AMBER NASRULLA ON MOMSTERS; HAPPINESS; HEALTH & WEALTH; FILM, TV & ALL THINGS HOLLYWOOD

Tiger Mom vs Amber

2011-02-07T14:29:00.000-08:00

The same week that Amy Chua's controversial book Tiger Mom came out... Kamran was moved up to a new classroom. His teacher decided to move him, mid-term, to a big-kid room. More academics. More written homework. More reading. More math. Kamran is three years old.

I did not fully understand the implications of this move until Kamran began to struggle and cry every morning when I dropped him off. Used to be that he ran away from me into the playground without a glance back. That was in November, December and I sang the blues to my mommy that it was breakin' my heart "Ma' kid he done growed up all so quick!" Ridiculous I know. But I wanted my three-foot mop-headed tot to need me more. Be careful what you wish for.

It was January and he clung to me like a spider monkey and I was the tall branch and he wa slooking for, well, spiders to chomp on (or whatever the heck it is they eat - if I was really a good reporter I would just Google what they eat...oh, never mind). Neway I had to wriggle to break free of his death-vice grip. Tears sprung from his big almond eyes. Now THAT broke my heart. "No don't leave me." Who wants to hear that every morning?

And in the evening his complaint would be: "Lion, jaguar. I saw sand. And then Ms. Monica said there was an alphabet and I pee-peed on the potty all by myself. And I was happy but i didn't want to nap can I watch Diego today? I really like Max and Ruby. Where's my cement truck? I'm hungry. I want to eat chicken. Are there mini Wheats? Ryan's shoe was blue. I like red. Is that my crayon." You see where this is going? A three-year-old's recollections and ability to explain his feelings are like a pot of spaghetti. It's just a jumbled mess and very messy and difficult to separate each strand to see clearly!

I will say that I'm not the kind of parent who believes in pushing her kid. I really don't. I believe the ages 0-5 are the play years. He's got plenty o time to stress and study and stress and work and sweat and hunker down over textbooks and stay up all night until his eyes bug out. Oh dear I am dating myself. I guess he'll be holding an iPad or whatever the next generation of technology will be by the time he gets there. You get the drift.

The point is I don't push. So Kamran's crying jags continued he'd come home with 12 pages of work. His pudgy little fingers spent hours a day writing rather than colouring or scrabbling around in the dirt looking for worms or rocks or climbing the jungle gym. And that upset me. And... One big parent/teacher conference later.... and....

Here's what ended up happening..... Oh, I'll tell ya later!

Movie Review - TRON: Legacy

2010-12-16T16:20:00.000-08:00

There was a moment early in TRON: Legacy that my husband turned to me and said, “Holy Hell am I ever glad I’m not trapped in a videogame. If I was Sam I would have committed suicide by now.” He was joking, of course, but his reaction illustrated how difficult Sam’s task was.

If you’ve seen the original TRON (I hadn’t) you’ll know that Sam Flynn played by the oh-so-easy-on-les-yeux Garrett Hedlund (the young actor from Troy who looks like Brad Pitt and who got his throat slit accidentally by Eric Bana’s Hector) is the son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges). In the 1982 film, the elder Flynn created a program called CLU, his digital doppelganger, as well as the do-gooder program, TRON, to help him create a digital Utopia.

For no apparent reason, old-man Flynn was sucked into the digital underworld where he fought CLU (who turned to the dark side) to stay alive for two decades on the deadly grid. In TRON: Legacy, Sam somehow ends up in getting “sucked” into the same game and valiantly goes to rescue daddy-o, who he hasn’t seen since childhood…and who he thought abandoned him.

That be the plot. I wish there were more.

Here’s the good stuff. The soundtrack. In a word - AWESOME. Buy it, download it. Listen to it. Love it. I loved it. At the media screening on Monday night the sound-check ran late so the film started an hour late. It was well worth it. The El Capitan Theater in L.A. shook and rocked and rolled …

The special effects are spectacular – it’s so pretty and crisp. It’s like living a tidy ice-house lit up by the Northern Lights. During the Lightcycle race (think chunky motorcycle covered with rows of Christmas lights), the screen is filled with trails of ice blue and green and purple and red. Uber-modern.

The costumes. Sam Flynn and Quorra a program who helps Kevin Flynn (Olivia Wilde from House) wear skin-tight motocross-inspired suits that light up. She wears platform shoes with cutout heels and some of the guys are in corsets. It’s so stylish, with shades of Barbarella though not the grit of Mad Max or Bladerunner. All in all, the wardrobe has the elegance of The Matrix. And Tronnies (Tronites?) can have a piece of that elegance by shelling out. There’s a clothing collection designed by Opening Ceremony (available in West Hollywood and online) and jewelry designed by Tom Tom.

The actors. Jeff Bridges. It’s obvious he’s having a blast. As the aging and trapped Kevin Flynn, he walks around the grid in flowing white robes and with one touch of his hand shows how much power he still has. He is the creator after all. But he’d rather not show his power. He’d rather find Zen, man.

I'm a fan of Olivia Wilde primarily because her mom is the amazing journalist/producer Leslie Cockburn who wrote a great book Looking for Trouble in which she chronicles, among other things, the destruction of Somalia while six months preggers with Olivia, voyages to Afghanistan and Haiti, and befriending Pablo Escobar. Cockburn was Peter Jenning’s producer and she co-wrote a book with her husband upon which The Peacemaker (with George Clooney) is based.

Wilde delivers one of my favorite lines in the film as Quorra to Sam: “Do you know Jules Verne?” I won’t say anymore. Let’s just say that she needs to get out more.

Michael Sheen (The Queen, 30 Rock, Underworld) who plays Castor is terrific although I didn’t really understand why his character was in the film. Is there any role this actor can’t conquer? He just consumes every scene he is in especially when he’s in a top hat and tails and singing with glee.

All in all, TRON: Legacy is a treat for your eyes thought not necessarily for your mind. It won’t be fun to watch on a small screen like say your iPhone or DROID or even on your 60-inch home telly.

Oh, and not to forget that first fight-to-the-death scene on the grid (that my husband referred to) where the newly arrived Sam fights a growling masked goon/program. Call me chicken but I’d rather jump off the grid by choice and shatter into millions of bits and bytes, than have one of those freakishly pretty Frisbees of death cut through my flesh. But I’m not Sam and my dad’s not trapped in a videogame.

MY INTERVIEW: KIM RAVER of Grey's Anatomy

2010-10-26T14:45:00.001-07:00

(Double-click on images to enlarge and read article from Chatelaine.)

For my complete interview with Kim Raver, pick up the November 2010 issue of Chatelaine magazine

Columbus Day Sale at L.A.'s The Address Boutique

2010-10-08T12:43:00.000-07:00

Like a child coveting a new toy at Christmas, I often press my face up to the windows of Gucci, Chanel, and Versace, to stare at the glittering treasures inside.

If you’re like me and want to dress like a diva but have the budget of a church mouse get thee to The AdDress Boutique this weekend. For every $100 you spend at the designer resale store in Santa Monica, you get a $25 gift certificate (expires on U.S. Thanksgiving).

The AdDress Boutique is where stylists for celebs like Lindsay Lohan, Heather Graham, and Sharon Stone go to sell designer duds when the star has worn them once too many. Which is to say they’ve worn an outfit twice. And sometimes not at all.

I wandered in there today and was gob-smacked to see reasonable prices on an entire shelf of designer handbags. Gucci, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton all murmured suggestively “Buy me.” A black suede ruffle bag by YSL was $185 (USD). A gorgeous purple patent Salvatore Ferragamo was $395.

In the back were racks of pretty shoes. Golden Christian Louboutin slides for $175. Manolo Blahnik pumps for $135. An Herve Leger rainbow bandage dress that retails for $2250 at Nieman Marcus was priced at $695.

Unable to wait for the weekend sale, I hankered after a pair of oversized Dolce Gabbana sunglasses ($160 down from $395). Salesperson Crissy Madden convinced me they looked fabulous on me, even more so than the $190 Chanel cat-eye glasses. That's salemanship! It’s not Christmas…but, hey it was my birthday last week.

The AdDress Boutique (www.theaddressboutique.com) is at 1116 Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica

Child of Thieves

2010-09-27T11:24:00.000-07:00

When you see thieves on film they're always glamorous. It's George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Ocean's Eleven, all chisel-jawed, debonair, hunky, stealing with hi-tech flair. Or there's suave Cary Grant stealing priceless baubles and Princess Grace's heart in To Catch a Thief.

It sure as heck ain't like that in real life. Thieves are missing teeth, have pock-marked skin, greasy hair and shabby clothes; well, at least it looks that way judging by the mug shots on Bad Boys.

My one and only collision with the dark underbelly of crooks and thieves came when I was 13 - that awkward time between youth and adulthood when you don't fit in anywhere. Still like the comfort of childhood but covet adult things although you're not quite sure what to do with them.

I was in a smoke and gift shop - that's what they called convenience stores in the late 1980s - in a plaza not far from my parents' house. It was a narrow twig of a shop with two aisles. There was a deep freezer at the back filled with ice-cream, shelves of magazines, chocolate bars, Dettol, Archie comic books, and cigarettes behind the counter. No gifts to speak of.

My accomplice, Sherry, hissed at me, "Take the Mr. Freezie! Put it in your shirt!" Now any sane person would know better than to put a 12-inch hunk of ice down her shirt but I was impressionable i.e. stupid, so I grabbed the big white one (Crush flavour), stuffed it down my blouse and hoofed it for the door. I didn't make it. A cold hand was on my back. Nails scratched me. Sherry was out the door. "Wait for me! Sherry!! Sherry!" She didn't look back.

Through the large windows of the storefront I saw Sherry jump on her purple beachcruiser and tear down the plaza sidewalk. She didn't look back. She was shaking. At first I thought she was afraid and then I realized she was laughing. At me. At my stupidity.

The cold hand swung me around. It was the owner. The slender Chinese man who owned the store and to whom I'd said hello to so many times before. The man I'd paid money to for Mars bars and wax vampire teeth and gobstoppers and silly string.

"Who are you? Who is your father?," he said, "Where you live? Why are you stealing from me?" He lectured me on and on. It took everything not to pee my pants. The Mr. Freezie was still in my blouse and it was melting. I handed it to him. He didn't take it. Just looked disgusted. Gestured to the garbage can.

I began to cry. I spilled details like a bag of torn peas from the freezer. I told him my dad's name, where we lived. He made me write it down. He even checked it against the phone book. I thought I'd throw up. "Go home and pay me for what you stole. Right now. Go home and come right back."

"If you're not back in 10 minutes I'll send the police to your house." I was too young to know the police wouldn't come to his store for a 25-cent-theft. Or maybe they would have.

By the time I got back the store owner was angrier than before. He gave me another lecture. "You're an immigrant. You have to work harder that these people around you. You should be ashamed. Your father should be ashamed."

When he mentioned my father I couldn't bear it. "Never come back to my shop. Ever."

I cried again. "I'm sorry," I squeaked. I was a worm. Less than a worm.

When I went to school the next day, Sherry had told my classmates and they thought it was hilarious. Of course I'd have been a hero if I'd gotten away with my 25-cent-heist.

"You dipshit," Sherry said, when I told her what happened. "Why didn't you tell him your dad was John Smith or something?"

I couldn't think as quickly as her. Did I look like my dad's name is John? I'm brown-skinned you idiot I whispered under my breath.

Looking back I recall having monster fights with my mom who didn't want me to be Sherry's friend. "She's not your kind of girl." And she was right.

And now it's my turn to be bitch-slapped by my know-it-all kid. He's only three-years-old, but I know that the teenage train will be here soon. I can feel it thundering towards me! Will he listen to me? How do I get him to listen to me?!!

I watch him in the play-yard at school. Sometimes he's the alpha male, sometimes he sets the rules, sometimes he lets someone else do the bossing around. And sometimes he's democratic.

I wonder what stupid things he'll do. Who will he try to impress?How do I get him to avoid the mistakes I made?

How do I get him to listen to me when I didn't listen to my own mom and dad - who were AMAZING parents? There are no answers in the movies. There are no answers in self-help books. I just have to bumble along and watch and listen to him and hope and pray that I figure out good parenting as I go along.

I'm at Rocky Horror's 35th Anniversary Convention in L.A.!

2010-09-21T12:25:00.000-07:00

I remember the first time I saw him, the “Sweet Transvestite of Transexual, Transylvania”. I was in Grade 13, wide-eyed and (mostly) innocent and Tim Curry’s Frank-N-Furter was shocking and sexy. I'd joined 10 friends in a local air-band competition and we chose to perform two songs from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Fifteen years after its release the film was still inspiring teens’ make-up and wardrobe choices. (We came in second to a group from another high school that did Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up. Gag.)

But I digress. This year marks the 35th anniversary of the cult musical, and downtown L.A.’s Million Dollar Theater hosts the annual Rocky Horror Convention from Sept. 23-25. (www.sinscon.com)

I’ll be there – in jeans – eyeballing convention-goers in fishnets and corsets (and less than that) as they preen for the costume pageant, autograph sessions, star Q&A, and screening.

