Uncategorized | Sad Mag

We've got it all right here, folks! Everything that's ever been written up, photographed, and discussed on the Sad Mag website. Enjoy browsing our archives!

Have you seen Sad Mag’s most recent Sunday Strip? Artist extraordinaire and frequent Sad Mag contributor Sara French, whose work was notably featured in our Vanimaux and Mad Mad World issues, provides cuttingly smart comic relief. Which is one reason, among her many claims to fame, why French is Sad Mag’s newest Vancouver Notable.

As a multidisciplinary artist who works in drawing, performance art, sculpture and video, French has participated in a variety of group exhibitions throughout Vancouver, including 221A, Gam Gallery and the Lion’s Den. Most recently, French exhibited Bills, a solo show in Winnipeg at the independent gallery 672 Sargent that displayed her collection of embroideries. She is currently working with a Toronto artist collective called Department of Unusual Certainties on an upcoming exhibition, slated for fall 2013, exploring housing development, internationally and within the Greater Toronto Area.

In 2014, she will engage in a one-year artist-in-residence for Harcourt House Artist Run Centre.

Sad Mag: Who are you?
Sara French: I am an artist that works in performance art, drawing, video, textiles and writing.

SM: How did you get involved in Sad Mag?
SF: Through my friend Maegan Thomas who writes for Sad Mag. We used to work together.

SM: How did you get started in illustrating?
SF: I was studying English at York University and I started volunteering at an art gallery on campus, Art Gallery of York University or agYU. I liked what I saw, so I started doing it. Once I started, I realized that drawing has so many possibilities and I have never given up.

SM: What or who inspires your work?
SF: I do a lot of work, so that is a big question. I have a day job, I work to keep clean, I workout, but then I make art, which I think is the work you are referring to. I wouldn’t categorize my art making as work. When making art I am inspired by life, I am inspired about the way people live and the choices of living. I explore life through art and the endless odds that we may embrace or not embrace. Life is vast and art helps me engage with it in a more detailed way. I can be different people, explore different lifestyles, try different habits, use my other hand to write, and more. In addition, I am inspired by people, my family, writers, artists, acquaintances, collaborators, friends and myself.

SM: Where are you as you answer these questions?
SF: I am in Edmonton in my room at my desk.

SM: What’s the last comic book/book you read?
SF: My boyfriend has a zine that is 24 pages of amazing comics that he issues every month. It’s called Fatras by Vincent Roche.

I also recently read the first 5 Walking Dead comic books by Tony Moore and I have Black Hole by Charles Burns waiting to be read on my shelf.

SM: What piece of work are you most proud of?
SF: Wow. That’s a hard question. I’m proud of it all, rather than one specific work. But if I had to be proud of one work the most it would be my Norman Eberstein project which I began during my Masters at ECUAD [Emily Carr University of Art and Design] and it’s still ongoing today. The project is vast. Basically I created a character and he is Norman Eberstein. He is an unpaid, self-licensed, non-insured, altruistic, benevolent security guard that has performed at over 30 events and locations over the past 4 years. Most recently he performed at a queer cabaret night in Edmonton called “Queer Summer Night’s Dream.” He has produced a collection of bookworks that are his loggings and reports from his shifts. There are videos, photos, relics, abject remnants, documentation, which are all a part of the project that one day I hope to exhibit.

SM: Who is the one person that has most effective influenced your work?
SF: A lot of women come to mind when I’m asked this question: my best friends, Maryam Yousif, Lois Klassen and my mentor whom recently passed. She was 83 years old, and taught me diving, sailing and swimming, at summer camp. Jan Moldenhauer is her name. One of my favourite writers, whom I’ve met, is Chris Kraus. All these females have greatly affected my work. More importantly, K8 Hardy. She is an amazing artist. She is represented by Reena Spaulings in New York and recently exhibited at the Whitney Biennial. I feel like we are alike, which probably only exists in my head. She makes amazing videos and now she is making fashion. I like all female artists doing DIY now, especially Claire Fontaine and Bernadette Corporation. Most importantly are the people I know personally.

SM: What are you working on right now?
SF: Currently I am working on a new character named Reena Smith who will be performing for an exhibition that is being created in collaboration with the Department of Unusual Certainties, a Torontonian artist collective. The theme of the show is housing development, internationally and within the Greater Toronto Area and it will take place in Markham, Ontario.

