My pal Kelli recently wrote a post about her summer-induced weight gain. A yearly cycle, she figures it's the beer, the hot dogs and the fro-yo that adds a few pounds to her frame, and in the winter she takes it off with a more rigorous workout schedule. It should be noted that Kelli fluctuates between "bony" and "svelte" in her annual gain/loss rollercoaster, and she looks great, fit and toned, no matter how much she moans about her ice cream consumption and the effect it has on her ass.
I'm the opposite. Usually I'm more active in the summer months, when biking and walking and sweating and not wanting to eat anything except ice pops and watercress melts (ha!) off the pounds . My body type is curvier than hers - even at my skinniest, I probably weigh in a few classes above her. But now, unemployed, post-surgery, and without a defined workout schedule, I'm getting...fat.
Oh, boo. I know it's not kosher for women to say they're fat. We've all been socialized to refer to our overweight friends as "a little heavy" or tell each other, "she's a big girl" and do that thing where we hold our arms away from our bodies and sort of shake them a little - I guess to convey all their glorious jiggliness . But rarely do we break down and actually verbalize the words "fat" or "overweight" or "obese." It seems too harsh for the people we care about, so we tiptoe around the words and use those ridiculous jiggly arms.
Let's be clear: I am not what you might call "sane" when it comes to weight and body issues. I've spent upwards of a decade struggling with eating disorders and the auxiliary body image issues it creates. Sometimes, when I look at my body, I feel humiliated and betrayed. Later that day, I might feel strong and sexy. It's a crapshoot. Certain things trigger the bad-body-moods more reliably than others: if I weigh myself, it's almost guaranteed to bother and annoy me for at least a few days, and to make me hyperaware of my physical flaws. It's taken me a long time to come to terms with the idea that I can gain some weight without wanting to throw myself under a streetcar; it's taking even longer to figure out how to get to a healthy size without going crazy in the process.
But. The numbers don't lie, and I've gained. The Body Mass Index calculations, while flawed, does give you a rough estimation of where you should be, weight-wise. My sister is adamantly opposed to it; since it fails to take into account extreme muscle mass (which would be an indicator of fitness, not obesity), it's apparently flawed and untrustworthy. I use the BMI system, mostly because it affords me more wiggle room than the height/weight ratio system. But no matter what system you use to calculate where you are and where you should be when that scale stops spinning, nobody can deny that there's magic in those numbers. And when they creep up and up, it causes a certain mindset (hello!) to freak right the fuck out.
One of the main issues with eating disorders is that they reward the sufferer with endorphins, those fun-ass brain chemicals that make us feel better. Learning how to eat and exercise without the benefit of the euphoria is...sort of a drag. In the sense that exercise is hard and annoying and makes you sweaty, and alternative methods take, like, ten minutes. They also lead to a next-level spectrum of bodily impairment, which exercise, unless you're doing it wrong, won't do. And they make you crazy. So don't do it. Eat your food, keep it down.
So I'm trying something new: acceptance. Oh, I'm still not really pleased with the way I look. But I'm trying to focus on the positive. I have great hair. My ass seems to have some admirers. I'm not deranged. When I feel crappy, I'll go for a run. And since I'm feeling pretty crappy about my bod these days, and the numbers on the scale, and how tight my pants have gotten, I bet I'll be going for a lot of runs. Nice, sane, healthy, non-crazy runs. Wish me luck.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
In The Key of Suck
I blame Glee. When the ultra-popular teenage soap started last fall, glee clubs were a minor and half-remembered slice of high school, a place for the musical-theatre nerds to blow off steam between angsty productions of The Secret Garden; now it's a place for middle-aged soccer moms to showcase their mediocrity during the holiday season.
Let me back up. I occasionally do some ushering for the Ryerson University theatre. It's a good gig: show up, rip tickets, watch a show, and get paid. Last year I lucked into the holiday dance showcase, and this fall I worked the Toronto Film Festival (hot tip: Let Me In isn't as good as its Swedish source material, and the hipster romance Blue Valentine is unbelievably boring!). Tonight, I ushered in a thousand friends and family members to a local singing choir - I'll omit the name, to save the well-meaning participants more embarrassment than they already suffered - and watched as they butchered nineteen radio hits.
They were a sweet bunch, in their black knee-length dresses and their black collared shirts. During one number, they donned sunglasses. It was cute! But they weren't talented. No, their talents lay elsewhere. I'm sure some of them are great drivers, or wonderful at decorating cupcakes. I have no doubt that some of them are experts on, like, oral sex, or Michael Caine impressions. But were they talented songbirds? They, unfortunately, were not.
Clearly influenced by Glee, the group included Rolling Stones numbers and closed with the Journey song "Don't Stop Believing", which both opened and closed the first season of Glee. This was right after they massacred "Your Song", the Elton John classic that my parents favour. I love that song; this version was offensive in its terribleness. Other selections included Sly and the Family Stone and the Black Eyed Peas (this choir was fully 100% white, it should be noted), and a stiff version of "Hide and Seek" that left me scratching my head.
So, here's the problem. I like singing. I like it when adults sing - many of the CDs I buy are by adults. I like it when children perform, because children are usually pretty cute, and cuteness gets you a lot of mileage with me. But if you're an adult and you want to sing in public, you should do what other adults do when they want to sing in public: get blind drunk and go to a karaoke bar. You don't rent a hall and charge your favourite people money to come watch you clap your way through "Go For A Soda." That's silly.
