I've written before about the importance of men having a respectable face suit - beards, goatees, mustaches, sideburns and their ilk - but it seems like the New York Times has just recently woken up to the fact that women often have their own hair issues to deal with. Rarely do we get to experiment with facial hair, but we do have a ton of other hairy issues to address.
For instance, in the year 2010, it's standard issue to have a smooth underarm. Go back 100 years, and to the birth of the sleeveless dress, and you'll find that women had hairy pits. But a savvy promotional campaign and the endorsement of hairless ancient Greek sculpture (and seriously, can you even imagine how time-consuming and asinine carving out wiry little hairs for photorealistic sculptures would be?), we've come to a time when female underarm hair is decried as gross, or worse, French.
There was that whole Brazilian public hair thing, where women would wax the hair off their vaginas and then talk about it on Sex and the City. The hairstyle, or lack thereof, was standard issue in pornography, making it acceptable for men to be all "pffft" towards women who cultivated a more natural look. In the same way that I love beards, I can't deny a man's right to prefer a hairless vagina. But making it some sort of across-the-board standard for all women seems a little...unimaginative. Some men like a big hairy bush. Some men don't. Some women like having hair down there, and some don't. (And, as a side note, just because something is standard in porn don't mean it carries over into real life. I'm sure you could convince more women to wax their areas if more men had ten-inch penises and more trips to the Pottery Barn ended in a gangbang).
In any case, the NYT was all "Women! Armpits! There's hair there! Whaaaaaat? Gross!" which is something I think they do every spring. Writing's a bitch, eh? They pointed to an ancient photo of Julia Robert flashing some pitbush and then interviewed erstwhile Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer about her decision not to shave. Palmer was a little all over the place, claiming it was both a personal, non-political decision and that she did it for her fans, but I get the confusion.
Every time a women opts not to follow the regimented beauty path, there's the possibility that she's doing it for political reasons. Back in reality, however, the majority of the women I know who choose to leave one or more of the possibly smooth body areas downy do it because they either don't care either way, or they prefer the way it looks.
Preferring your pits to be smooth and smell like baby powder (and who decides on these deodorant flavours? Cucumber? Give me a break) is seen as a healthy, attractive option. Preferring them hairy seems to mean that you're a vegan co-operative bean farmer who worships the equinox and has named her son Macaroon. That you're smelly, or dirty, or a throwback the Neolithic era. It's decidedly not in line with the silky bitches in the fashion magazines.
Then again, who is? Okay, raise your hand if you're five-eleven and weigh 117 pounds. Keep them up if you have stick-straight hair - or perfect glossy curls. No acne? No stretch marks? No scars or chipped teeth? Symmetrical features? Delicate eyebrows? A clavicle you could use to slice cheese?
That's what I thought. And you can't buy those things either, just like shaving your pits isn't going to net you the life you want. There are other, more interesting things you can do with your underarms (like the tattoo I saw once in a magazine: this totally blase woman who had tattooed a vagina in one of her armpits, with a line of ants coming out of it. It was equal parts WTF, amazing and repulsive. I've been trying to Google that for, like, half and hour and I'm getting some horrible stuff). Amanda Palmer, come drink beer with my friends and I. You seem like a woman who could wax (or not) poetic on a number of different issues, grooming included. We can sit around and talk about real things, instead of what happens when a woman decides to forgo the razor.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
This World Is Old, I Want A New One
So, there seem to be terrible things afoot, generally speaking. Watching the Daily Show last night, I learned that the decision to sidestep the molestations that have been rampant in the Catholic church for the past, oh, three decades was endorsed by Cardinal Ratzinger, alias Pope Benedict. I'm no Pope - for one thing, his shoes come from Prada, while mine are decidedly Payless - but it's hard to believe in a church that says, "Hey, see that person over there, in the flowy robes? He's got a red phone to God." And that that same person would be all "meh" over systemic sexual abuse in his own church.
Also, it seems like many a flight out of Europe has been grounded because a volcano with the incredible handle of Eyjafjallajokull has decided to burp volcanic ash all over the Continent, pleasing science-folks and greatly irritating all those earth-bound Scotsmen who are now shaking their shaggy fists at the sky and vowing to "git yea, whoevair ye aire." This image provokes a great deal of giggling from your author, but I also understand the annoyance factor here is high. To be grounded in an airport, where there has been no fresh air pumped in since 1989, is the pits. Like, David Caruso-on-CSI bad.
Oh, also: earthquake in China. Many people dead. And the Polish president died in a plane crash. And apparently (and sort of unbelievably) Canadian politicos are partying with blow and whores, which, like....what?!
When I was thirteen, I read Gordon Korman's spectacular work of young adult fiction called Son Of Interflux. One of the characters, a genial high school junior named Phil, was constantly getting into art school scrapes - carving a wooden bust of Garibaldi, sliming bananas through a fan and shellacking them, and so on - the fallout from which was constantly destroying his faith. Phil was the same type of person who'd find a worm in a swamp, bring it home, and name it Keith. "Phil's faith was on a constant cycle of destruction and renewal." Testify, brother.
I myself have been having panic attacks: freak-outs that range in severity from turning gray at the dentist (I saw myself in the mirror. Nobody should have to wonder where her lips are) to a full-on weeping festivals. In the middle, there's a gamut of stupid shit: lightheadedness (that's my big one), shaking, sweating, feeling removed from your body, nausea, losing your ability to speak, dry mouth, and other delights. You can imagine that a person in the throes of one of these moments isn't inclined to make small talk over the canapes. Instead, they curl up under the buffet table, trying not to cry.
