Self-Defence vs. Empathy.. Wait, Can't We Have Both?

I've seen a few people posting this image lately on the Book of the Face:

Caption reads: We will never get rid of bullying. We should teach kids how to stand up for themselves instead of wearing pink ribbons and passing anti-bullying laws to create a society of victims.

"We will never get rid of bullying."

Well, that seems defeatist. Like, I get that there are always going to be people who are generally assholes and who are going to give others a hard time because some people just love to power-trip, but on the whole, I think most people are generally okay people, and if we all try a bit harder to be okay people and not be assholes, we can probably not obliterate bullying, but at least mitigate some of the damage.

"We should teach kids how to stand up for themselves..."

Yup, okay. Totally with you there. It's super-duper important to be able to stand up for oneself, whether it's setting personal boundaries and enforcing them or holding one's own in an actual physical confrontation.

"...instead of wearing pink ribbons..."

Interesting. Not sure where breast cancer awareness comes into play here.

"...and passing anti-bullying laws..."

Technically, I can kind of stand behind this sentiment, because we shouldn't actually need anti-bullying laws, because there are already laws against assault, laws against harassment, laws against stalking, laws against uttering threats etc etc.

"... to create a society of victims."

Hm.

... and, you lost me.


I mean, why does this have to be an either/or situation? What is wrong with teaching kids to defend themselves, to enforce personal boundaries and stick up for themselves, while still teaching them to be empathetic and how to be kind to others. 

I won't begin to deny the effectiveness that a good, hearty punch in the face can have in getting some asshole kid to leave you alone. Gord knows, just being able to put on an act of being able to fuck someone up got me out of a few jams, even if I was secretly pissing myself in fear of having my bluff called.

But why can't we teach kids to defend themselves, while at the same time taking steps to make sure they won't have to by teaching kids to just be fucking nicer to each other?

I think the problem with a lot of current anti-bullying rhetoric is that it's lazy. "Bullying" is such a weird, vague term that it becomes this abstract concept, a boogeyman. Educators and other child care professionals, as well as parents, rush to label any act of aggression as bullying. Anything done by any kid that makes someone else feel bad is bullying.

Bullying is much more insidious. Bullying is repeated, systematic, physical and/or psychological violence.

It has roots in sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, fatphobia, etc.

It is assault. It is stalking. It is the threat of being personally violated.  It is the threat of having your reputation torn to pieces.

It is being told, over and over, that you are worthless, ugly, that nobody likes you and that you should probably just die already.

A kid that pushes another kid and tells them to fuck off because he had a shitty day is not a bully.  They may be reasonably called an asshole, because let's face it, kids can be assholes, but kid-assholery tends to stem from an egocentric tendency to forget that other people are a thing and that other people having feelings and their own shit to deal with is a thing too. 

The difference falls between the active desire to victimize others, and negligence in making an effort to not victimize others.

Current anti-bullying rhetoric does have a horrible tendency to label all aggressive behaviour as "bullying".  There is also a tendency to label the kid and not the behaviour, and a kid that gets labelled a bully tends to hold onto that label. 

I sometimes wish it were more socially acceptable to swear around kids because I feel like being able to say "Jimmy, when you pull Susie's hair, you're being a real asshole," might be an effective deterrent without the same long-term effects of being labelled a bully.

The answer is also not unending positivity and making sure everyone is friends.  Kids, just like adults, are not going to like everybody they meet, and part of standing up for yourself is the ability to set boundaries. It's easier to "just walk away" from an asshole kid if your teacher isn't forcing you to play nice together.  Kids need to be able to enforce their own boundaries.  They also need to be allowed to experience negative emotions, while learning appropriate ways to express those emotions (i.e. don't be an asshole about it).

A quick anectdote:  The street I lived on had a lot of kids within my age range. My best friend lived next door to me, and another girl our age lived a few doors down.  This other girl, was a real, honest-to-gord asshole, as far as eight-year-olds go, and she in particular liked to give us both a hard time.  In fact, she was one of the two girls responsible for the worst year of my childhood.

My friend's mother had told her that she had to be friends with other kids and (through my friends interpretation) that she wasn't allowed to 'hate' other kids.  This kid knew about this rule and would hold it over our heads whenever we would tell her to go away because she was being an asshole and we didn't want to play with her.  She'd threaten to tell my friends mom that we weren't letting her play with us.

