Why I'm moving to Colorado (or Washington)

a.m.k looks in on marijuana laws and changing times.

Almost two weeks ago, the United States re-elected President Barack Obama, much to the dismay of old rich white American men. Initially lost in the intense battle for US presidency was the fact that three states -- Colorado, Washington and Oregon -- all had a vote to legalize marijuana. When the news finally reached me a few days later, I was astounded: how come this hasn't been all over the news? Is the US becoming more socially-progressive than Canada? How fast can I get a holiday visa?

After finding this out, I immediately considered applying to MFA programs in those two states and was very upset that I hadn't initially decided to apply to the University of Washington or Colorado State. My writing could be very improved with legal access of mind-altering substances, and though I'd probably get very fat eating Miss Vickies Sea Salt and Vinegar Chips, I wouldn't be tempted to spend time away from writing to do some mundane activity like going to the gym or cleaning the bathroom.

I think many of us take for granted that Canada is more socially-open than our southern neighbours -- and I still think most places in Canada are ahead of the US with things like gay rights -- so the news that two of the three states, Colorado and Washington, voted to approve the legalization of marijuana should turn some heads.

That's right. Marijuana is going to be legal in parts of America now.

It didn't pass in Oregon, but in Oregon I believe there weren't any proposed restrictions on how much one could buy, which might have freaked some people out enough to vote against it.

Lockout spotlight: the start of the OKC Barons' AHL season

a.m.k. has 9,000 words to share with you about the Oilers' farm team.

It's a few weeks into the North American pro hockey season, and with the NHL lockout dragging on perhaps for infinity, the spotlight is on the AHL. For you non-hockey lovers out there, that's one step below the NHL as far as  North American professional hockey goes.

Average turnout at a Barons game.

The AHL operates very similarly to the NHL and in fact is attached to its parent league: each NHL team owns an AHL team, which they use to develop their prospects and replacement-level players. Most minor league teams will have over half their players on NHL contracts, meaning they can be called up to the NHL at any time (some of the older guys have to clear waivers). For a young team like the Oilers, though, almost every single player on their farm team has an NHL contract, and since the lockout is on, they were able to send many of the young guys who would normally be in the NHL to their farm team, the Oklahoma City Barons (which, as you might have guessed, doesn't exactly sell out the building, even when giving a freakin car away every Saturday). You see, when your parent club, the Edmonton Oilers, is as bad as they've been for as long as they've been, they get a lot of high draft picks, most of which are still pretty young and are thus eligible to play in the AHL during the lockout.

Now, OKC is supposed to be tearing up the minor leagues because of the skill players they have down there: two first overall NHL picks (Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent Hopkins), an NHL all-star (Jordan Eberle), one of the most prized young free agent acquisition of the offseason (Justin Schultz -- currently leading the AHL in points, which is especially ridiculous because he's a defenseman), a few young players with NHL experience still developing (Magnus Paajarvi, Teemu Hartikainen, Anton Lander), and the normal array of promising young prospects that haven't quite made the jump to the NHL yet.

The difference between the OKC Barons and the other AHL teams is that most other AHL teams only have an array of talented young prospects, replacement NHL players and AHL vets. Some teams have a couple NHL players because of the lockout, but none have the number that OKC has. In fact, it'd be tough to argue that OKC doesn't have the top four players in the whole AHL, or at least four of the top ten players in the league.

Barons looking like Oilers.

As an aside, the level of play in the AHL has been a lot higher than I thought it'd be, and I think most of the guys on those rosters wouldn't look especially out of place as bottom six NHL players. There is definitely not as much skill on the ice, but it's still good hockey.

So, on paper, OKC should be tearing up the league. After 10 games, they're 5-4-0-1 (one shootout loss), which adds to 11 points and is good for a tie for seventh in the Western conference. If the postseason started today, they'd barely squeak into the playoffs.

The season is only 1/8 done so it's obviously quite early, but the 10-game point is about the time where I like to start collecting impressions and getting worried/excited about the individual and team performances. Since is this is the minor leagues, I don't care nearly as much if the Barons win or lose (though I prefer they win). I'm more concerned with how the players are doing, developing and projecting into NHL roles. 10 games is a small sample size, but for a team that's supposed to be dominating, being a middling team is not good enough. Now is the time they need to turn it up.

The Cardigans, nostalgia and stalking old friends

When he was ten, a.m.k. used to hang out all day on music forums....