So, I've made myself a little fort under the buffet table. Some people I've let in: come hang out, give me online pep talks, watch me eat soup like I'm five years old. To some people I just say, "I'm feeling weird and anxious. If I need to leave, I'm just going to do that." Many people don't even get that much: I either sprint away like I'm being chased ("Come back! We just want to exchange social banalities!") or I slither away to the bathroom, and seem extraordinarily sketchy as I count to one hundred and try to calm the fuck down.
I might be making this up, but I read somewhere that, every so often, there is a cycle of rebirth. It happens on a micro scale and a macro scale. On a small scale, the rebirth pains might look like panic attacks; on the mid-level range, there might be some mystifying Canadian political shenanigans, and on the global, we get eruptions and earthquakes. This isn't some vengeful or apathetic God punishing us (although smiting the Catholics who touch little kids and then lie about it might be a good place to start with the avenging, yes?). I think it's a cycle. We need to push through the really hard times, because when we come out the other side, with all our new knowledge and muscles and patience, we're stronger. We're different.
Plus, we're all scrubbed and pink and we get to lie in a blanket for a minute, just breathing together.
Also, it seems like many a flight out of Europe has been grounded because a volcano with the incredible handle of Eyjafjallajokull has decided to burp volcanic ash all over the Continent, pleasing science-folks and greatly irritating all those earth-bound Scotsmen who are now shaking their shaggy fists at the sky and vowing to "git yea, whoevair ye aire." This image provokes a great deal of giggling from your author, but I also understand the annoyance factor here is high. To be grounded in an airport, where there has been no fresh air pumped in since 1989, is the pits. Like, David Caruso-on-CSI bad.
Oh, also: earthquake in China. Many people dead. And the Polish president died in a plane crash. And apparently (and sort of unbelievably) Canadian politicos are partying with blow and whores, which, like....what?!
When I was thirteen, I read Gordon Korman's spectacular work of young adult fiction called Son Of Interflux. One of the characters, a genial high school junior named Phil, was constantly getting into art school scrapes - carving a wooden bust of Garibaldi, sliming bananas through a fan and shellacking them, and so on - the fallout from which was constantly destroying his faith. Phil was the same type of person who'd find a worm in a swamp, bring it home, and name it Keith. "Phil's faith was on a constant cycle of destruction and renewal." Testify, brother.
I myself have been having panic attacks: freak-outs that range in severity from turning gray at the dentist (I saw myself in the mirror. Nobody should have to wonder where her lips are) to a full-on weeping festivals. In the middle, there's a gamut of stupid shit: lightheadedness (that's my big one), shaking, sweating, feeling removed from your body, nausea, losing your ability to speak, dry mouth, and other delights. You can imagine that a person in the throes of one of these moments isn't inclined to make small talk over the canapes. Instead, they curl up under the buffet table, trying not to cry.
So, I've made myself a little fort under the buffet table. Some people I've let in: come hang out, give me online pep talks, watch me eat soup like I'm five years old. To some people I just say, "I'm feeling weird and anxious. If I need to leave, I'm just going to do that." Many people don't even get that much: I either sprint away like I'm being chased ("Come back! We just want to exchange social banalities!") or I slither away to the bathroom, and seem extraordinarily sketchy as I count to one hundred and try to calm the fuck down.
I might be making this up, but I read somewhere that, every so often, there is a cycle of rebirth. It happens on a micro scale and a macro scale. On a small scale, the rebirth pains might look like panic attacks; on the mid-level range, there might be some mystifying Canadian political shenanigans, and on the global, we get eruptions and earthquakes. This isn't some vengeful or apathetic God punishing us (although smiting the Catholics who touch little kids and then lie about it might be a good place to start with the avenging, yes?). I think it's a cycle. We need to push through the really hard times, because when we come out the other side, with all our new knowledge and muscles and patience, we're stronger. We're different.
Plus, we're all scrubbed and pink and we get to lie in a blanket for a minute, just breathing together.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Metaphor The Win
There's something about a delicately crafted metaphor that really spins my axles. I was talking to my friend Abe, who is up in the air about some very exciting upcoming academic adventures, and I offered the metaphor of graduate school as car: some are fancy, like a Porsche, some are workaday, like a Honda Civic: it all depends on where you want to go and in how much style. Obviously, "style" means "crippling student debt" when we're talking about universities, but the metaphor holds.
The use of language and imagery to make sense of our topsy-turvy modern world is so appealing. There's something about it that makes seemingly unmanageable problems seem smaller, friendlier, and more deal-with-able. Last year, I used a vehicular metaphor when I talked about relationship baggage. Some days, I'm dealing with shit I have to haul around in a tank; other days, I can get by hauling my crazy brain around on a skateboard.
One of my favourite metaphors comes from Anne Lamott, who said in one of her fabulous books that managing addictions is a lot like trying to put an octopus to bed: as soon as you think you've got all your problems under control, one of those sucker-covered tentacles comes snaking out from under the covers, ready to squish you to death. I love that image, because it's a great combination of homey - the covers! - and the fishy, disgusting deep waters of the conscious. It's also remarkably apt. Addictions do seem to involve a lot of flailing around and unprettiness.
People have used metaphors time and time again in order to make the big ticket items seem smaller. Pat Benatar used one to great effect when she compared love to a battlefield - which, incidentally, I'm on side with as timeless and awesome, not to mention hummable. But love is a lot like a battlefield: scary, unknowable, and with the potential for grievous harm to one's corporeal body and mental well-being. Anyone who's looked at a positive pregnancy test as one might look at a loaded gun knows what I'm talking about here.
