To Bloom in Warm Climates

A few months ago I listened to a BBC Witness podcast episode about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton's remarriage in Botswana in 1975 (see picture below; and side note: I love the picture of them above!). The journalist quoted Richard Burton who once said that "Elizabeth bloomed in warm climates." What a romantic and intriguing thing to say! I love the idea of someone blooming, and just generally being better suited, to warmer climates. What does blooming actually entail though? Does it mean you always look pretty and put together and not sweaty and shiny (like me in warm climates!)? Does it mean that when some people just want to take a long nap from the heat you have boundless energy and are awake & bright eyed and take long walks and/or swims followed by a glass (or several) of wine or tropical cocktails? Or maybe it means that your personality just gets bigger and better and you as a person feel happier? Though I suppose I wish some dark handsome man would say I, too, bloomed in warm climates I know that is not possible/true, as the following story illustrates.

In July 2004 N. and I went to Playa del Carmen on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico for a week with L., her parents, her brother, their close family friends, her uncle and her aunt. On our second last day her aunt and uncle rented a van and took us to the famous Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza (see picture below). The van broke down before we even left Playa del Carmen and so we were delayed while L.'s uncle R. fixed it. We finally got on the road but then got lost multiple times on our way there. (We also got lost multiple times on our way back, and we got a flat tire about 20 minutes from Playa del Carmen. In total, our day lasted about 10 hours when it should have been 6, we didn't have a cell phone to call and say we were late, and L.'s parents were really worried that something bad had happened to us.) When we reached the ruins, I was already pretty sweaty and hot from the car. But then once we got inside, I guess it was even hotter and I started to sweat even more. I mostly just felt hot and thirsty, but definitely not sick or anything. However, L.'s aunt J. became convinced that I was about to get heat stroke. "Oh my gosh your back is drenched in sweat" she told me, and so of course everyone, including our guide, had to look at my back. "Your face is so red!" she also told me, and so of course everyone had to closely stare at my face. The number of times I've been told I have a red face (usually by acquaintances or complete strangers) is too numerous to count and needless to say, even when it's true, it really annoys me! The clincher in terms of my annoyance was when J. announced that it was because I was from Canada (argh! Canada is a huge country. I am from Toronto!) that I was so unused to the heat. I know J. was just concerned, and I did appreciate it, but I honestly believe me being from Toronto (which has hot summers!) had nothing to do with how I looked/felt that day. I never felt as bad as J. seemed to think I looked. However, clearly that day serves as a definite confirmation that I don't bloom in warm climates.

Do people ever bloom (or some similar adjective that is positive? maybe toast (as in toasty warm)?) in cold climates? Maybe avid skiers? There must be people that are the equivalent to Elizabeth Taylor in cold climates and just love the cold, ice, snow, etc. I don't bloom/toast in cold climates. In fact, despite being from a place that most definitely has winter, in particularly cold weather (like minus 20 celcius and below) I have to make sure my face is completely covered by a scarf or else my cheeks will get frost bite. In a way that is kind of sad since I can't seem to win in cold or warm climates. Maybe I bloom in temperate climates. But regardless, despite being prone to sweating in warm climates and frost bite in particularly cold ones, I still like experiencing both of those climates. So I think I should just count myself lucky that even though I may not bloom in those climates, I can still appreciate them.

These Boots are Made for Walking

I was about to write that boots are my favourite foot wear but that's not true. Yes, I have been wearing boots a lot this fall (more on that below) but Birkenstocks (particularly their clogs) will always be my favourite shoes. (Come to think of it, I should write a whole post about Birks. Added to the list!) But, even if they are not my favourite shoes forever, boots are probably my second most favourite type of footwear and one pair of boots in particular has been hands down my favourite shoes to wear this fall. Boots and fall go together so well. (Winter and boots go together well too I suppose, but solely for practical purposes. In terms of stylish and cool boots, winter doesn't even come close to fall.)

So in August when I was in LA, we went to the Grove (which is a really cool and pretty mall I'd never visited before but now really like), specifically to Nordstroms, and I bought the best boots ever. The picture at the top of this post is of them/it/one boot, except my boots are a slightly darker brown on the side and have brown laces. (I guess there are multiple versions.) They are by Timberland. They/it may not look super special in that picture but I assure that 1. you can't see its side zipper! I never use the laces and 2. they look so much better on and in person than they do in that picture. I have received more compliments on them than on any other foot wear I've ever had! The first few weeks I was wearing them I thought I could only bust them out once or twice a week. But then I realized that that was silly and so some weeks I wore them 4 out of the 5 days of the school week! They are super versatile in that they look great with dresses, leggings, cords, and skirts. There is only a light bit of snow here right now but much more is surely on its way, and there is already some ice on the ground. And I'm not sure those boots are really that great for ice. So I think pretty soon (if not already) I am going to have to put them away for the winter. I'll wear them a lot in the spring to make up it though.

I always see characters on TV shows (ie. Carrie Bradshaw) or in movies who have so many pairs of shoes (and have shoe closets to keep them in) and I think I'm different. But then I realize that I actually have a fair number of pairs of shoes. Maybe I don't have as many as in the picture below, and maybe a lot of them are strewn around my apt where I repeatedly trip on them or are hiding and/or poking out from under my chair, but I still have a lot. However, most of them are either Birkenstocks or boots, which I don't think is/was very similar to Carrie's collection. Since I got this awesome pair of brown boots around when I first moved to Berkeley (I think?), I've usually had at least two pairs at any given time. I loved those brown ones. I wore them all through Berkeley and in Paris too. I like wearing boots and jeans. Until I lived in Paris, I followed H.'s stylish lead and rolled my jeans up to show off the boots. But then I discovered in Paris that the women just wore their boots right over their jeans and I started doing that. Right now I also have a pair of grey suede boots I really like, and a pair of flat black ones I like a lot too.

Recently I saw a picture on the Huffington Post Style section of Kate Bosworth and her dog (and some guy, see below) and I loved her boots. I then did some googling and discovered a bunch of pictures of Kate Bosworth wearing these other similar ankle boots which I think I actually prefer. (See last picture below.) I had never really thought of short boots before but I think both look really good. And I actually like the idea of pairing them with shorts. After more internet research I found out the ones in the second picture are by a Parisian designed named Isabel Marant. Unsurprisingly I suppose they are hundreds upon hundreds of dollars for a pair. So clearly I am not buying them anytime soon. But maybe one day...

Jewelry: My Favourite Accessory

I got my ears pierced when I was 8 but I lost interest after a few years and never wore them again. Then the summer I was 17 I was in Costa Rica for a month and living with a Costa Rican family in their little home just outside San Jose. The mom, who was so nice and cool and pretty and liked doing nails and wearing pretty jewelry, asked me why I didn't wear earrings. I told her I hadn't in years and didn't even know my ears were still pierced. She laughed, told me they definitely were, and proceeded to basically repierce them just by putting some earrings in. I am indebted to her to this day as I wore earrings for the rest of that summer, and have never looked back since.

