whyioughtta

Thanks for stopping by...

2008-11-07T11:27:00.003-05:00

The whyioughtta blog has reached the end of its natural lifespan.

But you can still find me here and possibly here on occasion.

Best wishes!

CONGRATULATIONS USA!

2008-11-05T15:41:00.003-05:00

A historical election's eve...and the media navelgazing has already begun

2008-11-03T12:03:00.002-05:00

Am I alone in finding this type of editorial irritating? Our media in Canada does this all the time too. I'm not sure whether I can clearly articulate what bugs me, but it has something to do with these questions:

Aren't they maybe overestimating their impact on voters?
Aren't they sort of Bill Maher-ing the American public (i.e. assuming they're stupid media pawns)? (Don't get me wrong, I love Maher, but he's not always kind in his characterization of his countrymen).
What purpose does this whole 'liberal bias' question really serve except breeding pendulum-swinging disasters like Fox "News"?
Can you really compare Obama's gaffes to McCain's? (Personally, I think they PALIN comparison.)
Isn't it possible that Obama got more "favourable" coverage overall because he did fewer stupid things?

As for the whole 'liberal' thing...consider this if you're American: your 'liberal' candidate has pretty much the same political and social stance as our current conservative prime minister. And our PM, Stephen Harper, is a former Reformer--which was a party about as far to the right as you can get in Canada without being dismissed by the entire country as a total wing-nut. Obama might be left of your centre, but he's definitely not leftist or even, from our standards, that liberal. So I find the 'liberal bias' thing a little silly.

Mostly, though, I'm tired of the media constantly yakking about itself. Maybe the whole bias problem would be remedied if they spent more time focusing on reporting facts and less time editorializing everything--even their own editorials. It's a mise-en-abysme of self-obsession and it is, frankly, boring.

I don't blog, therefore I amn't

2008-06-24T11:19:00.003-04:00

Gawd I miss blogging. I love blogging. But, alas, I love my little girl more.

Nevertheless, I'm starting to have a little more 'spare' time to get back to ye old blahg and will write whenever I can.

Am spending most of my time nursing, holding, caressing peachfuzz, kissing toes and ears...but also running, biking, hiking. And I find myself increasingly pulled into the tractor-beam that is the Internet.

I'm sure none of my old blog friends bother to stop by anymore. Don't blame yaz. The well has been dry for months, after all. But if you're a new visitor, don't feel you must lurk. Be a good girl or boy and say hello.

I am working on some deep thoughts, really...it just takes me much longer these days to formulate them, what with the sleep deprivation. Think of me as Treebeard the Ent. I will get the thoughts out, and hopefully they'll be good...but it may take a while.

Things I'm thinking about these days besides my new motherhood:

France - History, society, current events, perceptions, intellectual honesty. Did I mention I'm a francophile?
Film - Have been watching lots of French films lately (see above) and lots of movies, period. I loved 10 Items or Less (Morgan Freeman, Paz Vega -- who really must be careful about the Penelope Cruz resemblance).
Stories - I have not one but TWO well-fleshed-out novel plots now. More on this later...
Art - I am so over Warhol (well to be honest, I was never really under him). For unknown reasons, am in love with 19th-century Russian portrait painting.
Clothes - Always. I am in love with Helena Horstedt and also all things Italian. Still waiting on my Hermes scarf.

TTFN, as the fifth-graders say...

We have ourselves a munchkin

2008-03-31T15:39:00.002-04:00

A quick update: our little bundle has arrived, and she's a girl-bundle, I'm delighted to report.

She came a month early and quite underweight because I had a pregnancy condition called pre-eclampsia, which is dangerous for both mommy and baby. They had to induce me and deliver her, which is the only treatment for this condition.

We spent 11 days in the hospital, but I'm happy to report that we're now home, our little feeding machine is gaining lots of weight and growing stronger every day. She's cuddled up on me as I write this. I never imagined I could love something this much.

I'll post more when I can. Take care!

ReIKEAncarnation

2008-03-13T10:18:00.003-04:00

(As an aside, I seem to have pulled my neck simply by standing. Boys and girls, this is the sad reality of ageing. And also the sad reality of the last trimester of pregnancy, when your ligaments are turning to so much over-cooked spaghetti so as to ease open the pelvis for the emerging newt.

I had to teach Monday and Tuesday, was on my feet all day both days, and was visited by more aches, pains, strains, and physical problems in those two days than I normally endure in an entire year. The first day, I got a visual migraine in the middle of lunch and completely lost my vision for about 45 minutes. As soon as I could see again, I realized I'd eaten something indigestible at lunch and the abdominal pain and swelling nearly ended the class with a bang.

After a night of moaning, groaning, suffering, and little sleep (I'll be 9 months pregnant next week and sleep is a distant memory), I hobbled back to class. Mid-morning, I suffered a spontaneous neck strain that, two days later, seems to actually be getting worse rather than better. I have no idea how I did it. All I know is that by mid-afternoon, I couldn't move my head at all. Also, my feet and ankles have swollen to about the same size as my neck, and I can't move those either. I have become a statue of elephantine misery.)

Just about the only part of me that's not uncomfortable is my fingertips, so I've been doing some surfing around. I found this neat blog, IKEA Hacker, featuring the creative ways in which people have MacGyvered (not sure you'll know what that means if you're not from Canada...so let's say "Frankensteined") IKEA products into wonderful custom creations, and they show you how you can do it too. Because, let's face it, if you're going to buy furniture from IKEA, you're probably looking for a quick fix to a household problem--so why not make that a custom fix instead? It's not like cutting into your grandmother's 500 year-old harvest table, after all. We're talking about pine and particle board, for the most part. If your hack goes wrong, you don't have to feel too bad.

Pics above are all from IKEA Hacker:

1. A MALM bed someone customized with over-sized digital prints from a design shop's scrap pile.
2. A customized SISKAS chandelier.
3. A MAME dinner table turned into a Ms.Pacman game!

Can't talk now, making the switch to minimalism...

2008-03-04T11:28:00.008-05:00

I've been posting with the consistency of a 20-year-old Promises outpatient. (It's that rehab clinic the celebribrats go to...Britney, Lindsay, etc....nevermind.) So no comments lately...Well...that's okay. I came into this blogging world alone, and alone I shall wander. Plus, I know there be lurkers.

It's just that I've been decluttering, you see. Well, half decluttering and half reading decluttering tips online, which allows me to virtually experience the release of decluttering without any pesky necessity for getting-off-my-ass-and-actually-doing-anything.

We have gotten rid of a mound of stuff in the run-up to baby's arrival, though. Mountains of clothes. Piles of old batteries (those can just go right in the garbage, right? :^) Entire cities of CD jewel cases, old knicknacks, paperback books, and reams and reams of paper, magazines, and old phone bills.

I've got to say...IT FEELS SO GOOD to get rid of all this crap. I'm not saying we're anywhere near crapless, but our crap quotient has dwindled to a shadow of its former self. And as a bonus, we might be able to squeeze a newborn infant into our house now.

Something magical has happened while we've been going through this process: my husband and I have become habitual declutterers.

I was the first to make the evolutionary leap, deciding to get rid of anything I haven't used in more than a year. At first, my husband had a hard time with this. He's more frugal than I am and doesn't like to part with purchased goods. But just last night I caught him going through his closet muttering to himself, "Now what else can I get rid of in here?" It nearly brought a tear to my eye.

Something else I've noticed since this process started: I'm really hesitant to buy new stuff now. I mean, heh heh, don't get me wrong. There will always be room for shoes. But now that we have all this glorious space, the thought of clogging it up with junk seems abhorrent.

Here are a few GREAT decluttering blogs I've come across on my journey:

Unclutterer (a fab site for decluttering tips and tricks)
FlyLady (a great site if you have trouble establishing a cleaning routine)
ZenHabits (philosophical approaches to simplicity and minimalism)
LifeHacker (technical tools to make life simpler)

And for you writers out there, check out these old-school detechnifiers that reduce the mental clutter and formatting temptations of Word and Wordperfect:

Writeroom (a writing application that emulates old black-and-yellow screens with no formatting, etc., so you can't be distracted from the pure act of writing)
AlphaSmart (a keyboard that operates like an old-school typewriter so you can't go back and edit that last sentence into oblivion)

Stay tuned: I am now one step closer to posting those photos of the mailbox trip...

More on stuff...

2008-02-25T21:01:00.001-05:00

George Carlin. Amen brother.

Pics of walk to mailbox coming soon. Promise.

"Democracy by sound bite"

2008-01-29T13:17:00.001-05:00

As soon as I can figure out how to load pictures from my digital camera onto my PC, I'm switching to a photo format instead of all this blah, blah, blah.

I like ideas and information, it's the way my brain's wired. For about 10 years now--the length of time I've been really using this interwebnet thing--I've found myself increasingly sucked into the vortex of ideas and information the Internet offers.

If I'm bored with what I'm working on, I just jog on over to a news site. (If I'm bored but not feeling very awake, I'll check out a snark site like Overheard in New York or Go Fug Yourself, or I'll visit my various and manifold fashion sites.)

My brain gets nicely filled with ideas. I feel more knowledgeable. I'm in touch with my world. I'm participating in the democracy of information that is the Internet.

But does it really help me or enrich my life in any way, or does it just keep me occupied (And seated. On my expanding, pregnant ass.) ? Because, despite all these ideas and information circulating online, I don't know if I'm getting any more enlightened.

I have a sinking feeling that enlightenment requires the precise opposite of the quick-and-dirty info promise of the Internet: it requires slow, deep, focused thought. It requires...(gasp!) limitations. (And maybe...books? Sorry, Internet. Sorry, forests.)

So I was kind of tweaked when I heard about BigThink.com on last weekend's CBC Sunday. I was a little dubious about the founder's claim that they were doing something different or new--I mean, is that really possible on the Web these days? I wondered.

I've been spending some time on BigThink and I have to say, I remain undecided.

One of their feature videos right now is a heavily edited pastiche of opinions from American politicians and assorted brainiacs on whether "the American political system is broken."

Ironically, one of the commentors (his clip flashed by so fast that I didn't catch his name) makes the blunt statement that America is about "democracy by sound bite" today. I think he's right, but maybe it's not just America's political system that's suffering this sickness--maybe it's larger than that. Much larger. And that certainly includes the very format BigThink is using.

Is the Internet, and especially sites like BigThink, simultaneously making us more broadly informed yet factually dumber? Do we really make political decisions on the basis of sound bites? God help me, I hope I don't...but maybe I do. Bottom line: does it do us any good, and if so, what good does it do us? I ask that earnestly, not facetiously.

Another commentor said something that caught my attention: "I am so sick of politicians running on a platform 'against government.'" That rang a few bells with me. But what exactly does she mean? I'll never know.

Because BigThink is just a bunch of sound bites.

So stay tuned for some lovely photos of my recent walk to the mailbox...

Coffee? Tea? Baby?

2008-01-22T15:24:00.000-05:00

Did you drink coffee while pregnant? Or tea? Or anything with caffeine?

All the stuff I've been reading has said that you should limit your caffeine intake in pregnancy to 300 milligrams a day or less (that's basically a cup of coffee a day).

A new study suggests that this amount may be too high and that pregnant women should try to eliminate caffeine to avoid miscarriage.

Something like 90% of miscarriages happen in the first 3 or 4 months of pregnancy and something like 1 in 4 pregnancies miscarry, so it's hard for researchers to figure out exactly what role caffeine plays--they just know that it does.

Personally, I could not walk within 10 feet of a coffee bean in my first trimester. Or really until my 6th month. Now I'm 7 months and my intake is creeping up again...as I write this, I'm sipping a decaf tea and contemplating chocolate...

Was just curious about those of you who've had babies...what was your experience?

Finally showing their true colours

2008-01-17T08:39:00.001-05:00

What a disgusting display of political interference in judicial matters by a right-wing conservative government: no, I'm not talking about the Bush administration, I'm talking about the Canadian government.

The Chalk River nuclear plant in Chalk River, Ontario is about 180 km from where I live. It supplies something like two-thirds of the world's medical radioisotopes, used for cancer diagnosis and treatment. In 2007, the plant was shut down temporarily for maintenance, but when the arms-length agencies that govern peaceful use of atomic energy in Canada saw that part of the plant's safety system wasn't working, they extended the shutdown until the problem was fixed.

The "problem" was that the plant was missing some key safety features that would prevent a meltdown in the event of an earthquake. My understanding is that the plant, like much of this region, sits on a major fault line. It's not as active as the San Andreas fault in California, for example, but it's just as major. A condition of the Chalk River plant's operating license is that it has to have this seismic backup system. So the experts shut it down in order to deal with the problem.

Well, our wonderful Conservative government, which has been really good at stealthily and quietly spending all of our tax surpluses and generally escaping public notice for its entire time in office, decided to interfere and override the decision of the two major nuclear governing bodies in Canada. Because we all know what scientific geniuses government ministers are. So yeah, they're definitely qualified to make that decision above the outcry of the scientific community.

The government claimed it was taking exceptional action in order to save lives, but their constant reference to the nuclear watchdog bodies as "Liberal-appointed" organizations shows their true colours: the Conservatives are putting politics ahead of safety. And I (along with a lot of other Canadians, I imagine) ask them: what about the lives of those whose world would be obliterated in the event of a meltdown? Like, the residents of Ontario within the fallout zone, for example. And the lives of all those who need isotopes and would now have to wait for a new facility to be set up? And on top of that, what ever happened to rule of law? Since when is the government allowed to interfere in the decisions of judicial bodies in this country?

My life has been affected by cancer, just like the lives of pretty much everyone I know. I don't want people to die. I've lost people I love. I thought I was going to lose my dad this year. But I'm telling you, if we don't have rule of law, we have less than nothing.

But here's where the scary part comes in. The president of one of the bodies that made the decision to shut down the reactor, Linda Keen, is one of the country's key watchdogs for nuclear safety. She was supposed to testify before a parliamentary committee today about this whole mess. Only it looks like she may not be able to do that now. You see, she was fired. Last night. At literally the 11th hour--11 p.m.

THAT's what kind of government the Conservatives are. Moderates, my ass. I never thought I'd see the day when our government started to resemble the Bushies. This story's gonna explode like a mushroom cloud.

Read more here.

Congrats Gizzy and Cellobetty!

2008-01-10T08:44:00.000-05:00

Congrats to our good friends on the birth of their second little boy...two weeks early, what a lovely surprise!

--W.

2008: International Year of "Oh, I give up"

2008-01-02T10:04:00.000-05:00

Nobody really makes New Years resolutions anymore, do they?

We had some friends over on NYE (New Year's Eve) and one pal raised the issue of resolutions. "So," she said hesitantly, "...I guess we're supposed to, uh, say what our resolutions are. Or, you know, something."

From around the table: silence, blank stares.

"You know...." ventured another friend, "I've sort of given up on the whole resolution thing."

"Me too," echoed...everyone else. Then the floodgates opened:

"I mean, what's the point?"

"You never stick to them anyways."

"Unrealistic."

"Moderation. That's the answer. You got that, you don't need resolutions."

I found the conversation refreshingly honest, and also interesting. Think of all the promises to self made around midnight a few days ago. In my mind's eye, I see all the thought bubbles floating up from a map of Canada and the U.S.:

"I'll lose 50 pounds... I'll start going to the gym... I'll get a new job...I'll be nicer...I'll invite the neighbours to tea...I'll declutter my life... I'll save for retirement...I won't buy so much crap..."

I see them float up, up...and...drift away...into the sun...where they are blasted to oblivion by February.

We all know that resolutions rarely get kept, so there's no revelation here. That they're usually about giving something up is a little more interesting. Even promises to start doing stuff...like working out, for example...are, in a sense, about giving something up. When you resolve to start working out, you're resolving to give up some time that would otherwise be spent on your butt. It's a sacrifice.

The hilarious irony of resolutions is that every year we get fatter and more weighted down by stuff than ever. The average American now consumes as much food, clothing, electronics, household goods..."stuff"...as 32 Kenyans, despite the fact that the American population is only 10 times larger than the Kenyan population.

North America is the world's most fascinating socio-bio-psycho laboratory for human behaviour. Today's experiment: How does the human animal deal with excess resources? We seem to respond with two conflicting impulses: stockpiling and streamlining.

We're a society where people can get pretty much anything they want. Even people with little or no money. We have so much stuff that we need to buy stuff in order to contain our stuff, just giving us more stuff. Usually both container and contained end up piled on a shelf, forgotten.

We have so much stuff that we have absolutely no mechanism for keeping track of what we own. The human mind itself does not have sufficient storage capacity to recall what we have hidden away in the nooks and crannies of our homes. I believe that this incapacity is the single biggest driver of sales of corkscrews and canned tuna.

I was at my mom's on Boxing Day (aka..."Buy Stuff Day") and I mentioned that I seemed to have inherited her tendency to acquire dish sets in multiples. I own an everyday set, a slightly fancier set that I'd put on my wedding registry, and a third set I inherited from my great-grandmother and which is presently sealed up in a box in the basement (I'll take it out when I buy a china cabinet to store it in...see how stuff breeds itself?).

"I don't know," my mom said, chewing her turkey thoughtfully. "I only really have those two sets over there." She pointed at one of her two china cabinets.

She glanced down at her plate. "Oh, and this set of Christmas dishes." She took another bite and considered her china cabinet again, squinting a little. "And, uh...I guess there's also that everyday set in the kitchen. And the new white set I've been collecting. How many does that make again?"

Five. It makes five, mom.

And I don't fault her one little bit. I'm well on the road to five sets of china myself. But it made me think. About stuff. About acquiring less of it. And then, in rapid succession, about maybe even making a resolution of it and the futility of resolutions in a society where one is surrounded by stuff you can, should, need to, want to buy. So much stuff. Wonderful, beautiful stuff all holding the promise of a better life.

We recently renovated our kitchen. Well, it's not completely finished yet. I'm going for "retro glam" and the glam part will come in once I receive the hardware, tiles, and other STUFF I've purchased to make the finished product sparkle. I think we single-handedly doubled the country's landfill in the process of this reno. The old kitchen wasn't easily salvageable, so...we threw it out. I have lost sleep over this wastefulness, if that helps at all. Please don't hate me.

But the thing is, the old kitchen was inefficient. It forced me to buy stuff to deal with the inefficiency. It was the kitchen's fault.

My new kitchen, though, is pared down, fine-tuned like a German engine, it will result in me needing to buy less stuff, honestly. Once I replace the old stuff that doesn't really go anymore.

So back to the resolutions. How do I make a resolution to start acquiring less stuff in a year when I know for a fact that I will be: 1) completing a kitchen renovation, 2) completing a bathroom renovation, and 3) having a baby (they are little stuff machines, I hear)?

Do I go ahead and make the resolution knowing that it will be dead by February anyways? Do I stop fighting this acquisition impulse and just buy the life I want already? Will I actually buy less if I just go out there and buy exactly what I want, once, instead of trying to make due with what I have (and inevitably having to supplement it to make it work)?

Being an overfed, overprivileged, comfortable North American can be so hard sometimes.

On the subject of stuff...here are two great NYTimes.com articles from today: one, two.

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-24T12:34:00.000-05:00

Make mine an Hermes scarf, dear...

2007-12-06T12:20:00.000-05:00

I was out for dinner with my aunt and mother the other night. When I told them I was planning on natural childbirth, they were not impressed. "Nobody's gonna give you a prize the next day, you know," my aunt informed me sternly. Which made me think...hmmm....maybe there SHOULD be some kind of prize. I mean, yeah yeah, the baby's the ultimate prize, etcetera etcetera. But I'm talking about a prize that doesn't produce poopy diapers.

Imagine my joy, then, when I came across this article on today's NYTimes.com. Baby baubles, push presents...whatever you want to call them, there's apparently this fabulous trend where daddies are giving mommies little tokens of appreciation for pushing their future NHL star into the universe through the great gates of life.

It seems there should be an ascending scale of value, though, depending on what type of birth you choose. All natural? Diamond studs. C-section? A gold pendant. All-natural breech birth: $10,000,000 cash.

Typically, jewellery companies have already jumped on board. Best yet worst advertising slogan of the year: “She delivered your first born; now give her twins.” (Referring to diamond earrings.)

Personally, I think my husband also deserves a gift for being so supportive and, well, proactive (sorry for the awful corporate word) in helping me with the physical challenges of pregnancy. I haven't gotten up to get myself a juice or picked up a heavy laundry basket since he knocked me up five months ago. It's been heavenly...Maybe I'll get him a new watch.

I haven't actually given birth yet, so it's hard to put in an order. But I hear natural childbirth hurts a little (or as one person in the article says "redefines the meaning of pain." That's a little ominous.) So I figure that has to be worth at least a $200 Hermes scarf. (Holt Renfrew, darling.)

Honour and awe...

2007-11-20T10:16:00.000-05:00

First ultrasound yesterday. Absolute most ecstatic moment of my life. I feel so honoured to carry this little person.

Get ready for this jelly

2007-10-04T11:05:00.000-04:00

I'm getting hips. And boobs.

Or maybe I should say they're making a reappearance. They did appear once before--briefly--in my late 20s. That was when I got my first office job, and I gained about 25lbs. I was heavier then than I'd ever been in my life, and than I'd ever be again--until this pregnancy.

I hated those extra 25lbs. If there were a way to sneak up on extra weight and throttle it, I would've done it with a clear conscience. I whined and moaned and cried when people commented on it. (Yes, there are people out there who feel it's their duty to comment on your physical features. See, I was raised to believe that you can compliment people, but you must never, ever comment on their appearance. It's insensitive and can be so hurtful.)

The truth of it, though, was that I'd become a slothful lazyass and I was eating like a hog. It wasn't the fat being mean to me; it was my own damn fault.

When I clued into that reality, I realized that my body was completely under my control. I just had to retake the reins. So I started running again and toned down the pigouts. I lost the 25 lbs in about 6 months and kept it off for 5 years, until about 3 months ago in fact.

For my post-chub years, it hasn't been about "being skinny." It has been about being strong and healthy and not feeling like I am carrying 10 wet blankets on my back all the time. In taking control of my body, I started to love and appreciate my body in a way that I thought was only possible in infomercials and New Age cults. I started to love the spider veins, even. Because my body is strong and still pretty agile for its age. Because it lets me do things like run up stairs or hills without being winded. Just as important, it's how I see myself in my mind's eye and who I believe myself to be, physically speaking.

