Well, I have big (good) news ... I have a new job! An honest-to-goodness, permanent job with benefits and the whole shebang. So glad I can finally let my hair down at work and start being a bitch to everyone instead of being so freakin' nice all the time. ... Kidding, I actually am pretty nice, except to people who do things like walk over and stand right in front of me at a concert, as if I won't notice that I'm now looking at the back of their head instead of the stage, and if you think I'm too mature to start pulling your hair successively harder until you move away you are wrong, big head lady.

Ahem. But I haven't run into any of that at work ... no one is really jockeying to get in your way when you're about to edit a story about institutional investors versus individual investors reaction to the Fed's decision to pause rates, though honestly that was a pretty interesting story ... so I think my thin veneer of civilization will hold firmly in place.

I will even be doing some work on this Internet thing that we've all heard so much about, though I think it really might be a fad and any day now several generations will discover the joy of getting their fingers all smeared with ink and having to paw through several sections of irrelevant news before getting to the sports/comics/gossip/escort services ads they were looking for.

I am very happy, and feel a weight has been lifted from my shoulders that I didn't even notice was there until it lifted when I heard the words, "We'd like to offer you a job." Truth be told, I like the fun parts of freelancing -- working in my pajamas, frequent breaks for dog walking and kitchen-grazing and watching Ellen ("Let's have a little fun to-day!"), seeing my name in certain cool publications -- but the rest of it, the whole uncertainty and salesmanship aspect and constant striving and did I mention the lack of certainty? I didn't like that very much. I have come to understand that I really like structure, a lot. Rules and complex office hierarchies? Love them! Enigmatic authority figures from whom I can win approval and/or learn to hate with an obsessive passion? Fabulous! Count me in!

I hope to keep freelancing, so as to keep my options open in the carefree, pajama-wearing, sipping-Starbucks-in-no-hurry-at-2 p.m. kind of world, and also 'cause I like seeing my name in print in big fancy publications. Also, uh, for truth and justice and journalisticy goodness and all that good stuff too, yeah. But as I bounce on the trampoline of journalisticy daring, I feel I will soar even higher knowing the safety net of regular paychecks is guarding me from a hard tumble to the depths of financial- and identity-crises. Also, I'm hoping I won't run into this problem, described in the pages of Canada's national newspaper.

In conclusion: Opa!

This weekend there was a festival in the Beaches, my neighbourhood. I couldn't really figure out the theme to the festival other than "It's been a few weeks without a festival, so here ya go!" Toronto and Seattle are very similar in that way -- the winters are quite miserable, so during the summer there's practically a festival every weekend, just to make the most of the warm, pleasant weather.

This weekend's no-reason festival was quite low key, and basically consisted of a few bands playing on the sidewalks and stores staying open late. We ended up eating at a Greek restaurant -- a local chain called Mr. Greek. We sat outside next to the band, which played all night as we enjoyed some sort of flambeed feta cheese that was sooooo good I want it again right now, and calamari.

As the night wore on there was much singing by the owner and dancing by the patrons, half of whom seemed to be related to the owner. The owner, a balding man in a orange polo shirt, did some dancing, and his wife threw paper plates at him (in a celebratory fashion, not a stop-embarrassing-me-you-fool fashion). A teenaged girl selling souvlaki out front left her post momentarily to perform some sort of traditional Greek bellydance as interpreted by Shakira music videos that the male patrons seemed to enjoy quite a bit. There was also a lot of circle dancing, all of which reminded me of the Hava Nagila. Something about being swarthy must make people want to dance in a circle. (I kid because I love.)

