November 27, 2017 · 1:00 am

5 Scifi Themes I Wish We Had More Stories About

I know there are fans and writers of the science fiction and fantasy genres who read this blog. Today, I wanted to talk about themes that I wish would be explored more often in these genres and pick your brains. If you know of any books that include these themes, come on over to Twitter and tell me about them.

If you don’t know of any stories that fit these descriptions, maybe it’s time for us to start writing them!

Sentient Plants

By far my favourite characters in the Lord of the Rings trilogy were the Ents. I was enthralled by the idea of a tree-like creature being as intelligent as any person, elf, or hobbit. The more I learned about their physiology, the more curious I became about what it would be like to exist in-between the world of plants and the world of mammals.

I’m struggling to think of any other examples of this kind of storytelling in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. Occasionally I’ll read something about an alien or magical plant that’s surprisingly dangerous, but they’re almost never able to carry on a conversation.

It’s hard to imagine what a plant would think about the world around us. How would staying in the same place for your entire life – more or less – while hoping that nothing eats you change the way you thought about everything from family to how dangerous this planet it? Would a plant be surprised by the human concept of war or understanding of it? How would they compare the seeds they dropped every year to how people raise their young?

If I knew more about biology, I’d have written a story about this already. The more I think about it, the more I feel the urge to research it enough to make educated guesses about what such a creature might be like. There is so much scope for the imagination here, as Anne Shirley would say.

A Replacement for Religion

Organized religion is in a rapid decline in western countries. Fewer people are attending religious meetings or labelling themselves as members of a particular faith with every passing generation.

What will western society be like when the majority of people label themselves as Atheist, Agnostic, None, or vaguely spiritual but without loyalty to any particular religion? Western Europe is a few decades ahead of North America in this process, so there are glimpses of what that kind of society will be like.

My question is, what, if anything, is going to replace religion as a widespread cultural understanding that binds a society together? Will it be sports? Pop culture? A rising interest in science? Nationalism? Has the idea itself of having one thing that most of a population grew up experiencing outlived itself?

How would a post-religious society interact with other countries on Earth that tend to be much more devout?

Yes, Star Trek has given us one vision of what this kind of future might look like, but I’d like to see other people’s extrapolations, too. Science fiction in general seems hesitant to explore religious themes in depth unless it was written specifically to proselytize or as part of the Inspirational genre.

I wish this wasn’t so. There are ways to explore people’s relationship to their faith (or lack thereof) without assuming the audience agrees with the character or trying to (de)convert anyone.

 

Life After Fossil Fuels

Eventually, we’re not going to be able to get enough oil, natural gas, and coal out of the Earth in order to sustain all of the systems that rely on those fuels to keep going. This moment could arrive far sooner than we realize, too.

I’ve read many post-apocalyptic books about people returning to agrarian societies as a direct result of some kind of war or other conflict, but I haven’t read too many that explore what would happen if there wasn’t a single disaster that broke modern society down.

How would you keep communities going after the last drop of gasoline has been used up? What parts of our medical  educational, correctional,and municipal systems could adapt to a world that must rely on renewable resources? What parts of them would become luxuries for the wealthy or fade away entirely as resources grew scarce?

I wouldn’t be surprised if most people began working from home in this sort of future. While I think of that as a positive step for society due to the elimination of commutes, the reduction in the spread of communicable diseases, and the increased freedom that comes with having total control over your work environment, only time will tell what negative side effects from that arrangement could be.

Photo credit: Terminator007007007.

Aliens Who Aren’t as Technologically Advanced as Humans

Imagine meeting an alien species that was a few hundred thousand to a few million years behind us.

How would we treat their planet?

How would humans treat them?

If they could talk, would they be better off or worse off than a species that had no idea what was happening to it?

There are hundreds of stories out there about aliens coming to Earth and trying to steal our resources. I wonder why we so often assume they’d be violent, cruel, and greedy. Is that the way we’d treat them? Is it a quietly lingering cultural guilt over how certain groups of people have been terribly mistreated in the past?

Given how difficult it seems to be for life to take hold in the universe in the first place, I wouldn’t be surprised if any alien species we do find out there is closer to the self-awareness of a houseplant or a lizard than to a fellow humanoid.

 

Crop Circles

I remember hearing all kinds of bizarre stories about crop circles when I was a kid.

Some people were convinced that they were messages from alien races. It was never clear to me what kinds of messages they were or if anyone ever thought they’d decoded them.

Other folks set out to prove that many different types of crop circles could be recreated by humans using simple tools. There have been a few other cases where crop circles were shown to be a natural reaction to archeological remains. When this happens, the same design appears in the field every year because of how those ruins have affected the soil.