(It never occurred to me until over 25 years later that MY mom had no such rule and that I was perfectly within my rights to tell her to fuck right off).

This is a very small example of simplistic ideals made it easier for this little shit to victimize both my friend and I, because we were not able to effectively enforce our own boundaries.

I just wish we could teach kids not to be assholes.

Don't want to play with Johnny? Cool. You don't have to, but don't be an asshole about it. 

Johnny doesn't want to play with you? That sucks, and you're probably sad, and its okay to be sad, but just because you're sad that doesn't mean that Johnny's a bully, it means that you have to find someone else to play with. 

Johnny says that he's going to make sure no one else plays with you ever?  Well, now we have a problem, because Johnny's being an asshole.

I've kind of gone on a tangent here, but I guess what I'm meaning to say is that there is plenty of room to teach kids the following:

- You are allowed to defend yourself.
- You are allowed to assert yourself and enforce boundaries.
- You need to be kind and empathetic towards others.
- You are allowed to have bad days and bad thoughts and bad moods.
- Other people are allowed to have bad days and bad thoughts and bad moods.
- You are allowed to not like some people. You do not have to be friends with everyone, even if they are the nicest, kindest people in the world.
- Other people are allowed to not like you. It does not make you a bad person.  Even if you're an amazing person, nobody is obligated to like you.
- You still have to be fucking nice to people, even if the level of "nice" you can muster consists only of not punching them in the face or not telling them to die in a fire.
- Whenever possible, don't be an asshole.

Why Should Some Kid Get a Medal for "Just Showing Up?"

Why?

"Why," you ask, "should a kid get an award for just showing up?"

Because sometimes just showing up takes a lot of guts.  Sometimes gearing yourself up for the possibility of defeat takes everything in you.

Speaking as someone who was a shy, fat, uncoordinated child who heard my share of moaning and groaning from my classmates when my name was called during Phys. Ed, just showing up can be fraught.

Speaking also as someone who deals with anxiety, as many people do, putting yourself into new situations is some scary shit, for children and adults alike.

In Grade 8, I made the decision to try out for the school's volleyball team. I tell you, it took every ounce of courage for me to go into that gym.

I went and I tried my hardest. Not even halfway through the tryouts I could feel tears of frustration welling up in my eyes, with every ball that I instinctively ducked instead of passed.  My face went red with the effort of trying not to cry.

Unsurprisingly, I didn't make the team.  I don't think I was even remotely close because I was really, really, bad at volleyball.  I also kind of hated it.  But I wanted to be involved in something.

I felt like a spectacular failure, and it was many years before I tried out or participated in anything remotely competitive again.

I kind of wish, at that time, that someone had given me something to acknowledge that even though I sucked, I tried, which was more than some had done.  That my effort was worth something.  That just showing up, when I was so afraid of falling and failing, that THAT was worth something in and of itself.


Listen.

I get that kids need to learn how to win and lose graciously.

Taking scores out of games so there are no 'winners' or 'losers' doesn't help kids. Kids need to learn that sometimes they are going to win, and sometimes they are going to lose and regardless, they need to not be an ass about it.

However, hyper-competitiveness doesn't help kids, either.  Over-emphasizing the value of winning over all other things teaches that if you can't be the best, don't even try.

There is value in effort.  There is value in trying, and fucking up.  There is value in just kind of being okay at something.  There is value in trying.

And I think that's worth recognizing.

SOURCE

Humility is for suckers.

I got called out yesterday morning by a friend I hadn't talked to for a while.  I fully deserved it.  It was in regards to a facebook post I had made for a recent post on the art blog.

He pointed out that I seem to preface every post with a negative comment about my work.

Fair enough.

Not having ingested enough coffee at the time, I thought this observation to be mainly in reference to the blog post itself, which being a post about one of my first painting attempts, I thought was critical but fair.

It hadn't occurred to me that on the Facebook post, I had included the words "Be prepared for terribleness."

Okay, that's pretty negative.

Although I created the art blog with the intent of sharing more of the stories behind my artwork, I also wanted it to be a place where I could examine and critique my own work:  where I've improved and where I'd like to see improvement.

But I'm not going to lie. I tear myself down, a lot.  I've been using self-deprecation as a defense mechanism for a ridiculously long time, and it's a tough habit to break.