Earrings are the best! They are pretty, fun, and can really add to an outfit. On a Friday afternoon the fall we were 19, L. and I went to a place on Telegraph in Berkeley and got more piercings in our ears. I got just a second piercing (of which I should take more advantage! For most of Berkeley I often wore 2 earrings in each ear but I rarely do so now...) and L. got the top of her ear pierced. I had felt really down about my appearance the summer I was 19 but I was feeling so much better that fall. My skin was clearing up, my hair was growing long, I was walking more and so was slowly (but surely!) losing some of the weight I'd gained the previous year, B. thought I was pretty, and I now had double piercings in both my ears. I felt so cool!! It makes me laugh thinking of it now, but I took all those things incredibly seriously then and I really did feel that that second piercing made me cool. (All the more reason to start wearing 2 earrings in each ear again - I think I'll start tomorrow!)

Probably the most fun thing about deciding I liked wearing earrings was getting to regularly buy them! L. and I used to go to this costume/jewelry store in San Francisco that N. told us about that had an entire wall of earrings. We loved it. They were also pretty inexpensive there. Another fabulous thing about earrings is that you can get really cool, pretty ones for very little money. I've since splurged (well actually my dad has! he has very nicely bought me three more expensive pairs on three different occasions; my mom has also gotten me some really pretty earrings) but usually I stick with not too expensive earrings, which is good because I buy new earrings semi-regularly. Whenever I go on a trip somewhere I love buying earrings because then whenever I wear them later I always remember that trip. Two of my best jewelry buying experiences have been at antique markets. I got the coolest long gold necklace with pretty different coloured (pink, green and blue) gems at this antique market in Brussels that was in the square in front of the hotel C. and I stayed at when we went there. And the neighbourhood of San Telmo in Buenos Aires has the best antique market probably in the world. I have been fortunate enough to go there twice and on both occasions I bought wonderful jewelry (this pretty pink pearl necklace and these great green earrings). I love buying and wearing antique jewelry because it's so fun to imagine the pieces being worn at fabulous Buenos Aires' parties of years past!

It's hard to say whether I prefer earrings or necklaces. I like and wear all types of necklaces but my favourites are long ones. I like them best because I think they look the best on me, and they feel way less constricting around my neck. Plus, it's easier to see them and have them really be a part of your outfit when they are long. There are lots of good things about shorter necklaces though too! When I was a bridesmaid for A. back in July 2006, she gave me a pretty long necklace with purple beads (the other time I was a bridesmaid, for L. this past September, she gave me a really pretty (this time silver and shaped like a bow) necklace too) which started my love affair with long necklaces. I love them! And have since begun buying a lot. I have three favourites. The first is of a clock (see picture below) which I bought at a store in Toronto two summers ago. For the first year I had it, multiple people told me it reminded them of Dali. I was too embarrassed to ask why until L. told me the same thing when I saw her in person. So I finally asked her and she explained that Dali painted similar shaped clocks. (See picture below.) My second favourite is of a (fake) diamond covered Eiffel Tower (see picture below) I bought at Forever 21 last spring. (Forever 21 has great cheap long necklaces and earrings!) I hesitated for probably a good 20 minutes, and kept putting it back worrying that it was tacky. But I can't believe I ever thought that as now I love it and have gotten multiple compliments. Plus it's nice to carry a little Paris with me some days. My third favourite is this long gold one with a few pearls that I got on sale from JCrew.com last fall. Necklaces are great! And the good thing with both earrings and jewelry is that you can never have too many of either.

In terms of other jewelry, I am not a huge fan of either rings or bracelets. I've bought (or been given) rings on a couple of occasions in the past and would wear them a few times but mostly I don't really like them. The same goes for bracelets. I do, however, like anklets! I haven't worn one since I was 12 and my friend K. (from elementary school) and I made beaded ones at her house. But I do think they are so cool. My aunt E. has been wearing a gold anklet for years and every year at Christmas I compliment her on it. This year she is getting me one! I am excited. And I plan on wearing it quite a lot. It'll be great in summer when I can show it off.

Wearing earrings or a necklace make me feel happy, and for that reason, and everything listed above, jewelry is, without a doubt, my most favourite accessory.

Stairways to the Skies

At some point either the summer before I started Berkeley or within a few weeks of moving there, I bought a postcard of the Steps of Montmartre in Paris. (See the image that was on the postcard above.) I put it up on my wall and liked to look at it sometimes as the staircase is so pretty. At the beginning of February 2007, not long after I'd moved to Paris, I walked to them from my apt, and ended up seeing them lots more times as Montmartre is the type of place I always went if someone was visiting, etc. And they really are so lovely. Maybe it's from that postcard that my love of outdoor staircases first started, but it really grew in Berkeley, thanks to the Bancroft Steps.

I think around January of our first year at Berkeley, on a Sunday (I think) night, N. brought a bunch of us to the Bancroft Steps. It was kind of surreal (and scary) to go for the first time at night. But I made up for it by going a lot in the daytime after that. The Bancroft Steps was the name we gave to this whole network of outdoor stairs that takes you high up into the Berkeley Hills, starting up behind the stadium. There were three main sets, if I remember correctly, that I would take every time I went there. I'd start with the initial steps, then walk along a pretty residential road for a bit, and then climb up this one really tall staircase, and then walk along another pretty residential street for a bit, and then take another long and pretty (with great views of the Bay) staircase back down. I would go there alone sometimes but I loved going with other people. I brought L., E. and H. there when they visited me during first year. And I went there lots with other friends too. I always wanted to go there with B. but never did. I had the chance to suggest we go there when I was in the Bay visiting in May 2008 and saw him, but I felt like the whole going to the Bancroft Steps with him moment had passed, and so instead we went for pizza.

The Northside Berkeley Hills have multiple amazing staircases too! During June 2004 when I was living over on Northside and taking a summer class, I spent a lot of time alone because L., S. and A. were all gone from Berkeley for the summer. I used to like going for walks during the early evening on Sundays after I'd come back from studying all day at Cafe Milano. I'd bought a map of Berkeley and I would consult it first, and then head high up into the hills seeing really pretty parks, and going both up and down lovely stone staircases.

Los Angeles (I wonder if San Diego does too? or is it just a Bay and LA thing?) has wonderful outdoor stairways too. This past summer I had the privilege and luxury of going to the Santa Monica 4th St steps with S. (full disclosure: I found out about the 4th St steps because I was reading celebrity gossip online and there was something about John Mayer being spotted working out there) and a bunch of different steps in Silver Lake with my brother. S. and I did not see John Mayer, but we did see a lot of really sporty and in-shape people who seemed very intense about their stair work outs. I don't think I'd want to work out there/with those people if I lived in Santa Monica! I purposely didn't write about the staircases as a benefit to Silver Lake in my LA entry a few months back because I knew I was going to be writing this entry and I wanted to save talking about them for here! A. and L.'s new house in hilly Silver Lake is within walking distance from lots of amazing stone staircases (see picture above), similar to the Bancroft Steps. Early-ish one morning, my dad drove me over to their house (A. and L's guest room had all this furniture in it, due to their recent move, and so my parents and I stayed in a hotel) and I went on this really fun (and hard!) stair walk with A. We went for about an hour and it was a combination of walking on streets and walking up and down (some incredibly steep and some more gentle slopes) hills and stairs. It was so fun! And I was so jealous that he can do that all the time. I can't wait to visit LA again and actually stay with A. and L. and then do that walk a lot more. And I want to check out some of the outdoor staircases that are in Silver Lake on the other side of the reservoir from A. and L.'s house.

