MONDOmagazine

Try to picture the word “Real” with extra italics.

By Jenny Bundock

For a long time now I’ve been going to gallery shows in Toronto. I did my undergrad at York in Photo, and during that time I pretty much had to be a gallery hopper to survive. Looking back, I really wish I had taken more advantage of my time in what I have come to refer to as “the real art scene in Toronto.”

Toronto is kind of screwy, because what you would assume to be the cultural hubs of the city (the ROM, the AGO, etc.) are kind of, well, old. Occasionally you see these institutions try to branch out and grab something fresh from the streets and basements of Toronto, but rarely does it survive. It’s like bringing your flower garden inside, in pots, for the winter: it just isn’t the same and you’re probably going to kill it. Read the rest of this entry »

Your wonderful upstairs neighbor

Do sweat the small stuff, cuz it’s probably what’s keeping you sane

By Jenny Bundock

There are things in this world that are silent contributors to our well-being. You won’t see a parade for any of these items in the near future, and when their time comes, if you have them, they remain unnoticed, unappreciated, and used as they were intended. Conversely, in their absence, a huge, gaping hole of “I can’t believe this!” opens up… and we collectively realize what we took for granted.

Here is my top 20 list of things you don’t realize you need, until you discover that you don’t have them and wish you did — wishing so badly that it hurts.

1. An answering machinere: That person who keeps calling until you pick up, on Saturday.
2. Wite-out
   re: Your final exam, written in pen, with no space left on that last line, when you suddenly realize the answer you wrote is totally wrong.
3. Change for the parking meter
   re: Downtown, on Queen Street – where a meter maid is born every block and a half…
4. Toilet paper
   re: Every bathroom, anywhere, without it. Read the rest of this entry »

Wi-Fi for the win!

By Jenny Bundock

It is the end of 2008, which was a fantastic year for me. As I think it is customary to do, I’d like to reflect positively on some things that were important to me this past year, and thank those individuals, groups, and organizations that made these things possible. Coinciding with those thank-yous, I would also like to say to those of you who have yet to be touched by some of these things: “Hey, what are you waiting for — 2009 could so be your year to get on the gravy train and start enjoying the world around you, like I did in 2008.”

1. The anonymous, but oh-so-important person, who wherever I seem to go, leaves their Wi-Fi signal open
I needed to thank you first, because when I’ve been totally high and dry this year, with my laptop or iPod touch, in Italy, China, London, coffee shops on Queen Street that charge for the internet, restaurants, new apartments, red lights at not-so-major intersections… there you’ve been — giving away internet that you no doubt pay for. I don’t care if you are just some weirdo who wants to spend money on internet only to have others use it free of charge, and eat your bandwidth; or if you are some community-level philanthropist. Read the rest of this entry »

The new Face(book) of narcissism

Facebook: it has changed many people’s lives. It has changed some for the better: it works for people who have social anxiety, agoraphobia, or personalities that result in people liking them only for short bursts. However, it has changed many lives for the worse: people used to go out, call their “contacts,” and communicate in more than two to three sentences at a time, and were better able to avoid grade school “friends.” Personally, for me I think it is interesting to find out what kind of “Facebook people” are on my friends list.

There are several distinct categories of people you may befriend over Facebook. These include: people you actually know; people you think you know but don’t; people you vaguely remember from some past occasion; and finally people you don’t know at all, but it seems like you should know them, because they went to your high school, and your town only has 2000 people in it. Those belonging to this latter group may have 55 friends in common with you, but still you can’t recall them at all. I was the president of my student council, and it appears everyone from high school remembers me. I blame assemblies. Read the rest of this entry »

Jenny Bundock critically examines the unfair privilege granted to her by systemic matriarchy

By Jenny Bundock

Facebook is a good way of finding out which of your friends are one of those people who embrace their own stereotype and use it as some kind of pride-generating list. I came across one of these lists on the page of a friend of mine I last spoke to in grade four, before my family moved away (yeah, Facebook is great because now I can see what she grew up to look like because that was burning me up inside — not knowing). Anyways she posted this thing called “Advantages Of Being A Woman.” Once again, there is further evidence that people on my friends list must believe that I am not a woman. It’s very confusing. Since I am pretty sure that I am still a woman, I find these types of lists to be rather frustrating, and from what I can tell, they are not representative of the majority of women I have ever met. I decided to critique this mess and do what this woman does best — complain about how stupid it is.

Okay so the apparent “Advantages Of Being A Woman” are:

1. We got off the Titanic first.
That’s true, but the reason we got off was so that we could continue to raise the children, who they also let off the boat first. We were also expected to have more children. We were not let off because we were women, and they wanted us to go be neurosurgeons and firefighters — we got off to clean spit-up, change diapers, and ensure the survival of male heirs. You could go ahead and leave me on the boat in that case.