So now I'm carrying a baby. I've had to accept the fact that I'll gain back those 25lbs I hated so much. I've already gained about 3lbs (whoop-dee-doo), but anyone who's been pregnant knows that it's the accompanying loosening of the ligaments that makes you feel chubby earlier. And the gassy bloating. Your brain sends out muscle-relaxing hormones so that your uterus and abdomen and intestines can stretch to phenomenal proportions to accommodate the baby.

My boobs alone have probably added at least one of those 3lbs to my weight. This, I am having trouble adjusting to. I must admit, I don't really like having knockers. Knockers are always there, leading you around, pre-announcing your arrival, distracting gas station attendants, etc. It rubs against my predilection for understatement.

My hip bones are widening. I've got an extra little layer of fat forming on them. I'm getting curves; something I don't normally have much of. My waist has gone on vacation.

But you know what? I'm okay with all of this. A pregnant body is beautiful, end of. There's something in those curves that makes humanity smile on a visceral level. Because we know we all came from one of these bodies.

But what about the postpartum body? It's part of where we came from too. It's the collection of battle scars we left on our mothers--de-perkified boobs, permanently widened hips, maybe that mommy innertube that just never goes away. How do "we" as a society treat that body? Not particularly well. In fact, we're really hard on that body, aren't we?

And some women are even encouraged to cut into that body, suck out its fat, bloat it with silicone, slice off its folds. This article from today's NYTimes.com talks about the "mommy job"--a newish genre of plastic surgery where mommies are encouraged just after giving birth to go under the knife to rid themselves of these pesky battle scars and go back to the body they had in their youth.

I'll admit that I was starting to fall into the "Oh God please don't let this baby make me fat" mindset. I get worry lines when I consider my rump in the mirror each morning. I totally understand the terrifying prospect of a permanently changed figure. I am as much a member of our society's impossible cult of youth and physical perfection as the next person.

So I hesitate to judge, and yet, if I'm honest, it just doesn't make logical sense to me to cut oneself to fit an impossible mold. Isn't the mold the problem? Shouldn't we be attacking the mold?

I read quotes like this from a mommy job recipient, and I'm very disturbed:

"There is more pressure on mothers today to look young and sexy than on previous generations, she added. “I don’t think it was an issue for my mother; your husband loved you no matter what,” said Ms. Birkland, who recently remarried."

??

Is she saying that husbands today won't love their wives "no matter what"...especially when the "what" is a postpartum body?

Maybe instead of going for "breast implant surgery, a tummy tuck on her lower abdomen and liposuction of her upper abdomen," Ms. Birkland should've just slapped her ex-husband. With the extra mommy weight behind it, it would've been a good hard slap.

But when I read quotes like this one by Ms. Birkland's plastic surgeon, I start to understand the mindset behind mommy jobs:

“The severe physical trauma of pregnancy, childbirth and breast-feeding can have profound negative effects that cause women to lose their hourglass figures [...] Twenty years ago, a woman did not think she could do something about it and she covered up with discreet clothing...But now women don’t have to go on feeling self-conscious or resentful about their appearance.”

"Severe physical trauma of pregnancy, childbirth and [most confusingly] breast-feeding" ???

I mean, I've had some gas and, well yes, I'll admit it...I've been constipated, okay? And I've had all-day morning sickness for weeks on end. But that's not the same as being run over by a Mack truck, which is what I think of when I read the term "severe physical trauma". As for the "severe physical trauma" of breastfeeding--? Unless you give birth to a fully toothed vampire, I don't understand how it could be characterized this way.

He's pathologizing weight gain. That's all it is. He's turning a natural part of the childbearing process into a hideous disease so that he can prey on the "victims" and get rich. It's shameful.

Boobs sag, whether you have a baby or not. It's what they do. And by the way, even fake boobs sag. The skin sags around the implants, and it's not pretty. Scrotums sag too, you know. We just don't show those around in public, normally. It's called gravity.

Midsections thicken, whether you have a baby or not. Butts spread like baking bread. It's ageing. It's natural. It's normal. It's not "severe physical trauma." It's not a spouting head wound, for God's sake.

After I have my baby, I'll be chubby for a while. And the world will just have to be ready for my jelly. And I'll have to be ready for it too. And I may even need to embrace it and give it a permanent home. Because I'm setting an example for my child. And I don't want him or her to grow up thinking that procreating and getting older are unnatural.

I don't mean to sound self-righteous or anything; it's just that the "spirit" of our culture makes me so scared for my child sometimes. We seem to be going so horribly astray. I hope that by refusing to hate my body, or speak of it as though it were an awful diseased thing, I'm helping fight that derailment just a little.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

This (bun) just in (the oven)...

2007-09-26T18:52:00.000-04:00

Hi folks...Sorry I've been so negligent in providing the world with my incredible insights into nothing and commenting on irrelevancies apropos of nothing. The thing is, you, see, I am with child. I'm sorry I've kept it from you, but I wanted to wait until the magical "safe to tell" point...end of first trimester...which is not really that magical or that safe.

So there you have it: bun in oven, 3 months gone.

I have been sick/tired/nauseous/dry heaving and, well, that all takes up a lot of time. It was San Francisco that did this to me, I just know it. (And my husband prolly had something to do with it too.)

We are very, very happy about it, despite my crappy barf-riddled attitude at the moment. I will write a long post soon with more details than you ever wanted to hear about my pregnancy, wherein I will imply that mine is the only pregnancy that has ever been or ever will be. Until then (and it will be soon,) I'll be quietly gestating and waiting for the "glow" to hit. Thanks for dropping by!

Don't step in the arcomantula...

2007-08-31T08:51:00.000-04:00

Have employees at Tawakoni State Park in Texas stumbled on Aragog's lair?

Read on and prepare to shudder with waves of heebie-jeebies. A park groundskeeper who was mowing the trail in one part of the park recently made a stunning discovery: the largest communal spider web scientists have seen this side of the tropics.

They're not sure what has caused the phenomenon, which has encased several large oak trees--maybe Texas's record rainfall this summer (hello again, climate change)--but at the rate they're going, the spiders will take over a very large corner of the park. The better to trap you and eat you, my dear.

Read more here about the horrible smell of rotting bug corpses the web emits, the deafening sound of billions of tiny, dying wings flapping their last, and why little boys are the scientists' worst fear.

Bad art is timeless

2007-08-23T16:16:00.000-04:00

Have you visited the Museum of Bad Art yet?

No?

I think you should.

Collected from dumpsters across America.

Animate objects

2007-08-19T13:34:00.001-04:00

There is so much fun and creative design going on around us. Came across the A+R Store online the other day. It sells exceptionally well-designed objects and housewares from around the world, many with a (dark) sense of humour. There is more than a modicum of genius in these objects. (And ladies, you must check out its disturbing/intriguing collection of "pleasure objects.")

Some of A+R's offerings:

"Clocky: the alarm clock that runs away"
If, like most humans, you don't get up at the first ring of the alarm but rather hit the snooze button every 9 minutes for the next hour, Clocky will actually fling himself off your nightstand, roll around on your floor until he finds himself a quiet dark corner, and "beep forlornly until you stagger up to switch him off." This gadget HAD to have been invented by someone with a dog.

Raise your hands if you love Clocky.

"Self-Balancing Serving Tray"
A device that evil time-travelling genius Dick Cheney/Dr.Emmett Brown himself would be proud of. Based on physics, this tray sort of defies gravity. It can be carried with one hand. It won't spill. And you have one hand free to gesture dramatically as you tell your friends about that weekend you spent locked in hotel room with the Argentinian polo team. Talk about an intriguing collection of pleasure objects. Rrrrowrrrr.

"Cow Baby Bottle"
You know, it's inevitable that you will screw up your kids. You know it's true. So why postpone the inevitable? Why not start right away, with this imitation cow-teat bottle--it is, after all, a fully functional baby bottle. The fact that it (creepily) has only 3 teats instead of the anatomically correct 4 adds a little extra "ooomph" to your child's psychological damage.

"Voodoo Knife Holder"
What disturbs me most is that this is the object I most "have to have." I must have it.

Dick Cheney's Crystal Balls

2007-08-16T09:57:00.000-04:00

Hmmmm...bet they've never been seen in the same place together....

Dick Cheney is one smart man. In fact, I suspect he may be a genius who has built a flux capacitor that he keeps hidden somewhere in his garage. Sometimes, late at night when the paparazzi are all tucked up in their beds, he'll quietly insert his flux capacitor into his special time-travel car and voyage back and forth between now and 1994. How else could he have foreseen this? It's not like it was always obvious or anything.

Verily I say to you, YouTube shall set us free. Amen.

Still? My question is: How could an intelligent person in the public eye whose every statement has been closely analyzed for much of his working life say this on the record and then, a few years later, pull a complete 180 and think nobody will remember? It's on the record.

What are they thinking? Do they really think the public is that stupid? Or are they just not technosavvy? Or do they have memory loss problems? Or did they think they'd sufficiently paid off the press not to circulate said evidence? What are they thinking? What?

Stick-on shadows and droopy galaxies

2007-08-07T13:46:00.000-04:00

Smart people are cool. But smart, creative people with a sense of humour? Hello!

I hadn't heard about Dutch artist Wieki Somers until recently reading about her in ... I think it was Elle magazine. She's a sort of industrial artist-slash-designer who creates these amazing, clever, beautiful, funny everyday products like fox-skull teapots and boat bathtubs and flower lamps and feather-stoppered perfume bottles. But unlike the mass-produced utilitarian crap we tend to stuff into our lives (I'm as guilty as/more guilty than the next person), her objects are designed with deep speculation and humour and all kinds of other good arty stuff.

Her design sense is really organic and very much about nature. This lamp is a great example. The "Bellflower" is made of a single piece of woven metal and inside the flower's droopy head, there's a sort of galaxy of starlights--but it's bright enough to read by.

This "Blossoms" vase is designed to look like it's sprouting its own flowers.

Behold the "Bathboat"-- a fully functional bathtub shaped like a little boat. It stays still on dry land while you drift away on the bubbles...

What's wrong with this picture? That's right: the shadows of the stools...They're stick-on decals. It's great to find new ways to mess with people's minds. To paraphrase with wild abandon: the transformational potential of shadows is underrated, so she created stick-on shadows that you can put on your walls, windows, and floors to show how fun and important shadows really are.

My only criticism is of the site itself. It's one of those mind-numbing Flash sites where the cursor is a butterfly, there is no nav bar, etc. I. Hate. Flash. Sites.

But if you're feeling patient and have a few minutes to explore, I highly recommend it.

Um....ahem...ah....hello there

2007-08-03T08:42:00.000-04:00

I am alive. I am back. Life continues. All is well.

Our trip to San Francisco and down highway 1 to Big Sur was ridiculously gorgeous and absurdly fun.

San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited. My husband and I found it very, very bright there. I think maybe the angle of the sun is different from what it is here...? That brightness, plus the wonderful riot of colours San Franciscans use to paint their buildings, made for a blinding first few days.

We were also surprised by how arid it is there. And also how cold it is. It was a bit of a shock to me as a Canadian to be somewhere "warm" that was colder than what I'm acclimatized to in summer. Here, it is not unusual for days to get to 35 or 40 Celsius (with the humidex factored in) in summer. There, it didn't go above about 22 Celsius. At night, it was downright cold--as low as 8 or 9 degrees.

We met up with blog buddy Moose on our second night there. It was (nearly) her birthday, so we drank tart birthday margaritas and ate at a fabulous "nothing-fancy-to-look-at -but-theres-a-lineup-down-the-block" Mexican restaurant. Best enchiladas I've ever had, sin douda.

Highway 1
The drive down the coast was phenomenal. Heights dizzify me, but even I couldn't look away from the fantastic views of coastline and mountains. Every blink was a postcard.

We stopped in Santa Cruz one night. The boardwalk features a kick-ass amusement park, complete with several rollercoasters. It was fun just to walk around, not knock down any milk bottles at the gaming booths, and strenuously resist buying cotton candy, ice cream, and various fried stuff that wafted temptingly through the place.

I must say, something about night-time on the Santa Cruz boardwalk really creeped me out. I later found out that it's the boardwalk where they filmed the early scenes of Lost Boys--remember that vampire movie with all the hot male vampires? I must have recognized the set on some subconscious level...

Our B&B owner in Santa Cruz was a Mexican woman who made huevos rancheros for us in the morning, complete with homemade tortillas. That is what they serve for breakfast in heaven.

Carmel

We made our way further south, passing through increasingly wealthy towns until reaching Carmel, aka The Retired Real Estate Baron's Shangri-La.

It's famous for being the town that Clint Eastwood was mayor of for some time. He owns the Mission Ranch there, he plays golf at Pebble Beach, which is just north of it, and lives--or should I say "has a home"--not too far from the golf course. He and several other megamillionaires seem to own a big chunk of the property, hotels, etc., in that area.

You are struck dumb and kind of gawp-mouthed when you drive into Carmel via the 17-mile Drive. It's like a movie set combined with a Smurf village blended with a Mediterranean villa. A little too perfect, a little too "retirement nirvana," for our tastes, but fascinating because it's something we have never seen before. (The whole time I was in Carmel, I couldn't get "Hotel California" out of my head...creepy.)

The Carmel Beach is simply divine, though, dahlings. And they have a really, really good little luxury mall there. Not that I can afford to shop in any of the stores, but it sure is fun just to look around.

We like "totally" scored like some like awesome deals on B&B and hotel specials in Carmel, dudes. Ironically, it was the least expensive place we stayed in. We even got a full "apartment" with kitchen and everything for more than $50 less than the going rate at most other places.

The Carmel drugstore is another sight to behold. Oh sure, they have your aspirin, your sunscreen, your maxi pads. But then there's the full wall of high-end summer perfumes and colognes. Yes, "summer fragrances" is a specialized category of perfumerie. I didn't realize that either, until I saw the wall-o-scents at the Carmel drugstore. And it's set up as an old-style drugstore with everything in glass display cabinets and on behind-the-counter shelves set in rich panelled wood reaching right up to the ceiling. Quaint, but inconvenient if you actually need to buy something because you have to wait for the shopkeeper to help you. You soon learn to slow down in Carmel.

Big Sur

Big Sur was another treat. There is no actual village called Big Sur, we found out (although the maps all give it its own dot--deceptive). But there is a strip of inns, hippies, cabins, camping, hippies, restaurants, galleries, hippies, and more restaurants all nestled in the mountains and redwoods overlooking the massive drops down to the rocky coast. We had dinner and consumed vast quantities of California wine up in the clouds in Big Sur.

We stayed at a place, fairly famous, called Deetjens Big Sur Inn, which was built long ago and is, essentially, a series of wooden cabins and outbuildings. It's really lovely and quaint but I must say that, coming from the land of cottaging, it wasn't as much of a big deal for us to stay in a wooden cabin as it was for some people who seemed exceedingly excited about it. Maybe it was the $150/night price tag...

We wanted very much to drive down to the famous spa and institute, Esalen, for a midnight dip in the mineral hot springs, but the 12-mile drive along the coast in the dark was enough even to give my courageous husband the heeby-jeebies.

Next time.

Andrew Molera Park

Our asses rapidly gellifying from all the driving and wine-drinking, we decided one day to take a 7-mile hike through Andrew Molera park. It was stunning. The first 3 or 4 miles run on a bluff along the crystal-blue ocean, overlooking wild, windy, white-sand beaches. The rest of the journey is up the mountain and through a stand of ancient redwoods.

As kilometer people, we were, uh, somewhat surprised at how much further a mile is than a kilometer. But it was worth the 3 hours of sweat and even worth running into that one rattlesnake. And carefully dodging entire forests of poison oak. And the tick problem. That hike was, honestly, probably the highlight of the trip for me. (That and shopping at Target, which we don't have here. Also called Tar-jjjay because of all the great couture. The Libertine for Tarjjjay collection? Shut up!)

Sausalito

There was a whale-watching voyage in Monterrey, visits to art galleries along the highway, a peacock sighting (just sort of pecking away beside the highway), and lots of other stuff.

On our last day, we drove across the Golden Gate bridge and into Sausalito, which looks directly across the Bay at the "back side" of Alcatraz (the "front side," at least as we came to know it, is visible from San Fran's Fisherman's Wharf--a horrible tourist wasteland of poorly made sunglasses and massively overpriced t-shirts...avoid it if you ever go there.) Anyhow, Sausalito is stunning. A little jem nestled in the oceanside hills. The town is basically vertical--built right onto a mountainside. If--no--when I go back, I'd like to spend more time there.

The End.

That and 18 hours of flight time about sums it up.

A couple of cultural notes:

1. Californians really are larger-than-life. They're extremely tall. It was very strange for me to be in a place where everyone was at least as tall as me, if not taller.

They're also boisterous, friendly, smiley, and easy to talk to. Sort of like Canadians with the volume dialed way up.

2. It was depressing and strange to see the migrant workers covered head-to-toe in the industrial farm fields (I'm guessing to try to keep pesticides off their skin and out of their lungs), hunched over and picking berries, etc. It really makes you look at the produce department differently. Enough said.

3. I'll never stop being shocked by the gulf between rich and poor in the U.S. and how often this "class" gap intersects with race/cultural background.

It was a fantastic trip. I will go back.

Now back to real life.

I'm ready for the love-in, gentle people of the Bay

2007-07-03T12:55:00.000-04:00

A week from today I'll have been in San Francisco for 24 whole hours. Hopefully relaxed, de-stressed, shopping, taking in the sights, celebrating my anniversary with Mr. Whyioughtta.

I have never been to California or any part of the western USA, so I'm really looking forward to seeing whether the rumours of hippydom, peace and love, and flowers in your hair are true. We'll spend a few days in the city then hit the coast.

I haven't been on a real vacation since my honeymoon 4 years ago, so I'm really really REALLY disproportionately EXTREMELY very thrilled to be going away. I only wish we could stay longer than we are. Who knows what pleasures await us? (I do: wine, sun, and surf.)

As an aside, I was doing some research on San Fran (okay, looking up shoe stores) and came across was all this talk of the famous cable cars. Suddenly it occurred to me..."How do cable cars actually work?" Turns out they aren't like streetcars at all. They're run by a sort of pulley-based closed-loop system where they basically hitch a ride with a moving cable under the street. Very cool.

Moose and I are also planning to see what happens when real life collides with the virtual world by meeting up for drinks, which I'm very much looking forward to. (Her new masthead and site layout looks beautiful, btw.)

I will probably not have much time to post before I get back, but I'll be sure to take lots of photos to share when I return. Until then, peace and love to all.

How well does the world REALLY know Canada? Heh heh heh.

2007-06-28T06:25:00.000-04:00

In anticipation of our upcoming national birthday celebration, un petit quiz pour vous. We'll see how participation goes...maybe the winner will get a prize (a nice bottle of home-made Canadian maple syrup, perhaps?).

Identify the following:

The Rocket
Whitehorse
Yellowknife
poutine
Talking to Americans
CT boutique
GT boutique
loonie
twoonie
two-four
double-double
CBC
Shopper's
July 1
Horton's
franglais
Coronation Street
Newfoundland speed bump
The Bay
inukshuk
Red Green
Don Cherry
prairie oyster
the Centre of the Universe
Hogtown
two-tier system
Roch Voisin
curling
This Hour Has 22 Minutes
beavertail
toque
The Great One
eh

*deafening crickets*

Come on, give it a try...whaddya got to lose?

Canadians, since this will be no challenge for you whatsoever, I refer you to this excellent and eminently readable blog by 93 year-old Canadian, "Don"...because there is no body of knowledge or experience richer than nearly a century of mindful living.

Happy looooooooong weekend!!!

Anatomy of a jerk

2007-06-25T14:03:00.000-04:00

"Jerk"...it's one of those words that I fear really dates me, like "slacks" or "nitwit" or "converter". Is it a left-over from the 80s? I'm not sure when it originated, but I know that's when I started using it. Usually in thrilling combination with "stupid," "face," and/or "ass."

...There's just something satisfying about the way the hard "j" and "k" sounds cut out of your mouth when you say it...

As curses go, of course, it's pretty mild. Often I still say "jerk" out of habit, when I really mean "fuckwit" or "assgobbling halfwit shit-for-brains waste-of-space."

All of this introductory digression to say that when you have the misfortune of crossing paths with a jerk, you're usually so tongue-tied by righteous anger and frustration that it's the only word you can spit out between senseless exclamations.

There is a certain breed of jerk I've encountered in my working life that is particularly stanky with fuckwitedness. This is the soul-sucking psychotic know-it-all lout. The soul-sucking psychotic know-it-all lout sits in a position of ultimate superiority above all other humans. It doesn't matter that they have, say, a mail-order certificate in Human Resources from the Matchbook Academy hanging on their wall and that you have an advanced degree in...whatever your discipline. They know your subject better than you do and they will take every opportunity to talk down to you like the amoebic waste-product you know you are. They usually occupy management positions.

These work-jerks come in all shapes and sizes. Maybe it's that bitchy executive assistant who intimidates the life out of you. Maybe it's that client who keeps hiring you for the sick pleasure of tearing down everything you do or say, knowing that your livelihood depends on keeping clients happy. It could be that accountant in Finance who is helping you write an article on mutual fund fees and feels that that English class he took that one time makes him the Shakespeare of management expense ratios.

The point is, these people always exert a strange power over their unfortunate victims. Sociologically, it's really very interesting. Because they don't necessarily have to be in a position of authority over you. But they do have to hold some kind of power--they have something you need and they'll fire their pistol at your feet and screech "DANCE MOTHERF*&^%ER!!! DANCE!!!" before you can get it. They're Lucy holding the football. They are Satan slithering 'round the apple tree.

Obviously, I recently had a run-in with a jerk. Nice as pie to my face, spitting venom behind my back. I did get royally pissed at first, but then I started trying to understand the underlying psychology. I tend to work that way--systems thinking kind of deal. Maybe I'm trying to deconstruct the incomprehensible...

Clearly, he gets something out of this behaviour. He does it to everyone at his company, as well as to out-sourcers like me. His jerkishness is quite egalitarian. He, like the rest of his ilk, operates under the assumption that nothing anyone else does is ever as good as he himself could do, if only he had the time to do it. But he's just so unutterably important that...sigh...he has to delegate the task to Inferiors.