Way back in June 1998, I went to Italy for two weeks with UTS. Even though I had spent two weeks at an overnight summer camp two summers before (in July 1996 when I was 12) I was so so homesick (especially for my mom) the first few days of the trip, which we spent in Rome. I was miserable and kept trying to cheer myself up by thinking that the trip was only two weeks long and would be over before I knew it. We did lots of good sight seeing and ate lots of gelato but I still felt sad. I was silly! One of the places I most wanted to see though, and which I did, was the Spanish Steps as my mom loves them, and had recommended them. (See picture below. I love how everyone is just hanging out on them.) She also wanted me to go the poet Keats' old house which was at the bottom of the steps. The Steps were gorgeous but I feel I didn't fully appreciate them. Fortunately, things really picked up for me as soon as we left Rome and headed to Florence. I made friends with some of the other people on the trip and became much happier! However, I still feel badly that I didn't give Rome a fair chance. I really want to go back (and particularly to the Spanish Steps) sometime so that I can experience it in a non- completely homesick frame of mind.

Italy is good for outdoor steps! In July 2007, just before leaving Paris to head home to North America, I spent one week in Southern Italy with S. and C. We flew to Naples and spent a few days there, and then headed to the Amalfi coast for the rest of the trip. We spent 2 nights and one full day in the town of Amalfi. It is right on the Mediterranean and one of the prettiest towns I have ever seen! C. and S. ended up getting very drunk the first night we were there, and consequently were extremely hung over the next morning and stayed in bed for most of the day. I was happy to be on my own (it was funny, throughout our week I'd go for a walk alone or head to an internet cafe or do something and they never understood/never had the need themselves to be alone) and decided to go for a walk high up into the hills It was lovely. The sun was shining, the water was blue and sparkling, and there were a series of cool stone paths and stairways leading up the hills (see pictures below of one of the staircases, and of my view). It was a walking dream come true, and one of my most favourite walks ever.

I also love meeting people at steps. If I lived in Rome, I think I'd want to meet up with friends at the Spanish Steps all the time. We wouldn't have to hang out there the whole time, we could just meet on them and then go wherever we wanted to go. The Berkeley campus was really great for step-sitting and meeting up. I used to love (and still have great memories of) sitting on the steps of Doe Library overlooking Memorial Glade either alone or with a friend. It was so pretty, good for people watching and just a lot of fun. I also liked the steps of Wheeler Hall for sitting and/or meeting someone.

So it turns out Montreal has some outdoor staircases too. One day last November, J. invited me for lunch at his (old, he has since moved) apt (I assumed that meant he would be providing the lunch but when we got there he asked me if I'd brought my own. After I told him no, he proceeded to heat up some vegetable soup in the microwave...) which was about a 10 minute walk from the law school. On both the way there and the way back, I spotted a grand looking stone staircase at the top of one of the cross streets we passed, which immediately reminded me of the Bancroft steps. I determined to go back and see them sometime, but that sometime didn't happen until May because piles and piles of snow and a very busy second semester got in the way. I walked up them one afternoon in May and they are very nice. They connect one street to Pine Ave which is much higher up. Like I wrote above, they are stone and grand and very nice. They are also quite solitary. I was hoping for a network of steps like in Berkeley or Silver Lake but as far as I've been able to investigate they are the only ones. I told myself in September when I made a point of going for a little walk in between classes just so I could walk up them that I'd try to do that once a week. However, sadly, I haven't been back since. And soon the snow and ice are coming, and finals, and it'll probably be May before I get to climb them again. Sometimes I worry about how I never seem to do the things I want to do or say I will do in Montreal (case in point: J.'s new apt is across the street from this cafe that looks exactly like it belongs in Paris and we have been saying we'll go have a kir there since September and we haven't gone!) and I marvel at how often I made the time to go to the Bancroft Steps in Berkeley. But then I console myself with the fact that the Bancroft Steps are amazing and this one staircase near the law school is not anywhere near comparable. And then I also think that it's just really nice that staircase is there, and can remind me of Californian stairways that I love a lot.

Past, Present, Here, Elsewhere

At the end of September, I went to this amazing (and inaugural as it was designed for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts but is now going on tour around the world) exhibit celebrating the French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier (see picture of the entrance to the museum above). One of the big information panels in the exhibit said: "Jean Paul Gaultier is fascinated by the Paris of the Belle Epoque and the interwar years..." That made me so happy that I had to go back and re-read that panel twice more before I left the exhibit. It really struck me as I love the idea of being fascinated by a different period of history in general, and being fascinated by a particular period to the point that it influences a lot of your work is even better.

Maybe because South African Nadine Gordimer is one of my favourite writers, and her book The Lying Days is one of my favourite books, and maybe because the South African History course I took at Berkeley was one of my favourite classes, but South Africa under apatheid fascinates me. I cannot comprehend how there were enough white people in that country who accepted apartheid rule such that the regime did not end officially until 1994. Gordimer's books explore so many of the issues and the tensions of that time period so well, and her characters struggle with social justice and equality and all these topics in very real ways. I am also fascinated by
Argentina under the military regime in the 1970s and early 1980s and Chile under Pinochet. It seems like I'm drawn to these societies where the left and the right are so divided on everything; where large groups of citizens are willing, and are forced, to fight and sometimes go underground to achieve basic fairness for everyone. Mostly I feel awe at the incredible bravery of the people in South Africa who fought against apartheid and the Argentines and Chileans who fought the brutal military regimes. I'd like to think that if I lived in any of those countries during those periods I would have been one of those people but even writing that seems so presumptuous as I can easily say that safe here in 2011 when those people faced real danger every day and still fought.

In Paris I taught English at the same school as S., an American woman. She was pretty cool, and had had a fairly adventurous life which had somehow brought her to Paris to teach English at almost age 50. The year and a half before she'd arrived in Paris (which was right around the time I arrived there in January 2007), she, her husband C. and their adorable daughter, T., who they had adopted from Guatemala, took care of an old castle somewhere in the south of France. I never got the whole story of how/why things got so bad there (or how they had even ended up there from their pre-France existence in suburban Connecticut) but S. did tell me that her and C.'s marriage almost ended because of the stress they were under while living in that castle. I really liked T. and I guess because I was accepting/enthusiastic about her adoption, S. told me (mind you this was at a party at my apt at the end of May at which everyone present got very drunk... S. to the point that later in the night when trying to put pieces of pita bread in her mouth she kept missing and when I was cleaning up the next morning I found a pile of pita bread on the floor by the chair where she'd been sitting) that I belonged in the 1970s. When I asked her why, she said something (pretty vague actually) along the lines that I was super accepting and would have fit in well then. Overall it was a really unsatisfying response from her because being told you belong in the 1970s is a kind of intriguing thing to hear. Yet it loses some of its intrigue when you're not quite sure why the other person thinks you belong there! In any event, I told S. I was happy to be alive when I was/am and be the age that I was then (and am now). But that being said, I do have some opinions on some of the different decades.