Barry Bostwick who played Brad Majors hosts; Cliff De Young (Shock Treatment) and other talent are booked.

If you can't get to the convention, practice your Time Warp dance and check out Glee’s tribute episode on Oct. 26. (FOX/Global). Meat Loaf and Bostwick guest star as TV station managers wooing Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch). Curry has apparently said no. I, for one, will ache for his lasciviousness and delicious humour.

KRISTEN BELL'S ARE RINGING IN BURLESQUE & YOU AGAIN

2010-09-15T23:06:00.000-07:00

Here's my interview with Kristen Bell. (In case you're wondering how to read the miniscule type, just double-click on the article.) She was lovely. I've interviewed her once before, on the set of Veronica Mars in its first season. She's as big as a blade of grass and has big opinions. I've interviewed a lot of celebs and I got the sense that she really wants to have as "quiet" a life as possible in Hollywood...and yet make positive contributions to the planet too. Bonne chance!

For the complete story pick up the October 2010 issue of Chatelaine magazine.

Pakistan - Family Flashbacks & Floods from 1946 to 2010

2010-08-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

My grand-mother had the saddest eyes. They were caramel-coloured and ringed with hazel and they conveyed depths of pain. She was a beautiful woman and she was kind and strong and hard-working. She was a pathologist who raised four children by herself. And she rarely smiled. I used to test myself to see what I could do to make her laugh.

I’ve been reading my grandfather’s diaries that he wrote in 1945 and 1946. This week when I opened the pages, the smell of smoke from his pipe wafted out. My father’s father was a civil servant and reading his diaries has given me insight into the turmoil in India before Partition (the division of India by the British that led to the formation of Pakistan and Bangladesh) in 1947. He also wrote of the end of the Second World War.

There are many revealing passages about my grandmother, Amtul Hafiz, and her children – my aunts and uncle. I always thought she had four children, two sons and two daughters. My father, Omar, is the eldest.

I was surprised to read that she had another baby, a boy who would have been about 9 months old. In the entry of April 2, 1946, my grandfather writes about that baby named Shahbaz – meaning literally “one who submits”.

My grandfather was away from their home in Delhi, attending a wedding and he received a telegram from my grandmother saying that Shahbaz was ill and weak with an infection. He was a "blue baby", which means he had been born with a hole in his heart and he had been sick and suffering from lack of oxygen since birth.

My grandfather wrote that Shahbaz had a fever of 104. He was very alarmed about his son and couldn’t eat. The next day another telegram from my grandmother: “Don’t worry now. Get the wedding over and return according to your programme.”

The next day at the wedding, a relative pulled my grandfather aside and said, “Shahbaz is gone.” My grandfather wrote: “My poor darling long and patiently suffering boy had gone home. I was not even with him at the end nor by the side of Hafiz.” My grandfather sent a telegram: “My dear Hafiz, I wish I was wish you in this. Courage. Love Nasrulla.” The surgery that could have saved Shahbaz was invented in the 1950s.

There’s much more sadness in this family that followed but it cracks my heart to write it – just to relive what my Dadda-ji wrote in his beautiful artistic handwriting in turquoise ink. I don’t mean to say they didn’t have lovely times. They did. They took holidays, they went horseback riding, had picnics; but it’s the sadness that overwhelms the pages in those trembling post-war days.

When Shahbaz died, I don’t know what my grandmother felt. All I can say is that I was beyond shocked to read about him. I’d never known there was a third son. I cried. I cried because I was ashamed I didn’t know this about her. I cried because I was sad she was alone when the baby died. I cried because I cannot imagine the agony of outliving your own; one who weighs just a few kilos.

I cried because once I remembered the time my grandmother got frustrated with my sister and I. We were pre-teens, visiting her in Lahore for the summer. She said we were soft, growing up in the West and had it easy. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I remember being angry. And telling her she didn’t know what she was talking about. I think I talked about racism, school yard taunts and fights, about not fitting in, about loneliness. God, how childish I was. She fought dysentery, typhoid, cholera, lived through a World War, food rations, partition, Hindu/Sikh/Muslim riots, British rule, a divided country… What a brat I am.

I loved her so much and today I realize I hardly knew her. How much should a grandchild know a grandparent?

In 1952 my grandfather died of a heart attack. He was 49. He had suffered from hypertension for a long time. He wrote of it in great detail. She was a widow at the age of 35. She was a pathologist and in a very conservative country she went on to raise her four children. My dad became a physician, his younger brother, Jehangir, a general in the Pakistan Army, the youngest sister is psychiatrist who lives in the states. The middle sister (the one born after Shahbaz) lived in Pakistan with my grandmother until my grandmother died on June 17, 2002.

Reading the 1946 diary has taught me some and frightened me a lot. Namely, What will I do with my child?! How will I guide him? I live in Orange County where the biggest thing I have to worry about is, how to raise a kid who isn’t a spoiled brat who expects a new toy every day and a BMW for his 16th birthday.

I am nothing compared to my grandparents. Nothing compared to any of my South Asian ancestors. How do any of us compare to those who went before us? And how are we doing when it comes to looking after those around us?

Today in Pakistan, as anyone following the news knows, 14 million people are devastated. Devastated - is that even the right word? The old, the young, the sick, the healthy, the mentally ill, brothers, sisters, the blind, the good (and I wish the evil) are devastated by flooding. Thousands are dead, diseases about to be spread. I’ll leave the reporting to others but it’s a mad, sad, bad world right now.

I feel as if that I don’t know a thing about anything – not the news, not the world, not even my family. I should try harder. What is most pitiful is that I feel helpless to actually help. Oh sure I’ve donated to Red Cross… but …. Am I really helping?

I didn’t help my grandmother in her lifelong grief. I love her still. She knew so much. She’d seen so much. No wonder her eyes were always sad.

FUNNY GIRLS: Stand-up gals who always crack us up!

2010-08-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from
ELLE Canada
September 2010

By Amber Nasrulla

After years of interviewing celebrities, I get a kick out of reading star profiles in which writers describe wealthy actors as “so normal.” Newsflash: They’re not. It’s impossible.

Oh, sure they will share their limo, buy you lunch and look into your eyes while answering your questions. They’ll kiss you good-bye and their lips might actually graze your cheek. They’ll complain about the price of gas and the local politician’s latest gaffe, but, let’s face it: Stars aren’t normal. There are as many reasons for that as there are dollars in a star’s bank account. Still, there are a few high-profile actors who are almost average, in a gal-next-door kind of way. One of them is Tina Fey.

In the comedy world, performers traditionally hold specific roles: Mae West was a sensuous vamp; Lucille Ball and Debra Messing, were ditzy klutzes; Mary Tyler Moore and Phyllis Diller had a lock on self-deprecation; Roseanne Barr wore the mantle of angry feminist; Sarah Silverman and Kathy Griffin were shockers. Now, for the first time, “normal” joins the line-up, and Fey has a firm hold on that category.

As queen of the castle Fey is all tangled up with Liz Lemon, the character she created for the Emmy Award-winning 30 Rock. Both produce a late-night comedy/variety show at a large TV network in Manhattan. Both deal with overbearing bosses and prima donna talent. Both inspire us with the fact that they are brainy, high-achieving women in a field still dominated by men. They are not perfect and don’t pretend to be. And, God, do they make us laugh.

Liz is the most realistic single career woman on TV since Murphy Brown. She’s not the girlfriend, the wife or the hot chick. She’s the boss. Liz isn’t afraid to wear granny underwear and ugly pajamas in the era of Victoria’s Secret. She has dated a beeper salesman and chugs wine while running on a treadmill. Perfect, she ain’t. Normal? Yeah. Relatable? Absolutely. Liz gives us permission to be eccentric, to be okay about ourselves, to do exactly what we want. We can laugh at our mistakes and not take ourselves too seriously. How freeing is that?

And Fey seems to have it all. She is navigating a man’s world, but she has maintained her sense of self, hasn’t compromised her ideals and never seems manipulative or coquettish. You don’t see her purring like Paris Hilton or the Kardashian sisters on the red carpet or flashing her waxed privates to paparazzi in Hollywood. And when she does do something that could be considered sex-kittenish – like the April issue of Esquire with the cover line, “Tina Goes Wild” – she defuses it with a self-deprecatory comment. “What I've come to realize is that when people say, ‘The thinking man’s whatever,’ there’s no such thing. The thinking man also wants to fuck Megan Fox.”

Fey was matter-of-fact when she told Vogue in March: “I feel like I represent normalcy in some way. What are your choices today in entertainment? People either represent youth, power or sexuality. And then there’s me, carrying normalcy.” As a multi-millionaire entertainer, Fey isn’t really “normal.” She was the first female head writer at Saturday Night Live and has won mountains of awards. She created, writes, and executive produces 30 Rock. She writes and stars in movies and makes a point of working with her friends. (And we love her more for her loyalty.) During last year’s presidential election, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more quick-witted political satirist and impressionist. But she projects normal beautifully. She talks of her stable home life. She’s married and has a daughter. She’s self-deprecating and downplays her achievements.

“Tina Fey is a hero to a lot of women,” says Kelley Lynn, a comedian and frequent performer at the Gotham Comedy Club in New York. An adjunct professor at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y., who teaches dramatics and stand-up comedy, Lynn says of Fey, “She’s brilliant. She works hard. She’s not Ms. Plastic Surgery. Her trickle-down effect is positive, positive, positive.”

When I do a shout out to my girlfriends on Facebook they gush about how they relate to Fey. Tara, a film marketing coordinator in Los Angeles, writes: “She doesn't conform to the beauty aesthetic in Hollywood and she has created a sex appeal for smart, cute brunettes.”

Marie Lavallée, a Canadian expat and sales manager in Newport Beach, California, says Fey has “that BFF aura” about her and has created an equally approachable character. “Liz Lemon is the personification of my most inner dialogue and her character makes me laugh at my anxieties.”

Every decade has had a comic social commentator with an artfully contrived look. Phyllis Diller commanded the stage in zany costumes while mocking her looks. Joan Rivers held the microphone in an evening gown, a vision of elegant sarcasm; Roseanne Bar wore feminist rage on her sleeve. And now there’s Fey as Liz: quirky, brainy, lovely.

Jessica Kirson, a stand-up comedian in New York City, who has appeared on The Tonight Show, says that stand-up comics have evolved past costumes and props, and somehow nutty and normal manage to co-exist. “We can be vulnerable – and our audiences want to hear more reality,” she says.

When she won an Emmy in 2008, Fey said, “I want to thank my parents for somehow raising me to have confidence that is disproportionate with my looks and abilities. Well done! That is what all parents should do.”

I feel like she’s parenting us through her comedy, spreading confidence with each quip, improv sketch, and punch line that she writes, and every laugh, giggle, and cackle she brings out in us. Fey is my role model for the 21st century – next to my mom of course. And I’d buy them both lunch anytime.

(TO READ MY AMAZING INTERVIEW WITH MS. DILLER AND MORE ON TODAY'S FEMALE STAND-UP COMICS, PICK UP THE SEPT. ISSUE OF ELLE CANADA)

DEFY YOUR AGE: the antioxidant answer

2010-07-29T10:43:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from Chatelaine
August 2010

By Amber Nasrulla

Canadian actor Ellen Dubin (shown above) admits to being an antioxidant addict. The co-star of the upcoming HBO Canada movie, Second Chances is constantly moving between time zones and climates, and all that travel takes a toll on her skin. “In L.A. the pollution and sunshine are very intense. In Toronto, the extreme weather is so dehydrating,” she says. But when you’re an actor, bad-skin days aren’t an option. To keep looking her best, Dubin loads up on antioxidants. She always carries a Thermos full of green tea and snacks on dark chocolate seasoned with acai and blueberry extract. “Have Baggie, will travel!” she says.

Has Dubin jumped on the latest food fad out of California, or is there sound science behind her dietary arsenal? “Antioxidants are kamikaze disease fighters because they combat free-radical damage,” says Christine Gerbstadt, a dietitian and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association.

To understand how antioxidants work, imagine looking at your body on a cellular level. You’ll see that you are made up of atoms. Stable atoms always have electrons in pairs, one positive and one negative, so they have a neutral charge. Free radicals however, are pesky little oxygen atoms that only have a negative charge. They’re lonely and unstable, and they go around trying to steal positive electrons from healthy atoms. Put in dating terms, free radicals are like that sexy single gal (or guy) who hits on your date and has lured him away by the end of the night. Now they’re together you’re the one looking to pair up.

The dating game between free radicals and healthy atoms starts almost from the moment we’re born. Our bodies produce free radicals when we’re exposed to stresses like sun, environmental pollutants, cigarette smoke and electromagnetic radiation. The more we produce, the more likely they are to harm cell structures and DNA. Eventually, the damage becomes irreversible and may result in inflammation or disease.

The negative impact of free radicals is most visible on our skin. It shows up in the form of brown spots and precancerous lesions, for instance. (Part of the mechanism here is the same chemical reaction – oxidation – that tarnishes your silver your silver and turns an apple brown after you bite it.) But don’t sob, sister – it is possible to protect yourself.