I did a communications plan for a woman like that once. She was Pure Evil. Grade-A psychobitch, and I tell you no word of a lie: every employee working under her left in the time I was contracting in to her. She was sort of like the Miranda character in The Devil Wears Prada ..Very quietly and efficiently cruel, like a guillotine. You didn't know the blade had fallen until you were looking at your own feet from ground-level.

What does a person like that get out of his behaviour, and what's the right way to deal with them? There has to be a way to win. Please don't tell me there's no way to win.

In the past, I've tried all kinds of approaches with these people: excessive niceness. Robot-like detachment. Defensive blustering. In the case of my recent run-in, I chose to ignore the asshole comments and focus on facts. That keeps me blameless while helping me get the job done so I can get the hell out of Dodge. But none of it is really effective in feeling that sense of "HA! I won!" I'm looking for a way to get a little back...

I know everyone has had experience with this kind of co-worker. Any moments of triumph? Have you ever had the pleasure of putting a work-jerk in his or her place? Do share.

I have no son

2007-06-21T11:36:00.000-04:00

Last night Chico lifted his leg and let loose...on my heart.

I'm not sure how it all started, because by 1:30 a.m. I had been asleep for about 4 hours already, but I woke to the sound of Mr.Whyioughtta whistling and pacing quietly on the porch outside. Whistle whistle... Pace pace. Whistle! Pace pace pace. Whistle whistle... Pace pace pace pace.

"What's going on??" I groaned groggily from the bedroom upstairs.

"...Chico...he's f^&%ing around again...won't come in," he replied.

Chico's been doing this for months, but not usually this late at night and not with such manipulative forethought. You see, he used the "emergency bark" to lure my husband into letting him outside. The emergency bark is reserved specifically for when Chico has to go to the bathroom really, really bad and risks losing bowel control in the house. He's only used it twice before.

But this time he used it with cunning and falsehood. He didn't have to go to the bathroom at all. He just wanted to go out and play.

What do you call a dog who cries wolf???

By then I was wide awake, 1:30 a.m. being the time I normally get up these days. We tried everything we could to get him back in the house, but the brat wasn't having it. Instead he chose to lurk menacingly just outside the reach of the porch light. Finally we said, "screw it. We're going back to bed."

That didn't last long. Chico decided to run around the neighbourhood barking at God knows what. I was nervous because he chased a young bear yesterday and I could see the goof trying it on with young bear's mother. Then again, if he didn't shut up, an angry neighbour was bound to shoot him. Either way, I had to get up and stage whisper "ssssshhhut up dumbassssss!" in my Satan voice to the darkness.

I made myself a bed on the couch, whence I can see out the patio doors and track his movements. He refused to come in, but he did fall asleep on the patio just outside the door. When I got up to let him in, he took off through my tomato garden. I wanted to throttle him.

I fell asleep for about 2 hours. Visions of dancing around his taxidermified corpse filled my dreams. When I woke up, I completely ignored him. I knew I had to drive Mr.W into work in an hour and that would be the deciding moment: would Chico just let us leave peacefully, or would he, as he has done several times, try to follow the car down the highway?

In the end, I didn't have to face that moment, because as I walked out to the car, he followed me and hopped right in the back, just like he owned the joint. He was perfectly well-behaved for the rest of the journey, except for his grand finale of puking all over the back seat.

Loose bits

2007-06-18T17:13:00.001-04:00

Snap-ins are those annoying inserts they put in magazines that fall out all over the place and make it impossible to lay the magazine flat so you can read it while drinking a margarita and painting your toes.

I hate snap-ins with a hate that is never-ending.

That hate has got me thinking of all my other irrational targets of hate. Most have to do with loose ends and bits and pieces and, on occasion, gravity. I don't exaggerate when I say that if something passes through my hands that I don't have a designated location for, I become literally paralyzed by indecision. It's like the brain-loop my dog went into the other day when faced with his first mirrored closet door: He couldn't understand why he couldn't get into that room. So he just kept swinging his head left and right, left and right, left and right. That's me when holding an extra shoelace.

Other loose bits I hate:

Socks. Matching a clean load of socks is a total nightmare for someone with OCD tendencies. Hunt and peck. Hunt and peck. Hunt and peck. WHY GOD WHY? Folding (well, balling together) socks gives me such a tension headache...Oy!

Junk mail and flyers. I have not one but two stickers in my mailbox screaming NO FLYERS PLEASE! (Note the compulsory Canadian "please"--included even on a 3/4 by 2-inch stick-on label.) I blush to think how much it has reduced my overall stress not to get junk mail anymore. In one tiny way, something has been set right in the world.

Those extra envelopes they include with bills. Who the hell pays their bills by cheque anymore? Visa, Bell, banks of Canada: please meet my good friends, The Internet and The Bank Machine.

Bills in general, once they've been paid. WHEN CAN I LET THE OVERFLOWING FILES GO? I know, I know...the CRA needs to be able to go back 7 years. But...seriously...will anyone really ever need my cell phone bill from March 2002?

Mormon and Jehovah's Witness flyers. This place has been just crawling with evangelicals these days. If you're not home when they drop by (and by "not home" I mean "crouching under the window pane until that old man and his miserable-looking 37-year-old-virgin daughter drive away in their 85 Chevy Impala"), they now leave flyers. Go away and take your unnecessary paper with you! I resent having to bin things with Jesus's face on them. Especially when he's kind of cute and surrounded by all those cool animals.

Safety pins, bobby pins, and hair elastics. We fly people into space on a regular basis, yet no device has yet been devised that protects hair accessories from being sucked into the wormhole that leads under my bed, into the bottoms of my old purses, and into the back corners of my lingerie drawer.

Apostrophe misuse. I've noticed a particular problem with use of the possessive ( 's) as a plural (The street was full of car's.) among the British. Ironic, considering it is the birthplace of the language. For me, every misused apostrophe is like a little death.

I'm sure there's a deep philosophical point to be made here about loose bits interfering with my enjoyment of life's important details...Can't see the trees for the leaves, or something like that. Little bits and pieces need to be organized into a context, for me; I don't know why. Maybe I'm missing some synaptic connector (where did it go? is it with the bobby pins????)...This is my albatross. Feel free to share yours.

How's your bullpoop-o-meter?

2007-06-15T09:39:00.000-04:00

Today, I blather.

What is it about getting older that makes us grow more outspoken about things that used to seem small and yet remain silent on things that used to seem big?

Call it maturity, call it grumpification. Either way, it's very real.

I seem to have reached a magical point in my Maslowian self-actualization that never appears on that pyramid thingy. You know you've reached this point when you stop arguing about whether there's a God ("ehn...who knows? Does it really matter?") and start speaking up when the kid serving you at Winners is too engaged in her conversation with the next cashier to hear you politely request that she remove the plastic hanger from your new shirt before putting it in the bag. So you ask her again. And she raises her voice so that her friend doesn't miss ONE SECOND of her FASCINATING tale of how she was SO WASTED at Grad. So you wave your head around a little to try to make eye contact. And she responds by ACTUALLY STOPPING what she's doing to answer her friend's inquiry into what she'd thought of Linda Feinsten's hideous chiffon dress. So you loudly say, "excuse me miss," cutting her off and she looks at you like you're vermin she has just noticed crawling over her counter. Into which face of utter belligerence you shout, "I ASKED YOU TO TAKE OFF THE HANGER. WHY AREN'T YOU TAKING OFF THE HANGER???" To which she snidely replies with that ultimate insult, "Sorry MA'AM."

As an example only, you understand.

(That yappy little chippy had it coming.)

I NEVER imagined I'd reach this point, but I have. And it extends to the way I deal not just with strangers, but with family and friends as well. I now understand my grumpy great-aunts and uncles. They weren't grumpy. They just had finely tweaked bullshit-o-meters.

And there's the nub of it, isn't it? I think after a certain amount of life experience you start to see when someone's being genuine--even genuinely ignorant is okay--and when someone's just being lazy or arrogant or selfish--in other words, bullshitting themselves and/or others.

On the flip-side, you start calling out your own bullshit too. It can be very edifying. Also endlessly humourous.

All in all, I think it hones your sense of individuality and your sense of compassion. You realize you're not the only person in the world with the only opinion on the planet, and that others--who may see things very differently--are just as convinced that they're right. And that's just a-okay. You realize your own capacity to cause others joy...and pain. You see how that thing you said could have been taken the wrong way, and you regret having said it. You feel proud when you make someone else feel good. I'll stop before I crawl into bullshit territory.

And so even while you're tweaked to the old b.s., you are better able to put yourself in other people's shoes for a second and ask, "enh...who knows? Does it really matter?" And once in a while you realize it does matter, and that you've acted out of turn, and you realize why the Golden Rule makes good socioeconomic sense. And other times you choose to be full of it, because sometimes a little bullshit goes a long way.

May this bird of good fortune not poop on your head

2007-06-13T21:30:00.000-04:00

Gigantoraptor. Gigantoraptor. Gigantoraptor. Gigantoraptor. Gigantoraptorgigantoraptorgigantoraptorgigantoraptor. I can't stop saying it.

Gi-GAN-toe-rap-tor.

GI! GANTO! RAPTOR!

This "robust" birdlike dinosaur was recently discovered by some very lucky and soon to be famous paleontologists in nortnern China. Just when you thought, "paleontology...humph, who studies that anymore?"

GIGANTOraptor was last seen 70 million years ago "pouncing on its prey with an open mouth and strong beak." See diagram above. (Apparently, dudes who look like they might drive a 75 Camaro and smoke unfiltered Salems were gigantoraptor's food of choice). Gigantoraptor weighed in at more than 3,000 lbs. Not something you want landing on your birdfeeder.

This reminds me: I was attacked by seagulls yesterday. Seriously. And THAT made me shriek.

(I will have a real post up soon.)

Thar be dragons

2007-06-05T13:11:00.000-04:00

Have you ever been walking through the woods in Eastern Canada on a dark, drizzly June day and found yourself being attacked by an animal that should not be living in your...hemisphere...or...epoch?

I think I was attacked by a komodo dragon today. Or possibly a small triceratops. I'm not sure. It was definitely reptilian. It had big earflap things that were all...sticking out at me. And it was chasing me. And hissing, very loudly. And it was big. Like, about 10 inches tall, it seemed. With big muscular arms. And it was fast. And did I mention that it was hissing?

I was walking through my neighbour's yard (she's on vacation and asked me to keep my eye on the place). Chico was, as usual, way up ahead of me. Suddenly, I hear an unidentifiable hissing noise in the brush behind me and to my right. Fortunately, I had a transcriptionist on hand to track my thoughts from that point on:

What the....? What's that noise? If it's another one of those goddam grouse scaring the...Wait, what is that? ...It's a big...???. ...Is...is it a racoon? ...Am I being stalked by a racoo...no...it has to be a grouse...WHAT THE HELL, why is it moving so fast? Why is it running up to me?! IT'S CHASING ME!!! AND HISSING!!!! And...it has no feathers...!!! Is it...it's a...no...it's a LIZARD! IT'S SOME KIND OF LIZARD! JESUS MARY AND JOSEPH IT'S A LIZARD!!! BUT WE DON'T HAVE LIZARDS HEEEEEERE!!!!!! AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!! OH GAAAAAAWD!!! SAVE ME!!!!!!!

That was followed by a lot of shrieking and hand-in-the-air waving and running for my life. Which was in turn followed by approximately 45 minutes of very shaky walking through the woods punctuated by constant paranoid looks behind me to make sure it wasn't following me. I'm still a little pale in the face.

It sort of looked like this fella, only its head-flap thing was a little smaller.

A couple of years ago, my sister's 4-foot iguana escaped from her house (she lives on the west coast). It all ended well; the lizard was spotted in the neighbour's tree a few days later. "He" was fine. I had a good laugh thinking about the poor neighbour, walking out to her car or taking the pooch out for a walk, and looking up to see a massive 4-foot lizard hanging in her chestnut tree. Karma has repaid me for my mocking laughter.

Relative scale of me to the monster that attacked me this morning.

Anyhow, anyone with any ideas on what it could have been...please share.

My favourite aphrodisiac

2007-05-30T11:34:00.000-04:00

My husband and I have been married for 4 years, but we've been together about 13 years--most of our adult lives.

When you've been with someone for that long, certain civilities tend to fall to the wayside. Digestive cumulus are openly expelled. Zits are popped in the cold light of day. Teeth are picked, crotches are rearranged. Etcetera.

The thing is, I have this...fetish.

It's kind of wild, but I go crazy for it.

It's politeness.

Seriously. I'm a politeisist. That's my totally made-up word for someone who gets turned on by politeness. When a man is polite and pleasant and debonnair in a genuine and non-slimy way (ooooo baby), I don't just think to myself, "aww...what a nice guy." I get a little...well, turned on actually. Not that I'd ever act on it, you understand. I'm married. Also, someone with manners would politely decline a married woman. Mmmm....sexy.

It's a hard fetish to indulge, though. Politeness porn is virtually nonexistent (oh for amateur video of a man opening a door and then tipping his hat to a lady...rowwwrrrrrr....). There are no chat rooms where we can talk "clean" to each other. There is no such publication as "Niceboy" or "Genthouse". Sigh.

Not that my husband isn't polite, of course. In fact, that's a big part of why I fell in love with him. He is a gentleman and he is honest and he wears his heart on his sleeve. And he is quite pleasant and easy to speak with. And he holds the door for me. And...oh my. What was I saying?

There's definitely not enough politeness anymore. --If there ever really was. It's sort of a gentle glue that lovingly binds people to one another. Or maybe it's more like a helpful virus that you catch when some stranger is nice to you and pass on to the next person you meet. I know this is starting to read like a Christian Science billboard, but you know what I mean.

And I'm not talking about basic non-rudeness. I'm talking about manners and genuine courtesy and a willingness to smile at and chat with a complete stranger. There's a fundamental openness and approachability to the politeness I'm talking about, but more importantly, there's a self-confidence to it that is...highly...attractive. It's like you're saying, "I know who I am and what I feel is the right thing to do, and that's what I'm going to live by..." Sigh.

I was at a parking lot pay meter the other night and it kept rejecting my $5 bill. There were these two guys standing behind me, checking me out but everytime I'd turn around to smile and roll my eyes at the stupid machine and crack jokes in pleasant comeraderie, they'd turn away from me and mumble or make a phone call or something. That's when it hit me: basic politeness is such a turn-on and basic...whatever they were doing...is such a turn-off. It's like they put up this wall where they stood on one side, checking me out like a piece of meat, and when I tried to relate to them as another person, they rejected my attempts.

How rude.

How unattractive.

Gonna take you on a nature walk...

2007-05-24T08:38:00.000-04:00

This post is dedicated to Fat Sparrow.

I'm taking her on a walk with me in the woods because I think it's unacceptable that her wildlife contact consists of bugs, roadkill, and that one mangey catfish at Mexi Mart (what the hellfire and damnation is Mexi Mart, anyways? Don't answer that.)

So, FS, here is your first hike in the Canadian woods with me and my canine boy-child.

This is your host for the day: Chico. Chico is a very, very large Chihuahua. (Well, he could be...look at those ears.) Chico say: Hola Fat Esparrow. Que tal? No te apuras...I am going to take you on a very especial nature walk today. You are rrrrready?

First, though, you'll need to get yourself a pair of these bad boys. $15.00 cash and $4.99 in Canadian Tire money buys you the SUV of boots. They'll get you through your mud holes, your bogs, your slimy mossy areas, your flooded lowlands, your wet farmers' fields, and your rock piles.

One of the best things about early spring in the woods up here: no bugs yet, but lots of beautiful budding things.

This is a trillium...not sure if you have those down in Cali4neye-ay. This whole place is crawling with 'em. Aren't they lovely? You may be interested to learn that a trillium plant has to live for many years before it will produce a flower.

The purposefully arranged pile of rocks in the middle of this photo is an inukshuk. Although it's an Inu (Inuit) tradition, you see these all across Canada. They're used as markers, to give directions, mark a path, indicate a great blueberry-picking area, etc.

I don't know what these little purple flowers are called, but they smell like a mix of lilac and rose...very pretty. They cover the forest floor in early spring.

Okay, now we're moving from the deciduous (leafy-tree) forest into a cedar (evergreen) forest. It gets messy in here, but it's always dark and damp and that breeds all kinds of interesting things...

...you'll definitely need these in here...

These plants grow like little vases, directing water down to their roots until they're strong enough to spread their leaves. Cool eh?

These mushrooms are whack.

Here's what you see when you look up.

And when you look down. Here's a feather for you, FS.

Chico say: Fat esparrow, we're going to cut through this farmer's field. I hope you no mind...errr....I may have to take a leetle dip to cool off first .

Phew. It's getting hot. Let's cut through the old quarry.

The trees are in bloom.

The birds are singing.

And Chico is making friends with the locals. Canada Geese are notoriously mean. Chico may need an eye-patch when this is all over.

A little more walking...

...And we're home. Have a seat.

I'll get us some refreshments. Hope you enjoyed yourself!

New! Nature tally feature

2007-05-04T14:37:00.000-04:00

When you have nothing new to say, just haul out a new blog feature. Today I'm introducing my Nature Tally feature, over there on the right, wherein I'll faithfully report to you all of the cool wildlife I've seen on that day's walk in the woods with Chico, my canine boy-child.

I like counting things. It's just a thing I do...counting...seconds, minutes, pairs of shoes, animals, blades of grass, birch trees, street lamps...Okay maybe it's more of a sickness.

What'll be interesting about the nature tally is that I don't see nearly as many animals in summer as in fall/winter, so...Okay, maybe that's not that interesting.

Anyhow, hopefully the otter family will move back in at the quarry down the road. They're always good for a laugh and they'll boost my tally numbers.

Have a great weekend.

More boobies than you can shake a stick at before stabbing yourself in the eyes with that stick and then stabbing out the memory part of your brain...

2007-05-02T16:22:00.000-04:00

It's been a crappy, shite-strewn, poop-laden, besuckified, terrible two weeks. I'll spare you the sob story(ies), but there were tragedies real and imagined, and I'm praying for the sweet oblivion of Friday night inebriation.

Making the shittiness even shittier was the self-loathing that drove me to watch two of the worst movies I've ever had the bad luck to scratch my eyes across: Click and Showgirls.

Yes, I had never seen Showgirls/meyourtits.

Worst movie ever. Even worse than this, this, this, and, yes, even this. Not even endless, dizzying exposure to hundreds of deliriously funny naked jiggling boobies could mitigate the eggy fart that is the Showgirls script. I can't believe Charlotte's husband Trey was in that. And that he had fake bad-acting sex with that terrible blonde booby life support system. The sex scene in the pool reminded me of a seal hunt video I recently saw on the World Wildlife Federation site. It amazed me that a graphic sex scene could have the effect of actually sucking all the moisture out of my reproductive system. It's so bad that there aren't enough words in all languages combined to describe its badness, so I'm not even going to try.

And then the boobish badness reproduced. Click. There's a reason this movie shares its name with canned abattoir leavings that taste of ass. Chris Walken, I weep for you. You are dead to me. Adam Sandler. Shame! Shaaaaaame! At what point did you say to yourself, "you know what this movie really needs? In addition to a rancidly twee premise, a cloying, sanctimonious plot, the expulsion of Christopher Walken' soul to the lower rings of hell, and that inexplicable 8-minute scene where I colour-adjust my own face with the universal remote? Gratuitous slow-mo bouncing boobies!!! YEAH!!! SOMEBODY CALL THE ACADEMY!!!!"

I have nothing more to say of this.

Except: hurry up and be Friday!

Liberalis erectus

2007-04-24T09:10:00.000-04:00

Could the American democrats actually have located their backbone?

Their plan to push through legislation to end the Iraqi occupation, despite the unlikelihood of the bill passing, seems to suggest 'yes.'

The bill proposes to:

Start withdrawing most troops from Iraq on October 1 of this year.

Complete full troop withdrawal within 180 days of that start date, except for counterterrorism and training forces.

Require the Iraqi government to meet specific benchmarks that show they can stand on their own two feet.

Funnel money that was supposed to fund the ongoing war machine to medical funding for troops, support for U.S. farmers, and other non-Iraq issues.

The thing is, once the bill passes through the Senate and the House, apparently Bush can still veto it (something similar to Canada's infamous Notwithstanding Clause, it seems)--and of course he plans to.

Some experts don't think the legislation has a hope in hell of being passed, but what it will do is force Team Bush's leaden hand. It will force them to come up with some kind of alternate withdrawal plan, and then hopefully our neighbour to the south can start its long recovery from this collective nightmare.

Here's the funniest line in the whole piece: "Republicans accused Democrats of overstepping their constitutional authority and micromanaging the war." Pot...meet kettle.

Also humourous:

"Mr. Bush made it clear again on Monday that he would use the second veto of his tenure to kill the legislation, which would set a goal of having most American combat forces out of Iraq within six months of Oct. 1.

"An artificial timetable of withdrawal would say to an enemy, ‘Just wait them out,’ ” he said. “It would say to the Iraqis, ‘Don’t do hard things necessary to achieve our objectives,’ and it would be discouraging for our troops.”

Ah, the unnamed looming "enemy"...the "we've got to set an example for the poor hapless Iraqis" verbage...the "concern for the troops" spin...seems we've heard it all before, no? At the very least, maybe this move by the Democrats will force Bush's speech writers to come up with some more interesting material.

An odd burning sensation...

2007-04-20T10:55:00.000-04:00

What is this strange burning sensation in my arms and legs? I vaguely remember it...What was it called again...?

Oh yes! Heat! Sun! Ha ha! I had forgotten how the big ball of fire, it warms us.

Feel its warmth. Bask in its warmth. Bow to the big ball of fire.

Happy weekend everyone...

Woo hoo!

Only love can break your heart...especially with headphones

2007-04-17T10:53:00.000-04:00

Ah, Neil. You are so wise.

I don't have much to say today, except to wonder yet again at how intensely headphones can change the way you hear music.

I finally started loading all of my CDs into iTunes this weekend and have been listening and re-listening obsessively to After the Goldrush. It's like I'm hearing it for the first time...again. I'm *this close* to officially pronouncing it my favourite album of all time.

But then again, there's Post (featuring the track "My Headphones," not incidentally) and Medulla and Axis: Bold as Love and Worldwide Underground and Funeral and Let's Get Out of This Country and Slanted & Enchanted and Watery, Domestic and Smells Like Teen Spirit and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and, well yes, Tapestry, and so many more perfect albums out there. So I'll have to hold off on the hyperbole for a tick.