For a topic as old and well-known as this one, I’m a little surprised by the fact that I don’t remember reading any sci-fi stories about it at all. This sure seems like it would a topic that could be explored from many different angles, from the extraterrestrial to the paranormal to the bizarre but still completely logical.

How about you? What science fiction and fantasy themes do you wish were more commonplace?

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November 25, 2017 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: November 25, 2017

Happy Thanksgiving to my American followers. Since my Canadians followers were given a bizarre Thanksgiving photo last month, I decided to continue the tradition for you as well.

I hope that all of your pumpkins and other squash are cooked into delicious pies and that none of them make you feel somber unless that’s actually how you feel about the idea of eating pumpkin pie. Haha!

Here is this week’s extra-large list of links from my favourite corners of the web.

6 Reasons Why I Avoid Black Friday via ‪ShykiaBell‬. I couldn’t agree with this more. It’s so much better to stay home and enjoy your fridge full of delicious leftovers unless you there’s something you really need to go out and buy on Black Friday.

Mrs. Ellis’s Pumpkin Pie: a 19th Century Thanksgiving Recipe via MimiMatthewsEsq. Nobody will ever top my grandmother’s recipe for pumpkin pie, but this does sound amazing. Just like last month, this won’t be the only recipe I’m sharing for the second Thanksgiving edition of Suggestion Saturday. It has been so much fun finding a wide variety of them to share my readers.

Thanksgiving: A Time for Gratitude. This is exactly how I think of Thanksgiving as well.

8 Traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas Sides Made Vegan. There are people in my extended family who have diabetes, food allergies, food intolerances, and all kinds of other health issues that make planning a big meal that everyone can enjoy quite tricky at times. I am always in awe of how my sister-in-law manages to tweak her dishes so that everyone leaves her table with a full, happy stomach. (I really ought to tell her that the next time we’re with her for the holidays!)

Raising Turkeys for Market in the 1800s  via 18thCand19thC‬. Vegan readers, you may want to skip this post. For everyone else, I loved hearing about the free and happy lives turkeys lived in the 1800s before they were slaughtered. They were perfectly free to wander around in the woods or under their owner’s chestnut trees and eat anything that caught their eye. All animals should live these kinds of lives, I think.

Letters of Note: Unhappy Franksgiving. In 1938, President Roosevelt changed the date of when Thanksgiving would be celebrated from that year onward. Some people were so unhappy with him for doing this that they wrote letters of protest. This link includes six of them, and I thought were all funny and well written.

Thanksgiving, Special Needs Family Style. This was a very interesting peek into how a family who has a son with special needs prepares for and celebrates Thanksgiving.

Friday Favourites: Carribbean Thanksgiving via ‪naditomlinson‬. I’m drooling. Wow, this menu sounds delicious.

The Turkey Tryptophan Myth – Uncle George Keeps Repeating It. If you’re eating turkey this weekend, you may be happy to learn that it isn’t actually responsible for the grogginess many folks feel after a huge Thanksgiving dinner.

Angela’s Deep Dish Sweet Potato Pie via thekitchenista. This doesn’t seem to be a recipe that I could make dairy-free very easily, but it sure does sound good. I hope one of you who can have milk products makes it.

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November 23, 2017 · 1:00 am

6 Ways to Stay Active While Travelling

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American readers! If any of my readers will be travelling anywhere soon, I hope you have a safe journey.

One of the tricky parts of travelling is figuring out how to adapt your daily routine to all of the new experiences that come with visiting another place.

Between spending hours in airport or bus terminals while waiting for the next leg of the trip to begin and adjusting to a new climate, culture, or time zone, it can be challenging to stick to a fitness routine.

This post is going to talk about how to squeeze activity into whatever kind of trip you may have planned for the future.

Take Advantage of Dead Time

A year and a half ago, my spouse and I travelled to California for a beach vacation and extended family reunion. We couldn’t get a nonstop flight to our destination, so we ended up needing to book a layover. Our first flight took off first thing in the morning, and the second one wasn’t scheduled until the evening. What this meant was that we had several hours of dead time in the middle of the day while waiting for our connecting flight.

It wasn’t enough time to go out and explore the city where our first plane landed, so I walked laps in the airport instead. It wasn’t a challenging workout by any means, but it did allow me to stretch my legs and increase my step count while waiting for the next stage in our journey to begin.

Walking around can also be a more interesting way to pass the time than sitting for hours in the waiting room before you sit for even longer while on the train or bus.

Use the Hotel Gym or Pool

Checking out the hotel gym is a fantastic way to try out new equipment. You might discover that you like running on treadmills or that you prefer free weights to using a cable bicep bar. Alternatively, you might love gym machines and not find treadmills helpful at all. The only way to know is to try them out for yourself.

