Yes, but who REALLY invented the GIF?

I would like to take a moment and take credit for gifs.  No, I didn't do a single thing in helping them get invented.  Here is what I did do: sort of describe them, way back in the 90's.

Here's what happened:

I was looking through a photo album with some friends, thinking about how cool it would be if each photo could be like a little short film.  Like 5-10 seconds to show some movement of the thing.  Like how pictures in Harry Potter move, except a short loop of the moment the picture was taken.

Sound familiar?

The internet was barely a thing back then and the idea of looking at pictures online was crazy because it took just FOREVER to load just one crappy picture on your computer, so I was thinking about basically using magic to make actual printed photographs have little videos inside them.  But still!  Basically I wanted to make printed gifs!  And let's be honest, we are maybe 5 years away from paper computers, and then my dream will basically be a reality.

That's right, kids!  I thought of gifs first!  So next time you're reading a sweet Buzzfeed list of 25 gifs that will make you laugh all the time, know that it's not Steve Wilhite.  It's me.  (You can go ahead and ignore the fact that apparently gifs were technically invented in 1987, because come on, nobody knew what they were until like, last year, right?)

I know, I know.  You're super impressed, right?


via GIPHY


via GIPHY


via GIPHY

Book Club: You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day

Do you think my friend will notice that the cover is ripped on the book she lent me?

I love Felicia Day!  I think she's smart and funny and talented.  I love that she does the whole geek thing with gusto.  She's also a redhead (although potentially not naturally?  She references hair dye at least once in the book), which I have always wanted to be.  All-in-all, thumbs up from me to Felicia.

So I was very excited when her book came out and my friend lent me her copy, and then I promptly put it on my bookshelf and didn't read it for months.  Now have finally, actually read it, and I want to talk about it.

A few things that stood out for me:

One: at one point she talks about meeting with a group of women who were more "together" than she was, as evidenced by the fact that she was wearing jeans she hadn't washed for the past week, and they probably weren't.

Do people wash their jeans more often than once a week??? Or even once a week???  My jeans do NOT get washed that often.  Not nearly.  Confession: I am always a little worried that I am gross, and this made it worse.

Two: This gal had a weird childhood, and clearly if she wasn't naturally brilliant she would be a yokel.  A yokel with excellent (as she put it) geisha skills.  

I'm also not sure if talking about singing and dancing and other arts-and-crafts training as geisha training is unintentionally racist or not - I think probably it's okay because that is basically what geisha training entailed, although maybe it could be considered cultural appropriation or insensitivity or something.  But I think Felicia is cool enough to have at least considered the implications of using that term while writing the book.

Three: It's a bit hard to have sympathy for the insecurities of someone who went to college at age 16, aced (actually) a double major in advanced mathematics and concert violin, and then went on to move to LA to become an actor and quickly began booking commercials and bit parts (something many actors struggle for years to achieve).  I mean, I get that objective success doesn't actually help get rid of insecurities when they're based in other issues, but even coming from someone who had a ton of her own unfounded crippling insecurities, it's still hard to feel her pain at times.

(Full disclosure: it's probably partially jealousy that keeps me from feeling her pain.  I am bright but not quite as bright as she seems to be, creative but not acting on it as much as she is/was/did, and when I have acted on it, I have found only a mini fraction of her success.  Plus, I've always wanted to be a redhead.)

(Sub note: I am referring only to her early insecurities, not when she actually goes into a full-on depression/anxiety spiral which is a totally different problem that I completely have sympathy for.)

Four: No one can argue with this girl's work ethic.

Five: Speaking of work ethic, one of the keys to all this success?  Don't have friends, at least not while you're growing up.  Seriously.  Friends ruin a good work ethic.  The time that most people spend with friends, Felicia Day spent working her face off (or playing World of Warcraft, which at first was a dangerous addiction, but wound up being the source material for her later success).  And now she seems to have been able to make friends in her adult life, so it's all good!

Six: People on the internet are the worst.  It's scary for the world.

Seven: I like how romance is clearly a thing in her life, but she barely touches on it.  Her story is one of career-building, not love-building.  This is exciting because most women's memoirs wind up focusing quite a lot on the love-building because we are socialized beings and that is what we're taught is the top value of our lives.  

Sure, she tells the occasional hilariously awkward dating story, but then she moves on.  Later, there are passing references to a boyfriend now and again, and you don't even know if it was the same one and it doesn't matter because that's not the point of this story.  Go Felicia!

