Erin's Journals

Welcome to a brand new month. Tomorrow, I have a kind of spine-tingling story of a couple of dates that coincide this weekend that I think you’ll appreciate. I’m off to see another movie today, so next week we’ll talk I, Tonya and Lady Bird. Lots to share with you. My must-see recommendation for this weekend is still Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Powerful, filled with redemption and empathy. Surprises at every turn. Everything a Best Picture ought to be.
 
I wanted to take a moment to thank you once again for sharing a bit of your day here reading or listening to our adventures, thoughts, musings and just everyday things. Some days and weeks are harder when it comes to inspiration and often I’ll sit at my keyboard, letting the reflexology take over as my fingers (or more aptly, my fingernails) tap at the letters and send energy and ideas to this brain of mine.
 
Some days what comes out is whimsical, some days a little more pointed. I worry about offending (as I did yesterday with my thoughts on what “politically correct” really means) but this should be a place where I’m safe to speak my mind. 
 
And some days it’s just to vent. 
 
I tweeted after the State of the Union address on Tuesday (which I could not watch, but for which I scoured coverage on various channels afterwards) that if screaming at the TV was cardio, I’d be a size two.
 
When he’s not questioning if he heard what he thinks he heard, Rob sits and sighs; he’s long given up trying to persuade me to look away if I can’t stand the flat-out lying and deception that passes as leadership in the US these days. There are moments of hope, of course, as someone – however briefly – has the spine to call Trump out, but that never lasts. Every time the Mueller investigation seems to be gathering steam, someone gets fired or something leaks and things appear to fall a few squares back. Obstruction is everywhere, families are being destroyed and idiocy reigns. So why do I care so much?
 
There was a scene in This is Us last season that brought home why I’m so angry about Trump and every day that he is in charge. It’s because it’s simply not fair. He did not win the popular vote. He won based on an antiquated system that was meant to appease the southern states after the civil war handed them their backsides on a big ol’ plate. And as we’re seeing more and more clearly every day, Russia played a role in his victory and Hillary’s loss. It was not fair.
 
The This is Us scene I’m referring to saw Mandy Moore’s character having a meltdown in a grocery store when someone else got the last onion – the one she’d been about to choose before one of her babies fussed in the stroller. She lost her temper at the woman and the produce manager and ended up in tears about something that was seemingly trivial. But what it came down to was her anger and pain about losing her baby. It wasn’t fair. And that stupid onion (teary metaphor, anyone?) was just the straw the broke her spirit that day. 
 
For me, the unfairness of Lauren’s death, the rug being pulled out from under our lives in so very many ways, is something I can’t rage about every day. But what’s happening in the news every day? That’s something I can wrap my rage around. So pardon my rants – it’s just me getting through another day. 
 
And thank you again.
 

My friend Lisa posted a link to an amazing blog by John Pavlovitz last week. It was about the hypocrisy of white evangelicals who keep giving the serial liar and cheater in office a “mulligan” (golf term for a do-over) where they lambasted and targetted with hatred their previous Commander in Chief seemingly for simply existing. They called into question Barack Obama’s religious beliefs, his motives and even – and most loudly – his citizenship.
 
The vast contrast is visible between the highest-placed religious leaders (Franklin Graham and Pat Robertson, to name two) and the way they revere the man in office now as having been chosen and placed there by God, and the way they constantly kicked and accused the man who actually won his way into office in both popular votes and the Electoral College. It’s enough to make your blood run cold.
 
Captivated by the tone of this pastor’s column, I scrolled down and once again his words – this time on a different topic – resonated loudly and clearly.
 
You’ve by now heard that after 71 years, the Cleveland Indians baseball team is finally putting to rest the cartoonish caricature of a red-skinned, buck-toothed brave in a headdress as their mascot. They’re taking a year to do it (presumably so everyone who wants their Chief Wahoo garbage will get it) and then he’s put away wherever the Confederate Flag hangs pinned up in rec rooms and garages among those who rant and whine about how “politically correct” we’ve become and how those libs – or more commonly, “libtards” – are ruining everything!
 
“Politically Correct.” That’s a phrase I really have trouble with, because blaming it for a change in attitudes, and the way we see what may hurt some groups of people, misses the entire point of why those things were painful to begin with. Pavlovitz writes about people rejoicing that under Trump they no longer have to be PC! But what they’re actually claiming is that they’re tired of filtering the things they say in public that they know could offend others who hear it. They are, as Pavlovitz puts it, voicing their outrage at “being asked to participate more fully in civilized humanity.” 
 
