Pap Rally

I've been on the pill for eight years, since I was seventeen and my mother finally took pity on me for spending two days of every month lying on the bathroom floor writhing in agony and vomiting when I had my period. She took me to our family doctor who prescribed me Yasmin, and I have been happily popping the pill since. When I moved to Toronto, I presented my prescription at the pharmacy and was told I would need to have it signed by a Canadian doctor, so off I went to find a one. I first tried a downtown walk-in clinic which had it all -ugly waiting room, rude secretary behind the counter, and a fifty dollar fee to see the MD. I left and turned to Google, which pointed me in the direction of the Bay Centre for Birth Control, part of the Women's College Hospital.

Here the waiting room is painted a pleasant shade of purple, the administrators are friendly and droll and the doctors and nurses are like the cool aunts and older sisters you always wanted. And it's all free, even to non citizens -I was impressed.

When asked how long it had been since my last pap test I sheepishly admitted 'never' and winced inside. I was told I would have to get one before I could be prescribed the pill, and was penciled in for an appointment. I hate doctors and hospitals and all that stuff. I didn't think I would like them any better with my pants off, and for the next week I asked friends about what to expect, and was told time and again that it was 'No big deal.'

And of course, they were right, and I'd like to describe it for those of you who haven't had one, and also don't know what to expect. In a room I undressed and slipped into medical gown, folding my clothes on the chair, but carefully hiding my underwear in my bag, as if forgetting that the doctor was about to be gazing into my vulva in five minutes time. She came in, listened to my heart beat, checked my blood pressure and gave me a breast exam, while explaining how to do it myself at home. Then feet up on the stirrups, I spread 'em and lay back. The doctor [a Tina Fey lookalike] tried to show me the speculum but I shut my eyes and told her to just work away. Yeah so maybe it's immature and unhip, but I was nervous and self conscious as only one can be when they are showing their vagina to the third person ever, and that person is wearing latex gloves.

Anyway, it was all over in a minute [that's what she said] -she inserted the speculum, took a swab, then lubed up her gloves and took a little feel-around and that was it. I was told to get another the following year, then I got dressed and bought myself an ice cream sundae for my troubles. No big deal is right.

Except the next year I was back in Ireland, and when I went to the doctor and asked for a breast exam and pap test, I was charged sixty euros for the breast exam and told that I couldn't get a pap because "the government will call you when you're due one". Yeah, really.

Confused, I again turned to the internet to find out what the deal was there, and sure enough, in Ireland, the National Cervical Screening Programme is in charge of scheduling your smear test. You are summoned by a letter for your pap, like jury duty, and on the bright side, it IS free. However, you're not added to this register until you turn twentyfive, and they then have three years to get around to issuing your invitation. In Canada, on the other hand, it is recommended you get tested every year for the first three years after you start engaging in sexual activity [an average of age 17 I would guess] and you HAVE to get one before you can be prescribed the pill. Now, I'm not slamming the NCSP, and I think it's great they are working to screen as many women as they can, and free of charge! It's a great programme but I dooo think the age limit needs to be lowered, or at least that younger women should be encouraged to get screened too even if not through this programme. I know far too many women my age who aren't even sure what a pap test consists of, or what it is for, and that's something that really does need to change, considering cervical cancer can be quite treatable if caught early enough. Even if you take into account that it could take a couple of years for a woman's cells to show up as abnormal after contracting the cancer-causing strains of HPV, by age 25 most women have been engaging in sexual activity for the best part of a decade, and many will have been on the pill for years at that stage too.

Currently the Cervical Check screening programme adds women to the register based on information from the Department of Social and Family Affairs, but you can now actively opt-in here, so do yourself a favour today and get on it!

Read into it

At the moment I am getting some work experience in the library [which is awesome!] but today while I was doing some data entry of authors and titles, I couldn't get over the amount of books named "Some guy's woman"



The Time Traveller's Wife
The Zookeeper's Wife
The Doctor's Wife
The Senator's Wife
The Pilot's Wife
The Centurion's Wife
The Kitchen God's Wife
Prophet's Wife
The Diplomat's Wife
The Dopeman's Wife
The Heretic's Daughter
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
The Murderer's Daughters
The Apothecary's Daughter
The Bonesetter's Daughter
The Calligrapher's Daughter
Frontiersman's Daughter
The Gravedigger's Daughter
The General's Daughter
The Florist's Daughter
Songs for the Butcher's Daughter

Needless to say, when searching for books titles "The _____'s Husband/Son", results were bleak. No "The Surgeon's Husband", no 'The Senior Account Executive's Son". 