Enter antioxidants. By stimulating cells’ defence mechanisms, these super-nutrients neutralize free radicals. Antioxidants willingly donate electrons to the free radicals, without affecting healthy cells. They are the “sacrificial lambs that preserve the health of your cells,” says Gerbstadt.

The rock star antioxidants are Vitamin C found in blueberries, broccoli, strawberries, and oranges; Vitamin E in goji berries and acai berries; resveratrol in red wine and raw grapes; polyphenols in red cherries, cranberries, dark chocolate, coffee and green tea; lycopene found in tomatoes and watermelon.

Dietitians recommend adults eat 4½ cups of antioxidant-rich food daily. According to the Canada Food Guide, a serving size is ½ cup so that’s nine servings of fruits and vegetables. Herbs and spices, such as cloves, basil, oregano and cinnamon, contain antioxidants too. (Small quantities, such as ¼ tsp of cinnamon, make up a serving.)

If you’re trying to harness this power for your skin, you’re going to need more than a few berries on your cereal. The antioxidants required for serious skin care work best topically, but only if they penetrate the skin. Sheldon Pinnell, a professor emeritus of dermatology at Duke University proved that Vitamin C can reduce sun damage in his groundbreaking 1992 study. He’s a pioneer in the industry and considered by some to be the godfather of skin-care science.

Although there are thousands of antioxidants, Pinnell’s lifetime of research as a collagen chemist, has determined that the skin can absorb very few of them. Vitamins A, C and E are good bets for skin care. The bottom line: Look for serums and creams that have high concentrations of these vitamins.

For the complete story, pick up the August issue of Chatelaine…. and go to Skinceuticals.com and deepskincare.com.

P.S. I invested in Phloretin CF from Skinceuticals and love it…it’s pricey $153 for an ounce; and I also tried samples of the Hero package from Deep…both are great. Deep is more than $200 so I've started a savings fund for it. As a working mommy in the harsh Cali sun, it’s working wonders. And NO I didn’t get any freebies. Alas, they only send that to the editors, not to lowly freelancers. Hint. Hint.

Sneaking a Nap With Preschoolers Around

2010-07-28T15:14:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the best sleeps happen just where you happen to be sitting. But like a winter thaw, "snaps" (short naps) are to be cherished, because they don't last very long.

Take, for instance, my father, who is 69, and my son, who is three. Aba was at work at 7:30 a.m. today assisting in various surgeries. It's 6:22 p.m. and he's sprawled on the couch, eyes barely open for the last 7.5 minutes. Kamran is reading a soft cover book about a caterpillar looking for some lunch. "Red tomatoes, red tomatoes, munch munch munch tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, so much tomatoes. There are a lot of foods," he says. He pokes Aba. "Read it! Read it." Pre-schoolers aren't much for subtlety when someone needs rest.

Kamran brings his chubby face close to Aba's, so close that he inhales Aba's exhalations. "Naan-Aba, can we read another book!" Aba jumps. "Help me Naan-Aba. It's too heavy."

You're thinking I'm cruel for observing instead of giving my dad a break. Yes I am. But I so enjoy watching them play. Aba reads him Diego and Dora translating the English into Urdu. Kamran repeats the occasional word. Kitab. Book. "Dora made it past the troll bridge! Yaaay." He rubs his eyes. Aah, who is tired now?

Soon, Aba, soon, Kamran's eyelids will grow heavy and he'll fall asleep for 12 hours. Zzzzzzzz

Look Away! He's Surfing Porn in Public Library

2010-05-14T21:27:00.000-07:00

There's a big purple fluffy dog at the local library and kids are crawling all over it and all I can think is "Good God it could be covered with Impetigo! Walk away! Walk away!"

But there are more dangerous things in the library.

Like the weird guy at the free computer station surfing porn. I noticed him while Kamran and were searching for Elmo's Potty Time DVD. Why oh why isn't there legislation prohibiting watching porn in public libraries? Blah blah blah free society but there are babies wandering around and I don't mean the two year olds. Teens, tweens, kids experiencing their first pimples. They should not be exposed to this. And I don't think my taxes should... Oh never mind. Now I sound like a Republican.

I mention it to one of the librarians, my voice thin and pitchy, like a scared contestant on American Idol. She sighs and says there's nothing they can do about it unless he starts jacking off. Lovely.

We got our DVD and left.

Potty-Training Rewards Club

2010-05-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

Post Script to Mother's Day.

Four poops and Three Pees later... on the toilet no less. And I have rewarded Kamran with a Thomas the Train battery-powered bubble-machine. Bribery works.

Once he's completely potty trained he gets a Schwinn bike.

Mother's Day - Toiletries

2010-05-09T21:31:00.000-07:00

On Mother’s Day after the fish tacos have been devoured, the brownies mobbed and the last of the freshly squeezed lemonade drunk, the boy is tucked in and snoring. He’s zonked out after running amok on Balboa Island. There’s sand in his shoes, waves, seagulls, seashells – and the first surfers he’s ever seen in his entire life – in his memories – I’m sure.

I look back at the last few and I can’t pat myself on the back. I have not been an exemplary parent. I love my kid. I would lie down on train tracks and allow myself to be cut in two if need be, I would, so I don’t question my devotion but I do question my execution of parenting. I have sucked at much of it.

Potty Training
Two weeks ago it was blazingly hot – 89 degrees. I took Kamran for a swim in the association pool. You can see the pool from our balcony. It’s outside surrounded by palm trees, bird of paradise, bougainvilla.

Five minutes in after a little bit of splashing, a few kicks and dunks and Kamran said “Ami I have to go potttyyyy.” Uh-huh. We ran to the woman’s loo. The bloody door was locked. Threw myself at the men’s door. Locked.

I know what you’re thinking. Lady, if you can see the pool from your balcony why didn’t you just go home? Well, my kid is 34 months old and his bladder is the size of a walnut. I’m trying to instill confidence in his peeing abilities.

I pulled off his swim trunks. Off came the Lightning McQueen swim diaper. “Pee in the bushes, Kamran.” He looked aghast. He looked around. Embarrassed. Shy. Again, he’s not even three years old. He’s 3 feet tall. He peed. Then he looked at me. The words they haunt me. “I have to go pottyyy.”

“You just did.”

“I have to go POTTY!” Urgent. Afraid. He started to crouch. Oh. Dear. God. I. Will. Never. Make. It. To. My. House. And I didn’t bring a spare diaper with me because he never poops at this time of day. And he can hold his pee in no problem. So I did what anyone would do.

I held him in my arms, facing me. Plup. Plulp. Plop. (Don’t judge, dogs do it.) He pooped in front of a bird of paradise bush while I frantically scanned the nearby condos for the neighbours.

If someone saw me, a brown-skinned woman with long black hair and a nose-ring, holding a squatting, half-naked kid pooping on the flowers, they’d think we were fresh off the boat and call the authorities. I had a plastic bag (for wet towels) and I scooped up his scat.

Kamran was very proud when it was all over. I couldn’t run home fast enough with my pantless child and the small bag of his warm poo. He yabbered the whole way: “Ami I didn’t poop in my diaper. I’m a big boy. I pooped on the gwass. I pooped on the pwetty p’lowers.”

“Shh. Be quiet.”

“I’m a big boy! I pooped outside. Ami I pooped outside.”

“Yes you did. Good job. We’ll talk about it at home.”

“I pooped at the pool! There's a mo'cycle! I want to colour. I tell Daddy I pooped at the pool.” ‘

“Yes I heard you the first 15 million times you told me.”

Where is he hiding a megaphone in those chubby adorable hands?

I look at him and see his wonder and joy at his accomplishment. Such small things bring him pleasure.

My challenge is to…. Well, my challenge is to appreciate Kamran’s joy, his simplicity as well as his complexities and uniqueness and his purity and sweetness. But mostly my challenge is to stop (him from screaming that he did his business outside) and trying to be the Perfect Parent. There’s no such thing. There’s no schedule. There’s no statistic. So I take back what I said. I don’t suck. I’m just me. I’m Amber.

I certainly can’t predict every bowel movement no more than I can predict every skinned knee and every subsequent tear drop. But I would certainly like to be there for as many tickles, giggles, hugs, and kisses as possible with My Kamran. Happy Mother's Day toute le monde.

COLD COMFORT Is freezing your eggs the key to beating your biological clock?

2010-04-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from ELLE Canada
May 2010

By Amber Nasrulla

(*names have been changed)

Elizabeth Schwartz* knew that her biological clock was ticking but she never expected it to come to this. “I wish I was married and had kids already,” she says. “I wish I didn’t have to be spending all this money. I wish I wasn’t in this place.”

Schwartz is a 38-year-old social-media marketing consultant in Boston. She is single. In January 2008 she began researching technology that would allow her to freeze her eggs so that she could have children in the future. “I have to do everything I can to preserve my fertility,” says Schwartz, who had six mature eggs extracted and frozen at a hospital and stored at an egg bank until she meets Mr. Right. If she is unable to conceive naturally with a future partner, she will have her younger eggs thawed and fertilized with his sperm.

Rachel Sandoval spent a year trying to conceive before she learned her fallopian tubes were blocked. Then 29, the Anaheim, California resident knew she’d need in-vitro fertilization (IVF). “I didn’t know if it would take five months or five years and it made sense to freeze my healthy eggs and use them down the line,” she says. In 2003, Sandoval underwent her first round of IVF at West Coast Fertility Centers in Fountain Valley, California, and also froze some eggs. The IVF worked and her daughter was born that winter. Three years later, Sandoval was unable to conceive naturally, so doctors fertilized three of her defrosted eggs. Her second daughter is now three years old. In 2008, she visited the clinic a final time to use the eggs they had frozen in 2003. That yielded a son, now 16 months old. “I’ve never won a contest in my life. And now we have two frozen egg babies,” says Sandoval happily.

Schwartz and Sandoval are pioneers in the world of “oocyte cryopreservation,” in which eggs are extracted from a woman’s, frozen and stored, so that they can be thawed and fertilized in the future if natural means of conception don’t work. It was introduced in the early 1980s to help women undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, or diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, lupus or other autoimmune disorders that can destroy fertility. These early attempts at egg freezing were extremely inefficient and the technology remained mired in obscurity for 20 years until recent research advances vastly improved the process. Now it’s being increasingly used for egg donations as well as for IVF, and elective egg freezing by women who lack a male partner or wish to delay childbearing to focus on their careers, and IVF.

Although the technology for egg freezing is advancing, the Canadian Fertility and Anthology Society, and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, still classify it as a research procedure. To date, there have fewer than 1,500 frozen egg births worldwide.

We’re born with all the eggs we’re ever going to produce and they age along with us – though two or three times faster than the rest of our bodies. The ideal reproductive years are between 18 and 24, when we are most fertile, and our eggs are the least likely to be defective. “Looking good in the mirror doesn’t equate with good fertility,” says Dr. Scott Slayden, an IVF Specialist at Reproductive Biology Associates (RBA) in Atlanta. “Our lifestyles, toxin exposure – especially cigarettes – genetic background, gynecologic surgery or disease, determine the fate of this precious cargo.” From 24 to 38, the average woman’s fertility drops by about 50 per cent and then it continues to decline. By the time you are in your mid-40s, up to 90 percent of your remaining eggs could be chromosomally abnormal. Your risk of miscarriage and having a child with Down’s syndrome also increase significantly, so, putting your eggs on ice freezes them in time and – in theory at least – gives you the choice to beat the biological clock.

Just as the pill allowed women to have sex without pregnancy, egg freezing could allow women who want children to be unshackled from their aging ovaries. Dr. Janet Takefman, director of psychological research and services at the McGill Reproductive Centre in Montreal, has firsthand experience of the impact of oocyte cryopreservation on patients. “One psychological benefit is that they feel proactive,” she says. “They have taken control over their own fertility.”

It has taken scientists a long time to level the playing field for women. Men have been banking their sperm since the 1950s, and couples going through IVF can freeze embryos for future pregnancies. Since the 1980s researchers have tinkered with egg freezing using the slow-freeze method, in which the egg is dehydrated and its water replaced with a cryoprotectant. It’s only in the past five years that scientists have devised vitrification, a safer, more effective way to freeze eggs that has increased survival rates. (Eggs, which contain a large amount of water, tend to form ice crystals when frozen and the cell is often killed when the egg thaws.)

At the McGill Reproductive Centre, a worldwide leader in oocyte vitrification, eggs are plunged into liquid nitrogen and frozen quickly to prevent ice-crystal formation. For women under 35, the clinical pregnancy rate per cycle with frozen eggs is comparable to that of IVF – 45 per cent versus 50 to 60 per cent respectively, says Dr. Seang Lin Tan, chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at McGill University, and founder and director of the McGill Reproductive Centre. Thirty healthy babies have been born there from frozen eggs.