Instead of wondering where the world’s gone wrong and blaming political correctness, perhaps the future is about evolving, so that one doesn’t have to be called out for the subtle or even overt racist comments that they used to get away with. The ones that make people look down awkwardly during a conversation or to which no one responds when something is blurted out at work in earshot of co-workers who don’t have a pay cheque big enough to call out its inappropriateness.
 
As Pavlovitz says, it’s not about not being able to “speak the truth” anymore; it’s about having to be accountable for the feelings that lie beneath that so-called truth. It’s about showing every human being the decency you expect, and that they deserve.
 
Good riddance, Chief Wahoo. It’s about time.
 

I’ve been getting some odd emails and tweets in the past few weeks and they have to do with my name, but, you see, it’s not my name. Let me take you back a few decades. In the 1960s, I’d never heard the name Erin on anyone but me. My grandfather had heard it on the radio (there’s a coincidence) and suggested it to my parents. Being too tired to fight or come up with anything better, my mom agreed and here I am: Erin Dawn Davis.
 
There were plenty of Lauries and Loris and Lisas and Michelles and Karens and Susans to be sure, but never, it seemed, an Erin. That was, until the credits rolled and I squealed with delight to see Erin Murphy (Betwitched‘s Tabitha) or Erin Moran (Happy Days‘ Joanie) and I started to hope that one day I just might find a placemat with my name on it. I did.
 
I knew there was another Erin Davis in radio, but she was in BC and I was in Ontario, so there wasn’t much room for confusion there. But it wasn’t until a writer/blogger with a big Christian message (and following) posted something that I wouldn’t go near in 100 years, that I realized having a shared name on the internet could go sideways, fast.
 
“Erin Davis makes a compelling argument for why masturbation has absolutely no place in the life of a Godly woman.”
 
Well, clutch my pearls and throw away the batteries! That is NOT me doing the writing. And I had to explain it to at least one person who tweeted me angrily: “Is this you saying masturbating is bad for girls?” and I replied, “Hell no, that’s not me!” and then went to look for whatever article this person was referring to.
 
Apparently, somewhere in the US midwest is a Christian woman who lives with her husband, chickens and goats. She writes about leading people to a Christian life and I’m all about whatever makes her and her readers happy. But that person is not me!
 
I thought that little self-pleasuring brouhaha had passed, but then just yesterday I got this email at work from a Toronto PR company:  

Erin – I’m reaching out to you, as a key Christian influencer in Canada, to invite you to join us for a free, exclusive VIP pre-screening of the soon-to-be-released faith film, I Can Only Imagine.

 
Yes, so can I. I wrote her back and told her that I am an author, and a former Toronto broadcaster who now does a show in Victoria, BC and that I’m definitely not the person she thought. But thanks anyway!
 
In terms of confused identities I could do worse: “Erin Davis, Serial Killer faces 75 Years in Jail.” That’s one headline I could do without. Or heaven forfend, someone named Erin Davis defaults on credit and I have to sign affadavits when I buy a house swearing I’m not that person. That actually happened to my husband Rob: someone sharing his first and last name had been a deadbeat dad and Rob, to the tune of $75 out of his pocket, had to sign and have witnessed a statement that that bum wasn’t him. 
 
But back to me. A quick Google search finds these links: 

Erin Davis | Graduate Studies | University of Lethbridge
Erin Davis. Master of Science. Undergraduate Degree: Bachelor of Arts and Science in Religious Studies and Psychology Honours
 
Erin Davis, Author at – View the Vibe
Erin is a Toronto-based writer, actor and queen of the side hustle. 

 
I wonder if that’s the Erin Davis who wrote a great piece about making Toronto more livable in @torontoist last week? I hear it was really good, because I was getting tagged in all kinds of praise for it – praise that I turned around so that the actual author could get her props.
 
I suppose this will start to worry me a little more in a year when the book tour begins; will people be asking me questions from a fast and inaccurate Wiki search and think I’m someone else? (Read the book, interviewers – like I did when I was in your shoes!) We’ll see. Will there be preconceived notions in markets outside of Toronto of who I am and what the book’s about? What if they expect the Christian writer Erin and then drop the book in shock in the first 100 pages when they read how five-year-old Lauren learned to swear? (It’s a funny story – I promise.) 
 
Oh well…I will approach it in the same way as the Canadian writer of the World War II book that shares its title with a recent political tell-all. If you buy one Fire and Fury (the war version) thinking it’s another (the White House tell-all), or pick up one Erin Davis thinking it’s the other, I’m fine with that. Who knows? You might get something out of this one, too, but just not until February 2019, my book’s official arrival date. I’ll be back with you here tomorrow. (THIS Erin Davis – not Miles Davis’ son. I’ve heard fan notes about him, too.)
 

