Running and Cancer are Two of My Least Favourite Things

So oddly enough, I am using the former against the latter.

That's right kiddies - I have done it, I am registered to Run For the Cure. A 5k run on October 2nd.

This gives me one, that's right, a single, read it, one month to a) learn to run 5 kilometers and b) raise some money for cancer research.

So I am shamelessly going to use this platform here to help me with the latter. And probably the former. But right now, at this instant, the latter. I am trying to raise at least 150$, which is an amount I have spent on shoes. Nay, shirts. Nay, skin care products. So really, if every single lovely person who reads these words donated 5 meagre dineros to the cause, I think it is totally doable. Yeah? I may be overestimating this blog's popularity a touch, but seriously, think about the last time you spent 5$. Did those 5$ righteously kick cancer's inconsiderate, life-ruining, nauseating, puppy-stomping, generally-surly ass? Unlikely. So how about the next 5? Or 10? Come on big spender! If I know you, I'll buy you a coffee. Or sign a photo of myself collapsed just shy of the finish line and mail it to your place of residence.

You get the satisfaction of knowing your righted your karmic imbalance and also ensured that I am obligated to run fivefuckingkilometers. How could you resist? Seriously? You can't. So you had better donate on my snazzy website here and feel like a fucking rockstar.

Evil Ways

My darlings.

As I far too often feel compelled to do, I apologize for my blogging absence.

Un

For

Give

Able

But this is not the only evil to which my title refers. Last night the ultimate perk of living in Calgary reared it's head - that's right boys and girls, I gots to go to a concert. And not just any concert. A Santana concert. Holy shit. I wont pretend I knew every song, or could even understand a lot of his inspirational, peace-promoting message (I felt like I was at Woodstock. Seriously. "We've got to think and put out positive energy and love. It's not that far out, man." Direct. Quote), but he was truly sensational. So skilled. Great show.

I am also tackling a third evil (ok, this analogy is beginning to wear thin, but bear with me) - I am going to finally tackle my running demon. Yule, who has also moved to Calgary - hooray - and I have decided that goal oriented running is our best plan to get in shape. So she and I are starting today to train for the Robert Hamilton Memorial 5 mile run on October 22nd.

I am quaking in my booties.

Fun posts will abound in future, I promise - this was basically to assure you that I am still alive.

Hi.

Reason Not to Live With Your Parents: #1

This is not the ultimate reason not to live with your parents; no, the ultimate reason is probably that you are someone who lives with their parents, and that is reason enough. But, as I do find myself in this unfortunate position, I foresee a trend in my posts, mulling over the myriad of reasons why I wish I didn't have Arts degrees. So this is the first of many reasons not to live with your parents.

Your personal regimen comes under public scrutiny.

I am used to living by myself, or at most, with a very uncritical cat. So having my grooming habits observed by anyone, let alone a 60-year-old man who lives to tease me, is unwelcome. And when I say my personal regimen is becoming public, I don't just mean that my mum and dad realize that before bed I wash my face, apply a mask, tone, apply a serum, followed by an anti-aging oil, eye cream and thick night cream - no, no, I mean that this perhaps obsessive dedication to skin care is being documented. As in photographed. Which means it will soon be shown off to any even mildly interested person my dad encounters when he has his camera in hand. And this complaint is not limited to skin care of course; size and regularity of meals, waking and sleeping hours, exercise routine, regularity of laundry - everything will be noticed and open to unwanted commentary.

I want my relatively silent cat back.

Au Revoir et Bonne Nuit, Montreal

Tonight I am tucked back into bed in the room I grew up in. The baby blue with pastel splatter paint was painted over years ago, a warm chocolate brown, but the denim curtains and bed spread still remind me of a time when blackout denim curtains were ideal for sleeping until 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon. There is a lava lamp on my desk.