I know there one major thing at play here: there is the desire to point out my own flaws before anyone else can.  It's as though if I don't let anyone see that I might actually be taking this somewhat seriously, then I don't have to live up to the expectation of being any good at it.  It's the thing that keeps me referring to myself as a dabbler, or a hobbyist, as opposed to an artist.  I feel like if I act like I take it too seriously, then I'm at risk at becoming the living embodiment of the insufferably pretentious art snob.  So I fall back on "Ha ha, I suck."

I've always felt rather mediocre at most of my endeavours.  Perhaps I've only ever been mediocre because I won't allow myself to immerse myself in anything enough to be more than 'just okay' because if I do, then there will be expectations.

And let's face it.  Pride is still considered, in many circles, to be a vanity, a sin.  Women especially are expected to downgrade their accomplishments, to deflect compliments with phrases like "Oh, you don't mean that," and "You're just saying that to be nice." 


It's bullshit. The idea that people should be humble, should not draw attention to their strengths, is a great way to keep people down, to keep them from realizing their full potential.  We don't know the things we are capable of if a fear of pride or appearing immodest drives us to downplay every single accomplishment we have.  We internalize the message that those things we learn and do and become good, great, or even experts at (outside, of course, of those things we do to earn money, because capitalism.. you are your job, in this system) don't matter, that they aren't a big deal.

You, my friends, are a big fucking deal.  If you tried something new today, that's a big deal.  If you did something today that you love and did it even the teensiest bit better than you did yesterday, that's a big deal.

From today, I am going to try to work extra hard not to be so self-deprecating when it comes to my art, my music, my writing or myself.  I am a big fucking deal.

SOURCE

Parenting is hard work.

Parenting is hard work.

It does not get easier, it just gets different.  As the years pass, the physical becomes the emotional.

Raising infants is profoundly physical.  The carrying, the lifting, the walking, wearing grooves in the floor countless nights pacing back and forth, bouncing and rocking.  Always moving.  Pushing strollers, carrying car seats and playpens and diaper bags.

Dropping into bed at night with aching muscles.  Sleeping, but only half-sleeping.  Laying rigid so as not to not roll onto the baby during the night.  Waking up sore from the effort.

Raising toddlers holds many of the same physical challenges, but here the mental agility becomes more of a necessity.  Chasing little bodies with seemingly boundless energy, until that energy runs out.  Then carrying dead weight as they crash and sleep hard as only children can.  Upstairs, out of cars, desperate not to wake them too soon.

Parenting toddlers means being able to read every facial expression and grimace in anticipation of bathroom runs. It means mental calculus - How much sleep during the day will keep a toddler up half the night? How much liquid before bed will mean laundry in the morning?

Raising toddlers means anticipating every move. Being constantly ready to leap across a room to remove errant objects from hands and mouths, or to scoop up sturdy little bodies when they come too close to stairs or roads or fireplaces.

Raising toddlers means having the mental agility to foresee hazards before they present themselves and the physical agility to remove the hazards unforeseen.

Raising school-age children gives the body a break. Finally.  School-age children sleep through the night.

The mind gets a break.  Kind of.  Maybe.

...

That's a lie.  Raising school-age children means remembering schedules, helping with homework.  Be here at this time.  Calculating costs.

School means time to honing your analytical skills.  Analyzing the nuance behind the word 'fine', or the word 'nothing' in response to 'How was your day?' or 'What are you doing up there?'

Analyzing teachers, friends, other parents.  Questioning your own influence on your child, be it from a quantitative ("How much influence do I even have, when TV and film and popular music exists?") or  qualitative ("Is this the example I want to set?") standpoint.

Adolescence ups critical thinking and analytical skills even further.  It's a gold-medal worthy performance of mental gymnastics, walking the thin line between offering a guiding hand and dragging headlong into your own idea of what they should be shaping up to be.  The realization that their hopes, their dreams, their values may differ wildly from your own.

Being okay with being imperfect.  That's a big one.

Shoring up your foundations for those days when you are the worst human being alive, when you know nothing.  The days when you are the only thing standing between this human being whom you have loved with the very depths of your soul, whom you may have even made from your very flesh - the days when you are the only thing standing between this being and their happiness, and for this you are cursed, you are spat upon.

Gathering strength for the days when you question every decision, every indulgence, every harsh word, every "Yes," every "No" you've made as a parent.

Parenting is the exhaustion of constantly feeling like your heart will burst at any moment with immense love, and break with the knowledge that for all your desire to protect them and save them, that one day you'll let them go and have to hope that you've taught them what they need to survive.