Professional choirs are something else entirely. When you have to audition to get in, it changes it from being the 40+ equivalent of those Little League games where everyone gets a "Participant!" ribbon, into a legitimate artistic endeavor. But if you can just show up? If the only obstacle for joining is buying a knee-length black dress? That's sort of...lame. I'm not saying don't sing. I like singing, even though I'm horrible - I have this reedy little voice, and I've listened to so much Fever Ray at this point that I sing with a Swedish accent - but just reconsider joining a league of equally middle-of-the-road performers. It's just a little embarrassing.
Look: if you're a good singer, audition for a grown-up choir; you know, one with standards. And if you can't get in, then maybe singing isn't for you. There's no shame in being bad at something. I'm no good at stock car racing, so I don't spend a lot of time on the ol' oval. "But it's not hurting anyone!" I can hear you saying disapprovingly. Yes. It's hurting. It hurts to have to lie ("That was so good!"), and hear your favourite songs ruined. These men and women have other talents, I'm sure of it. Maybe it's time to showcase something they're actually, um, good at. But I know this is a pipe dream...I'll see you next year, at the 2011 Holiday Showcase!
Let me back up. I occasionally do some ushering for the Ryerson University theatre. It's a good gig: show up, rip tickets, watch a show, and get paid. Last year I lucked into the holiday dance showcase, and this fall I worked the Toronto Film Festival (hot tip: Let Me In isn't as good as its Swedish source material, and the hipster romance Blue Valentine is unbelievably boring!). Tonight, I ushered in a thousand friends and family members to a local singing choir - I'll omit the name, to save the well-meaning participants more embarrassment than they already suffered - and watched as they butchered nineteen radio hits.
They were a sweet bunch, in their black knee-length dresses and their black collared shirts. During one number, they donned sunglasses. It was cute! But they weren't talented. No, their talents lay elsewhere. I'm sure some of them are great drivers, or wonderful at decorating cupcakes. I have no doubt that some of them are experts on, like, oral sex, or Michael Caine impressions. But were they talented songbirds? They, unfortunately, were not.
Clearly influenced by Glee, the group included Rolling Stones numbers and closed with the Journey song "Don't Stop Believing", which both opened and closed the first season of Glee. This was right after they massacred "Your Song", the Elton John classic that my parents favour. I love that song; this version was offensive in its terribleness. Other selections included Sly and the Family Stone and the Black Eyed Peas (this choir was fully 100% white, it should be noted), and a stiff version of "Hide and Seek" that left me scratching my head.
So, here's the problem. I like singing. I like it when adults sing - many of the CDs I buy are by adults. I like it when children perform, because children are usually pretty cute, and cuteness gets you a lot of mileage with me. But if you're an adult and you want to sing in public, you should do what other adults do when they want to sing in public: get blind drunk and go to a karaoke bar. You don't rent a hall and charge your favourite people money to come watch you clap your way through "Go For A Soda." That's silly.
Professional choirs are something else entirely. When you have to audition to get in, it changes it from being the 40+ equivalent of those Little League games where everyone gets a "Participant!" ribbon, into a legitimate artistic endeavor. But if you can just show up? If the only obstacle for joining is buying a knee-length black dress? That's sort of...lame. I'm not saying don't sing. I like singing, even though I'm horrible - I have this reedy little voice, and I've listened to so much Fever Ray at this point that I sing with a Swedish accent - but just reconsider joining a league of equally middle-of-the-road performers. It's just a little embarrassing.
Look: if you're a good singer, audition for a grown-up choir; you know, one with standards. And if you can't get in, then maybe singing isn't for you. There's no shame in being bad at something. I'm no good at stock car racing, so I don't spend a lot of time on the ol' oval. "But it's not hurting anyone!" I can hear you saying disapprovingly. Yes. It's hurting. It hurts to have to lie ("That was so good!"), and hear your favourite songs ruined. These men and women have other talents, I'm sure of it. Maybe it's time to showcase something they're actually, um, good at. But I know this is a pipe dream...I'll see you next year, at the 2011 Holiday Showcase!
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Dance Caving In
Last night I went to the Dance Cave, the venerable Toronto institution that specializes in retro dance parties and allowing girls to get humped by creepy perverts. I love the Dance Cave, more so since I spotted it standing in for Tom Cruises' "Caribbean nightclub" in the horrible movie Cocktail. I love it in a tolerant, sigh-inducing way. I love the way you can't wear sandals there because the floor is a sticky mess of beer and broken glass. I hate the infestation of crappy U of T kids on the weekend, with the full admission that I was once one of those crappy U of T kids. I love it, with strings.
But the main reason I love the Dance Cave, aside from when the DJ plays The Prodigy's 1995 single "Poison" during her retro-'80s night (and I danced so hard one of my boobs fell out a little), is that it's a node on the scene of the people.
Okay, I know that sounds stupid. Hear me out. Remember high school? Where everyone was mashed in together, so you had goths mixing with preps mixing with nerds mixing with pretty girls mixing with drama queens? Remember how awkward that was? Sometime after you left high school, you started to wonder where all the people who aren't you/your friends ended up. Whatever happened to the dramatic goth-lite kids who would smoke cigarettes behind the high school and come late to every class? What became of the stoner boys who were so beautiful and so high? Where did the D&D kids go, the ones who had twelve-sided die and tiny hand-painted figurines of warrior-elfs? What about the hipster-nerds, who started fight clubs in their mom's basement and who had girlfriend who never let them get to third base? Where are those people?
Because as we get older, we start self-selecting more and more for the people who are just like us. It's not a bad thing: I like my nerdy obsessions, and well past the judgmental, self-conscious confines of high school, I don't have to justify them. They're accepted by my friends and family as just Stuff We Are Into: Scott Pilgrim comics, zombie lore, bikes, weird beers, DIY haircuts, cheap sushi, the occasional foray into nature (or a close facsimile), the library. It's not that we don't interact with other people, other types of people. But do we brush up against them in such close quarters? (The subway during rush hour doesn't count.) We don't.