Women and children first!

2. We get to flirt with systems support men who always return our calls, and are nice to us when we blow up our computers.
We don’t so much “get to” do that as we have the choice to capitalize on the fact that a male support worker might be kind of bored and/or attracted to girls. The author of this list has failed to consider that gay people might be support workers, or that a woman may also be a support worker. As well, I know for a fact that no support worker has ever said to my brother, dad or boyfriend when they call, “You know, if you were female, I’d fix this for you, but because you are a man, your money is no good here, don’t expect a returned phone call.” Please! Support workers want money, they don’t care who has it. This is a prime example of something women think they are doing because it helps, but really it just makes them look pathetic and/or skanky.

3. Our boyfriend’s clothes make us look elfin and gorgeous. Guys look like complete idiots in ours.
Um, elfin — I’m not really sure what that means, but I have never felt like a character from Lord of the Rings wearing a pair of plaid boxers with holes in the crotch and a bigger black sweatshirt… Fail.

4. We can be groupies. Male groupies are stalkers.
Wait, I’m confused, do we want to be groupies? And for the record, male “groupies” are called roadies, and they drink with the band, move gear, ride on the bus, and have sex with “groupies.” Life is not a scene from Almost Famous. There are no “rock bands” anymore with members under the age of 50 that tour with groupies — except for Nickelback — and if you want to follow them around, you go right ahead, but I’ve got this thing called “respect for myself” that you should try out sometime!

An Hormonal Imbalance?

5. We can cry and get off speeding fines.
This is another “we can” that I don’t get. Guys could cry, and I bet it would work just as well. Cops aren’t as stupid as people think. They aren’t going to let you off because you “cried.” Emotional instability is not the best foot forward when trying to convince an officer of the law that you are a much better driver than you have presently demonstrated. Tears = guilt, surprise and apology = honest mistake. I can tell you right now, the latter is the better way to go for both genders.

6. We’ve never lusted after a cartoon character or the central female figure in a computer game.
Did whoever wrote this forget that lesbians are also women? And as for never lusting after a cartoon character, I have friends who had crushes on Robin Hoods and Tarzans who were animated. I myself am partial to Shaggy from Scooby-Doo and Jude from the Canadian cartoon 6teen that I now just inadvertently admitted to having watched.

7. Taxis stop for us.

Like the previously mentioned service employees, taxis stop because they want your money, not because they like women especially. I am sure that taxi drivers snub an equal number of men and women. Why does this woman constantly assume that because something happens to her, it must be because she is a woman?

8. Men die earlier, so we get to cash in on the life insurance.
But we also get to live through the probably drawn-out, painful death of our spouses and then live out the rest of our years in the house that we shared with them, missing then, getting old, and staying single because most of the old men have died, even the single ones. Sounds like a real fun time.

9. We don’t look like a frog in a blender when dancing.
Um, have you seen Usher dance? I think again that women can look terrible dancing; I see all kinds of women cut loose on the weekends, and though they don’t look like “frogs in blenders” they look like they are auditioning to be strippers, so I’m not sure what is worse. Personally I’d rather look silly, but have fun, than be inappropriately trashy, clenching everything, and throwing out my neck with a hair helicopter and at an aunt’s wedding.

10. Free drinks, free dinners, free movies… (you get the point).
Nothing is free. See, it looks free, but the person who bought it for you is expecting you to participate in the transaction, though your contribution may not be monetary. I say pay for your own shit, and enjoy not being held hostage by the expectations of the douche in the bar who bought you a drink. Or if you are out to dinner with your boyfriend, don’t treat him like an ATM and he may actually stick around. You can’t want equality when it means your paycheck goes up to a man’s level, but you still expect for men to pick up your tab. Feminism is not choosy.

11. We can hug our friends without wondering if she thinks we’re gay.
Do men think this? I know many men who hug. Now men are getting stereotyped. Whoever wrote this sure has everyone’s number!

Into every male friendship, this question must fall.

12. We can hug our friends without wondering if WE’RE gay.
Hey let’s take it a step further, à la Katie Perry, and say you could full-on make out with your friends and not wonder if you were gay because that’s what lesbianism is right — a show for the boys? I am glad I am not a lesbian most days because so much stuff pisses me off already, I can’t imagine dealing with something like “hugging your friends and thinking you are gay.” As though being gay is a realization you have when your body touches someone of the same sex. *sigh*

13. New lipstick gives us a whole new lease on life.
This must be the problem with my life — here I have never bought lipstick. Who knew that whale oil and pigment were the keys to happiness?

14. It’s possible to live our whole lives without ever taking a group shower.
I call bullshit on this. You can’t avoid that, no matter what your sex. We all went to the public pool when we were kids. You can’t slide this one by.