To give another example of why you should take advantage of these amenities, I love to go swimming. If my apartment building had a pool, I’d practically be a mermaid. You’d better believe that I spend as much time as I can swimming whenever my spouse and I stay somewhere that has one.  I’m not a huge fan of travelling in general, but this is definitely one of the perks of it.

Practice Body Weight Exercises

Body weight exercises don’t require any special equipment. Most of them are easy to memorize, and they can be done in your hotel room or in another small space as well. Due to all three of these benefits, I can’t recommend them highly enough if you’re looking to include some strength training sessions in your routine while you’re away from home.

Some of the exercises in the link above are already part of my strength training routine. The next time I go somewhere far from home, I’m looking forward to creating a hotel-friendly workout that can be done using only my own body as resistance.

Pick Active Entertainment

You don’t have to go to the gym to improve your fitness. There are so many other ways to exercise, and many of them can be valuable forms of entertainment in and of themselves.

Several years ago, I went hiking with my youngest brother and some other relatives while on a family vacation. He was a much more experienced hiker than I was, so we picked one of the easier trails and started walking.

There were many things I loved about that trip, but that hike remains one of my favourite memories from that time period. It had been ages since I’d been surrounded by mountains, and even longer since I’d hiked around in them.

We noticed a few subtle signs of the animals who lived there, from holes in the ground where snakes lived to the sound of birds singing in the bushes. While we weren’t actually that far away from the road, I was slightly surprised by how quiet the world is when you can’t hear any cars driving by or people having conversations just out of earshot. It was an incredibly peaceful experience.

Spending time with my brother was also a blast that day. We’re two of the quietest people in the family, so I relished the chance to listen to whatever he had to say while we hiked.

Playing Counts, Too

One of the things I like the most about visiting my other brother and his family is all of the playtime that happens with them. It’s not limited to the kids, either!

From playing catch with my oldest nephew to going swimming with everyone, we found so many active ways to spend time together that I didn’t bother doing a formal workout on those days.

Running around with them was all the exercise any of us needed. Now that my nephew is a proud big brother, our family reunions are only going to be more active and playful in the future.

Do the Best You Can

I’m going to be completely honest with you here. My workouts vary quite a bit when I’m travelling, and I don’t always meet my fitness goals. Some days could be full of more activity than I’d typically do back home, but others are more sedentary due to the kinds of activities the extended family chose for that particular day.

Vacations are a time to relax in whatever way you see fit. Don’t worry if working out doesn’t fit into your plans for a particularly busy day. Missing one session isn’t going to matter in the long run, especially if that short time away energizes you. I know I miss my workouts when I’m not able to squeeze them in. The longer I go without them, the stronger my urge becomes to get back into old, familiar routines again.

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November 20, 2017 · 1:00 am

Maintaining a Low-Sugar Diet Through the Holidays

Last August, I began seriously cutting back on how much added sugar I ate after a friend mentioned all of the positive changes she’d seen from doing that.

Not only did I lose a few pounds unexpectedly, my skin became clearer and I have more energy now than I did last summer. My early afternoon energy slump has ended, and I don’t crave sugary snacks the same way I used to. Cutting back has brought so many positive changes to my life that I’m planning to stick with it.

Is my diet 100% added-sugar-free now? No, it isn’t. I have occasional treats, and I know there is still a little bit of added sugar in some of the food I buy like spaghetti sauce. At this point, I’m not interested in completely eliminating every source of added sugar from my diet.

Going 100% sugar-free would require me to cook and bake stuff that I’ve rarely if ever made purely from scratch, from bread to homemade spaghetti sauce. Maybe someday I’ll want to give this a try, but for now I’m happy with the way things are.

It is going to be interesting to see how this low-sugar diet affects me over the next few months in a few different areas, though.

Changing Tastebuds

The funny thing about switching to a low-sugar diet is that it changes your perception of how sweet something is and how much of it you want to eat.

Fruit and carrots taste much sweeter than they used to taste. They’re almost becoming a new version of candy to me because of how sugary and flavourful they are.

To give another example, I bought a pie for Canadian Thanksgiving last month thinking it would be a special treat after spending two months watching what I ate so carefully. While it did taste good, it was so sweet that I didn’t want much of it at all. The savoury dishes my spouse and I had that weekend were much more enjoyable, so I suspect I won’t bother buying or making a dessert for Christmas.

What will Christmas season treats be like in general this year?

Well, there is a flavour of speciality herbal tea I’ve already stocked up on for the winter. It happens to be a sugar-free variety that tastes so wonderful I’ve never felt the need to add anything sweet to it. It’s delicious just the way it is.