Abe also introduced me to one of his favourite metaphors: troubled relationship as car. We've been talking a lot about love triangles, and he said that getting involved with someone who's in a relationship is a lot like riding shotgun in a car, your love interest driving, and their partner asleep in the back. Obviously, there can be a certain amount of hanky-panky up there in the front seat, but ultimately, to make this kind of relationship last, someone needs to get out of the car. Maybe you pull over and get out, walk by the side of the road for a while, and wait for your lover to come back when he's riding solo. Sometimes the partner wakes up, and sees your hands interlaced on the gear shifter. Either way, the ride isn't going to last that way forever.
As both a cyclist and as a woman with some commitment issues, I find this metaphor totally luscious. Cyclists are, by their nature, a solitary bunch; hence the commitment issues. I guess I could get an AutoShare membership - date around, try out different makes and models - but many of those cars seem to have braking trouble and the clutch is shot. Also, they have mommy issues. Sometimes, even though you end up slogging through the rain and getting flat tires, it seems like the most gratifying way to travel is solo. Plus, it seems like maybe my love for Top Gear has rendered me incapable of not appreciating a good automotive metaphor.
Metaphors are most successful when they illuminate some dark part of our lives. We think a problem is overwhelming - just another octopus under the duvet, its eyes glinting dully in the night. But it turns out that, with the right turn of phrase, new light can be shed on the situation. We give ourselves a new angle, a new way of looking at the world, and things become easier. We can talk about the problem: "See, it's a lot like a garden," and our listeners, who hitherto had been catatonic with annoyance, grasp the situation a little better. Maybe even offer a fresh ear and some new advice. And we ourselves get a new lease on the issue...or at least more space to breathe with it. Sometimes, that's all we really need. Cars, gardens, battlefields: all they're doing is opening ourselves up, making things safe, and then manageable.
The use of language and imagery to make sense of our topsy-turvy modern world is so appealing. There's something about it that makes seemingly unmanageable problems seem smaller, friendlier, and more deal-with-able. Last year, I used a vehicular metaphor when I talked about relationship baggage. Some days, I'm dealing with shit I have to haul around in a tank; other days, I can get by hauling my crazy brain around on a skateboard.
One of my favourite metaphors comes from Anne Lamott, who said in one of her fabulous books that managing addictions is a lot like trying to put an octopus to bed: as soon as you think you've got all your problems under control, one of those sucker-covered tentacles comes snaking out from under the covers, ready to squish you to death. I love that image, because it's a great combination of homey - the covers! - and the fishy, disgusting deep waters of the conscious. It's also remarkably apt. Addictions do seem to involve a lot of flailing around and unprettiness.
People have used metaphors time and time again in order to make the big ticket items seem smaller. Pat Benatar used one to great effect when she compared love to a battlefield - which, incidentally, I'm on side with as timeless and awesome, not to mention hummable. But love is a lot like a battlefield: scary, unknowable, and with the potential for grievous harm to one's corporeal body and mental well-being. Anyone who's looked at a positive pregnancy test as one might look at a loaded gun knows what I'm talking about here.
Abe also introduced me to one of his favourite metaphors: troubled relationship as car. We've been talking a lot about love triangles, and he said that getting involved with someone who's in a relationship is a lot like riding shotgun in a car, your love interest driving, and their partner asleep in the back. Obviously, there can be a certain amount of hanky-panky up there in the front seat, but ultimately, to make this kind of relationship last, someone needs to get out of the car. Maybe you pull over and get out, walk by the side of the road for a while, and wait for your lover to come back when he's riding solo. Sometimes the partner wakes up, and sees your hands interlaced on the gear shifter. Either way, the ride isn't going to last that way forever.
As both a cyclist and as a woman with some commitment issues, I find this metaphor totally luscious. Cyclists are, by their nature, a solitary bunch; hence the commitment issues. I guess I could get an AutoShare membership - date around, try out different makes and models - but many of those cars seem to have braking trouble and the clutch is shot. Also, they have mommy issues. Sometimes, even though you end up slogging through the rain and getting flat tires, it seems like the most gratifying way to travel is solo. Plus, it seems like maybe my love for Top Gear has rendered me incapable of not appreciating a good automotive metaphor.
Metaphors are most successful when they illuminate some dark part of our lives. We think a problem is overwhelming - just another octopus under the duvet, its eyes glinting dully in the night. But it turns out that, with the right turn of phrase, new light can be shed on the situation. We give ourselves a new angle, a new way of looking at the world, and things become easier. We can talk about the problem: "See, it's a lot like a garden," and our listeners, who hitherto had been catatonic with annoyance, grasp the situation a little better. Maybe even offer a fresh ear and some new advice. And we ourselves get a new lease on the issue...or at least more space to breathe with it. Sometimes, that's all we really need. Cars, gardens, battlefields: all they're doing is opening ourselves up, making things safe, and then manageable.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
I'm Telling All of Y'all, It's Gratitude!
I am on a roll! While some days are the kind of days that makes you want to hide under the covers, weeping and eating Fudgee-os out of the package until your tonsils are sugar-burned, these days I'm having are more the type with the heart-burstingly good moods. The sushi lunch dates with friends. The patio-beers. The congratulations on the graduation from university.
That's right: after 8 years of slogging away, often through a pit of despair, my graduation from the University of Toronto is upon us.
