I got a Green Card. Now What?: my latest essay in @VICE
It’s been a hot minute since I last blogged, but that’s because a lot of life has been happening and I have always been hellbent on living it!
I recently realised that it’s been 15 years since I started this wee lil’ blog. It used to be poetic musings about my life. Then it turned into a kind of street art photography blog. Then for a while it was just about my travel adventures. Back when I started this in 2005, I was 24 and a very different woman than I am today at 38 (almost 39!). Now, I don’t particularly care to share my private life in a public way. Instead, I sell off the details of my private life to magazines and newspapers. So if you want to know anything about my life, you can fucking pay me. *winky face*
With that in mind, I’ve published my latest personal essay in VICE. If you remember, I used to be a regular contributor to VICE for many years, but I backed away from it a few years ago. Recently, my old editor reached out and said I’d always be welcome to return. So I wrote about my experience over the past 8 years in applying for (and finally getting) a Green Card to the U.S. It was a bewildering experience that pitted my dreams against my principles. Click here or the above image to read!
Speaking of writing, if you remember back in October, I became a late night TV talk show columnist for eTalk. That’s still ongoing, and I publish new recaps and musings on the late night TV circuit every day! I’ve uploaded about 60 of my articles to my personal website, if you want just a taste of my work over there. But if you’d like a daily dose, follow me on Twitter!
In other news, sometimes I still find the time to be in front of the camera (just like in my old reality TV star days…). In December, I was asked to make a cameo in the latest music video for the synth-pop band Featurette. (Full disclosure, Lexie and Jon from the band are personal friends). So I brought in my typewriter and my old nerd glasses, and I was a complete goofball in their fun, flirty, and inspirational music vid for the track “You do you!”.
You can watch the entire vid above, but here are some stills of me in the video, just for your pleasure.
Okay, I’m fricken endearing.
Fun fact: we shot this music video in the same location as Oscar-winning film Spotlight, and also the Canadian indie hit Level 16.
Fanks for sticking around for 15 years, my munchkins, and don’t forget to check out the official Christine Estima dot com for more!
WATCH: My interview on @CityNews about #BUNZ
Click the above video or click here to watch my interview today on CityNews Toronto. I was contacted by their reporter to lend my voice and opinion on local trading and bartering app BUNZ which has had some recent upheaval. If you remember, I’ve written in the past about BUNZ for VICE and for the The Walrus, so naturally I had some things to say about recent changes to the community.
Look Ma, I’m erudite and oh-so studious!
Enjoy!
Don’t forget to check out the official Christine Estima dot com for more of my interviews on the news and on talkshows!
Listen to my interview on CJAD 800 about my reality TV experiences
Today I was interviewed on Montreal’s CJAD 800 talk radio about my reality tv experiences. You can listen in full by clicking the soundcloud above or clicking here
This blog always gets a lot of traffic this time of year because one of the tv shows in which I was cast, First Dates, always premieres a new season around this time. And then this old blog post of mine suddenly is getting a bajillion hits.
After the clusterfuck of death and rape threats died down, and I left the UK for good, I wrote about my experiences for VICE, in a piece which went viral around the world. Seeing as how the producers of First Dates had a duty of care but failed to care for my well-being and best interests, writing this piece seemed to me the quickest way to get to the truth.
This piece regularly makes the rounds every year, and host Natasha Hall of CJAD read it and invited me on for a quick chat. It was a joy to speak to her, her and her producer were lovely and I would gladly go back on if/when invited
Fanks for listening to the interview and for the support, munchkins.
As always, don’t forget to visit the official Christine Estima dot com for more of my interviews on TV, radio, and print!
Never Pay For Another Hotel Again: my latest in @VICE
You might have noticed I’ve been publishing a lot of travel writing lately, if you’ve been coming here often, which is fitting seeing as how much of my life has been spent on the road, or planning my next trip. My latest piece in VICE is about how I became a profesh housesitter, and all the fun, follies, foibles, fur-babies and FUBAR situations therein. It’s a great way to travel the world if you’re flexible and you’re not too fussy about where you go . . . and if you can solve clusterfucks like a boss. Read the whole piece here.
Speaking of housesitting and being on the road, my next housesitting extravaganza begins on MONDAY! I’m heading back to my old stomping grounds, London UK, to housesit for a month! I’ll be looking after two Snugglebum von Cuddletummies and hanging out with my friends. Super excited to have my Christmas and New Years there too. How very Dickensian of me.
If you need me, I’ll be sleeping in some corner of a European railway station.
Check out the official Christine Estima dot com for more of my published travel essays, short stories, spoken word performances, and more!
