jords on jords.

Once again, I find myself at the end of another year. Physically and mentally exhausted, I’m grateful for the opportunity to turn the calendar to a fresh start. I’ll be honest with you, internets, 2011’s been a real sack of shit. 

Yet despite everything — the past 12 (let’s be honest, 18) months of loss, agony and heartbreak — I find myself unable to say it’s all been for nought.  Bookending each nightmare has been things for which I am truly thankful: the constant reminders that there are people in the world who love me. The knowledge that everything hurts less with time. Gaining the confidence in myself to know that no matter how bad things get, I’ll come back swinging. Plus, what I’m sure will be the ongoing theme in my life: [almost] everything is hilarious if you want to look at it that way. I do.

So thanks, 2011.  If anything, you’ve put me in a place where I have no capacity to feel shame, and taught me that there’s no reason to fear failure. 

2012 will be great. (Or not; I probably just jinxed it.)

I don’t think it is news to anyone who exists in Canada that the Liberal Party was decimated in the May 2011 federal election. But I’d like to thank outgoing Liberal Party President Alf Apps for the reminder in today’s National Post, and for the knowledge that he thinks we’re all a bunch of lazy bums who ruined a once-great institution. 

Despite the blanket accusations that Mr. Apps feels it is appropriate to publicly throw at his employees, volunteers and membership, politics is no business for the lazy.  Even when you fail miserably, you move mountains if they’re standing in your way.  Working in politics is 7:00am to 11:00pm every day of your life, sleeping with your phone next to your face each night, missing out on milestones, not expecting there’s ever truly a time when you’re “out of the office” kind of work. Emotionally and physically draining, for little pay and almost no recognition beyond the knowledge in the back of your mind that some days, you might have done something good for someone, somewhere. Here’s hoping.

And yet I’ve never heard a political staffer or campaign volunteer complain about any of that.  It’s what we signed up for.  Doing something good for Canadians is what we wake up in the morning to do and what we go to sleep at night thinking about. This isn’t a Liberal trait, by the way.  I believe it is universal across all the parties.

But back to our Liberal woes: Maybe folks on the Bay St. cocktail circuit think we’re all an “aging and self-satisfied crowd of insiders preoccupied by long faded glories and still-festering rivalries,” and — even more insulting — “lazy.” Fine.  They are entitled to their opinions.

However, all the reasons Mr. Apps cited for our downfall (not reaching out to grow and cement our base, failing to modernize our technology, being terrible fundraisers, not doing the things our opponents have been doing, instituting a cult of leadership, etc.), perhaps these could have been things he addressed during his Presidency? He had two years to change the culture of the party. Two years, and all we’ve got to show for it is 100 pages of recommendations (released to the media before the membership, I’d like to point out) and a bunch of desperate-sounding headlines.

I believe it is possible to have thoughtful, consultative discussions about organizational reform without the overly dramatic flair that only serves to reinforce perceptions that the Liberal Party of Canada is a group of power-hungry headline chasers who have been reduced to self-flagellation to stay in the news. Close the Peter C. Newman songbook, delete next week’s column, stop appearing on TV to tout your renewal plan, roll up your sleeves and let’s get to work.

Randomly started thinking about that one time I got dumped for a Paultard.

Even when things seem like they are the worst, they are still more hilarious than I ever could have imagined.

The election happened; now it’s all over but the shredding. Here’s three snapshots of the aftermath:

Election night was a cruel rewind on a smaller scale; watching people’s reactions, knowing what they were thinking about, feeling empathetic but oddly detached. Losing isn’t as bad if you just expect that you’ll feel like shit on election night.  Also, I don’t know what winning feels like.

We went to Alaska this weekend.  I should have done that after the federal election. Fly fishing is way better than making terrible life decisions because at the end of the day if you fail at fishing, you just don’t have any fish.

Driving back to Whitehorse, I turned on the radio and heard the federal campaign song. This song has become my own personal reminder of the precarious grip we sometimes have on success. It is also a terrible song. This time, I heard it and realized every moment in my life, every decision I ever made, everything I ever accomplished or failed at had led me to right now, where I was [still] unemployed and driving a pickup truck full of rocks from Haines to Whitehorse. After deciding whether to laugh, cry, or do neither (I chose neither), I continued driving.  What other option was there?

Do not let the depressing post-election woes expressed in this blog post make you think I did not enjoy my time in Whitehorse.  Second only to moving to Canada initially, coming here is probably the best decision I ever made.  I’m deciding what to do next, and I will update you all accordingly.

Today was good.  There are these two really cute little girls who sometimes hang out at the campaign office while their mom works.  I’ve befriended the older daughter, who is maybe six years old. She told me she liked me. It was the best feeling in the world.

Then we talked about Barbie movies.  I have a lot to learn.

Hello from Whitehorse!