Miss World is another one. I remember listening to it for about two weeks straight when it came out, not a word of a lie, for at least 6 hours a day and always on my way to, throughout, and on my way home from art class...again, on headphones.

Yes only love can break your heart Try to be sure right from the start Only love can break your heart What if your world should fall apart

Have a capital day, chaps.

The place to be in 2026

2007-04-13T09:41:00.000-04:00

Yet another reason I'd love to be in California at the moment (several inches of fresh snowfall here is reason #1): the "Open House: Architecture and Technology for Intelligent Living" exhibit at Pasadena's Art Center College of Design. When cool young architecture minds turn themselves to the problem of adapting human spaces to a planet in chaos, really cool graphics ensue.

The photo on this post is from the Seoul Commune 2026 project, by Mass Studies, an architecture group from Korea. There's a PDF that gives details about their project here. I know nothing about architecture, except that I'm really fascinated by it and especially by architects who try to make buildings look like organic structures--Gaudi's buildings in Spain are another example. It's also cool when architects try to find ways to live that are sustainable and actually help rather than hurt the Earth, which is what many of the Open House projects seem to be about. Also, I really really want to live in one of those schmooshie green towers.

Anyhow, good for a little diversion on a Friday afternoon.

Maybe they just wanted to wish them a happy period...

2007-04-11T10:08:00.000-04:00

Here in Canada, the civil service--or as we call it, the "public" service (notably removing the word "civil" from the equation)--is the country's largest employer by far.

Because so many Canadians work for the government, with so much shared experience, the public service is logically the brunt of a LOT of Canadian humour. There has historically been, for example, much reference to, ahem....er...time wastage. And, uh, bureaucratic paper-pushing. And the occasional twenty billion dollars that goes missing. That kind of thing.

But one thing we can't accuse our government of is taking the "l" out of "public."

If you're a public servant reading this, just be glad you don't work for the Indian pubic service, (yes that was on purpose) which is now demanding that its female employees provide details of their menstrual cycles, including the date of their last menstrual period (in true bureaucratic fashion, they even have an acronym for it: LMP. *busts ovaries laughing*). It's all part of their annual civil service physical. Again, weird.

The thing is, nobody in the Indian government seems sure why there's such an intense new focus on Auntie Rosie's visits. Like the womb itself, the whole event is shrouded in mystery.

Read more here.

It's pronounced Ah-nah

2007-04-04T08:41:00.000-04:00

I promise--my dreams won't become a running theme here. But I did have to share one more. (This is what happens when I blog after just waking up.)

I'm in New York, only it's also Nashville, but the point is I'm visiting the world's best dessert shop. They specialize in squares--cream-filled, chocolate covered, candy-sprinkled...you name it. Which, incidentally, is kind of a cool concept for a bakery because you only have to ice the tops of the product--imagine the cost-savings....

Anyhow, as always, I'm shopping. I buy two large shopping-bags full of delicious confections. Then I have to step out for a moment to look for a missing goat on a dark railroad, and when I come back in to the shop, one of my bags is gone! Someone has walked off with my $200 bag of sweets! I'm irate, I scream and stomp, but the staff only glances mildly my way. Which is when I realize that they are were-people. So I tone it down, grab my remaining bag, and mosey.

I'm supposed to go to the opera that night, so I've got to get back to my room and change. You can see where this is going: in dreams, the more you need to get somewhere, the less likely you are to get there. At least, that's how my dreams go.

I'm on the Mount Everest-sized escalator that leads into the hotel, going down and away from the hotel for some reason, and lying down. But I'm wearing some really cool shoes. And who should pass me on the next escalator over but Vogue Editor-in-Chief, Anna Wintour. She stares at my shoes. "Great shoes," she states blandly, smiles for a milisecond, and continues on her way with Andre Leon Talley in tow.

I'm ecstatic! Anna Wintour liked my shoes! And it looks like she's headed for the same opera as me--the one I now have little chance of getting to on time. I've got to get to my room and pick out another pair of fabulous shoes to wear tonight.

Next scene: I've found an elevator. As with all elevators in my dreams, it goes sideways. There's a man in a suit, a crying hispanic single mom, and a mopey housekeeping employee. My room is on the 11th floor--which, isn't it weird that I can remember that? I've heard you can't process numbers or letters in dreams. But of course the elevator is only on floor -68. When the door opens, the mopey housekeeping employee runs off with my last bag of sweets. I find myself in hot pursuit of her in a car on the road below, then remember I'm late for the opera.

Next scene: I've found an elevator. It goes sideways. There's a man in a suit, a crying hispanic single mom, and...

I woke up feeling very frustrated.

Creepy

2007-04-02T11:49:00.000-04:00

Here is what I remember from my dream last night:

I'm at some event inside a massive building that's a cross between a hotel and a shopping centre; I have to erect a tent to shower in.

As I'm setting up the tent poles, I notice a bunch of junk lying around the mall--boxes, those big under-the-bed bags you store your winter clothes in, etc.

I walk over to one that looks like it's full of cool old clothes (I'm a vintage clothing freak), and in a way it is. Only the clothes are still being worn by the exceptionally well-preserved corpses of their original owners. That's right: a nicely arranged row of 19th-century corpses is lying fully dressed in one of those under-the-bed clothing storage bags.

I run around frantically, trying to find a manager. I finally find one. (They're even hard to find in dreams for Pete's sake.) Impatiently, she tells me I'll have to take it "downstairs." I try to argue--can't she see I'm trying to put up my shower tent? Why should I have to take the corpses down? She's having none of it.

I grab the corner of the bag and heave, following behind her as she leads me to a doorway. Slowly, she creaks the door open. I look in on a stairwell that leads into a dark grimey dungeon-like basement filled with discarded junk. She points over to a far corner full of other bags of corpses. "Just go throw them on there."

I stand there, expecting her to help me down the stairs with the bag, but she says "I'm not going down there."

"Well at least hold the door open for me," I reply. She nods. I heave the bag down the stairs, make my way through all the junk and toss the bag on its pile. I glance for a moment at the bag's occupants. Their clothes are really cool...

...I'm wracked by shudders. I get a cold tingly back-of-the-neck feeling that I haven't got much time to get out of there before these folks re-animate. Just as I turn to make my way back to the stairs, the horrible manager person turns off the light and closes the door. I'll kill her, I think, as I blindly run for the stairwell...

I'm no dream interpreter, but bags of neatly stored, well-dressed corpses can't be good. And don't stairwells down into dark basements represent a descent into the unconscious self or some such crap?

I'm pretty sure that part of it has to do with a recently discovered phobia I have for certain antique hats and furniture. Once in a while I'll come across an item online or in an antique shop and it'll just give me the ultimate creeps, for no esthetic or other apparent reason--and here's the thing: I can't stop thinking about these items' dead owners. My revulsion is sometimes so strong that I can barely bring myself to touch or continue looking at the item--and it's always a hat or a piece of furniture.

The other quality they all have in common is they're always from the 19th Century.

Weird, no?

Er, just thought I'd share...

Damn (Good) Kids

2007-03-29T12:40:00.000-04:00

Good news for a change.

These two Boston teens started out trying to raise money to help their cousin, who is a U.S. soldier in Iraq, pay his cellphone bills--calling home from the war zone gets very expensive, apparently. But when they found out that many of his fellow soldiers were racking up big debt loads trying to stay in touch with family, they took the cause even further. Now they're not only helping to support soldiers who, everyone has to admit, are in a desperate situation--they're also helping to save the planet.

When teenagers do something so honourable, it's somehow even more inspiring. Maybe because the teenage years aren't noted for their selflessness.

Gives you a little glimmer of hope, doesn't it?

Visit their Web site at www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com.

Jesus-/Bong-Lovers Unite

2007-03-19T11:38:00.000-04:00

Had to comment on this story from today's NYTimes:

"Bong Hits 4 Jesus"

It was supposed to be a Jackass-like stunt, led by bored and frankly uncreative high school senior Joseph Frederick of Juneau, Alaska. He wanted to "get on t.v." So in 2002, when the Olympic torch passed through town on its way to Salt Lake City, good ol' Joe thought it would be funny to hold up a massive banner carrying the funny line he'd seen on someone's snowboard.

It is kind of funny, in a Jackass kind of way.

His principal didn't think so, though. She ordered him to take the banner down. When he didn't, she flew into a bit of a rage, tore it down herself, and suspended him for a couple of weeks.

So Joe decided to do what Americans do best: he sued under free-speech legislation. The Bush administration, via the Supreme Court, sided with the principal and the school board of course.

So far, pretty straightforward stuff. Except then the religious right got involved.

"Bong Hits 4 Jesus"--not exactly a quote from the New American Standard or the St.James bibles. Yet--prepare to have your mind boggled--the religious right is siding with wee little Joey boy.

Here's the clincher: they're doing so because they want Christian kids to be allowed to worship/talk about/promote Jesus in school.

In a way, their position makes sense. As the religious right moves further into the fringes, they are increasingly occupying the "dissident" space and, as one law expert put it, "The status of being a dissident unites dissidents..."

On the other hand, uh...hellow? Religious right? Tell me you aren't siding with him because the word "Jesus" appeared on his banner? Look me in the eyes and tell me you really see this kid as a "dissident." Tell me you don't see a political opportunity here and are willing to brush aside the very convictions you say you're trying to protect in order to win.

Here's a question for the religious right: which is worse? Insulting Christianity and the name of Jesus and associating it with bong hits...or siding with someone who does so in order to achieve a political end? Because that's what this comes down to for the Christian right: a political position. And it seems to me that they have chosen political power over spiritual rectitude. I mean, don't you think they sold out, just a little?

This is a case of an inextricable medium and message. If Joe Frederick had decided to write "Gay Rights Now" or "Legalize Marijuana" on his banner, there would still have been an inherent tension between his position and that of his far-right supporters (they probably wouldn't have supported him in fact)--but it wouldn't have involved blasphemy. But he chose "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," and last time I checked that message resides somewhere along Blasphemy Boulevard.

So if there was any doubt that the religious right is more concerned with man's laws than God's...well, they're the ones who are always talking about the "slippery slope."

It seems Jesus isn't as important as the right to use his name.

The power of the gaze

2007-03-13T14:21:00.000-04:00

Do you ever have those existential kind of out-of-body days where you feel like an observer on the outskirts of your own life? You're kind of moving through the day like you're in a dream...like a little silver pinball just banging around from one thing to the next. What is that? Is it ennui? Depression? Fatigue? Brain gas?

I'm in a gaze-out-the-window kind of mood.

I visited x17online for the first time ever last week. I'm not gonna link to it because that would be like passing along scabies.

It's a celebrity site. They pay photographer-terrorists to stalk celebrities 24/7. It's interesting in a social-experiment kind of way. You get to see what life is like for celebs hounded by photographers 24/7, if you're into that kind of thing. But even if you aren't into that kind of thing, it's still kind of fascinating to think that Lindsay Lohan can't get her hair coloured without a swarm of photographers shoving lenses--literally--in her face, blocking her car, screaming at her, asking her personal questions, etc.

The cumulative effect of all the paparazzi video is sort of mind-numbing, especially when you realize that you're mostly watching video of people video-taping famous people. The whole idea of the "gaze" (Schroeder, Mulvey) and the power relationship between observer and observed is fascinating in this context. In some way, the dynamic now is: we (regular people visiting x17online) sit at our computers judging the scummy paparazzi, who are judging celebs (in the sense that the camera has no mercy), who fascinate us (regular people), so we visit x17 online watching video of paparazzi, whom we're judging...etc ad insanitum.

I'd get into the celeb obsession thing more, but to be honest, I find it a little tedious. Not the obsession itself (well, yeah, that too), but more the obsession with discussing the celeb obsession. Although...What are your thoughts on this? Do you think about celebs often? Are you tired of seeing them? What is your opinion on celebrity's place in our culture at the moment? (Someone will say that "celebrities need the paparazzi as much as the paparazzi need celebrities"...but I'm not talking about that so much as what's driving the whole crazy carnival ride? Is it us? Is it money? Is it sex? Is it technology?? I need answers!)

Speaking of the gaze of power, I've also been thinking about Marie Antoinette a lot. The woman and the movie. Rented the DVD not long ago. I understand why it was booed at Cannes, and yet I disagree with the booers. I think Antonia Fraser, who wrote the book (which I'm now reading) upon which the film was "based" (loosely and yet specifically...Coppola really pulls out only specific fashion and lifestyle-themed parts of MA's life...but when she pulls them out, she does so verbatim), said it best: "Marie Antoinette doesn't belong to me or to the French...she is a historical figure and she belongs to everyone." That would be my response to the French film critics who booed it at Cannes.

It's a visually affecting movie if you're someone who is at all drawn to the kind of esthetic that would make you, say, be sure to visit Versailles if you are in Paris (I've been to Versailles twice). It's sort of the...maybe the Pretty in Pink?...of today.

But it's largely about the gaze, on many levels that Coppola may or may not have intended. M.A.'s whole life was lived under the gaze, and eventually she lost her head because of it--an event witnessed by thousands of eyes. Princess Diana lost her life because of it too. Britney lost her hair and, seemingly, her sanity because of it. It's a powerful thing.

Speaking of which...back to my window I go.

Just a flesh wound sir...

2007-03-08T10:38:00.000-05:00

Ranting time.

The Canadian medical system: what's happening and why are we in this handbasket?

I was in Nashville last year and a cabbie there chose to lecture my husband and I on how superior the American medical system is to the Canadian one. I had to work hard to hold back the snarky laughter. Since America doesn't seem, in fact, to have a medical "system" per se. At least not a state-sponsored one like ours.

Oh, how superior I felt. Poor little American cab driver, thinking they have it so much better with their pay-per-use hospital visits and people going bankrupt from lack of insurance.

Well, the smirk has been slapped from my face.

In Canada today, the only way to get to see a doctor quickly is to 1) go to the U.S., or 2) go to a clinic and wait for an hour to see a physician who knows nothing about you or your medical history.

In my experience, "family" doctors are a thing of the past. We recently moved from Ontario to Quebec and my husband happened to get in with a local family practitioner. When I called to book an appointment with the same physician, they refused.

Me: "Huh?I thought he is a 'family' doctor?"
Snarly secretary: "He is."
Me: "Well, my husband's one of his patients, and I'm my husband's family."
Snarly secretary: "That's not what family doctor means."
Me: "Excuse me, I'm holding the Oxford Canadian right here...let's see...D...E..F...fairyland...fairy tale...fake...fall behind...fallacy...ah, here it is: family. 'A group of people related by blood, legal or common-law marriage. Or adoption.'"
Snarkretary: "M'am, I'm very busy..."
Me: "Well, by that definition, wouldn't a 'family' doctor be one who treats....families?"
Hellion: "He's not taking any new patients, m'am."
Me: "But...but what if one of us has cancer? What if we have a venereal disease we're passing back and forth? What if we had a kid or were trying to get preggers? Wouldn't it make sense to have the same physician?"
Jerkass: "[dial tone]"

That has been the pattern for my relations with the Canadian medical community for the last decade or so. I know someone who couldn't get an appointment after she miscarried, for God's sake. They promised to call her back with a time-slot, and just never did.

Now I've got a bit of a skin condition that I'd rather treat sooner than later (don't worry, nothing contagious), and I'm told I need a referral. But can I get in to see my physician (yes, I eventually found one...*) to get a referral? No. I'll have to go to a clinic, wait for 2 hours, see someone for five seconds who will look at me, see that I obviously have the skin condition, and set up a referral. Meantime, I've wasted HOURS of my time--not to mention precious moments of theirs.

And what, I ask, is the point of a "medical file" in such a system? Why waste the trees? My medical file is rotting in the back of some forgotten drawer, attracting dust mites.

*My search for a "family" physician has been a bumpy ride. First there was the time I got booked in at my mom's doctor, who made me wait an extra hour (standard in this "superior" medical system), then walked into the (cold) examining room, looked me up and down, and said "I'm not taking new patients. Why are you here? What is the problem?" To which, gobsmacked, I replied, "....?"

She: continuing to glare. Me: continuing to stand there in shock with my mouth opening and closing, trying to articulate something along the lines of "...but doctors...they're supposed to help people...they're healers...they're heroes...nice to people...make booboos feel better...mommy don't let the bad lady put the bigneedle in me!!! mommy!!!! mommeeeeee!!!!"

I picked up my bag, blinked at her once, and left the room. I asked the secretary why she had booked me in if the doctor wasn't seeing new patients. To which she replied, "....?" So I told her they'd better not submit for OHIP funding (that's the way it works in our state-sponsored system...the doctor sees you, then submits a bill to the government instead of to you. The government uses your tax money to pay the doctor. See the potential for turnstile-like patient treatment there?). She said they would. I said I'm going home to report you to OHIP immediately. Which I did. And they never ended up getting paid, or so OHIP told me.

Finally, I found a new doctor. And by new, I don't just mean new to me. I mean "new" as in the stench of medical school is still hanging on his yet-unwrinkled doctor's coat. I mean about 28 years old. Male. Doing physicals. On me. Gawping at my bits and pieces. My first sexual experience was less awkward than my last pelvic exam. Let's just leave it at that.

Now, part of me feels guilty for complaining. Because we Canadians by nature don't want to 'rock the boat.' But you know what? We are taxed more exhorbitantly than every other people on Earth except the Swedes. I pay forty-two percent of my income back to the government. FORTY-TWO PERCENT. So screw guilt. I want some goddam results, here.

It's easy to run a medical system when you don't actually have to deal with those pesky patients. I've paid for the service, and I want what I paid for.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to the clinic. I hear the line-up's still pretty short.

Irish, English unlikely to "Basque" in idea of shared ancestor

2007-03-06T15:08:00.000-05:00

I had a best friend in high school who was Spanish. Well, Spanish-Canadian. Because in Canada you're always "dash Canadian." Her parents were from Spain, though, which gives her more direct immigrant cred.

Being Spanish, she was fiery and passionate about her Spanish origins and Spanish culture. She was, as I once informed her...deeply ethnocentric. But then again, Spanish culture is a great one to be ethnocentric about.

I'm a fair, freckled, blue-eyed redhead. She is a fair, unfreckled, blue-eyed very light brunette with lots of strawberry in her colouring. In fact, in Spain they call her "rubia" which essentially means blonde. She has northern Spanish colouring--where her mother's family is from.

We used to talk about our ancestral origins and the close proximity of Spain to Ireland (where my forefathers were from on both my maternal and paternal sides), and how interesting it was that people in Ireland often have dark eyes and hair (black celt) and people in northern Spain often have blue eyes and reddish hair and that maybe that indicated some kind of genetic common ground at some point in the past, since we usually associate each culture with the inverse.

When you think about it, Ireland was under a mile or two of ice for thousands of millenia. The people there now weren't there until at the earliest 15,000 or so years ago. They had to come from somewhere.

Thing is, Britain was under ice too. So they had to come there from somewhere as well. Is it possible that two separate peoples individually settled the British Isles and Ireland, or was it one people that branched off under the pressures of various cultural invaders and integrators?

According to today's NYTimes, some geneticists are claiming that the Irish, Scottish, Welsh...and English...are decended from a common genetic ancestor that came from Spain and spoke a language related to Basque.

I'm predicting riots and car burnings.

Also, if you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of my grandfather rolling in his grave like my hydro-meter on a -40 day.

The article gets into alot of blather about Y chromosomes and linguistic origins. Bottom line, if you introduce the phrase "Y chromosome" into an article you can get away with mostly hype and not much solid content.

The main point, if I've got it right, is if you go back far enough, people from these seemingly distinct cultures share a common geneaology. That's earth-shattering, that is. Next thing you'll be telling me all humans are descended from a common ancestor.

Still, Dr. Oppenheimer's book will spawn a cultural controversy that should lead to much hilarity on the Irish and British blogging circuits--personally, I'm all a-quiver with anticipation. Muintir na Breataine and muintir na hEireann, start your engines.

Aren't I just little-miss-comment-on-awards-shows

2007-02-27T09:07:00.000-05:00

Been busy lately, but not too busy to consume/process/eliminate the Oscars. I was going to write a full review, but instead I'm going to focus on the most important part of the Academy Awards: the gowns.

Normally I'd address this matter on my style blog, Stylaholic--Jonesin' for Vintage, but as this is really more of a "world issues" discussion, I'll discuss it here, on my blather forum.

1. Nicole Kidman: I Don't Get the Controversy

I didn't see her red-carpet coverage (please, people, save the redhead/carpet jokes for a less serious matter), but when she came out to present, I thought "Wow. She looks fantastic." I love the drama of the bow. I think the halter is a perfect style for her body type. I don't understand why this has been so panned. Maybe it's the colour? People often can't handle colour. But N.K. sure as hell can. The only negative thought I had about this was "Gee, her boobs look artificial." There is some serious lifting and separating--and padding--going on here. I think she would have been better off to go au naturel in the bubbies department. But other than that...and the little bit of glitter around the neck which I don't care for at all...I think she's a sexy will 'o the whisp.

Designer: Balenciaga

2. Gwynnnnnneth Paltrowwwww: I Love a Girl in Coral

This was my favourite dress of the evening. I thought Gwynnie looked delicious, possibly for the first time ever at an awards show (remember that pink meringue she wore the year she won for...what was it...Shakespeare in Love maybe?). I adore this gown. And the colour and cut are beautiful on her. Adore it. Adore. Also love the simplicity of the accessories and hair--ditto for Reddy McVermillion above.

Designer: Zac Posen

3. Kirsten Dunst: Perfect Segue From 18th-C France, Miss D

I know the Fug Girls deride her mercilessly, but I don't care: I think K.D. has a great sense of style. This was my second-favourite gown of the evening, with the Big Fat Caveat that I don't find this colour works on her. As you all know, I'm a biiiiig vintage fan. But, confession time: I have some kind of issue with pale green. Like I need to manually override my dislike for it. It's shameful, I know--but I just can't imagine how anyone could be flattered by the colour of mold spores. Still, I love the dress with all its gauzy, feathery, sparkly magic.

Designer: Chanel

4. Reese Witherspoon: My, my, my--Racy, Even a Little Rock and Roll

Divorce has worked wonders for Reese. I'm a little tired of the hair and straplessness, but otherwise she has been looking totally fab. I don't usually like the colour-gradation effect, but it's so subtle and beautiful in this dress that it's quite stunning. I like how casual she looks. Hopefully she'll be a little less safe next time, but I thought this was a winner.

