Yonge & Dundas Intersection in Toronto after Team Canada Win

This week’s Weekly Ten, Why Canada Deserves Silver, stirred up quite the controversy yesterday. Seriously, I didn’t see this much hate on CollegeCandy since one writer expressed her disdain for Taylor Swift. And rightfully so. Yes it was meant to be a joke, but we in Canada aren’t entirely laughing with you.  While we know for a fact CollegeCandy loves their Canadian readers, and even has a few Canadian writers (myself included), this post pissed a lot of people off.

But instead of get angry and insult the intelligence of the writer, editor or Americans in general, I decided to take the high road and just show why Canada deserves more than just a gold medal in Olympic hockey. So here is my condensed version (there are way too many reasons for one post!) of all the reasons Canada rocks that they forgot to teach you in high school.

Education – Education (university included) receives higher subsidies from the government in Canada, meaning it’s cheaper for us to attend post-secondary school.  Also, did you know that Toronto, Canada’s largely city (where I happen to attend school), has more people with university degrees than ANY other large city in the world? Yeah, take that and deep fry it!

Health Care – Okay, so maybe you’ve heard about this recently with Obama pushing for health care reform and all, but it’s true – we have universal health care in Canada, thanks to this pretty awesome guy named Tommy Douglas.  We also have a higher life expectancy rate and lower infant mortality rate than the United States.

Good Music – I agree with you, America: Avril Lavigne isn’t the greatest, but Canada has some other pretty fantastic musicians.  Arcade Fire, Metric, Stars, Feist, and The Weakerthans are just a few of my personal faves.

Tim Hortons – As I write this, I’m rolling up the rim to win on my Tim Horton’s coffee cup.

Inventions - I’m sure you’re enjoying some Canadian inventions as you read these post.  Have a light on? Used the telephone? Wearing jeans (with a zipper… not Pajama Jeans)? Played or watched hockey or basketball? Used your CrackBerry? Taken out the garbage? Eaten peanut butter? Yeah all these things were made possible by Canadians or on Canadian soil.

Multiculturalism – Canada is a mosaic of multiculturalism.  When people come to Canada we don’t expect them to give up their own identity – instead we embrace our differences.  We have two official languages in Canada – French and English – as well as  two national anthems. “Thy history is an epic of the most brilliant exploits” is a snippet of the English translation of the French version. Yeah, we’re pretty epic.

Nationalism – We have a pretty inoffensive nationalism in Canada, except when it comes to hockey.  The street parties that ensued following Sid the Kid’s gold medal winning goal were truly Canadian – according to CTV 16.6 million people saw this goal, making it the most watched broadcast in Canadian history.

Space/Landscape - As Molson Canadian (makers of the fine Canadian beer) puts it, “we have more square feet of awesomness per person than any other nation on Earth.” We have the fourth lowest population density in the world and our country is full of diverse landscapes.  This was captured by the Group of Seven, a group of Canadian painters from the 1920s that developed a new school of truly Canadian art.

Definition of Marriage – Canada was the fourth country in the world, and first in the Americas, to legalize same-sex marriage.  Much like our belief in the mosaic of multiculturalism, this shows our commitment to equality.

[photo courtesy of Max Mertens]

I think we can all agree that Hallmark cards are lame. If the card doesn’t contain something that you would actually say out loud on it (“For You, Mother, on Your 50th Birthday,” anyone?), it’s not worth spending your hard-earned cash on. Especially considering they cost like $5!

So what’s a gal to do when the holidays and special occasions roll around?

Duh! Make your OWN cards.

If you normally run screaming at the thought of anything crafty, take a deep breath and hang with me for a second. I also hate crafts, but I love to make greeting cards. They’re so much fun, and you can personalize them any way you want. AND they can be as simple or as involved as you like—no need to spend an hour laboring over intricate cutouts and frilly decorations if you don’t want to.

Here’s the other good news—they’re easy. All you need to make a basic card is some paper that you can fold and some markers (or crayons, pens, colored pencils, paints, or even chalk). Try making a painting on the outside of your card and writing a message on the inside. If that doesn’t strike your fancy, do a stencil or make a collage. A mosaic is another fun idea.

And don’t limit yourself. Remember, you can use anything to spice up the design—ribbon, googly eyes, fabric, shells or leaves, beads, scrap paper… you get the idea. Here are a few materials you may want to gather:

Glue. If you’re really desperate, you can tape cut-out pictures to a card, but it looks kind of tacky (no pun intended) and it won’t be as permanent.