As I sit here on my balcony, realizing how F.R. Scott isn't nearly as good as the first few poems I read of his seemed, for the first time I can hear music coming from my neighbour's apartment. My building is very well-insulated for an old building, and for some reason you can hear things when you walk thru the hallways that you can't hear in your apartment. The only time I hear anyone is my neighbour below me playing saxophone sometimes, and it's not even loud at all. Except he plays the same damn song over and over. I play music all the time quite loudly and I’ve even asked neighbours if it bothers them and they say they never hear a thing. So if they do, it's not my fault for not lowering the music, is it?

Anyway, I’m sitting here on the balcony, wrists sweating like a motherfucker and she's playing the Cardigans. I first discovered the non-singles side of the Cardigans when I think I was bored one night and downloaded a bunch of songs that had corny-sounding names. I was such an emo I probably searched "kiss" and their song "And then you kissed me part II" came up, and I thought to myself, why did I never give the Cardigans a real chance? That Romeo and Juliet song was really catchy and I think they had another one that I remember liking, just not hearing enough to think of it much. And I saw their CD and I bet I was feeling rambunctious and I just bought a handful of bands I’d hear of but never thought of buying before, just in case I found a gem, as my uncle would say.

When I bought their album I was really intrigued by their sound, so I decided to give them a cautious chance. They didn't seem like a cool band to be into, if you know what I mean, they weren't "in". I don't know if it was any one song that had this effect on me, but I think I found pretty near their whole discography for cheap used on Amazon. I still get their damn newsletters because I don't know how to unsubscribe or am too lazy to scroll down and see if there's a link. I kept unsubscribing from the NRA's mailing list and fuck I still get their newsletters every few days with coupons and rally invitations. Whoever gave my email to the NRA is a cruel, cruel person.

Field Notes: Dear Lea Graham:

by rob mclennan

I am writing from the office in our newly-shared apartment, the one you haven’t seen yet. Christine sends her best. Books scatter and stack, every day a new box opened, discovery. I don’t always know what I know. Squirrels carry leaves in their mouth, strike up back steps, deck, slip up the roof. It is different, to live with a woman.

Lately I’ve been trying to get Christine to read Sarah Mangold: “The moment snow pours out of you / bed,” she writes, in her An Antenna Called The Body. Instead, she pours through the late Daniel Jones, The Brave Never Write Poetry: “Never much needed a muse / when I had the beer; yet for so long / my fingers have been silent.” We relay, different points of attention. Articulation.

Lately, Robert Kroetsch has been on my mind again. A thin, clear, unspecific line. Less the writing, more the man himself. Everywhere, I see the dead. John Lavery, a nestle of scotch in the corner of Pubwells; Dennis Tourbin at the intersection of Bank and Somerset, where the old Lockmaster Tavern perpetually threatens collapse, strict folds.

Dizzy, what heights. Navigation, wind. A song room, sweetened. From our back maple, an edit leaves; red-filtered, fallen.

Not everything follows the centre. What you call center. And, and, and. My reading is perfectly alphabetized.

I don’t always know what I know, lessons learned in a cycle. Christine’s wayward collection of cds, her Carpenters tribute album on permanent repeat, rolling through these past three days. Already I know I’ve heard a more compelling version of one track, lisped into Mirrormask. Sometimes you just die, trying.

As Mangold writes, “One word could carry you through an entire novel.” I am trying to find that word.


*

What did Robert Kroetsch mean when he wrote “The spending lover both creates and fears the growing silence.”? I slip through Kroetsch, and end up amid pages of Smaro Kamboureli, in the second person: “My life seems to draw its own map, straight lines, and a few curves, that delineate the trajectory of my moments in ways I still cannot comprehend.” As though, by writing out the second person, she writes her whole self into being.

I am reading through your poems on Kroetsch, and speculate your trajectories. Where are you heading? Robert Kroetsch down through Mohawk Valley, threading the Hudson River all the way to Poughkeepsie. Airplanes and radio waves zigzag and spool. I take enormous comfort from your journeyings. But when might you drive again the six or eight hours north?

We live in a house, occupy but a fragment. Third floor. Still, an improvement. A room with a view and a couch you can use. In Either Way I’m Celebrating, Sommer Browning writes, “A house is an employment of trees; a crowd is a path to your door.” I have misplaced my Mangold, constantly thumbing and setting down.

The office warms, even as the city cools. The printer dims bulbs. Labyrinthine snow, we could never find egress. Clear, in fact. Apartment heat so strong, we haven’t yet required to close our bedroom window. Sometimes passing snowplows startle us out of sleep.