Designer: Olivier Theyskens

5. Kate Winslet: Must...Overlook...Pale Green

I don't think I've ever seen Kate Winslet wearing something I didn't find gorgeous and perfect for her. Until this. The style/cut is great. Neckline gorgeous. Scarfy thing majestic. But that colour...Good God have mercy, I'm having a hard time seeing past it. I love Kate Winslet. I love Kate Winslet. I love Kate Winslet...

Designer: Valentino

6. Jennifer Lopez: Um, No.

Yeah, so Marchesa is a controversial brand these days cuz it's owned by the girlfriend of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and the fashion world doesn't like that kind of usurpation. Still, the superstar set seems to love Marchesa gowns. I don't generally like what I've seen, although there have been some exceptions. I find the ornamentation a little vulgar. There, I said it. So much for me ever receiving a free gown from them. I thought this gown particularly unflattering on JLo--too much volume on the bottom half disrupts her perfect hourglass--although I think her hair and makeup looks lovely.

Designer: Marchesa

7. Cameron Diaz: Cool in Theory

I like Cameron's gown in theory. The things I like about it include the fit (form-fitting but not tight-tight-tight), the off-the shoulder neckline (she has beautiful shoulders), the flameco-esque hemline (shorter in front, ruffly train in back). It's sort of a casual modern take on old glamour. What I didn't like about it, mostly, was the colour. I strongly dislike white gowns when not worn by brides. I also don't really like pure white all over in general. I don't mind white dresses, but gowns are too bridal. Also, the collar-thingy too closely resembles a sailor collar for my liking. But Cameron is gorgeous, there's no denying it.

Designer: Valentino

8. Catherine Deneuve: Timeless

This is a stunning dress perfect for a woman of her age and stature. Can you believe this woman is in her mid-60s? The clutch and the perfect little shoe peeking out from under the modest-length hemline: magnifique. Fascinating that her dress was designed by a controversial original like Gaultier. I love her simple choices in hair and accessories. She embodies timeless chic.

Designer: Gaultier

9: Milena Canonero: On Another Level

Sure, she's not the first woman to wear a woman-tux. But when you consider that she's an extraordinary costume designer (won for Marie Antoinette--as she should have), it makes her decision to wear a tux particularly intriguing. To me, this is the difference between fashion and style. Style knows when to set oneself apart in a subtle way without trying to compete with the superstars. I thought the fact that she chose not to wear a gown (and doubtless she could have whipped up something out of this world) was intelligent and very chic. Bravo Milena!

p.s. woman-tuxes are sexy.

Camera--and Thoughts--Obscura

2007-02-13T12:52:00.000-05:00

Why can't the Grammys be about music like this? Tracyanne Campbell writes fantastic, beautiful, simple, real, great, great songs.

Camera Obscura is not a new band, but they're a new discovery for me and definitely a new musical fave.

That's it, I'm going to the UK/Europe...

Sometimes you just need a change of scenery. In the words of T.C., "Let's Get Out of This Country."

The 2007 Shammy Awards

2007-02-12T11:36:00.000-05:00

First: didn't catch the first 1/2 hour or so of the Grammys. Just the farce that was the other 7 1/2 hours.

When a music awards show leaves me saying "Thank GOD for Christina Aguliera," stick a fork in Civilization, cuz it's done.

Justin Timberlake is a great live performer too.

Again, fork.

Other than that, first-class ticket to Suxville.

Oh and John Mayer is also pretty good, but if he performed live I didn't catch it.

What the hell is a Rascal Flatz or whatever it's called when it's at home (which is somewhere in a time machine locked at circa The Billy-Ray Syrus Years)? To have the ability to render Hotel California shitty; well, that's monumental. I mean, Karaoke singers around the world routinely do better.

Who was that woman with a large autumnal floral arrangement in her green hair? She fascinates and terrifies me...I must hear her music.

Not to be cruel, but what's up with Mandy Moore? Yikes.

Carrie Underwood: I won't attack her personally, but American Idol is officially the shrieking, chord-run infested death-knell of the pop recording industry. Soon will come plagues. One-third of all living things shall die. The sea shall be as blood. It will be Stadium Arcadium, everywhere.

Snippets

2007-02-06T09:40:00.000-05:00

Came across one of these in the woods the other day. I leashed Chico right away and we gave the wolf a nice wide berth, but he (or she?) didn't do much but sit there and watch us, all elegant and wizened. Although I was a little nervous ("wolves travel in packs...where are the other ones?...why does he keep looking up into the woods like that?"), it was mostly a touching-my-own-animal-nature, by which I mean a pumping-adrenaline-through-my-system-like-a-hunted-jackrabbit, kind of experience.

Other than the wolf run-in, and of course that hideous intruder: work, I've been focused on music and shows and promotions and haven't got much time to blog. But I'll be back soon.

Fun with husbands

2007-01-22T17:40:00.000-05:00

Ah, on the heels of yet another article about this much-debated non-marriage movement in the U.S., I find myself thinking about my own dear house-bond.

When I think about him, mostly I laugh. That's because he's damn funny. Not always deliberately, of course.

I go on these sprees where I get obsessive about something and I'm fixated on it for days. Often, this OCD-fest has to do with the house. Like the time I decided I needed a sewing room and nearly lost my hands--and my sanity--putting together the IKEA "sewing centre."

Or recently I've gone on a minimalist binge (can a minimalist "binge"?), where I'm taking down all of the nick-nacks on the fireplace mantle, piano, shelves, etc. I used to rearrange them, but lately I've just been putting them away (in my "sewing centre," incidentally).

The first day I did Operation Nick-Nack Removal, my husband came home, looked around, and asked me, "Are we moving?"

When he left that morning, it was happily and colourfully cluttered. He came home to post-Grinch Whoville. And still the de-cluttering continues. (The real problem is that our fireplace is hideous, so really we should just damn-well get it re-faced. But that's not scheduled until After the Kitchen Reno (2010), After Completion of Current Bathroom Reno (2008) and After We Have Kids Maybe (it'll have to be some time before 2012ish).)

Or just now, my husband comes home and starts talking to me as soon as he gets in the door and I tell him to hush because he's interrupting my writing. Of a blog post. About him. And how much I love him.

We talk a lot about how marriage can be hard on a woman. But husbands take a lot of flack too. I'm not sure why they don't harp on it more. I mean, come on now, join us here in Complaintsville once in a while. We know you've got it bad sometimes. We're the ones doing it to you!

God love ya.

Sugar and spice and cold as ice?

2007-01-19T09:30:00.000-05:00

So I was in NYC for the weekend. God, I love New York. Love, love, LOVE. It's cold, rational, impersonal, independent, historic, big, loud, rude, beautiful, and doesn't give a crap about me. Just like a modern woman, apparently.

While in NYC, I read the NYTimes (paper version and everything!) and was drawn moth-like to an article on marriage stats. Seems that for the first time ever, a majority of American women (51%--"majority" enough to elect a new president, after all) are living without a spouse. Some are married and separated, some have absent spouses, but many of them are just plain single. In 1950, only 35% of marriageable women were still single.

Here are a few more interesting stats from the article:

"Between 1950 and 2000, the share of women 15-to-24 who were married plummeted to 16 percent, from 42 percent."
"Among 25-to-34-year-olds, the proportion dropped to 58 percent, from 82 percent."
"Only about 30 percent of black women are living with a spouse [...] compared with about 49 percent of Hispanic women, 55 percent of non-Hispanic white women and more than 60 percent of Asian women."

(There was one small mathematical anomaly in the article that caught my eye. Well maybe not an anomaly so much as a lack of understanding of statistics on my part, but...apparently 53% of American men are married. I'm obviously not a statistician, but to whom are these extra millions of men married? Shouldn't the numbers add up? ...Maybe the census poll counted same-sex marriage.)

The researchers list a few explanations for women's growing singleness: pairing up much later in life, shacking up instead of getting married, living longer as widows, and not getting re-hitched after a divorce.

It may not seem like that big a deal, but what if this marks some kind of cultural tipping point? Where will everyone live?! Think of the children! (I'm joking.)

It's pretty easy to live a full single life these days. I know lots of great singles who seem to have a full schedule. I'm sure there are moments when they would like someone to share it with, but then when you're coupled, there are moments when you wish you could be alone. But clearly, if you're a single woman in the U.S., there are plenty of other single women to hang out with--not to mention single men. Plus things like the Internet are allowing us to be very social and interactive and live pretty fullish lives, alone and direct from our arses.

It's interesting that as we become more technologized, individualized, and settled as a modern culture, marriage seems to be disappearing. Traditional marriage, anyhow. I'm married, and I love my husband. But we didn't have to get married; we would have stayed committed to each other regardless. It was nice to have a big party and "proclaim our love" but we could've done that without changing our legal status. Maybe that blase attitude to formal marriage is partly behind the new marriage stats. Funny how love is trumping marriage.

I do have respect for the idea of marriage. I think it's romantic that we bind ourselves to each other for life. Is it natural? Maybe moreso for some than for others. I certainly don't think pairing off is natural for every human.

I also wonder, is this a rejection of traditional gender roles on the part of women, or some other kind of statement about putting yourself first, or some kind of new acceptance of the reality that your life rarely turns out the way you planned it when you were 12, or something else altogether? Maybe we're letting go of the Brideypants Barbie fantasy (yay!) and realizing that Ken isn't as perfect as he seems--he's gassy and he produces laundry and sometimes he's a little distant. Of course, Barbie is all of those things too.

I know I'm not saying anything original here, but the facts are the facts: you're born alone and you die that way too, no matter who you bond yourself to in this life. If this new female singleness is a first snapshot of women rising to both feet and standing firm in the face of humanity's ultimate singleness, I don't see how that can be a bad thing. It will undoubtedly fill the world with more depth and expression as the second half of the species explores the world on its own terms for the first time.

But I also wish everyone someone to cuddle with along the way.

See. This. Movie.

2007-01-18T14:42:00.000-05:00

Children of Men

I haven't seen a really, really important, exceptionally executed, deeply moving, and compelling movie like this in....er, possibly ever, now that I think of it.

Sorry if that all sounds a little over the top. But I was quite blown away.

I only ever saw one preview, so the film sort of slipped my mind until my good friend, (one of the bestest) Ni_de_Montreal, recommended I see it instead of An Inconvenient Truth. I was intrigued. A Clive Owen movie about a saving a preggers British teenager...more important than a documentary on global warming? C'n'est pas possible!

She was so very right.

The acting. The premise. The writing. The plot. The concept. The dialogue. The symbolism. The cinematography. The effects. The story. The direction. It doesn't do anything too overtly experimental. The genius is in the subtely and the subtext. It deals with the environment. It deals with terrorism. It deals with the dark chamber of the human heart that we rarely enter--the one that knows that at the bottom of it all we're just another animal driven to survive.

EVERYTHING works in this movie. It hits you between the eyes with a gentle, poisonous gust of dystopian future-gas. You're knocked on your ass, which is perfect because that is the precise vantage point of the film.

It made me want to read the book (my order will be in at Chapters.ca momentarily) by P.D. James., in the hopes that I can explore more of the ideas behind the film. None of this explanatory detail is necessary--the film is a complete, perfect whole. But if you're a person interested in the themes of the movie, you'll want to read more. You'll want to see it again. You'll need to see it again, to savour every perfect detail. I plan to.

Interestingly, a basic premise of the James plot is altered by Cuaron--as I understand it, in the book, it's the men who become sterile. In the movie, it's the women. Even this seemingly tiny little change is...pregnant with meaning.

I won't give away anything else--no spoilers here. But I felt compelled to promote this great work. It is a mythical story, beautiful in its ugly truth. It's right about human nature. Hopefully it's dead wrong about where that nature may take us.

My new winter footwear.

2007-01-05T12:23:00.000-05:00

I believe we've seen our last winter here in Ontario-Quebec. Who knew that last March, as I was strapping on my snowshoes for a little late-season jaunt, it would be the last time I'd ever need them? Winter is dead.

I honestly believe we've seen the finale of our -5 to -15 January and February temperatures. The last of 4-5 feet of snow accumulation. The end of our lovely groomed x-country ski trails in the Gatineaus. The final gasps of downhill and boarding fun (unless you live ~~near~~ on the Rockies). Hasta la vista, snowshoes.

My first thought was: with no more cold weather, whatever will we Canadians complain about? We'll lose our identity! We're The People Who Survive Hellish Winters. But then I remembered the Government. Thank God for the Government. With them, our formless rage will always have a target.

So I've been quite depressed, not to mention seasonally confused every time I step out into the Octoberish temperatures and snowlessness that is my globally warmed country. I thought I had it bad. But at Christmas, I talked to my cousin in the French Alps. Yeah, she was telling me all about her depression over having a green Christmas. In the Alps. No snow. IN THE ALPS. Not a flake of crystallized water to be found.

And the lies Hollywood has told us about all this! I thought global warming was supposed to lead to the next Ice Age?! I was all prepared for that. Faithful lemming that I am, I watched The Day After Tomorrow (with barf-bag in hand re: crap dialogue and shameless plot histrionics). I've even tried to get my hands on a copy of An Inconvenient Truth, but the top-secret global Agency of Dis-Information has clearly been working overtime to keep it unavailable for online or in-store purchase. Still, I thought, Hah. Ice Age. That's the best you can do, Climate Change? A frozen wasteland? BRING IT ON! We Canadians eat frozen wastelands with afternoon tea!

If anyone can survive an Ice Age, it's people who dig themselves out of blizzards daily. But October in January? I don't think we can survive this. Above all else, it's just plain boring to live here without snow. For the love of God, if we don't have winter sports, we'd better at least get some decent shopping in this one-horse town. Because with no snow I plan to indulge my shoe fetish year round.

2007: Full-Colour Black and White

2007-01-03T17:58:00.000-05:00

Well hello there! How've you been? How's your year starting out?

Chances are, if you're reading this, it's going better than his--er, so far at least.

I hate to start off with talk of executions, but this, well...it's hard to ignore. I didn't watch the cell-phone coverage. I refuse to watch things that I know I won't be able to un-see once I've viewed them. I've made that mistake before. But judging from the fallout, it was an awful scene.

It's funny how this event pulls one in so many moral directions. On the one hand, the man was a known mass-murderer, found guilty of the crime of mass murder, and sent to his fate and punishment by people representative of the murdered masses. On the other hand, capital punishment is flat-out bizarre. To sit there, in full foreknowledge of the time and location of someone's death, and watch it unfold: it's like having access to Hell's Time Machine. We're not meant to have foreknowledge of death. It's unnatural.

On yet a third hand, there's the inner tug-of-war over the whole taunting-on-the-gallows aspect of this story. I'll sidestep the messy ethical debate about whether someone who has done what he has done deserves a dignified death and observe that in a way, watching the cell-phone video must be like having a portal into our own Western past, say about 300 years ago when public hangings were all the rage. Our ancestors stood in front of gallows, thinking murderous thoughts or possibly even hurtling their own taunts at the walking dead. This thought makes it exceptionally hard to pass judgement. But for the grace of God, cliche, cliche...

And then there's the fourth hand: the entertainment aspect. The rope, the neck, the taunts, the laughter, all available for graphic full-colour online viewing...

Makes me wonder, is the Internet a civilizing force or a regressive one or both or neither? I guess it depends on whether this thing (the Internet, in case you're still a little murky from all that holiday drinking) that is quickly becoming a kind of pan-human Group Mind is conscious and self-aware, or unconscious and amoral like the trees or the ocean or the weather. Or is it unconscious now, with the potential to become conscious later?

When I hear stories like this, part of me sure hopes so.

Ah, life. In the end, maybe it all goes back to free will. Maybe we have it, maybe we don't. One day the world's a modern place, the next day we're a bunch of rubberneckers gathered round the computer to watch a man be taunted on the gallows. Well, at least it's never boring.

Maybe 2007 will be the year that it all finally makes sense.

Nah.

Merry Hannuksolsticemas

2006-12-21T14:28:00.000-05:00

I live in a free, gorgeous, tolerant, multicultural country. I have an excellent variety of friends, acquaintances, and readers of this little blah-blah-blahg. More than fifty percent of my family is in the Caribbean or in other parts of Canada this Christmas, which vastly simplifies my holiday plans. And I'm finishing up my last work project before the holidays. I am truly blessed.

I want to wish everyone a Merry Thingy, whatever your creed. Today's the shortest day of the year, which also means the longest night, which is a good thing cuz I have some serious sleep to catch up on. But you enjoy, light some candles, have a little drinkie and celebrate the fact that the sun will, as the orphan-girl said, come out again tomorrow.

Best wishes--see you post-Thingy.

--Whyioughtta

Sling, sling a schlong

2006-12-14T10:55:00.000-05:00

It seems that everywhere I turn these days, there is talk of penises.

They're everywhere, often leaving a stream of heartache and confusion in their wake. They misrule some of the world's most powerful nations. They coerce men to buy gas-guzzling Hummers and shoot furry animals. I suspect they're even behind global warming. And now it seems the study of the male package--schlongology, dickistics, wangistry, whatever you want to call it--may actually heal this beautiful planet which said package has, for so long, uh, spat upon.

A few days ago, Kav shared this fascinating story about the epidemic of overisized condoms that has seized India. It seems men in India don't buy condoms because the standard condom size is too big, so their love-gloves are forever slipping off or breaking or otherwise wreaking havoc. Clearly, this is why is India so overpopulated. The BBC coverage was a little naughty, dwelling for instance on how the study measured dongs from the "full length and breadth" of India, etc., but it was nevertheless fascinating (not to mention surprising...I always thought that Indian men...well, nevermind.)

So by studying Indian penis size, condom suppliers will be able to better penetrate the Asian market, which may actually lead to safer sex and more flaccid population growth.

Then today, the NYTimes leads with this story about how circumcision HALVES a man's risk of contracting H.I.V. from heterosexual sex. HALVES. That's pretty significant. But I found this explanation of the phenomenon a little hard to swallow:

"Uncircumcised men are thought to be more susceptible because the underside of the foreskin is rich in Langerhans cells, sentinel cells of the immune system, which attach easily to the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS. The foreskin also often suffers small tears during intercourse."

Now, I'm no man, but already this article has mentioned 1. circumcision--the slicing off thing and 2. the foreskin-tearing-during-sex thing. I'm getting a little uncomfortable with all the ins and outs.

But then I see this:

"Circumcision is “not a magic bullet, but a potentially important intervention,” said Dr. Kevin M. De Cock, director of H.I.V./AIDS for the World Health Organization."

That is a direct quote. I did not change Dr.Kevin's name. Truly, there are forces operating in this universe which we do not understand. HOW could that be a coincidence? Unless the NYTimes is trying to stick it to us, of course.

If you've never conducted penis research yourself, I suggest you start here. Do you know what animal has the largest member in the world? Prepare to be disturbed yet strangely intrigued.

If you come across any other hard news stories about penises, be sure to shoot them my way.

Earthfart

2006-12-12T08:39:00.000-05:00

Waaay back, at the beginning of my blogventure, I was into film reviewing. I especially enjoyed viewing and reviewing crappy straight-to-tv movies about the potential destruction of the Earth, but I won't say no to a good classic craptacular like Red Sonja (starring Eyore Schwartzamuffin and Brigitte "Supermullet" Neilson).

I thought the ironically titled Descent, starring 90210's Dylan McKay, was the absolute worst move I'd ever seen...until last night, when my eyes actually began to melt as I beheld the smorgasbord of shite that was the opening "graphics" of Earthstorm, starring Stephen Baldwin--the creepy drinkin druggin whorin Baldwin brother. Oh wait, that's not really enough to go on, is it? He's the chubby one. Er, he's blonde?

I was immediately rivetted to my sofa cushion. How is this film crappy? Let me count the ways. It is crappy to the outer reaches of the solar system. Its crapiness can never be destroyed...only changed into a different form... It is the Event Horizon of crap. Nothing--not plot nor actor nor character development nor special effects; nay, nor light itself--can escape its crapitational pull.

Reviewing crap movies isn't as easy as you'd think. I know they seem an easy target, but there's always the question of where to begin? and what to include? That's just for your average shit heap. But something of this calibre...well, it's an issue of how to pare it down to a manageable 4,000 words, really...

Okay, that's enough preamble--here's the basic plot:

Asteroid hits moon. Moon is thrown off its orbit and starts to crack in half. Moon's orbit shift has devastating effects on Earth's weather, including like a really bad rainstorm in L.A. and lots of gratuitous satellite graphics of hurricanes. Massive moon-rock debris starts falling to Earth, thankfully in expendable cities like Baltimore.

Meanwhile, "John Redding" (Stephen Baldwhine), the world's leading building blower-upper, is somewhere in, oh God, I don't know, a Hollywood special effects lot for all they tell us, trying to demo a building. Except there's a hobo squatter inside disconnecting all the dynamite, see? So John runs in, rescues the hobo (who uncermoniously cracks him over the head with a bag of what looks like feathers but is supposed to be hammers or something hard)--thereby establishing his hero status.

Meanwhile, (it's a multifaceted plot) Dr. Candy Kane (or something like that) played by an actress not listed in any info I can find on the film--despite the fact that she's the female lead (probably had her name deliberately disassociated with the film)--is aahh...some kind of space rock scientist whose dead father PREDICTED THAT THIS WOULD HAPPEN. And died WITH NOBODY BELIEVING HIM. Even though HE WAS RIGHT, YOU KNOW. She traipses through the film scowling angrily and staring at his photo softly in turns, while throwing in the occasional bossy remark about how her father was right all along so they need to listen to her whinging. Oh, and she helps save the Earth from imminent doom.

And even more meanwhile still, cities around the world (well, okay, Detroit and Mexico City) are being levelled by falling moon detrius. Somebody has to stop this. People at the relevant government acronym, "ASI" for American Space Institute, are putting their coiffed and shellacked heads together to figure out a solution--because only the U.S. perspective is relevant in a civilization-ending event like the DESTRUCTION OF THE MOON.

There's a bad guy who hated Dr. Kane's dad and, illogically, acts as monkeywrench to all proposed solutions until finally someone decides to call "John Redding" (aka Billy, I mean Alec, I mean Stephen Bladderwin). See, they're going to get him to help them strategically blow up the big hole in the moon that's causing all these problems. Yeah, that should do 'er.