Scissors. You can tear the paper to fit your needed shape, but it’s easier (and cleaner) to cut. Plus, you can cut out any shapes you want.

Pipe cleaners. As in the cool picture above and the How Stuff Works tutorial from where it came, you can twist pipe cleaners into flowers, moons and stars, hearts, birthday cakes… you get the idea.

Scraps. If you’re a pack rat, you’re probably a natural for making greeting cards. Saving receipts, business cards, take-out menus, and old wrapping paper will really pay off when you want to make a cool patterned skirt for a greeting-card girl or a funny-lettered billboard that spells out a birthday message.

When you’re making your cards, keep a couple of things in mind:

- Reinforcement. When using a lot of glue, you don’t want marker pictures to smear or bleed, and you don’t want those annoying wriggly wet lines. If it looks as though your card is heading in that direction, dab some glue lightly on the edges of one or two more pieces of paper that are cut to the same size as your card, and glue them on the inside so that the card will look smoother.

- Personality. Keep your audience in mind when making your cards. Just as you wouldn’t buy a card with a Shakespearean love sonnet on it for your brother, you wouldn’t want to give a slapdash and amateurish-looking thank-you card to someone with whom you just had a job interview. That’s not to say you can’t give homemade thank-yous after job interviews–just that if you do, they have to look professional.

- Creases and folds. Decide whether you want a long and narrow card, a fat square one, or something in between. Fold the card in half, and cut. If you don’t have a scissors handy, you can crease it along the edges where you want the cuts. Fold one way sharply, then straighten the paper and fold the other way. Make each fold again a couple of times to reinforce it, then use one hand to hold the paper and the other to tear gently along the edges. It should tear away in a straight line.

If you’re not artsy and all of this talk about designs makes you wanna hurl, just fill your card with cool words. A simple list of words and phrases that remind you of the other person is a creative, personal and not-at-all artsy way of creating a special card. It might seem lame, but if you’ve ever received a homemade card, you know how great it feels.

Now all you need is an occasion. So log onto Facebook right now and find out when your next friend’s birthday is—and get cracking!

[Image courtesy of howstuffworks.com.]

If I could have just had a super crush on a lawyer…or even a football player…maybe everything would be more normal in my love life.

Maybe I wouldn’t find myself waking up on an air mattress in a loft in Williamsburg… pinching myself and then repeating over and over, “He’s an ARTIST, Elizabeth…he’s an ARTIST.”

But I’m an artist, too. Hell, all I do is write everything from books to songs all day. I even paint. And take pictures. And I dance. And I do mosaic. AND I sleep on a REAL bed in a real apartment that has heat and cable and plants that aren’t dead.

And so I sit on the train pondering this question. With every hipster/artsy looking boy I see, I wonder if he too sleeps on an air mattress. Is this a prerequisite for being cool?

Certainly, my artist lovers past….which would be…ugh…all of my lovers past…didn’t all sleep on air mattresses. In fact, I can only think of one other.

And then I realized:

It is a true struggle being an artist. Especially in a big city. It DOES take time to develop yourself and hone your talents so that you can begin to generate money. However, as I look around my romantic circles…and triangles…I notice something: plenty of the guys who I have dated who are artists have real beds. And some of them have multiple houses. And yachts. And while this point is not at all about material things, there is something to be said for an artist who has harnessed their skills well enough to live like a comfortable, regular person. Although their lives are anything but regular, being able to have the perks of a regular, stable life while doing exactly what you love for a living is a marker of success, to me.

And so I won’t be sleeping on the air mattress again.

Not because I am above it.

And not because it’s necessarily uncomfortable.

But because I’m no longer in that place.

I’m in a place where my art is paying for itself and so I need to leave Mr. Air Mattress in Williamsburg Loft to the high school musical theater girls who will feed off of his “independence” like vultures.

Meanwhile, I’ll be out sipping wine with another hot artist boy who CAN afford to drink outside of his loft.

The line between an accomplished artist and a total loser is very fine. And to be fair, almost all artists were once total losers. But if I’m gonna be a sucker for the artsy guy, well, these days…I’m gonna go ahead and be a sucker while sleeping in a warm, REAL bed. Which, if I may note, Kurt Cobain DID eventually have.