I am uneasy about being back here. Almost started crying in the car ride home from the airport. But I am taking the opportunity for a little reinvention. Or more of a restart. I need to get back into yoga and exercising, which ceased entirely in my last couple weeks in Montreal. Furthermore, I am going to overhaul this room, which is full of white, 25-year-old furniture, almost all of which is scarred with mostly and poorly removed X-Men and Spice Girls stickers. A closet purge, a diet, and job hunting all lie in my future. I need to keep looking on the bright side of Calgary. Here are the things I'm actually looking forward to:

not being treated like shit by serving staff
no PST
Frilly Lily, the best waxing salon in the world
not being the biggest/plainest girl in a room
free laundry
not being scared of speaking English
spending time with my friend Kirstin
being reunited with SheRa! (this weekend!)


I will indulge my nostalgia soon enough with a list of my Montreal favourites. Sleep tight Montreal. I miss you already.

Moving Anxiety

Spanish poet Juan Ramon Jimenez comes so close to capturing the stone which has settled in my stomach as of late:

Sharp nostalgia, infinite and terrible, for what I already possess.

I feel this horrible anxiety about moving away from a place where I am comfortable and happy to somewhere I actually fear I will lose myself. I am feeling increasingly like I have no will of my own to stop it. I am on a precipice and I feel paralyzed by fear; there are hands on my back and I can only move over the edge where they will me to go. And then I wonder if it is just cowardice of change. Some say nostalgia is weak, a denial of the human condition of perpetual change and growth. But is moving home growth? Is it not a regression? I am packing up a life I built on my own and am taking it back to the four walls where I was sent for punishment after temper tantrums, where posters of bands had sat on my ceiling over my bed, where I cried over boys who didn't love me. There is none of the excitement of a new adventure, a new challenge - only an old and stale city who I had been running from before I even knew myself. Am I defined by place and space or time? I am scared, and my stomach is in knots as I pack boxes and throw away things I forgot I had once had such silly enthusiasm for. A holographic card, scented soaps, kind notes on a paper whose depth I forgot I was capable of. 

And time moves on as a I sit, breathless. 

Childlike.

Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future.

Coco Chanel

Mama and Papa B arrive!

My parents just landed. They are in town to help me pack up my brother and I's apartments.

I will record every hilarious comment. Don't worry.

Stop Shaming the Ashamed

Shamey Shame Shamed.

Ok, but brace yourselves, because this is actually a serious post that I have been thinking about for a while. I wrote up some thoughts on the topic a couple months ago, but Kathy's visit, which brought with it a number of serious chats about body image, gave me the impetus to actually proclaim what has become a cultural taboo as of late:

I do not love my body.

Typing that, having it written, seeing the words, I feel this urge to clarify, "I mean, I don't hate my body" or "I respect my body's physical abilities," but these urges get right to the heart of the problem that I think really needs to be addressed.

We are bombarded with what are, from most arenas denounced as unattainable bodies, published in magazines and sashaying on television. It has become so pervasive that we often times don’t even realize how horrifically thin an actress is unless a tabloid points it out.  Surrounded by air brushed bodies and an elite who can devote unending time and money to their physical upkeep, there has developed a defensive coping mechanism amongst so-called average women. Women have begun to proclaim that they should not compare themselves to that standard of beauty. True beauty is to love yourself, cellulite, love handles, arm hair and all. Instead of prosecuting the fashion and entertainment industries, your average North American woman has opted to denounce the women who let this impossible standard of beauty make them feel badly about their bodies. We start writing off women who order salads, "side dress, hold the cheese and croutons," as shameful and shallow and perpetrating a body type which is so difficult to attain and fraught with frightening implications for young women.

This mechanism, which my friend Kathy so appropriate posed as the question "Can a feminist go on a diet?" has the potential to do almost as much damage as the industry which has lead to unhealthy body images and mass body dismorphia amoungst young women. When I told Kathy that I just had no perspective on my own body, and that it scared me that I perhaps had some sort of body dismorphia, she responded "I'm pretty sure all girls our age have some form of body dismorphia." Sometimes I am truly repulsed by my body, particularly when I am in cobbler’s pose in yoga, where my impressive flexibility allows my forehead to touch the soles of my feet, providing a panoramic view of my folded-in-half gut: I shudder in revulsion at what is going on with this body of mine. Self-depricating? Perhaps. But honest. And not, given all the images that pervade our social consciousness, unreasonable or inexplicable. I don't consider myself ugly, there are just times, lots of times, when I wish my body were different than it is.