Eight: Despite my own insecurity-driven jealousy, I would totally want to be BFFs with her.

Nine: She talks a lot about some issues with her mom in the book.  I always wonder when people do that if they have extensively talked to their parent about those issues and it's all cool now, or if they just hope the parent won't really notice those parts of the book.  Because her mom totally comes off as a well-meaning, loving, supportive, crazypants.

Ten: Once I was out for brunch on Granville Street and I thought I saw her walk past the restaurant.  I almost tweeted at her to see if she was in Vancouver at the time, and then I thought that might be creepy, so I didn't.  Now I am realizing how much she's probably been up here for shooting and having some crazy trails of thought: "that was probably her!  I should have tweeted her, we could be friends by now! / No, Andrea, it would not have been less creepy if she was actually here. / Maybe if I tweet her now and say I saw her back then? / Oh right, I'll just say that I saw her on the street like two years ago, maybe, so now we should hang out.  That's not creepy either, right? / Ugh, I just want to talk to her about writing and self-producing and what colour I should dye my hair and musical comedies and Buffy and has she ever played DnD and has she read The Name of the Wind because it will change her life, but she's probably already best friends with Patrick Rothfuss because, well, they would be.  Sigh."

Cute! Gertie fools you with her innocence

Sometimes she looks so innocent, doesn't she?  Then you realize she's sitting on your bra.  Why, cat?  Why?

Singalong! You Gotta Be by Des'ree

Guys! This song seems to just have sat in the background of my younger life, waiting to be unfolded now. I don't remember dancing to it in the living room, singing to it in a car, or taping it off the radio. It must have been one of those all-pervasive songs of its time that plays whenever you're in public and is in three or four movie soundtracks so that before you know it, you can sing along with almost the entire thing and you suddenly appreciate the confident optimism of its message.

YOU GOTTA BE

by Des'ree

Listen as your day unfolds, challenge what the future holds

Try and keep your head up to the sky

Lovers, they may cause you tears

Go ahead release your fears, stand up and be counted

Don't be ashamed to cry

You gotta be

You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser

You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger

You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together

All I know, all I know, love will save the day

Herald what your mother said

Reading the books your father read

Try to solve the puzzles in your own sweet time

Some may have more cash than you

Others take a different view, my oh my, heh, hey

You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser

You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger

You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together

All I know, all I know, love will save the day

Life asks no questions, it goes on without you

Leaving you behind if you can't stand the pace

The world keeps on spinning

You can't stop it, if you try to

This time it's danger staring you in the face

Remember, listen as your day unfolds

Challenge what the future holds

Try and keep your head up to the sky

Lovers, they may cause you tears

Go ahead release your fears, my oh my heh, hey, hey

You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser

You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger

You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together

All I know, all I know, love will save the day

You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser

You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger

You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together

All I know, all I know, love will save the day

WHO YOU GONNA CALL? (Or, have you SEEN the new Ghostbusters trailer yet? HAVE YOU????)

When I first heard they were doing an all-female Ghostbusters I thought, "meh." Then I thought, "I hope that they don't make it lame and set feminism in filmmaking back even farther."

Then my friend posted the trailer, and it looks AMAZING! I am so super duper excited, I cannot WAIT to see this movie! Why did I have any doubts? Why?*

*To be fair, I didn't see the original movie until I was 25 and when you watch a movie like that for the first time almost 20 years after it came out, it's still a fun movie and all, but it's not going to change your life.

I wasn't allowed to watch it as a kid, probably because I was always REALLY scared of ghosts and so my parents just kept me away from anything ghost-related (and before you point out that it's a comedy and not that scary, let me assure you, the images of puking spectrals and dancing groceries would have actually kept me up at night, no question. My parents made the right call on this one. Their choice to allow me to read books about spiritual warfare on the other hand? Turns out just because the ghost is really a demon that can get defeated in the name of Jesus doesn't mean it won't terrify your kid. But for some reason I really wanted to read things that made me afraid to go to bed, so I never let on.)

To disclose just how out of the loop I am, I confess that I originally wrote Ghostbusters as two words: Ghost Busters. Clearly I did not have the action figures.

Learning! A brain is just a brain (no gender needed)

Not a boy brain and a girl brain, just a couple of brains!
(With adorable faces attached, let's be honest)

A new study comparing 1,400 MRI scans from men and women has shown that there is absolutely no difference in brain structure, and that traits that are considered more common in women or men showed up across the board.