Christine has abandoned the shared office, requesting a corner of bedroom. I’ve since carved a corner for desk, laptop, bulletin board. She trades order for chaos and back again, constructing poems. A flurried precision. Sits with Kate Beaton’s Hark, a Vagrant. The difference between fractals and pinpoints, the way her light shines through history. It happened like this, and like this, and like this.

I am waiting for 1812 to begin its re-telling, flagrant in its variety. What your country has edited long out of existence.


*Editor's note: Check out a piece rob wrote on part of Centretown's history here.

Born in Ottawa, rob mclennan has lived in Centretown since 1990 (give or take a year). The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, including Ottawa: The Unknown City and The Ottawa City Project, he spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta. He regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com.

Dating and the mysterious allure of sports fandom

a.m.k. has a few things to say about a popular waste of time.

A subculture in action.

I've met people from a lot of different subcultures. Some people are into counter-cultural or expressive types of entertainment: the underground music guru, the theatre enthusiast, the drug dealer. There are academics who attend conferences, briefcase-in-hand, perhaps looking down their noses at people disinterested in intellectual pursuits. There are nerds who get into weird online gaming communities like WoW (sorry I'll never understand it). And of course, there are people who don't seem to be into anything; maybe they have big families or live alone and stare into space smoking all night, who knows.

And then there are sports fanatics.

I've spent time inside and outside the sports world, and it's easy to forget what it's like in there -- just like it's easy to forget what it's like to be single or to be addicted to Pacman.

Wandering/Wondering

by Bandita
 
 
No peace

 My life is
              one long wander
one long wonder

            I spend my days
               wondering
wandering

Wandering then wondering
              Wondering then wandering

Finding questions
              Asking answers 

            Out there in the wondrous world
In here in my wandering mind

            Ever
              always
               incessantly
            seldom exhaustively
               always exhaustingly

Wandering
              Wondering

Wondering
              Wandering
  Angering

Inquiring
   No peace 
 
 

Once upon a blue moon cast over dark lustful nights, Bandita lived and 
shenaniganed in Centretown. She now occasionally revisits Centretown to 
drag sleepy stupored young men out of their haze and into the Light.

Mental health and super powers

a.m.k. has studied his share of psychology, and for years, he has volunteered at a psych health centre near Centretown.

Some kind of crazed
lunatic.

I often sit on my balcony and wonder about psychological disorders. Specifically, I wonder whether they exist.

Over the past few decades, there have been smalls shifts to think of "disordered" behaviours as merely differences, not to have a value judgment. Some of these behaviours have made the jump to being "ordered," but some of them haven't.

For example, homosexuality was considered a disorder until 1985. Back in the day, the majority of people did not accept that homosexuality was healthy.

An aside about the struggle for gay rights

It seems that a large part of the world has gotten past this, and although there is a lot of hatred for the gay community still, I think most heterosexual people don't have a problem with homosexuality, or at least not one that they would openly talk about. This trending-in-the-right-direction runs parallel with the gay rights movement, whose battles for acceptance are being fought largely under our noses in communities like Ottawa, where people don't necessarily think about it so much.

Contrary to what some might think, Ottawa is not a socially-conservative city. For most of my life I called somewhere else home, and very few people were openly gay there -- at least in high school, and from what I know, after as well. I'm not sure how some cities progress faster than others in a globalized world like ours, but I swear it happens, and Ottawa is less likely to produce homophobic kids than virtually any other city in the country from what I can tell. That is not to say that homophobia does not exist in Ottawa -- it absolutely does, and I have come across it several times. But the homophobia that exists in many other cities is far more noticeable and far more hateful, if that makes sense.

Here, it's not unusual to see gay couples holding hands walking down Bank. Down Wyandotte in Windsor? I've never seen it, and I lived there 18 years. In other cities, like Windsor, I get the impression that it is much scarier to be gay because you're not sure if someone is going to jump you and you're nearly certain people are going to gawk and say something hateful. In Ottawa, I've been cat-called by men sitting on the patio at CP. I can't see an official gay village designation getting passed in many other Canadian cities. There is still a ways to go, yes, but these are steps in the right direction, for sure, and steps that perhaps have not been taken to the same extent in other areas.

The designation "disorder"

It wasn't always like this. Homosexuality used to be considered a disorder. Few people, even those in more right-wing communities, would dare call it that now.

Are there conditions now that are labelled as disorders but not really warranting a diagnosis? Maybe. "Diagnosis" has a very pervasive negative haunt to it because it has to do with the psychology--the insides of someone. And it's perceived that people have some, or at least, more, control over their psychologies and what is invisible to others.