15. We don’t have to fart to amuse ourselves.
This one clinches it: I cannot be a woman.

16. If we forget to shave, no one has to know.
Or if we think shaving is retarded and unnecessary, the prissy shallow dips that wrote this homage to women don’t have to know that we crazy armpit hair chicks are secretly super gross!

17. We can congratulate our teammate without ever touching her butt.
I guess you could, but why not take advantage of that rare opportunity?

8. If we have a zit, we know how to conceal it.
This is true, though judging from this list, if you have a moronic attitude, it is much harder to hide.

19. We CAN sum you up based on your shoes!
This is probably true. When I see a girl in six-inch heals in the winter downtown I think “What a retard, that’s terribly unfunctional,” or when I see someone in leather boots in July I think “Gross, you are so wading in your own sweat right now.” I am sure these same women see me in my comfortable tennis shoes or warm winter boots and think: “You are so not going to win Canada’s Next Top Model dressing like that.” And they would be right. So right.

Tolerance has its limits, and one of them is 2:30 a.m.

By Jenny Bundock

Here’s a shocker, I’m the type of person who pretty much must live alone (in quite the rad looking apartment too). But besides the occasional cat companion, and visits from friends and boyfriends, I spend much of my time solo during the week. Mostly I occupy myself working on crushing grad-school deadlines, which seem oh-so ominous these days, and reading, so I can meet those deadlines with some intelligence and poise (if I am lucky). That being said, when someone has the ability to impact my life in my home, with little or no regard for the person on the other side of the plaster, I get seriously irked.

I am not saying that I am quiet as a mouse every minute of every day, nor would I expect anyone else to be, but at 2:00 a.m. I think it’s reasonable to think people won’t spend their Sunday night kicking-it-up-a-notch when likely everyone in the seven other apartments this house is split into has a place to be tomorrow.

Take two weeks ago — I believe it was a Sunday, or possibly a Tuesday — as an example. I got in from Toronto around midnight, exhausted, and needing to get some sleep before my class the next morning. As I am brushing my teeth, I notice that I can hear the Dixie Chicks. Odd. I don’t recall even being able to hear the people in the other apartment speak or their radio before — but I assume this is a weird occurrence that has more to do with me being unobservant in the bathroom previously, than with an inconsiderate person in the next place currently. I was dead wrong. About 60 seconds later I realized that I could in fact hear the Dixie Chicks in every room of my home.

I decided, hey, you know, they are probably writing a paper or something, and listening to the radio to keep the energy level up. I can get on board with that. I will try to sleep despite my searing hatred for country music, and be a good neighbour. This is easier to plan to do than actually do, especially when you hear country covers of two to three R&B songs, and then a HANSON cover (I swear to you, I wouldn’t dare make a thing like that up). After not being able to sleep for an hour, and it now being quarter to two, I decided to give a little tap on the wall, to alert them that I was still lying awake. No response. I waited another 15 minutes, and tapped again. No dice.

After getting up, trying to find something I could take, like a Tylenol PM or drowsy anything, and returning to the bed empty handed at 2:30, I really let the wall have it. Again, not even the slightest fluctuation in volume. I was not the only one. Between 2:30 and 3:00 the person above me, and the person above them, stomped vigorously on the floor, to no avail. The fifth and final time I banged on the wall, at 3:30 a.m., they actually turned the music up! Because I guess all of us sleepers were really harshing their ability to enjoy the sweet-ass blaring radio all night.

I ended up sleeping through my 7:00 a.m. alarm, because I had only JUST fallen asleep, and missed my class. It was pretty rotten, I felt like an asshole, and probably missed a bunch of useful info, like where the Graduate Department gold is buried, or what sustainability really is — and for what? Hanson covers with twangy guitars, and a lot of guys who are really proud that they were born in the country, to their mamas, and grew up to date girls with names like Mandy, who like to drink whiskey? Good trade!

So whoever you are, in apartment 2 — consider this: I have a paper to write in a few weeks. I also LOVE Dillinger Escape Plan and judging by your taste in music, I can bet that you like them, oh, about as much as I like Toby Keith. You may not realize it but you’ve got a date with a double-kick. Don’t worry, I’ll put the speakers against your wall so you don’t miss a minute of it.

Because there’s beauty in the breakdown

By Jenny Bundock

In March, I wrote an article about how spring, in its infinite shitty-ness, was ruining my mood for about 60 days of the year. It is the mushy ground, the mud, the poop, dead baby birds, etc. I believe in balance to a certain extent — I generally work out my frustrations with the world around me in these articles, and in doing so I’m rather pleasant to be around in person (believe it or not). With this same notion of balance, I believe that if I write about the season I hate the most, the fair thing to do would be to write about the season that I love.