Much like raising a child or doing the seal hunt, I've often felt like my travels through post-secondary education has taken the proverbial village. My family, who have never thrown their hands up in complete despair (even though I've often wanted to), deserve the most knee-shredding gratitude. My parents have always been so supportive of my meandering journey towards a degree: way back in 2002, when I was three months in and wanted to give up/transfer/die, they encouraged me to look at alternatives: time off - which I took, to the tune of two years off over the last eight - and considering a transfer. I ended up parking my butt at U of T for the entire time, but my mom and dad got me to think critically about school. What purpose does it serve? What's so special about U of T? Do you want spaghetti for dinner?
My circle of friends has also been amazing. My friends were encouraging no matter how many years I decided to run around campus. They would just shrug and say, "Well, you'll get there eventually." This would usually be in response to one of those I'm-a-loser meltdowns that will happen to those of us who Van Wilder'ed their way through school. It's a little tough to keep the courage of your convictions in the face of wildly accomplished folks - like many of my friends - but they were never judgemental or condescending. They would usually just pat my head and send me back to the books.
At the same time, while many of them blasted through school in the standard-issue four years, a lot of my friends took more time. Stretching out school-time isn't a bad thing: your late teens and early twenties are a time of enormous personal growth (God, could I sound any more California?), and sometimes, floundering is good for the soul. It was hugely helpful to have people in my social circle who decided to go slow, to try different courses, to take time off. It made me feel like less of an anomaly, and more like I was part of a slowed-down school of thought re: university.
On the other hand, the most off-putting and frustrating part of being a student was dealing with the school. My first registrar was so unhelpful. Saint Mike's, the first college, gave me the first-year residence experience that ruined everything in 2003: the food, my sleep, my social life, my interest in religion. Seriously? The dorm rooms had honest-to-God crucifixes over every door. I was expecting something a little less Rosemary's Baby from my college experience. I eventually switched colleges altogether, to the much more accommodating Innis College (and this was a great choice - they are so nice and so professional).
Many of professors were terrible teachers, terrible people, or both. I don't think profs are required to go through the same teaching courses that other educators need, and sometimes, this shows in the quality of the courses. For example, one of my profs this year was a PhD student who had never taught before; he used to spam our inboxes, give us confusing "assignments" that turned out to be bibliograpies, had no real idea of how to lecture, and, when approached one-on-one, seemed to be a weird blend of shy and arrogant. I've had other, much lovelier educational experiences here, but the lousy ones tend to stick with you.
Now that it's over and done - I was telling a friend last night that I am never writing anything for U of T again, even for money - I know that I wouldn't be the person I am now if I had gone anywhere else. I needed the shitty first year, the crappy beaurocracy, the wonderful friends, the family support, the stutter-stops and false starts, the ex-boyfriends, the weight fluctuations, the breakdowns and the triumphs, to become who I am today. The University of Toronto, maybe universities everywhere, produced a graduate much like itself: flawed, smart, good-looking (tee hee!), funny-haha, funny-weird, and interested in the world around it.
That's right: after 8 years of slogging away, often through a pit of despair, my graduation from the University of Toronto is upon us.
Much like raising a child or doing the seal hunt, I've often felt like my travels through post-secondary education has taken the proverbial village. My family, who have never thrown their hands up in complete despair (even though I've often wanted to), deserve the most knee-shredding gratitude. My parents have always been so supportive of my meandering journey towards a degree: way back in 2002, when I was three months in and wanted to give up/transfer/die, they encouraged me to look at alternatives: time off - which I took, to the tune of two years off over the last eight - and considering a transfer. I ended up parking my butt at U of T for the entire time, but my mom and dad got me to think critically about school. What purpose does it serve? What's so special about U of T? Do you want spaghetti for dinner?
My circle of friends has also been amazing. My friends were encouraging no matter how many years I decided to run around campus. They would just shrug and say, "Well, you'll get there eventually." This would usually be in response to one of those I'm-a-loser meltdowns that will happen to those of us who Van Wilder'ed their way through school. It's a little tough to keep the courage of your convictions in the face of wildly accomplished folks - like many of my friends - but they were never judgemental or condescending. They would usually just pat my head and send me back to the books.
At the same time, while many of them blasted through school in the standard-issue four years, a lot of my friends took more time. Stretching out school-time isn't a bad thing: your late teens and early twenties are a time of enormous personal growth (God, could I sound any more California?), and sometimes, floundering is good for the soul. It was hugely helpful to have people in my social circle who decided to go slow, to try different courses, to take time off. It made me feel like less of an anomaly, and more like I was part of a slowed-down school of thought re: university.
On the other hand, the most off-putting and frustrating part of being a student was dealing with the school. My first registrar was so unhelpful. Saint Mike's, the first college, gave me the first-year residence experience that ruined everything in 2003: the food, my sleep, my social life, my interest in religion. Seriously? The dorm rooms had honest-to-God crucifixes over every door. I was expecting something a little less Rosemary's Baby from my college experience. I eventually switched colleges altogether, to the much more accommodating Innis College (and this was a great choice - they are so nice and so professional).
Many of professors were terrible teachers, terrible people, or both. I don't think profs are required to go through the same teaching courses that other educators need, and sometimes, this shows in the quality of the courses. For example, one of my profs this year was a PhD student who had never taught before; he used to spam our inboxes, give us confusing "assignments" that turned out to be bibliograpies, had no real idea of how to lecture, and, when approached one-on-one, seemed to be a weird blend of shy and arrogant. I've had other, much lovelier educational experiences here, but the lousy ones tend to stick with you.
