Rebecca Grenier

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I love making mix CDs for people. I become John Cusack in High Fidelity, skimming through my music collection to find all the songs that sum up our history together. I recall the atmosphere of the night we met, inside jokes we share, a song from that movie we saw together, artists I think they might like but haven’t discovered. Sometimes I’ll also include a mutually hated song just for fun. Nothing fills my heart with more joy than thinking of them blindly listening to the CD, laughing when reminded of that inside joke, tearing up when they remember the sad moment the movie song is from, the look of awe when they hear their new favourite song they never knew existed. I wish I could be there. Capture the moment without influencing it. But alas, that’s not possible. I know because I’ve tried.

It was Christmas in my early 20s, my best friend and I sat in his room, which was the last ode to what he was like in High School and nothing like the guy who sat in front of me. We listened to the CD start to finish. Every new song I would turn to him and wait for the realization to hit his face as to why I chose it. Some, like Queen’s “You’re my Best Friend,” were easier to pin down than others. Mostly I got nods and “cool”s. Um, excuse me. This is when you tear up. The CD ended with Nickelback’s abysmal hit “Photograph” during which I produced a framed photo of Chad Kroeger holding a photograph of me and that friend. I know: META. He let out one single, lonely, chuckle that echoed in my mind against the silence of the room. AHEM! THIS IS WHEN YOU DIE LAUGHING. We spent the next hour making his XBOX avatar burp while I awkwardly sat in the funk left behind by me and Freddie Mercury. Then I went home. We’re no longer friends. AND I’VE NEVER MADE A MIX CD SINCE. I’m just kidding. About the never-making-mix-CDs part, not about the friends part. Fuck that guy.

Mix CDs: the present to give when you’re okay with it being about the journey and not the destination.

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Roll over and hit the home button on my iPhone. No notifications? Whatever. Enter passcode and open Instagram to see if the photo of that inspirational quote I posted before I went to bed hit at least 20% of my followers. Nope. 12 likes. Resolve that the next photo must be a surefire hit: my cat or a selfie. Correction: selfie with too much makeup. Scroll Instagram and like the first five photos I see.

Hit my inbox next. Eight new emails? Holy moly, Ms. Popular. Oh. Nevermind. Six are from Screenwriting Blogs and Festivals I subscribe to and two are UGG outlet spam emails that I can’t for the life of me stop receiving. Check junk to see if anything important accidentally got filtered there. Just an Urban Outfitters sale notification. By no means junk but I hide it there as a means of wallet preservation. Next up is Facebook messenger. I scroll through a muted work thread and find nothing important but feel a twinge of satisfaction by being kept in the loop in little spurts of my choosing.

Last is Facebook. Notifications include a casting notice for a non-union project seeking “really funny comedian-caliber models who are real people, relatable, but with an edgy style.” I then spend a few minutes staring at my headshots wondering which one meets the breakdown. The answer? None. But I send one anyway. I spend more time than I’d like to admit scrolling through my newsfeed watching videos posted by a mixture of my Aunt, coworkers past and present, and some guys I’m pretty sure I never met.

Productivity: zero. Self-worth: low. Addiction: all time high.

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I want to know what it is about being offensive that people find so alluring? We live in a culture that seems to celebrate assholes and it continues to baffle me. In the wake of the Weinstein scandal and everything that has happened since, I hope that it marks a shift, not only in how women are treated, but also how people are treated.

This week I heard a phrase that made me sick, “let the slut gates open.” Though the sentence was not said to me or even intended for my ears, I still found myself shocked that someone could (a) string words together in such a disgusting way and (b) expect everyone who heard it to accept it. This isn’t the first time someone has uttered words that have made my head hurt and I’m sure it won’t be the last. But the saddest thing to me is that they don’t see anything wrong with what they have said.

Just like anyone else, I have my shortcomings but I actively try to be respectful and attempt to surround with people who do the same. Unfortunately or fortunately, I tend to be known as the woman who speaks up. I am quick to say, please don’t say that word around me when people gleefully spit out “that’s retarded.” I do my best to correct my friends when they call themselves stupid. I don’t like when people use the word “gay” in a derogatory way. Because of that, I get labeled as difficult or a prude, uptight and uncool. If the definition of cool is to be disrespectful then I take pride in being anything but cool.

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The other day I had to speak to a Lawyer and after I was done adulting, my first impulse was to suck my thumb to restore balance. Yes, on paper I am thirty years old, but inside I’m not a day over sixteen. And I’m not talking maturity, although I do still laugh when people fart. It’s more of a feeling and the more people I talk to about it, the more I realize that that feeling never really goes away.

There isn’t a more perfect example of this feeling then when I purchase alcohol. I prescreen the LCBO cashiers in an attempt to decide which one is least likely to I.D. me. Again, I’m 30. After I’ve chosen my preferred cashier, I hop in line and vibrate with anxiety. The next defensive technique I adopted is having my Air Miles card at the ready, because what underage kid would have an Air Miles card? I end up so consumed with not getting carded that my face reads suspicious bitch despite the laugh lines and greys. I avoid eye contact, reply no thanks when the cashier asks me how I am and slide my ever-ready Air Miles card into the debit machine.

“I.D. please”

Damnit. I present my I.D. and stand worried that the layers of make-up I applied in an effort to have a nice Driver’s License photo have now made me unrecognizable in person.

“Thank you.”

Oh thank god. My body releases pounds of tension and I strut seemingly weightless out of the store. I run home as if I got away with murder. Once in my apartment, I crack open the bottle of wine, pour a glass and draw a bath. I soak away all the aches and pains of getting older while I text my best friend, “you’ll never guess what happened today, I got fuckin’ carded! Still got it!”

I most certainly DO NOT still got it.

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Whitney Cummings has revolutionized the way I pee. In her new book I’m Fine… and Other Lies she explains why women take frequent trips to the bathroom: they never fully empty their bladder. Everyone is familiar with the Squatty Potty and the adorable Unicorn that made rainbow shits look appetizing. What this fun commercial didn’t explain was the squatting position that the apparatus placed you in was also beneficial for female bladder evacuation.

Cut to me in a public bathroom stall pressing my hands against the stall walls to anchor myself as I lean back and lift my feet off the ground. It’s good for the core. What it’s not so good for is making sure pee stays in the pee receptacle. But alas, as someone who has been known to hover to avoid butt to seat contact, I am no stranger to pee on the toilet seat. The small mess is a welcome possibility if it means fewer trips to the water closet.

The part that I do have qualms with is why, OH WHY is a bathroom revolution not in full swing? Gluten becomes an issue and suddenly every restaurant jumps at the opportunity to add gluten-free options to the menu. People express a frustration that their phone battery dies too quick and suddenly free charging stations pop up in malls and bars. Not to mention a simple walk to the bank became so inconvenient, that banks were forced to introduce cheque deposits by way of photographs.

While celiac disease is a real thing and affects many, the gluten-free lifestyle has become a bit of a fad. As for the other two examples, it’s a sign of the times that people have become both obsessed with technology and just plain lazy. If the world can come together and make adjustments for things that can really be boiled down to an inconvenience, why can’t we come together and make changes that would drastically improve the standard of living and thus health? I’m not asking to cure world hunger, though if that is what you’re offering then I gladly accept. What I am asking for is a small step, metaphorically and literally. Can we please make footstools in bathrooms readily available? Colons will be happy and bladders will be weightless.

And this way, when your girl makes one too many trips to the bathroom during dinner, you’ll know for sure that she doesn’t have a weak bladder but that she’s calling her friends for advice on how to leave this crappy date.