My favorite season is fall. Here is why:

The colours

This is a bit of a clichéd reason to like fall, I will give you that, but there is some wisdom in it — it is super attractive to look at, and it makes everyone feel like they live in a pretty awesome place when they look around and see bright red maples, or yellow shrubs all along the highway. Does the heart good.

The subsequent purge of the leaves

Trees prevent themselves from dying entirely by jettisoning the parts that are unsustainable through the winter, and we as a species can learn from this approach by examining what we may have that might be bogging us down — a crappy boyfriend or girlfriend, an annoying cat, 60 pairs of shoes, knick-knacks that remind us of that summer at camp when we were five, stacks of textbooks and course kits from undergrad that you’ll never touch again, high school crushes you are creeping out on Facebook, etc. Trees get, apparently, that you have to let go in order to move on, and I respect that. Another obvious plus is that you get to play in the resulting piles of discarded leaves. This is amazingly fun, even if you try to pretend you are not playing by merely dragging your feet through gutters as you walk around. I’m on to you: you are totally jumping up and down inside laughing like a seven-year old. I certainly am.

Sweaters

Sweaters are awesome. I look the best in a t-shirt and a cardigan, hands-down. Most of the dates I got in high school happened in the fall, because I looked so foxy in my Cons, jeans, Value Village ironic t-shirts (like the D.A.R.E. one I wore at least once a week), and a ratty knitted or jersey zip-up hoodie or cardigan. See in winter your coat screws with this ensemble because you look exactly the same everyday when you are out, because your pants probably are mostly the same style (jeans, cargo pants, dressy pants) and your coat is always the same, or maybe rotates between two, and then there are hats and mitts, again, mostly the same, and boots, again, the same daily. Your style is lost after week two or three. In fall, the combinations are endless, and even if you wear a coat, it likely doesn’t have to be zipped up — you still get variety day-to-day. I wait all year for sweater weather, and I savour every minute of it.

Halloween

Not pictured: the bloody aftermath.

Totally kicks Easter’s ass any day of the week. On Easter you get some chocolate eggs but only after a soggy and pointless search, the Christians tell you about Jesus, everyone dresses like a bunny (and no one understands why), and Catholics eat fish. Woo hoo? On Halloween you get sacks of candy from everyone; everyone throws an awesome party where you can dress up as something (and clever people can take the opportunity to subtly prove how genius they are); the Christians stay inside and turn off their lights OR they participate quietly because they realize it’s really fun; it’s dark humor at its best, like tombstones on 70-year-old ladies’ lawns; your mom dressed up as an axe murderer or a crackhead like Amy Winehouse; and CBC plays classic horror films all night like The Shining or The Exorcist.

You buy new clothes

Chances are you started this habit because of school starting, and your need to wear a new outfit on the first day. For most of us, it’s just not fall unless you’ve bought some new awesome stuff to wear around, and no one will question the necessity of doing so.

The harvest

Not just the awesome moon named after it either (or the awesome Neil Young song named after them both), but the actual frigging bounty of pears, peaches, apples, squash, pumpkins, corn, cider, and anything else you traditionally eat at Thanksgiving, or at any given moment during fall when all of Ontario explodes with food for a few months. I have made like six pies in the last two months.  Why? At this time of year apples are so cheap, peaches are overflowing from baskets, and everything is local and ripe.  Plus, pie is so satisfying to eat with a bit of ice cream, in your sweater watching the leaves fall off the trees from your front porch at 5:30 when the sun starts going down.

Sleep

Spring steals from us one whole hour of precious sleep, when we “spring forward” and the clock jumps from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m., instantly. Fucking assholes. And thanks to George Bush, that now happens right in the middle of exams/final paper time of the year — so not only does it steal from us, it steals from us when we need it the most. Fall is so much more giving. It says, “Hey, you look kind of tired, and I know you just had some pie, which probably made you feel pretty good, but tell you what, why don’t you sleep in tomorrow for an extra hour, and I’ll take care of the pesky clock. Deal?” And you are like, “Man, thanks fall, I did have a pretty raging Halloween, and I could certainly use the extra shut-eye to kill my hangover. You are the best.”

Weather

Have you been pissed on by rain a lot since the start of fall? No. You haven’t. See, summer is a compromise: it basically is super warm and nice, but at the cost of dryness occasionally. Thunderstorms totally rule, but if it were summer without rain, we’d all bake, burn, and dry out to dust or something.  Then the farmers would lose their minds, and everyone’s lawn would die, and kids would never EVER get out of swimming pools — so we put up with the weather because it is necessary for that whole balance thing. Fall needs not compromise. Sometimes it snows, which is pretty, especially if it melts by noon; sometimes it rains, but not for long, and not very heavily; but most days, it is just cool, dry, and A-okay. Find me a season with less adverse weather, and I’ll give you a dollar.

