About Me (Since You Care)

Jennifer wanted to see a profile for me. She commented in regards to the GayBoy factoids, and this is what she said:

I'm disappointed I couldn't find a profile for you. But it pleases me to know that your name is Steff and that you are a girl. Can't I know anything else?

So, yeah. Okay. I can work with that. First of all, any questions you got, ask ‘em. I’ll answer honestly. Most of the time.

But here. Let’s start off with random things about me. Hmm. It’s so easier when it’s about other people. But fortunately, I had a few of these down already, with the intention of doing somethin' with 'em. All right, here goes.

[ED NOTE: For me, the links aren't working, but I can't see any problem with the coding. So, if you're having troubles, please say so. If you're not, then please say so. :) ]

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I am a girl. I am 31. I live alone. (See below.) I have a neat job. (See below.) I like playing with dictionaries and thesauruses. (Ergo.) My heritage is Irish and French, but I'm Vancouver born and bred. Third-generation Canadian in the house, yo.

Whenever a bee flies into the room I’m in, I’ll shoo it away and say, “Bee, be gone!” About 5 out of 7 times, this is effective.

I sing on my scooter. A favourite is Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz," but I change the line "Won't you buy me a colour TV?" to "Won't you buy me a plasma TV?" 'Cause, like, I've had colour since 1978.

Roadtrips rock. Nothing beats a stretch of black, a good car stereo blasting, and a sunny day with nothing but driving ahead of you. Love that. Now, if I had a car... (Scooters don’t do highways. Mmf.) I have driven from Alaska to Mexico, and half-way across Canada, not to mention every place in between. And man, can I talk myself out of a ticket.

I sound like a total party animal when you read my shit, but I love staying home. I'm a bit of a homebody. My apartment, pictured in the inset, is a cocoon. I also don't drink as much as you'd think, hanging with a lush like GayBoy, but I do drink. I love good (red) wine.

Pot, though. Yeesh. I'm an example of the productive pothead who's capable of conjuring complete sentences.

The best date I ever had was when a boy and I got stranded on a rocky cliff high over the ocean on a full moon night that wasn’t as bright as we’d hoped, making it impossible to find our way back to our car. Stranded there, a couple hundred feet above the ocean, the full moon, the ocean, and nothing but rocky crags up and down the coast. You wanna have an honest conversation? Spend the night on a cliff.

I’m a rabid patriot. I love being Canadian. It bothers me that this admission might perplex people from “fancier” countries, but I wouldn’t wanna be from anywhere else. If you’re relatively new to this blog, this is an early posting of mine that conveys my conviction (but it’s pretty harsh). This was the first posting I’d made on here. I like it.

I was once on a roadtrip with a friend and we coasted more than 30 kilometres down the Rocky Mountains, until we we coasted to a stop three blocks from the first gas station) when we ran out of gas between towns. Love that gravity. Isaac Newton was the bomb.

When I eat fried eggs, I always get ‘em over-easy and I’ll always eat the entire white first and leave both yolks for the end. I mean, save the best for last, right? Isn’t that why the orgasm comes at the end of sex? Ergo. My breakfast companions who've noticed think I'm weird and methodical. (They're right, but.)

My greatest fault is actually saying 80% of the things that occur to me. It’s a wonder I don’t get into more trouble. I must smile right.

I’m a ranter. I don’t just do it on here. I do it in real life. A lot. And on the job, too. A lot. If there’s one thing you can be assured of: Everyone knows precisely what I think. At least I’m funny about it, though. This much is also true: I’ll rant about nearly anything. It’s all worth it. One of the easiest topics to rant about? The bus. And here’s one right here. It was therapeutic.

I have a journalism degree, with which I do little. I caption for television and film now, so I essentially watch tv for a living. I call it a party job; whenever I go to a party and everyone’s talking about their jobs, mine’s always the coolest-sounding.

The first concert I ever saw, I was 12 years old. It was Tears for Fears. The best concert I ever saw? I really don’t know anymore. There’ve been so many, and so many reasons to like them all. Port-a-john porn? Making friends with a dozen people I’d never see again, a couple hundred klicks from home, to see Husker Du, the Hip, and Hothouse Flowers? A blues festival in the middle of the mountains, hundreds of kilometres from a city, in the Yukon, while camping and smoking dope with likeminded folks for days? Gritty lo-fi sexuality like the Kills in a small club? A good seat for Santana’s only ever show in Vancouver on mushrooms? Yeah. Gotta love the live gigs.

I’ve never been married, never been tempted. Don’t want kids. And like Carol Burnett says, the perfect marriage would entail great sex with a best friend who lived right next door.

POP CULTURE:
My current favourite television series include: The Shield, Arrested Development, The Wire, 24, Grey’s Anatomy, the Daily Show.

Some of my favourite movies include: Donnie Darko, Shaun of the Dead, Casablanca, City of God, State and Main, Amelie, Jaws... and far too many more to do justice to here.

Sadly, I have “My Time-of-the-Month Movies.” These include romantic comedies and tearjerkers.

Music I listen to? Right now, I’m kind of all over the map. Electronica, garage rock, lo-fi shit. Right this second, “Megacolon” by Fischerspooner is coursing through my speakers. My favourite accidental-find MP3 of late has been something that was incorrectly titled as the Spider-Man Theme, but is actually called Spider Eyes, a jazzy/calypso-flavoured electronica-type track you can get free here. And from the current scene, I also love folks like The Kills, the Von Bondies, Arcade Fire, BRMC, the Decemberists. Detroit Cobras, Interpol, uh, yada, yada, yada. I’m always open to suggestion.

Favourite books? Jesus. Where to begin? Wicked (can’t remember the author’s name), the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker, almost anything by Jim Crace (particularly Quarantine and Being Dead), Dogs of Winter, Sometimes a Great Notion, Crossing to Safety, anything by Jon Krakauer, Hunter S. Thompson, and Paul Theroux, the Harry Potter series, Sex Tips for Straight Ladies from a Gay Man (listen up, girls, I know whereof I speak)... and the list just goes on.

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It’s national turn-off-your-tv week, according to Citrus on his blog. In the honour of that, I’d like to post yet another retro link, and this one’s to my defense of television. I hope it doesn't seem pompous clicking to old posts. There's not a lot I'd foist on an unwitting public, so it won't be happening much, trust me.