So even though we see the girl with blue dreadlocks on the subway, commuting to her CSR job with Rogers, listening to early Nine Inch Nails and staring into space like the rest of the ridership, we don't often see her in her natural habitat. If you want see the girls who wore cardigans and had a salon haircut, just stake out any brunch spot or Indigo books - you'll see her there, eating muffins with her boyfriend. But how many folks head out to the Dance Cave on a Monday night? Not a lot. And if you do head there, you're likely to see the girl with the blue dreadlocks. Why there? Why not at brunch? Because they rarely play big beat at Aunties and Uncles.
Frankly, I was chuffed to see a bunch of folks in their mid-30s to late-40s standing around at the Dance Cave last night. Clearly, they knew each other - maybe from other venues and events, maybe from working together through the years, maybe through friends. They were there because it was clearly one of "their places" - a venue that serves most, if not all, of their needs for a night out. And it was casual. Having a few beers and dancing to The Cure and the Chemical Brothers is just a Monday night, the way some folks always bookmark Saturday morning for the farmer's market, or Wednesday evenings for Bible study. It's a place to come together, and to feel comfortable (as comfortable as you can be dancing in leather pants and knee-high jackboots, anyway). I love that - there are so many ways of existing. Sometimes, without them right in front of my face, it's easy to forget that. Last night was a welcome reminder that, sometimes, the dark side just wants to go dancing.
But the main reason I love the Dance Cave, aside from when the DJ plays The Prodigy's 1995 single "Poison" during her retro-'80s night (and I danced so hard one of my boobs fell out a little), is that it's a node on the scene of the people.
Okay, I know that sounds stupid. Hear me out. Remember high school? Where everyone was mashed in together, so you had goths mixing with preps mixing with nerds mixing with pretty girls mixing with drama queens? Remember how awkward that was? Sometime after you left high school, you started to wonder where all the people who aren't you/your friends ended up. Whatever happened to the dramatic goth-lite kids who would smoke cigarettes behind the high school and come late to every class? What became of the stoner boys who were so beautiful and so high? Where did the D&D kids go, the ones who had twelve-sided die and tiny hand-painted figurines of warrior-elfs? What about the hipster-nerds, who started fight clubs in their mom's basement and who had girlfriend who never let them get to third base? Where are those people?
Because as we get older, we start self-selecting more and more for the people who are just like us. It's not a bad thing: I like my nerdy obsessions, and well past the judgmental, self-conscious confines of high school, I don't have to justify them. They're accepted by my friends and family as just Stuff We Are Into: Scott Pilgrim comics, zombie lore, bikes, weird beers, DIY haircuts, cheap sushi, the occasional foray into nature (or a close facsimile), the library. It's not that we don't interact with other people, other types of people. But do we brush up against them in such close quarters? (The subway during rush hour doesn't count.) We don't.
So even though we see the girl with blue dreadlocks on the subway, commuting to her CSR job with Rogers, listening to early Nine Inch Nails and staring into space like the rest of the ridership, we don't often see her in her natural habitat. If you want see the girls who wore cardigans and had a salon haircut, just stake out any brunch spot or Indigo books - you'll see her there, eating muffins with her boyfriend. But how many folks head out to the Dance Cave on a Monday night? Not a lot. And if you do head there, you're likely to see the girl with the blue dreadlocks. Why there? Why not at brunch? Because they rarely play big beat at Aunties and Uncles.
Frankly, I was chuffed to see a bunch of folks in their mid-30s to late-40s standing around at the Dance Cave last night. Clearly, they knew each other - maybe from other venues and events, maybe from working together through the years, maybe through friends. They were there because it was clearly one of "their places" - a venue that serves most, if not all, of their needs for a night out. And it was casual. Having a few beers and dancing to The Cure and the Chemical Brothers is just a Monday night, the way some folks always bookmark Saturday morning for the farmer's market, or Wednesday evenings for Bible study. It's a place to come together, and to feel comfortable (as comfortable as you can be dancing in leather pants and knee-high jackboots, anyway). I love that - there are so many ways of existing. Sometimes, without them right in front of my face, it's easy to forget that. Last night was a welcome reminder that, sometimes, the dark side just wants to go dancing.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Wedding Bells
Ever since one of my best gals from high school got engaged last month, I've been all over the wedding scene. Oh, I'm not a bridesmaid or anything - one of the benefits of losing touch with 90% of your high school chums is that you end up very uninvolved in the matrimonial party - but I've been thinking about my wedding, and about what my fancy day might be like.
I wasn't one of those kids who was obsessed with weddings. I wasn't really a dress-up kid; my sister was, but instead of donning pretend veils, she basically dressed like a Day-Glo version of Siouxsie Sioux. My younger sister has a juvenile punk streak a mile wide, which is odd, because now she dresses like a prepster with a hidden jones for jumpsuits. We all have our quirks.
I was more of the reading type, and the reading I did was balanced between trash-o-rama Sweet Vally Sagas and more highbrow kidslit like The Giver. Sweet Valley was just infested with melodramatic tales of lost love, where one night of passion before leaving for war turns into a young girl's "lifelong mistake" (i.e. pregnancy and shame-children), thus propagating the species for another generation without diluting any of the drama of the final-chapter wedding bells. Sweet Valley Sagas, for those of you with better taste or penises, were what you get when you combine one part icing sugar, three parts desperate love, a quarter-cup reincarnation, and a passing acquaintance with historical fiction. They. Were. Awesome.
