I’ve never heard of loquats before, and when I heard of the indie-pop band Loquat it made me think it was some made up word combination of “Lo-fi” and “squat.” Though, to hear Loquat speak of the loquat apparently I’ve been missing out on a lot of quat.

I’m always amazed at the ability of nature to keep its tastiest grubbins as the literal and figurative fruit of a conquest for those with the ingenuity and patience to access it. It’s almost as if nature wants the strongest to survive and eat well. To the victor goes the sweetest spoils.

If I were a tree climbing prodigy living in the loquat’s native southeast China in the dark ages I would have been considered a king. But I’m not a tree climbing prodigy. I’m actually rather dainty, and were I trying to get a loquat today I’d probably just head down to Whole Foods which is no real test of my loquat harvesting acumen.

I wonder what my modern day loquat is and whether I’m the person who is strong enough to suffer bloody feet from climbing a tree, or the person who is just waiting to get pelted with fruit by someone more agile?

I’ve always been a little punk at heart and really like that Agnostic Front are good honest people:

The only thing about being honest is that sometimes people don’t want the truth.

Here in Chicago the weather has turned cold and I’m now subjected to the predictable response from strangers, usually in a conversation in an elevator, when I tell them I’m originally from Canada. “Ohhh, so you don’t have a problem with the cold! You’re used to it!”  The truth is, I’m not okay with the cold. I hate the cold, it’s only useful to me to keep my food from spoiling. But until I move back to LA in February I’m going to be forced to deal with this unsurprising, mindlessness from strangers.

I used to think that honesty was the best policy as I would reply “Actually I hate the cold. Just because I’m from Canada doesn’t mean I have ice in my veins or that I’m a reptile or an Eskimo. I’m all bundled up just like you and I can’t wait ’til this nightmare ends.”  Mostly people don’t know how to react to that and I’m usually met with an awkward “Oh.” Apparently the truth comes off as rude, which means that now I’m torn between feeling rude and telling the truth or being agreeable and a liar.

I’ve decided just to “go with the flow”, “take the path of least resistance” and just agree with them.  People generally respond better. “Oh, yeah, this cold, it’s just peachy. I’ve got ice in my veins. You know my relatives are all Eskimos. Ha, ha, ha.”  It turns out people don’t want the truth. They just want you to agree with them.

Is there anyone out there who really loves remaining in the dark? Apparently The Black Angels do.

That feeling that they speak of–the unknown–is very powerful and we are all feeling it right now as the country and the world are in the midst of a lot of economic uncertainty. The thing that occurred to me is that even when we think we know what is going on we are still living in the unknown. Things can change at anytime.

Knowing information, having a plan, predicting the future, even knowing I’m going to have a tuna sandwich for lunch gives a sense of security and power. For me, it’s because the unknown is a scary, dark place. Misty, vague, unsure. It brings up questions. How will I pay my rent? Does he love me? Did that waiter spit in my food? But the reality is that the unknown doesn’t equal calamity it only equals mystery. (KEEP READING LIFE’S SURPRISE PARTY HERE)

Whit, my twenty-something co-worker, reached out like an infant with his curious fingers and sampled the texture of the fabric on my dress sleeve. “I wish I could wear one of those. It looks so comfortable.”

“You can,” I replied. “I give you permission to wear a dress.” Walking away I couldn’t help thinking it was interesting that a man wanted the privilege of doing something that I take for granted. He doesn’t want to wear a dress for any latent homosexual reasons or because he has a repressed desire to have sex with his mother or even for fashion reasons, but merely because it seems the more comfortable choice.

Wearing a dress connotes weakness, while the person who “wears the pants” is apparently the person who is in charge. But since historically men were the ones who traditionally “wore the pants,” then how have they overlooked this? Whit couldn’t be the first man to realize that a dress would be the more comfortable option.

(SO WHO WEARS THE DRESS? KEEP READING)

Hot tubs are the sort of thing that are hard not to love. There is a unifying quality about a hot tub and The Whip certainly has a strong emotional reaction to them.

One of the best things about going home to Canada to visit my family is that my mother has become a “hot tub enthusiast.” What this means is that a few years ago she moved into a new house that had not only an outdoor but also an indoor hot tub. I’m not talking about some rinky-dink bathtub whirlpool. I mean that the previous owner of the house installed a legitimate, full force, two person hot tub in the master bathroom. It is a soaking vessel of monolithic proportions whose retractable vinyl cover doubles as a catch-all for towels during the summer months.
The indoor hot tub has been enjoyed so much that this fall the aging outdoor hot tub was replaced with a brand new model, complete with variable jets and underwater disco lighting. For my mother the hot tub has become a new child or a lap dog; something that receives constant attention. Now she’s buying accoutrements for it like plastic pillows and a new pergola to keep the snow off in winter. Every morning she wakes up and heads for the tub and in the evening her favorite activity is to have a glass of wine and wind down in 102 degrees of frothy heaven. It’s like she’s marinating herself with a red wine jus in a giant crock-pot. I’ve realized that this is the house you go to die in relaxing comfort.

I’ve been making changes in my life lately just to see what happens. A few thoughts have occurred to me since I started trying to do things differently and one of those things is that it’s tough to find things to do differently. Fortunately Bronx hip-hop duo Shootyz Groove has given me a few ideas.

I’m sure eventually I’ll get to the part where I try all different types of women, though as a straight woman I’m not sure what that means to me. For now though I’ve chosen to try all different types of food.

Every time I go to a restaurant I order the exact same thing. If I go out for Thai I get chicken pad thai, Italian is spaghetti bolognese, breakfast is poached eggs and sausage or bacon, Indian is chana masala. I’ve decided to make a new rule for myself that I have to order something I usually wouldn’t.

I’ve been out to a restaurant three times since I decided to do this and all three times I jumped off my own beaten path, throwing caution to the wind by trying something new. I was rewarded with some delicious experiences. It made me pay attention and enjoy the experience as opposed to just satisfying my hunger or craving.

I realized that by ordering the same thing all the time I’m just trying to avoid disappointment. I want to know what I’m getting. It’s the theory that all chain restaurants are built around. People want things that are familiar. Apparently it became more important to me to get something familiar than risk being disappointed and get something that might be incredible. I eat three times a day! How is the possibility of one bad meal too risky? It makes me wonder what other ways in my life I’m being non-flexible in an attempt to avoid disappointment.

There’s never a bad place to get good advice. Nobody knows this better than Walter Meego, who found words of wisdom in a Washington water closet.

Change is big in the cultural awareness right now. It was a big slogan used during the recent election and it seems like no matter which party you voted for, the one thing agreed upon is everyone wanted something to change. As much as humans are rarely content and always want something different, they are also creatures of habit and want to control things and have them remain the same. So, rarely do people change anything until life gets so uncomfortable that anything would be better than what is currently happening.

(CONTINUE READING SOMETHING NEW)