SM: What are you most excited about right now?
SF: I was just awarded artist-in-residence for Harcourt House Artist Run Centre here in Edmonton. Starting November 2013, I will begin a one-year residency with the gallery that will conclude with a final exhibition. It is a huge honour and I’m very excited to get started.

***

To see some of Sara’s ongoing projects, visit her three blogs below:

FRNDSHPBRCLTS – a collection of her friendship bracelet making works

Collage College – a document of collage parties she has held and will hold

Napkin Collection – an archive of her napkin collection

Sunday comics by Sara French!

Sara French received her Masters of Applied Arts from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2011 after completing a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts and Art History at the University of Windsor.

She is a multidisciplinary artist who works in drawing, performance art, sculpture and video. Since graduating, Sara has participated in a variety of group exhibitions throughout Vancouver including, 221a, Gam Gallery and the Lion’s Den. Most recently she exhibited Bills, a solo show in Winnipeg at gallery 672 Sargent that displayed a collection of embroideries.

Currently Sara is working with the artist collective Department of Unusual Certainties, out of Toronto, on an upcoming exhibition for fall 2013.

In 2014 she will engage in a one-year artist in residence for Harcourt House artist run centre.

Sara resides in Edmonton.

Inspiration strikes. Like lightening? Or something much less dramatic? This year, at Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival, a group of inspiring and inspired writers has been brought together for “A Literary Soiree: A Celebration of Poets and Writers.” It will be hosted by Rachel Rose at the Roundhouse Exhibition Hall at 7:30 on August 6th.

RB andrea photo copy — Rebecca Brown c/o Andrea Auge

Of the five participating writers, the following four: poets Rachel Rose, Billeh Nickerson, Betsy Warland and writer Rebecca Brown, were kind enough to allow Sad Mag glimpses into the inspirations for their new or forthcoming works (Gregory Scofield will also be there on the 6th). Sad Mag asked about new projects and favourite Vancouver moments, in order to glean a little about what compels these writers’ interest and engagement. Reading over their responses, it became clear that to be inspired is the most flexible and atemporal of feelings: a response that might occur immediately or might take years and decades to coalesce. Like lightening, then, but with a slow burn.

For Rebecca Brown, who is the author of twelve books of prose, inspiration means being elevated by others: “Though I am not ‘inspired’ as an artist, other artists’ work inspires me,” says Brown, “I am rarely, if ever, ‘inspired.’ The word suggests someone filled with urgency or commitment. Or the simple, necessary act of breathing. On the one hand art making/writing is necessary to me (though not as necessary as breathing…). On the other hand, it is for me usually quite labored and erratic; hardly as even or regular as breath.”

“I used to have this notion,” continues Brown, “[which was] inspired, that is to say, misinformed, by romantic notions of an artist being possessed, as if by a god or passion, to make something. That some muse or spirit comes upon one, possesses one, and gives one some message/object/word. More like some divine madness than the sweaty slog I go through to find words. Having said that, though, I am inspired, in the sense of being encouraged or sustained, by others’ art and words. When I see the amazing things my friends create or do, when I read and read again work by Kafka, Woolf, Stein, Flannery O’Connor, Fanny Howe, I am moved, elevated, encouraged to live more.”

Brown’s newest project is the curation of a group show on the theme of “Devotion” at the Hedreen Gallery in Seattle on August 7th. Participants in the shown include professional visual artists, as well as “folks who don’t think of themselves as artists,” notes Brown, such as “a beekeeper, a teenage boy who collects sports caps, a librarian, a priest, a dj, a restauranteur– but each of whom is lovingly devoted to something.”

Rachel Rose is similarly inspired by those outside forces, past and present, with whom and with which she has engaged. Her newest project, which comprises writing poems about “mythic and monstrous women,” aims “to give voice to the female beast.” It was inspired “by many things,” says Rose, “studying Beowulf 20 years ago; VIDA and CWILA, rage and hope and curiosity and wanting to honour those women who misbehaved, whether literally or mythically, and who were transformed into fearsome legends in order to keep the rest of us in line.”

Betsy Warland, in contrast, recalls the exact moment that inspiration struck. Warland, who has been writing “Oscar of Between” since 2007, describes her inspiration as that moment “when a trapdoor of understanding sprung open beneath my feet when seeing the Camouflage Exhibit at the Imperial War Museum in London.”