In Praise of Cowardly Fat Dudes.

There's a certain character archetype, both in television and film, that when invoked I cannot help but automatically root for them.

They are the Cowardly Fat Dudes*.  

I say dudes, because frankly, there's not a lot of representation for fat women on TV and film, cowardly or otherwise.  Off hand, I can think of four fat lady recurring characters over the last twenty years and half of them were played by Melissa McCarthy.**

However, I digress.  This post is, after all, titled "In Praise of Cowardly Fat Dudes," not "Let Us Bitch About The Lack of Representation for Fat Women."  Believe you me, that is a post for another day.

I love a good underdog, and the Cowardly Fat Dude archetype fits the underdog description well.  Cowardly Fat Dude is portrayed as unsure of himself, often slow, and well, cowardly.  However, they are also often written as generally kind and concerned for others and can often represent a voice of reason when every thing around has gone bat-shit insane.

Some classic Cowardly Fat Dudes include Chunk from The Goonies, Dave from The Full Monty, and Piggy from Lord of the Flies (although anyone who has taken high school English knows things didn't turn out so well for Piggy.)

My current favourite Cowardly Fat Dudes are Aaron Pittman on Revolution (played by Zak Orth) and Samwell Tarly on Game of Thrones (played by John Bradley).  Aaron, a former stupidly-rich MIT grad and Google exec, loses his money, power, confidence and his wife after the blackout that is the catalyst for the events in Revolution.  He spends a lot of the first season mourning his pre-blackout life and generally pointing out the bat-shit craziness of the events that unfold around him.  However, as much as he protests and balks, when his friends are in trouble, he's usually right in there, even if he looks ready to crap his pants at any moment.  Late is season one, he pulls one particularly ballsy, kick-ass move that had me literally in tears.

Aaron's expressions usually alternate between this and "Are you kidding me?" disgust.  Source

Samwell is introduced as a self-described coward, who seems to have internalized a lot of nasty stuff told to him by his father, who considers him more than useless.  He joins the Knight's Watch (Night's watch?) after his father threatens to have a "hunting accident" if Sam doesn't get the eff out.  I haven't seen much of his character arc so far, as I am still trying like hell to catch up on this series, but I can't help but like the guy and hope to see him kick some ass.

There's some rage in there.  This kid is going to do some awesome shit, I know it.  No spoilers, please.  I'm only on season three.  Source

The reason I like the cowardly fat dude is that they seem to rise above their fear when it comes down to the line.  Every other character underestimates their abilities, as do they themselves, so I always find myself rooting for CFDs to come out on top, especially in situations where they are able to put their own particular talents to work in ways that other characters with more brawn and bravado would not be able, through the use of wit or intellect rather than brute force.  

I love the Cowardly Fat Dude character because it's one thing to lack a sense of danger, but it's an entirely different thing to look danger in the eye, feel debilitating fear, and go forth anyway.

*I'm fat-friendly.  I use 'fat' solely as a value-neutral physical description, and not a perjorative in any way.

**In case you're interested, the ones I came up with were Rae from My Mad Fat Diary, Molly from Mike and Molly, Lorelai's friend on Gilmore Girls and the inimitable Roseanne Conner.

Come to think of it, I'd probably forgo shaving, too. #Revolution

Since its inception, The Well-Travelled One and I have been pretty regular viewers of Revolution, the dystopian-future drama set 15 years after a human-made disaster wipes out almost all electricity (and for some reason, combustion engines, because why not?) and the world, especially North America, goes to shit.

Like, I said, Dystopian.

Without giving away too many spoilers, last night after many many episodes worth of almost non-stop gratuituous violence, we FINALLY got to see a little sex.  Not a lot, because I'm pretty sure this is a network show and not HBO.  I make this assumption due to the fact that for a future where people are getting slaughtered left, right and center, there's surprisingly little cussing.  Graphic violence in multitudes is cool, but please, no cussing or hint of side-boob, right NBC?

So a couple of characters who will remain unnamed ended the episode by engaging in some implied naked fun time.

This morning I got to thinking.. if I were living in a dystopian future would there be any purpose to wearing a bra?  I'm thinking no.  At least not for me.  I know there are women who HAVE to wear bras, otherwise face massive discomfort, so I'm not about to begrudge more endowed ladies their undergarments, even when the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

As my friend Nic pointed out, all that running from zombies, robots, authorities etc. could very well make some kind of support a necessity, in which case I'd probably settle for binding myself instead of oh.. I don't know.. MATCHING BRA AND PANTY SETS?  Somehow I think if my life was constantly under threat, I'd not care much what my underpants looked like, and would be more worried about not constantly shitting them every time someone was trying to kill me.