Now that it's over and done - I was telling a friend last night that I am never writing anything for U of T again, even for money - I know that I wouldn't be the person I am now if I had gone anywhere else. I needed the shitty first year, the crappy beaurocracy, the wonderful friends, the family support, the stutter-stops and false starts, the ex-boyfriends, the weight fluctuations, the breakdowns and the triumphs, to become who I am today. The University of Toronto, maybe universities everywhere, produced a graduate much like itself: flawed, smart, good-looking (tee hee!), funny-haha, funny-weird, and interested in the world around it.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
A Year Older, A Year More Self-Involved
I have a stack of red-covered journals in my apartment that stretch back six or seven years. I keep them in my bathroom, a little pile of diaries that contain some of the thoughts I've had since I was in my late teens. They've got entries on all kinds of things: weight-loss goals, rants about friends, tear-stained entries about boyfriends (well, ex-boyfriends. Let's keep things honest here), to-do lists, and woe-is-me drama-queen entries about what a horrible person I am and how much I suck, et cetera, ad nauseum, boring. Typical angst from a typical mid-twenties citizen of the world.
I tend to turn to those journals when I'm super emotional. It's those apocalyptic moods where my binary brain can comprehend one of two options: 1) punching a locker like I was a high school hockey player or 2) scribbling down my thoughts in one long comma-free emotional purge. Since my apartment is tragically short on lockers, I tend to write.
And, for the past year, in addition to filling up those red-leather books, I've also been filling up this blog. I have to confess, with the inaugural entry about Chuck Klosterman, I had no idea what I was getting into. I was just ranting. I had just read Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs and I needed to blow some hot air about it. I was seething, I was ranting, I was critical and a little potty-mouthed. Ipso facto: a blog entry.
Since then, I've written about any number of topics. My post on Leah McLaren garnered some decent feedback; my post on skinny jeans regularly pops up when folks google the concept. I've written about proms, girl crushes, names and the CBC. I've blogged about hoisery, Lost and George Clooney. Recently, my blogging has been a little stale. I've been cooped up in my apartment, waiting for the winter depression to become less of a valley and more of a gentle grade. But I never stopped writing.
I've had other blogs before, but those were way more personal, and as a result, way less interesting to look back on. They became little time capsules: they're who I was in the early years of school, right as I was striking out on my own. Now, I'm more confident - I actually have opinions about things that aren't, um, just about me. And this is my one year blogaversary, so it's all in the spirit of internet gabbing.
Blogs should be personal. I'm not saying make every entry about you, glorious YOU! - although that can also work, provided you're not a creepy narcissist who needs a personality recalibration after every day spent on the internet. But bloggers should have a POV. If I wanted pure news reporting, I would read the newspaper; what I want from a blog is a little bit of personality. Even the most frivolous types of blogs - fashion, entertainment, GOOP - are entertaining because their authors bring themselves into the code.
I like to treat my blog like a column. Is that weird to say? Whatever. It's true. There are things I'm not really interested in researching enough to blog cognizantly about - like who Ceasar Chavez is and why folks in the States get so uppity when he's running his mouth - so I tend to stick to things I know about. I've written a lot about bikes, and digital culture, and Toronto. That old saw, write "what you know," is still pretty good advice, even if you're not pounding your masterpiece out on a Remington while standing nude. In the future, I'll probably spout about things like owning a dog or taking Nia classes on the beach.
While you're keeping things personal, keep some things sacred. There are topics that I play close to the the vest: tight-knit family things, co-op stuff, body- and drug-related ideas. I tend to think, if it would make my mom or my boss squirm, it's not for writing about. Some folks have made the whole point of their blogs to be as confessional and personal as humanly possible. Not a bad thing, but just remember that people will find it, even if you think you're writing in a vaccuum.
And on that last note, for the love of god, bloggers need to spell- and grammar-check their work. It may just be a little spot for rants about your parents or a place to post pictures of your best-ever scrambled eggs, but it should be legible. I'm not going to require that your entries in the red-leather covered journals be Pulitzer-calibre work, because those are for your eyes only. But you know how, at the bottom of the webpage, it says "Publish Post"? Please, treat the damned thing like it's actually going to be read by people - published for reals, if you will - and treat your readers with respect.
I've had a blast writing this blog for the past year. It started as a place to rant, slowly morphed into a repository of writing ("Hi! Please hire me for writing gigs! Here's 130 awesome examples of why!"), and has always been a place to practice writing. It may be self-obsessed and passe, but blogging, for me, has turned out to be pretty damned fun.
I tend to turn to those journals when I'm super emotional. It's those apocalyptic moods where my binary brain can comprehend one of two options: 1) punching a locker like I was a high school hockey player or 2) scribbling down my thoughts in one long comma-free emotional purge. Since my apartment is tragically short on lockers, I tend to write.
And, for the past year, in addition to filling up those red-leather books, I've also been filling up this blog. I have to confess, with the inaugural entry about Chuck Klosterman, I had no idea what I was getting into. I was just ranting. I had just read Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs and I needed to blow some hot air about it. I was seething, I was ranting, I was critical and a little potty-mouthed. Ipso facto: a blog entry.
Since then, I've written about any number of topics. My post on Leah McLaren garnered some decent feedback; my post on skinny jeans regularly pops up when folks google the concept. I've written about proms, girl crushes, names and the CBC. I've blogged about hoisery, Lost and George Clooney. Recently, my blogging has been a little stale. I've been cooped up in my apartment, waiting for the winter depression to become less of a valley and more of a gentle grade. But I never stopped writing.