I feel like the 1960s (particularly in the US) are really glamourized in today's society, and I feel like, for me at least, the 1970s is kind of a mystery decade. What was it like? (Another reason S.'s inability to elaborate on why I belonged there was frustrating.) It is the 1980s I feel like I am the most curious about. Having been born in January 1984 I was alive for six years of that decade but I was so little, and I had no idea about all the interesting things happening on the planet I lived on. From a historical point of view, I would argue that the 1980s was the most pivotal decade of the Cold War - civil wars raged across Central America, communism was teetering to its end in Eastern Europe and the US was getting ready to be the world's undisputed super power. A few years ago when L. spent the summer in Nicaragua, she sent me a postcard with this very poignant image of a group of revolutionaries walking down the road - with a man and a woman lagging a little behind with their arms around each other. Unfortunately that postcard is at my house in Toronto, and I can't find a similar picture online but it was really special, and seemed to encompass so much of what I find fascinating about all those civil wars. There were countries deeply divided along ideological lines, and people on the left willing to fight to the end for social justice, and amid all that there were two revolutionaries who were also in love. I know it wasn't all so romantic - in most ways it was really awful and so many people were needlessly killed. But there is something romantic about being a revolutionary, and the picture on that postcard really captured that sentiment. I really wish I had been old enough to be aware of the changes in Eastern Europe too. I can't believe I was actually alive when the Berlin Wall fell as I feel like I would be so fascinated and intrigued by something like that if it happened now, but then I was 5 and couldn't have understood what that wall even meant.

I think we'll always get inspiration from the past, and we should continue to do so. But as I was writing this I reflected upon how our world is very much in turmoil today, and in some ways mirrors what was happening in the 1980s. So many societies seem deeply divided, the Arab Spring has brought a lot of positive change and hope, but also uncertainty; and though there is no clear cut successor waiting in the wings (although China may beg to differ) it seems as though the US's position as sole super power won't last for much longer. So I should echo what I told S. that night in Paris and feel grateful that I am alive now, to watch all these events unfold. And maybe there is a little girl somewhere who is only five now who may one day look back on this period and wish she had been more aware of it.

The multiple ways to sign off

I should have written this post last spring when I wrote about letters and postal systems as this topic fits in well with that. What is the best way to end a letter and/or email to someone you know and like? Back when L., K., and S. lived on Hardy St. in the Rockridge neighbourhood of Oakland, they had a postcard of Roslyn, Washington (the town where the TV show Northern Exposure (which on the show was really a town in Alaska) was filmed. During those last few months I lived in Berkeley, particularly in June, I watched a lot of episodes of that show with L. and K. It's really good and worth watching!). S. had bought the postcard when passing through Roslyn, I think on the roadtrip she and K. took in 2003 from California all the way up the west coast through Oregon, Washington, and BC to spend the summer with their uncle in Alaska, and had planned to send it to her ex-boyfriend who was living in the Bay. She never sent the postcard (I don't think the address part was even filled out other than the name) and so instead it ended up on their fridge, and ended up in my hands one day when it fell off the fridge and I read what was on the back. The postcard was pretty short, and suggested that S. and this ex-boyfriend go for a beer sometime once S. got back to the Bay. The ending though, was very memorable and has stuck with me, and inspired me, all this time. It said: "Hoping happiness is yours, S. (except instead of just her initial she signed her whole name.) I thought, and still do think, that is the coolest ending to a postcard ever! It's sweet, sincere, simple - perfect. (And I really hope she used it again on a postcard she actually sent to someone because it is too good to be wasted on the back of a postcard stuck to a fridge... All those girls moved out of that house a long time ago, which makes me wonder if that postcard even still exists or somehow (either purposely or not) got thrown out in a move. I hope that's not the case, but even if it is, that postcard is definitely still living on in my consciousness.)

How to end both letters and emails is a subject I've thought about a lot. I have definitely tried in the past (and sometimes still do try in the present) to be creative with my endings (a notable example is a postcard I mailed to someone from Tucson, AZ which S. and I visited on our roadtrip to LA from Austin. It said: "a cactus and a kiss" and then my name. I like that one.) but I usually stick with the tried and true "love". I guess it is overused to a certain extent, but I only use it if I actually like and care about the person. Recently (or maybe not so recently? maybe the last 6 months - to a year or so?) I've started using "lots of love" sometimes; because really sometimes love on its own isn't enough. I also like "love always" and occasionally (more like infrequently) use it, but I must prefer the other two since I end letters/emails with them much more often.

My preferred way of ending emails (and I sometimes put them into texts too) is "xx" a habit I picked up from my British friends C. and S. in Paris. The first few times either of them sent me texts I was confused because there was always a "x" or "xx" at the end; I finally got that they were supposed to be kisses and I decided I really liked that. Prior to living in Paris I'd often used "xo" (which I still like); however, I prefer "xx" as it makes me think of the French bise (the kiss on each cheek). I love how in Paris (and I imagine all of France) when people, like my lovely French friend C., are about to end a phone call with someone they say "bisous" and then hang up. And actually, now that I think of it, they did this in Santiago too, ending phone calls by saying "un beso" and often ending texts by actually writing "un beso" (instead of the single "x" that C. and S. used). N. sometimes ends her emails with "kisses" or "many kisses" which I really like. I also like (and like using it when writing emails to my friends in Paris) the French equivalent which is "Je t'embrasse" (I kiss you) or "mille bisous" (a thousand kisses).

Maybe about a year ago, I read a post on Jezebel in which the blogger Sadie talked about how she likes ending her correspondence with "as ever, Sadie." I like that ending somewhat, but I don't think I'd ever use it. One of the commentators left a huge list of endings to correspondence in the comments and I was so intrigued that I had to copy/paste the list and save it in my gmail drafts. Some of them (actually almost all) are pretty cheesy but some are pretty sweet. I don't think I've ever used any of them, but maybe I should start. Here's the list, I put the ones that I would never use first: ''With undying fondness''; ''the utmost regards''; ''I hope to receive the pleasure of your attentions soon''; ''cordially''; ''a most zealous hug''. Here are the ones I wouldn't use but think are okay/fine: ''Hope to be delighted by your company soon''; ''I anxiously await our reunion''; ''The kindest thoughts''; ''I desperately await your correspondence''; ''yours etc.''; ''devoted''; ''With much sincere sweetness''; ''My most sincere warm wishes''. And here is the only one from the whole list I would actually use: ''May all your days be sweet''.

This last one I found on a different website. I think I used it an email to A. once. It's pretty cheesy, but very sweet: "May you continue to bloom where you're planted." And I do sincerely hope that for all of you!

She wore scarlet begonias tucked into her curls

Consistently from the time I began attending UTS at age 12, my hair was never longer than a bit below chin length. During the spring I was 14, I got a really cool short haircut (it was exciting because literally people in every grade complimented me on it, and albeit UTS was small, but not that small) which I proceeded to ruin later that summer when I got it cut even shorter and more boy-like. That was a big mistake because my hairdresser made it too short on top so I always had so much hair sticking up. Luckily I grew it out that fall, but my hair continued along in a very boring, predictable pattern of fairly straight (even though I had curly hair as a little girl), not that exciting a shade of brown, and pretty short.

I moved to Berkeley with my usual chin length hair cut, and sometime during my first spring there, when I was 19 (one of my favourite numbers and ages!) I decided to grow it long. By that fall, it had already gotten fairly long. Sometimes I miss that fall, the one in which I grew my hair, met B., listened to the Strokes non-stop, and became best friends with L. While I was desperate for longer hair, she chopped her long golden hair off to above her chin. She cut hers to get at who she really was, while I grew mine in the hopes of discovering the same thing.