I might buy a couple of bars of dairy-free chocolate for the winter if or when I notice interesting flavours at my local grocery store. I also expect to eat them much more slowly than I did in the past. If carrots taste almost like candy to me, dark chocolate might not taste bitter at all anymore.

Fewer Treats

So far, I’m not stocking up on dairy-free Christmas treats like I’ve done in the past. I bought Halloween candy last month, and I still have plenty of it left to nibble on here and there.

Having a lot of sugary treats in the house also make it harder to stick to a low-sugar diet. There is something about having to bundle up and walk to the store that discourages me from actually doing that most of the time when I have a sudden urge to eat something decadent.

I’m not saying I won’t buy anything sugary this holiday season. Grocery stores often sell delicious holiday-themed candies and chocolates this time of the year, and I’m not opposed to trying one or two of them if any of them are dairy-free as I mentioned earlier.

The difference will be in how many I buy and how often I eat them. Some of my Halloween candy actually got stale a few weeks ago because I was eating it so slowly. That’s never happened to me before, but I like the fact that I can be satisfied by much smaller and less frequent portions of sweets these days.

Holiday Sicknesses

My final prediction for the holiday season has to do with getting sick.

Every Christmas I used to eat far more sweets than normal because they were sold everywhere and it always made me so happy to find a few of them that were safe for me. On or soon after Christmas, I’d come down with a cold or other mild illness.

Obviously, the sugar itself didn’t cause me to get sick. Late December is prime time for all sorts of respiratory illnesses to get passed around as people meet up for celebrations and spend much of their free time indoors in crowded places in general. I’m sure that most of the blame for my annual Christmas cold can be placed on all of the germs that thrive during that part of the year.

I have read, though, that sugar can curb your immune system just enough that a germ you might have normally been able to fight off is able to make you sick.

It will be interesting to see if this pattern repeats itself now that I’m eating sugar far more sparingly.

Go Low-Sugar with Me

If you’ve been thinking about adopting a low- or no-sugar diet, now is the perfect time to start.

It only took a couple of weeks for my tastebuds to begin adjusting, and I didn’t take a cold-turkey approach to this dietary change. It can be as simple as putting one teaspoon of sugar into your morning coffee instead of two.

Small changes can make a big difference over the long haul. Don’t think of this as temporary experiment. Make it a permanent lifestyle change, but go as slowly as you need to in order for every tweak to your habits to stick. They build on each other, especially once your tastebuds become more sensitive and fruit begins to taste sweeter than it did in the past.

The more tweaks you make to what you eat and how often you eat it, the easier it will be to stick to the next small change as well.

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November 18, 2017 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: November 18, 2017

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, comic strips, short stories, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America. This is what our ancestors were dealing with nearly a century ago. I’ve read that this epidemic killed more people than World War I itself. It surprised me as a kid that, to the best of our knowledge, none of my ancestors lost any family members or good friends to it. Many people weren’t so lucky a hundred years ago.

Coping with Tinnitus or Hearing Loss Over the Holidays via tinnitustoolbox. Whether you’re personally dealing with hearing loss or care about someone who is, these tips are wonderful.

Five Star Trek Technologies Taken to their Natural Conclusion via mythcreants. It’s nice to be reminded about Star Trek episodes that I’d half-forgotten about, especially when their writers didn’t fully think through how certain inventions would actually change a society.

Coming Out for the Holidays. This is fabulous advice for the upcoming holiday season.

Winter Fashion – Expectation vs. Reality. With winter just around the corner, this is going to be very true soon.

Top 10 Ways to Prepare for a Canadian Winter via ‪andre1begin‬. There was a lot of good advice here.

From Untilted:

Firstly, my name is Marcus.

Grandma sumtimes calls me Marcy. Marcy is a girls name.

I should make her stop caling me by a girls name. But I cant. She washed my soiled diapers when I was litle. She didnt sleep nites. She personaly received me from the stork. She pulled me from the cabbage patch. She did loads of other stuff for me too.

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November 16, 2017 · 1:00 am

Why It’s Okay to Take Breaks From Science Fiction and Fantasy

I have a confession to share with all of you. I’ve barely read any science fiction and fantasy books recently.

Since I’m a sci-fi writer and a longtime fan of these genres, I’m regularly immersed in thoughts about wizards, robots, aliens, spaceships, science experiments gone wrong, and all of the other tropes you can expect to find in them.

Science fiction and fantasy ideas show up in my dreams, tweets, and random conversations with my spouse, family, and friends.

Most of the time, I love living this way. I’ve read so many different series velw that I can quickly pick out how certain contemporary writers were influenced by tales that were published decades or centuries ago. One of the things I like to do when I’m standing in line or waiting for something is to try to pick out similarities between various universes that I hadn’t thought of yet.

