It was 16 years ago today


Mocha, my first cat love and Siamese baby.

(read this to the tune of sgt pepper’s if that’s not already blatantly obvs).

It was 16 years ago today

Raymi taught her blog to play

They’ve been going in and out of style

But they’re guaranteed to raise a smile

So may I introduce to you

The blog you’ve known for all these years

Raymi the Minx’s first ever blog post yaaaaaaaaaa!

Now here’s a taste of my first big blog messages, remember, I was 17 and already posessed the confident writer’s voice and audience from Viceland’s messageboard so while these were my first posts, they weren’t my first peacock foray on the www by any means.

Raymi is the name of a character in a book i’m dragging thru the mud, she’s this little vixen bitch whose real young and welp, does everything a minx does, y’know.
It’s called ‘the last minx’ , the book.
My friend and I are making it into a comicbook series as well, which is fun, but we’re real lazy and have all this talent but we like to sleep lots and do stoopid things like drink pop and try on ugly clothes at the salvation Army.
I bought this awesome Chocolate coloured velvet jacket for $6. I walk around pretending i’m Jarvis Cocker and when people ask me questions i look over their shoulders into space and drawl my words.

I was going to copy and paste more but those posts are wickedly embarrassing too so I won’t bother. I’ve lost a lot of photos over the years I didn’t ever back up too, stupidly. I’ll just share some other oldies with you now for a laugh.

Just, you know, doing a clay mask. Prob cucumber based. Got keep that acne in control yo! I never wash my face before bed anymore so terrible. Lizzy doesn’t either.

Based on those pants I can tell I AM 16/17ish here? Definitely pre-UK and before I cut all my hair off and I am not booze-fat yet. All teenage chicks balloon-up once they start partying. I remembe this night, afterward Ward and I went to a house party wherein my older guy friends turned up and beat the shit out of some of the other guys and I was accused of stealing some things that I did not steal cool great time lol.

Bro and I being emo asf on vacation. Teenagers. Something to look forward to.

My bestie Krystal and I’s favourite thing to do was get dressed as hot as we could for the pre-hipster hottie hippies we were and cruise Meadowvale Town centre for boys to check us out, eat food court food, photobooth portraits hell yeah. I am 14 here? My eyebrows and hair were always on fleek.

Now, Brooke and I were besties for a long time and bad as fuck. I got tons of stories from stealing christmas lights, being chased by the popo in our pajamas when we snuck out to smoke cigarettes and cruise Falconer and I think I’m gonna just stop that one right there haha. When I left the house I hiked up these shorts and unfolded my thigh highs you know it.

Bluren says what’s up. Grade seven era Lauren. Just eating a piece of cake at the Nottawasaga Inn. The night before I went to my first Blur concert so I was a bit nostalgic and depressed about Damon Albarn now off somewhere else without me LOL. I’m wearing my Beetlebum concert shirt.

That shirt. What’s up Sook-Yin-Lee!

I had Blue 8 hole docs back then. Everyone always has to establish which Doc Marten they had. They just have to. Too bad Rock ‘n Tees is RIP now.

My valedictorian speech nbd other than making all the bullies cry their eyes out. I should go back into public speaking. Once I learn how to speak again.

My niece. She had a little bit of an attitude back in the day lol.

We loved Oasis too. Quebec city gr. 8 I already knew by this point I was the Valedictorian which was incredible to me because I had already slipped into slacker mode. Alrighty then peace everyone thank for sticking around all these years. Hugs and kisses from Detroit, happy Saturday and Happy Birthday to my dad!

I wrote this at 3am

The thing people don’t realise when I talk about New York is the following.

What it feels like to listen to Radiohead.

Poor.

But I don’t realise my own future yet. The poverty. Why do I need to convey a useless feeling, several feelings about how a 6 pack of Heineken I picked up from the bodega (illegally, underage) made me feel like an adult. Like a man. Then. I sat down at my (boyfriend’s) nyc desk and smugly typed about that moment in all its solitude. I didn’t have a clue. I still don’t. But it was so important to capture it at the time the same as it is now. Because you equally don’t care now as much as you didn’t then. It feels sometimes that no one ever feels things or stops to think. Like me. I knew then that the profound exquisiteness I felt at 18 years old sitting at that damn desk I would never get over, get past. My entire fault as a writer hinges on my inability to “get over” emotions I need you to know.