I knew I had made it hair wise (ah that sounds so cheesy but it's true!) when I was home in Toronto sometime during the fall of 2004. By that point I'd had long hair for over a year. I went to a bbq with some friends from high school and a girl I hadn't seen in two years asked me if I had gotten a perm. I was so happy to tell her that no, my hair naturally looked like that and my only explanation for why it hadn't looked perm-like in high school was that it was now much longer.

Later that same fall, L. and I went shopping for Halloween costumes at a few vintage stores along Telegraph in Berkeley. I decided to be Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany's and so I tried on this long black evening gown. L. and I stood in the change room looking at my reflection in the mirror and she told me that looking at me she was reminded of why she'd always wanted to be a brunette. I found (and find) this a bit odd (and of course also very flattering!) because L. has the most beautiful golden honey coloured hair in the world - the type of hair colour that is coveted the world over. But it was very sweet; and partly thanks to her I began to appreciate my dark shade of brown and definitely find it much more interesting and attractive than I did in high school.

The summer after I left Berkeley, I realized my hair - halfway down my back at least - was just too long. It was really hot that summer and by August, my hair felt permanently knotted and tangled. So I cut it pretty short, and ever since then I've gone back and forth between cutting it short and letting it grow. I get it layered a bit now and so I don't think it will ever grow as long as it was in Berkeley. But that's okay - it feels like that period of my life should be the really long hair days and so I don't mind that it'll never get that length again. For now I am happy with its decently long length. I think my ideal hair style would be long with curls. (My hair inspirations: a. the picture of the red headed woman below (except I'd have bangs). I like how her curls start near the top of her head; mine start lower down. And b. the blond hair woman at the top.) L.'s (a different one than above) wedding was last weekend, [side note: she was a lovely and absolutely gorgeous bride!] and I got to have my hair done. I decided to go with my hair pulled back, half up thing with the rest of it in long curl/ringlets. I really liked it a lot, and I'm glad I picked that because I wanted my hair pulled back like that. I think though, that maybe over winter break I'll go get my hair done and ask them to do it more like either the redhead or the blond below and above, just to see how it would like.

My hair and I are both big participants in the wavy versus curly debate. Which one better describes my hair? You'd think I'd be satisfied just saying I have wavy hair, particularly since both E. and E. and my aunt (whose name also starts with E. funny!) have all gotten perms just to have wavy hair. (And by the way, all their perms look amazing! Wavy hair is awesome! except when what you really want is curly hair...) But I'm not. My hair really lives firmly on the border between wavy and curly (although once in some emails B. and I were discussing wavy v. curly hair (his hair being decidedly wavy) and he wrote: "I always thought of your hair as pretty curly, but not too curly.") - some days it is so curly and some days so wavy and some days a mix of both. My favourite part about my hair now - and my strongest evidence that my hair is really curly, and not wavy - are the ringlets I frequently (although, much to my chagrin, not everyday) get. I even took a picture last Thursday specifically to post here and show what they look like, so look at it below. I have no idea why they are sometimes there and sometimes aren't, but I do wish I had them everyday. However in any event, I am just glad I have (sometimes) curly hair, and that I like my hair so much more than I did when I was a teenager.

In closing, here are the best ways (in my opinion) to make your hair curlier (provided your hair is either semi-curly or wavy to begin with): 1. go swimming the ocean and then let it dry without washing it first. This is guaranteed to give you lovely (in appearance, although your hair will feel very dry) salt water curls. 2. Use Rosemary Mint Aveda shampoo. I have tried so many different curly hair shampoos (Sunsilk, Herbal Essences, and even Aveda's Be Curly) and none of them have made my hair curlier than Aveda's Rosemary Mint. I first used it this summer because it was the shampoo in A. and L.'s guest bathroom in LA and I quickly fell in love because it made my hair so curly. However, the downside is that it is pretty expensive, so I've only bought it once since then. But I need to buy it again because it really does give me great curls. In fact, I think I'll go buy some this weekend.

Louisiana is for Vampires

I bought Twilight in May 2009 when I went on a field trip to the Book People bookstore in Austin with the class of the two grade 5 kids I tutored. Each kid got to choose a book at the store, and a lot of the girls were choosing later books in the Twilight saga. Having had Twilight recommended to me on a multiple occasions, I bought it. I then read the whole thing on a plane a few weeks later. I did thoroughly enjoy it, and I went on to read the rest of the saga (I love how it's called that...) that summer. But I have to admit I sort of wish my introduction to vampires had not come from Twilight. Sure, those books were mostly fun and entertaining to read, but there were a lot of annoying things too. More importantly, all the other vampire things I've read or watched since are so much better.

L. also read (and really liked!) Twilight, and she then recommended Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels (also called Southern Vampire mysteries because they are set in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. Side note: I have a magnet on my fridge that says Louisiana is for Vampires which I love.) which I have now read all of (except the most recent one which is still in hardcover) and which I love a lot. I don't think the Twilight books even come close to the Sookie books. A part of that stems from the reality that the majority of the Twilight books take place in high school and I find life/people/pretty much everything way more interesting once people are out of high school, and are living more adult lives. I also find it really interesting that the vampires in the Sookie books are 'out of the coffin' (the Japanese invented a synthetic blood called 'True blood' which sustains vampires, thus stopping them from having to drink humans' blood to stay alive and allowing them to be open about their true natures), because it brings up a lot of interesting issues surrounding vampires' acceptance (or lack thereof at times) in mainstream society. (So much of the Twilight saga seemed devoted to Bella discovering Edward was a vampire, and then having to keep that fact a secret from her parents/everyone else in the world.) Hands down the biggest reason why I love the Sookie books is because I love Sookie. All the books are first person Sookie and she is a wonderful person/narrative! She's really funny, smart, pretty, practical, brave, loyal, caring, understanding, and she loves reading. I like a lot of the other book characters too - particularly Eric, Pam, Amelia, and Claudine; all in all, they are very enjoyable and addictive reads.

The books and the TV show based on them, True Blood, are pretty different, and I actually like it better that way. The show only loosely follows the books (I think season 1 definitely followed the closest) in that it has multiple characters that either weren't in the books at all, or weren't developed in the books. So I now have a lot of characters that I really like from the show (namely Jessica!) that I have no book opinion about at all. It's also fun to be surprised so I like that the show has really differed from the books. True Blood has also done a lot of cool things with making current day comparisons between vampire rights and minority rights. The two main things I dislike about True Blood are how short its seasons are (12 episodes, only lasting from the end of June to the second week of September is not long enough!), and how thoroughly different (and worse) show Sookie is from book Sookie. Hardly any of the qualities that I listed above as loving about book Sookie exist in show Sookie. I find show Sookie impatient, selfish, self-absorbed, and way too concerned with whatever vampire she is currently dating to the neglect of her friends/family. Not liking Sookie puts a damper on the show. Fortunately though, unlike with the books in which Sookie, as the narrator, is the star, the show's many main characters and (perhaps too) many story lines means Sookie is not in every scene.