Some authors take careful note of usual patterns in these genres only to figure out how to disrupt them at a critical part of the storyline. It takes a thorough understanding of how science fiction and fantasy stories typically play out to bend the audience’s expectations of how an adventure should end or how a hero is supposed to behave without alienating your readers.

My favourite storytellers are the ones like Douglas Adams who tiptoe across this line perfectly from the first scene to the last one.

With that being said, there can be a lot of repetition in any genre after you’ve spend many years exploring it. I know some people who truly enjoy the familiarity that comes with diving so deeply into this subject, and I completely understand where they’re coming from even though I don’t always feel the same way.

You see, spending time reading other types of stories only reinforces my love for science fiction and fantasy.

Taking Breaks Is a Good Thing

The nice thing about wandering between genres is that it gives the reader a chance to try something completely new. The romance and horror genres might both write about an abandoned graveyard, but the ways they used that setting would be nothing alike.* but  A thriller’s approach to a herd of runaway horses threatening to trample the main character would also be nothing like how a traditional western would solve that problem.

To give another example, a few years ago I began reading mysteries because I was curious about that kind of storytelling and hadn’t read much of it in the past. Needing to pay attention to every little detail of the plot in order to figure out who the murderer was as soon as possible changed the way I approached other genres. If you assume every odd detail might be important later on, it’s much easier to predict how a story will go when the author drops hints about future plot twists.

I also never would have guessed there would be so much crossover between mystery and science fiction, but to my surprise I found a lot of books that couldn’t be easily pinned into either category. This isn’t something I would have ever figured out if I’d stuck to a steady diet of pure science fiction and fantasy.

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of young adult and non-fiction books. The young adult genre reminds me of what it felt like to be a child or teenager. Most of the non-fiction books I read are about history or science which are two topics that can be very useful for educational reasons as well as for eventually coming up with new ideas for my own stories. The longer I spend in these other genres, the more I begin to miss the ones I read most often.

The good news is that the science fiction and fantasy landscape is gigantic. My to-read list is still incredibly long, and it includes still includes a decent number of famous authors I’ve been curious to try but haven’t gotten around to yet.  It will be nice to chip away at this list once my break has ended. I’m already beginning to feel the first stirring of interest in magic and technology, so I suspect I’ll jump back into my regular routine soon.

*I have accidentally stumbled across one or two romantic horror tales in the past, though, so in those rare cases it would depend on whether the characters were preparing to fall in love or fight monsters.

How often – if ever – do you take breaks from reading your favourite genres?

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November 13, 2017 · 1:00 am

How to Stay Relaxed in Crowded Places

Today’s topic comes from a search engine query that a new reader did recently that lead them to this site.

With the holidays rapidly approaching, I thought this would be a good thing to discuss as there will be plenty of crowded parties, shops, malls, group dinners, and other places and events in many of my readers’ not-too-distant future.

(Please don’t ask me to explain what’s going on in the photo on the right. I honestly don’t know. It fit the theme of this post nicely, though).

Like many folks, I’m not a huge fan of very crowded places. Large groups of people tend to be boisterous, and it bothers me to be surrounded by so much noise without being able to figure out what any of it is supposed to mean. Loud music is one thing, but hundreds of conversations all blurred together will never be something I enjoy.

I also find it draining to constantly need to weave my way through a crowd. Anatomically modern humans have done a lot of amazing things over the last 40,000 years, but figuring out how to efficiently herd thousands of people who are slowly meandering through the mall on a lazy Sunday afternoon is not one of them. Ha!

With that being said, there are occasions when you need to pick something up at the store during a peak shopping time or attend a holiday party. I have a few tricks for doing what I need to do on these days without spending an inordinate amount of time in a situation that I find unpleasant.

Arrive Before (or After) the Busiest Time

You might be surprised how quiet stores in Toronto can be even right before Christmas if you show up to them first thing and finish your shopping quickly. Many Torontonians don’t seem to begin running their errands until later in the day even when they only have a handful of shopping days left before a big holiday, so getting a head start on them is a great way to avoid the crowds.

This effect is only stronger in smaller communities. I spent a big chunk of my childhood living near or in a town of about 16,000 people, and the stores there barely had any customers in them at all for the first few hours after they opened up most mornings. It was the perfect time to browse peacefully or get help from the store employees.

I’ve also had similar luck when it comes to timing my arrival at parties. It’s simpler for me to get into the festive spirit of a party if I plan it so I arrive a little earlier or later than most of the other attendees. I like warming up to big groups gradually, and it’s easier to do that if I don’t spend the whole time surrounded by a huge crowd.

Have a Plan

One of the many lessons my mom taught me when I was growing up is that shopping requires a plan. Neither one of us are people who ever shop as a hobby or a way to kill time. If she needs to buy something, she adds it to a shopping list and tries to acquire it as efficiently and frugally as possible.