I've had other blogs before, but those were way more personal, and as a result, way less interesting to look back on. They became little time capsules: they're who I was in the early years of school, right as I was striking out on my own. Now, I'm more confident - I actually have opinions about things that aren't, um, just about me. And this is my one year blogaversary, so it's all in the spirit of internet gabbing.
Blogs should be personal. I'm not saying make every entry about you, glorious YOU! - although that can also work, provided you're not a creepy narcissist who needs a personality recalibration after every day spent on the internet. But bloggers should have a POV. If I wanted pure news reporting, I would read the newspaper; what I want from a blog is a little bit of personality. Even the most frivolous types of blogs - fashion, entertainment, GOOP - are entertaining because their authors bring themselves into the code.
I like to treat my blog like a column. Is that weird to say? Whatever. It's true. There are things I'm not really interested in researching enough to blog cognizantly about - like who Ceasar Chavez is and why folks in the States get so uppity when he's running his mouth - so I tend to stick to things I know about. I've written a lot about bikes, and digital culture, and Toronto. That old saw, write "what you know," is still pretty good advice, even if you're not pounding your masterpiece out on a Remington while standing nude. In the future, I'll probably spout about things like owning a dog or taking Nia classes on the beach.
While you're keeping things personal, keep some things sacred. There are topics that I play close to the the vest: tight-knit family things, co-op stuff, body- and drug-related ideas. I tend to think, if it would make my mom or my boss squirm, it's not for writing about. Some folks have made the whole point of their blogs to be as confessional and personal as humanly possible. Not a bad thing, but just remember that people will find it, even if you think you're writing in a vaccuum.
And on that last note, for the love of god, bloggers need to spell- and grammar-check their work. It may just be a little spot for rants about your parents or a place to post pictures of your best-ever scrambled eggs, but it should be legible. I'm not going to require that your entries in the red-leather covered journals be Pulitzer-calibre work, because those are for your eyes only. But you know how, at the bottom of the webpage, it says "Publish Post"? Please, treat the damned thing like it's actually going to be read by people - published for reals, if you will - and treat your readers with respect.
I've had a blast writing this blog for the past year. It started as a place to rant, slowly morphed into a repository of writing ("Hi! Please hire me for writing gigs! Here's 130 awesome examples of why!"), and has always been a place to practice writing. It may be self-obsessed and passe, but blogging, for me, has turned out to be pretty damned fun.
Friday, April 2, 2010
D-Bags
A few months ago, in the throes of insomnia and a TV coma, I stumbled across a show called Is She Really Going Out With Him? Despite the cute titled - and theme song, which played as an updated version of the classic Joe Jackson heartbreaker - the show itself was a celebration of all things douche. The premise is simple: take one long-term relationship between a relatively normal girl and a self-involved jerk, add cameras and ultimatums, and watch it on TV. You tend to see match-ups like the one I witnessed: she was a stunning nursing student who wore PVC leggings, and he owned his own hair straightener. Their abiding conflict was that she wanted to get married and he wanted to get bottle service in cheesy Orange County clubs.
The conspicuous consumption, the emphasis on gifts as a prerequisite for reconciliation (he eventually gave her, not a diamond ring, but an emerald necklace the size of a frying pan), the asinine behaviour, the mugging for the camera...it was just so douchey.
I'm not sure when the word "douchebag" became such an easily tossed around pejorative. It's clearly been around for a while, but I can remember a time when a popped collar and a snide remark wasn't going to earn someone the label. It has certain 1980s overtones, at least for me: it's always seemed like something surfer dudes would say to a particularly harsh bylaw officer for frowning on their sparking a jay on a public beach. It's possible that it's one of those words that magically appears when you're old enough to hear it. Unlike the big-gun curse words (and you know what I'm talking about if you took French immersion and remember that magical day you learned the French word for seal), there's a plethora of minor names to be called and swears to be sworn. Douchbag seems to fit right in there: it's kind of gross, lends itself well to being spat out in disgust during an altercation, isn't the H-bomb in terms of offensiveness, and evokes a a very specific type of jerk in this day and age: the mirrored-sunglasses-wearing, tanning-bed-using, collar-popping, line-saying ass who is in love with his own self.
When did our culture start liking this guy? I know we're all self-obsessed and superficial, but the douchebags presented in pop culture are so flagrantly unappealing. Anyone familiar with the show Jersey Shore knows what I'm talking about; for people (like me) who got 20 minutes into that trainwreck and had to turn it off, this is the guy with gel in his hair who refuses to move over on the sidewalk for strollers. I thought we hated these people. Why are they getting their own television shows?
I think part of it is helplessness we feel when we encounter a class-1 jerk in our daily lives. There's a sense of injustice that pervades dealing with these people, since they just seem so horrible that they should have, by all rights, been smote by the hand of God. Television, with the editing process that goes along with it, allows us to feel a gleeful schadenfreude when the assfaces inevitably get fired (for being morons), rejected (for bathing in cologne), or punched (for being themselves).
I also think that a certain part of us admires the douchebag, though. They seem to represent a tiny slice of our ids, in a way; the part of us that wants to be loud and obnoxious, the part of ourselves that considers us to be the smoothest ladies' man to ever grace the dancefloor. The douchebag subsection of society has a brute self-confidence that's simultaneously appealing and repulsive. Most people consider how they're perceived by those around them, and modify their interests and habits to be more likable. The douchebags, on the other hand, have faith that they are liked simply for being themselves, and concentrate their mental energies on picking up the girl in the short skirt at the end of the bar.