Now I'm putting my hand up right now and admitting I haven't read any of these. I just don't get it. Is there one very famous book  similarly titled which they are all just paying homage to? Can anyone explain this to me? Because honestly, I'm not impressed.

white wash boy

he's different tonight
drunk and word-slurring
he moves a lot, talks with his hands, ducks his head around, leans in and out.
he's usually composed.
serious.
calm. 
it's funny.
he even smells different.
it's like he's a different person. hair just cut too.
could he have a younger, giddier brother i don't know about?
his voice is even different
at least, when we're talking.


it's kind of like
meeting a stranger.
does this mean i'll have to add one to my number?

we go down to the gallery's basement.

if they hear us
will they think
it is performance art?
is it performance art?

i spit. he swigs from a flask. 
i have to run, i have a magic pony to catch
and friends to meet, who are not impressed
but i know they are just annoyed that they are at the art show
to just see the art.

Work it

I broke one of my own rules today.

A couple years ago I decided I was never going to use the tried and tested "I have a boyfriend" line to get out of an awkward situation with a guy. Even if it happened to be the case. It just seemed like a cop out, and why should I rely on some real/imaginary man to stave off another? Besides, it sometimes gave the impression to the determined ones that the real reason I was declining their offer was because I was just a loyal girlfriend, that I wanted to but couldn't, when no, I didn't want to.

I figured that in the long run, it would be more beneficial for womankind if we were just honest.

"No thanks, I'm not interested".

"Excuse me, but you're interrupting my evening with my friend."

"I don't want to dance/drink/talk with you, and I'm not obliged to explain why."

But today i was caught off guard. Old guys always catch me off guard, I'm too naive, I assume they look at me and see that young lass who works in the hardware store/ clothes store/ library, who is, like all retail staff, paid to assist them and be courteous and smile. I forget that sometimes "Do you need some white spirits with that?" or "You can take computer number four!" can be code for "I want you. I've always wanted you. You were born, and then thirtyfive years later, I was born to want you."

It's a simple mistake, a mere translational faux pas.

Next thing you know, the guy who wanted your advice on choosing a paint colour for his kitchen is reaching over to admire the detail on your necklace. And the guy in the gardening section asks you for your number so you can "hang out sometime", while his wife and child are in the pharmacy next door.

In the library last week, I was told by an elderly man I was "nice to look at". Phew! Glad I'm doing my job right. Know what else in the library is nice to loo at? Books. Eyes on the page, Gramps.

But today during lunch, when a familiar face who frequents the library smiled on the street as we crossed paths, and it was sunny out so I smiled back with one of those "we don' really know each other but it's sunny!" smiles and he stopped me to ask if I was working today and I said yes, and then he asked if i had children, like it was the most natural question in the world. I was a bit taken aback.

"Do I have children?? I AM children!"

"Are you single?"

"Er... No."

*Hurries away*

I panicked, and relied on my make-believe boyfriend to rescue me. 

Okay, I know, he's an adult, I'm an adult, and it's a free country -there's nothing wrong with it as such... but it weirds me out. Mostly because I'm always left wondering do I really come across as the kind of girl who would want to get with them? Which is silly. There is no "kind of girl" -but do I give out a vibe of wanting to hook up with older, often married men? UGH. I don't think I do. In fact, I feel as though I dress particularly young compared to a lot of my peers. I wear dresses and colourful tights and plastic jewellery. I'm still hoping to one day fill out in the chest department. I was not one of those sixteen year olds who dated guys in their twenties and got into all the clubs, and even now I get carded all the time and mistaken for as young as seventeen. [sometimes by seventeen year old boys. another story].

So when these older guys take a shine to me, it's not that I'm horrified they would mack on a woman in her mid-twenties, but that they'd mack on someone who could pass for even younger. That's what's so eww to me.

To summarise... Dear sleazy men. Please do not hit on women who are being paid to be nice. Be polite and wait until we're off the clock -then we can tell you where to go.

Work Abroad Expo at the RDS

Admission is ten bucks, that's pretty cheap for a ticket out of here.
 I give my money to the Avon Lady at the door, and she hands me a plastic bag filled with leaflets on cheap travel insurance and fake magazines about how great life is on the other side of the world.
I came for the seminars, and I'm late.
The chairs are all filled, the boat is full, and people line the edges of the room.
A Canadian woman with a clip-on microphone is very quickly explaining the process.
She's a government official, she knows what's up and is here to help.
It's a points system, she explains.

You get points for age.
Under 35, you get full points. After that, it all goes downhill.
-No kidding.
You get points for education.
-You had damn better. It's all I got.
You get points for skills, but only if they're on the list.
If you're a plumber, carpenter or electrician, welcome to Canada, come on in and make yourself at home.
Plasterer? Sorry, you're SOL, son.
You get points for fluency in English, and bonus points for French.
-I took German. Fuck. So long, Quebec.
You can buy your way in if you have eighty big ones.You're not allowed in if you, or your husband, or your kid has diabetes, or cancer, or anything else that's going to make you a burden on the government.
Be careful who you love.