There are some traits that are more common in female brains or more common in male brains, according to this research, but that doesn't mean that having any particular brain-trait is indicative of being male or female.

So basically, you can't identify if a person is male or female just by looking at their brain.

This might seem really obvious to some, but I think it will be really surprising to others.  We might be beyond the notion of women having smaller, less-capable brains in a "we officially believe this as a society and can say it out loud" kind of way, but we generally seem to accept that there are fundamental differences to how our brains "work" or what our brains "need" without taking into account the impact of learning and action on our development.

This research shows that there is no "boy's brain" or "girl's brain" - there are just a bunch of brains.

Source.

I am not brave

As you may have figured out from past posts, I have been a part of a lot of conversations about diversity lately.

Here's one side effect of these conversations that has come up a lot: other people telling me how brave I am.

For what, exactly?  Certainly not for risking my own safety, well-being, or reputation, because I didn't do that.  In fact, I hadn't actually done anything except for listen and try to be a good and decent person in my responses.

Literally all I had done was converse, and I was being called brave.  A lot.

This is a problem.

We can't make being a good and decent person (which I am currently defining as a person who cares and listens and asks questions when they find out people are being hurt) brave, because then guess who just got off the hook?  Everyone, because nobody thinks of themselves as brave.

What about if we start to think that the real scary thing is not addressing diversity?  What if it was worse for us to ignore inequality than it was to address it?  What if the persistence of exclusion and increasing separation between those with privilege and those without was more frightening to all of us than examining systemic prejudices?

Just a thought.

Me & Ryan Gosling: Gone kayakin'

Despite his fitness, Ryan isn't actually all that into outdoorsy stuff. This is why, in this photo, he looks so completely unprepared for kayaking.  But you know what?   He still comes along, and I love him for it.

The Artist's Way: Week Six

Week six of The Artist's Way!  Halfway there!  This week's theme is Recovering a Sense of Abundance - probably one of the hardest things for me so far.  In my spiritual practices, creative practices, and life in general, I find it really difficult to look around the world without seeing looming scarcity.


In my own life, I see how finite and scarce time, money, and even relationships can be.  I live on a budget.  Spending money in one area generally very clearly takes away my opportunity to spend it elsewhere.  Same with time, which feeds directly into my relationships: time spent on one activity or person is taken away from time spent elsewhere.

In the world, I see an overcrowded planet crushingly dependent on a finite resource and massive inequality that seems to only be growing: you either have it all or you have nothing.

Okay, so that's the Negative Nina in me.  But there is, of course, a flip side.  The side that really really wants to see everything as a possibility and that there is room for us all (even though this planet is way too full as it is!) and that sees (or hopes) that there will always be enough.  Just because my finances make everything an either/or decision doesn't mean everything else works that way, right?  Right?

So that's the attitude I walked into this week's activities with: a deep mistrust with a sprinkling of hope.

Abundance

The basic message of the week is that you plug into your "way" or "flow" or "calling" and then the extras come to you.  That the more you take, in terms of taking care of yourself or following your path, the more you get.

So here's the thing: Julia Cameron says that art is born in expansion, not contraction, and I agree.  Expansion is also what we make of it.  Finding five minutes to breathe or take photos or doodle can be a massive luxury and moment of abundance.  I just have trouble with the whole "start doing it and the universe will bring it to you" idea.  More likely, to me, is the idea that once we start making room for something, we start seeing more opportunity for it and that the growth comes naturally from our new outlook.  It's the "the hardest part is showing up" philosophy.

At the end of the day, of course, it doesn't really matter: either I find expansion because once I start wriggling a little bit of space for something, it becomes more of a priority and easier to make more space for, or I find expansion because once I take steps in the right direction the universe/God goes "hey you!  You're on the right path, here's more of what you need!"

Either way, I take steps first and then start to find my way.  I operate as if there is enough (enough of what?  Pick one: time/money/friends/ideas/attention/resources) and then find it.


Money

Okay, so it's one thing to expect abundance in opportunities or time or ideas, but what about money?  According to Julia Cameron, money will flow just as freely as anything else once you step into your "flow".  Oh goodness.  This is a direct measurable and that gets harder to accept.  It also sounds a lot like something that might get said by someone someone who has had a very privileged life.

