The etiquette of the breakup is one of those things that people will comment on but never really unpack. "Never on the phone" is said with the solemn tones of one incanting a rite against loneliness, "always in person." As someone who once left a voicemail saying "Um, hi, it's me! I don't think we should see each other any more!" I clearly have little respect for the so-called rules. But now that I'm in a relationship - one that I like and care about very much, with a dude I like and care about very much - I've recently given more thought to breakups. It sounds counter-intuitive - why examine what I hope will never be? But should a separation occur, what would I want done to ease the pain? What would I do and say to make things easier?
Like most urban, mid-twenties folks, I'm a dedicated Savage Love reader, and he often has a lot to say on the topics of breakups. As the writer behind "DTMFA", Savage clearly understands that, for most relationships, endgame is part of the package. We almost never enter into a relationship with the intention of ending it - most of us want forward movement in our lives, and that often takes the form of dating/cohabitation/marriage/kids. But hello, I'm not married to my first boyfriend, and chances are, neither are you. In a world where Facebook relationship statuses have serious emotional weight, and more people are willing to consider a flexible or open marriage, some new relationship continents have been discovered. Time to map them.
But as we move past legitimate reasons to leave a relationship and into the hows of actually doing it, I'm going to pause for a moment and say: yo. Breakups suck. I've never met anyone who really enjoys sitting someone down to have the "I no longer want to know you" talk. Like everyone, I've been dumped, the way you dump a murder victim on the side of the road - hard, by a dude still makes me want to slash his tires when I think about him. One of my friends threw a celebratory DTMFA brunch when she finally broke it off with her former fella. The demise of that relationship was excruciating: it took months for her to work up the ovaries to kick him out, he still owes her money, and oh, by the way, he left his kid behind. Classy, non?
The zen master in me wants to put on a soothing voice and say that everything happens for a reason, that we learn from our pasts, and that pain can be a teacher. But we all know that guy is an asshole. So there are ways of doing it classily, that make it hurt less and leave the door open to friendship. Maybe not right away, but eventually.
Rule #1: always do it on neutral territory. I got Big Dumped in my kitchen, which sucked. I would have been embarrassed if I had started sobbing on the Starbucks patio, but at least I wouldn't have gone downstairs the next morning and been like, "Here are my eggs, my Cheerios, the place I was emotionally eviscerated...I'm not hungry anymore..." I'm not saying that you have to end it on a busy streetcorner with a busker providing the soundtrack. Go somewhere you've never been, and will likely never go again. Do not break up with anyone in a bedroom.
Rule #2: Cliches are your friend. It's not you, it's me. I need space. I'm going to figure myself out. That said, only use cliches that actually apply. If you don't want to be friends, don't say, "Maybe someday we can be friends." Don't say, "Maybe someday we can get back together" if you already have your eye on someone else. Know that the person you're breaking up with will likely examine everything you say with a microscope, so don't say anything you don't mean, even if you're saying it in the tritest way possible.
Rule #3: Be nice! If you're breaking up with someone, you're already rejecting them pretty hard. One of my exes, mid-dump (gross!) told me I "wasn't inspiring," a comment that drove me batty for years. It was unnecessary! Moreover, it was designed to hurt, and in a breakup scenario, that's uncalled for. So BE NICE. Don't be that guy. Be complimentary. "You're going to be fine," you'll say, "you're so smart and pretty and fashionable and well-read that guys will be falling down to date you. But I need to find myself? And so, um, we should see other people."
#4: But be honest. If there's someone else, or there's going to be someone else, give your new ex a heads-up. You may want to choose different words than "there's someone else" or "I have the hots for Emily from work," but the sentiment remains the same. If at all possible, try to make sure your romances are more like pearls on a string than Venn diagrams, but if that ship has sailed, be courteous. Facebook pictures will show up of the two of you smooching, and your ex may not be a fan of finding out via the internet that you've been groping new people.
#5: Be respectful. This is the biggest one, maybe the only real rule. It obviously applies during the relationship, but the post-breakup temptation to be spiteful and malicious can be overwhelming. If you're the dumped party (table for one - zing!), you're entitled to your Lost Summer: the six weeks following a major breakup when you drink too much, smoke too much pot, make out with some regrettable people, and call your ex at five AM after a bender just to be a dick. But that's it: 45 days of breakup-induced craziness, and then you have to come back to reality. Oh, sure, you'll likely look like a grizzled old mountain man when you do, but that's fine. It's expected!
If you're the dumper (again, gross), you have to grin and bear it. If they want to talk, let 'em. If they don't want to see you, that's just fine. You, mister or miss relationship-ender, are not allowed to touch them (not even hugs), tell them about your sex life (if there is one), or allow them to buy you things. The friendship status is wholly up to the person you just split with. Some folks will turn out to be great friends, but others may call you in the middle of the night to slur obscenities in your ear. Forty-five days, and then you call the cops.
The trick about breakups is the long view. There's no-one I've dated that I think about wistfully and say, "You know, we really had something there." Two of my exes are married or engaged, which is great: they found their Big Love, and it wasn't me. Breaking up was a necessary step to getting them there. One of my exes, shortly after we split, became an insufferable hipster, someone I would pay money not to hang out with. But I'm rid of him, which is fab, and with someone I really dig on. They suck, they hurt, they make you drink too much and shake your fist at happy couples on the street, but in the end, breakups are like ipecac for the soul: getting rid of what's not good for you, in the most painful way possible.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
The Ghost Of Crush-Mas Past
Years ago, when I still read Vice magazine (is that still a thing? I feel like its moment in the sun has passed a long time ago, but like with Teen Vogue, just because I move out of something's sphere of influence or interest doesn't mean it just, like, ceases to be), they published a great piece called "The VICE guide to being Totally Crushed Out!!!" I just re-read it, and while the whole dirtbag/cocaine thing is totally played out, they raise some great points. For example, cunnilingus? Terrific! Telling all your friends about your silly crush? Golden! Dammit, Vice, sometimes you get it right. But I'm still mad at you for teaching my generation of women that the best we could do for boyfriends were bassists with questionable hygiene who would eventually cheat on us, and that stability, respect, and not living in a flophouse was somehow for losers.
