Quarantine!

hy·po·chon·dri·a/ˌhīpəˈkändrēə/    (oh, doesn't IPA look cool?)

Noun:

Abnormal anxiety about one's health.The persistent conviction that one is or is likely to become ill, often involving symptoms when illness is neither present nor likely, and persisting despite reassurance and medical evidence to the contrary.

(Thanks google definitions. Obsessive need to cite all sources regardless of how anonymous they are.)
It's true: I can be a bit of a hypochondriac. I'm not a germophobe - when picking up that ancient jellybean from under my dresser, I have no qualms about sticking it in my mouth and eating it. "I've got a young, strong immune system. I'll be fine," I tell myself confidently as my teeth work through the hardened sugar. As soon as I get a nose bleed though, or a headache, or a momentary pain in my lower back, my faith in my body's defenses flies out the window: Leukemia! Brain aneurysm! Kidney stones! I'm dying! It's one of the many reasons I will never be a medical doctor. (Others include perpetually shaky hands, squeamishness, a fondness for regular sleep and a terrible bedside manner.)
Obviously hypochondria can be an actual psychological problem. And obviously it can be a very annoying tendency. But it's also kind of funny. Sure, when you're freaking out at 3 in the morning that the weird twinge in your back is actually spinal cancer, it doesn't seem that funny. But I tend to lack a sense of humour when suffering insomnia (worst discovery of all time: there is a - really ridiculously rare - genetic disorder that causes people to actually die of being unable to sleep. How am I supposed to get to sleep knowing that? ). With a little bit of sleep though...it's funny in the way all our little neuroses are funny if we look at them objectively.
My illness fears were a lot stronger when I was little. I blame it on being an early and precocious reader. A children's history of Toronto that I read in Grade 2 or 3 may have sparked a long-lasting love of history but it also sparked an almost equally long-lasting horror of polio. There was something terribly vivid about the description of the experience of being stuck in an iron lung that caught my paranoid imagination. I started to read the newspaper at about the same age and quickly discovered a whole new host of ailments in the Health section. I was also fond of stories about pioneer girls in which there was always someone dying of typhoid or cholera or blood poisoning. Then I found out about Black Plague.
"It doesn't exist anymore, Charlotte. That was hundreds of years ago."
"But sometimes monkeys still get it. And this one woman in the US got it and died."
I was kind of a strange kid. Clearly, it wasn't just  the reading - I was also naturally anxious and simultaneously completely horrified and a little bit fascinated by death. I refused to go past the wolf enclosure at the zoo after I heard my parents saying that one of the wolves had died. I also read obituaries (ok, I read everything. I even read the sports section when I was little.)
While diseases like polio, cholera and the Black Death were pretty remote from my modern life, the media provided several front page stories tailor-made to freak out the young and paranoid. There was West Nile Virus. There was Mad Cow Disease (alright, fine, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) - particularly horrifying to me because of emotional news reports about people who couldn't remember their families. I lived in Toronto when the whole city was panicking about SARS. My Girl Guide camp was cancelled because our leaders were nurses and had to work crazy overtime hours.
At some point between the end-ish of elementary and the beginning-ish of junior high, I mostly got over my biggest fears of illness. Maybe I just learned to take myself less seriously. Maybe I got busy enough that I didn't have to analyze every little ache and pain. I still anxiously check my moles to make sure I'm not getting skin cancer. I still feel a spark of panic when my joints feel odd, when I find a weird splotch on my neck. But it's funny now. Sort of. And I like to think there are certain fringe benefits to paranoia. I may have higher blood pressure from anxiety, but I'm unlikely to let undiagnosed symptoms develop into something terrible. I'm unlikely to let myself get obese or go to the tanning salon or take up smoking. Plus, the stories of weird little fears can be exploited to produce new blog material.

A Different Lens on Life?