I have the same policy. There’s nothing wrong with replacing something when it wears out or buying something I expect to use regularly, but I do not dawdle during the process. If I can’t find what I need, I stop shopping and go do something fun. There will always be another day to try again.

Mom reads this blog, so she might be smiling by now at how much she affected me in this part of life. Her efficiency really rubbed off on me, though!

Stick to the Perimeter

I don’t know about you, but I prefer being on the edge of a crowd instead of in the centre of it. There’s something comforting to me about knowing that I could quietly slip out a side door if I needed a few minutes of peace and quiet before wandering back into the event or building. In fact, simply having this available to me as an option makes it unnecessary for me to take a breather from the crowd in many cases.

It’s also nice to see who you meet on the perimeter of a party. While I don’t have any scientific data to back this up, it’s been my experience that you’ll meet a lot of likeminded people on the edges. Folks who love the energy of a crowd and want to be the centre of attention tend to wiggle into the centre of the room and more-or-less stay there.

People who aren’t so enamoured with that experience tend to congregate on the perimeter. They’re exactly who I want to start a conversation with once I’ve figured out who they are. As much as I love watching the life of the party do his or her thing, it’s nice to find kindred spirits when I’m feeling a little overwhelmed or want to find my footing in a conversation.

Find a Distraction

This is where I’m going to appear to contradict myself. One of the best things about people who thrive in big crowds is that they can be incredibly entertaining if you’re looking for a distraction.

While I wouldn’t necessarily want to follow them around all day every day, I really appreciate it when they spontaneously start organizing a few rounds of karaoke at a party or amusing bored children with a game or story while sitting in a food court.

They have such a wildly different approach to large crowds that I can’t help but to be fascinated by how their minds work. Would they feel as out of place in a quiet room as I do in a loud one? I’d bet they just might!

If there aren’t any interesting people to observe, I’ve also distracted myself by spotting animals* or by counting the number of people who are wearing an article of clothing that’s a specific colour. There is always something to occupy your mind if you pay attention to everyone around you.

*This is Toronto, after all. Dogs are welcomed nearly everywhere. Sometimes you’ll see a cat, snake, rabbit, or parrot being carried around as well, and this doesn’t even begin to count all of the wild birds in this city who have been known to wander around on the subway, at the library, or in other indoor places.

Be Patient

Anything from walking to the other side of the room to getting a specific goal accomplished will almost certainly take longer than they would if you were in a less busy place.

Breathe. Remain mindful.

Don’t try to tamp down your thoughts. Lots of other people there probably feel a little irritated or overwhelmed as well. Even if you’re literally the only person in the room who feels this way, it is still much better to acknowledge those emotions than to hide them.

Be patient.

It will be okay.

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November 11, 2017 · 1:00 am

Suggestion Saturday: November 11, 2017

Here is this week’s list of comic strips, poems, articles, and other links from my favourite corners of the web.

Harry Potter: How I Became a Fan 20 Years Later via ‪mandysantos‬. There’s something interesting about seeing how people react to pop culture events that they didn’t experience until years after the book, movie, etc. was released.

Amazing Fall Migrations. The last one was my favourite one.

10 Things to Consider Before Dating a Time Traveller via Blondewritemore‬. This made me grin.

My Chronic Pain Journey Before Surgery via ‪notebksglasses‬. I have a few friends who live with chronic pain. Blog posts like this one are helpful when it comes to understand what that sort of experience must be like without asking my friends a thousand questions about their health.

The Web Began Dying in 2014. Here’s How. Do you think there’s anything we can do to reverse this?

These Are the Things Restaurant Workers Wish You Knew. A lot of this is common sense, but it was still a good article.

From Democracy:

When you’re cold—November, the streets icy and everyone you pass
homeless, Goodwill coats and Hefty bags torn up to make ponchos—
someone is always at the pay phone, hunched over the receiver

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November 9, 2017 · 1:00 am

Why Everyone Should Use a Pedometer

Lately, I’ve been thinking about some of the simplest lifestyle changes I made several years ago when I decided to take charge of my health and get into better shape. Getting into the habit of using a pedometer every day was at the top of that list.

My first pedometer was actually an app on my phone. That phone had to be in my pants pocket in order for it to count my steps back then. If I carried it or put it in my jacket pocket, my step count would rise much more slowly than was normal for me at the time.

I suspected it was a little inaccurate from the beginning, but I didn’t realize exactly how many steps it was missing until I upgraded to a new phone that included a more sensitive step counter in its operating system.

Suddenly, my final count at the end of the day jumped up by a few thousand steps even though my routine had stayed the same. Wow, was that a pleasant surprise! I ended up increasing my daily goal from 10,000 to 12,000 steps a day in order to continue challenging myself.