I was very moved by the reality in and of itself that I was sitting in a chair, at a leather top man’s desk writing away on a laptop in Brooklyn. It was 2001. I even still journalled with pen and paper in a diary at the time. I knew how perverse that was. Anyhow. This was the same chair I sat in when the first tower was hit by a commercial plane. I hear that noise. My BF that morning had enough of me. After it took him four hours to walk home with other zombies covered in rubble (or not) across the Brooklyn bridge that day, as I reflect now. Many years later. Many years after having PTSD from this day I didn’t expect to have such a profound effect on myself. Feeling ostentatious about it all. Being CUT OFF by all kinds of people, in backyards, years later whom ALL want to tell me their experience from that day which I genuinely want to hear and ALL pale in comparison from my day.

I listen to them all regale me with how they were nowhere near New York City. Nowhere near the chair I was sitting in at the time I heard that sound I heard. How NOT 18 years old they were, like I was.

Like how New York City was gonna be my big break. How dating a 29 year old during a heatwave summer, and you distinctly recall your bf threatening you that morning of September eleven that you better find work. Get on that. (We blew through my savings so quickly that summer) Every self-important person you ever meet will try their hardest to cancel out your story. Especially when it’s epic compared to theirs – I have far better 9/11 stories based on all my beautiful, hilarious friends who slept through 9/11 then the idiots who over-talk MY shit about that day. I have like, 100 guys in my memory being annoying as fuck to my face about “9/11” and not one of my actual New York City friends who experienced it with me there has said shit about it to my knowledge. None of them are fucked up like me. All I fucking hear is Toronto (or anywhere Canada) idiots tell me their experience like it interests me. The only reason it does is because I cannot believe being interrupted by people 100 times to tell me THEIR 9/11 experience over mine. I WAS THERE. THEY WERE NOT. I totally understand their need to tell me their personal desert storm moment BUT. It severely pisses me off. I lived there until the middle of October and experienced the aftermath. Thank God this is 14 years later (actually had to do the math) and I can “speak” “freely”. Even at the point that I say “black hawk jets” “Black fighter jets” The real shit that was happening immediately after those towers were hit – all drunk “conspiracy theorists” salivate at the prospect of shutting ME down to argue their story AT me. Like I give a fuck. I was 18. I am 32 at the time that I write this. I will NEVER care about your experience from that day. There are no amount of Discovery Channel biographies I can watch that re-tell that day for me.

At this point in my life I’m finally receptive of the inside job possibility. However. I know it happened. I heard it and saw the act. OR the reality. It is only people who interrupt to tell how they all watched it in school, in a library, because it was the most special day that ever happened to them throughout their meek existences. They NEEDED to tell me their whereabouts that morning just as much as I need to describe my Radiohead “I’m finally a writer” experience to you in only that I know that you don’t give a fuck, maybe I’ll forget this in the morning like a lover gone wrong but, the more I age, the more I need to tell you about this time in my life because I know it’s a precursor to other things. Where ZERO people have ever deigned to encourage or inspire me. I am SO blogging this tomorrow. The only reason I started a blog, my blog, was because I was told to by a mentor of mine to take my audience to my own “platform” called a “blog”. I was already blogging “for free” on VICE’s Wassup forum. I taught myself html, scanned in film photos of myself. I lived between Toronto Cabbagetown (highschool internship) and Home Hardware, Mississauga. Before trolls really existed, I was still getting trolled. But I could handle them because I was so young at the time and was good at carving them on sight in real time and it was part of my online persona. VICE published a zinger of mine every month in their magazine. Do you know what that does to the ego of 17 year old hahah.