The showstopper, though, was a woman probably in her late 20s or early 30s who I'd noticed earlier in the evening. I must confess my first assessment of her was uncharitable, as she was absolutely gorgeous (long dark hair, slim waist, rockin' body), wearing a pretty pink and white sundress and high-heeled sandals, and parading through the restaurant with an adorable four-year-old boy. I wrote her off as one of those tiresome yummy mummys who see children as the ultimate accessory but who forego goodnight kisses on the grounds they might smudge their lipstick. Bitter much? Not me. Anyhow, this beauty took the stage and started a slow, traditional Greek dance. (At least I imagine it was traditional -- what do I know from traditional Greek dancing?) She looked down at her feet at she circled and traced patterns on the cement patio, swaying in time with the music. As it sped up, she twirled and stomped her feet, still looking more at the ground than at her growing audience, seemingly lost in her own world. Her movements had nothing to do with the orange-shirted owner's machismo showmanship, even less to do with the teenager's gyrations. As she spun to the music, I thought I could see her thinking of the girl she had been and the woman she was, and everyone stopped to look, and the band played faster and faster.

I knew I wasn't the only one who appreciated what was happening when the owner's wife appeared again with an armful of plates, real ones this time, which she hurled at the dancer's feet with cries of "Opa!" I laughed and clapped as she spun among the shards, and it was one of those moments that make you happy to be living on this earth, with such sudden and unexpected beauty.

Opa!

P.S. Joanna, move to Toronto! We have great Greek restaurants and plate-throwing, plus timely trash collection and draconian anti-smoking laws!

I was wandering far and wide on the Web today, and I ran across two interesting items, and as so often happens they formed a connection in my brain.

The first is perhaps the cutest thing ever. Each time you look at it, you're just going to say to yourself, God DAMN that is cute. (Especially if you're Canadian and like to swear a lot.) Ask yourself, what could be cuter than a cute dog and a tiny money? Answer: A tiny monkey RIDING a cute dog, cowboy-style. I don't know how they got a Capuchin monkey, and how it ended up with its own custom-made Western wear riding a border collie, and I don't want to know -- I just know that it's magic. And while this sort of thing might be ripe for exploitation, it really seems that both animals are enjoying it. I don't know what sort of life a Capuchin monkey enjoys in the wild, but it's possible nasty and/or brutish and/or short, and probably does not involve custom-tailored Western wear. And as for the collie, we all know border collies love to work, and playing mighty steed to a friendly monkey certainly qualifies. I can just picture the collie talking to his dog friends: "Yeah, I know it's a little unusual, but hey -- at least I'm working."

Collies are very smart dogs, which brings me to my next item -- dumb people. According to this article, which I sadly have no reason to doubt, 39 percent of Americans (that would be U.S., not Canada) say that evolution is "absolutely false." Which is another way of saying that 39 percent of Americans are complete fucking morons. Which is kind of depressing.

So seeing these two items got me thinking about America, and sort of preparing what I might say the next time I'm talking to a Canadian who brings up the fact that 39 percent of Americans don't believe in evolution and says something like, "What a bunch of fucking morons." Because even though I might agree, I still feel the need to stick up for my homeland or at least provide some textual analysis. Thus, I say it's no coincidence that the same land gave birth to both the heartwarming, soul-gladdening news about Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey and the scary, emigration-encouraging news that 39 percent of Americans are completely ignorant of science and history and geology and anything outside of what their preacher and their talk radio tells them. There's something horrifying about a mind that can completely ignore scientific theory and decide that millions of years of fossil records were planted here by aliens ... and yet I say to you there's something in that same crazy mindset that might inspire a man to look at a small monkey and wonder if that monkey would like to wear chaps and ride a border collie.

Such a thin line between madness and genius, stupidity and cleverness. Is living with a nation of ignoramuses too steep a price to pay for the delight of monkey cowpokes? Perhaps, perhaps. Living in a country where people are more likely to accept Darwin's theory of evolution and less likely to ignore all common sense is more peaceful, perhaps, more safe and more steady. But what scares me more than closed-minded idiots is the idea of living in a world without a collie-riding Capuchin monkey. Ride on, little monkey who may or may not be a distant relative of humankind, ride on.