I know it's supposed to be a good thing to put yourself in someone else's shoes. As in, have some empathy and try to see the world through another person's point of view. But what about putting yourself in your shoes' shoes? Is my tendency to imagine what it would be like to be an inanimate object a sign of insanity? Consumer culture run horribly amok? Or just a very strange kind of empathy?
I read a book when I was little about the life of a doll and all the different girls who played with her over time. (Can google help me once again? Victory! It's called Hitty, Her First Hundred Years. In case you were wondering.) Alright, a doll at least looks like a person. But I like to think about what it would be like to be a phone and listen to everyone's conversations. Or a house and watch people's lives. Or a pair of shoes, feeling all kinds of different ground, new types of dirt and gravel. Would a person's feet feel like completeness or oppression?
Like a lot of people, my most emotional relationships with inanimate objects are with clothes. Wow. That sounded very weird. I don't talk to my clothes. Not anywhere near as much as I yell at my computer. Although sometimes I dance with them while I'm putting laundry away. But I digress. Actually, I think this is mostly a girl thing (although what do I know? I've never been a guy. Possibly there are hoards of men who know the grief I felt when my pink flare pants went to the secondhand store when I outgrew them in Grade 2). Clothes are some kind of weird embodiment of us. If you (like me) live in a climate with a 6 month winter you can recognize your friends 100 meters away by their winter coats. You think carefully about what to wear to a job interview or a first date because your clothes are supposed to say something about who you are. A piece of clothing can embody a phase of your life (school uniform, all black wardrobe, prom dress). I can think of several scenes in books where women stand in front of their closets pondering their clothing as a reflection of an ended relationship. Clothing sits next to your skin. It absorbs your sweat and your soup spills, blots your tears, and cleans your glasses lenses.
Which brings me to what I actually meant to write about (believe it or not, I didn't really intend to wax poetical about the power of clothing). Glasses. Of all the inanimate objects I imagine the lives of, glasses are my favourite. I was thinking about this because as I was unpacking moving boxes last week, I came across the glasses cases that hold all my old pairs of glasses. I am easily sidetracked. I tried on all the old pairs of glasses: the red wire-framed children's glasses from when I first became bespectacled in Grade 6, the black pair with tiny rhinestones half fallen out, the swirl armed burgundy pair that encircled my eyes up until a year ago.
It looks very strange to see yourself in the mirror in your old glasses. It's like temporarily reverting to whatever age you were when you wore those frames. And then you wonder (if you're me) whether you're seeing the world the way you did when you wore those frames. Just through the power of having put them back on. The reason I'm fascinated by imagining the life of my glasses is that my lenses have seen almost everything that I've seen. Those are the glasses that looked at my first time table in junior high. Those are the glasses that first saw the my high school locker. Those are the glasses that read my high school diploma exams. My sister pointed out that my lenses have steadily got larger - I'd like to see that as a metaphor for a broadening outlook on the world. All of this is, of course, ridiculously whimsical and silly. The size of your glasses means nothing. But physical switches between pairs of glasses as the years run by is a nice metaphor for me about the ever-changing lens through which I see the world. (That's one thing you can say for putting your head inside the heads of objects without heads. It gives you piles of metaphors.)
Wondering whether my flip-flops are smiling at me or grimacing,
Charlotte

The Intimidation Syndrome

I enter the break room, tempted by the promise of my fellow receptionist at the front that there were chocolate bars to be had back here. (that's right folks, this one's gonna be in media res.) Of course, I had hoped they would have been in plain view and I could have subtly snatched one and made my sneaky escape. However, I am greeted by an empty counter top and one veterinarian standing idly waiting for her lunch to finish microwaving. My gut instinct is to turn around and retreat, but this would have been extremely odd and over dramatic given the circumstances. I boldly step forth, trying to remain casual.
Me: So, I hear there's a chocolate bar bonanza going on back here?
small pause
Me: I want in.
Vet: Oh yeah, I think they're in the bottom drawer there.
Me: This one?
Vet: No -
Me: Oh, this one. (grabs a chocolate bar) Aw yea...
exits room
Wow, I actually think that reading that is more painful than having been a part of it. Clearly, the awkward was a-rampaging in this sad happenstance. Why? Why did it have to be this way?
Because of the intimidation factor.
The intimidation factor can make people do one of two things: act overly-formal or act overly-casual. In this case I wanted so desperately to make the vet believe I was like whatever, she doesn't scare me, that I acted abnormal because of my strained casualness. Such is the woe of overthinking and trying to impress people. For some reason acting naturally completely evades you sometimes when it comes to dealing with people who are intimidating - I'm sure everyone can think of a time they said or did something totally stupid because of who they were talking to. Your brain just trips yourself up and once you've said something weird enough or done an awkward enough gesture, there's just no saving it. It's the time you clapped your friend's dad on the shoulder, immediately knew you stepped over the line, and could do nothing to make amends. It's just over.
If I can give you all any advice from my experiences, it's this: ALWAYS go for over-formal. You can do no wrong this way. The worst that can happen is that easygoing people will make fun of you, but at least that breaks the ice and then you can ease out of your overdone politeness. With over-casual, there is no win. The chances that people are going to be easygoing enough to accept that you are for some reason acting like their best friend are very slim. And if you go for over-formal, you are guaranteed to never experience the terrible moment where you jokingly say "shut up" to your friend's mom and forever feel regret and shame. (Yes, it happened to me.)