One time my boss at this place in Cabbagetown I was working in had printed out a very detailed two page letter of intent/manifesto emailed to me from an online bestie of mine (one of the viceland celebs at the time there were 4 of us) and put it on my desk. My workstation. I am a PC girl but used a mac in this home office. After working for this woman for awhile using all MAC computers, I got it and thank god cos after this I interned for VICE and they use Macs too. Anyway the psycho thing about Macs at that time is not only are they orange, aqua, or blue, but I was taught to re-jig with a paperclip. Also, that all documents “cascade” and/or disappear and your boss will print out the “lost” documents and leave them on your desk to humiliate you the next morning.

Now. I have never talked openly about this experience because I signed a non-disclosure BUT I’m not saying her name or publication but I will say that I was basically a full-blown adult being treated “as such” worked to the bone while my fellow classmates found local businesses that paid them hush-hush. This was a highschool co-op placement that gives you work experience.

I went out of my way to find a Toronto placement. SO I could be in Toronto. I wanted to run my own magazine. This woman met me with long blond hair when I went for my interview with my co-op teacher. I went to England for summer school and cut it all off that summer then came back to my co-op placement with short dyke hair. I found this woman through a woman who was friends with my U of T older crowd when I dated an older guy. Actually insane now that I think of it that it slipped thru adults cos I was Go-training daily to a mentally unstable woman’s house everyday to be essentially her assistant. She was poor and thankless as fuck. The one piece I had published in her quarterly she went out of her way to make me feel like shit about that she edited it like crazy. I was her subscriptions dept managerr. So many other huge responsibilities. One time I left ½ hour early cos my dad had business in town he could drive me home, she called my home phone in ‘sauga and my mom answered and flipped on her. She’s like we NEVER see our daughter. She is pale as a ghost. Never sees the sun. My husband gets her 30 minutes early and you lose it on her. I was stunned cos I was expecting to get in trouble I was so used to being abused and overworked. One time this woman looked at me and was like, I forget you are 17. Same age as her loser son who sleeps upstairs. My co-op placement was in her house! She made me sign a non-disclosure agreement at 17 no one else in my class had to. At this point I don’t give a fuck anymore. I worked my ass off for her. She had the audacity to tell a girl to be quiet one day when we were stuffing envelopes! Too much fun! I wasn’t allowed to listen to music and work because what if she had to yell for me? The day she left that print-out on my desk from my NYC GF and never said anything about it to me directly. It scared me. Meanwhile. I had to sift through her son’s insane porn history on her work computer.
I was never respected there. Maybe slightly. I actually want to see what she’s up to now. This placement was the catalyst to me going to NYC etc. I worked on Mondays at home hardware after school the one day a week we weren’t at our internships and she would always try to get me to skip school to go to work I actually started to adore Mondays and on weekends I worked at the hardware store to affor to travel to this horrible job during the week because my folks wouldn’t give me money cos they didn’t want me doing any of this to begin with. I took the city bus to go station. Train to union. Union subway to college/yonge then streetcar to parliament cabbagetown to a crazy bitch’s house who treated me like a slave JUST so I could have the Toronto experience and she was ungrateful as fuck. Then. I took that trek back to Mississauga daily and I paid for it everyday on my own. Typing about this now it is insane I would never do this now. Then I would stay up late with my one friend Ward. I never saw the sun. This bitch has the audacity to print out one fucking PRIVATE email exchange and leave it on my desk. Fuck you.
After all this I went to NYC. I chose travel over univeristy because I WAS DONE.

Ok to be continued lol!

(Ps. Sorry for being ranty. I DO care about other’s nine-eleven experiences I’m just very me-focused. I’ll try to be better).

what about a mild animal

You may have seen the bunch of photos you’re about to see here now but you haven’t read these biting, gripping captions OR you might be blocked from all social platforms of mine and not seen nuthin’ yet! It’s better to always look at everything on my blog anyway because it’s the full-shot and nothing is cut off like my feet. My ello is amazing also because it makes everything poster gigantic-sized.

I used to be so good to my blog and generally don’t feel relaxed until I get my goods blogged here. A lot of people out there have crap they’re behind in updating their websites with (hopefully it isn’t just me) so, there.