Warland explains “Oscar of Between” as a series in which “Oscar, who routinely is addressed as a woman, then as a man, then man, then woman within seconds apart in public [finds] a label for herself that finally fits: a person of between.”

Billeh Nickerson, whose fifth book, Artificial Cherry, will be released by Arsenal Pulp Press this upcoming February, was inspired to return to “the naughtier side” of his writing. After books about fast food and the Titanic, Nickerson’s newest is an offering that he describes as “cheekysweet.”

What strikes me most about all these different inspirations, is the way they expand and contract over time. Some inspirations become recognized only retroactively, or, in Brown’s case, one notion of what it is to be inspired is dismissed and other notions taken up. When I met Rose the first time, it was at the Vancouver 125 Poetry Conference, which was organized by then-Poet Laureate Brad Cran. At the time, I was tasked with interviewing poets who were involved with the conference, and I had decided to ask each one of them the same final question: if you could describe your work in one word what would it be? Rose’s answer, which broke my “one word” rule, did so beautifully, and has really inspired and stuck with me. She said her work was about “Connecting-yearning. Yearning to connect.”

Connecting, and yearning to connect, is so often about finding confluences and points of shared interest. When I asked the QAF poets about their favourite aspects of Vancouver, I received responses that gave me that thrill of recognition for all the inspiring moments that the city has to offer. For Rose, it is “the flats at Spanish Banks at low tide…” which, of course, go on for what seems like infinity. For Betsy, there was “No question about it = The Drive!” and for Nickerson, Betsy’s answer provides a kind of coincidental connection: Nickerson noted “I live on Commercial Drive. I love it when a large shipment of fruit comes in and the grocers sell big bags of the older stuff for a dollar. Once a thrifty artist, always a thrifty artist.”

For more inspiration, connection and yearning (and thrift! It’s only $5 suggested donation!), come to “A Literary Soiree: A Celebration of Poets and Writers” on Tuesday. I hope to see you there.

The Queer Arts Festival is here! Co-curators Kristina Lemieux and Jen Crothers have come together with their production, Reflection/Refraction, which will be showcased on August 1st. Chatting over antipasti and casual drinks at Charlie’s Little Italian Pizzeria on Main, Sad Mag correspondent Monika Malczynski learns more about Kristina and Jen and how they found their inspiration.

SAD MAG: Who are you?
KRISTINA LEMIEUX: My name is Kristina. I am originally from Edmonton, well [laughs], Drayton Valley. I’ve lived in Vancouver for about seven years now and I’m an arts and cultural manager and thinker. Currently my primary project is with Brief Encounters -we take an even number of artists (ranging from opera singers to architects) and we pair them together and give them two weeks to create a five to twenty minute performance piece. I also am working on Reflection/Refraction. I also am a co-director of a community dance troop called Polymer Dance. And I host a dialogue series called SANKASET where I get arts professionals together to talk about directed topics in the arts. Lots of things, all kinds of things!

SM: Sounds like it! And what about you, Jen?
JEN CROTHERS: I am Jen Crothers. Crothers rhymes with brothers, not that you need to know that in a written document

KL: [Laughs] It’s going in there now!

JC: [Laughs], yeah. So I guess I’d say I’m an artist and an organizer. I am the treasurer on the board on the Queer Arts Festival and I’m pro-curating the show in the Queer Arts Festival with Kristina. I am an organizer with the All Bodies Swim which is a regular private event at Templeton pool where people who might feel normally feel awkward or excluded from swimming pools are invited to come and swim and have fun in the pool. We invite all kinds of people – fat people, people with scars, lots of tattoos – and we run this occasion every six weeks or two months. I’m a filmmaker as well; I made a couple of films one of which is called “Butch Tits” and it’s been around a bit. I also organize Queer Bodies Film Night which is a semi-regular film night that I show short films that deal with issues such as gender, sexuality, mental health, those kind of things. So yeah, you know, random projects. And I’m, obviously, not from here [since she speaks with an accent]. I’m from Australia, from Tasmania, and I traveled to a bunch of places before I got here but I’ve been here for six of the last eight years and I will stay here for the foreseeable future although Australia kind of has my heart.