A few news items have caught my attention recently and I feel the need to share. First of all, the New York Times ran a big story (do they run any other kind of story?) on the stereotype of the big sassy black woman gaining popularity in advertising, and whether this is OK or we should all feel liberal guilt about it unless the advertising in question is written and produced by black people. Fine premise for a story, especially in a slow news month like August. But the example they cite is this Dairy Queen commercial:

"In the spot, a man boarding an airplane sets his ice cream shake down so he can load his bag into an overhead compartment. As he reaches up, another passenger on the plane starts eating the Blizzard. Seeing this, the first man lets go of his bag so he can reclaim his Blizzard and inadvertently drops his luggage on another passenger’s head. That unlucky passenger happens to be an overweight black woman who lets out an irritated gasp that reminds all the passengers around her who not to mess with."


Now, that last sentence ends with a preposition which is a little annoying but I'll let it slide because I'm not that anal a copy editor and that's the sort of thing about which I can't get too upset. But this is the New York Times' standard for sassy, outspoken behavior -- someone drops a suticase on your head and you let out an irritated gasp?? Really?? Have New Yorkers turned into polite Canadians or something? Because "irritated gasp," while probably ranking a "red alert" on the Canadian hostility scale, seems would be a relatively mild reaction to having a suitcase dropped on one's head. But no, according to the New York Times this is evidence that black women are being stereotyped as "strong, aggressive, controlling," as one marketing professor is quoted as saying.

*Irritated sigh* at articles that don't back up their ledes. Ooh, I'm so sassy!

That concludes the media analysis portion of this post. Now, for international news: Spoon-wielding women seize Mexican TV station.
That has got to be the awesomest headline and protest ever. The story never really explains why they're wielding spoons, or how exactly their spoons of protest empowered them to seize a TV station, but I don't even mind because I'm totally willing to use my imagination on this one. Maybe I'll carry a spoon aboard my next plane flight, just in case some doofus drops his suitcase on my head, I won't even have to gasp irritatedly -- I can just hold up that spoon, and everyone will know I am someone with whom they do not want to mess.

People like to ask me how the Canadian media differs from the U.S. media. My old answer was something about how people have more interest in international news here, and there are fewer 24-hour cable channels and thus fewer people who exist solely to yammer about things about which they know very little. My new answer: fuck. And, shit.

Both words are totally accepted in newspapers here, even in the venerable Globe and Mail. I was curious so I looked it up, and there have been dozens of fucks and shits in Canada's newspaper of record, and apparently not a one has led to a mass cancellation of subscriptions or an appreciable increase in moral decay. And these curse words are not just allowed in print on Big Important Occasions like when the President doesn't realize (again) that there's an open mike. A police officer who calls something a "fucking disaster" actually gets quoted like that -- imagine, newspapers acknowledging the way real people talk -- and the sun still rises on Canada every morning. (Except in the Yukon in the winter. But probably not because of the cursing.)

It's hard to imagine this casual acceptance of reality-in-language at any U.S. newspaper outside of the alternative weeklies. During my tenure at The Charlotte Observer, in the good ole Bible belt, I'm sure that if any naughty words had by some chance slipped by the eagle eyed copy editors, the top brass would have shit a fucking brick.

There are some instances when editing out an obscenity just seems wrong. I heard a report on CBC radio about a car crash where one teenage girl died and another was in a coma -- someone mixed up who was who so the family with the dead daughter mistakenly sat for a week by the girl in the coma and the family of the injured girl buried what they mistakenly thought was their daughter. One of the girl's fathers said something like, "It was fucking horrible." I think his language was completely justified and editing it out is less than honest. I'm distrustful of those who would shield the public's tender ears from four-letter words while bringing us such vivid descriptions of every sort of human misery. And I have more trust for media outlets who respect their audiences' intelligence. (The CBC ran a short warning about harsh language before the piece, which I thought was reasonable.)

The funny thing about all this is that despite this media acceptance of everyday cursing, or perhaps because of it, Canada seems a much less vulgar culture than the U.S. The one national characteristic is unflagging politeness, so clearly seeing four-letter words in their newspapers hasn't warped their fragile little minds too badly. Maybe this is another symptom of the U.S.'s puritanical hypocrisy -- it's OK to lie or be stupid or boorish on TV, but don't you dare swear, and Grand Theft Auto is cool but Janet Jackson's nip flash threatens the very foundations of our culture.

Or, maybe Canadians are just fuckin' pottymouths.