There was a round table vodka-chugging joke thread on my facebook that got me steamed and was hilarious. When it wasn’t infuriating!!! Bahah. All to just distract from how hot I am nice try IDIOTS. Man you’re going to love this post so much cos you hate me.

Hi.

Hey.

I do not have a future in cake-decorating not yet anyhow. The guy was like I GOTTA SEE THIS and the actual cake artist just took off before we arrived. I drew the worst fugliest ear ever and put red icing for blood. It looked like an abstract bleeding vagina. The cashier checking us out was like “????” when he peered into the cake box then he was like O_O but super polite, didn’t ask. I think we forced the story onto him. Probably. Definitely. I almost had a meltdown at the pops chips sample guy I had no patience and the ding dong kept stuttering THEN wanted to give us more samples in my head I was like CMON GUY! If he didn’t take so long my cake would have been professionally decorated. It was funny shopping there and we had a great time. America sells goofy crap. Whole Foods sells WAY goofy crap. Spiced cranberry juice? Let me at it.

And these are just the ones I can show you.

Did some Repcap placement shots have been largely feeling these hats and got a lot of attention Friday night at the thing I went to when I wore one.


photo destroyxbeauty

I’m loving all the new friends I’m making lately. I am all about branching out, embracing talented people, creatives, and encouraging them as well as helping them with their craft, being a mentor, conduit of sorts, connector… it is really gratifying and makes me happy to help those who need it when I can. I have a lot of things in the pan on the go. Very inertia right now. I need to be I need to get shit done so on and so forth. Meeting an important person soon via my lit agent this week I been on fiya yo and ya don’t stoppppp. Embracing a lot of arts stuff in general right now too as well as creating okay that’s all haha. I kind of just need to do a lot of shit like crazy until my book just starts spilling out of me. People who are idle stay that way. Not me bro.

Happy to be getting my hair done this week too. Thank God.

Happy to see this Q&A. Output, output, output.

I don’t know what to say hahaha. RSSR chose this. It’s pretty bad ass. So are the tights I took a lot of erotic selfies in them I will admit and will show someday. Tides are a-changing and I am all about threats.

Last night was great. Hung out with Dave Love, Boylord drummer. We behaved like children and listened to speed metal at Sneaky Dee’s Pantera 90’s everything it was so great and we drank wine in Bellwoods. Got carded too. Sick yo!

We’ve chosen more songs to cover also! They’re all my favourites of course. Winter is the time for music.

Another good one.

<3.

That’s all for now!

+++++

Raymi Toronto Post for ya fyi btw! I had a great time last Thursday visiting/talking social media marketing for office phone networks at Standard IP Telecom with John Conn the CEO and Founder at their headquarters on 33 Laird Dr just south of Eglinton. Not that their address matters much as Standard Telecom doesn’t have walk-ins, or even a YELP profile. They sell to businesses who need new phones or better phones or cheaper phones for their employees, and those types of consumers definitely shop online these days.

Who’s gonna blog your wild horses

Hey bros! On Saturday evening in Detroit we went out to Antietam on Gratiot Avenue for some amazing french cuisine. Sometimes, you just got to treat yoselves!

Behind me is the Masonic Temple. The largest in the world. That is where we partied for Theatre Bizarre. Masons get that playground for themselves whenever they want. Awesome.

We love eating at the bar.

Doorknob taps. Reminds me of 1049 Cedar Grove blvd.

Gal got great style.

Beet tart with creme fraiche and arugula salad mmmm.

This french resto was so old world down the the bathroom fixtures so gangster. I adored the bar of soap on that spindle hello little house on the prairie. We made friends with these nice older chicks (sister-in-laws having a girl’s weekend) and they showed me footage of that hot air balloon festival and it was bananas like a Sony Bravia Ad. They loved me. Just saying.

We dined on oxtail (gamey, weird?) and steak tartar (I love it).

Yum as hell. I am looking fwd to my fancy train meal later on #spoiled yet again. Bittersweetly so.

Some interesting backstory here no doubt.

The restaurant is beside this mural, more or less. Love it.

A lot of beautiful murals by great artists about the area. The art scene is booming in Detroit “I know things”.

Detroit Tigers, guy!