A hand goes up.“What if you're over 55?”
It's the saddest question I have ever heard.
“You still might get in, if you can make the points up elsewhere,” she says.
I can only see the guy from the back. His hair is greying. His sweater is grey too, and worn. I hope he's a glazier. Canada is crying out for glaziers.
Another hand.“What is the minimum acceptable score on the English fluency test?”
“A seven across the board”.
The guy has a thick Indian accent. But he'll be okay. He just used the word
minimum.

_________________________



There are thirty minutes to kill between each show. I walk around and collect free pens. I enter raffles for things I don't want. I listen to a girl's long rehearsed spiel about why I need to spend half a grand on a TEFL course this weekend and how if I mention her nameI'll get a discount. Some of the stalls don't apply to me. There are a lot for healthcare workers. I want one of their pens, and I don't want to look like a scab, so I pretend to read one of their leaflets for a minute. A Filipino man and woman visiting the same stall give me a big smile and the guy says “Hi, nurse!” They're being nice to me just because they think I'm one of them. That blows me away, and for a second, I wish I was a nurse so I could chat about our respective hospitals and specialties, but I hate needles, so I just smile and walk away like the fraud I am, clutching my pen

_________________________


I check out a seminar on New Zealand. I've never really thought about going down under.Going to Australia means hanging out with a bunch of sunburnt and dehydrated Irish people in crappy Irish bars and getting really excited about GAA matches and Tayto crisps. You have to wear string tops and cargo shorts and slave away picking fruit or collecting glasses for six months just to save enough money to blow on one week in Thailand with the same sunburnt and dehydrated Irish people.But New Zealand could be Australia's cooler older cousin, you know, a graphic designer with a great apartment and an even better record collection who only drinks craft beer and plays the ukulele. The guy is selling it. NZ sounds awesome. Great weather, great schools, great healthcare,great tax rates, great
Quality of Life.
This is the phrase of the day.


But then he shows us a video. It looks like it cost a lot of money. There is an awful soundtrack that combines indigenous Kiwi music with upbeat drums. People are skydiving, and parasailing, and horse-riding, and surfing, and they're all smiling, there's lots of smiling. It's like any tourism commercial on TV, I guess. Except we're two minues in... four minutes in and still going.
Now people are walking on beaches at sunset, eating fresh fruit in fields, drinking wine in flattering lighting with attractive people, dancing at a nightclub. It's never going to end.I'm waiting for the images to morph into some kind of vortex that sucks us all into the screen and traps us in a New Zealand tourist video forever which might not be so bad 'cos we'll get to get drunk and go bungee jumping with tanned hotties, but now I'm laughing at this ridiculously long video which promises that life in New Zealand is one long adventure weekend and nobody ever has to go to the dentist or get divorced or live on cups of instant noodles for weeks on end, but I'm still the only one laughing, what is wrong
with these people?

You can walk your dog in New Zealand. You can join a rugby team in New Zealand. Your kid can jump on a trampoline in New Zealand. Your boyfriend can draw a heart on a sandy beach with a big stick in New Zealand. In slow motion.The video finally ends and I'm out of there.

_____________________



The place has filled up now. It was quieter this morning, only the people who had been considering making the move for a long time, who are committed enough to make the10.30am seminar. Now everyone else is here, the ones who have panicked, who are desperate.You go to one of these Work Abroad Expos, and you expect it to be full of kids. Kids looking for a gap year after finishing their Leaving Certs and before starting college, or after finishing college and before starting a Real Job. I did. I expected wrong. At least half the attendants are over forty. Some pushing sixty. Some with worried wives looking around, holding tightly onto lots of leaflets they've been handed. Lots with their kids in tow. Babies, in strollers, or toddlers -one hand in dad's hand, the other in a bag of Starmix. A young family sits on the bench next to me. Dad stares at the wall ahead. Baby wriggles around in stroller reaching its hands out for attention. Mom's on her phone to her sister or best friend or someone talking about how they were just talking to someone about some little town in Nova Scotia that's letting people in, and how the lady at the table said they have really good childcare and low crime rates. She's excited about their new life, or trying to be excited, it sounds more like, and all I can think is that it sounds like a shitty town with nothing to do, and how lonely she will be and how much she'll miss whoever she is on the phone to.

_____________________


I've always wanted to go. Before the recession, before college, I've wanted to go since I was 7 years old, and then I did go and I loved it so much I want to go again, for good. For me, the prospect has only ever filled me with excitement. These people don't want to go. You can tell. And it's fucking depressing.