Hoping there was more smile than grimace in this post,

Sarah

Notes

Today, let us consider the mysterious power of notes. Notes, a seemingly innocuous topic, and also a seemingly boring topic until you think about some of the strange, even unintentionally hilarious, notes you've read in your lifetime. Yes, think of that random scribbled note your mom left behind for you to read when you got home that made little to no sense, think of those unexpected notes in unexpected locations, like that time your brother left that giant note on the washing machine door, or think of that utterly confusing note that someone with very little English skills left on your windshield in a McDonald's parking lot. (Yes, these are all things that have happened to me. But I'm sure you too have had these disconcerting experiences.)
Particularly disconcerting was a note I read recently, left behind by a girl I judged to be totally normal whose dog I am currently petsitting. I arrived at her house for the first day of the job and was greeted by this gem, scribbled in faded sharpie:

_______

"If my ex-boyfriend Gino comes to the door while you're here just call the cops. This is your only option.

[insert long wiggly line]

911"

 _______

...
I repeat.
...
WHAT THE HECK?!
There are so many things wrong with this note.
One, the fact that it was even left! I met this person before starting pet sitting, and she failed to mention her potentially extremely aggressive ex at this time?! Muh... bluh... wuh! There are no words.
Two, she felt the need to include the number I ought to call? The first problem I had was an insult to my safety, but this is just an insult to my intelligence. I mean, I guess what's more concerning is that there must be people out there who wouldn't think to dial 911, and when the murderous ex came to the door they would just pull out their cellphone and think oh my god what's the number for the cops?! Who tells me to call the cops and doesn't, like, leave their number???
Three, clearly this was a complete afterthought. Like, scribbled in a barely-working sharpie on a scrap of used paper? Seriously, she must have been leaving out the door and been like whoa wait, maybe I should warn her about how a guy might come by and try to attack the house. Hmmm...should I? ...yeah, I guess so.
So seriously, I think this note fulfills both the descriptors of "mysterious" and "powerful." The leaver of the note can take absolutely no responsibility, and leave as much of a burden as they want! Not only that, but we are left to imagine... what the hell would Gino try to do? I don't even want to know.

Another note I feel the need to share with you all due to its hilarity is the aforementioned windshield note left at a McDonald's. I will unashamedly tell you I was parked extremely poorly in this particular parking lot, and so I would not have been at all surprised if the note said something like "Don't park so crappily, please, for all of us." But it was instead something much more cryptic.

_______

"Please don't park so close next time, so its gets me exited :)"

_______

This note mostly just seems creepy. We really have no way of knowing whether this note is passive-aggressively angry, or if they have some kind of fetish for narrow parking. If it had just cut off at "Please don't park so close next time" I would have understood completely what it meant. However, we have the strangely tagged on portion that is highly questionable. One can't help but wonder, after they process the smiley face... did he mean "gets me excited"? o_O
In the end, I decided that this was probably just left by a well-meaning kindly Russian immigrant who meant to try to both be friendly and reprimanding. Or at least I hope that was the case.

So next time you leave a note in a hurry, remember: someone is either laughing at it later, or wondering whether you are a total creeper.