But critics say that elective freezing should be discouraged for reasons ranging from ethical issues to the ramifications of a generation of children whose parents may not live long enough to raise them to adulthood. “The women’s movement, in which I was an avid participant for many years, has sold women a bill of goods by leading them to believe that they can have whatever they want, whenever they want, in the order they want,” says Diane Allen, executive director of Infertility Network in Toronto. Couples in their early 30s need to get serious about having kids, she says, otherwise they run a real risk of their fertility declining with age. Educational programs, accessible childcare, job sharing, and changes to the tax system, could help couples start their families earlier, she adds.

Ava McKenna* a 32-year-old MBA student at Emory University in Atlanta, has polycystic ovarian syndrome and there’s a history of miscarriage in her family. She knows it will be difficult for her to conceive and stay pregnant. She also knows oocyte cryopreservation is experimental but has studied it enough to be confident with the outcome. “I believe in doing whatever I can now to give my future baby the best chance at being healthy.” That includes spending US$7,500 last winter to have her eggs extracted and frozen at RBA and another $7,500 to complete the IVF transfer in the future. (Over the past two years, RBA’s vitrification method has accounted for 10%, or 127, of the world’s frozen-egg babies.)

The dating rules have changed for McKenna, who wonders, “How do you tell a guy you have frozen eggs?” If he has a problem with her decision, he’s not for her, she reasons. She is emotionally and financially prepared to be a single parent. “I've created my own choices,” she says.

Angela Lauria chief marketing officer of a software company in Washington D.C. has a four-year-old son and is getting a divorce. She wants to have more kids but, at 37, knows the window is closing and is considering putting her eggs “on ice”. In a few years she might have them fertilized with sperm from a gay friend. “He feels that this is such a gift and he wouldn’t have the opportunity to be a father otherwise,” she explains. “My goal is to be able to use science to make a relationship an option in my life, not something that is required.”

Slayden considers egg freezing to be a form of “reproductive insurance” rather than a definitive path to extend fertility. “If you have a life insurance policy,” he says, “do you really want to use it? No – for obvious reasons.” Tan agrees, “My dream is that every woman should freeze their eggs in her 20s.”

Dr. Gerard Letterie, a reproductive endocrinologist and founder of the Northwest Center for Reproductive Sciences in Seattle, predicts that five or 10 years from now, the doctor/patient conversation will move beyond contraception. “This option will be to tomorrow’s women what contraceptive choices were to our predecessors,” he says.

Back in Boston, Schwartz wishes she’d had that option. “I really want women to think about it even earlier than I did,” she says.

Toddler Injury, Illness, and Oh Yes, Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

2010-02-25T21:58:00.000-08:00

Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Giggle. Bounce. Giggle. Bounce. Bounce. Huge laugh.

“Ami. Ami. Amiiiiiiiiiii.” That’s Urdu for mommy. “Come see me. I jumping high,” Kamran sang to me Monday morning.I was brushing my teeth five feet away. Huffing and puffing he made up his own version of the silly song. “So many monkeys jumping on the bed. Two fell off and bumped its head. Mommy called doctor and doctor said…” as he lost his footing and sailed into the bedpost and thwacked his browbone. I heard it.

I turned to see a bruise the size of a doorknob under his left eye and tears the size dinner plates coursing down his face. So I exaggerate a little. His sobs were loud. When your baby is injured everything slows down. You imagine reaching into the ether and with a few well-placed clicks turning the dial back, nudging the toddler to the left so he falls on the goose-down pillow, the pile of laundry, anything but the bloody bedpost.

Dear husband cusses me out for “letting him jump on the furniture.” I actually don’t mind that he jumps on the furniture, not even in the living room. He’ll only be two years old once and it’s only for a few more years that he’ll be sailing through the air in that wonderful delirium unaware of the laws of gravity and the brutality that high school physics holds for him. I love to watch him jump. I don’t love that I let him fall.

I am a Class A klutz. I wish there were Olympics of clumsiness because I would have Nike, Gatorade, AMEX, and whoever else the big kahunas are right now, beating a path to my door to sponsor me. My home would be littered with gold medals and citations from prime ministers and presidents and other heads of state.

When I was two years old, I fell off a boat and 20 feet down onto a dock and lay frothing at the mouth. My mother thought I was dead. At 10 I was swinging from a tree branch when the branch broke and I hurtled to the earth. I was taken to the ER unconscious.

At 12 I was riding my bike to school and was the victim of a hit-and-run. The police never found the car or the runaway driver.

In my 20s, I fell off a train in Switzerland (it wasn’t moving) and wrenched my neck and back. I’ve stepped on nails but never slipped on a banana peel, fallen walking UP the stairs, broken my ankle multiple times most recently two years ago while walking down ONE step at Toronto’s Harbourfront.

I've had tropical diseases (all completely cured now), fevers that refused to break, been thrown from horses, chased by cows, bitten by donkeys, chickens, ducks, birds, I’ve wrenched my neck, had a slipped disc…

This is a boring, scary list. I don’t want my Kamran to inherit any of this. How do I prevent it from happening? Can someone tell me? I’ve enrolled him in swimming, baby soccer and football and some other class to work on his fine and gross motor skills. I guess it’s a start to keep my precious monkey from falling off the bed in the future.

CLUB MEDICAL Need a doctor? Here's how to move to the front of the line

2010-02-11T19:14:00.000-08:00

Reprinted from ELLE Canada
March 2010

By Amber Nasrulla

Andrea Seet’s back ached. The doctor at a Vancouver walk-in clinic said it was spasms and sent her home. That was Christmas, 2005. The 24-year-old couldn’t find a family doctor so, for the next three years, with her pain worsening, she visited several walk-in clinics. In the fall of 2008, her legs became stiff and it became hard to walk and sit. That December Seet finally found a GP, who took an X-ray and found nothing. “He said, ‘You’re young and healthy. It’s all in your head’,” she recalls. “I was scared – I knew something was wrong.”

Last March, a desperate Seet paid the $3900 annual membership fee (plus one-time $1000 initiation charge) to join Copeman Healthcare Centre, a private clinic that specializes in preventive health care. Over the next two months her medical team (a GP, physiotherapist, and sports-medicine specialist) treated her and conducted bone and CT scans. The diagnosis? A three-cm schwannoma (tumour) was choking a nerve root several vertebrae above her coccyx.

“The schwannoma filled her entire spinal canal and was protruding,” says Dr. Broughton, Seet’s new GP, a clinical assistant professor in the department of family and community Medicine at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, who acts as the in-house physiotherapist and sport-medicine specialist for the Copeman Healthcare Centre. “It had flattened her spinal cord against the bone.”

Last July, a surgeon took four hours to remove the dumbbell-shaped tumour. If it hadn’t been excised, the growth – though not cancerous – could have destroyed bone, damaged her muscles, and worst of all, robbed her of the ability to walk.

Seet’s case is extreme but it vividly demonstrates how our health system is in tumult. Dismayed by GPs who spend barely seven minutes with them and excruciatingly long wait times for specialist appointments, Canadians are turning to independent, for-profit clinics. Some, like Seet, are in crisis when they turn to preventive healthcare facilities. Others want a family physician to work with them on a long-term wellness plan, which the public system can’t always provide.

Zoltan Nagy, president of the Canadian Independent Medical Clinics Association (CIMCA) says it’s not only wealthy seniors who are populating the clinics’ elegantly decorated lobbies – younger Canadians, like nutritionist Kristen Schiener, are coming in too. The active 34-year-old was feeling sluggish and went to Toronto’s Medcan Clinic for a medical assessment. She became a convert after doctors there diagnosed hypothyroidism, which her GP had overlooked. She still sees her GP for minor ailments but relies on Medcan for detailed investigations.

CIMCA estimates Canada has between 200 and 300 private clinics, including numerous surgical centres and imaging facilities, and 30 to 50 executive or preventive health-care clinics. (It doesn’t keep statistics on patients.) These boutique clinics roll out the red carpet for wealthy athletes, actors, executives, and increasingly, the middle-class. They boast state-of-the-art-technology, spa-like layouts (no decades-old issues of Reader’s Digest and torn fabric chairs here), specialists of many stripes, electronic medical records, and short wait lists.

Yes, two-tier medicine is blossoming.

The majority of for-profit clinics aren’t in the business of urgent or emergency care; they sell prevention. “Many of us have financial advisors [and] fitness trainers but there aren’t enough health care professionals helping people stay on track,” says Dr. Elaine Chin, founder of the Scienta Health Group in Toronto. The proactive health-and-wellness model includes physicians, naturopathic doctors, and fitness trainers who identify a client’s risk factors and design a health action plan.

Even the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) supports private sector involvement although it’s drumming for public funding so patients won’t be left with the tab. Its two past presidents – Dr. Richard Ouellette and Dr. Brian Day – operate for-profit clinics. This August, the CMA introduced Toward a Blueprint for Health Care Transformation: A Framework for Action. Behind that clunky title are resolutions to accelerate use of electronic medical records, improve access to doctors, and study the role of private resources in a public system. In 2005, concerned about long wait lists, the CMA recommended the creation of a “public safety valve”, through which governments reimburse patients for treatment, travel, and other costs if they go to private clinics at home or abroad. All Canadian provinces and territories have adopted the measure, though reimbursement varies. With pre-approval from each province and territory’s ministry of health, treatment, not travel, is covered. (Medical middlemen, like the Star Hospitals organization in India, oversee international care. These brokers arrange travel, secure hotel packages, and treatment at hospitals around the world.)

Canadians are famously proud of universal healthcare, so it’s surprising that other prominent medical organizations aren’t clamouring for a ban; in fact, they’re oddly silent. The Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC), the Ontario Medical Association, and the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Ontario declined to comment for this story, saying they don’t have a policy on the issue. (The RCPSC does have a position paper suggesting private clinics be studied.)

But public health-care advocates aren’t skeptical, calling it “chequebook medicine.” The Calgary-based group Friends of Medicare (FOM) believes that private clinics violate the Canada Health Act by charging for services. Clinic owners explain they charge for services that governments don’t pay for, like nutritionists, kinesiologists, and personal trainers. FOM also fears that private clinics siphon doctors from the public system.

Dr. Michael Rachlis, a Toronto-based physician and health-policy analyst, maintains that private clinics actually make things worse. “Private insurance costs more than public coverage and it's less equitable,” he wrote in an op-ed article in the Toronto Star last April.

Dr. Brian Day, a Vancouver orthopedic surgeon who opened the Cambie Surgery Centre in 1996, says the rise of private clinics has less to do with capitalism, and more to do with reducing admissions to medical schools in the 1980s; deeming procedures like knee replacement elective; and cutting OR times. The public system is a relic, he says. Over the past 30 years, advancing technology has made treatment more expensive. “Government found it couldn’t afford to deliver on those promises [of universal coverage] so they started rationing health care.”

But for-profit clinics don’t always deliver. On January 11, 2008, Jean-Jacques Sauvageau died in the waiting room of Clinique Médicale Viau, a private, urgent-care-clinic in Montreal. No-one tried to resuscitate him. An autopsy showed Sauvageau died of massive pulmonary embolisms and resuscitation wouldn’t have helped. But staff couldn’t know that and should have tried, reported the coroner. The clinic also lacked a proper triage process, and an on-site defibrillator, and its upfront staff didn’t know CPR.

The Sauvageau case is a reminder that every medical boutique operates independently. Regulation varies from province to province and there’s no registration per se except doctors must be licensed to practice medicine. Membership fees vary and run into the thousands and tests often cost extra.

Some centres are hybrids, with medical staff working part-time in the public system. One expensive import is the Cleveland Clinic. Its Canadian staff bills the Ontario government for medically necessary services but patients pay for elective procedures and the clinic sends patients to Ohio treatment when wait lists are long.
Broughton explains that his patients at the Copeman Healthcare Centre often secure appointments with specialists sooner because of thorough work-ups. He refers patients to both private specialists and those who work in the public system.

For 14 years, Lynn Spence’s family doctor in Vancouver rarely ordered tests. “My GP never checked my cholesterol,” she says. (In British Columbia an annual physical fee isn’t covered.) In 2006, Spence had a silent heart attack. Astounded by her physician’s oversight, she joined a private clinic. “I didn’t care that they offered me a latte,” says Spence. “I knew that if I didn’t get that comprehensive care and make the necessary lifestyle changes I could die.” The 63-year-old doesn’t pause for a nanosecond when asked how she’s changed since joining the Copeman Healthcare Centre. “I smoked for 35 years. I never ran a day in my life,” she says. “Now I’m training for the Boston Marathon and my cholesterol is perfect.”

Meanwhile, Seet is recovering and on an indefinite leave from her accounting job. Her faith in the system has withered. “None of the doctors at walk-in clinics spent more than five minutes with me,” she says. “They were oblivious.”

Mammogram Central!

2010-02-10T21:11:00.000-08:00

A rite of womanhood. Got my very first mam two weeks ago. The tekkie Diane was pleasant and warm and I should have asked her for dinner afterwards. She manipulated (manhandled aka mandled) my right boob so it was as big and flat as a dinner plate. Possibly larger. At least I know there aren't any chunko glunko tumors hiding in there. A raisin would look like a mountain in there.