But crushes, man. I wasn't very awesome at high school - I made the mistake of loving every single boy except for the ones who were a) nice to me or b) into me, so I spent a lot of time crushing on unattainable dudes. They were unattainable for a number of reasons - no common friends, no common hobbies, no interest in dating a shy, squirrely weirdo like myself. I ruled at having crushes - thinking about them all the time, imagining talking to them, imagining dating them. None of this ever came to any kind of fruition: I was shy and weird and so unconfident that I was basically radioactive. I had to watch as my crushes dated other girls, girls that I still think were badly matched to these guys, but seventeen year old boys are easily seduced by pretty girls, even if they're dumb or mean or both. Some forty-seven year old guys are like that too, but thankfully, most men grow out of it.
I eventually grew my shyness and started talking to boys, and to my everlasting surprise, they talked back. I've dated, seduced, been seduced, and had boyfriends. I'm happy to admit that, even though we've been dating for months, I'm still totally crushing on my boyfriend. Even though I like him, and love him, there's a small corner of feeling that is reserved for what's commonly known as SQUEEEE! The excitable part of my brain that lights up at sugar and videos of kitties on the internet also goes bananas for my boyfriend. Go figure.
I recently saw one of my high school crushes, and by "saw", I don't mean the grown-up usage where you chat idly for a few minutes and then say how nice it was to see each other and move on. I mean "saw" as in, I saw him through the plate-glass window of my favourite burrito joint, but did not work up the emotional stones to even say hi. I stayed outside, fussing unnecessarily with my bike, and watched as he jotted down some notes in a Moleskin (pretentious!) and waited for his dinner. He was wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a wedding ring, and when I lurched inside to pick up my burrito, it was as though I was a teenage kid and all my confidence was gone.
I felt ridiculous as I pedaled away, but the truth is, I wasn't a confident young person at all, and sometimes, ghosts can be too weird to process, especially in the moment. I had no idea he even lived in Toronto, let alone had some proximity to my lifestyle. Oh god, what if my burrito joint is his burrito joint? Horrors. I would want to be all smooth - oh, so you're married? How's that going? He dated pretty, skinny, fragile-looking, artsy girls in high school, and part of me wants to know if he married some thick-ankled farm girl from Manitoba who could hoist him above her head without even unraveling her braids. I know he didn't.
Now that we're older, wiser (?) and definitely some of us are married, "the crush" has taken on a more fraught meaning. Does the presence of both a partner and a crush mean that one negates the other? Can we have crushes on people we're not involved with? Isn't that, like, cheating? Or doesn't it necessarily lead to cheating?
No. Idiot. Crushes are normal and healthy - it's not like I expected my boyfriend to quit talking to females when we started dating, and there are interesting, magnetic women out there. Fantasy is a normal thing - we do it when we're dating (what if we move in together someday?) and when we're settled (what's the story with the barista with all the tattoos?) Crushes allow us to examine things we like about our partner - for example, most of my crushes are into music, and it turns out I like music too - and what we wish we had. Crushes on marathon runners speak to a desire for your girlfriend to be dedicated; crushes on comic book inkers highlights a wish that your boyfriend was more creative. But real, grown-up love accepts our girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands and wives for the people they are, and also acknowledges that crushes are idealized. I can crush on the bearded, burly bike mechanic because hey, I'll never have to see him after he's downed nine shots and thrown up in a cab, or when he's been petty with a waiter. I'll never have to break it off or fall out of crush with him - I'll just be distracted by a new crush.
We all grow out of our crushes - either because we start dating them and that crush becomes filtered through other emotions (love is basically 100-proof crush, right?), or we get to know them and find out they're unbearable wankers, or we befriend them and their dorky human nature outshines the imaginary weddings we've planned in our crazy heads. Seeing old, stale crushes is like trying on clothes that used to fit you, years ago, but that aren't really your style any more. They're slightly unpleasant, because they can bring back that taste in your mouth; the taste of being young, shy, nervous and lonely. Who needs it? Crushes are best served fresh. Some of them might stick to your ribs, but they're usually the romantic equivalent of fast food: cheap, easy and best quickly forgotten.
But crushes, man. I wasn't very awesome at high school - I made the mistake of loving every single boy except for the ones who were a) nice to me or b) into me, so I spent a lot of time crushing on unattainable dudes. They were unattainable for a number of reasons - no common friends, no common hobbies, no interest in dating a shy, squirrely weirdo like myself. I ruled at having crushes - thinking about them all the time, imagining talking to them, imagining dating them. None of this ever came to any kind of fruition: I was shy and weird and so unconfident that I was basically radioactive. I had to watch as my crushes dated other girls, girls that I still think were badly matched to these guys, but seventeen year old boys are easily seduced by pretty girls, even if they're dumb or mean or both. Some forty-seven year old guys are like that too, but thankfully, most men grow out of it.
I eventually grew my shyness and started talking to boys, and to my everlasting surprise, they talked back. I've dated, seduced, been seduced, and had boyfriends. I'm happy to admit that, even though we've been dating for months, I'm still totally crushing on my boyfriend. Even though I like him, and love him, there's a small corner of feeling that is reserved for what's commonly known as SQUEEEE! The excitable part of my brain that lights up at sugar and videos of kitties on the internet also goes bananas for my boyfriend. Go figure.