In any case, though, they didn't fuel any obsession with marriage. My parents' wedding was low-key; my mom made her own wedding dress, a size-two number with ribbons. My dad sported an 1980s mustache. Although the last Royal Wedding was in 1983, the year of my birth, I don't come from a culture that's all about giant froofy dresses or spending tens of thousands of dollars on Your Special Day. My parents were wed in my grandparents' home. In my family, if you want drop thousands of dollars, you'd better be picking up some real estate.
But my family way isn't the only way to do things, and there's a serious wedding industry out there. The Canadian wedding scene alone rakes in about four billion dollars - to put that in perspective, that's more than we collectively spend on foreign aid and international development. From magazines to TV shows, from cakes to cake toppers, from gowns to feathery...hat...things, from rings to DJs to venues to celebratory DVDs, it's a mega money machine.
Depending on where you're coming from, folks seem to either buy into that, or want to go their own way. Wedding magazines regularly encourage couples to drop student-loan-worthy amounts on their wedding day, but some (and as much flak as she gets, Martha Stewart really is the best for this) point couples in a more DIY direction. Less traditional often equals less expensive, since wedding purveyors haven't clued in to the idea that 120 fancy cookies can be for a wedding the same way a four-tier cake is. And doing it yourself gives brides and grooms a level of control over their giant paper flower decorations that buying really misses out on.
My girlfriend from high school seems to be going the lo-fi route. Her engagement ring is a gorgeous pearl set-up, bucking the diamonds-are-forever trend that bloody De Beers pimps so hard. My mom got no ring - "I think I got a dog" - and my friend Rachel has long proclaimed that if and when she gets engaged, she wants a tapestry. "Rings signify ownership," she says. I tend to disagree, unless they're clamped around my ankle with a ball and chain, but during this summer's OTT heatwaves, I was like, "Screw diamond rings, what I want to be proposed with is a Dyson Bladeless fan."
I haven't really been to a lot of real-type weddings. Maybe one or two, where there's a venue and a first dance and a sit-down dinner, and not in the last few years. My pals have mostly Done It Themselves: my friend Ewan had a choir of his friends sing him and his bride down the aisle. The friends were dressed as Star Trek crew members. Liz and Toby eloped: they invited my mom, who brought my teenage, basketball-shorts-wearing brother. One of the "bridesmaids" wore ski goggles in an attempt to neutralize the August sun's UV rays. It was...unusual. Nobody's worn ugly bridesmaid dresses or shoved cake in their beloved's face.
But I love pretty, fancy things, and I love love, so weddings are really appealing to me. I'm not a huge fan of polished, glossy business. I like my celebrations like I like my men: a little rough around the edges. For example, the recent trend of hand-tooled and rough-cut engagement rings looks gorgeous to me. It's lovely, not ostentatious bling, and unexpected. Or this couple's wedding photos, which were taken in a gallery and show off her dark teal wedge sandals and gown beautifully. I love that splash of the unexpected - not everyone wants to be a princess on her wedding day. Some of us want to be David Bowie.
No matter how a wedding shakes down, ultimately it's not about the first dance, or the chicken/fish, or the groomsmen shagging one of the bridesmaids, or any of the other things each couple strives for to set their party apart. It's a celebration of love, of unity, of promises. Whether it's just two people who love each other very much running down to City Hall, or a day-long affair with 400 of the couple's friends, relatives, neighbours, former bosses and personal shoppers, the point isn't the "stuff" of the wedding. Nobody cares if the entree has ginger or the flower girl trips. What people want, what we care about, is that magic moment that says, "You may now kiss the bride."
I wasn't one of those kids who was obsessed with weddings. I wasn't really a dress-up kid; my sister was, but instead of donning pretend veils, she basically dressed like a Day-Glo version of Siouxsie Sioux. My younger sister has a juvenile punk streak a mile wide, which is odd, because now she dresses like a prepster with a hidden jones for jumpsuits. We all have our quirks.
I was more of the reading type, and the reading I did was balanced between trash-o-rama Sweet Vally Sagas and more highbrow kidslit like The Giver. Sweet Valley was just infested with melodramatic tales of lost love, where one night of passion before leaving for war turns into a young girl's "lifelong mistake" (i.e. pregnancy and shame-children), thus propagating the species for another generation without diluting any of the drama of the final-chapter wedding bells. Sweet Valley Sagas, for those of you with better taste or penises, were what you get when you combine one part icing sugar, three parts desperate love, a quarter-cup reincarnation, and a passing acquaintance with historical fiction. They. Were. Awesome.
In any case, though, they didn't fuel any obsession with marriage. My parents' wedding was low-key; my mom made her own wedding dress, a size-two number with ribbons. My dad sported an 1980s mustache. Although the last Royal Wedding was in 1983, the year of my birth, I don't come from a culture that's all about giant froofy dresses or spending tens of thousands of dollars on Your Special Day. My parents were wed in my grandparents' home. In my family, if you want drop thousands of dollars, you'd better be picking up some real estate.
But my family way isn't the only way to do things, and there's a serious wedding industry out there. The Canadian wedding scene alone rakes in about four billion dollars - to put that in perspective, that's more than we collectively spend on foreign aid and international development. From magazines to TV shows, from cakes to cake toppers, from gowns to feathery...hat...things, from rings to DJs to venues to celebratory DVDs, it's a mega money machine.