Hoping you're not a creeper,

Sarah

The Hypothetical Dinner Party

If you enjoy reading waste-of-time interviews* as much as I do, you'll be familiar with the question: If you were to have dinner with 10 people, living or dead, who would they be? It's also the sort of thing that turns up in Table Topics.
* Waste-of-time interviews include mid-campaign questionnaires filled out by politicians who would prefer that you focus on their zany high school exploits or personal work-out schedules rather than anything as alienating as actual policy, those "A Talk With the Author" sections in the book club guides at the back of paperbacks, and "5 Minutes With..." features that magazines like to put on the last page to make you happy before you flip the cover closed to be confronted with the scary brooding man in the inevitable perfume ad. I love waste-of-time interviews (also Table Topics).
This question, despite being asked with a frequency that renders it quite banal, provokes in me, anyway, a whole host of other questions. Like: what would we eat? Am I allowed to tell the dead people about the future? Come to think of it, do the dead people show up as zombies? If not, what stage of their life do they show up at? Is this a time travel thing? Can I invite, let's say, young Einstein and old Einstein? What if I invite Adam Smith and Karl Marx and they don't get along? Am I allowed to deliberately provoke controversy by inviting people with differing ideologies? If I invite Gandhi, am I obliged to serve a vegetarian meal? And what would I wear?
Maybe not such a banal question after all. But I think it could be better. I have some propositions for rules and improvements:
(For those of you whose hypothetical dinner party guest lists differ from mine, I've include links to Wikipedia and iMDB to things that seemed like they might cause confusion.)
1. Allow me to invite fictional characters too. Come on. You already allowed me to invite dead people. Why not fictional? The line's not that sharp anyway. People who lived as long ago as Charlemagne almost might as well be fictional for how much anyone knows about them as people. And what if I say I want to invite Homer? Are you going to assemble a bunch of classicists to argue for days about whether one person wrote all the works attributed to Homer? The soufflé will collapse and get cold.
2.Now that I've massively expanded the potential pool for guests by opening up all of fiction, I would like to make a few restrictions too. I know, I know I said anyone living, dead or fictional, but without restrictions there's less creativity. So. May I propose that we not invite
a) Any fictional characters who are not at least vaguely humanoid. It seems discriminatory I know, but just think how awkward Aslan or Charlotte would feel sitting at a dinner party. Have you ever tried eating coq-au-vin without opposable thumbs?
b)  No more than one of the usual suspects (Gandhi, Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr...). Seriously, everyone invites them and no-one invites Emma Goldman or Murasaki Shikibu anywhere. It's just not fair. And maybe this way you'll be able to sidestep the whole vegetarian issue.
c) No more than one current celebrity. You have all of history and fiction to choose from. You don't need the entire cast of Valentine's Day.
d) No more than one dead relative. Not to be insensitive, but more than one just gets boring.
e) God, whatever your conception of God is. Think about it. God can never really be your guest anywhere. You welcome Him (choice of the masculine pronoun is for my own convenience, ok?) into your home. He created it. You serve Him food that you've cooked. He created it. You offer Him an after-dinner cigar. He created it. The whole thing is just socially awkward.
3. To make up for the cruel imposition of restrictions on the guest list, I propose to allow one hypothetical dinner party a month. Because it's just too hard to pick only ten people. See? It's going to be OK. You can invite both Taylor Lautner and Zac Efron. Just not to the same dinner party. More interestingly, you can throw theme hypothetical dinner parties. You can invite Elizabeth I, Cate Blanchett and eight fictional representations of the Virgin Queen for an evening of discussion about being at the top of Elizabethan England. You can have H.G. Wells, Henry and Clare (in all their "we're the world's most pretentious couple" glory), Douglas Adams, Stephen Hawking and the Doctor get together to talk about the scientific, emotional and grammatical difficulties of time travel. Wow. I should go into dinner party fan fiction. A whole new frontier. Anyway, moving on.
4. You're allowed to bring a friend as a bonus eleventh dinner guest. To even out the numbers and because shared experiences build friendships. Yay.
5. Don't let the cyborgs drink cocktails. It'll all end in tears, mark my words.
Smiling to herself very broadly indeed,
Charlotte

Corgis

It is now time for me to share with you the most wonderful dog on the planet. The corgi. One day I will own one of these, or possibly own thousands of them. Whatever my career allows me to do. In any case, I consider myself a true Corgi Connoisseur (copyright for this title goes to none other than Charlotte). To truly appreciate the greatness of the corgi, we must go over the four crucial aspects that make them so ridiculously awesome: Body to Leg Ratio, Versatility, Ambition and Adorable Lack of Intelligence.

1. Body to Leg Ratio

The corgi body to leg ratio is one of the critical components of the corgi repertoire that makes them the most desirable canine known to man. This holy ratio demands that body length is 4 times that of the leg height.

This creates a compact squishiness that is quite adorable, as the corgi has a predisposition to waddle rather than walk simply due to its body type. This body ratio is not to be equated to the dachshund body ratio, which is excessive and therefore no longer adorable, as it only evokes pity from us corgi connoisseurs. That poor dachshund and its unrighteous 1:6 ratio, causing it all sorts of horrible back problems. No, the 1:4 ratio is the only truly delightful waddle-inducing ratio.

The 1:4 ratio also has the wonderful side effect of producing moments like the famed Corgi Flop, in which Cooper the corgi shows us the joy of having tiny legs.