I recently saw one of my high school crushes, and by "saw", I don't mean the grown-up usage where you chat idly for a few minutes and then say how nice it was to see each other and move on. I mean "saw" as in, I saw him through the plate-glass window of my favourite burrito joint, but did not work up the emotional stones to even say hi. I stayed outside, fussing unnecessarily with my bike, and watched as he jotted down some notes in a Moleskin (pretentious!) and waited for his dinner. He was wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a wedding ring, and when I lurched inside to pick up my burrito, it was as though I was a teenage kid and all my confidence was gone.
I felt ridiculous as I pedaled away, but the truth is, I wasn't a confident young person at all, and sometimes, ghosts can be too weird to process, especially in the moment. I had no idea he even lived in Toronto, let alone had some proximity to my lifestyle. Oh god, what if my burrito joint is his burrito joint? Horrors. I would want to be all smooth - oh, so you're married? How's that going? He dated pretty, skinny, fragile-looking, artsy girls in high school, and part of me wants to know if he married some thick-ankled farm girl from Manitoba who could hoist him above her head without even unraveling her braids. I know he didn't.
Now that we're older, wiser (?) and definitely some of us are married, "the crush" has taken on a more fraught meaning. Does the presence of both a partner and a crush mean that one negates the other? Can we have crushes on people we're not involved with? Isn't that, like, cheating? Or doesn't it necessarily lead to cheating?
No. Idiot. Crushes are normal and healthy - it's not like I expected my boyfriend to quit talking to females when we started dating, and there are interesting, magnetic women out there. Fantasy is a normal thing - we do it when we're dating (what if we move in together someday?) and when we're settled (what's the story with the barista with all the tattoos?) Crushes allow us to examine things we like about our partner - for example, most of my crushes are into music, and it turns out I like music too - and what we wish we had. Crushes on marathon runners speak to a desire for your girlfriend to be dedicated; crushes on comic book inkers highlights a wish that your boyfriend was more creative. But real, grown-up love accepts our girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands and wives for the people they are, and also acknowledges that crushes are idealized. I can crush on the bearded, burly bike mechanic because hey, I'll never have to see him after he's downed nine shots and thrown up in a cab, or when he's been petty with a waiter. I'll never have to break it off or fall out of crush with him - I'll just be distracted by a new crush.
We all grow out of our crushes - either because we start dating them and that crush becomes filtered through other emotions (love is basically 100-proof crush, right?), or we get to know them and find out they're unbearable wankers, or we befriend them and their dorky human nature outshines the imaginary weddings we've planned in our crazy heads. Seeing old, stale crushes is like trying on clothes that used to fit you, years ago, but that aren't really your style any more. They're slightly unpleasant, because they can bring back that taste in your mouth; the taste of being young, shy, nervous and lonely. Who needs it? Crushes are best served fresh. Some of them might stick to your ribs, but they're usually the romantic equivalent of fast food: cheap, easy and best quickly forgotten.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Con-GRAD-ulations!
About a year ago, I was publicly snarking on my parents and their insistence I attend my grad ceremonies. How passe, I intoned. How overdone. How symbolic of a culture that SNORE whatever, moving on.
However. Like in many things, I was wrong. Grad ceremonies are kind of bad-ass. My sister graduated from Queen's University, a school whose reputation for academic excellence is matched only by its reputation for being fancily Caucasian. She now proudly wears an iron ring, a symbol of engineers, and her peers are diligently working on sucking all the remaining oil from Alberta's crust. My sister, because she is crazy, doubled up her engineering degree with an art history degree, leaving no question about who the smart daughter turned out to be - it's her. With a bullet.
Graduations are important because they mark the last time that getting up at noon requires setting an alarm...unless you plan on becoming an indolent writer-person. (Ahem.) They're important because they mark the first time you'll feel sort of like a loser when you say, "I'm an English major," because not anymore, you're not. They're important because they mark a time in your life when you've actually worked hard, gotten passing marks, and earned your way. I went to my high school graduation, which was great because I after I left Stratford I dyed my hair brown, lost twenty pounds and learned how to drink; I was unrecognizable. At my university graduation, I was fat, blonde, and relatively sober. Who wants to celebrate that?
No, I'm kidding. I didn't go to mine because it would have been fake. I limped towards my degree, which, I think, happens to a lot of people in their early twenties for whom their education is sort of secondary to tying to get their Shit Sorted Out. In my last year of university, I wasn't sitting thoughtfully in lecture halls, taking notes on Joseph Andrews and offering witticisms that relied on punning a 17th-century euphemism for penis. I was sitting in a room in CAMH, talking about how big a serving size is (smaller than you think) and how much I was drinking (more than I should have). I was getting my Shit Worked Out. And that took so much mental energy that I couldn't really get my act together to hand in essays about Shamela. Sorry. But as it turned out, going group therapy sessions allowed me to survive my final year, so I feel like the emphasis on all the academic stuff was sort of...well, there's always an excuse, right?
But my sister! Oh man. Okay, so: she not only got sick and had to take time off school, she switched programs, fell in love, and she fuckin' aced it. Sure, there were bumps along the way. But she's a smart cookie and a tough gal, and she came roaring back to the school she loved and the program she felt proud to be a part of, and she sailed over the finish line like she was racing a yacht.
So, dear sister: congratulations on your graduation, on your impending freak out about "what does it all mean?" a la Rob Gordon/High Fidelity, and I know that you charm, dedication, stick-to-it-iveness and talent will bring you success in your professional life - or your academic life, should there be a sequel (Queens II: The Iron Schwing!, also known as "getting your masters"). I love you dearly, and not only because I'll be asking off-topic questions about, like, the construction of bridges and if they're sturdy. But because you inspire me: you've shown me what a little hard work and dedication can do, which is a whole damned lot.
However. Like in many things, I was wrong. Grad ceremonies are kind of bad-ass. My sister graduated from Queen's University, a school whose reputation for academic excellence is matched only by its reputation for being fancily Caucasian. She now proudly wears an iron ring, a symbol of engineers, and her peers are diligently working on sucking all the remaining oil from Alberta's crust. My sister, because she is crazy, doubled up her engineering degree with an art history degree, leaving no question about who the smart daughter turned out to be - it's her. With a bullet.