Depending on where you're coming from, folks seem to either buy into that, or want to go their own way. Wedding magazines regularly encourage couples to drop student-loan-worthy amounts on their wedding day, but some (and as much flak as she gets, Martha Stewart really is the best for this) point couples in a more DIY direction. Less traditional often equals less expensive, since wedding purveyors haven't clued in to the idea that 120 fancy cookies can be for a wedding the same way a four-tier cake is. And doing it yourself gives brides and grooms a level of control over their giant paper flower decorations that buying really misses out on.
My girlfriend from high school seems to be going the lo-fi route. Her engagement ring is a gorgeous pearl set-up, bucking the diamonds-are-forever trend that bloody De Beers pimps so hard. My mom got no ring - "I think I got a dog" - and my friend Rachel has long proclaimed that if and when she gets engaged, she wants a tapestry. "Rings signify ownership," she says. I tend to disagree, unless they're clamped around my ankle with a ball and chain, but during this summer's OTT heatwaves, I was like, "Screw diamond rings, what I want to be proposed with is a Dyson Bladeless fan."
I haven't really been to a lot of real-type weddings. Maybe one or two, where there's a venue and a first dance and a sit-down dinner, and not in the last few years. My pals have mostly Done It Themselves: my friend Ewan had a choir of his friends sing him and his bride down the aisle. The friends were dressed as Star Trek crew members. Liz and Toby eloped: they invited my mom, who brought my teenage, basketball-shorts-wearing brother. One of the "bridesmaids" wore ski goggles in an attempt to neutralize the August sun's UV rays. It was...unusual. Nobody's worn ugly bridesmaid dresses or shoved cake in their beloved's face.
But I love pretty, fancy things, and I love love, so weddings are really appealing to me. I'm not a huge fan of polished, glossy business. I like my celebrations like I like my men: a little rough around the edges. For example, the recent trend of hand-tooled and rough-cut engagement rings looks gorgeous to me. It's lovely, not ostentatious bling, and unexpected. Or this couple's wedding photos, which were taken in a gallery and show off her dark teal wedge sandals and gown beautifully. I love that splash of the unexpected - not everyone wants to be a princess on her wedding day. Some of us want to be David Bowie.
No matter how a wedding shakes down, ultimately it's not about the first dance, or the chicken/fish, or the groomsmen shagging one of the bridesmaids, or any of the other things each couple strives for to set their party apart. It's a celebration of love, of unity, of promises. Whether it's just two people who love each other very much running down to City Hall, or a day-long affair with 400 of the couple's friends, relatives, neighbours, former bosses and personal shoppers, the point isn't the "stuff" of the wedding. Nobody cares if the entree has ginger or the flower girl trips. What people want, what we care about, is that magic moment that says, "You may now kiss the bride."
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Smilestones
Twenty-seven years ago today, my parents were the exhausted and probably terrified guardians of their first child - me! Hello! I was born in Toronto's East End, on a day that was probably much like yesterday: a little dismal, a little rainy. Late November isn't a great time for inspiring weather. It's not like spring, which has its organic fireworks display of fresh foliage and blue skies bursting forth. My parents had to settle for a new kid bursting forth, a process I'd imagine was a lot less picturesque.
But burst forth I did, and twenty-seven years later, I've turned into a passable main character in a pretty decent book. I have a fantastic family with supportive, funny parents. I have smart, thoughtful siblings. I lucked into a fantastic group of friends, most of whom called me on my birthday to wish me feliz cumpleanos, and I got especially lucky with my female friends (not in that way, pervs), because I have a seriously excellent coven of lady-pals. Sure, my chapter on employment is a little skinny, and I'm still neurotic and weird about any number of things (spiders, food, fears of looking stupid on the subway platform), but I think I've turned into a decent adult.
I'm actually pretty excited about getting older. I feel more comfortable in my skin (which, I know, is something women in their forties who just discovered the joys of, like, colonics and talk therapy usually gush about), both in the hey-this-body-is-pretty-nice sort of skin, and also more comfortable in my priorities. The jobs I'm looking for suit me, instead of just desperately grabbing at the first gig that makes me some paper. The men I spend time with are solid, decent guys who make me laugh. I've learned how to say, "Hey, you hurt my feelings" and "I don't agree with you" in ways that aren't tantrum-y. I brush my hair less. I spend less time obsessively thinking about how much I weigh. I spend more time thinking about friends, family, co-op, how to be a real live writer, bikes, and delicious food and snack ideas. I'm happier.
In the same way that January 1 is a magnet for stringent, punitive resolutions ("I'm going to lost one-third of my body weight, never drink beer again, and be nicer to the siblings I haven't gotten along with since birth"), and early September usually inspires dreamy attempts at new projects ("I'm going to renovate the kitchen and finally get around to writing that novella about man-eating duvets"), birthdays tend to inspire a similar stock-taking of one's life. Remember elementary school? The difference between seven and eight seems massive, and the trip into double-digits at ten, or official teenager-hood at thirteen, is mind-blowing. The new age, scrubbed clean of your fuck-ups of the past year, represents new promise. As a twenty-six-year-old, I was kind of a screw-up. I broke myself down: I quit binge-drinking, got help for an eating disorder, had panic attacks, and got some surgery.
My twenty-seven-year-old self knows better. This year could be a year of rebuilding after the flood. I'm looking forward to the kind of milestones my late twenties will bring: travel and fulfilling work, friends getting married, new businesses being launched, maybe falling in love, definitely showing off as much cleavage as I can. I mean, as much as I like getting older and all, I'm no Helen Mirren, and breasts are definitely one of those things that are better when we're younger. Everything else? We'll see.