Some very thin vertical lines between these categories. (Source)

Are there other conditions that do not warrant that "disorder" status because they do no harm to anyone, but can be better described as "differences"? Take personality disorders for example. Does someone ever really need to be told that their personalities are a textbook example of what a bad, malfunctioning person is? Can someone control being Schizoid?

What if their personality entails treating other people as tools to get what you want, unempathetic of their well-being?

Yes, that last example could be warranted as disordered behaviour. A human unable to feel remorse when carelessly disregarding the life and liberty of another person. That's dangerous. That creates harm. That is also a symptom of Antisocial Personality Disorder, a component of psychopathy.

A person who avoids confrontations at all costs? Shy beyond belief because they don't want to say the wrong thing? Probably not qualities that will help you succeed in the westernized world, but disordered?

Some people worry more than others. Does that warrant the label of a disorder?

It might. It depends how harmful it is to their psychological well-being, if at all. When psychology was emerging as a respected field, there were definitely value judgements placed on people who exhibited certain behaviours. Even today, people with mental illnesses suffer from much more social stigma than people who have physical handicaps or skin cancer. (Something like Alzheimer's is likely somewhere in between--you can see the brain deterioration if shown, but when people act different and don't know who they are, it's hard to see them as the same person or to be able to treat them like it.)

I am willing to bet that the dangers and harmfulness of conditions like worry are over-exaggerated in our society. Actually, I think it can perpetuate the worry people have--an anxious person can become more anxious when being told they have anxiety, for example. It can also become a scapegoat for the person not wanting to make a concentrated effort to get better.

Am I saying everyone with anxiety is faking and could be okay if not diagnosed? God no. I'm just saying that, generally speaking, we over-analyze as a society. We need labels and to keep people and their behaviours in perfect boxes to explain them away. When a person with some issues gets a label that they don't necessarily need, it can do more harm than good because it can be used as an explanation for some of the issues they are facing; this can be good in many cases--it's nice to know you're not alone and other people have the same type of shit to deal with that you have--but it's also easier, I think, to lay on the couch and accept the fact that you're depressed if you're told so by a doctor. We then can think, I'm lying here sulking because I'm depressed, instead of I should go out and do something.

(Of course, I am only talking here about borderline cases of mental health issues, or cases where diagnoses are not needed. I've said it above and I'll say it again: this is not true of all diagnoses. Many, many are helpful, in my opinion. I'm more talking about the societal inclination we have to diagnose and some of the potential side-effects that it can cause in cases that could perhaps be avoided if we changed how we viewed personality differences and "atypical" behaviour.)

To qualify for a diagnosis today, the condition in question must limit your quality of life; it must be disabling and distressing to how you experience your life. What if someone believes their homosexuality to cause distress, if only because it leads to their being mistreated by others. Does that mean it's a disorder? Of course not. But then why are some other conditions considered disorders which (1) don't cause people to harm anyone else and (2) are not unpleasant in and of themselves? Or what if, perhaps, they are unpleasant, but adding a label does nothing to help that person? Maybe it has a negative effect on them, for any of the above-mentioned reasons or for countless others that I won't get into. Maybe it's helpful. It does depend on the individual case, for sure, but I am suggesting that perhaps we are progressing more towards over-diagnosis and over-medication instead of trending toward a society that values acceptances and uniqueness.

The power of labels

We might think of some traits as disorders just because they're named that way. A lot is in a name; we use names as heuristics, mental shortcuts in a way to navigate more quickly to what needs our attention. If I'm constantly distracted by the smell of manure, it'd be hard to work in a stable. So we get a lot out of things like names because they pre-package information for our brain so it doesn't have to download the information as intricately. Imagine if we had to really take in each individual word in a sentence: we would take ten times longer to read.

The problem is the environment in which these labels are created sometimes. Many disorders do not exist globally. Are labels perpetuating a certain type of behaviour? Do certain conditions within society foster maladaptive behaviours? Mood disorders are more prevalent in richer countries.

What happens when people are different

Why did being gay get such a bad wrap when things like sexuality began to be a growing concern? Who sat at the council to make it have a negative sound to it?

However it happened, the dominant society went and took being gay to being negative, which is something that our present society, progressively so in Ottawa, is finally reacting against.

People love to have control, and that's understandable. It's scary when we don't know what to expect from the world. And it's scary when we don't know what to expect from the person talking to her/himself on the bus beside us. Since they don't follow our notion of what is a proper way to act, who knows, they might stab us.