______________________



The longest queue is for a stall called Skill Shortage Solutions. This company helps you with your application when you don't meet the standard requirements. No degree? No trade? No English? No problem!  As far as the Department of Immigration is concerned, the lepers but this crowd offers free consultations. You fill out a form, and they call you in a week, and arrange fee payment to secure their services. I'm guessing there is no money back guarantee.

____________________

Last seminar of the day. An immigration lawyer, this guy is ridiculous. Shiny suit, hair that's way too maintained, a smile like a orthodontist's kid. He's just a car salesman with some letters after his name.The crowd pours out the door, people shoving to get nearer the front, women using their kids as strategic weapons.
“Excuuuuse me, can I get through?” -waving her sticky child in your face. I was never a fan of that 'women and children first' bullshit.

Everyone's staring at the guy on the pulpit, hanging on his every word.“Hands up who wants to go to Canada!! You, sir in the green shirt, why do you wanna go?”
Faceless man in the audience mumbles something.
“More opportunities, that's right! Lady in the third row, why do you want to go? Good place to raise your kids? Sure is! And you? Ah, better Quality of Life, that's what I'm talking about!”

Is this for real? Who IS this guy? And what's with this southern Baptist church pep rally bullshit? I feel like I'm at a Tony Robbins gig. More talk about points systems and provincial nominee options and free consultations and nominal fees. I look around, weigh up people's odds in my head. You, you, you, maybe you, definitely not you, you, maybe you. Eyeing competition. There's not much competition. Half these people are just lost.They lack the get up and go. They're not as desperate as their numbers would lead you to believe.

____________________

I swore I wouldn't make any tired, melodramatic, or downright insulting analogies to thefamine or coffin ships, and I won't, I swear.

_____________________


I took the number seven bus from Nassau street to get there. A Chinese girl got on after me, asked to go to Shelbourne street, and dropped her coins in the slot.
“Where?” The busdriver barked.
“Shelbourne street?” she repeated. Okay, her pronunciation wasn't perfect, but I was halfway down the bus and I could fucking understand her.

“Shebon Street? Never heard of it. How am I supposed to take you somewhere you don't even know the name of?”
Prick. He knows right well.
A girl behind her, South American, says “She said Shelbourne Street.”
“Is that what you said?” he barks again. The Chinese girl, kind of confused now just nodded.
“Then why didn't you say Shelbourne Street?”
Fucking prick.
“I'm sorry my pronunciation is not great...” She's embarrassed.
He just grunts. I kind of hope his kids have to emigrate and he never sees his grandkids again.

edam emoh

I smiled when I saw this on PostSecret.com six days ago, and thought it was a pity I owned nothing with your handwriting to draw a comparison, and forgot about it. 

And just now, a week later, I was about to fall asleep and suddenly remembered I do have something with your handwriting, and got up from my bed and shuffled through a pile of CDs and found it. They look identical to me. A coincidence, I guess, but they really looked identical.

manic street preacher

 I was waiting to meet someone outside the Eaton Centre in the pouring rain, and there was this man. He was pacing through puddles in his barefeet and had some police crime scene tape wrapped around his head. He was yelling at a bunch of strangers in Dundas Square so my first impression of him was that he was crazy, a Jesus freak or a panhandler at least. The kind you usually avoid making eye contact with. But I did make eye contact with him, and then I couldn't look away.

"I got kicked out of my apartment last night...my landlord didn't pay the hydro... I didn't do anything wrong but I ended up getting kicked out into the street..in this freezing cold and rain, and i had to go to the poorhouse... I'm supposed to have too much dignity to admit that I spent a night at a poorhouse...people judged me, people saw me sitting on the street today and think i'm this or that but they don't know nothing about me...

"God loves you, jesus loves you...that doesn't mean nothing. Who cares if god loves you or not? It's not important. I LOVE YOU. that's what matters...I LOVE YOU. I was on the streets all day and these kids man, these kids came up and gave me their change... "

"It's like this [pulls out these two small curved pieces of cardboard from his pocket, one blue one red and holds them up]. You're looking at these and you're trying to figure out which one is bigger. look up around you at all these signs and bilboards and advertisements... They can sell you an alarm clock in Futureshop for 70 dollars by putting its picture on a bilboard, and you can get the same thing in chinatown for eight bucks..where does all that extra profit go? Yhey're the same thing. It's an illusion. [holds up the pieces of cardboard again and places one over the other]. the red one appreared bigger but they're the same size. You were trusting your eyes instead of what was really there.. but the kids man.... they came up to me and gave me their change. i love the children. have a great day"
and walked off.