My friend Claire confessed to me a while ago, “Sometimes I just wish I was rail thin. I mean, I love being curvey, but I wish I could wear a sack sometimes and have it look stylish.” I was kind of shocked by this statement for two reasons. One, I considered it to be a self evident fact that most people would rather be thin. If you disagree, I am sorry, but you’re a damn liar. This society privileges the svelte. It is easier to live in Western societies if you are blessed enough to be thin – this point is not up for debate. The second thing that surprised me was how instantly Claire felt guilty about having confessed this, and felt the need to amend her statement with a retroactive prologue - "I mean, I love being curvey..." - to assure me that she still was content with the body she has.

Why are we so ashamed about not liking our bodies? We have started to feel bad about the fact that we do, in fact, feel bad about our bodies. It is a perpetuating shame. Why?

We are told that if you are strong and confident, that those qualities are what make a woman sexy. That only the truly naive would believe that what they see in media is an achievable standard of beauty for average women. There is even an unspoken accusation of laziness; if a woman was really so unhappy about her body, wouldn’t she do something about it? I think it needs to stop.

We hate the women who hate their bodies. We condescendingly pity them and their obvious lack of insight and maturity.

Maybe it's because we see these insecure girls as the remnant which holds us back from being gloriously self-indulgent. As long as you have one friend who asks for dressing on the side of her salad, you will be nagged with guilt for eating a pint of Hagan Daaz. That girl with her dry greens is a bitch, making you feel bad about yourself. Bitch, bitch, bitch. And so we concoct self aggrandizing slogans about acceptance and comfort in one’s own skin, natural beauty, etc, etc. I even read in the February edition of Elle Miranda Purves explaining that “In your teens and early twenties many – I dare say most- women have days, or just PMS strained hours, when something about their appearance strikes them as intolerable, monstrous...By your thirties, hopefully your body has been loved by someone over the longer haul, and other priorities take precedence.” The implication of these lines is that a) unhappiness with one’s body is an immature, even teenaged, phenomenon which we grow out of once b) someone else loves our body or c) we just figure, “fuck it.” 

It is being forced on us that we have to be happy with who we are or else we are immature and shallow.

Sorry, but fuck that.

I am not going to feel guilty that I don’t like my body anymore. It’s too hard. The shame of admitting to your friends “yeah I wish I was thinner,” just makes that longing you have for a fitter frame even more painful.  It is as though if we admit displeasure with our body it will immediately lead to concerns about psychological health, the dreaded worry your friends will start whispering about “ssssp psssp ssssp...eating disorder...” And it does drive women who feel unhappy about their bodies to make it a battle they deal with when they are alone in the dark, out of fear that their friends will write off their complaints; "oh shut up, you look beautiful," or "you just need to be comfortable with the weight you're at when you're at it." Really? Thanks. If I could do that, I may not have confided to you that I loathe my saddlebags and think they are repulsive. But yeah, totally, mind over matter. 

I don’t think I am alone in wishing I didn’t have cellulite and that my thighs were slimmer and my butt were rounder. Why do we ostracize ourselves from each other by refusing to admit it and turning into pariahs those who do?

An interesting website, which I am not entirely sure I support as a wholly healthy body image promoter, despite their mission statement being to give women perspectives on their bodies is My Body Gallery. Us average girls upload body shots and give our dress sizes, weight and height, and you can go forth from there to see what women with your proportions actually look like. It could be helpful for gaining insight and perspective (though it was really just disheartening to find that there were no images of women whose proportions matched mine...).

I think we just need to create an atmosphere where we can discuss our insecurities openly and without judgement, rather than hide them away like dirty little secrets. When we shame people about their negative thoughts, those thoughts just get perpetuated when they are alone, creating an even worse stigma and closing off the possibility of fruitful and healing discussion about feelings which naturally arise given what we face as the beauty standard in North America. So when your friend tells her she thinks she's fat, don't just try to tell her she's wrong.