While my current pedometer seems to be much more accurate, I do sometimes wonder if it still misses steps. I now get about 14,000 of them in the average day, though, so I don’t worry about it as much as I would if I were using the older and more inaccurate model or consistently struggling to get more than a few thousand steps per day.

The nice thing about this piece of technology is that it doesn’t require perfection in order to give you a rough snapshot of how active you are and to encourage you to gradually increase your goals over time.

Every Little Bit Counts

When I first began paying attention to my step count, there were times when it seemed impossible to reach 10,000 steps without spending my entire day walking around. It took time to realize that this wasn’t true and that there were many ways to fit more activity into the habits I’d already formed.

The nice thing about having a pedometer is that you can see the results of even minor lifestyle changes very quickly.

For example, I now know that a walk around the block is good for adding about 500 steps to my step count. Ending a trip one subway stop sooner can add a thousand steps or more .

Even when I didn’t make my original goal every day in the beginning, I was still able to see my average step count rise for that week or month as I figured out how to squeeze a few more minutes of walking into whatever else I was doing that day. The more tricks I found, the more motivated I became to push my steps closer to the 10,000 mark and to make new goals once that one felt easy.

It’s a Great Source of Motivation

Speaking of motivation, I find it incredibly motivating to see how something as simple as taking an extra walk to run some errands could add a few hundred to a few thousand steps to my daily total without me feeling like I was doing anything that out of the ordinary at all. Small lifestyle changes like the ones I just mentioned add up over time.

Many fitness goals aren’t like this. For example, losing weight, reducing your body fat percentage, strengthening your muscles, and becoming more flexible are all goals that generally need to be pursued over the long term. You probably won’t see much improvement at all with them in the beginning.

As much as I’ve enjoyed seeing the results from my longterm goals, there is definitely something to be said for setting goals that you can reach in a month, a week, or even a single day as well.

I can’t double the weight of the dumbbells I lift in that amount of time, but I can commit to taking a walk or pacing around while I’m waiting for something to nudge my step count average up while also working on more difficult goals during other parts of the day.

Nearly Everyone Can Do It

Unlike many other forms of exercise, walking doesn’t require a gym membership, special equipment, or protective gear. The only thing you need other than a pair of comfortable walking shoes is a pedometer. I’ve seen pedometers for sale for as little as $5 to $10 each.

There are also options for people who can’t afford that expense or who want to try this idea out before buying one of their own. Many public libraries have developed programs that lend out pedometers to their patrons the same way they’d lend out a book or DVD.

The Toronto Public Library had one of these programs several years ago, and I believe they allowed people to keep the pedometers for up to two months at a time while they had it. I’d gotten ahold of my own step counter by the time I became aware of this program at my local branch, but it was a great way for people from any walk of life to get a snapshot of how active they were and decide if buying their own step counter was a good decision.

Pedometers Teach You How to Stop Needing Them

After you’ve used a pedometer for a while, you may very well develop an automatic sense of how active a day should be in order to reach your goals like I have.

For example, I now know that I need to spend about an hour a day walking around in order to make my step count goal. This time is virtually always broken up into smaller increments. Occasionally, it’s as brief as as a five minutes walk here and a ten minute walk there every hour or two until I’ve gotten my full 60 minutes of movement in for the day.

Other people have different goals, of course. I’m young and in decent shape, so my exercise routine may be too challenging for people who aren’t used to any sort of exercise at all. That same routine might be too easy for athletes in peak physical shape who are used to vigorous workouts instead.

While I continue to check my step count for the sheer joy of seeing what my numbers are looking like and as a reminder to keep encouraging myself to do a little more over time, I could stop using it and maintain my current routine without an issue.

To me, this is a sign of a worthwhile piece of equipment. Just like my muscles have outgrown lighter pairs of hand weights, my mind has learned to adapt to my new fitness routine. Any habit takes time to develop. The fact that my pedometer has done such an excellent job of teaching me how to intuitively know how much and how often I should be moving makes it something I’d wholeheartedly recommend to anyone reading this who is hoping to develop similarly strong habits.

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November 6, 2017 · 1:00 am

A Spoiler-Free Review of Alias Grace

“When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else.”
― Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace.

The miniseries Alias Grace is based on a Margaret Atwood book by the same name. I will give you a brief, spoiler-free introduction to the storyline before diving into my thoughts on it.

Interestingly enough, this book is based on a real Canadian murder case from the 1840s. Grace Marks, a young Irish servant, was charged with murdering her master, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery. James McDermott, a stable hand on Mr. Kinnear’s farm, was also charged with their murders.