SHOCK THERAPY Can electricity zap away the years? Celebrities are lining up but some doctors are skeptical.

2009-10-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from ELLE Canada
November 2009

By Amber Nasrulla

Long before diamond facials, clay masks, and chemical peels were invented, women created their own age-defying concoctions: cucumber slices to soothe eyes, milk baths to soften skin, sugar and salt scrubs to purify and exfoliate skin and lemon juice to remove blemishes.

Now a new anti-aging technology is kicking the simple facial to the curb: radio frequency (RF) technology. In Europe, a handheld device called the TriPollar STOP – which claims to smooth wrinkles using RF energy and micro-electric currents – is generating buzz.

Physicist Dr. Zion Azar, who created the TriPollar STOP, hopes to sell it in North America in 2010. “It turns back time five to 10 years,” he effuses by phone from Tel Aviv, Israel. “It’s actually making the skin younger.” Azar says that the TriPollar STOP stimulates collagen production to provide a “non-surgical facelift”. (Collagen gives the skin elasticity, so more collagen means plumper, firmer skin.) For anyone with wrinkles deep as ravines that Sherpas could fall into, the allure is obvious.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has cleared six handheld cosmetic devices. (Health Canada regulates medical devices but cosmetic technology doesn’t require pre-market approval.) Suzanne Somers, the duchess of late-night infomercials, sells the FaceMaster ($250), calling it “a lunch-time facelift”. NuFace, a $350 device from California, promises an “instant youthful appearance within minutes.” Creator Carol Cole says NuFace’s micro-current “is like Pilates for the face. It strengthens the core muscles.”

Micro-current facials and RF are a fixture in salons in Beverly Hills, New York City, Miami, Vancouver, and Toronto. As with headlight-bright teeth and customized spray-on tans, Hollywood A-listers are poster children. Oscar-winner Kate Winslet frequents the Tracie Martyn Salon in Manhattan and is reportedly devoted to the Resculpting Facial that offers micro-dermabrasion, micro-currents, and calming creams. In a note to Martyn scribbled on a cover of InStyle magazine, Winslet gushes, “It’s only because of you that I look good enough to be on this cover.” (Winslet doesn’t mention the phalanx of chefs, personal trainers, make-up artists and stylists, who ensure she looks heavenly.) Susan Sarandon, Madonna and Liv Tyler are also rumoured to be fans of the $360 treatment.

For years, physicians and physiotherapists have used micro-current technology (also called TENS, or transcutaneous electrical neuromuscular stimulation) to help heal soft tissue injuries and alleviate neck and back pain. Dermatologists have Thermage, which uses patented RF technology to generate heat that penetrates deep into skin. Clinical studies show that Thermage stimulates the body’s natural production of collagen, which tightens skin and gives it a smoother appearance. Doctors can contour or remodel the face with Thermage says Dr. Vince Bertucci, a consultant dermatologist a Women’s College Hospital in Toronto and medical director at Bertucci MedSpa in Woodbridge, Ont. “It’s not a facelift but the results can be significant,” he says.

Micro-current technologies and RF have been tweaked for non-medical use in dermatologists’ offices. But salon devices (and handheld ones) are weaker and don’t penetrate skin as deeply. Some use two or three electrodes while others use patches. Some claim to stimulate muscles while others report that they increase collagen. After short training sessions, aestheticians can do treatments without a physician supervising. (Session fees run from $200 to $400.)

But some dermatologists are skeptical. The marketers’ scientific language sounds authoritative, but there’s often little evidence behind the claims. “It’s getting harder to separate the blue-ribbon science from the bluff,” says Dr. Douglas Hamilton, an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of California at Los Angeles and chair of the New Technologies Committee of the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery. Hamilton has a dermatology practice in Beverly Hills with numerous celebrity clients. “There’s no consumer czar to help people make a decision,” he says. “It’s buyer beware.”

Although physicians use TENS devices, the results can’t be extrapolated for cosmetics facial rejuvenation. “There’s not a lot of great published science behind it,” cautions medical and cosmetic dermatologist, Dr. Benjamin Barankin, of The Dermatology Centre in Toronto.

The gold standard in medicine is double-blind placebo controlled trials. Clinical trials evaluate thousands of participants over several years and the results are published in peer-review and scientific journals. To date, none of the doctors consulted for this story has seen clinical studies on cosmetic RF or micro-current devices.

One manufacturer talked about its 30-day-study of five people that found a 67% reduction in wrinkles. Another manufacturer sent ELLE Canada its study of 23 women over six weeks, and reported an 86% improvement in eye wrinkles and 76% of mouth lines. The manufacturer also tested a single sample of human skin and found collagen increased by 40%. “Medical journals publish high-quality research with lots of patients in the studies so we can generalize the results to the population,” notes Barankin. “A study with one patient – the inventor’s wife I’m sure – counts for nothing.”

The results “stretch credibility,” agrees Hamilton, because of few participants and short duration of the tests. “There’s a huge disconnect in skin care. Many things work beautifully in a test tube but do not work at all on complex, living, human skin.”

How do these devices come to market? The FDA and Health Canada “approve” the treatments for medical use. The FDA classifies machines for cosmetic differently and “clears” them, meaning they’re safe but not necessarily effective. Neither the FDA nor HC conduct their own, independent, clinical studies; instead, they rely on the information provided by the company applying for approval. (They also don’t specify the number of people required.) In his book Beverly Hills Beauty Secrets, Hamilton spells it out: “This potentially corrupts the integrity process and, at the least, reduces its efficiency.”

So what’s the secret to Winslet’s radiant skin? RF and micro-currents can irritate the skin so it swells and facial lines disappear, says Barankin. The effect is likely temporary. Manufacturers recommend treatment three or four times a week because “you have to keep initiating the inflammation and swelling.”

Dermatologists also question manufacturers’ claims that micro-currents strengthen facial muscles. True, the body sags less when muscles are stronger. But over time the muscles could grow bigger. “Those muscles will contract more and make deeper furrows, grooves, and wrinkles,” says Barankin.

When manufacturers trumpet their contraptions bump up collagen production, Hamilton responds: “To stimulate collagen is no great trick.” Shaving and micro-dermabrasion do it too. “It’s all a matter of degree.” So, is it likely the devices induce enough collagen formation to reverse wrinkles? “No.”

His conclusion? “This could be one trend when it’s best not to be at the front of the line.”

For the complete feature, pick up the November 2009 issue of ELLE Canada.

GOOD INK Angelina Jolie vs. Amber Nasrulla: Tattoos are not your friend

2009-10-03T07:24:00.001-07:00

Reprinted from ELLE Canada
October 2009

By Amber Nasrulla

I’ve seen exquisite tattoos. The vertical trails of a Buddhist incantation etched in Khmer on Angelina Jolie’s left shoulder blade rank high as does the treble clef on Rihanna’s right foot. My tattoo is a horror.

My sweet husband says it resembles a USDA stamp (but not as elegant). The kind you see on Prime Grade-A slabs of beef. It wasn’t supposed to be that way.

In the summer of 1995, I was working at The Globe and Mail, had a decent salary, great friends, and a funky apartment. Life was sweetness.

One afternoon a friend and I wandered into a tattoo parlour on Queen St. West in Toronto. The dude behind the counter had blonde dreadlocks and was smoking a joint. We had two choices a) share the joint or b) leave. We eschewed those options and asked him to ink us. He did and smoked up the entire time. My friend selected a magenta-and-emerald green lotus from a stencil catalogue and he tattooed the flower on her back.

I flipped through books and magazines and looked at the customer photos on the walls. There were dragons on backs, Chinese characters on wrists, and Haida whales on ankles. No patterns appealed to me.

Then, I had a Da Vinci moment and sketched azaadi or “freedom”, in Urdu script. I speak Urdu but it’s not my first language so my penmanship is at a Grade 2 level.

The pothead jackhammered the fleshiest part of my left arm just below the shoulder. I wanted swirls. When he was done, my freedom tattoo was trapped in a circle of red and black flames and not by the lustrous Moorish flourishes I’d envisioned.

I hated it immediately. At home I scrubbed the tattoo with a Brillo pad. It bled. One week and many tubes of Polysporin later, I pulled the bandages off and looked through my fingers into the mirror. The wretched tattoo was still there.

It’s one of the worst things I’ve done to my body. (Eating bricks of Lindt chocolate doesn’t count.) First, getting the tattoo done by a stoner, and second, the utter lack of design.

In 2002, I went to the laser clinic at Women’s College Hospital. Doctors use lasers for hair removal, to remove port wine stains (visualize Gorbachev’s stately stained forehead), and other cosmetic procedures.

I paid $100 for the tattoo and in the last seven years have spent more than $3,000 trying to get it to disappear. It still hasn’t faded completely. I suffered a second-degree burn during a recent treatment. Apparently the skin on my upper arm is very sensitive now. Seven years of laser will do that.

I want to go on a national speaking tour to educate young women. It’d be dramatic: “If you think it’s cool to get a tattoo on your coccyx, jog into the future. You’re in labour with your first child. You need an epidural. You’re freaking out as the needle goes through your tattoo and into your spinal canal. Oh, and if you ever need an MRI your tattoo could sizzle if it’s made of dyes that contain magnetic metal.”

Sometimes I have a glamour fantasy. I’m sitting at LA Ink with my artfully tousled hair flowing over my shoulders as Kat Von D creates an extravagant tattoo that completely covers the USDA stamp. Reason slaps me awake.

The writing in my tattoo is gone but a shadow of flames remains. It is a mistake that will stay on my Prime Grade-A skin for a lifetime. And leave me gazing with envy at the exquisite tattoos on others.

SIGG bottles contain BPA

2009-10-01T20:52:00.001-07:00

Feeling betrayed. SIGG bottles contain Bisphenol-A. Into the trash! Must confirm, must confirm this horrendous news.

Latisse Eyelash Growth. Perfection or Pathetic?

2009-09-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

The depths of our dissatisfaction with our bodies knows no bounds. Latest cosmetic 'improvement' technology is Latisse, an eyelash growth product. Brooke Shields is the spokesperson and in a commercial I saw last night, the former child supermodel exuberantly paints a chemical on her eyelids. Presto! Her eyelashes are longer, stronger, and dazzling, and able to solve world hunger and the energy crisis in America.

Not sure I heard the voiceover correctly but it sounded like side effects include 'blackening of the eyes that may be permanent.' Just try to imagine the whites of your eyes are now black - sort of like the zombies the witch Maryann created on True Blood. Or like burnt egg whites.

From colonics that promise to detox and cleanse our innards to plastic surgery for every conceivable inch of our skin science and technology seem to conspire to remind us (well, torture us), that the bodies we were born with are imperfect and no amount of tinkering, nipping, tucking, slicing, dying, liposuctioning, lasering, and so on, will ever be enough to make us perfect.

Perfect monsters, maybe. Pathetic and creepy, definitely.

Snotty Questions That Aren't Anyone's Business!

2009-09-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

People are asking if I have started toilet training Kamran. Nope. People are asking if he can count to 30. Yup. People are asking if he knows all his colours. Some. People are asking if we are going to have another kid. Up to God. People are asking if my 28-month-old can drive. OK that last one was a lie...but it just goes to show that people will ask the most probing questions the answers to which aren't any of their business.

In other news got some news this week that gave me the heebie jeebies. Check back in 7 months for details of a hellacious union!

Multiple Mommy

2009-06-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

If you think media reports are the gospel truth then you probably believe the definition of a mom is someone who bears multiples, twins or triplets at least. And if you have some eight children then you can score a reality show and sock away the earnings for the kids’ college funds. (OctoMom; Jon & Kate Plus 8.)

Such is life in 2009 when medical intervention makes it possible to have a litter. And litters abound. Julia Roberts has twins; Brangelina has twins; Marcia Cross, the redhead from Desperate Housewives; Rebecca Romijn, who plays Mystique in the X-Men series; Jennifer Lopez; Patrick Dempsey’s wife, Jillian; Dennis Quaid and his wife. (Even Red in Hellboy has twins at the end of The Golden Army!)

Maybe the Olsen twins started it… well in reality we know it’s because women are getting married later.

I’m thinking about his because a) I have one child; b) people keep asking me if I want to have another c) people say “don’t you wish you’d had twins coz then you’d be done” (implying I had a say in the matter!) and d) people keep saying “it must be so easy having ONLY ONE child.”

The last statement, d, rankles me the most. Yes, I am jealous of people with more than one child! But I’m desperately happy with the toddler I have. And somewhere in there is the implication that having one child isn’t enough. That my uterus hasn’t fulfilled its purpose.

I don’t if it has but I don't want to be counted out yet. One is enough. Not eight.

Facebook Frenemies

2009-06-15T20:14:00.000-07:00

Facts & Arguments

Facebook frenemies
In school they taunted me, spread rumours and challenged me to fights. Why would I want to catch up now?

Amber Nasrulla
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail, Monday, Jun. 15, 2009 06:23PM EDT

I've known all kinds of people – bullies, the bullied, the voyeurs. I met them growing up a brown girl with a non-Canadian name in small-town Ontario in the 1980s.

