within millions of pages of small black words. This is what I love about my new job – so many imaginations of the world brushing against my fingertips. Like I could open any book and enter a new universe. Paralyzed by the possibilities in life, at Pages I feel like an anorexic in a grocery store; longing for just a bite, but constrained by some invisible inner chain.

So instead of flying free, I am now a Customer Service Representative (CER) – I suppose salesperson is just a little too blunt for today’s world of euphemisms. I shelve books at 6:15am. I take inventories. I know the daily sales goal and smile at customers. I wear a vest with my name on it and dress in black. A retail girl, and that’s it. 

Sorry life of a bourgeois

As an introduction to me, the esteemed author of this groundbreaking blog (note, sarcasm will be used liberally throughout), I’ve decided to start with some stories I wrote last year when in a sorry state of self pity at my apparent failure to live properly.

Originally written August 30, 2011
Ottawa, Ontario

It was around the middle of May 2011 that I really fell off the treadmill. Just slipped right off the back, as the dinted black belt whirred on without me. It was a strange culmination of events that led to the fall, but in the end it was like I’d just forgotten how to run, like I didn’t know anymore how to put one foot in front of the other. Of course, I’m not talking about a real treadmill (although I’d stopped running on those too), but rather the pursuit of success, the incessant hum of ambition and achievement expected of today’s youth.  The typical progression goes something like this: enroll in a competitive university (Ivy League preferred), get top-notch grades, be highly involved on campus (start a club or two or lead a movement), land a first-rate job upon graduation or maybe found an NGO in Namibia, take two years to build a phenomenal resume then back to a prestigious graduate program at a stellar institution. Graduate at the top of the pack and head back into the workforce, now an elite, to continue the sprint.

It wasn’t too long ago that I could count off my achievements, hobbies and goals in front of strangers the way any self-respecting young woman is expected to. In fact, I had always been sprinting near the front of the treadmill and, even from a young age, I could vaguely see it stretching out in front of me, calling for me to jump on, take a run and never get off.

Raised in the green and fertile Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, British Columbia – I was a happy little child with bushy blonde curls and an ever-ready smile. Life was just the best thing that had ever happened to me and I was going to do big things. I wasn’t really like a lot of other people. You see,  I was going to change things in the world, really make a lasting difference, find something out that would make my life worthwhile. This was a quiet certainty I held inside me, not really knowing it was there until it was ripped away sometime between graduating college and one of those dragging days in Washington, DC, staring at a computer screen and getting experience in the “real world.”

Maybe I was surprised that the “real world” meant getting dressed up in a short skirt and tall heels to sit alone in an office with a computer. Maybe I was shocked to find out that most people do little jobs that have little importance that maybe contribute just a little bit to a bigger project that, in the grand scheme of things, is pretty little itself. Maybe I was deflated to find out that the world’s problems could not easily be solved (in fact, never would be solved) and that I was no more equipped than Joe Blow to take on the mission. Maybe what I was really sad to find was that the “real world” meant accepting our mortality and giving in to our imperfections our vulnerabilities and our ultimate insignificance. Well, whatever it was, it caught me off guard and left me looking for the exit sign.

It wasn’t even like I graduated from college and got some Mickey Mouse job in an office answering phones or entering data. Nope, following the most worn-in groove on the “Success Path” I moved to Washington, DC, where I took an internship at a foreign affairs think tank. Rather unfortunately, the name pretty much sums up what they are, windowless tanks (unless you are a PhD wielding man over 50, in which case you get a view and a swivel chair) that house thinkers. And sometimes as a thinker you think about who actually gives a shit about all your thinking. I mean, if Panama’s president passes some idiotic law, does anyone care that you’ve blogged about it? I guess so…democracy is contingent on a well-informed public, but does anyone read an American blog about Panama, written by a 24 year old girl who has never been to Panama?  To be fair, some people working at the think tank had a big influence – in their little way – and maybe it was just me who felt a little unnecessary.  Don’t get me wrong, I liked the job, I just felt like something was missing, like the real world wasn’t measuring up.

But the machine kept on going and I kept on running. Right to an internship with the Canadian Embassy in DC, a position which was apparently pretty swanky, or so I gathered from the eager-eyed, over alertness of the other interns. Young graduates from Toronto and Ottawa, they appeared on the first day dressed to impress, their handshakes crisp, their hair neatly combed, their mouths turned up in constant semi-smiles that seemed to say ‘I am smart and mature and strive for excellence’ – as though they were trying to wear the phrases from their cover letters. Most, it seemed, were going to law or business school afterwards. But for all its apparent prestige, the job still meant staring at a computer all day, shuffling information from one virtual holding ground to another, writing newsletters that people were too busy to read and responding down the tangled and knotted, but ever steadfast,  chain of command from the ultimate boss: Prime Minister Harper. Basically this meant saying things like, “the ‘oil sands’ are a fabulous source of energy that will supply the U.S. and the world for generations to come. No health risks, superb environmental standards and fair treatment of local First Nations populations.” On the plus side, there were plenty of schmoozing events with DC bigwigs, meaning we interns got pocket money and samplings of Canadian ice wine, biscotti, chocolate dipped pistachios and other costly delicacies courtesy of the Canadian tax-payer.

Honestly though, despite all my criticisms, the truth is now that I have fallen so completely off the track, I am looking back on my time in the lime light with a pang of nostalgia and a feeling of loss. I had it good. I really did. Aside from the uppity internships that gave life little meaning,  I had wonderful friends, I had a beautiful home, I had independence and I was having fun. Yet still, for some reason, I thought the grass would be greener on the other side. I moved back to Canada – packed my life in a jumbo-sized suitcase, bid farewell to my life in DC and dove headfirst into the icy waters of failure. I jumped ship and now I wish I could just climb back on board, but it has sunk to the bottom and left me clinging to a spindly life raft.