And finally, The US election will finally be over

Fall is so good at sensing what we are all about that it even goes so far as to realize that we are all exhausted by the elections that get tossed on it. It knows that every four years the Americans will duke it out all summer over who gets to lead next, but it says partway through its season, “Wrap it up guys/gals,” and they do. Leaving November 5^th-December 21^st as the blissful days where no one will talk about Barack or John, because whoever wins will get the job in January [Obama! -ed.], so it is vacation time for us, and them, until winter.

If you aren’t convinced fall is the best season, it’s probably because you secretly or overtly like summer, which I can understand: it is a close second for me personally as well. BUT the point that I am trying to make sure everyone gets is that it’s definitely better than spring, by a long shot… forever… no erasies.

I have a feeling that this article will make a great forward for email lists.

By Jenny Bundock

This one is a 2-for-1! You know these people: they are a couple who have been together for at least a day (but less than six months) and for some reason, they think that they’ve got the market cornered when it comes to love and that the rest of us poor saps are just walking around like loveless apes with our hands stuck in our coffee mugs wondering where it all went wrong.

They talk in “we” and “our” terms almost all the time, and they touch each other — a lot. When the other one is missing, they text message them, even when you are, say, out for an quiet lunch, or in lecture. They say things like “Their eyes are just so deep, I get lost in them” or “We stayed up all night talking about our childhood dogs, and it was like, the best conversation of my life…” and you can’t help but think “Oh my God! That was the best conversation of your life? Really?” but you hold your tongue. It’s almost like you can see that big rosy bubble they are trapped inside, like a unbearable denial-pod.

What is also interesting about this 2-for-1 is that the actual people involved are, more often than not, friends of yours that you like (when they are alone). In the past they’d never given you the impression that they were this secretly judgmental of your own relationship, or as needy as they’ve become (but then again, they’ve never been in love like this, after six days, before). Oh, but once they are near that new person in their life, their brain chemistry does this Jekyll/Hyde thing, and suddenly “they” don’t ever go to concerts without the other person and it’s “so sad that you and your partner do that” sometimes.

I mean seriously, where the hell do these people get off? This happens to me all the time. Unsolicited advice from some pair of lovers who have been together all of four weeks, who start telling me (or some other person in close proximity) that they are sad for the sorry state of the relationships around them. Because the long-term couples have all but stopped making out in public, or needing the other person to say goodbye to them before they go to the bathroom, they must be less in love!

Do they not realize that we all (regardless of our own relationship status) see the colossal failure of their relationship just over the horizon? Did they not jump into the I love you’s eight days into a summer fling at some point in high school, and then realize that a burning sensation in your loins does not constitute a solid foundation for long-term commitment? That conversations about which fish-stick brand is best and why are not the stuff marriages are built upon? That it doesn’t matter eight months down the road if he looks more like Owen Wilson or Owen Pallet? Has no one ever taught them that healthy doses of independent interests and outside activities keep the conversation alive and well after you know all of their childhood traumas, and they’ve become the fodder of inside jokes? I mean my God!

All of this aside though, the real kick in the balls about the new “forever after one month” lovebirds that always comes next is the heart to heart with their most committed friend. This has been me several times (but I can guarantee examples out of all my friends in 2+ year relationships where this has happened as well) where one of them looks you in the eye and says “I think I’ve finally found my [insert the name of whoever the person you've been dating for 2+ years is] and now I know what your relationship is like.” Please, new lovers, spare us the additional justification. If you like that person, great, stay with them. Don’t seek approval by likening it to my own, or other people’s situations. The truth of the matter is, no one, ever, knows what his or her friend’s relationships are truly like. We can try to guess, but unless you eavesdrop on all their calls, and have video feed in their house, you’re probably 60% in the dark.

At the end of the day, only those of us who are willing to stop “eskimo kissing” in public, skipping work for picnics or morning cuddling, staying up every night talking about feelings, and making out the front porch for hours as a “goodbye” have the comfort of a strong relationship.

The “honeymoon phase” is hugely compromising, which is why it is the most fun and magical, and also why you can’t ever get it back. You feel like you are living outside the law, defying society and responsibility in the name of love! Damn right that part and that feeling is fun, but if you get fired, fail your exams, have to get up at 7 a.m. to hand out resumes, and then try to figure out where the hell your next rent payment is coming from, no amount of tickle fights or baby talk is going to solve your problems, but it is going to tank your relationship.

So stop pretending like you’ve got it all figured out. You don’t, and you’re annoying everyone else!

Evolve or die new lovers. Evolve or die.

In which MONDO’s resident curmudgeon writes about a baby with most unexpected results!