When I was a preteen I confess I brought darkness into some students' days, but nothing I did compares to the bullying I endured at my junior high school in Newmarket.

A typical day in Grade 8 went something like this: I'd walk the halls doing a shoulder check, constantly on the watch for the inevitable kick in the butt and the shout of “lard arse.” For the record I was less than 90 pounds and hardly overweight.

The students taunted me about my black hair and asked if I washed my tresses with motor oil. One boy spat a glob of bubble gum into my hair. My tormentors left nasty notes on my desk and hissed, “Paki, Paki, smelly Paki,” as I walked by. They stole my shoes from the locker room while I was in gym class. They spread rumours about me.

They challenged me to fights in the woods across the street from school. Many of my afternoons were spent sprawled on the grass as students slapped, scratched and punched my face and body.

I stuck up for myself but was consistently outnumbered. I was vulnerable everywhere except at home, which was my only sanctuary. I didn't tell my parents or brother or sister how horrid each school day was. I always felt that if I endured I would become stronger.

Now, more than 20 years later, a curious and uncomfortable event is unfurling. Three F words sum it up: Fake Facebook Friendship. The same people who tormented me have found me on Facebook and recently asked to be friends. Apparently they don't remember what they did to me. A couple of them even invited me to a junior-high reunion. As if.

It's not like I've spent the past 20 years in suspended animation, but I would be lying if I didn't say this splinter of a memory irritates me occasionally.

I'm too polite to tell them to bugger off. I've accepted a few Facebook requests although I'd feel a lot better hurling bottles of shampoo at them. There was no Facebook 20 years ago, but if there had been I'm sure someone in class would have created an “Everybody Hates Amber Nasrulla” page. Bullying wasn't outsourced back then.

I've forgiven the bullies (but not forgotten them) because they helped make me who I am today – a curious observer and someone who loves to travel far from where she grew up, to learn about the world and see if cruelty is universal (it is). Thankfully, kindness is also universal.

I studied hard and made the honour roll in high school. I went to university and was fortunate to befriend people from countries all over the world, including Ghana, the Caribbean, South Africa, Israel, Scotland, China and, of course, Canada.

I got married, moved to California and now, as it turns out, live in Orange County, a homogeneous neighbourhood known to the locals as The O.C. or The Orange Curtain. It's absurdly beautiful but it's a yuppie-saturated wilderness that is fiercely Republican.

Back to the mid-1980s and the subtleties of adolescent anthropology. Two events brought an end to the bullying.

One spring afternoon I was in my usual spot fighting a popular girl in the woods. Miraculously, I managed to knock her down after she pulled out a clump of my hair. After that small victory the kids started to leave me alone.

More significantly, a new student named Stacy joined Grade 8 a few months before the end of school. Her parents were older, probably in their 40s (to a preteen, fortysomething is crypt material). They often dressed her in a lacy pink frock – think Laura Ingalls Wilder and Little House on the Prairie . She had red hair. You see where this is going. The situation was horrific for her. I'm beyond ashamed to say that I was almost as mercilessly cruel as the other students. I recall throwing candy at her.

I apologize to Stacy for being unforgivably unkind. I have a toddler now and my heart cracks as I imagine my Kamran enduring just a sliver of racism or bullying. I don't know what effect my taunts had on Stacy but I'm so sorry.

I've blocked the bullies on Facebook now but am still trying to find Stacy. If I do, I'll apologize and ask her to forgive me. I can't imagine she wants to be my friend.

Amber Nasrulla lives in Orange County, Calif.

Taliban Grab Pakistan

2009-05-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

Read a wonderful column by Cowasjee this week. He writes that the MQM in Karachi are seizing lands designated to be green spaces and playgrounds and building homes on them. There is no environmental assessment and it's clearly a land grab.

You could say land grabbing is the least of Pakistan's problems but it's indicative of a deeper rot. A way of thinking that doesn't include the welfare of children, doesn't honour local government, and is, at its core, selfish.

In NWFP, there's a land grab of a different, more cancerous sort going on. Roughly a million people are pouring out of the SWAT Valley desperate to flee the Taliban. For the Taliban it's not just about land, it's about the subjugation of women, the owning of arms, and the spreading of a vile brand of Islam.

Relatives tell us that young children are being snatched from refugee camps and enrolled in Madrassas, Islamic schools, where they are indoctrinated with the Wahhabi brand of Islam. And girls are stolen by the dozen and forced into marriage with perverted old men who say they can have multiple wives. If the Prophet (PBUH) did it, then so should they.

There are so many things wrong with their way of thinking and it all comes down to lack of education. Lack of appreciation of the world, of the environment, of art, of beauty, of music. A fear of all things imaginative.

Yes, war does have something to do with it but ultimately it's the lack of education that has destroyed Pakistan.

It's too late for that once glorious, gorgeous country where I spent summers in the Karakoram Valley in my youth. Dear God help this sad, sad lost land.

Death in Gaza

2009-04-29T21:03:00.000-07:00

The tears will flow easily and often while watching Death in Gaza, an Emmy-Award winning documentary airing on CBC this week.

First, James Miller, the British documentary maker/director/cameraman and father of two, was shot and killed in 2003 by an Israeli soldier while filming in Rafah, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip. (The film opens with Miller's obituary). Second, the primary interview subjects are three Palestinian kids, Ahmed, 12, Mohammed, 12, and Najla, 16. It's an understatement to say their future looks bleak.

Death in Gaza
Miller worked with reporter/narrator Saira Shah. Their goal was to make a documentary about the effect of violence from the perspective of both Palestinian and Israeli children. After Miller's death his colleagues shifted the focus to his bravery and commitment and documented the desperate lives of the children of the West Bank and Gaza. Despite the fact that the team never interviewed Israeli children the film is balanced and clearly has a message of anti-violence.

Violent Days and Nights
Miller effectively and chillingly captured life in the streets of Palestine. During the day viewers are shown buildings pock-marked with bullet holes, dust-choked streets, posters of young martyrs rather than movie stars on walls, and Israeli tanks patrolling the rubble-strewn streets. Young children throw stones at the tanks that respond by firing live rounds into the air. The region is essentially an open-air prison.

North American viewers are familiar with these images of the Middle East in 1½ minute news items but Miller's film goes far beyond that to capture the day to day horror that is a way of life.

Playing Jews & Arabs
Mohammed and Ahmed's version of Cops & Robbers is Arabs & Jews. Clusters of youngsters play in the alleyways with toy guns fashioned out of scrap wood. They also spend their days throwing rocks or homemade explosives at Israeli tanks and other armoured vehicles.

In one scene, when a Palestinian is killed in his jeep during a targeted assassination by an Israeli helicopter, children scramble over the smouldering debris to collect flesh, blood, and body parts in sandwich bags. They marvel over what they found just as children in other parts of the world might collect bugs, rocks, or seashells. The children's teachers are violence and hatred. They have no positive role models.

Cannon Fodder
At night, when citizens and street vendors retreat into the relative safety of their homes, the paramilitary comes out to recruit the young. They need cannon fodder.

Narrator Shah sits with 12-year-old Ahmed and the paramilitary soldiers he admires. While wearing black masks so their faces are entirely hidden, they first play games with him, ruffle his hair affectionately, and then teach him how to hold a rocket grenade launcher. Wide-eyed Ahmed complies. It's obvious he looks up to them.

Shah questions the morality of recruiting young children to be terrorists, and one hooded paramilitary member responds, "Don't worry about responsibility, sister, we're men, when we say goodbye to Ahmed, there are thousands more like him."

The 2004 documentary, Death in Gaza, airs on CBC on May 1 at 8 p.m. ET.

Navy Boy in Hawaii

2009-04-23T08:45:00.001-07:00

I hope that I don’t start a fire. It’s kind of awkward here sitting on a balcony without an ashrtray. So here I am in Hawaii and it’s jut beautiful out there is no snow and I feel like I was meant to be here…

I can see the marina where the opening of Gilligan's Island was shot and there are a lot of pretty little white boats and I think is that some kind of rule or something? And they have blue covers and there are palm trees everywhere I look maybe a couple of kinds of varieties and they boogie in warm wind.

I can see people in shorts and flip flops and people looking like ducks out in the harbour and a surfer too. And the break wall to protect the little inlet. I met a funny little boy from Wisconsin yesterday on the flight. He was with the Navy had been since he was 16 I think. He works on turbines and has a great interest in scuba diving and now he's heading to Pearl Harbor… he joined he says because he wanted to see the world as a result he’s been to Guam to Iraq and he spent a long time in Bahrain in his soldier's uniform.

I wanted to know what makes a man want to join the army. It’s not something I ever wanted and not just because I'm not a man and I'm a mummy. We talked about it a little and he said he really just wanted to see the world. What a funny reason uhuh I mean you end up risking your life. But he was so young and he didn't even know about the massacre in Rwanda and hadn't heard of the Hutus fighting the Tutsis. Because I told him about General Romeo D’allaire’s book, Shake Hands With The Devil and this child hadn’t even heard of it. I should have asked him if he thought it was important for U.S. soldiers in particular to leanr military history and world history and not just their own because they happen to have parked their asses avec guns in so many places around the world. His lack of of knowledge and lack of concern for it was somehow frightening.

These blind little kids who just go and join for whatever reason and get involved in the politics of the elders. I should have liked to talk to him more about it. But there was something about this 6-foot-tall boy who barely has enough facial hair to shave and his lack of knowledge was freaky. Well we sat next to each other for six hours so I didn't want to insult him.

I suppose that I should not be judging him I mean who am I to question his motives? But I can’t help it when I think of him or his compatriots sitting in their SeaHawk with their powerful weapons of destruction and what havoc they can wreak with just a wee press of the button and jut blindly going what their military obsessed bosses tell them.

In six hours I didn’t even ask him his name and it gets me to thinking about how we meet people for just a minute and how these little meetings touch and change our lives even ever so minutely and that ultimately changes who we are. It isn’t like having a long-time relationship but what they say becomes a part of you and who you are… and it will change your perception of what you think and possibly even what you act upon.

Laguna Beach Boy

2009-03-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

My first attempt at PhotoShopalooza is this piece of sweetness on the beach. (No rogue tsunami at Laguna Beach is gonna take my Mak Attack from me.) All the elements of preciousness are here - Kamran, Jennah, Noore. (I'll add Keyaan later.) I think I effectively distilled the seasons of toddlerhood onto an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet, don't you?

Baby's First Words

2009-03-10T16:18:00.000-07:00

Mak Attack's fave words: Up-ee-down; Di-sore (dinosaur); I want; A cullin (coloring); Mine; Da-dush; Don tach eet (don't touch it); Mitta Bone (Mr. Bone, the neighbour); Blunkit (blanket); Kameem up (clean up).

Obama, Obama, Obamaaaaaama!

2009-02-02T11:48:00.000-08:00

I'M SORRY! I COULDN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF HOW AWESOME OBAMA IS.

Head to Toe Coverage

2009-01-28T10:43:00.000-08:00

Overweight? Tired? Frumpy? Body-image problem? Tired of the way you look in photos? Forget Weight Watchers, visiting the gym or cutting calories.

No, the Taliban have the ultimate solution. Purchase your own head-to-toe ninja ensemble - Style No. "Muslim Fundo" - and you'll never look frumpy again. In fact, you'll look the same in every photo, which is to say you'll look like nothing at all!

The Muslim Fundo outfit is yours for only two payments of $49.99. Please specify if you want cotton or polyester. You'll never leave home without it.

I'm a Nillionaire. Are You?

2009-01-25T19:03:00.000-08:00

I have a couple of Coach bags. I have a couple of Gucci bags. I have some Louis Vuitton bags. I just picked up a delightful Anya Hindmarch tote. I have some Cole Haan bags and shoes. Jimmy Choo clutch and heels. Check. Chanel - not yet. Not yet.

I'm wearing a chunky David Yurman bangle on my right wrist - a birthday gift from my husband. I have a decent amount of 22 carat gold and diamonds. I drive nice cars.

But here's the kicker.

I'm a NILLIONAIRE.

I, who have nothing, look like I have a lot. More than most people.

I am fortunate. I am fat. I am a flimsy excuse for a human being.

Really I should be saving for my son's college fund. I opened a Fidelity fund for him but given the way the market is working he'll be lucky if there's $20G in it by the time he's finished with high school. He is 20-months-old right now.

So, to All the Nillionaire Ladies out there - how are you saving?

Daycare

2009-01-14T08:29:00.001-08:00

Last week we were noodling around Laguna Beach (pictured). This week we are freezing in Southern Ontario. Not so bad for me as most of my work is done in a computer. Inside.

Kamran, on the other hand, joined a new daycare this week and has to go out into Siberia twice a day.

Kaleidoscope of Kids
The daycare is a life-sized kaleidoscope - cutout snowflakes hanging from the ceiling with bendy-bobby string, foam toys with tiny smushed fingerprint imprints on them (this is what passes for art at 19 months), dry macaroni and rice in the texture table, a few colourful rugs scattered about, and a dozen rosy-cheeked chunky kids in each room.