SM: You two have paired up to co-curate Reflection/Refraction for the QAF. How did you begin working together and what is this production all about?
JC: Kristina and I knew each other before the project. We were friends for probably about six years before the project began and we sort of connected over the love of spreadsheets, organization and ‘geekery’.

KL: [Smiles] Yeah, and I think we were just talking one day about how we both wanted to do more organizing or more programming in the arts as we were seeing a bit of a gap in what kind of programming was happening in the queer communities and Jen loves films and I love performing art – although we both love films and performing arts – but in terms of expertise, we thought we could blend the two together and bring both of what we are most passionate about. So we came up with the idea of having five short films by five queer filmmakers that would then be responded to by five queer performing artists. We did this back in 2011 for the Queer Film Festival and then our lives got busy last year and we realized that we didn’t do anything for 2012 so we thought we should definitely get involved again and approach the queer arts festival and we did. So, here we are.

SM: So essentially the shorts will be shown and then each performer, having spent approximately four months coming up with their own interpretation or response to their film, will perform. Is that right?
JC and KL: Yes, that’s right.

SM: So if you can recall, because you originally came up with this idea in 2011, where did your inspiration come from?
JC: I think the inspiration- we were sort of just talking and all of a sudden it kind of just came. We were doing a lot of this: eating a restaurants, have some casual drinks and ideas were being discussed.

KL: Yeah, and I don’t think it came out in the way that it was a completely laid-out format, that this was going to be the way it was done, but that after some conversations back and forth we sort of figured things out. We were brainstorming ideas and ways which a performance could address certain issues. And the other thing we both really like is creativity within certain boundaries: time frames are limited, time performances are limited, what happens when you sort of constrain the creative process. And that’s how we came up with Reflection/Refraction; it was something that we thought could fit into that creative boundary.

JC: Yes, and we talked quite philosophically about it. We talked a lot about the difference between film and performance and we found that when a filmmaker makes a film, at some point it becomes fixed. That first you edit, then show some friends and you might edit it again and again but at some point it becomes a fixed piece of art that you can no longer change again. Whereas with a piece of performing art, you perform it and you have an audience reaction and you might tweak it and then you have another performance then talk to someone or have another reaction and then you tweak it again. I mean, this doesn’t always happen, sometimes people perform the exact same thing. But even on a good night a performer might respond to the energy of the audience. If the audience is giving a lot of responsive energy, the performer might give a bigger performance. Whereas film is fixed and it’s flat. So when we were thinking about the idea of putting people into the position where they were kind of forced to be inspired. It was somewhat of a theoretical approach. Kristina is a total theory nerd and I’m a bit more scared by her intellectualism but nevertheless, I try to keep up [they both smile].

SM: Have you seen the progress that the performers have made with their approach or will you be seeing their performances for the first time next week?
JC: We did want to curate the performances; we did want to interact with the performers, critique them, give them suggestions of how what they’re doing might work or not. So we did meet with them once about their initial ideas about the films. Some of them were like “yes, I’ve got an idea of what I’m going to do” and others were like “I have twenty ideas and don’t know which one to choose” and other people were like “uh, I have no clue what I’m going to do.” This weekend we are going to see them again and see what they’ve come up with and give them some feedback again and then they’ll have a chance to fine tune their performance and then yeah, then we’ll get to see it again.

Screen shot 2013-07-28 at 9.26.05 PM — all photos c/o Monika Malczynski

SM: Having been involved with many creative projects over the last several years of living in Vancouver, and coming from different cities, how do you feel about the “creative scene” in Vancouver? Do you think this city poses challenges for artistic people or do you find there to be easy and creative avenues to explore?
KL: There is a lot of amazing stuff happening in the arts in Vancouver but I think that if anything could be improved that there be stronger avenues to communicate with people on what they’re doing. In the last eighteen months we’ve lost, like three cultural reviewers? Don’t quote me on that but a good chunk of cultural reviewers from our major publications. And not that I think our general public is reading print media but because where we are getting our information from is in flux, there’s nowhere to go to get a curated list of what’s happening. Almost every week I’m asking myself, “which one of these amazing productions do I want to pick to go to tonight?” which shows there’s a lot going on.