Like how Aaron looks 90% of the time he's on screen.

Where in a dystopian future with no electricity where our heroes are consistently on the run from forces that would see them dead, does {redacted for spoilers} get a fucking matching Victoria Secret bra and panty set?

Did she sew them herself?

In the immortal words of Sweet Brown, "Ain't nobody got time for that."

Are they shipped by steamships from sweatshops that have gotten even sweatier since the lights (and thus the air conditioning.. because sweatshops totally have THAT) went off?  How the hell would they get to her?  The main protagonists are ALWAYS ON THE MOVE.  CONSTANTLY.

And NOBODY is going to convince me that these are they same underoos she's had for the last fifteen years.  The show is set in 2027, so she'd have to have bought them last year, in 2012 at the latest.  I'm a buyer of underpants and a purchaser of brassieres, and the shit that gets manufactured and sold in stores in present-day North America is NOT made to withstand 15 years of fighting, killing, running, plotting and the occasionally beating against a rock to launder them.  She would have stabbed herself with the underwire a thousand times over by now.

I guess in an electricity-void, dystopian future where hair always looks conditioned, EXIT signs in building still glow red and people inexplicably drink whiskey from late 19th-century antique glass bottles in spite of the fact that their 15-year-old empty Canadian Club 26ers would probably work just as well, a little bit of realism when it comes to the characters gotchies is probably too much to ask.

Being Okay with Being Single.

This post is a long time coming.  I started writing it in my head over a year ago, after reading one of Chally's final posts at Feministe.

It seems odd, I know, for me to write about being single now that I'm in the longest relationship I've had in years.  At least, longest consecutively-running relationship that can't easily be amended with descriptors like "Off-and-on" or "Dysfunctional" or "Toxic" or "Vaguely Demoralizing".

Like I said, I started this post in my head well over a year ago.  However, it seems relevant today since this is a day many people bitterly lament their single status and the often-frustrating search for Twoo Wuv™.  I was one of those people for many years.  Hell, in solidarity with my formerly single self, I still refuse to give this Hallmark Holiday more than a perfunctory nod, because love - of ALL forms, not just romantic or eroticized love - should be something we celebrate everyday and not necessarily the consumer-driven, materialistic, hetero-normative version that is pushed on the general public by the greeting card and diamond industries.

However, I digress.

I had, at the time, come to the conclusion that I was going to be Okay With Being Single.  Not "I'm okay with being single because I know someday someone is going to love me and I will have my Happily Ever After" but "I may possibly spend the rest of my life as a Single Woman and that is okay."  I was coming to the conclusion that I was done seeking the be-all, end-all, heteronormative ideal.. the relationship.  I vowed to stop thinking of myself as All Alone because, dammit I was NOT alone.  I had my children, my family and many wonderful friends.  I decided that would be good enough.  I may or may not consider having sexual encounters but solely on my own terms.   I was done feeling like a failure, like less-than because I was unattached.  

From Chally:

Singleness is treated as something to be fixed. It’s treated as a state one would surely want to change as quickly as possible. If you’re single, you’re automatically miserable, and everyone’s going to try and figure out what’s wrong with you... What would society look like if little girls weren’t expected to organise their lives around finding a sole and central heteronormative relationship around which everything else in their lives must then revolve?

The words rang true.  So I made my decision to stop searching and just enjoy my life as it was.  And then in true fucking cliche'd fashion, when I stopped looking.. boom.  That was just over a year ago.  And it was good.  And continues to be good.

So that post never got written.

However, that decision never quite went away.  I'm still okay with being single, even if I'm not currently.  Because the future is always uncertain.  Make no mistake, I hope that things between the Well-Travelled One and I continue to be good, for a good long time.  Frankly, I like him a lot.  I know, though, that if things between us were to go south for whatever reason, I will be sad, I will Cry the Ugly Cry and wipe my nose on my sleeves and so on and so forth and miss the hell out of the guy, but ultimately life would go on.