The stolpersteines of Vienna: my latest in @VICE
Another day, another travel essay. Got so many stories to tell, might as well put my pen and ink to good use! This time, my latest VICE essay is about the stolpersteines, or “stumbling blocks,” of Vienna — gold markers that are drilled into the pavement to mark the spot where a person who was persecuted by the Nazis once lived. Most stolpersteines note where that person was deported – in most instances, Auschwitz or another death camp. Most never returned or were never heard from again. It’s a short but powerful read, click here to read the full piece.
If you want to read more about my travels to Vienna, last year I sold a story to The Globe and Mail, a national newspaper here in Canada, about my Viennese Ex Libris. Click here for more on that and to read the essay!
Don’t forget to check out the official Christine Estima dot com for more of my published travel essays!
Plus-Size Instagram Stars: my latest in @Broadly
Recently, you might remember I published a couple of pieces with BROADLY about the plus-size industry – modelling, photography, fashion – and now another has hit the presses, this time my interview with an up-and-coming plus-size Instagram star. We talk about the trolls who scour Instagram for plus-size posts, and how she deals with them. You can read it in full here.
Check out more of my stories, essays, performances, and reviews at Christine Estima dot com!
Using A Disposable Underwater Camera in a Swimming Hole: my latest in @VICE
As promised, more of my travel writing has gone up on VICE, it’s a whirlwind of publications around here, fam. This piece is about the cenotes of Mexico, which are subterranean swimming holes, and I illustrate the piece with pics I took using an underwater disposable camera. As you can see, the results are quote ethereal, haunting, almost tableau-like. Read it in full here.
I’ve been really lucky as a travel writer to get a lot of my pieces published in some really great publications, but I feel like the amount of my published travel pieces pales in comparison to how much travel I’ve actually done in my life. I’ve traversed this planet many times over, and it’s no where near quitting time. So I hope this trend of getting all of my fubar clusterfucks, epic extravaganzas, and adventures published in print will continue.
Here’s to writing on the road!
Don’t forget to check out the official Christine Estima dot com for more!
Hunting #SpaceInvaders in London: my latest in @VICECanada
Many of you know I’m a huge fan of Invader. I have a whole category dedicated to him on this here blog, of all the times I’ve photographed his work around the world. This goes back yeaaaarrrrrssss. I love a good graff-hunt, and he is the epitome of that. In any case, I sold another essay to VICE in partnership with Travel Nation about hunting ‘Vaders specifically in London using the Flash Invaders app to maximize my huntin’. Read all about it here. All the photography published in the piece is also mine!
I’ve been publishing a lot of pieces lately, so scroll down this blog to read more of my stuff in various publications. And don’t forget to check out the official Christine Estima dot com for more!
Backpacking across Europe for less than €15 a day: my latest in @VICECanada
Wow, two blog posts in one day? This reminds me of my New York Clusterfuck of 2011 where I was blogging 13 times a day (ooof . . . sorry about that btw). I never blog this often anymore! But when you’ve got a lot going on, it’s nice to share it with a network that supports your voice and your work.
All you regular munchkins know that I’ve been backpacking around the world since 2005 and have published A LOT of travel writing in various publications. To that end, VICE partnered with Travel Nation to create more travel content on the network, and they asked me to write a whole bunch of pieces from my days on the road. No problem, hope they don’t mind me spilling litres of ink on the subject. I’ve got stories!
The first of my many pieces was published in October (I just realized it now . . . I’ve been busy writing!), and it’s about that time I backpacked across Europe for 30 days with the challenge of living off of €15 a day. Read it here! Also, all the photography included in the piece is mine as well.
Yes, I actually did live off of €15 a day. Since I’m such a penny-pincher with purse-strings tighter than a sphincter, it really wasn’t that difficult for me. And not only did I live like a queen, I actually was saving money. I walked away with a surplus. I kept a ledger in my Notepad app to track how much I was spending, case in point, here’s what I would spend in a typical day:
haha, remember when the Notepad app looked like this?
There’s more where that came from in the piece, so read-on dear grasshopper if you want to learn how to travel the world without breaking the bank.
Expect more from me on this topic soon, I’ve already written many more that are currently being edited by the team for this sponsored project.
Don’t forget to check out Christine Estima dot com for more of my published travel writing!
Check out 2 of my pieces on the #plussize industry published in @Broadly
My regular work with VICE led me to a unique opportunity. Broadly, the women-focused channel within the VICE umbrella, partnered with plus-size fashion line Addition-Elle to create content celebrating women of all shapes and sizes. They asked me if I’d like to write a few pieces on the topic. Um, YES. I love plus-size fashion photography because of the way it busts open all of those tropes surrounding what is and isn’t “allowed” to be sexy. Plus-size models show that there are many ways to be sexy. Sexy isn’t one thing. It’s many things.