That said, she had some interesting activities around money and our attitudes towards money that I found useful.  One is simply to track your spending and see what you value in terms of where you spend your money.  (Mine wasn't a huge surprise: after I pay for my home, phone, and internet, most of my money goes to feeding myself and going out with friends.)

The other exercise is a fill-in-the-blanks using phrases like "People with money are _____", "Money equals _____", "If I weren't so cheap I'd buy _____", "If I could afford it, I'd _____", and "In my family, money caused _____".  It's a simple exercise that helps reveal our hidden attitudes towards money, and perhaps where they came from.


The Tasks

This week's tasks were to find abundance by collecting and letting go: go find and collect beautiful rocks, flowers, and leaves, and at the same time, let go of as many pieces of clothing that are no good for you.  Clear out some aspect of your home and welcome friends into your life by sending out cards to people you want to draw deeper.

I confess that I didn't do everything, but one thing I did do, that I am really happy about, is decorate my balcony.  You see, my balcony has a glorious view of my building's parking lot.  For ages I have been wanting to make a cover for it out of colourful fabric strips, so that when I look out my window I see pretty hanging fabric instead of cars and asphalt.

I haven't done it because, despite having two suitcases full of fabric, I assumed I didn't have "enough" to make it work.  I also assumed it wouldn't look as good as I pictured it, which is a silly reason to avoid doing something of course, because you don't know what it will look like until you try.

So, last weekend, I cut my fabric into little strips and tied it onto my balcony railing, and I love it.  I think it turned out so pretty and that it makes a lovely cover for the parking lot and every time I look out my window I feel like a little bit "more" in my home.

Here's a crappy picture.  I'm doing a slow-but-steady reworking of my balcony so that it's a pleasant place to be once it gets warm out, and I'll post better photos once that's done.

Yes, I have fake grass on my balcony. It's wonderful.

Inspiration! Felicia Day says you should sign up to do work that isn't fun

I just finished reading Felicia Day's book You're Never Weird on the Internet (I will be doing a Book Club post about it shortly!) and among her pseudo-awkward-isms she threw in this little gem:

"Sign up for the daily work, not the payoff."
-Felicia Day

Okay okay, so of course none of us sign up for the purpose of doing the day-to-day work.  Nobody's like "I just want to painstakingly compare every line of this budget spreadsheet to every line of this general ledger, for no ultimate reason whatsoever!", or "can I sign 500 letters before tai-folding them and putting them in envelopes that then need to be individually addressed and stamped and sealed and taken to the post office?", or "here, let me cut all this fabric into skinny strips, just to do the work of cutting fabric into hundreds of little skinny strips, with no ultimate goal in mind!"

(Yes, I realize that some people might have read those things and gone "oh, that sounds like fun!", but you get my drift, right?  And maybe you wouldn't want to do it every day for a long time without a final goal attached to it?)

So we aren't signing on for the daily work for the purpose of just doing that work, because that's boring and mind-destroying.  Since we can't just sign up to be the head writer of our own TV show or to have a fully-operational theatre company or even for "regular" jobs that aren't sexy to write about in inspirational blog posts but are actually necessary and valuable and challenging and rewarding, like being a nurse or a teacher or head accountant or whatever, without some unpleasant daily work, though, I guess we'd better be signing up for that to.

Taking Songs Too Seriously: Cabaret

You know the song Cabaret from Cabaret?  I just got it stuck in my head because I came across a blog called And By That I Mean Vagina with the subtitle "because life is not a cabaret."


Now my brain is immediately rebutting the song. Let's go through it together, shall we?

"What good is sitting alone in your room?"

Listen, Liza, the introverts have risen, and because they spend so much time alone in their rooms, they have time to make and post and repost gifs describing their desire to not be among other people.


via GIPHY
I am, admittedly, a complete extrovert. But I am also an extrovert who is completely overwhelmed by her scheduled life and is desperately seeking ways to sit alone in my room. Why? Because it is good. What good is it? Let me tell you!

Sitting alone in my room allows for...

• Time to think and be reflective
• Time to write
• Time to read
• Time to actually clean my home so that I have dishes and clothes and don't catch diseases from my bathroom counter
• Time to cook food so that I can eat and not die
• Time to make the other random things that pop into my head that I never have time to make
• Time to meditate and pray and be spiritual and stuff
• Time to watch all the movies on Netflix
• Time to exercise in my living room
• Time to do yoga
• Time to write encouraging cards to send to friends

Basically, the answer to your question, dear Liza, is TIME. Time to do anything that is not being out, which leads to the next line:

"Come hear the music play."