At first, the building demolition expert is just going to consult with them. But by the time I get back from loading the dishwasher, he's suiting up for a space shuttle tour of duty. That's right, he trained for space shuttle flight in the span of 10 minutes, or by my calculations, 5 hours in movie time. In mere moments, he'll be droppin' a sweet payload of pain on that old bitch.

After a bunch of snags, including a power outage at the film equivalent of NASA ("Someone get me a flashlight!"), the mission is successful. In the last scene, "John" randomly begins making out with Dr. Kane, I vomit violently, and ...fade to black.

When good ideas meet low budgets

The basic premise of Shitstorm is a good one. It's just so very sad that nobody saw its potential but a low-budget production company. Imagine what Will Smith and Roland Emmerich could have done with this one. I mean the Americanocentricity would still have been there, but they would have at least included a few shots of London and Tokyo being flattened by debris...

The dialogue was actually not bad in this film. The plot structure--well, you could see there was potential there, but all the good was edited out and we were left with a sort of Frankenstein Monster of story development. The acting wasn't complete poop, except the hobo, who was comically bad.

The special effects? Think Pong. I mean, if you're making a low-budget sci-fi flick, put all you've got into the effects. That's the money shot. But no, they pour the money into faked building demo scenes. Star Trek Voyager has better special effects. Gah...

I feel for the actors, the film crew, the director, the cities mentioned in this disaster, and the Moon. What did they do to deserve this? Mostly, though, I feel for the writer(s). If this is the best you can hope for when you pour your heart and soul into a screenplay...well, why bother? Like I said, the writing actually wasn't that bad.

More importantly, people should visit Stephen Baldwin's fan site, "formerly the Stephen Baldwin admiration circle." Oh man, that is some funny stuff.

I'm too tired to blog...here's some sexy pictures.

2006-11-28T16:07:00.000-05:00

Wah wah, I know. We've all been here. Stupid work getting in the way of blog writing.

So just to keep things fresh and alive! I refer you to my style blog, Stylaholic, which I actually updated today.

Men, don't let the 'style' word scare you: the post is about Bardot. As in Brigitte. As in the First Mover of Hotness.

Enjoy, and I'll get back to my blathering about stuff like this and that, and sometimes even this (OMG, who could've seen it coming? Colour me shocked.), very soon.

Mwah mes cheries! Enjoy!

Best wishes for a happy mutation

2006-11-21T12:57:00.000-05:00

“i miss you
but i haven't met you yet
so special
but it hasn't happened yet
you are gorgeous
but i haven't met you yet
i remember
but it hasn't happened yet”

-Bjork, “I Miss You”

Ladies and gentlemen, the Freaking Coolest Health Discovery of Our Lifetime has finally hit the newswires. That’s right, while you were laughing at Heather and Jessica’s witty lambaste of Beyonce’s bizarre Oprah show gown, people whose brains threaten to unbalance the polar axis were busy figuring out why you’re such a procrastinator.

Ah, there's nothing like a fresh new reason to abdicate personal responsibility. Epigenetics, people. Mark my words: it will change human life as we know it. Here's some reading material for you:

Laypeople

People comfortable with science and scientific terminology

Adult virgins who have developed their own coding language

Epigenetics really, really simplified

Your gassy digestive system? Blame it on your great-great-great grandfather-to-the-power-of-45 and his love of savana wheatsprouts. Your fear of kittens? Might be down to that time your great-great grandmother-to-the-power-of-38 moved the whole damn family to sabre-tooth tiger country. (What was she thinking?)

We all know that most of our physical traits are hardwired into us through our genes. Since the discovery of DNA, scientists have been looking at ‘inheritance’—how we inherit genetic traits from our parents—and how genes affect non-physical things like behaviour. It’s the old Psych 101 ‘nature versus nurture’ discussion.

Well, the braniacs have recently begun to understand that in fact nature and nurture are not mutually exclusive. There’s a meta-system, a chemical soup if you will, that switches genes off and on—not in the womb, but over the course of our lives. This is epigenetics. Epi: prefix, Greek, means "upon."

So?

This epigenetic system influences the very core of who you are, genetically. It decides to switch the genes you are made of on and off. If it switches off, say, your genetic predisposition to cancer…well, you’re laughing, aren’t you?

One of the coolest things about epigenetics is that it suggests that our day-to-day experience and living environment affect who we are at a genetic level, on an ongoing basis--not just when our parents were 'swapping chromosomes' thirty-some years ago (nudge nudge wink wink). Not only does it affect who we are genetically over time, but we then pass this genetic information on to our kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, etc, so they are literally genetic reflections of our lives and experiences.

Okay, maybe I'm taking this too far now, but consider this: Does a certain scent trigger an inexplicable sadness or joy in you? Maybe it’s the scent of the old country—a place you’ve never been and yet which your body remembers. Do particular sounds or images seem oddly familiar though you’ve never encountered them before? It’s not inconceivable that you are having a genetic memory of something that happened to somebody else. If true, that is freaking cool.

Healing, responsibility, blah, blah, blah

Epigenetics has the potential to completely change the way we treat disease. One Canadian researcher at the forefront of this branch of science started with the objective of understanding the genetic causes of cancer. God love CBC, they had a great radio spot on him this morning (The Currrent, with Anna Maria Tremonti). He talked about experiments he’s doing in the lab where he is successfully reversing cancer in rats. Reversing cancer.

If we understand the epigenetic system—the metadata and chemicals that switch genetic bits and bytes on or off—we have the potential to control our genome through drugs. (!) Behaviour modification for rapists, healing for the diseased: this could change everything. Of course, knowing humans, we’ll also be dealing with mail-order perfecto-babies and cloned soldier-slave drones, but silver linings, people, silver linings.

Ah but with deeper knowledge comes great responsibility, Danielsan. When we didn’t realize we had such a profound genetic impact on our great-great grandchildren, our guilt extended only to the trash-heap of a planet we’re leaving them. Now we know we’re also passing along our personal turmoil, suffering, and bad habits.

"This work is at the forefront of a paradigm shift in scientific thinking. It will change the way the causes of disease are viewed, as well as the importance of lifestyles and family relationships. What people do no longer just affects themselves, but can determine the health of their children and grandchildren in decades to come. "We are," as Marcus Pembrey says, "all guardians of our genome.""

Oh. My. God. I don't think I can handle that kind of pressure. And I don't even have kids yet.

But it also means that we make them better, healthier humans through our joys and our successes and our surprising capacity to be good to each other.

Ye Olde Me

2006-11-16T13:15:00.000-05:00

Hey you.

That’s right you, ya little whippersnapper....

...Let me tell ya something about ageing:

You know how you thought you’d be young forever? First person to hit 85 without a single wrinkle? "Kids? I’ll have ‘em later." Don’t like yer job? "I’ll just go back to school."

Bah!

You thought ageing was all….gradual-like…didn’t ya? Like, ya get a little older every day so nobody’ll notice—least of all you? A frog doesn’t notice when it’s being boiled alive, eh?

Well that’s all lies. LIES!

Aging is…er…quantum-like. You know what I mean by quantum, dontcha? One day you’re walking around like a strutty little peacock. Next day you get up from your chair and WHAM! your goddam foot falls off. Shatters into a thousand different pieces. For no good reason other than quantum ageing.

Nope, ageing is not a gradual thing. You never know what part’s gonna fall off or flatten out next. Pffffft! There go your butt cheeks. Paaaaaaahhhhst! There goes your face. Swwwivvvvfff! Your chin just sprouted pubic hair. POP! Looks like somebody needs bifocals.

So enjoy it while you’ve got it, cuz one day you’ll wake up and find your legs don’t want to straighten out and that ‘crick’ in your neck is actually your spine, permanently locked at a 47-degree angle.

I’m off to take some nudie pictures. My boobs aren’t scheduled to fall until June.

(Now go have some fun! While you can.)

This Just In: Men and Women? Totally Different.

2006-11-14T11:14:00.000-05:00

Ah those wacky gender biologists continue to issue forth new and exciting proclamations from betwixt their butt cheeks. Gems like this:

“Men need to take as good care of their bodies as they do of their cars and trucks, and they don’t.”

Got that, boys? Gotta get your sparkplugs jostled by your meat-cage technician once in a while. Open ‘er up, take a look under the hood. See if she needs a lighter-grade motor oil. That kinda thing.

According to the twelve thousandth NYTimes article on this topic, there's a big crisis now in men’s health. It's being ignored, you see. Cuz women are getting all the attention. Stoopid attention-stealing women.

That’s right: the mean fembot gender biologistas don’t want you to focus on men. NO. Don’t look over there. Don’t gaze at that male embryo and wonder why it’s much more likely to be miscarried. Eyes forward now. Stay focused on the pink ribbon.

And so the heroic men’s health researchers plod away in their secret laboratories, trying desperately to understand male health within the greater context of the overarching ‘norm’: women’s health.

Wait.

WTF?

Wasn’t it only 20 years ago that women’s health was a nonexistent research discipline? That women were diagnosed as an offshoot of exclusively male health research? And now we’ve gone so far over to the girl side that we can’t afford to care for the boys?

***

I don’t understand what the ‘issue’ is here. Is the NYTimes just obsessed with pitting the genders against each other, or is there a real problem?

More importantly, does this mean the future holds novels with titles like “How Archie Got His Moves Back” and “Grimey Secrets of the Ya-Ya Brotherhood”? I need to know: will this new matriarchy lead to phenomena like ‘dick lit?’ I need to know right now.

***

Of course we need to understand how to keep men alive longer. I mean, sometimes they give off odd odours, but we still love them after all.

But to understand how to keep them around, we need to understand why they die sooner and more easily:

“Even when men and women have the same disease, we often find that men are more likely to die..”

Now, what could be the reason that men die sooner? What. Ever. Could. It. Be? Could it be that they scoff when their wives try to get them to eat better? Drink their faces off with their playoff buddies? Throw themselves from airplanes for fun? Become stressed so easily that they’ve never put together a single IKEA item fully clothed?

“Behavior plays a role in some of the extra deaths and illnesses among men: they tend to be more aggressive than women and to take more risks. Men smoke at higher rates than women, drink more alcohol and are less likely to wear seat belts or use sunscreen. Men also suffer more accidental deaths and serious injuries and are more likely to die of injuries and car accidents. They are three times as likely to be victims of murder, four times as likely to commit suicide and, as teenagers, 11 times as likely to drown.”

Still…if only there was some way to figure out why men die earlier…

***

One of the things this new men’s health movement is focusing on is getting more men in the doctor’s office.

You men hate seeing doctors, don’t you? Which is why the secret men’s health researchers developed a Trojan horse of sorts:

“New drugs for erectile dysfunction have helped bring men into doctors’ offices in recent years, experts say…”

…But sadly, that hasn’t been enough. What could be the solution? A shift in perspective wherein men don’t favour their erections over, say, the pump that circulates blood through their body and brain so that they can continue to exist?

Nah. That’ll never work.

***

I don’t know what the solution is. Clearly, the psychologists aren’t going to be much help:

“Many psychologists think the problems are rooted in how boys are raised.”

Yawn. Call me when you are no longer a parody of yourself, psychological profession.

***

So what do you think the problem is? Why do men die earlier? Is it biology? Is it risk-taking?

Let me pre-empt one guaranteed response: We die earlier cuz we have to live with women. Guffaw guffaw.

But what will Rummy do next?

2006-11-09T11:55:00.000-05:00

Still in celebratory mode here at Whyioughtta...

And yet there's a small circle of doubt besmirchifying the hoo-ha-ha.

You have to wonder: what will Rummy do now? Will he find himself guest-starring on The Surreal Life? Will he start a journal?

June 1, 2007: Invaded (sigh)...the fridge.

Seriously, do we want to let this force loose on civilian society? What if it turns out we were safer when he was under the watchful eye of the media? Has anyone thought this through???

Hey hey hey goodbye

2006-11-08T15:01:00.000-05:00

Watch out...door don't...hitcha...ass...on way out...s'long...arrivaderchi...etc.

It's a good news kind of week.

Boo-yeah boo-hoo.

Buh-bye.

Gynotopia?

2006-10-31T15:35:00.000-05:00

My Pay-triarchy post raised the question of what a matriarchal society might look like.

It’s easy to blame men for having screwed everything up and gotten us to this desperate point. You know, the point where the planet is a drained, dying, overheated turd trying furiously to eject us from its rancid longsuffering surface...

…After all, the men were the ones in charge, right? And with great power comes great potential for abysmal failure.

But I suspect that rule applies no matter who’s at the helm. So along those lines, here are just a few theories on what the world would be like if women had ruled history instead of men:

On statehood

Assuming there were still 6 billion of us (unlikely since birth control would probably have been invented about 10,000 years ago), and assuming the sexes were still roughly equal in number, I'd say there would be approximately 3 million separate countries in the world: one per woman. We're territorial like that.

Another way of saying that is that there probably wouldn’t be a concept of “country” like we have now. My theory on this is quite simple: the distinctly patriarchal concept of land ownership arises from a male genetic imperative to stake ownership claims, resulting from the ambiguity of biological fatherhood.

Easy-peasy.

On war

This one really is simple: we wouldn’t have had the “Cold War,” we would have had the “Cold Shoulder War,” or possibly the “Icy Stare War.” All wars would be chilly, snippy, and protracted, with little or no bloodshed (we shed enough blood monthly, thank-you-very-much) but lots of hurt feelings on all sides.

On religion

The facile answer would be to say that we’d all worship a sparkly unicorn goddess of rainbows and harmonious lovey-dovity.

This one’s hardest of all to guess at…most major patriarchal religions have a secret team of professionals working around the clock to figure out new ways to subjugate women. (You didn't hear that from me.) It’s really hard to say whether that would simply be inverted in a matriarchal culture, or whether there’s some mitigating factor in our biology or natural…inclinations?...that would make a female religion different (read: I'm copping out of this one). I’ll have to ~~plagiarise~~ check out what E.O. Wilson thinks of that…

On technology

This is another tough one. Behind every great invention, there’s a wife nagging her husband to just make me a machine that sucks up dirt already! But admittedly it has been the men who have done the grunt work. And, okay, the thinking work too. We’re the visionaries, they’re the realizers. Okay, okay, they can be the visionaries too. But without women washing their dirty underwear and taking care of their damn kids, men wouldn't have had the luxury of time in which to do all that visualizing and realizing.

So I guess as the rulers of the world, we could’ve commanded the men to invent washing machines and microwaves shortly after Washington’s fortunate tangle with a lightning bolt.

But my theory is that the structure of society would be so different that the everyday life tasks--domesticity, if you will--that drive invention would be organized in a radically different way, so many of the inventions we’d need and use would be entirely different.

On society

Here's one for ya: I bet if women ruled, there would be no separate public and domestic realms.

I’m pretty convinced about this. The public and private worlds--like the world of family and the world of business, for example--would have been unified throughout history. My proof is that this is exactly what has happened since the sexual revolution in the latter part of this century; you know, since the pendulum started swinging for Gynotopia.

Don’t agree? Well, see “On war” above for my thoughts on that. Hmmph.

Pay-triarchy

2006-10-30T08:50:00.000-05:00

Look down. Are there a pair of bumps obscuring your view of your lap? Then guess what? YOU are the new boss of everything, jefe. It’s official: the pendulum has swung.

“‘We are perhaps on the first step to a matriarchal society; women will earn more money than men if current trends continue by 2028,” said Michael J. Silverstein of the Boston Consulting Group. “The trend has been escalating in the last 10 years as there has been a gradual, slow erosion of the power balance in the family, a psychic rebalancing.’” [From NYTimes.com, October 30, 2006, article by Mickey Meese, “What Do Women Want? Just Ask”]

It’s confusing at the top
Fellow power-mongerettes, how do we feel about this? As Meese points out, as recently as 25 years ago, our mothers would have needed our father’s (or uncle’s, or grandfather’s) signature to get a loan from a bank. I’m part of the first generation of women that finds this unthinkable. The idea that women had so little economic heft that even North American females (supposedly the most radical of ‘em all), even after the sexual revolution and women’s lib, had banks laughing in their faces in 1980: can hardly wrap my brain around it.

Does this mean that we’re on the road to a “matriarchal society,” though? Before you answer that, consider the source of our newfound power: $$$$. Or more specifically, the fact that we spend our $$$$ like crazy people. Are we marketers’ targets or Pocketbook Warriors? It’s hard to tell. I quote the NYTimes article because it drew my attention this morning, but we’ve seen this story a lot lately: women control most of the spending in the first world today, blah, blah, blah. Women will only go on to control more of it in the years to come, blah, blah, blah. So corporations are learning to cater to us, blah, blah, blah.

That’s all good, I guess, because it means that in a way, women are now the designers of a subset of products, which means we’ll have products that work for us. And not just traditional domestic products, but, like, tools and cars and stuff that you normally need testicles to buy.

On the other hand, I’m not totally comfortable with the idea that my empowerment in our larger society comes from my money. Nor am I comfortable with the "psychic rebalancing" of the family being described as an "erosion" just because we're no longer Dobby the House Elf.

My empowerment in my relationships with the men I know doesn’t come from that; it comes from them having been raised by a generation of mothers that views women as men’s equals, and raises their sons accordingly. It comes from the guys I know having the empathy and common sense to realize that I’m not inferior because I lack gonads. In my private life, my equality doesn’t come from money, it just comes from…well, the fact of my equality. Why not so in our public lives?

Snake-charming
Another thing I’m really uncomfortable with is the marketers. They say we spend our money based on “emotions, coupled with facts”—the implication being that men buy based on fact alone. I really resent that. I think there’s a subset of purchase types that we all make based on emotion, and another we all make based on fact. I don’t buy a hammer based on emotion, for example. Hell, I don’t even buy maxi pads that way. I buy jewellery based on emotion; that I admit. But my husband buys hockey equipment on the same basis. Shopping is infused with emotion for all humans—it’s some evolutionary throwback to a time when we used to consider a dead log filled with grubs a jackpot. Mmmm…big fat grubbies, just lying there in an old dead tree trunk waiting to be eaten. Mmmmm….

If advertisers and corporations really want to know what women want, they should realise this: we don’t like to be manipulated. If you read the NYTimes article, you’ll see there’s a very fine line between “involving women in product design” and “emotionally manipulating women to compel them to spend.” (Like that creepy Crave Parties thing…ick.)

The era of the third option
So what does it all mean to women’s “power”? Personally, I’d like to see a general swing away from dialectics. You know: the idea that something can ONLY be either A (e.g. patriarchy) or B (matriarchy). If our society just swings over to matriarchy, we run the risk of repeating the errors of our patriarchal past. In a dialectic, there’s always a winner and a loser.

As a woman, I don’t want my gender's power to come at the expense of men, boys, or anyone. As the new Mistresses of the Universe, I guess we need to be careful about that. It's all about Door #3. There must be a way we can all win.

I called it

2006-10-30T08:24:00.000-05:00

Damn Google.

As predicted.

Damn them again. Damn them to heck. In fact, damn all corporations taking away the lawless freedom of the Internet.

The violet nature of life and death

2006-10-24T16:16:00.000-04:00

The view from my bedroom window is like a perfectly framed abstract painting that's always changing. All year, I watch the capricious scene from my pillow: green leaves against steely bark against cobalt sky; red leaves against black bark against tangerine sky; no leaves against snowy bark against grey sky.

The leaves are yellow now, nearly white. Lately I’ve found myself wondering: why are those yellow leaves so gorgeous against the bark and the sky today? And one day it hit me: because at this time of year, the backdrop of everything is violet.

I’ve taken some painting classes. I’m a lover of art. I know a little about colour theory. Yellow and violet are complementary, sitting on opposite sides of the colour wheel. That means they set each other off, and their union is interesting to the eye.

I’ve been thinking a lot about violet lately.

Colours are wavelengths of light. Colours are mixes of other, more elementary things. Light is a wave and a particle. Colours are like music made of particles either hitting the same note or harmonizing.

Around here, painters can’t wait to paint autumn in orange-yellow-red. But if they stuck around after the light show is over, they’d see: the real colour of autumn is violet in all its infinite shades.

After four years of daily bush walks, I believe the world is always trying to send us little messages. But you have to be very quiet and keep a look out. I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen in love with the stories left by wild, finite natural events: leaves layered like stained glass after a big storm, moss and mud and sticks on the wet forest bottom, massive slabs of granite dragged along in the slow moraine of glaciers. Every day I walk, every day I look up from my pillow, every day it’s all completely new.

And yet I feel like there’s so much I’m missing. Like how I missed violet for so long. The yellow leaves are a message the world wants someone to see: life and death have colours of their own, and colours have cycles, and everything’s in a cycle, and it’s all perfectly…perfect. Now I see the violet everywhere. This is its season, when the parts sacrifice themselves so that the whole can live on.

When leaves die, they explode into colour then fade to violet, and—eventually—to brown, which is simply the melding of complementary colours.

When we die, our bodies turn violet. Not grey, like they show in the movies. Or at least I can’t see how that could be: we have no black or white in us, but we’re full of blue and red. When I think about that, and I think about how everything in the forest does it too, I find it very comforting. And a part of me that understands that I really understand almost nothing beyond the tip of my nose wonders: What about that other part of us, the part they say lives on beyond our bodies? Is it real? If so, I think it must be violet. And when we die it has nowhere to go but up the spectrum, to ultraviolet. And that's a very cool thought.

Bill Gates: your world domination remains safe...God: yours, not so much.

2006-10-13T15:57:00.000-04:00

I'm not always the most freshly sharpened crayon in the pack. I like to kid myself that once in a while I have a wee fartlike brainwave. But let's face it, the average four year-old knows more about technology than I do.

So I've been puzzling over this invention. It's a USB memory-stick that has a program that lets you turn any computer into a phone.

My tiny little brain is convulsing. How is it more convenient to turn a computer into a phone than to carry a cellphone around with you?

Wouldn't you have to search around for a free computer, or power up your iBook or whatever, plug in the VoiceStick, click whatever buttons make the program run, and then...call the person? How is this easier than pulling a cell phone out of your pocket and dialing the number? I'm counting 5 steps in the VoiceStick scenario and 2 in the cellphone one.

Some of you are S-M-R-T in the technical realm. Please, do share. (Gizzy?)