By Jenny Bundock 

So, last week something happened to me that has never happened to me before — I was actually a little excited about the arrival of a baby. I have never been much for babies, per se. I’m not anti-baby or anything, I don’t have a distaste for them, but I have never really thought “Wow, that is great, I’d like one of those” either. I’m actually pretty much as neutral as possible on the whole idea of motherhood, fatherhood, procreation, and pregnancy.

That being said, this week contained a baby context I have never had the opportunity to explore before. This week, two close friends of mine, who have been together for years, and both of whom I like a great deal, became parents. I find myself coming back to this idea of my friends, breeding. Not so much from an “ooh they are parents now, how different are things going to be from here on?” perspective as much as a “wow… I wonder what that kid will be like?” perspective, which was unexpected for a neutral person like myself.

Oddly, I do sincerely wonder what that kid will be like. I can’t see how this could go wrong. Both of the parents are awesome people, and they blended their physical and personal traits into a little girl. That is about as interesting as you can get as far as I am concerned. I mean, logically, this child should fall into a category of “highly favorable” for me. It’s like two people I like, concentrated into one small helpless little package that they will then raise, with the very values and wisdom I have come to adore them for. Again, this seems pretty solidly positive.

So basically, maybe I am not entirely neutral on all babies. Maybe my previous stance is borne of never having come across a baby that could hold my interest like this one will, and perhaps this is the reason other people are interested in babies. Maybe I just caught onto this now!

Even if I am behind the bandwagon on this one, trust me when I say my interest at even this small level speaks volumes about how genuinely great I think this baby is going to turn out. Usually, I avoid babies. They make me uncomfortable and everyone always asks me if I want to hold them (and I never do so I end up babbling in a way befitting Michael Cera and trying to back away and out of the room, with my voice escalating in tone and volume with each armful-of-baby step closer to me). But yeah, this is a big change for me. I might even try to see this baby on purpose.

It just goes to show I guess, you can’t ever really know how your life will change from day to day. Two weeks ago had you asked me “Does anything about a baby strike you as interesting?” I would have laughed you out of the room, and now, I have to say “Well, this one and only time…” It’s the dawning of a new day comrades, a day filled with marginal but very real interest in a single baby that is now in the world.

Touché cynical-spinster persona, touché.

Seriously, I was just about to write a column just like this. It’s uncanny. -ed.

By Jenny Bundock

At a first glance, you may not be with me on this, but trust me you know one, and chances are they irk you. The reality about this type of person is that they annoy everyone, but no one has thought them to be so annoying that we had to say anything. The key characteristics of a Credit Free-loader is that they wait for someone else to do or say something really good, and then they swing in after it’s been well received and adhere themselves to the positive deed.

Example #1: The “I was just about to say that” remark.

Were you really just about to say that? Or are you just saying so now, so that everyone assumes that you had the same point as the person who did just say that? See, we never can know if they were truly just about to say what was just said, but the very exercise of taking credit for someone else’s statement by claiming that they beat the person to it is really really annoying. Another version of this is “I was just thinking that” or “we’re on the same wavelength.” It makes me crazy that we can’t call this person out. Even if you’ve never known them to have a novel, insightful, or original thought in all the time you’ve known them, they still get to veil themselves through the reality that none of us are telepathic; and thus, it is their word against ours. We look like lunatics if we say anything, so they win by default. Newsflash: we are all on to you, jerks.

Example #2: The person who is sitting in on a discussion and comments after every good comment, regardless of whether they are adding anything.

I am in a masters program right now, and time after time in discussion someone will make a point that is well received, and so the Credit Free-Loader in the group will chime in with their two cents that usually starts with “I agree with _______.” Then they either go on to summarize what that person just said, or they say something like “that was a really good point.” The next person responding now references both of them and says, “I think what both of you are saying is really great, and my opinion is…” And just like that, we have another person who has swooped in without any positive contribution and positioned themselves in like-kind with the person who actually is doing the work, and thus deserves the credit.

Example #3: Thanks for doing all the work already. Can I put my name on that too?

This has happened a lot in music. People thought it was bad when someone sampled a song, only marginally changed it, and then called it their own. People also were annoyed when cover songs came out and then became huge though the cover was almost identical to the original. (Think, when a country music star decides to cover an R&B song, and the only difference is twangy guitar and a white guy…) Basically if you didn’t make it better by being involved or putting your stamp on it, you don’t deserve credit for it just because it is different now.