As you’ll see from these pieces, I go into all of that with my interview subjects. First, I interviewed plus-size fashion photographer Anastasia Garcia, which you can read here.
Then, I interviewed plus-size model Nadia Aboulhosn. This was super exciting for me because, as I say in the piece, I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time. She’s a game-changer and full of chutzpah, so this was definitely a delight. You can read that piece here.
There’s more from me to come on the topic, most likely in December, so watch this space.
Don’t forget to check out the official Christine Estima dot com for more of my published works!
How Men Can Stop Street Harassment: my latest article in @VICE
Earlier this week I endured yet again an incident of street harassment. It happens almost every day. So much so, that it’s almost normalized as part of my daily routine. Get up, take a shower, grab a cuppa from Timmies, and tell some douchenozzle to go fuck himself.
This incident was different because a nice young couple came to my aid. I started thinking about all the ways men can be an ally to women to women when they observe street harassment. So many men, supposedly “nice guys,” will just ignore it and pretend it isn’t happening. BUT IT IS HAPPENING, and we need your support and solidarity.
Do you nice guys call out harassment when you see it? Or do you just stand there and watch whilst thinking about how nice you are?
So, with some encouragement from my editor, I wrote about it for VICE. Read it in full here. Enjoy!
And as always, you can visit the official Christine Estima dot com to read more of my published essays, op-eds, columns, short stories, travel writing, and much much more.
You Will Lose All Your Friends in your 30s: my latest @VICE essay
I’ve had an absolute bonkers week (more on that in a sec) so I’m slow to report that earlier this week, my latest misanthropic, bitchy essay was published in VICE. Once you get on the wrong side of 30, it’s like a plague of locusts descends upon your friendships. You better lock up your besties and buddies in your basement now and make sure they can’t chisel their way out, because your 30s are a barren wasteland.
So, uh, enjoy?
* * *
The reason this week has been absolutely bonkers is because I took part in an indie theatre fest called Operation 24! Run by Parkdale theatre darlings Unit 102, Operation 24 is a 24-hour theatre challenge where plays are written, rehearsed and performed professionally all within 24 hours! “Each writer stays up until the wee hours of the morning to craft a ten-minute play. The actors and directors take that play and rehearse it all day, preparing to show it to you, our audience at 8pm the next night. 24 hours from beginning to end resulting in a dynamite night of theatre.” As you may have guessed, I was one of the writers!
At 8pm on Tuesday night, each playwright started writing a 10 minute play on our own. After LOTS of coffee and pizza, I finished my play around 3am. I sent it to my director and two actors around 3:30am and was absolutely wrecked.
Some of the other playwrights finished around 5am (and one completely rewrote his play at 7am!). At 10am, the director and actors began to rehearse. Then at 8pm and 10pm, the actors nailed 2 performances of it, memorized, staged, blocked, cued, costumed, and lit!!
It was an absolutely thrilling and brilliant experience. Longtime readers of this blog know that in my past life I was a playwright with quite a few productions under my belt, but this was the first time something of mine had been staged since 2010. I had such a great (albeit sleep-deprived) time and I’d definitely do it again, and recommend it to all the playwrights, directors, and actors in Toronto who want a challenge!
Don’t forget to check out the official Christine Estima dot com for more of my theatrical productions, performances, and more!
The #friendzone & dudebros: my latest essay in @Vice
So this is a funny story. Last week I got into a Twitter spat with some jabroni who was going on about the “friend zone.” I was frankly shocked to see it coming from a so-called “gentleman,” (he uses that word in his twitter handle like all gentlemen do, ‘natch) because in the circles I run in, using that term is a laughable offence. Forgot that there actually are people who think that’s a perfectly acceptable term (and the word for those people is ‘nimrod’).
In any case, one of the staff writers at VICE saw my tweets and told me I should definitely turn this into a piece.
See? NEVER SHY AWAY FROM HAVING FIGHTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA.
I WILL HAVE ALL THE FIGHTS WITH STRANGERS ON THE INTERNETZZZZZZZ.
Kidding! (Not kidding)
Click here to read the piece in full.
As always, don’t forget to check out the official Christine Estima dot com for more of my published essays, stories, travel writing, interviews, and more.
Travelling While Woman: Check out my latest essay in @vicecanada
Travel for women is never simple, espesh when you require reproductive health care on the road. That’s the topic of my latest essay for VICE. Solo women travelers always need to plan for incidentals that men need not – whether it’s what we can wear in any given country, to what kind of health care we can access – and many times these services are priced beyond our budget, not covered by insurance, and require extreme measures.