I hope you had a good weekend and enjoyed your Victoria-like temperatures! I was so glad to see you might be thawing out a little bit. Just what you need to get you through the rest of January and then that shortest of months to follow.
 
I had a couple of online shopping adventures I wanted to share with you and both, I hope, are cautionary tales.
 
I stumbled across some flavoured water that I really like. Although I’m also fond of stevia-sweetened drops that you can add to still, sparkling or soda water, I happened to pick up a few bottles of Talking Rain Sparkling Ice a couple of weeks ago. I love them, but wasn’t crazy about the price, which can run as high as $1.99 for 100 ml. When I found them online through Amazon.ca for $1.49 each – or $17.88 a dozen – I thought that sounded pretty good. And they’re delivered to our house!
 
I ordered three dozen of the only flavours they had in stock (clearly I’m not the only fan of Sparkling Ice) and smugly awaited what I thought was a smart purchase.
 
Thank goodness I checked my email clutter file the next day. There was a receipt from Amazon and I happened to glance at the numbers. Rob came running when he heard me shout an obscenity; I somehow hadn’t gotten the free shipping I expected. So here’s the total:

Sparkling Ice: $53.64 
Shipping and Handling: $68.38
For a grand total of: $122.02 

Wondering how much that breaks down per 100 ml bottle of flavoured freaking water? $3.39! Um, no. Luckily, because my order hadn’t shipped yet, we were able to stop and cancel it. I caught that one just in time and won’t make that mistake again with the one-click purchase thingy.
 
But here’s a story of something that we needed more than a week ago, and still hasn’t arrived. You know how we went to a comedy show in Seattle, right? Well, we ordered our tickets through Ticketmaster on Thursday, January 11th. They were to be mailed to us (at a cost of about $8.50) and we knew we’d be cutting it close, as we were leaving the next Friday, January 19th. Well, as you’d expect, those tickets didn’t arrive in time for our trip, so we called Ticketmaster and they arranged for us to pick them up at the theatre (which should have been an option to begin with). 
 
It’s now been two weeks – 18 days, actually – and even though, when we called on the 19th, we were told those tickets had been mailed, they still have not shown up in our mailbox. And for this we paid an extra $8.50 US? Just a wee bit of a rip off, wouldn’t you say? (And yes, we tried every other means available not to have them mailed to us.) I know, I know, First World Problems, but I mean, people – we live on an island, but it’s not Bora Bora! 
 
I’ll be back here with you tomorrow.
 

The Oscars are now just over a month away and I know we’ve already seen (or even ignored) all kinds of ceremonies, but the Academy Awards are the biggies, the ones they mention when you die.
 
While we thought someone would perish from the embarrassment of last year’s Best Picture snafu, we’re told six steps have been taken to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The PwC employees who were behind the envelope mix-up won’t be there (they didn’t lose their jobs, by the way) but there are several measures that will be put into place, including a rule for no phones backstage. You may recall that the man who passed off the wrong envelope had just taken and tweeted a picture of Emma Stone. Oops.
 
I’m done with trying to choose winners. Of course, by the time the Oscars roll around, we’ve seen who has taken home statues and it becomes pretty obvious who’ll likely win that big night of March 4th. We have seen two of the contenders so far, including Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. There were a few things that made this film so exceptional: the film itself, an incredible cast and seeing it with friends in nice comfy theatre recliners.
 
I can’t remember when last we took time with friends to see and then discuss a movie over a relaxed dinner afterwards. But that’s what we did with our friends Nancy and Charles, and it was almost like what I imagine a book club accomplishes: you get a chance to savour and pick apart what you’ve just experienced and you share different perspectives on meanings and revelations. There are lot to unpack in this movie about a woman whose daughter is murdered and rents out three billboards to push the cops to deepen their investigation.
 
Frances McDormand is her normal, wonderful, who-gives-a-damn self, but you’d be wrong to mistake that seeming ease for a lack of effort, talent or great depth. A revelation in this was Sam Rockwell as the ne’er-do-well cop – you’ll love his cranky mother’s character – and there’s unexpected sweetness in the form of Woody Harrelson’s sheriff and Peter Dinklage’s unrequited boyfriend character. There’s just so much to this movie that it really is no wonder people are tripping over themselves to give it accolades. I’m among them.
 
See Three Billboards with friends. I promise you’ll want to talk about it later, too. Have a great weekend and thanks so much for sharing this week with me. We saw another movie while we were in Seattle and we’ll talk about The Post here later next week in case, like us, you want to catch the Oscar contenders, too, and wonder if they’re worth your money. Take care.