Source

It sounds callous, but not really.  It's actually helpful in quelling (some) of my myriad insecurities.  I'm here because I want to be and if  I didn't, I wouldn't have to be.  I have many years of experience in knowing I'm fully capable of being on my own.   On that same level, I like to think that he's with me because he wants to be and not out of any feeling of obligation.

Cliff Pervocracy wrote about the fear of the The Worst Thing In The World and framed this fear as something that may be a motivator for abuse and emotional manipulation in relationships.  The fear of the Worst Thing In The World (ie, a relationship ending) can provoke an extreme fear response:

I remember when my first "I love you" relationship ended.  I couldn't  abide the thought.  I screamed.  I cried.  I tried to seduce him.  (While still crying. Sexxxay.)  I threatened to harm myself if he didn't come back.  I called him until he stopped taking my calls.   The ridiculous thing is, I didn't even like him that much.  It wasn't about getting the joy of the relationship back.  It was about avoiding [The Worst Thing In The World]... What I did to my ex-boyfriend--threatening myself and refusing to leave him alone--was abuse. Fortunately it didn't go on very long, but it was abusive. And I didn't do it because it felt good to scare and upset him. I did it because I was so deeply afraid of losing him.

Cliff goes on to explain how realizing that this wasn't The Worst Thing In The World helped hir to deal with later breakups in a more dignified and mature manner, because it wasn't a 60-foot cockroach, it was only a 6-foot cockroach (read the full post if you're confused as to where cockroaches play into this).

Similarly, the Worst Thing In The World allows a lot of people to put up with a lot of bullshit.  Some people fear their inability to function without a significant other, that they cannot take care of themselves, support themselves financially and so on.  Some people buy into the idea that pairing up must be a life goal.  I had a friend, single at the time, say to me forlornly "I've never had a relationship last."  I looked at them quizzically and thought "Well, no shit.  If you did, you'd be in one right now."  It struck me funny but I realized afterward that in our society an ended relationship is seen as a failed relationship.  And this fear of failure becomes The Worst Thing In The World.

It's not, you guys.

Being single is not a failure.  It's not The Worst Thing In The World.  There is no moral imperative to get yourself all paired up.  Also, no one owes you a relationship.  Nor do you owe it to anyone else.  Spend time with people whose company you enjoy, without worrying if zie is 'The One'.

Parenting Win plus Other Things.

Oh Hallowe'en.  Just because I've been slow on the uptake as far as preparations go, doesn't mean I don't love you as much as I always have.

I usually take this holiday pretty seriously.  My kids take the brunt of it.  The oldest one mostly just humours me but the youngest has taken my enthusiasm for blood and creepiness and run with it.  I dropped her off at a Halloween party at her friend's place today.  At the door we were greeted by a Little Red Riding Hood, and a cute little skeleton and an adorable cowgirl.

And then there's my kid, looking, very much of her own accord, like something coughed up from the very bowels of hell.  Gray, pasty skin, scraggly black hair and blood dripping from her eyes.

I'm so proud.

**********************************************

Back in 2004, I took a road trip to Fort Frances, Ontario which is roughly a 20-hour drive away from where I live.  On the way, I stopped for the night and slept in the back of my car in the back of a Ford dealership outside of Wawa, Ontario.  In the cramped backseat of my 1992 Ford Tempo, I had dreams of my children turning into werewolves.

As of yesterday, a good chunk of that dealership has been washed away with a stretch of the Trans-Canada highway.  It no longer exists.

Yeah.. I was parked right around there.  - Source

I'm thinking that's a metaphor for something, but I don't know what.

Morning.

Sitting in the silence of the mid-morning with a coffee and the sunlight streaming through the living room windows and the cat purring contentedly on the easy chair I feel completely and totally at peace.

There is a roof overhead and food in my pantry.  My children are happy and healthy and I am well-loved.   At 32, I've come to terms with my body and made amends with my past and look, hopefully and enthusiastically to the future, while I savor the present and for this moment, I am home.

My own childhood bullying tale - or - I'm not fucked up because of how my parents raised me, but how other parents raised theirs.

Today I felt like crying.

No, no.  I'm okay.  Nothing to worry about.  Just feeling bittersweet.  Accent on the bitter, I guess?  

It started with a Facebook group.  *shakes fist in Mark Zuckerberg's general direction*  A group called I GREW UP IN AURORA.

I did, you know.  Grow up in Aurora, I mean.  Aurora, Ontario.  Some of those closest to me may be familiar with the sneer of derision that usually comes with mention of the place.