Graduations are important because they mark the last time that getting up at noon requires setting an alarm...unless you plan on becoming an indolent writer-person. (Ahem.) They're important because they mark the first time you'll feel sort of like a loser when you say, "I'm an English major," because not anymore, you're not. They're important because they mark a time in your life when you've actually worked hard, gotten passing marks, and earned your way. I went to my high school graduation, which was great because I after I left Stratford I dyed my hair brown, lost twenty pounds and learned how to drink; I was unrecognizable. At my university graduation, I was fat, blonde, and relatively sober. Who wants to celebrate that?
No, I'm kidding. I didn't go to mine because it would have been fake. I limped towards my degree, which, I think, happens to a lot of people in their early twenties for whom their education is sort of secondary to tying to get their Shit Sorted Out. In my last year of university, I wasn't sitting thoughtfully in lecture halls, taking notes on Joseph Andrews and offering witticisms that relied on punning a 17th-century euphemism for penis. I was sitting in a room in CAMH, talking about how big a serving size is (smaller than you think) and how much I was drinking (more than I should have). I was getting my Shit Worked Out. And that took so much mental energy that I couldn't really get my act together to hand in essays about Shamela. Sorry. But as it turned out, going group therapy sessions allowed me to survive my final year, so I feel like the emphasis on all the academic stuff was sort of...well, there's always an excuse, right?
But my sister! Oh man. Okay, so: she not only got sick and had to take time off school, she switched programs, fell in love, and she fuckin' aced it. Sure, there were bumps along the way. But she's a smart cookie and a tough gal, and she came roaring back to the school she loved and the program she felt proud to be a part of, and she sailed over the finish line like she was racing a yacht.
So, dear sister: congratulations on your graduation, on your impending freak out about "what does it all mean?" a la Rob Gordon/High Fidelity, and I know that you charm, dedication, stick-to-it-iveness and talent will bring you success in your professional life - or your academic life, should there be a sequel (Queens II: The Iron Schwing!, also known as "getting your masters"). I love you dearly, and not only because I'll be asking off-topic questions about, like, the construction of bridges and if they're sturdy. But because you inspire me: you've shown me what a little hard work and dedication can do, which is a whole damned lot.
Friday, May 27, 2011
The Cramps
I've recently become obsessed with this website, The Hairpin, which posts the best articles. They have the Ask A series, which features an anonymous, rotating panel of experts: Dude, Married Dude, Clean Person, Queer Chick. They suggest ways you can fritter your paycheck away. They gave an online tutorial on how to install feather extensions. In short, if The Hairpin was an actual living woman, it that friend of yours that always seems to be up on awesome shit: the broad who was rocking a glitter eyeliner in middle school; who smoked cloves until she realized that smoking is boring, who went and did a degree in urban planning or web-based journalism three years before anyone else got the memo, and who also knows just what to do when one of her besties knocks a tooth out during a tequila-fueled tumble off her road bike.
While the writing is usually conspiratorially casual - there are posted entitles "Why I am an abortion provider" and they offer tips on surviving Jamaican dance clubs - sometimes they totally knock it out of the park. They recently posted a piece on one woman's period, written as though the period was a bullying fremeny who coerced the hapless menstruater into sucking down caloric Orange Julius and buying insane sequined hot pants.
I loooove this idea. My period makes me cry at commercials and throw a total hairy eyeball at my boyfriend, often without me even knowing it's the hormones. I hate the sneak-attack element of menses. My period turns me into a nut: I once cried because I ate half a freezer pizza in one sitting. I will pick fights about stupid shit ("You know I only like the yogurt with 18 grams of protein! The other stuff is for weenies!"). I cry. I bloat. I refuse to brush my hair (okay, that's normal). I will throw tantrums and become a demanding asshole who could kill Howdy Doody's will to live. Then I get the flow, and I snap right out of it. Sure, I'm crampy and sore, but at least I stop hating myself and everyone around me.
That I even get a period is a bit of a miracle, given that some of my lady parts were lost in a fire (kidding! I had an ovary surgically removed last summer), but it's one of those miracles I resent. I feel like a lot of pregnant ladies who don't necessarily buy into the whole earth-mama, Birkies-and-flowy skirts, expensive-stroller ethos of modern childbearing might feel about their pregnancies the way I do about about my menstrual cycle: it's fine, but like...do I have to twirl around in a field to do it? Like, have you seen tampon commercials? I know I'm required by Woman Law to wear white pants and have a rictus-grin on face for those magical five to seven days, but hot damn, I don't feel like it.
What I actually feel like doing is crouching like a feral dog in the food court of the Eaton's Center, murdering overly peppy H&M employees and eating honey-garlic chicken wings. I want to sit in a pair of dirty overalls and drink cheap beer and belch a lot. I want to make post-feminist punk music, where the bass player is a robot and the audience listens with their hands over their ears. I want rage. I want defiance. I feel positively mutinous when I menstruate, and it's only made worse by the fact that my period is like Ke$ha after her morning ablutions crossed with Courtney Love.
Why can't I just get gnarly when I get my period? Oh, sure, the hormonal tide often skews towards the sadder side, but I'm so over the idea of feeling like I have to hide it. "I'm crampy" is one of those man-repeller phrases like "I'm really into crystal healing" and "I love collecting Gund stuffed animals" that make people go, "Whoa." But it's a gross process: messy, squishy, smelly (like pennies!), and pretending it's some wellspring of womanly awesomeness is a little like pretending testicles are adorable, or that knuckle hair is sexy: sometimes, bodies do unappealing, weird-ass shit. In the case of women, our bodies do that stuff every month.