Now, I realize I haven’t yet sold you on this one, but I have a real world example that is plaguing me daily right now: the new version of “Paper Planes” by M.I.A. that now includes a little rap interlude. Think about it now if you have heard both… Paper Planes is an incredible song, all by itself. (Before it was used in that stoner movie commercial it was even better because I didn’t have to hear it blaring from all the student homes on my block everyday. But that is a different complaint.) Anyways, about two weeks ago, everyone switched to playing the rap version, and even the radio started playing just the rap version. Quite frankly, I think it makes the song worse. But even if it didn’t, even if it makes it different, it most certainly doesn’t make it better. These rappers came in after the album was released and after the commercial, and they said, “Hey M.I.A., I’ll rap over your already really good song. Then I’ll get to take credit for the song too, because I’ll get a ‘featuring’ by-line on it, sound good?” And for some reason I don’t understand, she said okay.

So what do we do about these people, these individuals that have no shame and are willing and able to sap our creativity, individual thoughts, and poignant comments with a subtly disguised “me too”? Is our only recourse to keep all our best ideas squirreled away for when no one else is around? That’s no way to live. To the Credit Free-Loader I say: Back off! Get your own sandwich! And to everyone else, let’s just keep resenting them in private, and let them think that they’ve got us all fooled into thinking they are awesome. We’ll bide our time, and one sweet day everything will balance out when no one comes to their birthday and they get kicked out of school for plagiarism.

In revolution-era China, landlords were often demonized as the principle enemy of the peasants. Here’s one possible reason why.

By Jenny Bundock

In an ongoing effort to be more aware of what bothers me on a day-to-day basis, I have started keeping track of certain people that seems to re-surface, time and again, as being really annoying.

For this first installment, I’d like to talk about possibly the most annoying person in the life of any renter: the “friendly” landlord.

Now, it is important to first distinguish friendliness as a personality trait from the “friendly” in quotation marks. See, friendliness I have little beef with. It’s fine as long as the landlord isn’t a huge asshole who doesn’t pay attention to you or the place and lets the apartment just go to hell, tenant after tenant. A wave or a cheerful hello at appropriate intervals — like rent collection time — or a courteous attitude when something breaks in the house, is good. This is not the person I dislike.

When I talk about “friendly” (in quotation marks) landlords, I am referring to the landlord with a reason to frequently be near the space you are renting, and who therefore pretends to befriend you in order to check up on you constantly. They also mask, with mock-friendly gestures, attempts to find ways into your house without giving you proper notice; or, as in my case, they’re sitting right now on your front porch, talking on their cell phone and waiting for you to come out.

My landlord does not live on-site. He is however, retired from any other job he may have previously had, and thus occupies his days with hanging around the property that I live on. I made the mistake of living on the ground floor, at the front of the house, which is split into eight apartments. This means that both the area in front of my door and my front porch see a lot of traffic: smokers, cell phone users, bikers locking their bike to the porch, and drunks on weekends. Some of that traffic is the annoying and creepy “friendly” landlord, who — if I didn’t go out of my way to avoid — would try to talk to me in my doorway, at my car, or on my way out, almost every single day.

He asks me what colours I painted the apartment, what kind of paint I used, if I have any garbage inside, if I need him to build me anything for the place, if I want to see his scary basement crawlspace silence-of-the-lambs workshop below my apartment, and if I have talked to his mother (the ACTUAL landlord on the lease) recently. I’ve had to start checking out of all my house windows before I leave to see if he is around; when I arrive, I have to unlock and enter my home as quickly as possible because he can usually see me long before I can see him.

This is not the first time this has happened, either. Last summer, my boyfriend and a couple of my close friends were living together as roommates above a barbershop in the city. They too had a “friendly” landlord who ran his virtually-deserted business on the ground floor. In order to enter the apartment, you had to go in a door beside the shop, which would have been fine, except that the landlord in this situation had put mirrors up, so that no matter where he was in the store, he could see if someone was either knocking on (like I had to do) or unlocking the door… and he would come out.

To break the ice, he would then heavily criticize some behavior he suspected was going on upstairs — which actually wasn’t — like, “Stop leaving the shower on without the curtain pulled. It is rotting the floor and leaking into my shop.” It didn’t help that he also seemed to have taken a shine to me, and would often try to kiss my face or hands if he spotted me waiting to be let into the apartment. He never fully buttoned his shirt either, and his bald liver-spotted head hardly had my heart racing… at least not in any positive way. Whenever he approached me with his hairy open arms (while I was waiting, desperately and urgently pounding the door for someone to let me inside), I started meditating, so that I could leave my body and never look back should he actually get a hold of me before the door opened.

I have heard other “friendly” landlord stories where the landlords have done things like call tenants’ cell phones asking them when they will be returning home, because they want to “talk”; others drop by unexpectedly to do something like “mow the lawn” while in reality they are just checking that you haven’t been up to anything sketchy in the apartment. It’s like they believe there’s a clause allowing them to suspend our tenant rights just because we are relatively young renters, and if they just pretend we are all “friends hanging out” maybe they’ll be able to keep closer watch on the lot of us.