While I understand the appeal of the douchebag ikon, I am loathe to see the trend become too widespread. We're already a generation that's pretty into ourselves, what with the iPods and the Facebook and the whatnot (and, God, could I sound more crotchety?), and douchebags just take that to its natural end point. If this type of confidence was plastic surgery, most of us would settle for a nose job, while the douchebags have pumped up their breasts to the size of small moons. It's just too much. It becomes cartoonish.
Cartoonish makes for riveting TV, but the thought of actually living in proximity to one of these charmers in my life makes me want to throw myself in front of a train. Which is, I guess, the appeal of the TV influx of douchebags: it's a combination of "know thine enemy" and a laughable example of the 21st century's contributions to the ever-growing trainwreck that is Western pop culture. They confuse and delight me. They annoy me and freak me out. They are a mystery to be savored and ultimately discarded, like one of the bottles of premium vodka that is their lifeblood. Drink 'em in.
The conspicuous consumption, the emphasis on gifts as a prerequisite for reconciliation (he eventually gave her, not a diamond ring, but an emerald necklace the size of a frying pan), the asinine behaviour, the mugging for the camera...it was just so douchey.
I'm not sure when the word "douchebag" became such an easily tossed around pejorative. It's clearly been around for a while, but I can remember a time when a popped collar and a snide remark wasn't going to earn someone the label. It has certain 1980s overtones, at least for me: it's always seemed like something surfer dudes would say to a particularly harsh bylaw officer for frowning on their sparking a jay on a public beach. It's possible that it's one of those words that magically appears when you're old enough to hear it. Unlike the big-gun curse words (and you know what I'm talking about if you took French immersion and remember that magical day you learned the French word for seal), there's a plethora of minor names to be called and swears to be sworn. Douchbag seems to fit right in there: it's kind of gross, lends itself well to being spat out in disgust during an altercation, isn't the H-bomb in terms of offensiveness, and evokes a a very specific type of jerk in this day and age: the mirrored-sunglasses-wearing, tanning-bed-using, collar-popping, line-saying ass who is in love with his own self.
When did our culture start liking this guy? I know we're all self-obsessed and superficial, but the douchebags presented in pop culture are so flagrantly unappealing. Anyone familiar with the show Jersey Shore knows what I'm talking about; for people (like me) who got 20 minutes into that trainwreck and had to turn it off, this is the guy with gel in his hair who refuses to move over on the sidewalk for strollers. I thought we hated these people. Why are they getting their own television shows?
I think part of it is helplessness we feel when we encounter a class-1 jerk in our daily lives. There's a sense of injustice that pervades dealing with these people, since they just seem so horrible that they should have, by all rights, been smote by the hand of God. Television, with the editing process that goes along with it, allows us to feel a gleeful schadenfreude when the assfaces inevitably get fired (for being morons), rejected (for bathing in cologne), or punched (for being themselves).
I also think that a certain part of us admires the douchebag, though. They seem to represent a tiny slice of our ids, in a way; the part of us that wants to be loud and obnoxious, the part of ourselves that considers us to be the smoothest ladies' man to ever grace the dancefloor. The douchebag subsection of society has a brute self-confidence that's simultaneously appealing and repulsive. Most people consider how they're perceived by those around them, and modify their interests and habits to be more likable. The douchebags, on the other hand, have faith that they are liked simply for being themselves, and concentrate their mental energies on picking up the girl in the short skirt at the end of the bar.
While I understand the appeal of the douchebag ikon, I am loathe to see the trend become too widespread. We're already a generation that's pretty into ourselves, what with the iPods and the Facebook and the whatnot (and, God, could I sound more crotchety?), and douchebags just take that to its natural end point. If this type of confidence was plastic surgery, most of us would settle for a nose job, while the douchebags have pumped up their breasts to the size of small moons. It's just too much. It becomes cartoonish.
Cartoonish makes for riveting TV, but the thought of actually living in proximity to one of these charmers in my life makes me want to throw myself in front of a train. Which is, I guess, the appeal of the TV influx of douchebags: it's a combination of "know thine enemy" and a laughable example of the 21st century's contributions to the ever-growing trainwreck that is Western pop culture. They confuse and delight me. They annoy me and freak me out. They are a mystery to be savored and ultimately discarded, like one of the bottles of premium vodka that is their lifeblood. Drink 'em in.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Girl Crush
As much as I love men - and I do - there are fabulous women who hold a special place in my heart. This isn't, like, an ode to my mother or anything like that...she's wonderful, but applying the term "girl crush" to my mom raises my eyebrows, at the very least. The girl crush is a special category, reserved for fabulous strangers and acquaintances who make your heart soar with the possibility of one day being as awesome as they are.
I'm not talking about women who scare you into striving for awesome. As much as I admire her chutzpah and ferocious bob, Vogue editrix Anna Wintour's reputation is that she is a mean, scary woman. A bitch, if you will. (AND YOU WILL.) Women who produce results by intimidation can be inspiring, but there's also something less accessible about them. If I'm afraid to knock on a woman's office door to say hello, then she's not inspiring me...she's making me uncomfortable.
So the women I get girl crushes on are amazing, but in a fun way. For example: even though she's sort of a fictional character, I loved Meryl Streep's portrayal of Julia Child in Julie & Julia. Hilariously histronic emotions, deeply felt care, and an I-don't-give-a-fuck re: being liked attitude that is utterly charming. I can't tell if I have a girl crush on Meryl - although she's undeniably awesome - or on Child, but the intersection of the two is just so much fun to watch.