I think the next time my period shows up at my door, I'll indulge her a little. We''ll get day-drunk and go bake banana bread in a tube top, and then watch The Iron Giant and cry unattractively for twenty minutes. We'll try yoga for ten minutes and then get bored and switch to watching makeup tutorials on YouTube. We'll make out with our boyfriends, despite the fact that the boob tenderness is really out of control. We'll take a hot bath and put all our hair on top of our head in a lazy-girl approximation of a ballerina bun that will make us look as though we were styled by a deranged person. And the running thread, throughout this whole experiment, will be radical self-acceptance: loving the whole gross, bloated, sobbing mess.
And Toblerone. Obviously.
While the writing is usually conspiratorially casual - there are posted entitles "Why I am an abortion provider" and they offer tips on surviving Jamaican dance clubs - sometimes they totally knock it out of the park. They recently posted a piece on one woman's period, written as though the period was a bullying fremeny who coerced the hapless menstruater into sucking down caloric Orange Julius and buying insane sequined hot pants.
I loooove this idea. My period makes me cry at commercials and throw a total hairy eyeball at my boyfriend, often without me even knowing it's the hormones. I hate the sneak-attack element of menses. My period turns me into a nut: I once cried because I ate half a freezer pizza in one sitting. I will pick fights about stupid shit ("You know I only like the yogurt with 18 grams of protein! The other stuff is for weenies!"). I cry. I bloat. I refuse to brush my hair (okay, that's normal). I will throw tantrums and become a demanding asshole who could kill Howdy Doody's will to live. Then I get the flow, and I snap right out of it. Sure, I'm crampy and sore, but at least I stop hating myself and everyone around me.
That I even get a period is a bit of a miracle, given that some of my lady parts were lost in a fire (kidding! I had an ovary surgically removed last summer), but it's one of those miracles I resent. I feel like a lot of pregnant ladies who don't necessarily buy into the whole earth-mama, Birkies-and-flowy skirts, expensive-stroller ethos of modern childbearing might feel about their pregnancies the way I do about about my menstrual cycle: it's fine, but like...do I have to twirl around in a field to do it? Like, have you seen tampon commercials? I know I'm required by Woman Law to wear white pants and have a rictus-grin on face for those magical five to seven days, but hot damn, I don't feel like it.
What I actually feel like doing is crouching like a feral dog in the food court of the Eaton's Center, murdering overly peppy H&M employees and eating honey-garlic chicken wings. I want to sit in a pair of dirty overalls and drink cheap beer and belch a lot. I want to make post-feminist punk music, where the bass player is a robot and the audience listens with their hands over their ears. I want rage. I want defiance. I feel positively mutinous when I menstruate, and it's only made worse by the fact that my period is like Ke$ha after her morning ablutions crossed with Courtney Love.
Why can't I just get gnarly when I get my period? Oh, sure, the hormonal tide often skews towards the sadder side, but I'm so over the idea of feeling like I have to hide it. "I'm crampy" is one of those man-repeller phrases like "I'm really into crystal healing" and "I love collecting Gund stuffed animals" that make people go, "Whoa." But it's a gross process: messy, squishy, smelly (like pennies!), and pretending it's some wellspring of womanly awesomeness is a little like pretending testicles are adorable, or that knuckle hair is sexy: sometimes, bodies do unappealing, weird-ass shit. In the case of women, our bodies do that stuff every month.
I think the next time my period shows up at my door, I'll indulge her a little. We''ll get day-drunk and go bake banana bread in a tube top, and then watch The Iron Giant and cry unattractively for twenty minutes. We'll try yoga for ten minutes and then get bored and switch to watching makeup tutorials on YouTube. We'll make out with our boyfriends, despite the fact that the boob tenderness is really out of control. We'll take a hot bath and put all our hair on top of our head in a lazy-girl approximation of a ballerina bun that will make us look as though we were styled by a deranged person. And the running thread, throughout this whole experiment, will be radical self-acceptance: loving the whole gross, bloated, sobbing mess.
And Toblerone. Obviously.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Storm Clouds
If you think your parents are wacko, count your blessings that you aren't Storm, the genderless baby being raised by a Toronto family. Storm isn't intersexed or two-spirited; Storm is an infant whose parents have not shared his/her gender with the world. Keeping mum on the subject - only a few people immediate family members know - has enraged some, befuddled others, and thrilled and confused from coast to coast.
I had a long conversation with some girlfriends on Friday night about Storm, and parenting, and gender politics, and I have to say, maybe it was the beers or maybe I'm just close-minded, but I don't think I fared very well. Being a good little liberal-arts grad, I understand that gender is constructed. I know that by giving a girl a pink pony, you're telling her how girls act, and are supposed to act, and how she had better act if she wants to be like other little girls. I also know two brothers whose parents, in the anti-violent, dolls-for-boys late 1980s, confiscated their play firearms. The boys, in a fit of creative desperation, chewed their toast into the shape of guns and continued on undeterred.
The article that prompted the debate originally ran in the Toronto Star, whose editorial tone was somewhat ambivalent. Storm is clearly being raised by thoughtful and engaged parents, but the writers made the point that by being, not boy, not girl, nor "or," but "none of the above," the parents were creating a hitherto unknown category they referred to as "other than other." "Other than other" seems like dangerous waters for a society that decriminalized homosexuality not so long ago, and that struggles, still, with a myriad of differences. God forbid Storm is a fat, awkward, mixed-raced shy kid with glasses, horrible teeth and no gender. That kid is fucked. Within the closed familial loop, most people are free to be something other than their gender - a great painter; a fan, as the family's eldest boy is, of pink feather boas; a weeping mess at bathtime, or some other permutation of the self that isn't penis/vagina.