But speaking as a technical lay-person, you know what I'd like someone to invent? Some kind of super-secure, encrypted widget or gadget or magic or programy-type-thing that stores all of your passwords for all of the million things online that we need to enter passwords for, and magically beams them to the 'password' field for us. This 'widget' used to be called 'the human memory,' but that's shot now. Because if you're a careful, mildly paranoid person like me, you have many password-login ID combinations that you use just in case Someone Discovers One of Them. The downside of this is that it's taxing to keep track of all the damn password combinations.

While we're at it, why not make the widget a storage device for all essential secret information that you may forget at some point, like your credit card number or the access code for your Swiss bank account? It would have to self-destruct the moment someone, I don't know, tried to hack it or something. Shit. Does that mean you'd need a password to access your password widget? Well, I guess one password is better than 50. Or maybe it could work by retinal scanner...

And I think I want this widget to also be a phone. Not a VoiceStick phone, but a tiny little phone that works by voice commands or possibly body movement so it doesn't need a number pad. I either say the phone number I want it to dial, or the name of the person, or I move my fingers like I'm typing on an imaginary number pad, and it dials for me.

So we might as well make it a computer too. I want it to store all of the miscellaneous non-essential information I need to access on a regular basis: my schedule, my to do list, people's phone numbers, the contents of my fridge (which my husband seems to think I have a mental inventory of, but I don't, honey-poo, so you'll have to move stuff around instead of yelling "don't we have any mustard?!"), a list of all possible wardrobe combinations in my closet (including accessories), an update on my eBay bidding status, and, uh, birthdays and stuff like that. I want to just be able to talk to my widget and tell it what I need, and it be smart enough to get it to me.

In which case, we might as well wire the sucker directly to my body. I was thinking maybe they ("They"....ooooo....the ubiquitous They) could package it as an attractive piece of jewellery, such as a bracelet or a ring. But why postpone the inevitable? Just hook it right up to me, somewhere indiscreet like behind my left ear or under my index fingernail.

Eventually, this widget could learn and think and develop its own identity. Artificial intelligence is just around the corner, people (or already here if you count George Bush...bump-ba-DUM!).

My widget could very well be the most useful and important invention in the history of...everything. It could help me think and learn, and it could scan my body and let me know if I have a virus by triggering excess mucous production. It could indicate to me that I was nervous by causing me to perspire heavily from my hands and feet. It could trigger emotional responses to external stimuli. It could send messages to my limbs to help me move my body. It could get all fuzzy when I'm drunk and make me think I'm a really good singer.

Wouldn't my widget be amazing?

Well, we can always dream.

So much for my endless hours of Daily Show reruns...

2006-10-10T17:03:00.000-04:00

Sorry I've been AWOL lately...my phone was down, my internet was down. And it's all down to B-E-L-L, a company I am quickly growing to H-A-T-E.

But I foregress...What I really wanted to talk about was the big news for the two kids who founded YouTube: Google liked it so much they bought the company. For 1.65 B-I-L-L-I-O-N dollars.

$1,650,000,000.00.

Would you like to deposit that in your chequing account, or savings?

That's. That's. That's ...an unfigureoutable amount of money.

I'm happy for them; by all accounts they'd never have gotten laid otherwise. (But really, who needs sex when you have YouTube?). But I'm worrified. Will my endless supply of 80s-era Madonna t.v. appearances and Daily Show re-runs be cut off? Worse, will I have to pay to play? God damn the capitalists. Damn them all to Murgetroid.

Read about it here, if you dare.

As a side note, the NYTimes is raising the image/spectre of the 'dot-com boom,' saying this whole transaction is distinctly late 90s-ish. That's a scarifying thought, if one recalls what happened with the dot-com boom (hint: it sounded like 'BOOM! You have no more money!') Gross exaggeration or prescient insight? I guess we'll have to wait and see....

Dead Story Walking

2006-09-26T20:29:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I had this idea the other day.

What if I were to write a short story, post it online, and then try to change only one word a day until all the words were changed and I had a whole new story?

Could it be done?

Could I keep the writing coherent through all the changes?

At what point in the process would my original story die and the new one come to life?

So I've decided to give it a try.

There are ground rules and stuff--you can read it after the jump. So far so good: I'm at Day 2 and it's still making sense.

Maybe the experiment will just result in a very long game of 'telephone' and a piece of barely comprehesible writing. Or maybe it will turn out something cool. We'll have to wait and see.

For the Swearing Lady

2006-09-26T13:09:00.000-04:00

happy muthaf&^*ing halloween (almost)....

(no, it's not my pumpkin)

Why aren't you naked and living in a cardboard box?*

2006-09-20T14:09:00.000-04:00

(*Disregard if you are naked or reside in a paper cube.)

Are you a person of style? How much does style matter to you?

For whom do you dress? The opposite sex? (Be honest!) Yourself? Your boss? Zoroaster? Satan? (Disregard if your boss is Satan.)(Or Zoroaster.)

Is your sense of style and decor pretty much consistent or does it change from day to day?

What are the categories of style? (Trendy, classic, sporty, punk, retro, hippy, none...others?) Which category are you in and why? Early childhood trauma? Clean laundry? Discomfort with your birth gender? A pathological need for attention?

Do you think? If so, do you think about style much? What percentage of your brain does style occupy?

Does it take you more than 5 minutes to pick an outfit or a decor item?

How do you justify your materialism, Clothesy Clotheshorse?

(P.S....I don't justify mine: I write about it.)

The Highly Bearable Fetteredness of Being

2006-09-12T13:54:00.000-04:00

A not particularly imaginative allegory-type-whatsit about this, that, and the other thing.

A young woman was enjoying her third day of a solitary hike through the vast rainforests of the Amazon basin. Lined with thick tree roots and scattered with loose stones, the overgrown trail widened broadly in places and narrowed to only a few inches in others. Above her, the dense canopy of trees filtered the harsh tropical sun, but did little to fend off the stifling humidity.

Gnats, mosquitoes, and large stinging things battered relentlessly at her sweat-drenched face. Spiders ambled across her heavy backpack and skittered up the back of her aching neck. But she didn’t care. She felt great. She was doing this, on her own, surviving by her own strength, pressing on despite her pain and discomfort and the voice in her head that told her to turn around and get her ass home. She felt completely free, like she was the only person on Earth.

After wandering for hours along the endless path, she glimpsed golden sunlight up ahead breaking through the thick ceiling of leaves . The light seemed to focus and condense itself on one particularly elegant Kapok tree at the edge of a small clearing. The effect was mesmerising; she felt herself pulled to that beautiful tree, which stood about one hundred metres from the trail.

Her amazement at the quality of light turned to pale shock when she saw that there was a man sitting at the base of the Kapok tree. He was very white, and completely naked except for a pair of dirty and tattered shorts. His hands were bound behind his back and he was blindfolded, but there was no mistaking the look on his face: pure ecstasy.

‘Oh my god, let me help you,’ the woman gasped, finally gaining control of herself and running up to the man. ‘What happened? Who did this to you?’ She crouched beside him and shrugged off her pack.

The man’s odd smile broadened at the sound of her voice and he turned his face in her direction. The movement made the light around his face shimmer disarmingly; for the first time, the woman wondered if she were dreaming.

‘My brother did this,’ was his reply.

‘Your br…but why??’ she whispered in return, ‘Here, let me take off that blindfold…’

The man’s smile quickly disappeared.

‘No!’ he boomed. ‘Don’t touch that. I finally have my freedom; I won’t have it taken away by you!’

The woman recoiled at this harsh rejoinder. ‘Fff…freedom?’ she questioned, very quietly. ‘But it looks like you need help. I don’t understand.’

‘No,’ he replied, ‘I don’t imagine you do.’ And then he was quiet again.

‘Care to…explain it to me?’ she answered back, slowly standing and backing away from him. Somewhere deep inside, she felt the faint stirrings of anger. Who the hell was this guy, what the hell was going on, and why did she feel like he was judging her in some way she didn’t understand?

‘You said your brother did this to you…’ she prompted. The man remained impassive.

She tried again. ‘How long have you been here?’ No answer. ‘Where is your brother now?’

At this, he smiled even more broadly. ‘Why, he’s just over there,’ he replied, nodding directly ahead and loudly adding, ‘the fool.’

The woman heard a bitter grunt behind her. She spun on her heels to face another man with bound hands, evidently this man’s twin brother, sitting at the base of a second Kapok only a few metres away. The second man’s eyes were not blindfolded; instead, his chest was tightly wrapped in black rope.

He hadn’t been there before.

As she felt the strength drain from her legs, she sank to her knees between the two trees.

‘What the hell is this?’ she wondered out loud, looking from the first man to the second and back again. ‘We’re in the middle of the goddamn rainforest. I mean, I’ve been walking for days. How long have you two been here? WHY are you here? It couldn’t have been either of you who did this—both of you are tied up.’

The men didn’t answer.

‘What’s going on?’ she repeated quietly.

Finally the second brother cleared his throat. ‘I think a better question is why are you here?’ he asked. She looked at him with clear puzzlement, so he pressed on. ‘I mean to say, how is it that a woman is out alone in the middle of the forest, by herself with no companion? I’ve never seen anything like it.’ He ended with a tinge of disapproval.

Confused by the man’s tone and the odd change of subject, the woman shook her head and said, ‘I…I’m out here on a hiking expedition…it’s something I’ve wanted to do forever…’ she trailed off, unsure why she was even answering him.

‘But why?’ asked the man, openly scorning her now. ‘Why in the world would you want to be here, with the bugs and the snakes and the many other killing dangers, when you should be at home with your family, taking care of your children or, if you have none, of your nieces and nephews?’ With this he raised his eyebrows meaningfully, like a teacher reprimanding a naughty pupil.

The woman could only stare at him, her mouth agape. ‘My children?’ she finally managed, ‘Nieces and nephews?’

She pushed herself to her feet once again and quickly collected her knapsack. Her pack back on, she stood between the strange men. ‘You two are clearly nuts,’ she announced. ‘Obviously, you want to be here, so I’ll be on my way. Do you want me to mention that you’re out here when I get to the next village? Maybe the villagers will send someone, if that’s what you want.’

Both men turned away as though she hadn’t even spoken. ‘Fine,’ she said, and started back to the trail.

She heard one of the men stir behind her, then say matter-of-factly, ‘You can walk all the forests of all the worlds, but you will never know freedom, woman.’ She knew, somehow, that it was the first man who had said it.

‘Leave her,’ came the voice of the second brother. ‘Clearly, she’s more of a fool than even you are.’

At this, the small serpent of anger that had been wending its way through her belly unleashed itself. She stopped, shaking, and turned to face the brothers. ‘You loony old bastards!’ she bellowed, ‘How dare you?’ As though cowering at her rage, the sky grew dim above her.

‘Me? A fool? Ha…Yes. Driven crazy by grief, perhaps, for the heartless murder of my children,’ said the first brother. The woman stopped in her tracks, thrown off by the strange non-sequitur.

‘Your children?’ she asked. ‘What?’

‘You cry for your murdered children, brother, and I’ll cry for mine,’ shouted the second brother. ‘True, your ways were less…straightforward…than mine. But the result was the same, was it not?’

The woman was now completely baffled. Just as she was about to storm over and demand they apologize to her, the first brother let out an ungodly howl.

‘The result the same!?’ he screeched. ‘I acted in self-defence. Your children stormed my home, murdered my family, stole my money, and laughed in my face. What was I supposed to do, turn the other cheek?’

‘Isn’t that your very creed, fool?’ sneered the second brother. ‘Anyways, what does it matter now? They’re all dead. And death is glory. Except in the case of your murdering children.’

The woman was growing more confused by the moment. ‘But why?’ she hollered. ‘Why did your children murder his family and he murder yours? Why did this all start?’

At this both men finally acknowledged her presence. ‘Why?’ mocked the second brother in a high-pitched voice. ‘Why? Why? Why? This is the question of the weak and the feeble-minded,’ he scowled. To this his brother added, ‘Anyway, isn’t it obvious? We kill because they killed first.’ They looked at each other and nodded in agreement.

‘But…’ began the woman weakly, ‘…that doesn’t make sense…’ She was cut off by brother number one.

‘…In any case, nothing matters but this: the victory is mine,’ continued the first brother, his face glowing in triumph.

‘Ha!’ yelped brother number two, ‘You are more of an ass than I thought, you ignorant fool. Can’t you see that you are bound and trapped? You cannot escape the depths of your own evil.’

‘My evil?’ shot back the first brother. ‘I sit here in freedom while your heartless breast is held together by the dark ignorant bonds of your own hate. I will live in eternal glory while your damned soul sloshes about in the shit of dinosaurs and Neanderthals and…and other fictional beasts,’ he stammered, seemingly unable to think of other fictional beasts to add to his list.

‘Unicorns?’ offered his brother.

‘Idiot. Unicorns are not fictional beasts,’ came the reply. ‘You will wallow in the offal of imaginary beasts until the great holy boot finally crushes you into oblivion.’

The woman was utterly baffled.

‘No!’ shouted the second brother in return. ‘I will swim in the sweet meat of God’s own mangoes, suckling heaven’s honey from enormous womanless breasts and lolling about on an infinite hammock of peace!’

The woman put her hands on her hips and rolled her eyes.

‘You, on the other hand, will simply be dead,’ continued brother number two. ‘Dead, gone, forgotten, as though you never were.’

‘Okay,’ interrupted the woman. ‘This is getting ridiculous. Who are you two crackpots and why are you here, interrupting my lifelong dream with your childish ranting?’

At this the first brother clambered to his feet, taking a stern step toward her. She hadn’t realized how very tall he was. He moved confidently despite his bonds.

‘Woman,’ he boomed, his voice strangely amplified in the now-silent forest. The sky grew darker still and a hot, wet wind lifted her hair from her shoulders. ‘You just don’t see, do you? I am blindfolded, but I see more clearly than you ever will. It’s true, my brother and I are bound. We have chosen this captivity for thousands of years. But still we have more freedom than you will ever know. Because in our bondage, we have been made free.’

She fell back, astonished by his utter ~~malarkey~~ conviction.

‘It is true that my brother and I hate each other,’ the man continued. ‘But for you we reserve a worse fate than hate. To us, you hardly even exist. You’re just a stupid, stupid creature with no soul. Here for our use, to help us along the path or leave us, as we decide. If you had any sense, you would hang yourself from this tree, for death is the only freedom from your fate.’

‘But you said I have no soul,’ replied the woman slowly, a strange new strength rising in her heart. ‘So how would death be freedom for me?’

‘Freedom from being an abomination,’ he replied, and sat back down.

‘You’re right brother,’ began the second brother. ‘But you too are an abomination. You’re such a fool that you can’t even see your own bonds.’

‘Oh I see my bonds,’ the first man responded. ‘But my bonds don’t matter. It’s more satisfying to see yours. I will lie here for a thousand years watching you suffer, and after that, a thousand more.’

As the hot wind howled and the trees shook around them, the brothers continued to argue. The woman shifted her pack and prepared to leave. She realized that nothing she said to these brothers mattered. But what they said to her, and about her, mattered even less.

She turned and headed for her wild trail, stopping only once, to tighten her bootlaces.

Fettered or unfettered?

2006-09-07T11:02:00.000-04:00

I'll just be here writing this article on hedge funds while you think about that.

Addiction: the new beauty must-have?

2006-08-31T15:51:00.001-04:00

Been reading biographies of famous stylistas lately. Empress Eugenie (oh, just go Wikipedia it already), Marlene Dietrich, Jackie Kennedy, Wallis Spencer, Elinor Glyn: drooling spendaholics, every one. Carine Roitfeld, the gut-wrenchingly chic editor-in-chef of French Vogue? Takes Lexomyl (a tranquilizer) every day to stay calm. Diana Vreeland, the eccentricly fabulous editor-in-chief of American Vogue in the 50s and 60s? Doffed two slugs of scotch each morning to brace herself for the day ahead. Anna Wintour, present e-i-c of same publication? Feasts nightly on the still-living flesh of in-utero lambs, if you believe the hype.

Lindsay Lohan, Kate Moss, the list of fabulous women of style who ALLEGEDLY get shit-faced daily goes on and on.

Question: is there a link here somewhere? Does addiction and/or regular consumption of narcotics have some kind of causal correlation to style and success? Is booze the new Botox? Is heavy-liddedness the new eye-lift? Is unconsciousness the new fountain of youth? Yes please.

What is it that links sartorialism, success, and smashed-facedness?

S.O.S: September edition of Vogue has fallen on me....Send help. Pinned somewhere around page 244....

2006-08-27T17:26:00.000-04:00

...This will be a short post. After several hours of endless flipping, I've reached page 244 of the Vogue Fall Fashion EXTRAVAGANZA (yes, broke down and bought Vogue despite earlier rantings against it. For God's sake, Kirsten Dunst is on the cover as Marie Antoinette...two of my favourite fashionistas in one...so cut me some slack.)

Ow. That's about all I can type. My right hand is completely cramped from page turning. My mind is reeling with the combined pressure of approximately 237 advertising images. I think there was an article in there somewhere, but I'm not sure...Make the skinny models stop staring disdainfully into my over-fed soul. They will haunt my dreams forever.

And please, somebody help me find the article on DRAMATIC NEW SILHOUETTES. I must decode fashion's fresh shapes immediately or I may die...

Since muthaf*&^ing IS the new wazzaaaaahhhp...

2006-08-24T14:53:00.000-04:00

(Writing about other blogs' cleverness = not having to be clever myself. I think I'm on to something...)

Time to give my new blogger friends some love. Check out 'friends' additions to the right. No, not down there. Up there. Yes, that's right.

If you enjoyed Samuel L. Jackson's recent addition to the cultural lexicon, as presented in film's greatest achievement to date, [Muthaf&^%ing] Snakes on a [Muthaf&^%ing] Plane, then you will adore one of my new favourite blogs, Arse End of Ireland. Here there don't be snakes (they were driven hence by old St. Paddy many a year ago), but there sure do be a lot of muthaf&^%in. In word only, cheeky monkeys. Seriously, The Swearing Lady is seriously funny. And a honking good writer. Give her some love ya tossers! (I have no idea what that means, but it sure feels good writing it).

Veering from my Irish Canadian ethnocentricity now, I'd also like to introduce you to American blogger Malnurtured Snay. Again, a most humourous blogger with excellent writing skills who says it like it is, only funnier. And, uh, I think he's just kidding about the guns. I'd also like to point out he's the first person I've ever come across who had exactly the same reaction I did to Anne Proulx's writing style (choppy indeed) in The Shipping News.

If you ever need to know anything about the many other uses of Cadbury Cream Eggs, the best way to smear protein on your face (passing out in a plate of cheese nachos), or filtering smog with enzymes, you must check out my new Canadian blog acquaintance, Molecular Turtle. He's taking the, er, "mistry" out of "chemistry," one blog post at a time. (Sorry...it was the best I could come up with.)

Check out the other wonderful old friends as well. There's lots of humour and great writing to go around on ye olde Internet. I'll add new friends as I find 'em.

And check out my band's blog when ya get a minute. These songs are golden oldies...but we're coming out with a new album next month. Also, mine's the blue-clad butt in the canoe. And I'm also the girl in the red dress (No, not up there. Down there. Farther. Yes, there I am.)

Bwahahahahaha...

2006-08-24T14:37:00.000-04:00

Found this link on Gawker.

BWAhahahahahahahaaaa....ohhh...mmmmy....gggawd....
hahahahahahahaha...rrrrride your way ttto...fffittness...

....ha! hahahahahaha!!!

Oh, man. Laughter is the BEST workout.

p.s. Don't forget to watch the video--you've got to 'see the iGallop in action'!!!!! You've simply GOT to.

Mars, stars taken down a peg

2006-08-23T08:26:00.001-04:00

In my calendar for August 27, 2006 you will find the following entry:

MARS day!!!!

Four exclamation marks. Four. That's how excited I was when I wrote it. I'm a big fan of outer space and physics and particles and planets. I think they're all good ideas; we should keep them around. So when I heard that Mars was going to come close to Earth on August 27--so close, in fact, that it would "appear to be the same size as the moon"--I nearly choked on my coffee and toast in excitement.

And then this morning, I'm getting ready to write a post informing both of my readers about the big Mars event. And I do a little extra digging online--trying to find information about it on, say, Discovery.com--and I discover that it's all a hoax. A pox upon the twit responsible for this hideous deception.

I was depressed about Mars' no-show until I read this. Seems that Hollywood is taking uber-divas like Cruise and Gibson and Lohan down a few notches. Let the car-wreck unfold.

Paramount has bitch-slapped Cruise into a pouty public 'You're fired! You can't fire me, I quit!! You're FIRED!!! No, I QUIT!!!!' match. Heh heh. Ever since the couch-leaping and Brooke-bashing episodes of late '05, I've been waiting for this.

And ABC cancelled a mini-series created by Gibson the Drunken Anti-Semite...on the...snnnnicker...on the...mmmmhhhhahahaha...sorry...I can barely get it out....mmmmmphhhhh....on the Holocaust! Can you believe a man that spewed anti-Jewish comments in a drunken rant had all along been preparing a mini-series on the Holocaust? Oh, Mel...how you amuse me.

And then there's Lindsay Lohan, my favourite fellow redhead (or as we prefer, 'firecrotch') to whom a production company 'wrote a scathing letter' for her diva-like behaviour. A scathing letter? Couldn't they have thought of something a little more ... dramatic and fun for celebrity voyeurs like me? I mean, what's next? Are they gonna take away her clothing allowance for the month? Make her eat her vegetables?

Now please take a few moments to appreciate the artistry of my graphic above. I've named this piece "Cruisiverse."

Have a nice day.

For this I leave the cottage?

2006-08-16T12:41:00.000-04:00

Here's the most offensive thing you'll read this week, if you're a woman. Or an enlightened man (tread verrrry carefully, menfolk).

I am supposed to be at the cottage with Husband and Dog right now, but had to come back because there's no such thing as a week off if you work for yourself. And as I was flipping through my various, uh, news sources and reports, I found this article from that deeply feminist, woman-loving magazine, Details.

Reading this particular Pulitzer prospect, I was especially impressed with the 'pig's ass' image they use to graphically represent curvy women. They're praising women with curves, see? But they don't want those curvy ladies to rise too far above their station as man-meat, see? Don't want them to think they deserve stuff like self-respect or they may stop wanting to be oggle-bots and bristle at the thought of being compared to farm chattel, see? So Details wisely portrays these women through the cute image of a pig in glittery heels, see?