Group hug guys.

Luckiest Girl in The World

Hey team. So, I'm feeling pretty blissful right now, obnoxious summer cold be damned.

Firstly, my amazing friend Kathy came to visit me up in Funtreal this past weekend. Kathy has basically inspired me to be a lawyer. She isn't one, but she's workin' on it. We will start a kickass law firm and battle evil foes and injustice together. And make some mad coin. But Kathy has transcended her place as eternal inspiration as the pinnacle of all things scholarly, which she has been ever since my third year, when we actually started to get to know each other (though we were both petrified of the other - I, because Kathy was so clearly staggeringly brilliant, and Kathy because I was so clearly aggressive and without tact/sympathy). Kathy also has been getting in AMAZING shape. Her bod is like whoa. Like. Whoa. We had lots of great talks about body image, weight loss, fitness and the like, but I think that deserves a post of it's own. She's a really insightful young lady that one. And I love her lots and lots.

In addition to this, I am bringing my tenure in Montreal to a bittersweet close. It seems that right when you're about to leave a place is when you feel least able to. I have already voiced the frustration of moving on this blog a year ago when I moved from Halifax to Montreal. I had a great community of friends, a manfriend interest, a trivia night and an esthetician and I was not excited to reestablish those things in a new city. And it really was hard: I find it interesting that most of my friends comment on how hard this year was for me. And it was. I just don't find myself thinking of it in that way I guess. But now, in the sunshine and the freedom of school-less unemployment, and a growing network of wonderful people who I didn't get to know well enough when I had the chance, I love Montreal and am sad to say goodbye. I have just in this past month met so many phenomenal people, one of which is a boy who I really like for the first time in what feels like a very long time, and it just seems like a cruel joke that I am leaving in a mere eleven days.

So this post is somewhat bittersweet, because as I acknowledge all of the wonderful things that I do have here in Montreal, or joyously near Montreal, waiting and willing to visit my sorry ass, I also know I'm leaving them soon. It weighs very heavy on my heart and I find myself always wanting to release a heavy sigh. I wonder what a life without transience would be like...

My Cat is Trying to get me Pregnant

And it's not how you'd think!

There was that one time, when she was a kitten, and she made the sharp realization that I had scaled up versions of the milk-delivery system she'd enjoyed as an infant, sure. But only once does one let their cat molest their sleeping body. If you're one of the people who has ever asked why I bother wearing pyjamas when I live alone in the hottest city in Canada, the answer is cat mouth-to-nipple related. My darling She Ra has moved on to more nefarious ways of ruining my sex life than scarring me emotionally. That is: condom tampering.

A big thank you to Kathy (check out her blog and leave lots of comments insisting she get back into it - seriously girl, it's been too long and you're too lovely): my compadre noticed that, "uh...there is a rip...puncture? Sydney. She Ra has been chewing on your condoms." Six. Six condoms had been bitten. Only one or two punctures each, so nothing conspicuous enough to draw attention, had we not been specifically looking closely at the condoms (reason below). That cat is lucky I have been getting none. Whatabitch.

yeah. she looks like a villain.

Which also explains why I was showing Kathy my condoms in the first place: they expire in two months. Dear. God.

Sexual Cynic: Wait...I Was Doing It Wrong?

It has been ages since the Sexual Cynic has emerged, and for that, I am truly sorry. I actually gave my number to a guy recently, a guy I actually kinda like (whoa!) so I may have been resistant to reminding myself of the horrors that could lie in store if said guy picks up phone to call me, date(s) go well, and we end up in a bedroom  confronting the baffling array of positions which people who have sex more than once annually are engaging in. So overwhelming. But, as a lover of audiobooks, high waisted leopard print shorts and cats, I am also a huge proponent of self-love. And guess what. The folks at Women's Health Magazine have that covered...