But outside the family/friends circle, gender is indisputably one of the markers we use to identify people. Much like race, age, and accent, gender comes to us without thinking about it critically. It's only when we're faced with a little uncertainty that we get nervous. If someone is mixed-race, like my fabulous friend Kelli, they often get pegged as one or the other; her recent musings about trying to be multi in a world that often prefers you to check one box was an insightful look at passing, and resenting the pass that comes at the expense of her more honest and interesting background. Likewise, Storm, at least as a baby, will be able to pass as one of two genders, but eventually, kindergarten will happen, and bathroom breaks, and changing for swim club. Genderlessness is a gift given to the very young and will eventually erode as the child makes choices.
Do I applaud Storm's family? Well, as my friend Suzanne pointed out, it expands the realm of the possible in exciting ways. She said, "You just know some other family is thinking about doing the same thing now, because they know it can be done." Which is true: the debate about whether or not it should be done comes because, like it or not, it is being done.
But I said on Friday, and will stand by it, that parenting in this way is an activist, political act that isn't about the child, but rather about the parents. I dislike parenting as activism; if Storm's parents wanted to explore what it's like to live without gender, they should have done that experiment on themselves, not on their young child. This is the same part of my brain that shudders at vegan children and elementary school kids who attend anti-abortion rallies. Even though I understand that this education strives for more openness and examination of what is possible, the reality is that it's happening to someone young and presumably without the critical thinking skills that would benefit, say, someone who attended university for equity studies. Being told "You have no gender unless you choose one" takes away a certain type of self-definition that children often learn through.
Their older son wrote a book about "The Gender Explorer," presumably because the parents needed to address the gender questions for their long-haired, pink-loving boy. But this baby doesn't need to be some kind of science experience for social-norm spelunkers. There's a very real chance that Storm will resent his or her early-years ambiguity, even though it saved on a heap of pink or blue baby accessories. Who wants to grow up to be "that baby whose parents were all, 'this baby has no gender!'?"I have no beef with Storm's parents and siblings teaching the kid that gender can be, and should be, fluid - that it's okay to love horsies, pink, dump trucks or climbing trees no matter what you were born as, or grow up to be however femme or butch you want - but opting out of the system entirely seems like it may cause more grief than it's worth.
Part of me hopes Storm becomes the very definition of gender normativity - a little girl who can't get enough dolls, or a boy who loves karate and catching frogs. I wonder if Storm's gender-exploring parents would be as excited about a child who refused to participate in the gender debate, who loved his or her pink-wearing brother without wanting to follow him down that particular yellow brick road. Parents everywhere will intone that as long as the child is healthy and happy, it doesn't matter how their kids express their gender. The Witterick-Stocker family are devoted to their children, and to raising them in an nurturing and supportive environment. But teaching them that "gender" is an option, rather than "my gender" is a choice, walks an unpalatable line between reality, and a constructed world that applies only to this family.
I had a long conversation with some girlfriends on Friday night about Storm, and parenting, and gender politics, and I have to say, maybe it was the beers or maybe I'm just close-minded, but I don't think I fared very well. Being a good little liberal-arts grad, I understand that gender is constructed. I know that by giving a girl a pink pony, you're telling her how girls act, and are supposed to act, and how she had better act if she wants to be like other little girls. I also know two brothers whose parents, in the anti-violent, dolls-for-boys late 1980s, confiscated their play firearms. The boys, in a fit of creative desperation, chewed their toast into the shape of guns and continued on undeterred.
The article that prompted the debate originally ran in the Toronto Star, whose editorial tone was somewhat ambivalent. Storm is clearly being raised by thoughtful and engaged parents, but the writers made the point that by being, not boy, not girl, nor "or," but "none of the above," the parents were creating a hitherto unknown category they referred to as "other than other." "Other than other" seems like dangerous waters for a society that decriminalized homosexuality not so long ago, and that struggles, still, with a myriad of differences. God forbid Storm is a fat, awkward, mixed-raced shy kid with glasses, horrible teeth and no gender. That kid is fucked. Within the closed familial loop, most people are free to be something other than their gender - a great painter; a fan, as the family's eldest boy is, of pink feather boas; a weeping mess at bathtime, or some other permutation of the self that isn't penis/vagina.
But outside the family/friends circle, gender is indisputably one of the markers we use to identify people. Much like race, age, and accent, gender comes to us without thinking about it critically. It's only when we're faced with a little uncertainty that we get nervous. If someone is mixed-race, like my fabulous friend Kelli, they often get pegged as one or the other; her recent musings about trying to be multi in a world that often prefers you to check one box was an insightful look at passing, and resenting the pass that comes at the expense of her more honest and interesting background. Likewise, Storm, at least as a baby, will be able to pass as one of two genders, but eventually, kindergarten will happen, and bathroom breaks, and changing for swim club. Genderlessness is a gift given to the very young and will eventually erode as the child makes choices.
Do I applaud Storm's family? Well, as my friend Suzanne pointed out, it expands the realm of the possible in exciting ways. She said, "You just know some other family is thinking about doing the same thing now, because they know it can be done." Which is true: the debate about whether or not it should be done comes because, like it or not, it is being done.
But I said on Friday, and will stand by it, that parenting in this way is an activist, political act that isn't about the child, but rather about the parents. I dislike parenting as activism; if Storm's parents wanted to explore what it's like to live without gender, they should have done that experiment on themselves, not on their young child. This is the same part of my brain that shudders at vegan children and elementary school kids who attend anti-abortion rallies. Even though I understand that this education strives for more openness and examination of what is possible, the reality is that it's happening to someone young and presumably without the critical thinking skills that would benefit, say, someone who attended university for equity studies. Being told "You have no gender unless you choose one" takes away a certain type of self-definition that children often learn through.