JC: Yes, and just to clarify that – in a sense that information is out there like with Sad Mag, Vancouver is Awesome, the Province and so on but it’s just so across the board that you have to be reading all of those publications to get the full sense of what is going on. I personally hear about things through friends, Facebook, social media and word of mouth. Usually, unless I know someone who’s involved with something or unless someone suggests we go to an event so it makes such a difference when someone says to me “you should really see this show.” So, word of mouth is really important. And being a smaller city, Vancouver is good for word of mouth but there still lacks a space where people, critics, are giving opinions and suggestions about the arts. There’s just an overwhelming amount of choice which is both good and bad. Vancouver is a lot smaller than Sydney, for example, but there’s usually a lot of choice so I personally get overwhelmed and that’s why that personal connection or suggestion really pushes me and makes a difference for me.

KL: Yeah, and just to also point out, I’ve personally been involved with arts management for the past 15 years and one of the reasons I moved to Vancouver is because it is a city that does allow one to make a living in an artistic field. Sure, I may not ever own a home but I’m not sure that that’s important anyway. And in the smaller cities, at least the more isolated ones, you don’t have the same level of municipal and provincial support that you have from the government so there are lots of opportunities for the arts here.

For more information and to buy tickets, check out Reflection/Refraction on Facebook and on the QAF website.

Sad Mag is excited to announce that the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival is happening this week! There are so many events, so many activities, and so many artists involved that you, fair reader, yes, you will find something inspiring and engaging which you will feel compelled to attend. Merely click here, and enjoy!

FATE's Summer Collection is at Today Boutique in Gastown

Nervous about my coffee date with young fashion stylist Sara Gourlay, I stare down at my simple black dress. Is she going to approve? Ever since running into Gourlay at Vancouver Eco-Fashion Week in April, I’ve been in awe of her talent and style. She has the ability to rework vintage clothes into the coolest pieces. In an effort to calm my nerves, I rationalize irrationally: our names do rhyme, Farah and Sara; that must be a good sign!

I sit at WE coffee on Main and begin to reminisce about Gourlay’s line from the Eco-Fashion runway. FATE had many adorable black pieces, with various textures, patterns, and styles. It was my favorite line out of the thrift chic challenge and I would definitely wear each piece.

Gourlay walks in. Rocking a faux fur leopard print jacket, men’s denim button-up, shiny leggings and retro platforms, she looks epically cool. The beautiful 23-year old Capilano College fashion-marketing graduate sits down next to me with a big smile on her face. We begin the interview:

Farah Tozy: How did FATE Vintage come to be?
Sarah Gourlay: I started a year ago picking clothes; I really liked fashion. With the growing concern for the environment, there’s kind of a gap. So I saw a need for [FATE]. There aren’t many options for sustainable fashion. FATE is trendy and [has] wearable pieces that are modern and classic.

[During] Eco-Fashion week, my mom even said, ‘I could actually wear some of these!’ [FATE] is sold at Today boutique in Gastown, and I just sent my first shipment of clothing to Rebel Rebel in Victoria. Hopefully I’ll be selling online soon.

FT: Why did you call your brand FATE?
SG: First off, I like how it was four letters. It’s concise. I really like the aesthetic of how it looks but also the meaning behind it, the FATE of giving clothing a second life. Vintage is cool in that way; someone wears it and passes it on.

FT: Do you ever plan on expanding from women’s clothing to men’s?
SG: I like focusing on women’s clothing. At the markets I sell more men’s clothing [that is] more unisex.

FT: What’s been your best find so far?
SG: Well, I love flow-y kimonos. One time Stormey Rhiannon and I found this sheer fringe kimono.

FT: How did you resist not keeping it for yourself?
SG: We have to stick to the universal rule: you can’t keep anything!

FT: How was the Eco-Fashion show? Was it good exposure for FATE?
SG: It was awesome! Just being recognized as someone on the tip of sustainable fashion was quite an honor. I was surprised as to how much of a production it was. Behind stage it was just buzzing!

FT: What’s your favorite season for clothing? Sundress summer, winter sweaters, rain jacket spring or autumn flats?
SG: I like fall. Because I’m partial to black clothing; it’s definitely my specialty.

FT: As an experienced thrifter, when do you think is the best time to thrift shop?
SG: I like to go in the morning because everyone is usually asleep or at work. It’s best to get in there when the world is not as busy.

