In which Riot once again struggles to find balance, and is starting to consider this a theme

I spend so much time every damned day completely wracked with guilt.

Sometimes it makes me feel physically ill that I am young, white, able-bodied, cisgendered, essentially heterosexual and from a middle-class family.

God damn. My privilege is staggering.

I truly and deeply wish to maintain constant awareness of my privilege, and do everything within my power to end oppression, and at the same time respect boundaries and make sure I don't step on any toes or anything. I really can't come up with the proper word I'm looking for here, but if I think of it I'll edit the post.

I want to be an ally.

How the fuck do I become a good ally?

In which Riot considers family relations

A good friend of mine was over at my house last night, and just like most of the time we spend together, there was this overshadowing pressure in the air of "I have to get home, my parents are going to kill me."

Granted, this friend of mine is 17 (I think?), is still in high school, and lives at home with his parents, but seriously. Like, every night he's either getting angry calls from his mom or calling her every 20 minutes or so, reassuring her that he'll be home soon or pleading with her to understand that it's fucking pouring outside and his bike is broken.

We had a little talk about his relationship with his parents before his dad eventually came and picked him up. I must say, I've lived away from home long enough that I can't tell if his parents are actually oppressive, overbearing assholes or if he's just going through normal teenage resentment.

I had to keep stopping myself from saying things like "I'm sure they're just worried about you" and "They nag you because they care about you" and "You're growing up and they're terrified and don't know how to 'parent' except by enforcing rules.". I actually believe those statements, but I know that every time someone said something along those lines to me when I was in high school, I wanted to rip their fucking eyes out. How could anyone POSSIBLY understand what I was going through? My parents were evil tyrants and I HATED them and couldn't wait to grow up and get out of there.

These days I have an excellent relationship with my parents. I don't really know when it started, but it very well could be due to the fact that I don't live with them anymore. Also, I think at some point I stopped thinking of them as just "parents", and started to think of them as people as well. People that are flawed and pained and scared because being a parent is a BIG fucking responsibility. Since then I've been able to interact with my mother in a much simpler and pleasant way. We enjoy each other's company and long as we don't spend too much time together. Every now and then she'll make a comment about how the fact that I'm an anarchist "wounds" her or she'll burst into tears over the fact that I'm not "over that 'dread' thing" or that I don't...like...Canada. But I'll calmly explain my position and try to explain to her my lifestyle and point of view, and when that doesn't get me anywhere we'll watch some George Clooney movie and eat pizza and everything is just peachy.

Also, my dad is cool as dirt. He may be a 64 yr old New Democratic Albertan, but inside he's

punk as fuck and is going to bring the total destroy. (Wooo, go Jim go)

Even though over the years there has been many screaming matches, many tears, many slammed doors and broken hearts, I know that my parents are good people and they really love their kids and I think they've done a damn fine job on raising the 3 of us (we may all be fucking useless when it comes to financial independence but at least none of us want to be cops!)

I am definitely extremely lucky. I know there are horrible people out there that should not have kids, and I know all too well that most young people are not taken seriously enough. There is a good chance that my friend's parents are actually total jerks. This kid (and I totally use kid as a term of endearment, it really has nothing to do with his age. My friends pushing 30 are also "kids") is a super-talented musician. He plays fiddle, banjo, guitar, bass, has a good voice and recently picked up the mandolin. He plays in two super popular bands in our scene, but from what I can tell not only do his parents not support his musical endeavors, they're actively discouraging him! The only time they've heard his main musical project (part of 9+ piece folk punk super-cuties Buy Nothing Life) was this one time where they were on the local university radio station, and they didn't like it. Dude, I wasn't even IN a band when I was 17, but if my parents actually told me they didn't like what I was doing I would have been super fucking crushed.

There also seems to be an issue of his parents not liking the group of friends he has now. Granted, we do tend to get him rather drunk on occasion, but if I had met the group of friends I have now when I was in high school then I would have been saved a lot of grief and I honestly believe the support network I would have had would have prevented me from being in so many damaging relationships and experiencing such crippling depression.

