"I'd only go back to Canada if I was terminally ill"
Sea shanties, coping mechanisms and the incidentally Canadian comedienne Katherine Ryan
Hey pal,
Last year, I had a cheeky thought. I figured nothing would be better for me than to spend Jan-June 2021 either in Italy or Costa Rica to write and eat and be warm and happy, maybe working remote and spending my afternoons surfing. Obviously, the situation changed and I am not living that dream at the moment. Hell, this time last year I was still prepping for a work trip to Barcelona in February. It’s wild to think there was a time where my life plans included using my passport.
It’s laughable to think I had a life plan this time last year.
I’ve always had a plan. I have always needed something to work towards or I tend to flounder in despair, so this whole pandemic thing has been really hard on the whole staying awake/alive through my nine-to-five. That said, I’m trying to stick to healthy coping mechanisms, such as:
Virtual Norwegian language classes starting Tuesday (why, yes, I am that bored)
Wiping construction dust off of my house plants with Swiffer cloths every night
Cross-continental video workouts with the bestie, chiefly spent ‘serving the fish’
Watching good movies (highly recommend using your lingering scene points on Promising Young Woman) and garbage TV
Watching standup specials (admittedly quite niche, but the rest of team Scando will enjoy Ari Eldjárn’s ‘Pardon my Icelandic’)
I welcome your suggestions for alternative coping mechanisms, bearing in mind that I am currently under a joke of a pseudo state of emergency state at home order, so my diversions should really be within these walls.
The best thing I heard this week:
On January 15th, the NRA went full Michael Scott.
I’m reading
Sea shanties are a thing now? “If you’ve ever stayed up way too late trying to find your ex’s wedding pictures on Instagram, you can dox a Nazi. It’s the same skill set.” Bumble disables political matching after women used it to coax incriminating pictures of the y’all quaeda crew from the Capitol (fantastic descriptor belongs to Aminatou Sow). Same, same but different: meet the teenage girls who flirted with Nazis before luring them into woods and shooting them.
The (incidentally Canadian) good stuff
One of my favourite Canadian comedians is quite literally only incidentally Canadian. Katherine Ryan is from Sarnia, a garbage town in Ontario (her words, not mine), which might have contributed to her stating that she’d ‘only go back to Canada if [she] was terminally ill.' After moving to Toronto to study city planning and work at Hooters, like most Canadians in the UK, she seems to have snuck in by way of an Irish passport.
She’s clever, irreverent, doesn’t give a shit what you think about her cosmetic surgery, and her work flies almost completely under the radar here. Aside from her Netflix show, The Duchess, her career is well and truly focussed in the UK, and like, fair enough, girl. She’s also one of the few Canadian celebrities I’ve seen go on American TV and say ‘hey, Canada’s got issues, too’ rather than the usual, ‘well we’re not as messed up as you guys.’
If you’re going to open the Katherine can of worms, I recommend the Duchess and any of her many British panel show appearances, which are basically like ludicrous pub quizzes and something I think the CBC should really get it together and emulate, without the seemingly requisite plastic politeness.
Until next time, have a great weekend. If you have a friend who you think might not hate this, why not forward it to them?
In the immortal words of Tigger,
TTFN!
Trish