But burst forth I did, and twenty-seven years later, I've turned into a passable main character in a pretty decent book. I have a fantastic family with supportive, funny parents. I have smart, thoughtful siblings. I lucked into a fantastic group of friends, most of whom called me on my birthday to wish me feliz cumpleanos, and I got especially lucky with my female friends (not in that way, pervs), because I have a seriously excellent coven of lady-pals. Sure, my chapter on employment is a little skinny, and I'm still neurotic and weird about any number of things (spiders, food, fears of looking stupid on the subway platform), but I think I've turned into a decent adult.
I'm actually pretty excited about getting older. I feel more comfortable in my skin (which, I know, is something women in their forties who just discovered the joys of, like, colonics and talk therapy usually gush about), both in the hey-this-body-is-pretty-nice sort of skin, and also more comfortable in my priorities. The jobs I'm looking for suit me, instead of just desperately grabbing at the first gig that makes me some paper. The men I spend time with are solid, decent guys who make me laugh. I've learned how to say, "Hey, you hurt my feelings" and "I don't agree with you" in ways that aren't tantrum-y. I brush my hair less. I spend less time obsessively thinking about how much I weigh. I spend more time thinking about friends, family, co-op, how to be a real live writer, bikes, and delicious food and snack ideas. I'm happier.
In the same way that January 1 is a magnet for stringent, punitive resolutions ("I'm going to lost one-third of my body weight, never drink beer again, and be nicer to the siblings I haven't gotten along with since birth"), and early September usually inspires dreamy attempts at new projects ("I'm going to renovate the kitchen and finally get around to writing that novella about man-eating duvets"), birthdays tend to inspire a similar stock-taking of one's life. Remember elementary school? The difference between seven and eight seems massive, and the trip into double-digits at ten, or official teenager-hood at thirteen, is mind-blowing. The new age, scrubbed clean of your fuck-ups of the past year, represents new promise. As a twenty-six-year-old, I was kind of a screw-up. I broke myself down: I quit binge-drinking, got help for an eating disorder, had panic attacks, and got some surgery.
My twenty-seven-year-old self knows better. This year could be a year of rebuilding after the flood. I'm looking forward to the kind of milestones my late twenties will bring: travel and fulfilling work, friends getting married, new businesses being launched, maybe falling in love, definitely showing off as much cleavage as I can. I mean, as much as I like getting older and all, I'm no Helen Mirren, and breasts are definitely one of those things that are better when we're younger. Everything else? We'll see.
Friday, November 26, 2010
The Straight Poop
I went to a dinner party earlier this week, where a bunch of us sat around and talked poop for a few minutes. We compared notes on gas and times of day, on cramps and allergies, and then realized that the other guests were staring at us with a mixture of unbridled horror and repulsion. It had only been a few minutes, but we had clearly crossed a line.
In a weird way, it's part of a larger cycle in my life: the inappropriate conversation. It usually starts with someone's thoughtless overshare, but that moment of unedited honesty often leads, at least with my friends, with a sense of relief. We aren't alone! We aren't freaks! When I moved into my first co-op house, a building that housed fifteen university students and had only one kitchen, we talked about sex roughly 23 hours a day. Over ramen noodles, we discussed anal sex. While drunkenly eating burritos, post-Dance Cave, we slurred our way through a conversation about vibrators. We talked about porn as we passed the popovers at Sunday breakfast. It was liberating, though, to find out that we weren't alone in our mental obsession and weird preferences.
Now that most of that crew has settled into LTRs and we all know everything about everyone's vagina, we've flipped the script over to other bodily functions. Digestion's a big one, but when I took a medicine last fall whose side effects included making me produce a little breast milk (and oy vey, that was weird!), folks clamored to see. And, in some adventurous cases, taste. I know all about various allergies, and how they manifest in the ear, nose, throat, digestive tract, skin, eyeball, and, in the case of anaphylaxis, hospital room. Latex sensitive? I know all about that one. Susceptible to cat dander? Walk this way. Shellfish make you break out? And so on.
I guess what we're trying to do for each other is make it normal. While it's not really "normal" for someone to "poop liquid" as my friend Alexandra does (names have been changed to protect the innocent, although that phrase is so disgustingly evocative that I have to use it) if she drinks a glass of milk, that is Alex's normal. So it's become normal for us to have dairy-free brunches and skip the eggnog when she's around.
Like with sex, even if something is weird, the goal is to make it comfortable and fine. If you're GGG and your partner is into boot-licking, then you get to buy some slick knee-high boots. And if your boyfriend gets hives the second he pets a dog, then unfortunately your apartment isn't going to hear the pitter-patter of little feet until he knocks you up...which, given all those latex allergies, might be sooner than you thought.
Because that's what we're heading towards, anyway: the pregnancies. God, pregnancy is weird. Not bad-weird. Just weird. Your ankles get fat and you grow more blood. And no two pregnancies are alike. There are literally thousands of women posting on hundred of forums during their gestational periods, asking, "Is this normal?" and being relieved when the answers come back. Or alarmed. Or both. And after the pregnancies, we can all look forward to getting old.
The internet often acts as a digital version of the crowdsourcing we've been doing for years, especially when it comes to bodies. Asking our friends what they think about heavy breasts, his reluctance to orgasm, and if it hurts if you put it in your butt, is often way less intimidating than asking our doctors, and helps normalize the whole weirdness. I'm not condoning using your friends as a substitute for actual medical advice, and your smarter pals should gently say, "Friend, sounds like you should see a doctor about that wart/missed period/bald spot/allergic reaction/reluctance to orgasm," if faced with a troubling question. Health care is free in this country.