2. Versatility

The corgi has a great deal of diversity not only in its abilities, but also in its uses! It goes without saying that the corgi is a great companion, good with kids, yada yada yada, but just look at what it can do! What you can do with it! A dog of this level of well-meaning, innocent attitude and convenient shape gives the opportunity to invest in all kinds of new activities. Including, making a tunnel!

Giving it an iPad!

Or putting it in a hilarious spin off video!

3. Ambition

Not only versatile and chubbcute, the corgi is also a dog of great ambition. They're the queen's favourite, so naturally they are driven to go above and beyond what is required of them. For instance, although we have seen that the corgi is somewhat limited in its jumping abilities (see Cooper), determined corgis are able to overcome this shortcoming and be great athletes, like little Neil Armstrongs.

4. Adorable Lack of Intelligence

As much as I revere the corgi, mayhaps even worship it, I must be humbled and acknowledge that yes, this is a dumb doggie. Although the corgi rises above every other breed in numerous ways, intelligence is not one of these. But, lucky for the corgi, it is cute and waddly and so its lack of intelligence only suits it more! Whereas something like a bulldog or pug, well, when they are stupid we are not even surprised. And then they are dumb and a little ugly too, and it is hard to see what is redeeming.

Anyhoo, as previously mentioned, in corgis this lack of intelligence is a redeeming characteristic! One cannot help but think, aww, corgi is so silly! Case and point, this little fellow:

Other Great Corgi Qualities

• Fun to Name: Consider. Oswald, Lu Lu Belle, Edgar, Lucy. So many good corgi names.
• Cute Puppies. Consider this video:

And if all this has not been enough to make you love the greatest dog in the world, at least you can be well-educated on what a corgi is!

-Sarah

Recreational Lies

I have a confession to make: I have a habit of lying. Don't worry, I rarely lie to people I see on a regular basis (although, I admit now, I did take that last cookie).

Hm. Not actually the last cookie...

Far too much work and perfectly illustrates the wonderfully sanctimonious "What a tangled web we weave, when we practice to deceive" (say it all together now, in a reproving sing-song).

(Nevermind, that's creepy.)

No, no. I have a habit of lying to strangers.

I don't really imagine this is an uncommon habit. Who wants to explain everything to the grocery clerk, the guy next to you on the airplane or the overfriendly bus driver? I think of it as my revenge for being forced into semi-awkward conversation. Although, come to think of it, lying a little bit sometimes makes the conversation more awkward. For example:
Charlotte is walking absent-mindedly through the bakery section of the grocery store to buy dinner rolls. (This is the stuff of great drama, dear audience).

While awkwardly maneuvering the tongs to place rolls in the weirdly thick plastic bag, the obviously bored guy behind the counter decides to start a conversation.
Bakery Guy: So, done work for the day?
Have so far spent summer not being hired. 

Charlotte: Nope, didn't work today.
Look at that, technically not even a lie.

BG: Got the day off, huh?
Dammit.
C: Yep.
BG: Back to work tomorrow?
Must finish with awkward tongs and make my escape.
C: Haha, actually not until Monday...

This encounter, dull and awkward as it is, pretty much illustrates one of the main reasons for lying to strangers - irrational fear of judgement. Does anyone care if I have a summer job? No.  Do I care if random grocery workers know that I don't have a summer job? Apparently, yes.
The other reason is laziness. Let's say I'm virtuously off to play scrabble with my grandmother's cousin's wife because we get along well and she needs the company. When the bus driver asks me where I'm going? "Oh, just going to hang out with friends." Because who wants to explain all that?
 Writing this, I realize that lying is actually a weirdly boring topic because the most successful lies are the dullest. I seem to remember a bit in The Golden Compass about good lies not needing imagination...come on, Google Books, help me out with this...aha: "Many good liars have no imagination at all..." Which may or may not be true. But it is true that most of the time a lie's success depends mainly on being so boring that no-one is interested in inquiring further. Maybe that illustrates something about the importance of curiosity (as someone who is incurably nosy, I hope so).
I do know, though, that telling little tiny lies to strangers is not only a method of avoiding explanations and judgement. You know how sometimes you end up walking about 50 meters behind someone going in the same direction as you and they keep giving freaked out looks behind them because it seems like you're a creepy stalker? That always makes me laugh a little insanely to myself. And for some reason telling unplanned, compulsive lies to people I will probably never see again gives me the same feeling of mad hilarity.

Maybe some day I'll take a cruise and adopt a fake life and lie like crazy for 10 days. Just to see if I could get away with it.
I'm probably completely insane. But I promise I'm not lying.