Ten hours of flights later, I made it to Yukon in one piece.  That last sentence was mostly for my mother, who sent me a pretty upset email about not calling her or answering my phone when I arrived.  While they do have cell phones here, mine doesn’t work at all, so friends—please do email me. 

Anyway, today was my first full day in the territory.  I went for breakfast with some campaign folks, did a few hours of labour at the party office, went to a cabin on a lake, ate caribou and saw a fox.  If you know me, you know that this is basically the best case scenario.

It is incredibly beautiful here in a way I’m not really sure yet how to describe, so please accept this photograph in lieu of 1000 words:

Politics has spoiled me. I’ve gotten to do some pretty incredible things in the past few years.  I’ve seen some places I wouldn’t normally have seen, met people who I never would have met, and have gotten to stand in the wings of some interesting moments in history.

Even though I thought I would hate it, this summer of not-working has been pretty fantastic.  I made it back out to British Columbia, couch surfed my way through a season, moved to Toronto, and was able to briefly pop down to New York to see my BFF before escaping the impending hurricane-caused ratpocolypse.  I also spent a lot of time sleeping, thinking, reading, and looking at things around me that I didn’t normally have time to see.  It’s amazing, the things you can do when you don’t have to do anything.

Here’s a paragraph about variations on a theme! Similar to when I decided to attend McGill, when I sold everything I owned on a Thursday to go work for Mr. Ignatieff on a Monday or when I said “sure, why not?” earlier this summer and moved to Toronto, it’s time for my next big adventure. On Saturday, I’m headed to Whitehorse, where I’ll be doing some work for the Yukon Liberals.

I should be back south of 60 sometime after the election, which has to be called by mid-October. Or I could decide I like it there and stay forever.  Opportunities like this, you’ve just got to grab them and see where they take you.  (Krista can probably tell you how obnoxiously, annoyingly, repetitively excited I am about all this.)

I’ll keep everyone updated via this blog and the occasional tweet. Please send me emails and stay in touch!

*Kinda.

Ottawa is a different planet. (Not that I have any experience with space travel, but if journalists can drop metaphor bombs at will, consider this my own “Liberal Express breakdown foreshadows historic election defeat.”)  Federal politics takes place in a bubble, and I’m still adjusting to the real world. It’s easy to get tangled up inside the Queensway, and then the next thing you know you’re completely unable to relate to the average person and you only have 34 seats in Parliament. That’s someone else’s book to write.

If asked why I’m not working, I usually say I’m taking time to do things I didn’t used to have time to do. This is technically true, since I only recently have time to write several versions of the same cover letter over and over again. On Saturday, that list of things included being an audience member of the CTV show “So You Think You Can Dance Canada” with a friend/former colleague, also new to Toronto.

Here’s my thoughts:

We were the oldest audience members not chaperoning offspring.  Expected, sure. It is different to joke how “it’s just going to be us and a bunch of 13 year old girls” and to realize that if this was a party, you’d be the one who has to purchase the booze. I felt old. Everyone else was so happy and so young; their personal and professional historic defeats not yet realized.

The host, judges and dancers were a lot smaller in real life than I expected: shorter, skinnier, more compact and looking less like actual people than I thought possible. Most of my on-air-personality interactions have been with journalists and politicians, whose appearance on television is usually more of a tertiary aspect of their jobs. In Ottawa, you can be tall or fat or ugly or have ultra mega 80s hair and still be allowed on TV if Dimitri gives it the OK.

I never want to be on television. I’m painfully shy and it was drilled into my brain that as a political staffer, I am never to appear on camera. Did you know that if you attend a taping of a television program, you might be on TV?  This was an opportunity to bring back my default face. You know the not-angry-but-also-not-welcoming-so-just-leave-me-alone face that prevents strangers from talking to you on the street?  It’s also one of those subtle things you can do to encourage a producer to pick a shot that includes not you.

During a commercial break, they played the song I hate the most. Ugh. Too soon.

At one point, two of the judges needed help with what to say about the previous performance. There was a person off-camera to assist them. I’ve been that person before and this was a nice reminder that I have applicable real-world skills. I was impressed that the production assistants were able to get paramedics into the studio and then an audience member out of the studio while cameras were still rolling, and nobody seemed to notice. I don’t think I need to wax poetic on how incredibly frustrating it was to repeatedly hear about the importance of voting for your favourite dancers, so they don’t get sent home.

One of the judges said something awkward to a contestant. I felt uncomfortable for the girl, who stood on stage wearing less than a bathing suit while this old man told the show’s ~800,000 viewers that she aroused him.  She’s up there doing her job, which she’s had to work very hard to do well, and he’s being a creep in a position of power. The four other judges managed to compliment her skills and beauty without being crude, so make of this what you will.

I don’t have a lot to say about the dancing part of this experience. I’m short, so I couldn’t really see what happening on stage. I spent most of the time paying attention to the judges, the crew, and the other folks in the crowd. I’ll watch the dancing part when the show airs on Monday and hopefully not see myself in the audience.