 Couch Grind

I hope we are all having the same reaction here: "people need to be told how to masturbate?" followed swiftly by "And Women's Health is telling them to masturbate using a picnic blanket on an armchair???"
This is not the only "solo" position that WH recommends though - it's simply one of six helpful  suggestions(I would have said "handy suggestions," but puns aren't really my thing). Others include a bubblebath and looking into your own eyes with a hand mirror! I cannot even explain how horrified I am by that suggestion; you may recall my resistance to extended eye contact during coitus, so you can only imagine how I feel about self-eye-contact. I feel creepy. And I am a narcissist - that is just taking things too far. But I digress from the position at hand. Ok WH, how do I get myself off in this instance?

Ride the arm of a stuffed chair or couch, or the edge of a table or desk with a thick towel or blanket folded over it. Start with a small movement of the hips, and slowly build momentum.

Um. This may be a bit too American Beauty but my mum has never even let me sit on the arm of a couch, let alone make sweet love to it. It just doesn't strike me as a structurally sound endeavour, though I do appreciate the clarification that the arm should be stuffed (but tables and desks?). Do not try this with Ikea furniture ladies, lest you have some awkward explaining next time your dinner guests start asking why all your furniture resembles kindling. Really, unless you're fulfilling some deep-seated Beauty and the Beast fantasies - for which I would strongly recommend counselling over towel-chair masturbation - I just don't think it's necessary to associate all your living spaces and furniture with your own uncontrollable horniness which no man can/will satisfy.

my sentiments exactly

So why, oh why, would you do this?

Great if you like solid, steady pressure on your clitoris.

Fair enough, but I think that someone misunderstood their harlequin romances when they talked about the solid steady pressure of wood against our heroine's clitoris...

Ok, ok, so what, if not simply clitoral orgasms, is the added benefit we can mix into this equation?

Grip the arm with your thighs and have your guy enter you from behind like the Doggy Style position. Just make sure not to break any furniture.

Ok, I feel very betrayed right now. Even in a guide about solo sexual acrobatics, WH suggests involving a second party? That shit wouldn't fly in singles figure skating and it don't fly with me. It gives the impression that the women for whom WH is writing are sexually satisfied yet adventurous women in relationships who just also require self-induced orgasms. For the glow or whatever. They could involve their partner at any point if they wanted. The alternative that some women masturbate because dearGodsomanymensuck does not really seem to occur to our charming writers.

That said, it does provide a convenient out if a gentleman you're willing to have sex with does catch you dry humping your sofa: "Oh...I was just waiting for you to join me..." That said, you're still stuck without a paddle if a parent or superintendant or most people with eyes catch you instead.

Why can't we just get off by hand, battery operated penis-simulacra or removable showerheads like in the good ol' days?

Big Fat Yoga Crush

If you don't do yoga, I will probably seem like a creep, but if you do, I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about. A yogacrush. When you basically fall in love with a certain, or many, yoga teachers whose classes you frequent. You may remember a previous post about my yogacrush on Tracy from Moksha Yoga Halifax. These are teachers whose classes you not only love, but who make you want to practice better. You want to be the class pet, getting praise, and ample help along the way. That's the big one for me: any teacher who will give me an adjustment is immediately really high in my book, particularly if it's an awkward or hilarious adjustment (a couple of days ago Hannah at Moksha Yoga Monteal aggressively grabbed my hips, straightened them, and began to help stretch my hamstring, for instance).

Well I have a new one. I am big time in love with Annie from Moksha Montreal. She is so charming, willing to make fun of the class and play while still respecting the spiritual renewal it can provide. And yes, she gives ample shout outs ("this is beautiful!") and is not afraid to touch your sweaty, twisted body. And she has the most adorable French Canadian accent to boot.

Today she came up to me and apologized "I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name," and after I reminded her, she said "Sydney, you've had an absolutely beautiful practice today. Amazing."

flutter flutter flutter.

The Boyfriend Malaise

Misleading title alert - before you get your horses, I don't know, unheld(?), note: no, I do not have a boyfriend. No, indeed, if a woman's relationship status can be accurately gauged by the kinds of movies she watches when she's alone - which is an intricate science being developed at the University of Wisconsin, I'll have you know - I have already whipped past uplifting MTV biopics, psychological thrillers and pathetic rom-coms and have settled in nicely on the Resident Evil franchise. That's right gentlemen - this sassy young lady has traded her hopes of romantic escapades for Mila Jovovich snapping zombies necks with her thighs. Zombies.

