Enter The Bitchy Snow Queen--Survival in An Unchartered Land

“You know what really pisses me off?” I ask Sherman after another hectic day of employment (my third one in a row…how do you people keep this shit up?).

“Blue jays? Apricots? Sunlight? Should I keep guessing?” Sherman asks, smiling. He has a point. I am a bit of a lunatic, but I have different fish to fry today—northern fish, filled with blubber.

“No. I can’t stand people that use Facebook as a vehicle to pretend to be political activists while they continue to be ignorant and aloof in their daily lives,” I say, smacking my fist down on the block of ice I call a kitchen table. I try to imitate Paula Abdul demanding something from her pharmacist but I can’t remember what she looks like since we don’t get American Idol this far north. Instead, I come off more as a cross between Paula Poundstone and the band, Abba, which is definitely not as threatening.

“That’s fair,” Sherman sighs as he simultaneously rolls his eyes and pours himself a cup of tea. He knows this is going to be a long night.

Sherman legitimately has his shit together. This makes him different than myself. This was made abundantly clear today when I bitched-out my boss. I am aware that this approach does not work on Survivor and I am beginning to suspect that it doesn’t work in the high-stakes work of college teaching either. Fortunately, he is deaf in one ear and by the time he caught wind of what I was doing I had lost my steam.

“Why do you even keep a Facebook account?” Sherman asks. “You aren’t exactly a people person.” That’s an understatement. I think most people are stupid and lazy, which wouldn’t bother me, except I am jealous. Stupid and lazy is my M.O. and if you are plagiarizing me you’re also pissing me off.

“I like to snoop,” I scowl, defensively. “Why do you think?” I really keep it to communicate with my friends in Ethiopia, but since they are living the high life in the desert outside of Jima, I am not speaking to them currently. Well, that and the fact that my computer freezes itself off on a regular basis.

“So, what did you do today?” Sherman asks, trying to change the subject. I hated this question when I was living in the south because nothing really seemed to happen to me. It was kind of a toss-away moment in a conversation, like how do you think the Ottawa Senators are doing? Or, do you think Lindsay Lohan will win an Oscar this year? If you already know the answer, don’t waste my time asking the stupid question.

However, shit happens to me all the time up here in the Arctic, so I usually have something decent to contribute these days.

“One of my students walked out of my class,” I say as I pour myself some apple juice. I was never really a fan of what I think of as a drink developed for six-year-olds, but after having gone a month without pop or liquor it has certainly shot up the list of things I am willing to drink when compared to water you have to boil for seventeen minutes. Don’t try and skimp on the seventeen minutes either. It is scientifically irrefutable. Just ask the polar bears.

“I could see that,” Sherman says, somewhat condescendingly. “You aren’t very authoritative. I can’t imagine you have terrific classroom management skills.”

“Maybe not,” I counter, getting ready to display my trump-card. I just learned how to play cards from the old lady who lives on an iceberg at the edge of our inlet. I love sports that only require you to move when you need to refill your plate. “But it seems I have pretty bad-ass community management skills.”

“How so?”

“I took the rest of my class on a ‘field trip’ to the Co-op and made her come back to school,” I say. “Next time she feels like skipping she is going to ask herself, ‘is it worth it to leave the lunatic’s class or should I just sit here and wait for fourth period Spanish?’”

Of course Sherman’s jaw has dropped wide open at this point. “You’re worse than a child,” he scolds.

Whatever, we both knew I was a child long before we moved to the land that thought Sarah Palin would make a good politician. I sit here, ignoring Sherman and, instead, examine my nail like I have done some heavy labour recently. The dirt it is caked in is still there from a couple of days ago when I took my class on another field trip—this one to a waterfall where I was promised we could watch the mythical caribou herd trapeze past as though we were David Suzuki on-loan from The Nature of Things. I thought it was a pretty big adventure, mostly because I confuse the terms caribou and unicorn all the time. My students thought this was a stupid trip, as they already knew what caribou look like and four of them had been to the waterfall the night before to smoke cigarettes. Not exactly a scene from The Last Unicorn.

“So you are really winning people over is what you are saying,” Sherman laughs, interrupting my self-manicure.

“Those kids know I love them. They know I suck as a teacher, but they know I care about them. I think that goes a long way,” I say, taking a swig of my apple juice. “Damn, that’s good.”

“No. I could see that about you,” Sherman replies. Someone is clearly rocking out the rose-coloured glasses.

“I think my legacy in the Arctic is going to be a cross between Bitchy Snow Queen and that psycho art-history teacher from Mona Lisa Smile,” I admit. “More Bitchy Snow Queen though.”

“Did anything else shake down today?” Sherman asks. This kind of slang made more sense when I thought Sherman was a black bear. Since he is clearly a polar bear I think it is kind of awkward. Like when Justin Timberlake sings without a box in front of him.

“Who are you—Harriet the Spy?” I ask, getting my Bitchy Snow Queen on. Then I remember that he has spent the last fifty-one minutes boiling three litres of water so that I can eat vegetables for dinner and I change my tune. “The Bitchy Snow Queen got in a snowball war again.”

Last week’s snowball war ended in what I like to recall as a draw, but what was actually a wipe-out when almost every student on campus pummelled me with dirty snow. “Same result?” Sherman asks, preparing to console me.

“Nah, round two went to the Bitchy Snow Queen,” I smile. “They started throwing snowballs at my window and I yelled down to them that if they break my window it will be freezing for two weeks until someone fixes it and I will make them all come every day and freeze with me.”

“That must have gone over really well,” Sherman assesses.

“The girl I chased down at the Co-op, who was understandably still pissed with me, replied ‘you don’t know where I live’ and threw another ice pellet at my head.”

“I'll find out,” I said.

“I doubt it,” she countered, shaping another snowball with her palms—this one even bigger than the last. I wish I was as acclimatized to this cold as she is. It is like a superpower.

“I found you at the co-op didn't I?” I said, playing another trump card.

With that, the girl drops the snowball. Check. Mate. It even formed a perfect Inuksuk on the ground.

With the end of my story I finally get the dirt out of my fingernail too. “And it looks like the Bitchy Snow Queen just won round three as well!” I exclaim.

I think of myself as a survivor in this place. But, I think the problem most of us have with the idea of survival is one of basic definition. From evolution to religion to literature to the insipid tv show from which my cat bequeaths her name, all interpretations of self survival include the idea that others don't survive. We have adopted this notion that for us--self, like-minded believers, those with political allegiances--to survive, we need to burry those that are different. We need to prove we are superior, as though this justifies our survival and the demise of all others.

I think we are off. As off as the snowballs I have become used to being flanked with. I think the true survivors are the people who realize that as long as you fear difference, you live from a place of self-doubt. As long as you belittle those around you, you will grapple will shame in your heart. The true survivors are those of us that live as we are, and at peace with the world around us.

I'm not saying I'm there yet. I may never be. But, laying here, I think this itchy snow queen gets it.

As I lay sleeping in the arms of Sherman later that night, with Ms. Richard Hatch snuggled even more tightly in my own grasp, I snore with the roar of a train from one of those far-away southern lands with things like tracks and roads and hair conditioner. Yet, from beneath my nasal engine, the flickering Northern Lights can still hear the sound my dreams have been seeking all my life. “Sweet dreams my Bitchy Snow Queen—the one with Mona Lisa’s smile,” Sherman whispers.

It may have taken the Arctic Circle, but, I think I’ve found my people, the ones who embrace my difference from themselves, and allow it to continue in the worlds of their own survival.