Emily Post Was Busy, So Instead You Get Me. Now Hush.

Since apparently 70% of Canadians own cellphones, it's refreshing to be a minority for once. White girls don't usually get this vibe. Being cellphoneless in today's world is sort of like admitting you don't know how to read: people are usually all, "How do you live?" and make pitying faces and pat your hand like they just found out you have lupus. Dudes. Chill. Not knowing how to send a text message isn't the same as not knowing how to work a stove. I get by.

Hilariously, Canada is ranked in that rather breathless article up there as "lagging behind other G8 and several developing nations," a fate that apparently gives us the same cellphone owner rate as dirty rotten places like, um, Vietnam. And Mexico. Canada, Vietnam and Mexico - together at last. Sounds like that Seinfeld episode with Babu.

In any case, regardless of our embarassing, developing-nation-like rates of cellphone ownership, people in Toronto (and most other urban places, I'd imagine) are pretty much wired in 24/7. So much so that I feel the need to give a cranky-pants reminder to my constantly beeping compadres out there: yo guy. Knock it off with the phones.

Look, remember back when you were a teenager, and you'd have fights with your parents and the phone would ring right in the middle of the screaming? And you'd all stand there, glowering, panting, and totally unsure if you should answer it when clearly you'd just spent 45 minutes being completely enraged? And the phone just rang and rang, which just added to the tension, but nobody got it, and it went to voicemail? And you kept fighting and eventually worked it all out (or moved out, depending)?

I'm not saying that's still the case. But there's a lesson here: when you're already engaged with something/someone else, fiddling with your phone is a dick move. Everyone does it, sure, but that don't make it right. My personal pet peeve is when people have their phone conversations en masse, instead of being polite and moving to a quieter, separate location. There are others. Multiple texts in a sitting. Irritating ring tones. Plopping the phone down on the table beside me like I'm waiting for a new kidney and I need to be near the phone all the time. Driving while talking. Biking while talking. No. No. No.

So: friends. Countrymen. (Romans? Is that how it goes? Fuck it.) It's awesome that you're all talking to each other, and occasionally to me. Still. Keep the phone it your pocket, turn that mofo to silent, and start treating it like a super-portable landline instead of a mobile talkbox that also has animation and fun games. If you're already talking to someone, say "Excuse me!" when your phone dingles and then step outside. Ain't so hard. It'll be nice. For everyone. Mostly for me. If nothing else, think of me.

DEEEEYYNN!

You know those celebrities that you hate, for no good reason, other than they just make you want to throw your head back and curse their name unto the heavens, like Shatner in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan? Of course you do. It's that totally irrational side of you - the part thinking an Oreos/pickles combination isn't just for pregnancy cravings, and suspects maybe you don't like Bob Dylan as much as legally required for your age/sex/general demographic.

My celebrity is Agyness Deyn. That's not even her real name, by the way: according to infallible fount of knowlege Wikipedia, she was nee Laura Hollis, a moniker so pedestrian for our little clotheshorse that she had to shed it altogether, galloping into the future with a confusing and hard-to-spell new handle. She is a model. She is British. She is my age. She drives me fucking crazy.

Look, I won't deny that she's a pretty girl - my sour grapes regarding Ms. Deyn don't also render me blind. However, and I know this isn't scientific or anything - her face also reminds me of a lot of other people. She is pretty...but no like, breathtaking gorgeous or breaking the mold or anything. In any case, she's all Top Model now, and like Kate Moss, has the power to start trends. Unlike Kate Moss, who sometimes dresses a little like a pirate but is usually pretty classy, Deyn dresses like a mental patient. Actually, worse. She doesn't even have the benefit of the green and streamlined hospital gown. For example: shredded demin. Deyn was its Patient Zero, but it's since infected F-list "celebrities." The Dreaded Shredded will soon be moving on to the type irritating tween girls who hang out in front of convenience stores. I hate those girls.

Anyway, I find Kate Moss amusing and sort of youthfully grand-dame-ish, especially when she shows up to events looking like she should be awarded to someone. I don't feel that way about Deyn. I feel like she wears clothes that are an elaborate practical joke or designed for maximum attention grabbing - all those colours! All that mesh! All the layered scarves and bowler hats and two-toned shoes! Somehow, she manages to be both boring and crazy. I'm afraid and sleepy at the same time.

The only - only! - redeeming factor in the ongoing Deynery (shit, that's a weird word) is that she inspired her very own rhyming House of Holland teeshirt, encouraging all of us to "flick yer bean for Agyness Deyn." While I'll be doing no such thing (I'm getting frisky with Linda Evangelista, thanks) a public nod to masturbation is okay. I guess. I'm still frothing slightly with inexplicable rage, but it's been mollified slightly. Slightly. However, if I catch anyone parading around my city in a mesh-and-polka-dot shirt, I am going to have SERIOUS WORDS with this person.

The Death of Skinny Jeans (Finally)

It's been said before but, like, skinny jeans? Why? Why won't they go away? I feel like in the last year, there have been at least three dozen articles about how the wide-leg pant is back, how the skinny jean is over, and yet. AND YET. I keep seeing them all over Toronto! Dudes, ladies - but especially dudes, because a big fat "yuck" goes out to guys with skinny pants - why can we not let this die?

I went to high school in that tragic late-'90s period that spawned the raver pants. I'll admit, those monstrosities were no better (I was always worried that they would somehow get sucked into an escalator, creating havoc at the mall), but at least you didn't have to weigh 90 pounds to pull them off. And at least people weren't required by law to pair them with adorable flats or spiky shoes. Or, in The Ugly Times (summer 2008), gladiator sandals. In defense of the indefensibly unattractive gladiator sandal, at least they remind some people of light bondage, which is sexy in an unexpected-on-the-street way. But skinny jeans reminds me of the extra fat on my ass. And, apparently, my ankles.

I know the Holy Fashion Combination of Kate Moss + article of clothing = instant trend was what kick-started this one (along with purses big enough to double as luggage, and vests, and belting your torso, and huge sunglasses, and a myriad of other trends immediately knocked off by Kirsten Dunst), but holy cats, people: she is a fashion model. She is professionally 100 pounds. That's her job. The rest of us look like assholes. I know "dress for your body!" is one of those Mom-style chunks of advice that makes fashionable people roll their eyes, but I am not lying when I say skinny jeans look good on literally 1% of the population. Their continued presence in the fashion pantheon makes me want to chew my tongue off in frustration.

I've tried on skinny jeans and all but threw myself off a cliff in despair. Apparently, I have a choice between being stylish (-ish...since all your Finer Fashion People have long since poo-poo'ed the skinny trouser as being passe and hopelessly outdated and have since moved on to harem pants, which...yeah, I hate those too) and looking half-way attractive. I guess people who hated bellbottoms were just as unhappy all through the 1970s as they were railing against huge flares.
I know fashion runs in cycles.
I know that I should just keep dressing for my own body, instead of the imaginary body I wish I have but don't.
I know that eventually, hipster boys will quit wearing size 2 jeans and reurn to a roomier trouser that allows me to daydream about squadrons of skateboarding fellas (my training ground for crushing out).
I know that one day, perhaps in the distant future, women will not be forced to choose between teeny-tiny pantalons or ugly shorts from Old Navy. That some modicum of sanity will be reinstated. That a more forgiving, flattering silhouette will be celebtrated. That I, sometime in the future, will triumph with some sort of skinny-jean kryptonite, and I won't be reduced to tripping these fashion queens right out of their adorable flats.
I know that skinny jeans will die a slow, undernourished death, and that I can barely contain my glee as they fade.

See you on the flipside, skinny jeans! It's been a slice!