FT: Where would you like to see your designs one day?
SG: I [want] FATE to definitely be more countrywide; to be known as sustainable fashion, [done] really trendy. Online would be ideal. Keep my model of as selling FATE as a brand in boutiques; I really like that. In the future, I want to cross a bit more into music with fashion. My boyfriend and I are going to collaborate on a fashion film.

Sad Mag loves Kathryn Mussallem. She’ll be part of our next issue, she has “cool” written all over her (not literally, but she is tattooed!) and she’s been given the title “social biographer” in TONIGHT’s project: “SKIN & BONE: Salty Sailor Tales.” It’s “an evening of saucy stories, history, and discovery at the Vancouver Maritime Museum” and Kathryn will be making a splash. Sad Mag’s going to be there, and you should be too!

Sad Mag: Salty Sailor Tales describes you as a “social biographer”: What does that mean? How do you conceive of your role?
Kathryn Mussallem: Well I didn’t title myself that but I do think it fits. My photography for this project is mainly street portraiture, but in these quick meetings on street corners, outside of bars and on ships, or other brief encounters I hope show a small glimpse of the personality of each sailor, whether it be them hard at work on a ship or drunk off their asses fresh into port and charged up for shenanigans. I know the names of almost every sailor that I have photographed, they are so quick to tell me everything in such a short amount of time and I hope that the images convey just a glimpse of who these boys are. I have spent the last 2 years following the US Navy from port to port and making a few friends in between.

SM: What prompted your interest in tattoos?
KM: I have the requisite “I was coming of age in the 90s” shameful tattoo that I’ve had for almost 20 years, so from a very young age I was fascinated with the subculture associated with tattooing specifically nautical tattoos. Sailors brought tattooing to the world and these souvenirs acted as a reminder of their time at sea and in the not so savory ports of call. I now am covered in quite a few tattoos, all of the traditional nautical variety and my favourite a small anchor on my ankle that I got from a sailor on a ship in New Orleans. I met some sailors one night drunk on the street, one of them liked my tats he told me that he tattooed and that he should tattoo me and of course I said yes. I think he thought I was kidding but the next day I texted him to arrange a session. So in an electrical shop on the USS Wasp in New Orleans Louisiana I got a tattoo from a sailor. A tattoo should always be a reminder of something, it should represent a moment in your life, a struggle you have overcome, a journey or an adventure you have had.

You can see Kathryn at Skin and Bone TONIGHT, along with curator Patricia Owen, tattoo artist Chris Hold, and Charles H. Scott Gallery curator Cate Rimmer in dicussion about the idea of erotic imagery and taboo concepts in the sailor arts of tattoos and scrimshaw.

Vancouver Maritime Museum – 6:30PM – 10:00PM – for tickets, Eventbrite

Hot summer nights deserve a hot summer mix. Take a bite of this forbidden fruit, I promise you won’t regret it.

Listen to Pam’s ‘Forbidden Fruit’ Mix

A maven of music, a food snob and a stickler when it comes to good design, those of us who know Pam regard her as a passionate person for all things creative. Pam received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University of Art& Design in 2006 and her diploma with honours in Illustration and Design from Capilano University’s IDEA Program.

When Pam isn’t doing her design magic for Sad Mag, she enjoys being a soprano diva in the Kingsgate chorus, making elaborate meals and then eating them, and making daily playlists for your listening pleasure.

The perils and misadventures of online dating in No Fun City, with bonus date-stalking tips from a tech-savvy single lady.

I am officially in party mode. I eat toast for dinner off the lids of Tupperware because all of my dishes are dirty. I’m trying to shoehorn as much fun into my life as possible. There is no time for such banalities as cleaning. I’m gross. This, I’m sure, is the residual effect of being in a relationship for most of my twenties. This last year (last gasp) is my chance to party, and I’m taking it seriously.

I have tickets to see a band I like that no one else seems to know so I’ve decided to go alone. As I ready myself to head out I get a message online from a guy in town from LA. He’s bored. I ask him to accompany me to the show, which starts in half an hour. He responds immediately and just like that I have a date.

I wait for him outside the venue and as he gets out of the cab I wince a little cause he’s in a suit. He’s tall, and the suit…is not. But it is wide–as is his tie. Is this how people dress in LA? He’s perfectly polite and apologizes profusely for being five minutes late and quickly buys me a drink. We chat a bit about the band and watch the show, which ends early. I’m feeling restless and not ready to end the night when a friend/coworker texts me that there is a party in Railtown and do I want to go with her and her hubby? Elated that I actually have a date (albeit a poorly dressed one) I accept.