But I have noted an alarming trend as of late amongst my female compadres/compatriots/coconspirators. I am friends with some truly fabulous (young) women (when does one drop that clarification? I feel like it probably is when you have some lasting/meaningful/relevant relationship. With a person. And not a cat. Or when you're truly old I guess...). I have friends who are really smart. BAs, MAs, Law-degrees-in-progress. But those amalgams of letters do not exhaust the font of awesome that are my friends. They are also, for the most part, athletes, or at the very least take care of their bodies and their health. Add to this a general care for appearance - my friends are stylin' bitches! Some are funny, some are fabulous conversationalists, some are established rapstresses, some have phenomenal boobs. They are all, in my humble opinion, fucking awesome people to be around.

And yet.

Yet.

Of an rough estimate of ten close girlfriends (what? How many legitimate close friends do you have? What. Ever) three- read that, THREE - of them have boyfriends. And though I don't know if this is to their credit or to my general annoyance, they are all long-term relationships. I'm going to credit it to my annoyance, simply because what I find so infuriating lately is that my sexy, accomplished, smart friends are not being asked out. As you may recall, my prior experiences dating men since moving to Montreal resulted in creepy carny hands and an offer of vitamin sales. This leads me to ask the inevitable question: quesque fuck?

I find it baffling, yes, but also alarming. When this trend has been discussed amongst ourselves, over beers and wine, as we do, we comfort ourselves with varying bullshit:

men these days just seem to like stupid insecure girls

we are really just very intimidating - when they grow up, they will stop slut-hopping

I don't want to be with anyone who actually thinks I have my shit together. If someone thinks this is the pinnacle, they are deeply distrubed

etcetera, etcetera etcetera.

Is it bullshit? Is it He's Just Not That Into You incarnate (ok, I did get at least one pathetic rom-com in)? We make ourselves feel better about being single by blaming the cowardliness of guys, their lack of standards or, on the inverse, their standards being too high for batcases like us. By doing this, do we displace our own agency in the situation? Do we need to filter through the Usana salesmen and circus freakshows if we expect to stop our bitching and moaning?

The alarming corollary is that many of these women also find themselves pining over men they've already been with. In a world where new men don't appear to exist, girls look back over their past boyfriends and think "wow...maybe that was as good as I will do?" or some much more optimistic "love-of-my-life" reiteration of same. This seems even more depressing than the possibility that I have the endeavour through a bunch of awful dates. This seems to imply begging for forgiveness, if the ex-revival is actually possible, or just escapist, nostalgic fantasizing. Lets just eat a plate of petite madeleines with Proust and put ourselves out of our misery.

I mostly rant about this with no conclusions. I think women in their early twenties shouldn't have to worry about relationships or lack there of. But then again, I don't know much about reproductive biology, and my cultural guide being reruns of Friends leads me to the conclusion that everyone will just end up with someone perfect in the end. Except Joey.

But what if we are Joey? And the stupid girls who put out and did coke in high school are Rachel? What if, rather than establishing cool varied groups of friends with great 9-s hairstyles, the self-fulfilling prophecy of "like attracts like" has been realized, and my friends and I are a bunch of Joeys, never to see a fulfilling relationship that wasn't one-sided and heartbreaking, to be perpetually throwing prosthetic limbs into proverbial fires. Ok. I don't know what that means. But my point stands - maybe we don't all get a fairytale romance. Maybe good vampires and sexy werewolves aren't going to battle for my heart.

To be clear. I really do not feel bad about being single. I know my rants give that illusion, but I'm of the third of my examples' school of thought: when I have my shit together, then I'll worry about why men aren't falling at my feet. Until then, well, there are two days of unwashed dishes in my sink and job opportunities I should be perusing. What is frustrating is that the option would be nice. And not just for me - I'm no diva - but for these fabulous women I know.

And yeah, cuddling is nice.