This Cliff Bells joint was a mighty amazing trip through time. Detroit is a new culture to me, I forget this at times but then I go to a place like Cliff Bells and I immediately remember I ain’ts in Toronto no mo and I friggin’ diggit.

We thought we spied a famous basketball player of course no idea or clue who or what team but the place just has this kind of magic dazzle and quality to it where stars go to hear jazz and blues. I am very blessed and fortunate to have been given a tour of Detroit and seen a lot of record studios, last living legends play live music here and learn the complete history of this sacred musical ground. I was not expecting this post to turn in to a rock review but there you have it. I saw Dennis fucking Coffey last night. Don’t even get me started. I’ll have to come back here and finish. This trip was an inspiration voyage for sure. It’s great for my book.

Love. Also last night at Northern Lights Lounge (Diana Ross’ stomping grounds and not the bathroom seen above/Motown Records is around the corner also) the owner Michael remembered me. Said, hey you, from Toronto – you’re the leggy one. Last night was tight.

Saturday night was also epic. Hadn’t gone out a lot this trip because we were nursing Lizzy’s ear post-surgery (long story) so a lot of indoor Netflix and eating plus computers. Above, Sam Fazio nailed it. He also was interesting as hell to watch because he showed no emotion whatsoever which then made him seem very emotional to me. Stoic? Intense and vacant. You know I like that shit. I patted him on the back during a break in the set and said blah blah you’re great he nodded, I wasn’t an apparition to the guy and thankfully I stopped myself from informing him he was wooden AF emotionally as a performer and left it at that.

The Detroit Opera house is now an indoor parking lot. A casualty of the Detroit economy bullshit. This is a picture of it on Lizzy’s phone from googling it, we didn’t go inside although I would have loved to see that with my own eyes. Imagine parking your car beneath the most ornate ceiling you ever did in your lifetime. Speechless. I saw the exterior facade, however. This is all downtown Detroit proper.

I have to find where those glasses are before I leave today ha ha.

BYE.

Brunch babies.

Going through a lot of these now.

So much more later xo.

Babe Asylum

THEATRE BIZARRE INSTALLMENT No.4 no?

Broom broom lets go.

It just never ends does it. There will even be more in another post after this oh w/e carry on wayward son.

Lizzy ordered these and they arrived the day after Theatre Bizarre was over LOL.

We wore them over to the wine bar and that was about it. I have a comedy bit about the wine bar fyi.

Fun idea me! RSSR did my minx tat I was like stay in the lines bruh!

Can you imagine being in a full body latex outfit?

It says UNHOLY between your heads. Hmm.

Good times!

Not to make you conceited but costume win, bow to the kweeeeeeeen.

Ding dong don’t GAF tho. (give a fuck to the old people ur welcome).

Gorgeous Masonic Temple WHAT.

Do you see the level of costumes? I have an insane batch Lizzy sent me ready to go but I’m not opening that folder because my brains will explode.

This guy lunged at me and scared me, not really but you know so I was like okay so it’s on now.

Unicorns are hard to find.

Love this goddamn shot.

Hot mess. Feather sighting. Pink paint Mad Max Warriorette was here.

Babe Asylum brunch breakout okay I am just writing nonsense here people who cares.

Dully’s is the best.

Spooky emo rando.

Michigan Ave.

I’ve hit the wall now. time for a T-O!

XOXO RAYMBO

That’s a Raymidea.

Hola muchachos!

A new Raymi Toronto post is up go check it out! :) Raymi Toronto Does halloween @ The Lodge on Queen! (When you’re finished off here first of course).

Had such a great time dancing with Shanny.

I enjoy painting my face like a clown more than I do my beige concealer, go figure.

clicky clicky

Met friends at the Dog and Bear yesterday despite being a big disaster.

This was me yesterday. God I talk a lot. I even rode my bike at one point. Dangerous lol.

Gene fell in love with me. They always do. Okay all the rest of the juice is on Raymi Toronto, enjoy.

Theatre Bizarre is the gift that keeps on giving. There will be a fourth and final installment believe it or not. GOTH 4EVR.