Click the above image or here to read.
Don’t forget to check out the official Christine Estima dot com to read all of my previous essays for VICE and many other magazines, newspapers, and journals. TO THE TYPEWRITERS!
Everyday Struggles of the Hairy Woman: my latest essay published in @ViceCanada
Sometimes I really hate talking about this stuff, but writing is cathartic, and what is the point of being a writer if you don’t talk about the things that mortify you to an audience of millions, right? Oh boy.
My latest essay in VICE is about what it’s like having Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and having to deal with the resulting hirsutism. Women aren’t allowed to have hair, if you didn’t already know, and the world won’t let us fucking forget it. The way we are shamed for having something that naturally grows on our bodies is outrageous, but if you’re like me, you’ve internalized that shame. It has definitely affected my self-worth and self-confidence, but most days no one actually knows that I deal with hirsutism because I am so vigilant about it now. Years of bullying will do that to you.
Anyway, it’s not all doom and gloom. There’s some humour in this piece too. Hope it makes you laugh! Click to read!
And don’t forget to check out the official Christine Estima dot com where you can read all of my published VICE essays, and more!
Check out my latest essay in @VICE: Nicole Arbour’s lack of satire
My latest essay has been published in VICE, about the ragebait videos of Toronto cheerleader Nicole Arbour: we all know she’s racist, misogynist, and a fat-shamer, but she also loves to hide behind the banner of “satire” to get away with her bullshit. This piece is about her lack of understanding of what constitutes satire, and also, why comedy is so important and relevant when done right.
Also, I get to talk about her asshole.
It’s also one of the more popular pieces on the VICE network as of right now, so that’s pretty rad.
Some new details about her have emerged since publishing this piece (which I won’t get into on ye olde blog), and I’m getting a lot of private messages from people who have worked with her and know her, who say they can confirm some allegedly criminal behaviour on her part. Toronto is a massive metropolis but it’s small enough that everybody knows everybody somehow, and if your shit smells, people are gonna talk about it. I don’t address this controversy in my piece, but it’s interesting to note and keep in mind.
Anyway, enjoy!
Don’t forget to check out Christine Estima dot com if you want to read more of my published works, included many more of my VICE essays.
My latest @VICE essay: bad-as-fuck women populate #TIFF15 films
Check out my latest schlepp’ for VICE, this time about all the amazingly badass beautiful broads in TIFF films this year. Writing this piece was so fun because I got to attend the pre-TIFF press screenings for two weeks. I see a lot of bad movies so you don’t have to (and some good ones). There was only one film I saw that I didn’t include in this piece, simply because there were no women in it — Son of Saul — but holy fuck, I highly recommend that film as well.
I used to cover TIFF every year as a critic, but I haven’t done it since 2011 when I was still writing for Exclaim! It was so difficult seeing like 5 films a day, and having to file your reviews by like 7am the next morning, and then doing it all over again! I swore after that year I’d never cover TIFF again, but I guess old habits die hard.
Anyway, enjoy, comment, and share! Happy TIFF’ing.
As always, don’t forget to check out the official Christine Estima dot com where you can find all of my published works and more.
Translating the Abandoned German Letters from 1946
Last year when I was living in Brussels, I was frequenting my absolute favourite flea market in the world Jeu de Balle, buying photographs and love letters and other trinkets. As usual, when the flea market is over, the vendors usually leave a whole trove of junk just lying on the cobblestone grounds that either they couldn’t sell, that broke, that was damaged, that got soaked from the rain, or that they just don’t want to transport back to their warehouses. The thing is, the street cleaners come in very quickly after the market is over to pick up all the trash and wash the square clean! So if you’re crafty, quick, and don’t mind getting your hands dirty, you can get your hands on some amazing antique and vintage gems.
Seeing as how I’m an excellent scavenger (and I don’t like paying for things), I would always scour the cobbles (and in between the cobbles!), go through the piles of trash, kick over soaked boxes and rifle through all the discarded remains for whatever meant something to me. From my scavenges, I have procured monochrome photographs from the 1920s, gold-rimmed picture frames, and these two letters written in German in 1946.
As you can see from the very top picture, the stamps were ripped from the envelopes (probably because 1946 stamps are worth a lot!) but I was more interested in the contents of the letters!
Luckily, the internet loves to help! I tweeted out for help in translating them, and a wonderful follower of mine from Berlin, who wants to be referenced here as Resa Lamego, offered to help! She was able to translate the letters very quickly because her English is amazing, and even though she was busy travelling down to Heidelberg, she still did a fabulous job.