I introduce him to my friends and, probably due to the few drinks we’ve already had, he starts explaining how he’s writing a graphic novel. He pulls up a terrible Deviant Art-y rendering on his phone and explains how it’s kind of like Tomb Raider. I gesture to my friend silently that this guy is the biggest nerd by pushing up my imaginary glasses. I’m an asshole.

I continue drinking.

My girlfriend and I proceed to drink so much that later, when her husband runs into the guy who threw the party he’s confronted with,”Oh yeah, you were with those drunk girls.”

I am those drunk girls.

That was me almost falling up the stairs then trying to recover by making it look like some quirky lunge. That was me yelling, “I know yoooooooou!” to someone I recognized from a magazine. That was also me attempting a pull-up off the ceiling pipes. And that was definitely me making out in a stranger’s loft just to feel the pressure of someone else’s face against mine.

I don’t remember how I got home.

I wake up confused. I feel tangled up and it’s hard to move my arms. I then realize I’m half out of my bra and shirt with an arm out of each. I have no pants or underwear on. I step onto the floor narrowly missing a gelatinous substance–is that vomit? It’s white. I touch it. It jiggles. Did the cat do this? I don’t usually hurl when I drink, this couldn’t have been me? Could it? Can a human make this…texture? I continue to the living room to where the contents of my purse make a trail from the front door to my bedroom. I’m 95% sure I didn’t get violated but I did lose my bus pass and it’s the beginning of the month. I have reached a new low.

I call my girlfriend and describe what’s on the floor.

“Oh that, that’s just bile.” Oh, no big deal. This is not something I’m accustomed to finding on my floor! Her flippant attitude further illustrates how many experiences I must have missed by being in a boring couple for the last eight years. Still, I could stand to have missed the bile.

I get a message from LA guy and he says he had a great time (I bet) and that my friends are so nice and wants to see me again. I say I’m busy and don’t mention that I hope to never see him again, ever. He’s a perfectly nice guy, an actual gentleman. But kinda milquetoast. This is precisely why the idiom “nice guys finish last” exists. He’s just not exciting in any way. Also he doesn’t live here, so he could never really be a contender. This is how I justify blowing him off.

The day after is a workday and I wake up with a residual shame-over followed by the relief of knowing I didn’t do anything crazy the night before. It’s like my body remembered the previous morning’s guilt, “Shouldn’t we be checking our phone for errant drunk texts by now?” No. Thank God.

At work I walk past my girlfriend’s desk and she’s on Adrianne Curry’s Twitter page. I ask what she could possibly be doing there and she says, “Don’t you remember? Your date said he was seeing someone who was on Top Model, then, later in the evening he said his ex had over 300,000 followers. I’m piecing it together, this must be her!” I love her for doing this. This makes me judge him even more because Adrianne Curry seems like a dummy. Suddenly any wavering thoughts about blowing him off dissipate. I could never date anyone with such questionable taste.

He writes me a few weeks later when he’s back in town for work. I politely decline to see him again and he sends me the most decent response saying, “You deserve someone really great. I hope you find that person.”

Suddenly I feel guilty. I treated this guy like a rental car. I needed someone to take me to the show and he was right there. It hadn’t occurred to me that I could try to parlay this into something more or that he would even want that. Maybe I subconsciously prohibited myself from liking him to avoid the hassles of a long-distance relationship.

Or maybe he’s just not my type.

Sad Mag wants to take it to the next level with you. We are launching our first-ever fiction contest for our upcoming FANTASY issue.

The Sad Mag Archives

Vancouver Notables // Sara French

Sunday Strip

Themes! // Queer Arts Festival Writers Talk Inspiration

Vancouver Notables: QAF edition // Jen Crothers and Kristina Lemieux for Reflection/Refraction

Queer Arts Festival // Now! Until Friday, Aug 9th

DISPATCHES // Coffee & Conversation with Fashion Stylist SARA GOURLAY

Event // Salty Sailor Tales @ Vancouver Maritime Musuem

Designer Beats // July

Sad Love // The Shame-Over

Fantasy Fiction Contest