I think the prevalence of the internet has increased the popularity and ubiquity of tv shows. Back in the early to mid 1990s when I was obsessed with Beverly Hills 90210, I only ever really discussed it with friends. The internet didn't exist (or at least not for regular people) and the idea of going online to talk or read about a TV show would have been so totally foreign to me. Now, however, whenever I see a movie or watch a show that interests me, I love googling it and reading what other people have to say about it online. (I sometimes do that with books too, but usually I talk about books in person more.)

True Blood is the first show I've ever watched where I've gotten really into the analysis, and where I religiously follow vlogs or podcasts about the show. At the end of the third season, I found out about this blog talk radio program where two black women had a weekly show analyzing True Blood from a racial and feminist perspective called Talking True Blood at Merlotte's. I only listened to their episode for season 3's finale but I loved their analysis. They articulated a lot of what I thought about certain characters on the show, and it was fascinating to me to hear people engage with and be critical of a lot of the social aspects of the show. This past June when season 4 started, I discovered they had started up a regular website called Fangs for the Fantasy where the two women - now joined by one gay man - analyze lots of fantasy books and shows from a social justice perspective. I subscribed to their weekly podcast and absolutely loved listening to their assessment of the episode each week. I share all of their dislike of Sookie, and enjoyed both being made aware of other small things from each episode I had sometimes missed, and reflecting on the way the show sometimes does perpetuate negative stereotypes about minorities.

The one thing I can't get fully behind the Fangs for the Fantasy bloggers/podcasters is their negative opinion of Charlaine Harris. They really really don't like her, even though they keep reading the Sookie books, and have read some of her other books too. I like Charlaine Harris because I think the Sookie books are really great, fun, smart and interesting reads; and I also admire her after watching this interview she gave once in which she explained that writing the Sookie books was a conscious career move. She was getting a bit bored with writing mysteries and wanted to expand her readership, so decided to go into fantasy. I liked how she took control of her career, and has been so successful. I've read the first book of two of Charlaine Harris' other series: the Aurora Teagarden mysteries and the Lily Bard mysteries, and I've really liked both. But at the same time I've felt a bit guilty for doing so, particularly liking Aurora Teagarden, because the Fangs for the Fantasy people are so critical of it. In fairness, they particularly don't like the later books because they say there are very few minorities, and the ones that are present are often pretty obvious stereotypes. I haven't read enough of the books to know if I agree with everything they say, but I do think it enriches my own reading experience if I am aware of things like that. I am eager to read some vampire books by L.A. Banks who was a black writer and I am sure writes from a different perspective than Charlaine Harris.

The other True Blood commentary I made sure to watch each week was this vlog at a website called Camp Blood. M. told me about it at the beginning of season 3, and I've been watching the two men who make it ever since. Their vlog is a funny contrast from Fangs for the Fantasy as they are way way less critical of the show. Their vlog is funny, very silly, and doesn't take
the show - or themselves - very seriously at all.

The first time I lived alone, that September in my Hilgard apt, I remember joking with a friend that I needed to leave some garlic out to keep the vampires away. Vampires were something I knew nothing about (and was somewhat surprised when I discovered just how far back vampire fascination and vampire culture goes) and probably never imagined I'd ever know about. But I am very glad to have gotten into vampires over the last few years. I am excited that I now read another genre of books - fantasy - which I rarely touched before. There are so many fantasy books about vampires out there - next on my list are the Anita Blake vampire novels, the LA Banks ones, and finishing up the Blood books series by Tanya Huff (which takes place in Toronto in the early 1990s.) Fantasy has, actually and cheesily, through all its vampires, werevolves, telepaths, and shape shifters made me think about what it means to be human, and how humans, and what we do, appear odd/different to creatures like vampires. I may have many months to wait for True Blood to start up again but in the meantime I have many more vampire books to read.

The Lights of LA County They Look like Diamonds in the Sky

Soon after I moved to Berkeley, I found out about the “divide” between Northern California (Nor Cal) and Southern California (So Cal) that people from their respective parts of the state liked to talk about. Not being from California, I didn’t have an opinion at first but not too long later, completely enamoured with the Bay Area, I found myself firmly in the Nor Cal camp. I’d been to Los Angeles a few times, and while it seemed like a cool, (mostly) sunny place, it didn’t leave any lasting impression.

Then, however, I realized that a lot of the musicians I liked loved LA, and wrote these really great songs about it. (Listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Under the Bridge - best line ever: "I walk through her hills cause she knows who I am"; and Joni Mitchell’s song Court and Spark where she sings at the end: "But I couldn’t let go of LA, city of the fallen angel"; and Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’, everytime I hear the line about vampires moving west along Ventura Blvd I smile.) On M.’s recommendation I read Anthony Kiedis’ (lead singer of Red Hot Chili Peppers) autobiography and his descriptions of LA, particularly living in the Hollywood Hills made me want to get to know LA much better.

Fortunately, my brother A. moved to LA in the fall of 2006. I first visited him, and (his then girlfriend, now wife,) L. there in the first four days of 2007, and happily S. drove there to see me too. From the fall of 2006 to July 2011, A. and L. lived in Laurel Canyon, this hilly canyon which separates LA from the San Fernando Valley on the other side of the hills. S. described their house like a tree house the first time she saw it, and she was totally right. It was a truly lovely little house. It had so many windows, (the room I always slept in had windows on three walls, and the kitchen sink had a window over it) and two great balconies - one big one with a hammock and a big dining table, and another small, sunny one with two chairs, perfect to sit on and read. The view from their house to the sides and the back was of a few other homes. But the view facing straight was of the side of a bright green and lush hill. Something I never realized until I started going to LA is how green of a city it is, especially in the spring and summer. Laurel Canyon is also a nice neighbourhood to go for steep walks up to Mulholland Drive at the top of the hill which separates LA from Studio City, on the other side. It's a cool view during the daytime, and at night, when you can see so many lights (which really do look like diamonds in the sky, as per Lyle Lovett's song).

Neither S. nor I knew L. very well that first time we visited, and so when A. asked us what we were going to do our first day there we were at a bit of a loss. He then suggested we take Sunset Blvd (which we could pick up at the bottom of Laurel Canyon) all the way through LA until it hit Pacific Coast Highway, and then head north up the coast to Malibu. We followed his suggestion to a T. and soon found ourselves walking on a beach in Malibu, our feet in the Pacific in early January, where the places we both normally lived were covered with snow. After that visit, I started planning my next trip there.

I think it was in May 2008, when S. and I drove my car from Austin to LA, that my conversion to the So Cal camp took place. We did the exact same drive down Sunset Blvd to the PCH and Malibu, walked on the same beach and watched little kids at surfing camp (or maybe gym class since it was still May? either way... so cool!), and while doing these activities it dawned on me how fabulous LA is. It has great weather, amazing and accessible beaches (the last time I was there I went to Santa Monica Beach and it was so nice! S. we have to go there next time!), lovely blue skies, mountains in the distance, hills, great shopping and restaurants, palm tree lined streets (perhaps my favourite part of LA, so pretty!) and a relaxed, laid back vibe. There are a few downsides, as there are everywhere, and for me LA's is always having to drive. It's so big and the distances between a lot of the places I like to go are pretty big, so a car is pretty much a necessity. But all in all, LA is a great place to visit. It reminds me of New York, Toronto, and Buenos Aires in that it seems like so many cities within a city. Every time I go to NY I seem to go to parts of Manhattan or Brooklyn I'd never been to before, which makes visiting there really exciting. The same thing happened when I visited J. in Buenos Aires last February, as she lived in a different part of the city than I'd spent much time (read hardly any) in the previous times I'd been there. Every time I visit LA, I discover new parts too.