The letters mostly just contain mundane minutiae of these women’s lives from 1946, nothing mind-blowing or tragic or epic, but the language employed is quite nice!
Here’s an excerpt from the 1st letter (edited for content… really just the most interesting parts!)
Malmö, the 28-08-1946
My dear Mady,
Thank you so much for your lovely letter! I’m glad to hear you are in Switzerland. It is wonderful that they all who have been/ used to be in Germany gain such a trip. From the photo I can tell that the nature must be very beautiful. I hope you are completely recovered/healthy when you travel back home! Do you really believe you will be able to come to Sweden? I would be so happy if it was possible. Then you must come to Malmö. As before I got the children from (..)? Now we got the Karl-Jo-Haus-School back. Last year sick children from France and Austria were living there […] One always needs to be with the children, one needs to help them to eat, to play and to bathe. […] It is very hard to write in German and I make many mistakes. I hope you are able to read it? I have never been very good in German but maybe it is harder than usual because I was reading in English the whole winter long. I received my major and can now be a teacher of English. Half of my summer months this year I spent in an international school in Helsingor and there English was the conversational speech. Now my head is full of English words and phrases. So now I need to practice in this letter otherwise I will forget my German and that can’t be!
My dearest regards,
Anna-Kerstin
And here’s an excerpt from the 2nd letter, unedited because the whole thing was totally cool.
Malmö, 13-10-1946
My dear Mady,
Thank you so much for your letter! From the date I can tell that it has been already over a month before I received your letter. I can’t really understand why. Time has passed so quickly. Now you probably are back in Belgium? If so, I send this to your home. Have you recovered dear Mady? Oh, I hope you are from the bottom of my heart!
So, Mady, you think I am chubby/big? Oh well, that is possible. I love to eat and maybe I do it too much. The photo was from summer and then I am always bigger because then I don’t have my work. So I think now it’s better. One doesn’t like to be big!
I got from your letter that you are glad to be back in Belgium. Here in Sweden we have a saying: Foreign countries are good, but home is always the best. And I believe that is very true. I haven’t been to foreign countries, you know, except Denmark and Norway and that for us aren’t really foreign countries. For the next summer I hope I will be allowed to travel to England. I am supposed to have English classes with children, you know and of course it should be very good for me to spend a few months in England. That way one learns the language much better.
Dear Mady, you say that maybe you will come back to Sweden. How happy I should be if that was possible. Will you come alone or with other people? Oh, it would be wonderful to meet you again. Please Mady, if you can, so come, come! I am telling you my dearest welcome!
And now, Mady, to a quick ‘hear-you-again’, I hope!
My dearest regards!
Anna-Kerstin
P.S. May I also send my regards to your family?
Oh Anna-Kerstin, you sweet Danish-living-English-teaching friend! How wonderful and sweet you were to your friend Mady! And such a shame that someone saw fit to discard your beautiful letters into a trash heap in Brussels. So glad I recovered them and saved them!
As I wrote about for VICE, the main reason why personal items like this end up on the fleas is because the owner passed away and their family just wanted to liquidate all the belongings. Why? They probably weren’t on very good terms.
So Mady, I hope you had a good life. Your surviving family is shit.
To the flea markets!!
My latest @VICE essay: TAMPONNNNNNS
Check out my latest essay in VICE about the removal of the tampon tax (huzzah!) but how saying the word tampon in public brings about an avalanche of giggles and side-eye.
I say the word “menstruating” a lot. Blood blood blood blood. BLOOD CLOTS. Enjoy!
It’s one of the most popular essays on the network, which is always great to see.
Check out my VICE category for more of my essays that I’ve written for them. And don’t forget to check out the all new ChristineEstima.com where you can find all of my published works.
Fired Him Right In The Paycheque: my latest @VICE essay, #FHRITP
I wrote about #FHRITP for VICE. TL;DR – dudebro comedy is a subtle art & bitches be cray. Pffft. Females, amirite?
#Satire
Click here or click on the above image to read it.
The piece is being received very well, it’s one of the most popular on the VICE network.
It’s great to see how responsive people are to this, so I’m well chuffed. I told my editor I was worried the satire therein might fall flat & people would think I was condoning #FHRITP. Lesson learned: never assume your audience won’t get it. Oh they get it.
Fanks for getting it, munchkins. YOU ARE THE WIND BENEATH MY WINGS.
Check out my VICE category for all of the other essays I have written for them.
And don’t forget to check out my freshly-pressed ChristineEstima.com for more writing samples and links to my published works.
The Spadina Monologues 