But I am condoning the occasional inappropriate conversation. Clear the air, ask about what's normal (take, for example, the appearance of vaginas in porn versus your average civilian sex-haver. Worlds apart), check yourself out, and make it normal to have the talks. That way, when we all inevitably get pregnant and have ridiculously weird/normal children, we can talk to them about poop, sex, and all the other magical, mysterious, and wonderful parts of our crazy, weird bodies.
In a weird way, it's part of a larger cycle in my life: the inappropriate conversation. It usually starts with someone's thoughtless overshare, but that moment of unedited honesty often leads, at least with my friends, with a sense of relief. We aren't alone! We aren't freaks! When I moved into my first co-op house, a building that housed fifteen university students and had only one kitchen, we talked about sex roughly 23 hours a day. Over ramen noodles, we discussed anal sex. While drunkenly eating burritos, post-Dance Cave, we slurred our way through a conversation about vibrators. We talked about porn as we passed the popovers at Sunday breakfast. It was liberating, though, to find out that we weren't alone in our mental obsession and weird preferences.
Now that most of that crew has settled into LTRs and we all know everything about everyone's vagina, we've flipped the script over to other bodily functions. Digestion's a big one, but when I took a medicine last fall whose side effects included making me produce a little breast milk (and oy vey, that was weird!), folks clamored to see. And, in some adventurous cases, taste. I know all about various allergies, and how they manifest in the ear, nose, throat, digestive tract, skin, eyeball, and, in the case of anaphylaxis, hospital room. Latex sensitive? I know all about that one. Susceptible to cat dander? Walk this way. Shellfish make you break out? And so on.
I guess what we're trying to do for each other is make it normal. While it's not really "normal" for someone to "poop liquid" as my friend Alexandra does (names have been changed to protect the innocent, although that phrase is so disgustingly evocative that I have to use it) if she drinks a glass of milk, that is Alex's normal. So it's become normal for us to have dairy-free brunches and skip the eggnog when she's around.
Like with sex, even if something is weird, the goal is to make it comfortable and fine. If you're GGG and your partner is into boot-licking, then you get to buy some slick knee-high boots. And if your boyfriend gets hives the second he pets a dog, then unfortunately your apartment isn't going to hear the pitter-patter of little feet until he knocks you up...which, given all those latex allergies, might be sooner than you thought.
Because that's what we're heading towards, anyway: the pregnancies. God, pregnancy is weird. Not bad-weird. Just weird. Your ankles get fat and you grow more blood. And no two pregnancies are alike. There are literally thousands of women posting on hundred of forums during their gestational periods, asking, "Is this normal?" and being relieved when the answers come back. Or alarmed. Or both. And after the pregnancies, we can all look forward to getting old.
The internet often acts as a digital version of the crowdsourcing we've been doing for years, especially when it comes to bodies. Asking our friends what they think about heavy breasts, his reluctance to orgasm, and if it hurts if you put it in your butt, is often way less intimidating than asking our doctors, and helps normalize the whole weirdness. I'm not condoning using your friends as a substitute for actual medical advice, and your smarter pals should gently say, "Friend, sounds like you should see a doctor about that wart/missed period/bald spot/allergic reaction/reluctance to orgasm," if faced with a troubling question. Health care is free in this country.
But I am condoning the occasional inappropriate conversation. Clear the air, ask about what's normal (take, for example, the appearance of vaginas in porn versus your average civilian sex-haver. Worlds apart), check yourself out, and make it normal to have the talks. That way, when we all inevitably get pregnant and have ridiculously weird/normal children, we can talk to them about poop, sex, and all the other magical, mysterious, and wonderful parts of our crazy, weird bodies.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
I'm DIM: Doing It Myself
I am not what you might call "hands-on." Oh, I'm not one of those super-high-maintenance women, with the high-heeled snow boots and the weekly manicure. I once read a particularly snarky letter to the editor of Homemakers magazine after they featured Mila Mulroney looking chipper and pert on their cover. Imagine how much more money we would all have, the writer groused, if the taxpayers weren't springing for Mila to get her signature bangs trimmed all the freaking time.
That's not me. But neither am I one of those super-crunchy folks who are making their own bike seats out of locally-sourced goat leather and engaging in vermiculture in order to improve the spirit of my garden. I can barely sew, I kill plants by looking at them, and I don't know how to rewire a lamp or help birth a calf. Based on my current skill set, I would that useless, irritating farmgirl - the one who stares wistfully at the horizon and hides in the sweet-smelling hay of the barn, reading, instead of helping out with chores, singing, or carousing with the ruddy-cheeked neighbouring farmboys at the annual barn dance and/or parent-approved snogging festival.
Lately, I feel like there's been an explosion of the DIY culture. You can grow your own food. You can raise your own chickens (although not in the city of Toronto, which apparently has a by-law on the book prohibiting fowl from the downtown core - unless, of course, it's dead and presented on a styrofoam meat tray). You can join a co-op to invest in unpasteurized milk and futures on homegrown beef. Your kids can wear hand-made clothes while you menstruate onto "adorable" feminine products. Call it urban homesteading, the rise of the Etsy generation, or just a simple desire for city-dwellers to connect to where their stuff comes from.
It's interesting to think about it from a class perspective: a lot of my more granola-type pals, the ones who are growing their own food/biking everwhere/making their own beer, are doing it because, um, well: we're broke. I can't afford a metropass; ergo, I use my bicycle. My friends can't afford to buy new, eighty-dollar pants, so they pick up clothes from the Sally Ann. The "free to a good home" barter system that's sprung up on Craigslist in the last decade or so has netted clothes, fitness equipment, pet supplies (and the occasional pet), books, kitchen tools, furniture and more. The library and it's "free! But bring it back or we'll take your money" model of business has given us comics and cookbooks, the likes of which permanently collecting would be financially unfeasible.
