February 24th, 2002.

I'm feeling rather ambivalent. On the one hand, I'm pissed off at the world more than I usually am. But on the other hand, I had a pretty rad weekend.

Let's get the shitty stuff over with first. First of all, I hate patriotism so much. Canada won the gold medal in hockey, and since people fucking live and breathe hockey here, people were driving through the streets waving Canadian flags attached to hockey sticks, and honking at each other. And when I was taking the bus to work today along Commercial Drive, there was a huge crowd of these people with maple leaves painted on their faces, dancing, and blocking the road, and banging on the bus, cheering for Canada. I wanted to fucking punch someone.

Also, I was searching for "chinese" in people's interests on Makeoutclub (which I increasing grow tired of) and all I got were "chinese food" or people talking about tattoos they have of Chinese characters that say lame stuff like "no fear," or "spirit." Why get a tattoo of something you can't even pronounce? It reminded me of that Simpsons episode where Chief Wiggum was talking about arresting some Chinese people for using firecrackers in February. "They said they were celebrating the 'New Year...' in February! Those crazy Chinese people. ...Good food though." It's so fucking true. I don't think people on Makeoutclub are racist (well, not all of them), it's just such a white, petty-bourgeois, suburban website. I grow tired of its indie-rock, intellectual posturing, because that's all it is. People posing for their webcams. It's so shallow. Yarrr. It's not like I don't participate, I guess. It just frustrates me.

I've been getting into rap lately, but there's so much stuff out there with misogynist, homophobic lyrics laden with 'n----r.' And people don't understand my objection to the use of the n-word. That frustrates me too. It's what the KKK calls black people when they lynch them. I don't care if you think it's different if black people say it, or end it with 'a' instead of 'er.' There's a whole history of why black people started calling themselves that. Internalized oppression, despair of people living in the ghetto.

Oy. Anyway, on to the good stuff. Today was beautiful and Tynan and I went out and skated in a cul-de-sac near my house. Tynan mostly just watched, trying the occasional trick, and taught me how to do stuff. He skated for eleven years, so yeah, he's a good teacher. I can ride around now pretty well - not too fast, but I don't wobble like crazy anymore. It's only the second time I've actually skated. I wiped out when I tried to tic-tac (lifting up the nose of your board and turning a little) - stepped too hard on the tail, and my board flew out from under me and I landed hard on my ass, wrists and elbows. It hurt a lot more than I thought it would. But it was fun. My favourite part was when this skater boy who was probably about 8 or 9 (and who was better than me) saw me fucking around on my skateboard, trying to learn how to turn and stuff, and he came up to me and said, "Nice skateboard." It was so cute. Tynan says since skateboarding is a predominantly male activity, guys are pretty uncritical of any girl trying to learn to skate.

I went to a big anti-Liberal Party demo in Victoria yesterday. On two hours of sleep. I closed at Starbucks the night before, and got up at 4:45am. Took the 7am ferry. It was pretty cool - probably 50,000 people. Met some interesting people, hung out with some friends. I was so exhausted but I had a lot of fun. Wandered around Victoria. It's so small and pristine - my friend lives in the "ghetto" of Victoria, Esquimalt, and it was so fucking tame! Like a mid-low income part of Coquitlam. There are more hippies in Victoria, and it's a predominantly white city with an unusually high ratio of monarchist loyalists and old people. It is, after all, named after Queen Victoria, and it's the capitol of BC. I wouldn't want to live there. But it's okay to visit, to get away from Vancouver for a while at least. But it felt good to get back to the "Big City."

Speaking of which, I'll probably be going to New York again this summer with tax return money. I'm sooo excited. I LOVE NEW YORK.

Tynan and I have been borrowing skate videos from Eric lately and watching them. Pretty cool. I didn't know this before, but Spike Jonze used to make skate videos (which are, of course, good). And I have so much more respect for Jason Lee now that I've seen him skate, because he's a pretty lousy actor, but an awesome skater. He's smooooth.

I've been listening to so much Public Enemy, and it's awesome. If you know of any good rap that fits within the aforementioned criteria (paragraph 4), let me know. I'm interested.

Ernest Hemingway is a fucking great writer. We read The Sun Also Rises in my American Lit class, and it's a great book. Yow.