Their older son wrote a book about "The Gender Explorer," presumably because the parents needed to address the gender questions for their long-haired, pink-loving boy. But this baby doesn't need to be some kind of science experience for social-norm spelunkers. There's a very real chance that Storm will resent his or her early-years ambiguity, even though it saved on a heap of pink or blue baby accessories. Who wants to grow up to be "that baby whose parents were all, 'this baby has no gender!'?"I have no beef with Storm's parents and siblings teaching the kid that gender can be, and should be, fluid - that it's okay to love horsies, pink, dump trucks or climbing trees no matter what you were born as, or grow up to be however femme or butch you want - but opting out of the system entirely seems like it may cause more grief than it's worth.
Part of me hopes Storm becomes the very definition of gender normativity - a little girl who can't get enough dolls, or a boy who loves karate and catching frogs. I wonder if Storm's gender-exploring parents would be as excited about a child who refused to participate in the gender debate, who loved his or her pink-wearing brother without wanting to follow him down that particular yellow brick road. Parents everywhere will intone that as long as the child is healthy and happy, it doesn't matter how their kids express their gender. The Witterick-Stocker family are devoted to their children, and to raising them in an nurturing and supportive environment. But teaching them that "gender" is an option, rather than "my gender" is a choice, walks an unpalatable line between reality, and a constructed world that applies only to this family.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Why The Long-Weekend Face?
The Globe's Focus piece this weekend was about the so-called leisure gap between how much we should work - not much, given how much technology we have at our disposal - and how much we do work - all the time. It made the case for the standard three-day weekend, a luxury that had me breaking out in goosebumps: since starting my job a few months ago, I've been asked to give up two Saturdays a month in the name of work. It's a sacrifice that shouldn't be that big a deal, but instead has turned me into a enraged, stressed-out asshole. One-day weekends are just horrible. But three-day weekends! They're amazing.
The article, which seems to run under different guises in national newspapers every few months as "breaking news" but in reality is one of the hoariest old saws in a journalist's notebook, is how technological and societal advances should be leaving us with more leisure time. Time for the kids, time for the stack of novels on my bedside table yet to be cracked. More time for home-cooked meals and gardening. More time for working on hobbies, making art, making the world a better place. Less time has to be spent running around in cars, staring at a computer screen, picking up meals-in-a-bowl to snarf during the lunch (half-)hour, and commuting.
The articles always argue that, by cutting the workweek down, people are healthier, more in tuned with their families, less stressed, and more productive when they are at their desks. Even doing 40 hours in four days - working nine to seven, say - gives people more time. It's hard to argue with that; if I'm commuting 45 minutes each way on transit or on the highway, cutting one day of commuting out gives me an hour and a half each week to do other it things. Not to mention that whole other day of not working. It gives me a day to go to the doctor, or talk to my landlord, or attend volunteer meetings, or cook for the week.
At this point, I am like, obsessed with the idea of a part-time job. I'm not really a frugal person - I spend too much on frozen yogurt and second-hand clothes for that kind of thing - but I'm also not terribly expensive in my tastes. I want a nice little 25/30 hour a week gig; somewhere were I still I have a desk, but I'm not chained to it. I don't want to make tacos or make beggy phonecalls to patrons of the Harbourfront Festival or fold clothes at American Apparel, but I thrive when I'm in a professional situation that allows for freedom. Like most people, I chafe under too much work and too many demands, and I can only imagine that, as I get older and my responsibilities increase, I'll be even more horrible if I also have to hold down a full-time gig. Some people like to work. They claim to go a little nuts without it. I'm the opposite. Without metric tons of down time, I become a twitchy, bitchy bag of neuroses, temper tantrums and meaningless fights with my boyfriend (sorry, baby!).
In any case. The Victoria Day long weekend is stuffed with barbeques and bike rides, a few rainy bursts, and a chance to scrub my apartment from top to bottom. I've also read a book, done my laundry, and eaten a grape leaf sandwich. In other words, it has afforded me with leisure time that is remarkable only it its uninterrupted amount. Next weekend promises a Saturday of work and then a Sunday for alltheotherstuffIneedtodo, so this three-day block of time is a luxury of time and happiness that knows few bounds. I feel refreshed, recharged, and ready for another full week of - sigh - work.
The article, which seems to run under different guises in national newspapers every few months as "breaking news" but in reality is one of the hoariest old saws in a journalist's notebook, is how technological and societal advances should be leaving us with more leisure time. Time for the kids, time for the stack of novels on my bedside table yet to be cracked. More time for home-cooked meals and gardening. More time for working on hobbies, making art, making the world a better place. Less time has to be spent running around in cars, staring at a computer screen, picking up meals-in-a-bowl to snarf during the lunch (half-)hour, and commuting.
The articles always argue that, by cutting the workweek down, people are healthier, more in tuned with their families, less stressed, and more productive when they are at their desks. Even doing 40 hours in four days - working nine to seven, say - gives people more time. It's hard to argue with that; if I'm commuting 45 minutes each way on transit or on the highway, cutting one day of commuting out gives me an hour and a half each week to do other it things. Not to mention that whole other day of not working. It gives me a day to go to the doctor, or talk to my landlord, or attend volunteer meetings, or cook for the week.
At this point, I am like, obsessed with the idea of a part-time job. I'm not really a frugal person - I spend too much on frozen yogurt and second-hand clothes for that kind of thing - but I'm also not terribly expensive in my tastes. I want a nice little 25/30 hour a week gig; somewhere were I still I have a desk, but I'm not chained to it. I don't want to make tacos or make beggy phonecalls to patrons of the Harbourfront Festival or fold clothes at American Apparel, but I thrive when I'm in a professional situation that allows for freedom. Like most people, I chafe under too much work and too many demands, and I can only imagine that, as I get older and my responsibilities increase, I'll be even more horrible if I also have to hold down a full-time gig. Some people like to work. They claim to go a little nuts without it. I'm the opposite. Without metric tons of down time, I become a twitchy, bitchy bag of neuroses, temper tantrums and meaningless fights with my boyfriend (sorry, baby!).