When I heard A. and L. had bought a house and were moving to this other neighbourhood called Silver Lake, I was happy for them but also, totally selfishly, a bit sad that they were leaving their Laurel Canyon house behind. I didn’t think I could love another part of LA as much as Laurel Canyon, or a LA house as much as I loved the Laurel Canyon house. (I was also sad they were no longer going to be living just on the other side of the hill from Studio City. If you've never been, and are ever in LA, go! Ventura Blvd is the main street and is very pretty and palm tree lined, and there are lots of great shops and restaurants.) However, it turns out that Silver Lake is pretty rad (see picture below). It is a very hilly neighbourhood, which I always love, and the Silver Lake reservoir is quite big and attractive, and the water sparkles in the sunshine. A. and L.'s new house is so nice - lots of big windows again! The house also has an amazing, huge, wrap around deck from which you can see, albeit far away, the Hollywood sign. The deck is perfect for reading or tanning as it gets a lot of direct sunlight, and for longer than the little balcony in the Laurel Canyon house that I used to like to sit on got. I am looking forward to spending lots more time on that deck the next time I visit.

The last time I saw L. (a different one) in person, I told her how I am now firmly a So Cal fan and, having mostly grown up in the Bay Area, she was shocked. I still (and always will) love the Bay, but LA has a lot of the things I love about the Bay (hills, big full moons) and things the Bay doesn't have, like consistently warm weather and better beaches/access to the ocean. I want L. and I to go to LA together so I can convince her why it's so great. So to conclude my little LA love letter, I will say that I think I will always love that Laurel Canyon house because it really did show me how great LA could be.

Back when S. and I visited in May 2008, A. gave me a key to the Laurel Canyon house which I put on my keychain. And even though they don't live there anymore, I still have it on my key chain. I know I should take it off, but I think I'm going to leave it there a little longer.

The Strange Yet Fascinating World of Internet Advice Columnists

Sometime during our last year at Berkeley, S. introduced me to the "Since You Asked" advice column on Salon written by a man named Cary Tennis. I had been complaining to her about how I couldn't sleep well when sharing a bed with someone else, and she sent me the link to a Since You Asked post about that exact topic. [Side note: I still don't particularly like sharing beds. The only people I can get as good a night's sleep sleeping beside as I would if I were alone are my mom, or my friend S.G. But I hardly ever sleep in the same bed as either of them :) My "problem" (although I don't really like calling it that) arises whether I am sleeping in the same bed as my mom, a friend or a guy. As a result, I always read articles I come across about couples who have separate beds or separate bedrooms with interest. For example, after Helena Bonham Carter got into a relationship with Tim Burton, he bought the house next door to her and they put in a connecting door. So they both have their own separate houses but they are attached. I'm not sure I'd need my own house, but my own bedroom and bathroom would be nice.] Ever since that fateful link to Cary's answer about sharing a bed five and a half years ago, I've been reading his column more or less regularly. I probably check it about three times a month. He updates pretty regularly - so I usually have about 3-4 questions to read each time I go there.

Since You Asked is always interesting to read for a number of reasons. First, Cary's answers are almost always very convoluted, full of metaphors and dense writing. (A blogger on Gawker once referred to one of Cary's columns as "an incomprehensible treatise" and while that may have been taking it a bit far, there was a grain of truth there.) Second, Cary's pretty new-age. He's really into telling people to breathe, to spend some time sitting still and concentrating on feeling every inch of their body, starting with their toes. He also recommends therapy a lot. Very occasionally Cary gives some concrete advice like "do x, followed by y" but usually his advice is much more abstract and is aimed at getting the person to dig deep into themselves and find the answer. And that was possibly the cheesiest sentence I've ever written! Third, Cary's a kind person and that really comes out. He is always kind and respectful to the letter writer, and he really empathizes with their position. He has been through a lot in life too (he had a pretty serious cancer and took about 6 months (or maybe longer, can't remember) off from writing the column a few years ago; and he was an alcoholic and is still in AA) and he often puts himself in the exact same boat as the letter writer, which is really cool, and refreshing. Fourth, the commentators are a real mixed bag on the Salon site as a whole. The positives about the commentators for Since You Asked is that they give a lot of advice to the letter writer and are honest with their opinions on Cary's advice (ie. aren’t shy to say they think his advice is ridiculous). The negatives are that some of them are complete assholes and write really horrible things. Even some of the ones who don't say horrible things but just offer advice are often condescending and self-righteous. I think Salon should do a better job moderating the comments across its site and not allowing people to post rude, sexist, racist, stupid and misogynist things. Fifth, and finally, Since You Asked gets the best range of letters; people write to Cary for advice on so many varied things that it's always thought provoking to read.

I started reading this website called the Hairpin pretty regularly in June and I quickly decided that their advice columns are my favourite part of the site. The Hairpin has so many advice columns! Weekly they usually have "Ask a Lady" and "Ask a Dude" (but recently this has been "Ask a Married Dude.") They also have "Ask a Clean Person" and "Ask a Queer Chick" maybe two times a month? The latter two are always answered by the same person each time, whereas the Ladies and (Married) Dudes rotate and it's never entirely clear (at least to me) which one is answering. They never reveal their names. Overall, I really like the A Lady column. Most of the ladies give good, practical advice and aren’t afraid to call out advice seekers when they say something really pretentious or obnoxious in their question (which happens maybe about 1 in 4 letters?) The ladies also usually seem like kind people, which is important. Most of the dudes are good too. (One dude in particular wrote the best answers once! So the best that I wish he gave his name and lived in either Toronto or Montreal and that I could date him ☺) It’s fun to read guys giving relationship advice. I’ve only read a few Married Dudes but they are not as good. The most recent one was kind of annoying in his answers, and gave plain bad, totally off the mark advice to one of the advice seekers. Fortunately, this bad advice was saved by the fact that the Hairpin commentators are fabulous and give the best advice, often better than (or at least expanded versions of) the Lady’s or Dude’s. Reading the comments is 70% of why I like reading these posts, and I always make sure I don’t read the posts until they’ve been up for a while and enough people have had time to comment. Overall, I’d say the pros of the Hairpin’s advice columns are reading the comments, and that the questions almost always have to do with romantic relationships. The cons are when the Married Dudes are obnoxious, and that the questions almost always have to do with romantic relationships.