Since he's only been going there for three days (and was at a different daycare at Harbourfront until November) he's a bit weepy in the a.m. when I drop him off. I duck into the hallway and after a minute or two I hear him asking for "cee-wee-ul and appo". Translation "cereal" and "apple". He's confident and outgoing and I'm OK to leave once I hear his husky voice giving orders in choppy toddler fashion.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles
I am aware that he belongs to me just as much as he belongs to Canada and the U.S. I carried him for 39 weeks and four days and he's holding my DNA but he's not really mine. I was just the transportation, his plane, his train, his automobile. He will breathe different air, have different conversations, see a different world, love differently than I have loved and, oh God, I can hardly type it, feel the blisters of loss. But not too soon, God, please not too soon.

I can see the changes already in his imagination and joy as he experiments with new things - the snow, icicles, a toy plane, a fat crayon, a textured book, my sandals, and how he plays with his cousins and how his laugh erupts from somewhere deep in his belly and then every molecule of his body is joyful. He is new and I am decaying.

It's -30C outside (serves me right for leaving SoCal in January!) and there are icicles in my brain.

Just five more hours before I go collect him from his colourful playland.

My God, give me mountains to climb and strength to climb them.

Obama, FedEx, Koala Bears

2009-01-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

Why do FedEx drivers keep the doors open during delivery? Granted it must make for quick in and out but does it really save them that much time getting packages to clients?

Why do bees come so close to our ears?

How do koala bears sleep in trees and not fall out?

Can Obama save the global economy?

Anaheim Hills fires

2008-11-16T11:45:00.000-08:00

Golden Orb. Ringed by fire. Evacuations. Grim scenes as fire marches forward.

There are some phrases you never expect to hear. Some are poetic. Some are simply devastating. The above phrases have appeared in newspapers and online to describe a wildfire is destroying my Anaheim Hills neighbourhood. More than 200 homes have been destroyed and some 22,000 people evacuated. Many of my friends can't go home as the freeways are closed. They're sitting in hotels or in friends' homes from Rancho Santa Marguerita to San Clemente to Santa Monica hoping that when they get back that the smoke damage will be minimal. That the wicked embers that are raining down on the hills won't ignite their house. That the hills and lushly landscaped gardens surrounding their community are watered enough by the community association and won't explode into flames. It's dry - less than 5% humidity.

For people living on the East Coast it's hard to imagine 5% humidity. The only way I can explain it is this - imagine your throat feels like sandpaper all the time. It wakes you up at night doing the umm hmms, clearing your throat. Drinking several gallons of water a day doesn't help. You have to moisturize your skin like crazy or it cracks at your fingernails and on your legs. Your hair is stick straight even if you're born with curly hair like me. And when the hot Santa Ana winds hit it's game over. Then the fires start. And the smoke insists on creeping its way through screens and into your home and settling into everything you own. Long after the fire is put out the smell of smoke terrorizes you.

I'm in Toronto and the rain turned to snow last night so watching CNN is terrifying. I've already survived one house fire. I most certainly don't want to experience another. Even from my perch across the continent.

Jimmy Choo, Gucci, Oprah, Brangelina

2008-11-05T08:20:00.000-08:00

I’m stirring a pot of custard on the stove and desperately trying to avoid lumps so I’m using a whisk but because the heat is high some yellow liquid splatters my black Joe Fresh top. I curse because I like to curse. I curse because I don’t feel like changing. I wear black because it requires the least amount of time and imagination particularly when you have a toddler. It’s not as if I don’t often incorporate splashes of colour into my wardrobe but, of late, they’re usually a result of finger paint or mashed fruit or a pattern resembling my son’s sticky hands. And at this moment, with a stained blouse and bubbling custard, at this moment, as I’ve entered my late-30s, been married for five years, and been freelancing forever, it’s at this moment I realize that stressing about creating creamy pudding is one of a zillion things that belong in my rearview mirror.

1. I realize I will never ever, ever look good in skinny jeans. In tight trousers, my legs look like tubes of toothpaste that are pinched unevenly in the centre.

2. It’s unlikely I’ll have another baby. And I’m cool with that.

3. It takes longer than six weeks to lose the baby weight. Unless Harley Pasternak is your personal trainer and Bob Greene (Oprah’s pal) is cooking for you. Or if your name is Angelina Jolie.

4. I’ll never weigh 115 lbs again – passed that milestone in Grade 11 – and now I should be happy with 130 lbs. But I’m not there yet.

5. The friends I’ve made in university are the ones who will be with me to the end, barring any disasters, such as affairs, theft, or murder. So I better tell them I love them more often. Ditto family.

6. If you’re in an awful job or have an ulcer for a boss whose modus operandi is torture, leave. When the economy is in a black hole, first come up with an exit strategy and leave for something better. Don’t linger for more than six months or you’ll start to believe you’re incompetent. And life is too short for that.

7. Every girl over 35 should have a luxury item (or two. Or three). Buy the designer handbag of your dreams, a Gucci, a Louis Vuitton. It’s true, you can’t take your money with you. Money is just a backdrop.

8. Forgo the kitchen scissors and your sister’s best friend’s first cousin’s salon and, for God’s sake, get a good haircut that costs at least $75.

9. Invest in Jimmy Choo. It will be the sexiest and most comfortable footwear you slide your toes into. Alternate them with your sneakers.

10. In my universe there are three kinds of people – those who dole out help; those who aren’t afraid to take help; and those who are helpless (but never ask for help). Divide your time between the first two categories and may you never find yourself in the third.

11. Volunteer. Donate. You need to balance your capitalist karma with your philanthropic karma.

12. Remove your makeup properly at night and moisturize, moisturize, moisturize, at least twice a day.

13. If you’re thinking of getting another tattoo, take your sister or best friend or your mom to the salon, before you sink money into something resembling a Duran Duran logo.

14. Ah, celebrity gossip. So vapid. So wacky. Sooo interesting. Britney. Paris. Lindsay. Brangelina. Tolstoy it ain’t but read it often and ready it proudly just don’t take it to heart. Then recycle it.

15. You’re standing at the gates of your own history. Don’t look in the rearview mirror. Don’t mix metaphors.

Be brave. Be strong. And above all, be fashionable.

CNN unveils holograms on election night

2008-11-04T16:22:00.000-08:00

Minutes ago I slopped my Coke Zero all over the carpet when CNN unveiled a hologram during coverage of the U.S. election. Reporter Jessica Yellin was 'beamed in' from Chicago an excited Wolf Blitzer exclaimed... there she was with a sharp blue line around her standing on a red dot talking to Wolf as if this was an ordinary occurrence.
She did mention Princess Leia (although maybe reference to Star Trek would have been more appropriate)? She twinkled in and then was gone.
Weird, futuristic and kinda thrilling too.
All in all CNN is kicking butt tonight.
CNN is promising more 3-D holographic interviewees. Say so long to old-fashioned split screens.
Oh Gawd oh Gawd oh Gawd. The results for Kentucky and Indiana are in and it's sick because McCain is leading.
Obama for President!!
Oh hunkety hunk Anderson Cooper is on! Will be right back...

Obama's loss traced to....

2008-10-31T20:42:00.000-07:00

Amidst all the U.S. election dreck on the web this news story about Obama's loss is searing the air. Send it to your friends...

My Baby Mak Attack

2008-10-30T17:28:00.000-07:00

It's a sweet and salty thing to come home. I've been in Toronto on and off for six months. The city is the same, few surprises and everything is the same, like autumn, which you smell long before the leaves change colour. And yet everything is different.
Friends have multiple babies and hundreds of commitments, it might be six weeks before we get together. Juggling nap times. My colleagues progress exponentially in their workplaces. Does every Rye grad work at the CBC except me? Yes, yes they do. Or they are writing screenplays that will be bought by Endeavour and they will make millions and never cry again and live in gumdrop land and never cry again. I want that life.

I went to AMC to see The Secret Life of Bees. What I really should be doing is looking for work or plucking story ideas out the areas of my mind that remember what it means to hold a full-time job. Instead I dropped Danial off at Pearson, Kamran at daycare, and went to see a odd duck of a film. Don't look for a review here.

At 4:30 I collected Kamran from daycare and he dropped the book he was reading and came running to me. He made a sweet, sharp inhalation of breath and toddled over with his six-tooth-grin, drooling, arms askew, hair in his eyes, paint all over his clothes. He fell into my arms and stroked my hair. Since he's a toddler it was more like a wolverine showing me affection and it was honest and loving and adorable. "Buy byeeeee" he waved to the caregivers and we hoofed it out of there.

Me to We - 2008

2008-10-30T08:04:00.000-07:00

I played a small part in an astounding event, Me to We - 2008, which took place at the Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto on Oct. 17. Drop me a line if you want to know what it's all about. Thanks to Darren Goldstein who took all these photos.

Boss From Hell Should Go Back to Hell

2008-10-30T07:56:00.000-07:00

There was no good-bye party, no we’re-gonna-miss-you card, no hugs and smiles or ‘best wishes for the future’. Instead I slipped away as inauspiciously as I had begun the job just two months earlier.

It wasn’t a kick in the teeth, it wasn’t even a stripping of my medals but a week after it all went down my dignity feels smudged. I feel mildly annoyed and I’m replaying the situation over and over in my mind.

My boss was someone who is more of an ulcer than human being. She was an angry blonde troll who walked through the hallways hunched over and scowling as she went to the balcony to inhale cigarette after cigarette.

She gave no direction. She was inaccessible. In two months I had one meeting with her. And I was a new hire.

She was short-tempered. She terrified the junior members of the team. She didn’t know how to delegate. She tossed important assignments at all of us in passing and said things were due immediately. If anyone asked for help her stock response was “figure it out.” If anyone needed advice or direction – she is the senior director after all – she would shout “I am no going to micromanage this.”

When I joined I was told that she was a superior boss and that she believed in professional development. I looked forward to working with her. Instead I ran into a bull with no thought, logic, or strategy.

One of her preferred modes of intimidation was to stomp into my office, hurl abuses at me – F%^&CK was her favourite word – while I was meeting with my staff and then stomp off in a huff as if her mother had been insulted.

“I feel like I’ve been dropped on my ass,” one staffer moaned to me.

“I hear she’s in a good mood today,” another staffer said quietly. “I’m so tired of this shit, getting tossed around like a rag doll.”

“I just want to do my job,” said another.

The director’s behaviour was curious and I am convinced she is a sociopath and has a personality disorder.

What makes no sense to me is how she has managed to ascend in the company. Likely by terrorizing people or just by sheer bullying force.

A couple of weeks ago during a late-night meeting with her she told me that I was increasing her workload not reducing it. My response, “Did you even want to hire me?” She blushed and looked down at her lap. “If I didn’t want to hire you I wouldn’t have,” she said gritting her teeth. “Well, I don’t get a great vibe from you.”

“What do you mean by vibe?”

“The word ‘vibe’ is pretty self explanatory.”

Silence. And more silence.

And then my thoughts filled the icy atmosphere in her office. “I’m happy to give my six-week-notice and stay until the end of my probation period. That gives you time to find a replacement without disrupting the department too much.”

She coloured again. “No, let’s just meet weekly and see if things improve.”
Last Thursday she called me into her office and introduced me to an HR rep. I knew what was happening.

“You’re still on probation and unfortunately we have to let you go,” she said. Oddly this was the gentlest she’d ever been.

I smiled. “Oh, great!” I turned to the HR rep, “This was actually something I brought up [with the senior director] a couple of weeks ago so I’m pleased she took my suggestion. Thanks so much.”

The senior director looked embarrassed. She didn't want this. She wanted me to wail so she could gloat. She got up and left and I invited the HR rep to my office. I handed over the BlackBerry and my ID and then pulled a large envelope from a drawer.

“Here, why don’t you read my resignation letter while I tidy my office? I wrote it a couple of weeks ago but was hanging on because I really love my team.”
I’d already packed two weeks ago and was ready to leave.

“Why didn’t you bring this to HR?”

“I’m a contract worker. I didn’t know if I have any rights. Does verbal abuse, cursing and so forth and mismanagement, management style and personality clash constitute illegal behaviour?”

She shook her head. “But it could still be a matter of record.
“I’m sorry we’ve met under these circumstances.”

“I’m not. It’s a relief to leave.”

The HR rep said it’s good I didn’t resign, “because we’re giving you four weeks pay.” She took a copy of the resignation letter and said she’d get it to the VP of the department. I know it won’t make a difference. History is written by the victors and all that.

I shook her hands and left. I touched base with my team later. One said he wanted to hang himself. Another was so angry she could hardly speak.

“Listen, guys. This is a war. Your general has just been shot. You have to step over the body and keep going. Don’t look back,” I said.

They understood. They can’t show allegiance to me or even talk about me because the senior director will make their lives hell.

Later that night I reached out to senior executives at the company. One senior VP wrote me a gorgeous reference letter that made me cry. Another assured me I had done nothing wrong, that she was thrilled with my work, and that the senior director has a horrible reputation. The VP of the company said he’d gladly take phone calls and be a reference for me. He was very sorry he wouldn’t be working with me on a daily basis anymore.