In any case. The Victoria Day long weekend is stuffed with barbeques and bike rides, a few rainy bursts, and a chance to scrub my apartment from top to bottom. I've also read a book, done my laundry, and eaten a grape leaf sandwich. In other words, it has afforded me with leisure time that is remarkable only it its uninterrupted amount. Next weekend promises a Saturday of work and then a Sunday for alltheotherstuffIneedtodo, so this three-day block of time is a luxury of time and happiness that knows few bounds. I feel refreshed, recharged, and ready for another full week of - sigh - work.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Work Attire(d)
Since starting work in an office, I've become hyperaware of what "conservative dress" really means. Let me tell you: this is a minefield. "Business casual" seems to mean different things to different people: one person's slutty tank top is another's Thursday morning outfit. The dudes have it easy. All they have to do is throw on a sweater that isn't covered in reindeer, pants that aren't dungarees, and get a half-way decent haircut, and they look professional. Women, on the other hand, have a range of styles to befuddle us. Pants? Skirts? Tights? Bare legs? Cover the shoulders? Are tee shirts okay? Cleavage? Accessories? And what about hairdos? Princess Leia buns, a staple of my civilian hair repertoire, tends to get disapproving looks from my supervisors. What is a girl to do?!
I can't vouch for any of y'all, but I never thought I'd fuck it up so badly. Oh, sure, I jam the photocopier on the regular and make idiotic mistakes with people's files, but I never feel quite as bad as when I get dinged for dressing inappropriately. During my first couple weeks on the job, I was pulled aside and told to bring my look up to a corporate standard; my boss acknowledged that I was fresh out of school and therefore might not have a wealth of office-ready clothes to fall back on, but it made me feel like I had been slapped. Criticisms of clothes, like comments on body or age, feel deeply personal. I felt as though she had dismissed me entirely based on the way I looked, not how I was doing my job or settling into the company.
Since then, I've tried to be more careful. I wear opaque tights and skirts to the knee, flats shoes and shirts than cover the elbow. If there was ever a staff meeting in an Orthodox shul, I could waltz right in and take my place without feeling stupid (I mean, aside from the fact that I've never been inside a synagogue and would, knowing me, knock over the torah or accidentally fall in the mikveh). But I still want to let loose a little. I feel like "business funky" is a look I strive for, like gallery owners and women who run children's clothing shops. Which is ridiculous - it means I'm modeling my style after middle aged gallery owners. Dudes. I am 27 years old. I have a slammin' bod and great hair. There is no reason to hide my light under a pashmina and arty glasses.
But the office mood is one of grave professionalism, so I cover up. My coworkers and I are a pretty bleak bunch; we all gravitate towards gray and black and navy, with nary a sequin in sight. I'm not saying that the business should be conducted in Caribana outfits, but the emphasis on looking professional rather than being professional is a little, well, weird. There is one chica who tries to spice it up, but her bralessness and miniskirts comes off as less "fun!" and more, like, "WTF?" There's a wide gulf between a fun tank top and letting your tatas hang out in the workplace, right? Besides, I'm sure she could work in the nude and still get her job done.
I understand the reason behind office gear: it makes things look clean and nice, even when they're actually harried and hectic. It takes some of the guesswork out of dressing in the a.m. - a suit is almost always appropriate, and women have whole departments dedicated to the art of professional dressing. But when it's used as just one more way to deny employees any sense of fun in the workplace, as another disciplinary measure used to instill a sense of bad-dog shame in the people in the company, then maybe it's time to bust out the protest feathers and sequins and get our work done with some style.
I can't vouch for any of y'all, but I never thought I'd fuck it up so badly. Oh, sure, I jam the photocopier on the regular and make idiotic mistakes with people's files, but I never feel quite as bad as when I get dinged for dressing inappropriately. During my first couple weeks on the job, I was pulled aside and told to bring my look up to a corporate standard; my boss acknowledged that I was fresh out of school and therefore might not have a wealth of office-ready clothes to fall back on, but it made me feel like I had been slapped. Criticisms of clothes, like comments on body or age, feel deeply personal. I felt as though she had dismissed me entirely based on the way I looked, not how I was doing my job or settling into the company.
Since then, I've tried to be more careful. I wear opaque tights and skirts to the knee, flats shoes and shirts than cover the elbow. If there was ever a staff meeting in an Orthodox shul, I could waltz right in and take my place without feeling stupid (I mean, aside from the fact that I've never been inside a synagogue and would, knowing me, knock over the torah or accidentally fall in the mikveh). But I still want to let loose a little. I feel like "business funky" is a look I strive for, like gallery owners and women who run children's clothing shops. Which is ridiculous - it means I'm modeling my style after middle aged gallery owners. Dudes. I am 27 years old. I have a slammin' bod and great hair. There is no reason to hide my light under a pashmina and arty glasses.
But the office mood is one of grave professionalism, so I cover up. My coworkers and I are a pretty bleak bunch; we all gravitate towards gray and black and navy, with nary a sequin in sight. I'm not saying that the business should be conducted in Caribana outfits, but the emphasis on looking professional rather than being professional is a little, well, weird. There is one chica who tries to spice it up, but her bralessness and miniskirts comes off as less "fun!" and more, like, "WTF?" There's a wide gulf between a fun tank top and letting your tatas hang out in the workplace, right? Besides, I'm sure she could work in the nude and still get her job done.
I understand the reason behind office gear: it makes things look clean and nice, even when they're actually harried and hectic. It takes some of the guesswork out of dressing in the a.m. - a suit is almost always appropriate, and women have whole departments dedicated to the art of professional dressing. But when it's used as just one more way to deny employees any sense of fun in the workplace, as another disciplinary measure used to instill a sense of bad-dog shame in the people in the company, then maybe it's time to bust out the protest feathers and sequins and get our work done with some style.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