I don't know if anything is really good enough for parents. You can never be home early enough, in bed early enough, and your friends are always going to be no good losers in the eyes of mom and dad. What I mean to say is that I don't think you can really change them. Some day they'll realize that their kid turned out fine and they can stop stressing (as much). The trick here is to make sure the child doesn't suffer too much damage before this happens.

I want to be supportive of my younger friends, but I'm afraid of appearing patronizing. I don't want to just blindly agree with them that their parents are in fact jerks and they should undermine them at every opportunity. I want to reassure them that it's just going to take time for their parents to realize that they're being productive and they're happy, but I don't know how to get that across without seeming insensitive. I'm sure I'll find a balance.

But you know deep down I just want to go over to his house and be all like "Hi! I'm 22, I drink a lot, I don't shave ANYTHING, I'm unemployed, I hate cops, I stink to high heaven and I TOTALLY kissed your son at a party.

BOO!"

In which Riot discusses food politics agh

I'd say I'm a vegetarian. For all intents and purposes, I'm a vegetarian. This came about some 5 years ago when I was eating a chicken burger in the back yard of my then-partner's house in Fredericton. I simply realized that I didn't really enjoy meat (not to knock Beth's chicken burgers, it was pretty good as far as those things go) enough to justify supporting the industry. I decided that since I could live without meat, that I should.

So I did!

The transition to vegetarian was actually super easy, especially since my older sister had pretty much paved the way for me in our household. Shit, I already knew what the most delicious veggie burgers were.

After about a year of vegetarianism, I started to really think about my food politics. Ethical consumption became extremely important to me, and I started to consider veganism. It might have something to do with starting to attend a Buddhist school, but compassion and non-violence took center stage.

Also I TOTALLY got a crush on the CUTEST vegan boy. He gave me dreads, I went vegan, it was beautiful.

No really! We had a total blast, and having this relationship with him that developed out of our similar interests in food was very healthy for me.

When I met Alex, I was at my lowest weight and was at the height of my anorexia. I was terrified of food. I would be halfway through microwaving an organic black bean burrito and I'd panic and through it in the garbage.

Going vegan meant I couldn't rely on my staple ED foods. When I used to be able to get by on a cup of weird diet yogurt, I suddenly had to be more creative. Luckily, instead of finding other ways to support my disorder, I started to become more comfortable with food. Maybe this was because I was totally in love and was feeling more comfortable with my body? In any case, once I turned vegan I started to eat again.

Uh, we ate so much. God damn.

After a while of extravagant vegan eats, Alex and I realized that we couldn't really afford to keep up our lifestyle. Neither of us were making that much money, so we started dumpstering and stopped scrutinizing our food.

There were a few times where I toyed with the idea of going vegan again, but I never committed to it. I still bake things mostly vegan, because those are the cook books I have and I find it a lot easier.

Recently, however, I've been doing some re-evaluating. Yes, ultimately, I would love to be a vegan. I would absolutely love to be able to sustain myself without causing any pain or death or suffering to any other living thing, but that's just not realistic. At least not for me, and at least right now.

My main issue here is with soy. All these people who are so blinded by their love for nature and animals and the planet are swearing off flesh...by eating a genetically modified mono-crop that is thickly wrapped in plastic and sold at high prices by a company that is proud to support the Olympic Games (fuck you, Yves). It's just fucking backwards.

Soy products are bad for the environment, they're bad for our bodies, and way too many people are relying on them as substitution for their meat and dairy. It's unbalanced and unsustainable.

My problem is that I don't have the resources or the time to spend on acquiring and preparing healthy, local, organic vegan food. I get up at 6am every 3 weeks so I can go to the food bank and I take whatever I can get. I still don't eat meat, but I've had fish (locally caught, from the farmer's market) in the last few months because I can't access the alternatives I need to have decent levels of protein and good oils.

I don't want to eat the flesh of another being, and I don't want to use it's milk if it had to suffer for me to get it, but I also can't justify the destruction of forests and grasslands for the sake of a GMO. I also never really shook that fucking ED so that gets weighed in frequently when I'm making decisions about food (I could write an entire post on artificial sweeteners, but I wont).

I'm really fucked up over this, and I know I'll get it right eventually. I just need to make a game plan for myself and then work towards it. I had a job interview today at a grocery store's deli counter. My job would be to make fruit trays. Maybe a step in the right direction?