I mean, I get it: students and young people fuck up apartments. But they also get taken advantage of because they don’t understand their rights, so you can’t have it both ways, Mr. Give-me-a-damage-deposit-and-first-and-ast-and-I-won’t-pay-you-interest-on-your-last-month’s-rent-and-I-won’t-fix the-hot-water-heater-and-I’ll-write-illegal-shit-into-your-lease-like-no-pets.

I guess, the other possibility is that they are lonely individuals, and having tenants is a way to force people into “friendship” — since you really don’t want to piss your landlord off by telling him to get off your fucking porch already. So it might be kind of sad, but it is not a problem I feel responsible for. It is possible that they’ve driven away would-be friends by being so overbearing and creepy to them as well. 

So, thank you, “friendly” landlord, for making me a prisoner in my own home.

Chronic back pain from sleeping on shitty futons may result in crotchety-ness, anger, and rather amusing articles.

By Jenny Bundock

Now, I have spent a number of years as a student, and throughout my various scholastic levels and degrees I have been plagued by a paradox that seems to apply to almost every student I know or have known… and that paradox is:

Why do we own futons?

I have been thinking about this all week, as I have been sleeping in the living room of my new house, waiting for the frosh-ness to calm down enough for me to figure out how I want to set up my bedroom. I can tell you right now, the futon makes almost no sense.

But wait! I am forgetting the key principal of the futon itself, for it is not just a bed, it is also a couch! Huzzah! The saving grace of the futon!

Not.

Think about it. Have you ever fallen tiredly onto your friend’s futon-sofa and felt even a shred of relief? Of course not. How about a shred of wood, pushing through the thin padding and into your supple body? Sound more like it? You probably thought to yourself, “hell, this is one damn uncomfortable sofa…”, followed immediately by “oh wait, it’s a futon… never mind then”. Apparently, the futon’s ability to double as a sofa has somehow blinded us to the fact that it sucks in either form.

The shitty bed is the same compromise implicit in the uncomfortable sofa dilemma; the mere option of it also being a sofa seems to negate any criticism about it being a really terrible bed because it isn’t just a bed. But why does anyone want a shitty bed, regardless of its other qualities? Seriously. Have you ever awoken from a long comfortable sleep on your bad futon to think, “Ah, I am completely refreshed and ready to begin my day anew”? More likely you woke up and thought “wow, I feel tired and my back hurts…”, but were lulled back into futon acceptance at the thought of putting the back up to read. The sacrifices that we make for features that are otherwise unavailable, regardless of how nominal or unfunctional they make the initial product, is astounding.

I equate this with the problem of cell phones. Have you tried to buy a phone these days? You can’t even get one! You have to buy a phone that is also a camera, video camera, walkie-talkie, internet browser, and mp3 player. Now, my cynical logic would argue that they should have perhaps figured out how to make my phone work all the time before they started adding to the original product. But perhaps rather than fixing the logistical problems associated with creating a reliable phone, they’ve taken a page from the book of futon and distracted us with appealing options instead. We can’t call anyone on our phones, but we can listen to Rihanna and take pictures of strangers who look like celebrities on the subway between dropped calls, so we forgive and forget. Personally, I’d rather have a camera that was a good camera, and a phone that was a good phone, instead of a bad camera and bad phone combo… but what do I know?

The only “futons” that I have slept on and felt good awakening from were the “premium” futons that both my best friend and my boyfriend have. What is interesting about the premium futon is that they are shitty sofas. They don’t fold up all the way because the mattress is too thick. Therefore, I am disqualifying them from my discussion about TRUE futons, because really they are like manual ultramatic beds, rather than futons, since you can only raise the back, and only to the first notch.

Though the “premium futons” are a bit of a cop-out on the values of futons themselves, they do give me hope for society as a whole… If we can come to accept something that compromises one aspect of the design in favor of comfort and quality elsewhere, then maybe, just maybe, there is hope for us yet! Next, we’ll have a “supreme” futon that is a poor bed but a rather nice couch, and the illusion of the futon choice will exist but without the compromise in quality. Eventually, we’ll have premium futons in our bedrooms and supreme futons in the living room; without giving up the concept of a futon, we will suffer no longer at the hands of the “have it all in one package” crowd, because they will believe that they still have all the options, but in specialized futons for each room.

So while there may be a light at the end of the tunnel, I am still left wondering: how is it that we came to a place where we are ready to accept the inferior, so long as it is coupled with something else inferior, under the guise of getting a good package deal? When did this part of our culture breed and how is it that the futon became the big uncomfortable bastard child of our generation of “I don’t care if it is good, so long as I get a lot of it” students?

Like I said, it’s perplexing. But it’s late, and I have class tomorrow… which means it is time for me to lower the back, and toss and turn until morning.

Yours on a felt-filled flat mattress, three inches off the floor,

Jenny