Some people who have mental health struggles are dangerous, it's true. This is also true: some people who don't have mental health struggles are dangerous. Also true: many of the people who have mental health struggles are not obviously struggling with any issue. In fact, many of the people with mental health struggles who ARE dangerous, for example, people with psychopathy, are well-functioning in our society. In fact, they have many personality traits that are considered desirable, often intelligent, motivated and charming. You couldn't pick them out of a crowd. Chances are, though, the person talking to her/himself on the bus or the person who has panic attacks is much more concerned with their own internal struggles than they are about stabbing you. But, these people do not fit in with our perception of normality. And we are scared.

These days, some differences carry more weight than others in the social consciousness. When Ms. Jenna Talackova was vying for the title of Miss Universe Canada, there was a lot of talk about it, and a lot of support for her, but also a lot of hate.

Clearly lacking order.

People with depression and anxiety process information and their world differently than people who do not have depression or anxiety. People who are gay or transgendered probably process their worlds differently than heterosexual people because their experiences are also different. Women process their worlds differently than men as a whole. But of course, each woman processes her world differently from every other woman, too. Consciousness is different for each one of us, and we never really can know truly how someone else feels. First rule of active listening, never say 'I know exactly how you feel' or 'I understand'. So why draw imaginary lines between genders or sexual preferences when they exist between each and every one of us? In a way, we all have borders between us because we all have a different consciousness, but in another way we are all humans with brains and bodies and have, what we expect, to be a similar understanding of basic physics. We all have language and eat and shit.

How we can handle all this

I'm not really advocating for getting rid of the DSM. I do think, however, that the way we treat people who are different needs a serious overhaul. Some people with anxiety could really use help with the unpleasant feelings of worry they experience, but if people were more understanding, it wouldn't have to affect their work and social life as it can in many cases. If people treated each other better, perhaps there would be so many instances of legitimately diagnosable depression or anxiety, and the cases that are borderline now would be completely non-existent.

I can't stop you from labelling me. Labels are healthy insofar as they're temporary, as they can give way to a clearer picture once you get to know a person. We need to judge people by things like how they're dressed sometimes. I don't want to walk next to guy who I would classify as looking violent on dark road or a back alley. That move would cost me more often than walking on the same dark road or in the same back alley with a beautiful girl in running gear. In this case, I call the quick judgment a life-preserver.

I can, however, ask that you don't make a value judgment on me when it's unnecessary. I have a trait that is strange and different and could be labelled conveniently, but that doesn't mean that you have the right to judge anything. That behaviour that isn't hurting anybody else and not myself either. If you had to make a judgment on me because of your own safety that's a different story, but that's a very rare consideration.

My confession

I do not sweat as much as other people.

You know who else 
didn't sweat much?

I have a friend and when we play a short set of tennis he sweats buckets -- it's actually pretty repulsive. He can hardly breathe or walk when we're done, and I just stand there with my testicles hanging out waiting for him to get up again to finish the game. He sweats when walking up stairs. My muscles get sore pretty fast, I'm far from an athlete, but do I sweat? Not really. I worry that I don't drink enough water.

I have another friend who I perform with sometimes on stage. I swear before he even gets on the stage he is already dripping wet. I curse the shows with good lighting because it shows the beads flying off him a dog coming out of a bath. Meanwhile I am behind him on stage, where it is supposed to be hotter, perfectly dry. Even though I'm flailing around on drums and he's just standing with a guitar, he's the one who overheats up there.

Is it because I'm in such stellar shape? Do I hardly break a sweat after doing sprints, playing tennis or performing on stage because drinking bourbon and lattes and having long baths makes me more physically apt than my peers?

Probably not.

Do I have a problem with my pores? Is my body unable to extract liquid? I haven't cried in years. Would anyone think badly of me for not sweating?

I hope not.

Everyone has differences. Maybe sweating makes me unique. Some people are gay, and some are shy. None of those things are inherently unpleasant to live with or hurtful to others. If someone existed who didn't have anything that was different from the majority of other people, I wouldn't particularly want to meet them, other than for the scientific discovery.

Why not turn the tables on the shrouds of negative value judgments? Everyone in the world has something about them that is different from the general norm--let's call it a superpower. Some can hold their breath for a very long time. Some can run long distances without breaking a sweat. Some can avoid disaster by carefully planning everything--they're who friends ask for help sorting out their own disheveled lives.

These are all our superpowers. What are yours?

a.m.k. is too polite to mention that he's never farted before.