Meh. I can listen to music play anywhere.

 Maybe I'm getting old and crusty but I find that the only benefit of going to see people play music live is paying extra money to stand in a crowd, crane my neck around the one person who's taller than me that managed to stand right in front of me, have tired feet, wait for hours before the band actually comes out even though they advertised that they were starting at 9pm, hold my coat for hours because coat check is $5 and that is ridiculous, and buy an overpriced beer because I need something to do to pass the time while I wait for the band to come out, and I sure as heck can't talk to the friend I came with because it's so darn loud in there.

"Life is a cabaret old chum, come to the cabaret."

Okay, so I won't get hung up on the fact that life is literally not a cabaret, because I get what a metaphor is, but what does this even mean as a metaphor?  That life is a place where you watch people perform for you?  I guess you can look at life that way, but I'd rather think of it as a place where I participate in things, just a bit.

"Put down the knitting, the book, and the broom."

But I literally just picked up this book 30 seconds ago!  Don't make me put it back down!  I want the book!

Also, I have a cat, so if I don't sweep my floor every couple of days we get into a bad situation.  (Truth be told, I have a roomba specifically because I have a cat and hate sweeping my floor, so sure, I'll put down the broom and then pick everything up off the floor so that I can let a robot vacuum for me while I'm at work.)

"Time for a holiday."

I love holidays, but reading is a holiday for me!  Don't impose your noisy, late-night, crowded, slightly misogynistic holiday on me, Liza!

"Life is a cabaret, old chum, come to the cabaret."

Again, not my metaphor of choice to describe life.

"Come taste the wine."

Well, okay, I won't say no to a glass.

"Come hear the band."

Again with the bands!  How many hours before they actually come on stage?

"Come blow your horn, start celebrating; right this way, your table's waiting."

I'm all for a celebration, and if you have a table for me, that's not so bad.

I'm not going to go on through the entire song, but she goes on to describe her prostitute roommate who died young but her corpse looked happy, and says that when she dies, she wants to die just like her roomie. How is that, exactly? Young? Happy?

Now, I'm not going to get into the whole question of whether some young women do voluntarily go into sex work and enjoy it - some say they do, and I think we can give them the respect to believe them - but most sex workers aren't all that happy about it. And I get the whole "I can't imagine getting old so I'll die young", but that's also not really something to aspire towards.

You know who else dies happy?  Other people who didn't go out partying every night and learned how to appreciate themselves for who they are instead of with constantly distracting themselves from reality.

Cute! Crazy-Eyed Gert

Gertie gets the crazies a lot of nights just as I'm crawling into bed. She's super lazy, so they don't last long, but it usually starts with her leaping off the bed, scurrying around the apartment once, and then jumping back up and attacking my blankets.  She gets the full-on crazy eyes while she does this.

Singalong! Black Velvet by Alannah Myles

Once I had a driver's licence and was shuttling myself around town, I started exercising my coolness by listening to the oldies radio station constantly.  Despite being recorded in 1989, this song was in regular rotation on that station, and I would sing along so hard.

BLACK VELVET

by Alannah Myles

Mississippi in the middle of a dry spell

Jimmy Rogers on the Victrola up high

Mama's dancin' with baby on her shoulder

The sun is settin' like molasses in the sky

The boy could sing, knew how to move, everything

Always wanting more, he'd leave you longing for

Black velvet and that little boy's smile

Black velvet with that slow southern style

A new religion that'll bring ya to your knees

Black velvet if you please

Up in Memphis the music's like a heatwave

White lightning, bound to drive you wild

Mama's baby's in the heart of every school girl

"Love me tender" leaves 'em cryin' in the aisle

The way he moved, it was a sin, so sweet and true

Always wanting more, he'd leave you longing for

Black velvet and that little boy's smile

Black velvet with that slow southern style

A new religion that'll bring ya to your knees

Black velvet if you please

Every word of every song that he sang was for you

In a flash he was gone, it happened so soon, what could

You do?

Black velvet and that little boy's smile

Black velvet with that slow southern style

A new religion that'll bring ya to your knees

Black velvet if you please

Black velvet and that little boy's smile

Black velvet with that slow southern style

A new religion that'll bring ya to your knees

Black velvet if you please

If you please, if you please, if you please