Another friend assured me that karma eventually finds the villains. It just takes a damn long time to do so, he added.

Escape from L.A.

2008-07-08T08:26:00.000-07:00

Southern California had curled its slender, tanned arms around me and clinched tight. But there had to be more to life than a three-carat diamond and $1,200 Jimmy Choo clutch

July 8, 2008
The Globe and Mail

In the middle of the night, some people snore. Others have sex. I shop online.

When I spent the mortgage payment on a handbag from LouisVuitton.com - I must stress it's a wonderfully classic purse that I will bequeath to my future granddaughter - I knew I had a problem. I had started to measure the wealth of my being by the cost of my baubles.

Let me backtrack. Four years ago, I married a wonderful man from California. I left Canada for him and moved into his condo about 25 kilometres from Laguna Beach in Orange County - the O.C., like the one on television.

We lived in a desert community landscaped year-round into a tropical oasis filled with bougainvillea, bird of paradise, undulating palm trees, swimming pools, hummingbirds on the balcony and arroyos nearby for hiking.

I got a gig as the L.A. writer for TV Guide Canada. I shared onion rings with Sandra Oh in Los Feliz and slurped soba noodles with Chris Rock in West Hollywood. I discussed 24 with Kiefer Sutherland in Beverly Hills and interviewed Salma Hayek in Pasadena. I took on freelance work. My writing was published in the Los Angeles Times.

Quietly, Southern California curled its slender, tanned, Cartier-bracelet-laden arms around my waist and clinched tight.

I watched dolphins play off Coronado Island; I rocked out at the jazz fest in Dana Point; I hiked in Griffith Park; I biked trails along the Los Angeles River; I ate 60-cent burritos in the farmers' market; I spotted A-list stars at beachside cafés; I enjoyed sunsets at Santa Monica pier.

I became hooked on the unbelievable outlet shopping. (If you go, I highly recommend visits to Carlsbad and Cabazon.)

I bought into the sexiness of this place, where you find more fantastic gorgeousness (real and acquired) and weird absurdity than anywhere on the planet.

I ignored early misgivings.

I'm South Asian and hairy in some unfortunate locations, so I went for laser treatment. The dermatologist, whose face was shiny and tight like Saran Wrap, said I needed Restylane injections to destroy my wrinkles.

"Dude, I'm only 35," I said.

The word "dude" should have been an indication that I'd lost it. To make myself feel better, I went to Neiman Marcus and bought an $80 pot of cream blush.

Last May, I had my baby boy in a Newport Beach hospital. Half of the maternity ward overlooked the Pacific Ocean. Hunched over from contractions, I lurched through the hallways gasping, "A view. I want a room with a view."

Hispanic cleaners scurried to tidy up a labour-and-delivery suite. I was a monster.

About a month later, over lunch at a cheap Mexican restaurant, my girlfriend suggested I upgrade my wedding ring. "Why don't you get a three-carat diamond? I know a great place near 7th and Hill."

I plucked my $290 Versace sunglasses out of my $1,200 Jimmy Choo clutch and huffed out of there. "How dare she suggest that?" I muttered, as my $400 Prada slides click-clacked on the sidewalk. "My ring was 12 grand!"

On the way home, I passed a squadron of moms in Mercedes SUVs driving their preteens to cheerleading practice. One girl was whining, "I want to be famous when I grow up." As if that was a viable career option. Thanks, Paris Hilton.

The breaking point was the 3 a.m. online shopping splurge. I bought an LV bag with a matching wallet - as I nursed my newborn. A year earlier, I'd invested in a massive Gucci hobo. But I've used it for overnight trips, as a diaper bag and as a briefcase, so it's totally, like, worth it.

It was time to burn my Chanel straitjacket. I packed up my things and flew north. I'm temporarily staying near Toronto with family. God bless them for welcoming my insufferable arse back.

I'm looking for full-time work in the city and trying to find decent daycare. My husband, Danial, is commuting from L.A. to Toronto while we plan our future.

Turns out, when you need to detox from being a shopaholic, there really is no place like (a sensible, Canadian) home. There is a lot more to existence than great purchases, eternal sunshine and access to celebrities. My son needed a good role model, not to mention a university fund.

Now, I only shop online for special occasions. Our wedding anniversary is around the corner and I do have a birthday this year, so I'll get something sparkly. On sale, of course.

In the meantime, call me if you need recommendations on L.A.'s hotels and shopping. I know where Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian sell their designer outfits and handbags. And log onto Zappos.com, Bluefly.com or eluxury.com if you need ... Oh, never mind.

Amber Nasrulla lives in Orange County, Calif.

Baby's Day Out

2008-07-07T18:45:00.000-07:00

My life is a jumble right now. Dividing time between Toronto and the O.C. Well, who am I kidding. I've spent the last 4 months living with my folks - they are lovely enough to look after my 13-month-old dollop of deliciousness, my son.
Looking for work here has been a slog. Been on a bunch of interviews, felt like they went well and then been disappointed with the results.
Today was a write-off. I applied for a job at Canadian Living, at Redwood Communications, and at CTV. Let's see how things unfurl.
It was hot here - about 30 Celsius, kinda muggy so we decided to stay indoors. Took the baby to an indoor mall where there's a jungle gym for kids and he enjoyed himself. Climbed up a big plastic slide that is attached to a fake Jeep. He's very dexterous and able to handle himself.
Oh crap he's crying. Gotta dash. Be right back.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

2008-04-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

My child won't sleep. I think he might be a vampire. Help me. Please someone help me get him to go to sleep. I'm so zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

George of the Hollywood Jungle

2008-04-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

By George! Gorgeous George! Heeeeeere's George! George Clooney. George Clooney. George Clooney. I really have nothing to say or write except that this fella is so hunkadunk that I just had to include him in here at least once. I'm not a stalker. Honest. sigh.
A special thank you to AMPAS for letting me post this.
Be brave, be strong, and above all, be fashionable. George, George, George, George of the Jungle. Watch out for that....

Herodotus, Tibet, China

2008-04-05T19:45:00.001-07:00

Last night I dreamed that I was lassoed to a Bengal tiger and he (it was definitely a male) was pulling me through a jungle. Oddly he wasn't interested in devouring me or hurting me he just wanted me to get out of the jungle as quickly as possible. When we came to a wall (I know, bizarre) he stopped and turned into something else entirely. I don't remember what but he was some sort of humanoid and very kind. And then he evaporated. I stared at the wall and woke up. It was 3 a.m.

Ryszard Kapuscinski
So, this morning I was reading Travels with Herodotus (thank you, Showwei for recommending this wonderful Polish author)...and when I read this passage I gasped. So, without any permission whatsoever from the publisher I'm putting it here.

"The Chinese built the Great Wall to defend against invasions by the restless and expansionist nomadic tribes of Mongolia. These tribes, in great armies, hordes, legions, emerged fro the Mongolian steppes, from the Altai mountains and the Gobi desert, and attacked the Chinese, constantly menacing their nation, sowing terror with the threat of slaughter and enslavement.

But the Great Wall was only a metaphor - a symbol and a sign, the coat of arms and the escutcheon of what had been a nation of walls for millennia. The Great Wall demarcated the empire's northern borders; but walls were also erected between warring principalities, between regions and even neighborhoods....

That is how the world's energy is wasted. In complete irrationality! Complete futility! For the Great Wall - and it is gigantic, a wall-fortress, stretching for thousands of kilometers through uninhabited mountains and wilderness, an object of pride and, as I have mentioned, one of the wonders of the world - is also proof of a kind of human weakness, of an aberration, of a horrifying mistake; it is evidence of a historical inability of people in this part of the planet to communicate, to confer and jointly determine how best to deploy enormous reserves of human energy and intellect.

In these part, the idea of coming together was but a chimera: The very first reflex in the face of potential trouble was to build a wall. To shut oneself in, fence oneself off. Because whatever comes from without, from over there, can only be a threat, an omen of misfortune, a harbinger of evil - perhaps the most genuine evil there is."

hmmm. Tibet and China today. The Israelis building a wall to keep the Palestinians out. The U.S. building a wall to keep the Mexicans out. And on and on. Now if only I can figure out what walls I'm building and why.

The Biggest Loser

2008-03-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

It's not healthy to watch The Biggest Loser for a bunch of reasons. One - I'm stuffing my piehole with Fruitella while I watch. Two - I'm surfing the web looking for jobs as I'm trying to move back to Canada from California and the fatties on the telly are distracting me. Three - the contestants can lean on their personal trainers to keep them in step and me...well let's just say I'm assaulting the fridge between sentences and during commercials.
Giddy'up y'all. There's nothing left to say but a lot left to eat.

Heather Mills gets £48-million

2008-03-17T19:48:00.001-07:00

Tonight's burning questions - how much money is enough money? Does money buy happiness? When I was a teenager, I used to hang out with the daughter of a multimillionaire. She was the most miserable person I have ever met - vindicative, insecure, cruel, mad, and uneven. (I don't remember how we became friends.) Her father was an alcoholic and her mother just a diluted version of a parent. This girl had every material possession a teenager living in London could want. The latest Louis Vuitton bags, gorgeous clothes, diamond necklaces (yup, more than one), trips to anyplace, a selection of Mercedes Benz to drive, a safe filled with cash every day, and so much more. If I bought a pair of Bally boots she went and bought five. She was that kind of girl. What she really wanted was a peaceful home life. A loving family. Peace of mind that she could never seem to find.
I'm thinking about my childhood chum a lot today after reading about the Heather Mills - Paul McCartney divorce settlement. Mills gets £48-million ... and has been quoted as saying that she's very very pleased. I should think so. And yet there was a gleam in her eye during those interviews outside the London courthouse that suggested she wasn't completely pleased. Like maybe she would have liked to have obliterated her ex-husband. And not just that £300-million would have been enough. Crushing his spirit and Britons' love of him would have come close.

Oprah's Big Give

2008-03-16T18:02:00.001-07:00

Ami is putting my baby Kamran to sleep and I'm watching Oprah's primetime show Big Give and I'm about to commit Oprah-phemy here but I am sick to death of this woman. She is everywhere. I think she might be a triplet. And each sibling fights the other sibling for bragging rights as to who is the bigger philanthropist. Who has the bigger legs? Who owns the newest pair of Spanx? The challenge for the teams is to give Christmas to a kid "at least once in their lifetime." Bllleeeeeeeeecccchh Blerg. Pheeteoooeee. Oprah, just adopt the world, pay all our bills, and move on. Eat sweet potato pie, mashed potatoes, and any other carb you've been depriving yourself of, have a monster meltdown and be real. Please.

Fame

2008-03-16T13:57:00.000-07:00

“Yesterday my girl said, ‘Mom, I know I’m gonna be famous really soon’. I’m so proud of her. She’s got confidence.” A girlfriend of mine in Orange County mentioned this as we were heading to lunch last week. Her daughter is 13. I was astonished.

Whatever happened to “I want to be a doctor when I grow up” or “I want to travel the world when I grow up” or “I dunno mom, I think I want to be just like you”? But this is the culture of Southern California. Buy, buy, buy or you’ll look and feel inferior! Replace your flesh with plastic wherever possible. Banish your wrinkles. Scrape your face with acid. Stop eating. And don’t forget to shop. Forget about your education or saving the world or your studies or anything else old fashioned that requires time and energy. The best outcome is fame. Better get there quickly. And don’t make any unnecessary stops along the way.

I’ve been living in Orange County for four years and slowly the muck has begun to settle in my brain. I think it’s the Paris Hilton syndrome – be famous for no apparent reason. I interviewed an analyst once who called Hilton the Bubonic Plague of the 20th century. I liked that phrase a lot but I can’t blame Hilton for the soul-crushing atmosphere in both L.A. County and O.C.
It manifests itself in many ways. First it’s almost impossible to make really good friends in L.A. I mean the really good kind of girlfriends who’ll be there for you in a heartbeat, say, when you break-up with a guy, or your house burns down or your pet dies or whatever.

A bunch of actresses I’ve interviewed have said this – from Sandra Oh to Kristen Bell to Hayden Panettiere to Salma Hayek. I don’t know why this is the case. It may be that everyone is competing for the all-seeing eye, attention from the paps and tabloids and Entertainment Tonight so standing on your own apart from the crowd guarantees you 14 seconds in the news lineup.

I don’t know why I find this so disturbing. There’s nothing wrong with wanting attention. Toddlers do it because they want to be the centre of the universe. But for little ones it’s a survival issue. If no one hears you screeching you might not get your dinner. As for people who yearn for attention later in life, I don’t know how to explain it later in life. Maybe it’s the money. Typically with fame comes money. But not always.

I have to think about this some more to explain my love and loathing of Los Angeles. As for my friend’s daughter? Well, she’s only in Grade 7 so I’ll keep you posted.

The First

2008-03-16T13:02:00.001-07:00

I'm here. It's new. And so I'll be back soon.

amber