And then from the other side, you have folks who purchase their handmade stuff and then behave like it makes them more enlightened. Look, I like Lush soap as much as the next gal, but when I plop down a fiver and receive a product in return, I'm not being special or using magical hippie powers to change the world. All I'm really doing is engaging in what's known as capitalism.
Now, if Etsy, Lush, Grassroots, or the Slingshot collective, or any of the businesses that promote the DIY/environmentally-friendly aesthetic, also accepted the fact that folks often "choose" to DIY not out of earthy lust but because we are poor people, and offered their goods and services on a sliding scale - equitableness is fun! - then I'd believe that their mission statement of being good to the earth and the people who live on it isn't just lip service. I know people gotta make a living, but when my choices are el cheapo No Name laundry detergent that's basically allergenic poison, or expensive retro detergent that won't give my family hives, there really isn't much of a choice.
Personally, I'm not totally useless: my culinary skills, while not particularly diverse (I, like most cooking-for-one types, make the same dishes over and over), manage to deliver consistent tastiness, and I will try new projects in the kitchen; "bloody zombie" cupcakes, anyone? I knit, I bake, I make the occasional collage or art project. I'm capable but not particularly experienced.
I'm wildly interested in things like canning food and brewing my own beer. Part of that interest comes from wanting to save a few pennies down the road - seriously, do you know how expensive fig preserves are?! - and part of it comes from half-seriously wanting to be ready should the end of the world descend upon us (hint: zombies!) Part of it comes from Canada being a nation built on farmers and homesteaders, and to ignore that cultural motif, while embracing fashionable buffalo plaid, seems disingenuous. Part of it comes from the desire to have skills, to be self-supportive, and to know how things work - things like pastry and beer have their own rules.
And part of it is just wanting to get my hands dirty. A lot of things in the DIY movement make your life harder - seriously, baking your own sourdough is a commitment - but in the end, you end up pretty much what you want, made with your own hands.
That's not me. But neither am I one of those super-crunchy folks who are making their own bike seats out of locally-sourced goat leather and engaging in vermiculture in order to improve the spirit of my garden. I can barely sew, I kill plants by looking at them, and I don't know how to rewire a lamp or help birth a calf. Based on my current skill set, I would that useless, irritating farmgirl - the one who stares wistfully at the horizon and hides in the sweet-smelling hay of the barn, reading, instead of helping out with chores, singing, or carousing with the ruddy-cheeked neighbouring farmboys at the annual barn dance and/or parent-approved snogging festival.
Lately, I feel like there's been an explosion of the DIY culture. You can grow your own food. You can raise your own chickens (although not in the city of Toronto, which apparently has a by-law on the book prohibiting fowl from the downtown core - unless, of course, it's dead and presented on a styrofoam meat tray). You can join a co-op to invest in unpasteurized milk and futures on homegrown beef. Your kids can wear hand-made clothes while you menstruate onto "adorable" feminine products. Call it urban homesteading, the rise of the Etsy generation, or just a simple desire for city-dwellers to connect to where their stuff comes from.
It's interesting to think about it from a class perspective: a lot of my more granola-type pals, the ones who are growing their own food/biking everwhere/making their own beer, are doing it because, um, well: we're broke. I can't afford a metropass; ergo, I use my bicycle. My friends can't afford to buy new, eighty-dollar pants, so they pick up clothes from the Sally Ann. The "free to a good home" barter system that's sprung up on Craigslist in the last decade or so has netted clothes, fitness equipment, pet supplies (and the occasional pet), books, kitchen tools, furniture and more. The library and it's "free! But bring it back or we'll take your money" model of business has given us comics and cookbooks, the likes of which permanently collecting would be financially unfeasible.
And then from the other side, you have folks who purchase their handmade stuff and then behave like it makes them more enlightened. Look, I like Lush soap as much as the next gal, but when I plop down a fiver and receive a product in return, I'm not being special or using magical hippie powers to change the world. All I'm really doing is engaging in what's known as capitalism.
Now, if Etsy, Lush, Grassroots, or the Slingshot collective, or any of the businesses that promote the DIY/environmentally-friendly aesthetic, also accepted the fact that folks often "choose" to DIY not out of earthy lust but because we are poor people, and offered their goods and services on a sliding scale - equitableness is fun! - then I'd believe that their mission statement of being good to the earth and the people who live on it isn't just lip service. I know people gotta make a living, but when my choices are el cheapo No Name laundry detergent that's basically allergenic poison, or expensive retro detergent that won't give my family hives, there really isn't much of a choice.
Personally, I'm not totally useless: my culinary skills, while not particularly diverse (I, like most cooking-for-one types, make the same dishes over and over), manage to deliver consistent tastiness, and I will try new projects in the kitchen; "bloody zombie" cupcakes, anyone? I knit, I bake, I make the occasional collage or art project. I'm capable but not particularly experienced.
I'm wildly interested in things like canning food and brewing my own beer. Part of that interest comes from wanting to save a few pennies down the road - seriously, do you know how expensive fig preserves are?! - and part of it comes from half-seriously wanting to be ready should the end of the world descend upon us (hint: zombies!) Part of it comes from Canada being a nation built on farmers and homesteaders, and to ignore that cultural motif, while embracing fashionable buffalo plaid, seems disingenuous. Part of it comes from the desire to have skills, to be self-supportive, and to know how things work - things like pastry and beer have their own rules.
And part of it is just wanting to get my hands dirty. A lot of things in the DIY movement make your life harder - seriously, baking your own sourdough is a commitment - but in the end, you end up pretty much what you want, made with your own hands.
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