That's the thing about girl crushes. They're so much fun to watch. I've palled around with some of my girl crushes; there's a feisty writer/photographer who shares my irrational hatred of pants and can wrestle most of her skinny hipster dude friends to the ground, and just watching her in action at a bar or a party is such a pleasure. She'll say the most outrageous things, wear the cutest outfits, goad the bouncer into letting her and her fourteen closest friends in for free, and shark someone at pool once she's in. It's just so exciting!
Girl crushes are, by their nature, a fickle mistress. If I was tighter with this girl, I would see more of her vulnerabilities. Maybe she gets homesick, or rampantly PMS-y, or is an unrepentant dishes-leaver. But because I only see her when she's at her most incandescently fun, she's like a beacon of awesomeness. Girl crushes give the illusion of being dependably good at being great: your intellectual flames are never sleepy-eyed over the cornflakes, your party girls are never wearing sweatpants for a Saturday night Twilight marathon, and your career inspirations never accidentally pour Diet Coke all over the photocopier's command center. I mean, they do, but because they only present the appealing side of things, you never have to see them being klutzy and sweaty. You just see the shiny side of things. The fun, smart, strangely-bespectacled side of things.
It's not just "girls" who fit the bill - women of all ages are entitled to the mantle, and it's good to have a roster of girl crushes. On of my former girl-flames was a sassy professor who dressed in jewel tones and told her class, "I'll take you from Moses to Mel Brooks, if you let me," which is just an awesome thing to say when you think about it. Or a Nia instructor in Stratford, who is appealingly human when she dances, and therefor seems to transcend the whole glossy-dance-instructor stereotype to become gorgeously relatable. It can be anyone: a waitress who understands your gluten sensitivity without being a diva about it; an author who wrote a book about your very favourite city and who has a great haircut; an acquaintance who has mastered the who-cares school of dressing to a degree that you find yourself envying her snowpants.
I think the real appeal of the girl crush is the perceived confidence. As someone who often feels unsettled in her own skin (like, you know, most human beings), the illusion of boundless competency and confidence is intoxicating. The fact that it's a mirage is sort of beside the point, since girl crushes are more about fun and inspiration than following a particular path to a particular destination. It's about seeing your world through fun, funny, smart, competent lenses.
I'm not talking about women who scare you into striving for awesome. As much as I admire her chutzpah and ferocious bob, Vogue editrix Anna Wintour's reputation is that she is a mean, scary woman. A bitch, if you will. (AND YOU WILL.) Women who produce results by intimidation can be inspiring, but there's also something less accessible about them. If I'm afraid to knock on a woman's office door to say hello, then she's not inspiring me...she's making me uncomfortable.
So the women I get girl crushes on are amazing, but in a fun way. For example: even though she's sort of a fictional character, I loved Meryl Streep's portrayal of Julia Child in Julie & Julia. Hilariously histronic emotions, deeply felt care, and an I-don't-give-a-fuck re: being liked attitude that is utterly charming. I can't tell if I have a girl crush on Meryl - although she's undeniably awesome - or on Child, but the intersection of the two is just so much fun to watch.
That's the thing about girl crushes. They're so much fun to watch. I've palled around with some of my girl crushes; there's a feisty writer/photographer who shares my irrational hatred of pants and can wrestle most of her skinny hipster dude friends to the ground, and just watching her in action at a bar or a party is such a pleasure. She'll say the most outrageous things, wear the cutest outfits, goad the bouncer into letting her and her fourteen closest friends in for free, and shark someone at pool once she's in. It's just so exciting!
Girl crushes are, by their nature, a fickle mistress. If I was tighter with this girl, I would see more of her vulnerabilities. Maybe she gets homesick, or rampantly PMS-y, or is an unrepentant dishes-leaver. But because I only see her when she's at her most incandescently fun, she's like a beacon of awesomeness. Girl crushes give the illusion of being dependably good at being great: your intellectual flames are never sleepy-eyed over the cornflakes, your party girls are never wearing sweatpants for a Saturday night Twilight marathon, and your career inspirations never accidentally pour Diet Coke all over the photocopier's command center. I mean, they do, but because they only present the appealing side of things, you never have to see them being klutzy and sweaty. You just see the shiny side of things. The fun, smart, strangely-bespectacled side of things.
It's not just "girls" who fit the bill - women of all ages are entitled to the mantle, and it's good to have a roster of girl crushes. On of my former girl-flames was a sassy professor who dressed in jewel tones and told her class, "I'll take you from Moses to Mel Brooks, if you let me," which is just an awesome thing to say when you think about it. Or a Nia instructor in Stratford, who is appealingly human when she dances, and therefor seems to transcend the whole glossy-dance-instructor stereotype to become gorgeously relatable. It can be anyone: a waitress who understands your gluten sensitivity without being a diva about it; an author who wrote a book about your very favourite city and who has a great haircut; an acquaintance who has mastered the who-cares school of dressing to a degree that you find yourself envying her snowpants.
I think the real appeal of the girl crush is the perceived confidence. As someone who often feels unsettled in her own skin (like, you know, most human beings), the illusion of boundless competency and confidence is intoxicating. The fact that it's a mirage is sort of beside the point, since girl crushes are more about fun and inspiration than following a particular path to a particular destination. It's about seeing your world through fun, funny, smart, competent lenses.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