When you click on the slide show--and you absolutely MUST click on it to see who Details rates as a pig (pig in the good sense, silly!)--note the little bar at the bottom of your browser screen. The one that tells you what data you're looking at? This lovely little presentation of some of the century's most beautiful women--and Miss Piggy (no, that's not a joke)--is entitled 072006FATTIES.

Fat: it's the new hot. And that's how Details likes its man-meat.

Sniff...our little girl's all grown up...

2006-08-11T10:46:00.000-04:00

Big news on the Whyioughtta family front. BIG news.

My sister bought her first dress.

I haven't seen it, and I don't think it's vintage, but it was a dress, dammit--a real goshdarn dress. With a bodice and a skirt and sleeves and everything. Even kind of sheer on top, she said.

The momentousness of this event becomes clearer when you realize that Sister is in her early 30s.

Since the age of twelve, my sister has worn a dress approximately 4 times. These included her own graduation, Halloween (oh wait, no...it was her boyfriend who wore the dress that time), a Vancouver gay pride parade, and my wedding. She bought none of them--all were made or donated.

It's not that she doesn't have style. She does. In fact, she's got great taste and she's very discerning about clothes. Her tastes fall mostly on the goth/punk side, and there's a lot of black, but she has principles and a great eye for fit. She also rarely--almost never--wears makeup. And she's one of those haltingly beautiful people who doesn't need embellishment. But she told me [biting knuckle, fending off tears as I write this] she wore "a little eye makeup" with the new dress. Choke...makes me so proud.

Ever since that summer when she refused to wear anything but tap shoes and a t-shirt that said 'Future Fox,' we've all been a little nervous about what the future held for Sister. But now I can breathe a quiet sigh of relief. Maybe a smidge of my uber-girly influence has sunk in.

Sister is getting married this fall, and we're all headed off to the Dominican Republic for that one. I'm not holding out any hopes for a flowy, beachy white wedding gown--that's not Sister's style. But then again....apparently anything is possible.

Here's to sisters.

Is nothing sacred?

2006-08-10T12:22:00.000-04:00

Sighhhhhhhhhh...

I started writing about this vicious attack against Muslims I heard on our local right-wing radio call-in show this morning...you know, in the wake of the London airplane plot. And trust me, I made some brilliant...brill-y-ant...points about tolerance and understanding and the values fundamental to this pluralistic nirvana we call Canada.

But it was all getting too heavy, so I deleted it and went to my happy place: NYT Thursday Styles.

Where I read this.

My happy place let me down. As they say: where's our world going and what's with this handbasket?

What's really bugging us?

2006-08-09T14:06:00.000-04:00

The discussion of insects has taken an unexpected turn to bugbears and bugaboos and general broodishness.

When I hit my, ahem, early 30s (which I'm technically still in), my brooding accelerated rapidly. In fact, you might say I spawned quite a brood of bugaboos. I chalked that up to shitty managers and a job I hated and some so-so friends who listed to the far right of true friendship at times. So I decided to make a run for it, become an entrepreneur, and flee to the hills. No more idiot bosses, no more office politics, vastly simplified relationships via the replacement of people with trees and birds and dogs.

Still I brooded. As someone said (I'm too lazy to look it up on Wikipedia right now), "physician, heal thyself." I'm no physician, but the point is obvious: the broodishness lurks within, grasshopper; it doesn't come from ...without.

Enter the happy pills and yesterday's discussion of brooding about my inability to brood. And interesting comments on others' state of brooding.

Here's what I've started to wonder:

1. Is it a biological, evolutionary response to not yet having offspring on which to thrust the obsessive concerns that (barely) plague my (pretty easy) life?
2. Is it that ageing's just too damn depressing and we're really meant to die off around this age?
3. Is it just a phase in normal adult development?
4. Is it something going on out there in 'society' that makes us feel like if we're not rich and/or famous at this age, we're unfulfilled?
5. Is it indigestion and achy joints? (Seriously.)

I wonder lots of other things about this, but I'll stop there.

It eventually leads back to the bugs

2006-08-08T12:49:00.000-04:00

I recently started ingesting what I like to call 'my happy pills.' No, I'm not being medicated for OCD, bipolar disorder, depression, or any of the other (numerous) illnesses that plague me every time I visit WebMD.com. They're vitamins. Or rather, they're omega-3 joy pills.

See, if you're prone to Celtic broodiness, which happens to course through my Irish blood like a death-barge down the river Shannon, sometimes your happy hormones need to be coaxed from their frustrated ruminations about the toxins being poured into China's Chiang-Liang river. Apparently, all it takes to stimulate these happy hormones is fish juice. Packaged in large yellow celluloid cartridges that could choke a horse.

So, I've been forcing two of these torpedoes of happiness down my gullet every day for about a week now, and I've gotta say--the placebo effect has kicked in sooner than anticipated. In fact, I hardly brooded at all this weekend. Well, maybe just a little when we were doing some final mix adjustments on our album. But I reserve the right to brood about my art--sorry, my Art. (If you're gonna be pretentious, why not go all the way?)

The only thing I worry about is this: once the brooding's gone, what will be left to fill the vacuous caverns of my mind? Just this morning, I found myself questioning strange little details about my life, like "why do I keep buying olives when there are already four jars in the fridge?" and "why do I refuse to throw out my old ink-jet cartridges?" and "why did Bruce Willis have to destroy several office towers to save the hostages in Die Hard?" If this keeps up, I will become intensely boring, albeit clutter-free, not to mention terminally unable to suspend disbelief. Am I ready for that kind of life change?

But I read this and realized that nothing's really boring when you approach it with passion. And then I read this and wondered what right I had to demand that fish lose their lives so that I can be happy. And then I realized that I was brooding. And that made me kind of...happy.

Still, I'll restrict my swimming to bathtubs...

2006-08-03T12:56:00.000-04:00

Today I saw an insect I've never seen before. It was swimming in a lake in the quarry by my house. Its body was about 3 inches long and maybe an inch and a half wide--roughly the size, shape, and colour of half a Tim Horton's lid. It had pincer thingies on its head. Not like a lobster or a crayfish, but like an earwig (shudder). And four little legs. Which it was using to swim. And a big, long stinger-type thing protruding from its hindquarters.

That an insect in my latitude is so big as to have hindquarters disturbs me.

It was swimming around, I dunno...eating stuff I guess. Once in a while it would dive down into the water and pop back up. I was so intrigued, and disturbed, that it actually distracted me from the gorgeous great blue heron perched on the island in the middle of the lake, which was why I'd wandered down to the lakeside.

As Chico and I continued our tour, I couldn't get that bug out of my head. You have to understand that I've wandered through the Canadian bush almost every day of my life for the last four years--and many, many times throughout my life before I moved up here. And I've never seen a bug that big.

We've had a lot of rain and the quarry's pretty flooded right now--there were minnows swimming down the middle of the dirt road that runs through it. I wondered if the flooding had unleashed some prehistoric yuckodite that would now spawn and eventually consume the Earth with its hideous clacky-pinchy things.

So when I got home, being the naturalist that I am, I turned to the Internet for guidance. I looked up the bug, and guess what--it's a kind of a cool bug, called a 'toe biter.' (Cool, that is, if you look beyond its tendency to "inject poison through a needle-like beak" and then "suck out the tissue fluid of its prey"). But it also navigates by starlight, which is a cool thought that almost makes you forget that "if removed from water they have been known to feign death and eject a fluid from the anus."

Nature never ceases to amaze me.

Scream-of-consciousness

2006-08-02T10:04:00.000-04:00

Man, I have got to get this project done or the client's gonna fire me...let's see, where did I put that project file...shit, these files really need to be alphabetized...wait, numbers come before letters, right? ...damn, no--I've got to stop procrastinating and get this project done.... ....

... I wonder if the dog needs to go to the bathroom....poor thing, it's really not fair to make him wait like this. I mean, he's a living being....what if it messes up his digestive system to hold it in like this? ...okay, I'll work on the project for twenty minutes, then we'll go for a walk...

...but first I'll read the Times online...just to get the juices flowing....besides, it's important to stay on top of, uh, developments in the world...also, they update the Styles section on Thursdays...that reminds me, I wonder if Gawker has updated its look book spoof yet...ha ha ha...hilarious...

...oh, right...the project. Okay: seriously. What did the client say she wanted again? ...Where's my notebook? God, this purse is so disorganized...wait, didn't I get an e-mail about how filthy the average purse is....crawling with bacteria...maybe I should go clean it out....

..No! Stop procrastinating! ...Okay...so she wants me to make the Web text punchier...'punchier' ...gawd...how do you make human resources programs sizzle? add porn links? ha. ha ha...that would be hilarious. how to get 'a head' in your job...bwahaahaha...

Stop!...stop procrastinating! ...Right. ...'At Company X, our people are our number one asset...' Phew, what's that smell? I detect the distinct odor of bullshit...'People are our number one asset'...gag...Okay...how about 'Here at Company X, our people are more than just assets...they're investors...' What the hell does that even mean? Delete. ...

...Oh God, I forgot about the dog. Better go for that walk now.

...Shit, it's hot out there. I actually saw people running away from the sun. ...wait, is that a sunburn? On my chest? 50 SPF my ass...

...alright...project...Web...human resources...punchier. I have got to get this done or the client's gonna fire me. ...First I need a coffee though. And maybe some peanut butter toast...

Stairs 2, Me 0--and don't even get me started on the elevator

2006-08-02T09:20:00.000-04:00

The stairs are headed for a hat trick.

In a veritable Ironman of clutziness, I have now almost died on my own staircase twice. What do you do when your own house wants you dead?

The first time...well, okay...I guess I did have a little something to do with it. I was trying to transport a rolled-up rug twice my height and body weight. Just as I was coming around the rather dangerous corner at the top of the staircase, the stairs magically transformed themselves into a slide and I found myself falling backwards in a kind of olympic back-dive move. I distinctly remember thinking 'Oh. So this is how I die.' But by some miracle, the rug rolled under me and I slid, bobsled-like, down to the safety of the first floor.

Today, in an exciting new riff on falling, I fell up the stairs. Carrying a large mug of steaming coffee and a plate of peanut butter toast. Again, the instigator was my own feet (scheming bastards). But once again, the stairs seized on the moment to maximize damage to myself and all surrounding surfaces. Did you know toast can bounce? It bounces until it lands face-down on the peanut butter side. And then it cements itself to hardwood and/or paint.

Somehow my right foot got caught in the left leg of my pyjamas. How does that even happen? To make matters more mysterious, I also managed to viciously stub 3 toes of the non-tangled foot at exactly the same time, yet gainst all laws of Murphy, my mug of coffee landed on its base after only spilling about half its contents. How sad is it that I see that as a good omen?

Speaking of Omens
Don't you hate it when people use their blogs to recount their dumb, boring dreams in vivid detail? The only thing worse is hearing their dumb, boring dreams recounted in person, when you can't just click away to a more interesting site.

Yeah...so I had this really strange dream last night. It has to mean something, but I try never to venture too far beneath my materialistic exterior, so damned if I can figure it out.

I, along with my husband and a few people I don't know, got onto an elevator in some kind of office building-slash-amusement park ride. We knew we were headed for the basement and there'd be a surprise when the doors opened down there. Then they gave us a clue: it was some kind of quote written on a piece of paper.

Slam! the elevator door closes. Too late, I realize that I know this quote. It's from the movie The Blair Witch Project (shiver...I glance behind me as I write this...it's still creeping me out). As I screech this fact to the others in the elevator, which is going down down down, picking up speed, god how many floors are there in this building? why is this elevator going so fast??? the elevator starts to morph. The walls shake and two more walls pop out of nowhere. The carriage is now hexagonal. We're pooping bricks at this point, but I remain slightly relieved that we haven't gotten to the basement yet. Then the walls morph again. Now the elevator is octagonal. It's getting bigger and bigger, and more doors are appearing on the new walls.

Somehow I know that it's down to a choice on my part: I can will the elevator to stop and face whatever the basement holds, or let the walls continue multiplying forever. With every new door comes some new potential for terror--or salvation.

Okay, I editorialized that last part a little.

Then I woke up, confused and very happy to see the grinning face of my dog, and to feel the soft ebb-and-flow of my husband's sleeping body next to mine.

Chalk one up for Dr. LaHaye...

2006-07-27T13:39:00.000-04:00

It was a night that Armageddon lovers dream about. Days earlier, all hell had broken loose in the Middle East. Israel's response to Hezbollah had not been approved by the rest of the world. The correspondence with biblical predictions was obvious: the End will begin with a war, and with the world turning against Israel.

Then, as if to embody God's final wrath, one of the worst storms in recent memory passes through northeastern North America.

Picture this: you're sitting in your living room around 7:30 p.m. watching the tube. It's still daylight outside. But in a span of mere minutes, you notice that the world outside your patio door has gone black as midnight.

You rush to the window to see what put out the sun. There above you roils a grey apocalyptic sea. Angry clouds the colour of ash spin like an otherwordly whirlpool above your house. Eerily, there's not a breath of wind on the ground.

You try to remember what you've learned about tornadoes from shows like 'World's Most Amazing Videos.' Sit in the bathtub? Hide in a doorway? Cling to the rock in the basement and weep?

Just as you're calling the dog to the basement door, you glance outside once again. That's odd. Had your husband installed red lightbulbs in the outdoor security lights? No, wait. THE SKY IS BLOOD RED. Forget clinging to the rock. The big J is coming back and there is nowhere to hide, people. The freaking sky is BLOOD RED. You run to the windows on the other side of the house, just to see if your eyes have betrayed you. They haven't.

Then the storm unleashes itself. Thunder shakes the very foundation of your home. Whizzing carpets of sheet lightning tear the sky apart, driving rain and hail to the quivering earth below. You back away from the window and sit quietly on your darkened bed, wondering when it will end.

As the flashing sky assaults your retinas with negative images of tall pines and maples, you think about the families you know--Canadian families--who went to visit their relatives in Lebanon a few days earlier. Their sky is red too. Lights flash all around them. Their homes shake under the impossible powers that dwarf these everyday men and women. And children. You think about the Canadian family of seven who died, terrified in their blackened holdiay home, as the red skies rained down on them. Your mind tries to un-see, tries not to imagine.

You thank God, or life, or the universe, or whatever may be out there, that the worst that could happen to you is that your tomatoes will get flattened or a branch will fall on your shed. There are fates so much worse.

And you wonder, once again, how any sane person could crave Armageddon.

Of sewn-together fingers and hermetically sealed shelf pegs

2006-07-25T12:41:00.000-04:00

Well, the masochism continues.

Lest this start looking like an Ikea Sucks blog (which it isn't--I owe the bulk of my worldly possessions to Ikea), let me say that I think it's a great store.

It's not you, Ikea, it's me. Somewhere between your flatbox- contained- self- assembled- cartoon- explained- sustainable- wood- scandinavian- uber coolness and my spazmodic uselessness, you hurt me. I know you don't mean to. But you do.

I decided that I really need a sewing/painting centre in the spare bedroom. So me and the husband took a trip to the local Allen key mecca. Four hours, three trips, and one broken cell phone later, we were on our way home with my new IVAR activity centre. (Cell phone was dropped when trying to pry shelving unit into back seat of Toyota Echo that is same length as shelving unit.)

Here's how bad the IVAR instructions are: there are none. There are side rails, some shelves with runners on them, and some hermetically sealed steel pegs that I guess you're supposed to use to prop open your eyelids as you work frantically into the early hours of morning. Don't even get me started on the cross-brace.

The really ironic part of this self-imposed torture, though, is that once I finally succeed in assembling this unit, I will use it to operate a machine with a large needle capable of puncturing surfaces (like fingers) hundreds of times in mere seconds. If you don't hear from me for a while, send bandaids and a stitch-remover.

p.s. Wanted to post a photo of IVAR the Terrible, but blogger's photo tool is all pooped up again.

Mid-Sky Meadow Chic

2006-07-20T07:44:00.000-04:00

What will those quirky Manhattanites think of next? This couple (he's a developer, she's a writer) was visiting some country folk a few years ago. The country folk had a porch overlooking a lake. The Manhattanites decided they love porches--so they built a porch--and a meadow--on the roof of their building overlooking the Empire State Building. Six stories up.

Looks serene in the pic, but I wonder whether they can actually escape the noise of the streets below, or whether they just have to imagine that they can actually hear the meadow birds chirping...

I Heart Land of Talk

2006-07-19T14:34:00.001-04:00

Love, love, love this band from Montreal. My husband, who is probably the best prospecteur of not-yet-well-known music I know, and who has the best ear, and whose poseur-bullshit-filter is fully tweaked, found them on MySpace or something.

He picked up their disc, and I'm freaking out. The songwriting is rock-solid, the music rocks. I mean, it has melody--oh how I love melody--oh how I miss melody. And lead singer Elizabeth Powell sounds like the love child of Edie Brickell and Chrissie Hynde. In fact, there's definitely a punk-meets-Pretenders feel to this awesome band. In case you missed the header, they're called Land of Talk. The album's called Applause Cheer Boo Hiss. You can listen to them here.

New LF

2006-07-18T17:16:00.000-04:00

Enjoy my new, much easier-on-the-eyes blog template.

Now it's slightly easier to slog through my meandering logic and endless ranting.

Also, I've updated my links. All killer no filler baby!

You win, pink IKEA storage box.

2006-07-10T14:21:00.000-04:00

Aren't you a clever little box. With your razor-sharp edges and deceptive cartoon-like instructions, building up false confidence in the feasibility of putting you together without life-threatening blood loss.

I would have thought it was excessive to need a screwdriver, mallet, wrench, tensor bandage, and roll of first-aid tape to put together a cardboard box. But the wrench did come in handy when I was unravelling the extra spatial dimension built into you, you devlish little hypercube.

And you've also helped me learn some Swedish, my little pink box of pain. For instance, I now know that 'KASSETT' is Swedish for 'suffer, pathetic North American fool.' Or does it mean 'one box, twelve hours'? I'm sure it's all in the accent...

Three cheers for Armageddon!

2006-07-05T08:41:00.000-04:00

Okay, I'm going there. I'm going to the Politics and Religion place. Just a day-trip, mind you.

Hip-hip-horROR!
Had an eye-opening experience recently when reading an old Vanity Fair article on Politics + Religion. It was about the Left Behind series--you know, that 12-book young adult series about Armageddon. The action-packed damnation saga you just can't put down!

So the article was talking about the ins and outs of Armageddon. What the Good Book says about it, how the far Christian Right has interpreted this (hint: by denying that there's any room for interpretation), and--most interestingly--the impact this is having on world politics. Cuz it is having an impact.

The jist of the article was that some far-right Christians are droolingly eager for Armageddon to happen. (This is something I've suspected for a long time from my own experience with the church.) And, ironically-self-servingly, these extremists have developed a strong bond with other far-right groups in places like Israel because they (the Christian extremists) believe that in order for Armageddon to happen, Israel must have control over a particular section of Middle Eastern geography, as outlined in the Good Book. Don't forget, these are extreme literalists. If you don't believe me, read this. (Of course, not all Christians feel like this.)

In fact, if you've got a few minutes and are at all interested in the sociology of religious extremism, read this. Fascinating stuff. It explains why the most seemingly symbolic and whacked-out parts of the Bible must be read literally, whereas there is room for interpretation in phrases such as 'and Aaron begat Jacob.'

It's especially important to read prophecy literally. Because lots of people wrongly see prophecy as a symbolic or allegorical warning meant to convey an important spiritual truth. When really we all know that the final Kingdom palace will reside in Israel and will be 40 X 40 cubits wide. Don't be a pesky preterist about it. Or an amillenialist. Or, God forbid, a postmillenialist. Shudder.

Literaliterature
So the co-author of the series, Dr. Tim LaHaye, has a whole bunch of books on the subject--on top of the 12-book Left Behind series. I know this because he mentions all of them in every article on this site, and it's the first thing he mentions on his own site too.

One might even start to suspect that the good Dr. is a tad bit obsessed with the subject. (I wouldn't be so pessimistic as to suggest that he's a tad bit obsessed with selling books. No, not that.) But what with his more than 25 books on the subject, movies, and even a thrilling new video game ("In one cataclysmic moment, millions around the world disappear!"), you can tell that he's a big fan of Divine wrath and hurling the damned into the Lake of Fire.

What fascinates about all this is not Dr. LaHaye's obvious eye-lift, but rather the fact that he and his colleagues and possibly a network of well...maybe even millions and millions of people...is building a reality that is entirely different from the one in which you and I reside. You've heard of the Matrix? Well this is...uh...the Crucitrix...

What frightens is the thought that these denizens of Armageddonville may be deliberately working to bring about the literal fufillment of a prophecy that describes the destruction of billions of people and much of the planet. (I prefer the slower destroy-the-planet-through-global-warming approach, but I'm fairly lazy.)

There are other interesting strings of thought in the tightly woven fabric of these extremists' fictional reality. Like the whole section of the site dedicated to exploring why America is not mentioned in the Bible, when it is the world's only superpower and will obviously play a key role in Armageddon.

The possibilities: 1. America will be destroyed by terrorists prior to Armageddon and will lose its superpower status; 2. America will be destroyed by the abortionists and gays; 3. Most of America will be Raptured and that's why America wasn't metioned in the scriptures written thousands of years before anyone even invented the word America; or 4. God chose just not to mention the U.S. (deemed least likely option).

How about 5. You've gotta be kidding.

Seriously
This subject is an easy target, I know. But consider the fact that something like 25 per cent of Americans self-identify as evangelical Christians.

...Think about the impact on our everyday lives in North America if even a small fraction of these people are the extremists I describe above--and the number is said to be growing.

...The effect it has on public policy, on foreign policy, on priorities when it comes to spending public money.

...The effect it has on the planet when mass swathes of humanity believe that what really matters in life is what happens to the dead--not the generations of living to come. They don't believe there even are generations of living to come.

...The effect it has on human society when one group believes that the other is the walking damned, beyond salvation and beyond hope--and in some deep dark corner of their hearts, may even look forward to seeing them destroyed in some final 'I told you so.' (I think we've all seen that attitude displayed, around the world, for long enough.)

So I guess what I'm saying is, if you're looking for some light reading this summer, steer clear of Dr. LaHaye.