He was hung for that crime, and Grace was committed to an asylum in part because she always claimed that she didn’t remember key parts of the day that Thomas and Nancy were murdered.

Many years later, a young doctor named Simon Jordan was hired to try to get to the bottom of what really happened by a well-do-to group of people who were convinced that Grace was innocent and hoped to see her freed from that institution.

The links above will introduce you to the rest of the cast and share photographs of them, although I should warn you that some of their character descriptions contain mild spoilers. This was especially true for Nancy Montgomery. As interesting as the secondary characters were, though, Grace was the star of this show and therefore who I’m going to be focusing on in this post.

Grace’s timid personality was what first drew me into the book when I read it many years ago. She was afraid to do anything that might be misconstrued in any way, especially if it had to do with improper interactions with people from higher social classes. This personality trait continued even decades after her trial when most of the folks who wanted her to  be hanged for her alleged crimes the way James had been were no longer capable of harming her. That was fascinating and at the same time quite sad to me.

I can’t say too much else about Grace’s backstory without venturing into spoiler territory, but I can tell you that she was a desperately poor immigrant from a despised culture who came to North America with her family in search of a better life when she was a teenager.

Analysis

“People dressed in a certain kind of clothing are never wrong. Also they never fart.”
― Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

Last spring, The Handmaid’s Tale showed audiences what the future could be like for women. Alias Grace explored what  poor, working class, and otherwise low-status women living in Canada and the United States in the 1840s and 1850s were up against every time they went to work, or took a walk down the street, or simply tried to exist while being female.

While there were certainly elements of the plot that could be interpreted as paranormal, the core story was steeped in the bitter truth about what the “good old days” were really like for anyone who wasn’t wealthy and powerful. This was even more true for girls and women like Grace whose gender made them extremely vulnerable to any unscrupulous person who crossed their path. They could be – and often were – abused in many terrible ways without the men who harmed them ever facing any consequences for their actions.

When this happened, it was always assumed to be the woman’s fault. There was no room for shades of grey in that debate . This coloured Grace’s story in many ways, from how hesitant she was to share certain memories to how willing the people around her were to take her words at face value.

If you have a narrator who has been socially conditioned to strictly repress certain things through threats of violence or the permanent loss of any type of employment that isn’t prostitution, how do you know that she isn’t only telling you what you want to hear in order to protect herself? Likewise, how do you know that the wealthy and powerful characters haven’t also distorted the truth to suit their wishes?

While society has changed a lot over the last 160 years, these questions are still relevant to us today. As I neared the end of this series and began to read multiple news stories about various famous men who have been accused of abusing the people who worked for or beside them, I couldn’t help but to compare the things some people say about the accusers in 2017 to what they would have said in the mid-1800s:

She’s a liar.

She was asking for it.

It’s her fault. 

She should have known better.

As much as western society has evolved into a kinder, gentler, and more just place since the mid-1800s, some things haven’t changed much at all.

Keep this in mind as you watch this show, especially the violent moments that would be easy to judge from a twenty-first century perspective. So many of these scenarios have been repeated over and over again throughout history. Only recently have there been any attempts at all to correct them, and humanity is still feebly stumbling over many of those corrections. To the extent that black-and-white answers exist at all, they are not easy to find in or apply to Grace’s world because of how unethical the justice system was there to begin with.

No, this does not mean I’m condoning the murders of Thomas and Nancy. I have never and will never cheer for the death of anyone, but I do want to warn my readers that this isn’t the kind of show that wraps everything up neatly for the audience.

No one was completely good – or evil – in this universe. There were moments of pure kindness in characters who otherwise made my skin crawl and dark streaks in characters who were otherwise virtuous.

 

Was Grace Really a Murderer?

“If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.”
― Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace

One of the biggest reasons why I loved this mini-series so much had to do with how thoroughly it explored this question from every angle it could from the first episode to the last one.

Viewers who believe she was guilty can find plenty of evidence to support their claims.

Viewers who believe she was innocent can find plenty of evidence to support their claims.

Viewers who believe other explanations, ranging from the paranormal to the psychological, can find plenty of evidence for their claims as well.

I had a strong opinion about what happened when I began watching part 1. By the time I finished part 6, my mind had changed at least three or four different times as new evidence was brought to light and possible contradictions to previous evidence was revealed to the audience.

This is the kind of storytelling that keeps me coming back for more. When I rewatch this series again this winter, I have no doubt that my mind will change yet again.

Once you’ve seen this show, I’d be happy to discuss specific details of the case with anyone reading this who would like to know what I ultimately decided about Grace’s culpability. It was difficult to write this section without giving away hints about how it ended or what I decided, but I couldn’t discuss Alias Grace without acknowledging the most pressing question in the storyline.

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