The last Internet advice column I’m going to write about is one I actually found out through a posting on the Hairpin, talking about how the woman behind the “Dear Sugar” advice column is apparently going to reveal her identity soon. This made me curious so I ended up going to the Dear Sugar page and reading a bunch of her past columns. I’m torn as to what to I think about her column. (I am curious to find out who she is though because she’s a published author and I wonder if I have heard of her.) On the one hand, Sugar seems/sounds like a kind person and seems to genuinely empathize with the person to whom she’s writing. On the other hand, I feel like her column is way too much about herself. Each answer is more like a creative non-fiction column than an advice column. Her answers are so long because they are 90% about her life and then the last 10% applies her life lessons to the advice seeker’s problem. Now, obviously I love reading about other people’s lives, but somehow it just doesn’t do it for me in an advice column. Cary Tennis is also a writer, and infrequently (borderline rarely) works in things from his own life to his column; but Cary is clear on what his job is: to give advice, not long rambly pieces about his own life, with the letter writer’s issue thrown in as an afterthought. Evidently some people really enjoy Sugar’s style as the comments section on her site is full of people gushing over how amazing her answer was that week, and how, as usual, Sugar got it exactly right. Their fawning over her is a bit much for me. Most annoyingly, the commentators rarely give their own advice to the letter writer because they’re too busy saying how perfect Sugar’s (non) advice was. Even with some of Since You Asked’s obnoxious commentators, it is always good to get other perspectives on the letter writer’s question; and the fact that that seems to be mostly missing from Dear Sugar is not good.

Since I have just written an entire post about advice columns I feel it is not fair if I end without admitting that I have once or twice toyed with the idea of sending in my own question to either Cary or A Lady. But before I even actually think about how I’d phrase my question, I decide against it. It appears I am more of an advice column reader than advice seeker. However, it is nice to know that Since You Asked and A Lady/A Dude are there if I ever change my mind.

The Ins & Outs of Book Dedications

Every time I read a book, one of first things I do is check the front for the dedication page. I love reading dedications as they can be very interesting and/or sweet, and usually reveal a little bit (sometimes more) about the author's personality/feelings/state of mind etc.

Quick disclaimer: I've never read any of the Harry Potter books. But I searched multiple image sites for most of the dedication pages listed below to no avail. The only dedication page I could find on google images was the one to the last Harry Potter book (and I actually kind of like the dedication, so that will have to do for a picture of a dedication.)

In May 1999, when I was 15 and had just returned from my three month exchange to France, I had to write a history paper for the half course on 20th century World History that I had missed almost all of because I was in the little town of Beaupreau. My teacher, Mr. Bentley, said I should write a paper about an event in 20th century French history. I chose the liberation of Paris at the end of World War II. I don't remember much about my paper (except that I enjoyed writing it and found the topic super interesting) but I have always remembered the dedication in one of the books on the topic which I checked out of the library (unfortunately I can remember neither the name nor the author of the book). The dedication said: "For Eugenia - for making even happier my happy memories of Paris." I remember thinking then and I still think now, what a wonderful dedication and that Eugenia was a lucky lady to have someone write such a nice dedication about her!! And that the author and Eugenia obviously loved Paris as much as I did/do was a bonus!

Continuing in the academic book vein, here is another dedication. This one is from the book Winning the Ph. D Game by Richard W. Moore, which J. happens to have on his book shelf (a gift from his cousin). When I was glancing through the book, I read the dedication, which I liked so much I had to write down: "This book is dedicated to Yvonne T. Guy, Ph.D, fellow graduate student, critic, motivator, and most recently, my wife." It's sweet, it's cute, and it explains that Yvonne is the author's wife.

I am going to write a post either next month or September about vampires and vampire books and True Blood and I will talk a lot about Charlaine Harris (the writer of the Sookie Stackhouse books) in that. So for this post, I'll limit what I want to say about her to her funny and sweet dedications. My personal favourites are from the third Sookie book, Club Dead, where she writes: "This book is dedicated to my middle child , Timothy Schultz, who told me flatly he wanted a book all to himself." I find that such an endearing and funny dedication! And if I were Timothy, I know I'd want a book all to myself too! My other favourite is from Touch of Dead, a collection of Sookie short stories, where Charlaine Harris writes: "For all those readers who want every last sip of Sookie." I love that one too because a. I am one of those readers who wants every last sip of Sookie, and b. I like the vampire reference. Charlaine's dedications are good because they are funny, and they reveal the relationship between her and the person (people) to whom she is dedicating the book.

I first heard about the writer Elizabeth McCracken last spring when I read Ann Patchett's memoir Truth and Beauty (which I highly recommend!) - the bulk of the book is about Ann Patchett's other friend, Lucy Grealy, but she also discusses how she met and became friends with Elizabeth McCracken. (Interesting side note: Ann Patchett's book The Magician's Assistant is dedicated to both Lucy Grealy and Elizabeth McCracken.) After finding out about her thanks to Ann Patchett's memoir, I googled Elizabeth McCracken, discovered that her books sounded very interesting and I ended up taking her memoir An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination out of the library. It was so good that I ordered one of her novels The Giant's House on Amazon. I have yet to read it but I did take a sneak peek at the dedication page and I really liked it: "for Robert Sidney Phelps a giant of a friend" It's a good dedication, in my opinion, because it is concise, kind, relates to the title of her book, and explains her relationship to Robert Sidney Phelps.

Another dedication I like is L.M. Montgomery's in Anne of the Island: "To all the girls around the world who "wanted more" about Anne." I enjoy this one because it's nice to all her fans around the world, and I'm sure it made them all feel very special - and glad that they had another book about Anne to read!

Elizabeth Gilbert is probably best known as the writer of Eat, Pray, Love but she also wrote a short story collection and a novel back before all the events of EPL ever took place. I actually recently bought a (very slightly used) copy of her novel Stern Men for very cheap. Despite not yet reading it (although I am looking forward to doing so) I really wanted to look at the dedication page because I had once read an article about Gilbert's first husband (the man she divorces at the beginning of EPL) and how she had dedicated her novel to him. The dedication reads: "To Michael Cooper - for playing it cool." I have to admit I like the dedication; it's intriguing. In what ways did Michael Cooper play it cool? I want to know!! But I also don't like when writers don't explain their relationship to the person to whom they dedicated the book. I know Michael Cooper is her ex (current at the time) husband's name, but only because of that article I read. Other people probably wonder who he is... At the same time, maybe I would find it annoying if she had dedicated it to: "To my husband Michael Cooper - for playing it cool." That just doesn't sound the same...Clearly I can't be satisfied :) I wonder if Elizabeth Gilbert regrets dedicating that book to him now. I hope she doesn't; because in some ways it would have been weird for her not to have dedicated a book to her husband, as most people presumably don't go into their marriage thinking they'll eventually get a divorce. I was so into G. in June 2004 and when we parted ways for the summer, I gave him this really gushy card in which I said all these really nice things about him. When I came back to Berkeley in the fall and he turned out to be an asshole I was so mad at myself for having written him that card. But I then realized that the card was a reflection of how I felt in June, and I think the same goes with dedications. Michael Cooper must have played it cool during their marriage, and how was Elizabeth Gilbert to know that eventually they would have a terrible, messy divorce?

Back several years ago, I tried, every once and a while, to write short stories. (I have now mostly abandoned that pursuit for writing non-fiction, but I do still have a Word document with story ideas and I suspect I will at some point try again.) Part of my problem with short stories was that I always wanted to include way too many details about each character. It was actually reading Elizabeth Gilbert's short story collection - Pilgrims- that made me realize that a lot of backstory wasn't necessary, and wasn't conducive, to short stories. I think the same idea probably applies to dedications - the shorter, the better; and then add sweet and sincere, and you have the ideal book dedication.