I'm not actually a member of this group (update: I totally lied.  I am).  My mom is, because she did too. Grow up there.  That may be too simplistic.  I think my mom merely lived there.  It'd be safe to say her actual growing up was done in the neighbouring town of Newmarket, which according to the stories of adolescence I have been regaled with over the years, was a far more rad place than it's neighbour to the south.

A friend of mine who lived in the area for roughly the same period of time (although we didn't meet until years and years later) once remarked that in Aurora, you'd drive down streets where people had paid tens of thousands of dollars on landscaping, only to find nothing but junk inside.

At the time it seemed an apt metaphor.

Gosh, I sound pretty bitter, don't I?  Why all the hate, you may ask?

Interesting question, that.  I'll get to that.

So yeah, because the Mighty Zuck seems to think everyone needs to see everything that everyone does, I caught a link through this group to a photoblog which had, amongst its many posts, photos of the school I attended from grade 1 to 3, which was shut down a few short years back.

It's a tremendous and beautiful building, having first served as a high school (where my grandfather attended) and later used as a primary school for grades 1 through 6.

Seeing the photos was a bit of a head-trip.  I, myself, have not stepped foot inside in over 20 years.  When they closed Wells Street, there was an open house to commemorate it's 100 year history.  The few photos in this woman's blog brought forth a rush of emotion - first, the visceral reaction I generally get when presented with classical architecture.  I'll be the first to admit, I have a bit of an obsession with older buildings.

Second was a flood of memories of the relatively brief but formative time I attended Wells Street Public School.

I was a painfully shy, and oddly intelligent child.  A little awkward, a little chubby.  More interested in the planets and ocean creatures than Barbies and My Little Ponies.  Eager to please, eager for others to like me.  A prime target for bullies.

Third grade was when the two 'popular' girls in my class decided that that year was the year I would have no friends, no fun, no joy whatsoever.  They began to taunt me, promising friendship then ripping it away, with mocking laughter and cruel, cutting, remarks.  They made it well known to all that I was social poison.  Not only would they not be my friend, but anyone who did befriend me would also be outcast.

Two of my best friends would whisper when no one was looking that yes, they were still my friend, even if they put up the act of shunning me as well.

I could hardly blame them.  I had already saw the devastation these two popular girls had wreaked in my own world.  I couldn't let that happen to my friends as well.   My third friend managed to escape the social stigma of being my friend simply by benefit of being a boy.  The threat of expulsion to loser-land was lost on the boys in my class... they were just happy to join in on the fun.

In the evenings, I would cry inexplicably.  I was always crying.  My parents would ask how my day was, what was wrong.  In a quiet voice I'd insist that my day was fine.  Nothing happened.  I was okay.  In tears, but okay.  My sister knew what was going on.. She wrote me letters from the exchange house in Germany where she was staying that winter, telling me she loved me and making empty but appreciated threats to beat the 'little bitches'.  My parents continued to wonder why I was upset all the time but refused to open up to them.

I guess that has just never been my way.

I have no recollection, perhaps I've blocked it out, but I've been told that it got to the point where I was skipping school.  This was how my parents found out about these girls and how they had been tormenting me for most of the school year.  The one girl lived down the street from us, with her grandparents and her mother who was single and worked full-time, relatively unheard of in 1980's Aurora.  Her mother was devastated and truly remorseful that her daughter was capable of treating another kid this way, and blamed herself.  The other child's mother, who had attended high school with my own mother, simply sneered.  She had taught her daughter to be tough.. it wasn't her problem if I was "such a fucking wimp."

I see these pictures of the school and I remember not just its immense empty halls, but I remember walking them, sad, and scared and angry.  The staircase in the second photo from the bottom is the same staircase where I would sit after being sent in the hall.   Heeding the advice of "ignore it and it will go away", I would close my ears to the whispered taunts until finally I would lash out in anger and frustration, only to be scolded and sent to the hall for causing a disturbance.  I'd sit out there and cry and wait until I was sure my face was no longer red and my breathing had returned to normal.

Even then, I had a tendency towards 'The Ugly Cry'.  Oh, look.  There it goes again.

I was lucky enough to change schools the next year after being screened for the region's gifted program.  My problems didn't end there, by any means, but they subsided for a good while.  However, by the time we moved from Aurora to the Midland area, I was good and ready to get the fuck out of there.  I never really felt like I belonged there.  I don't think my family did either.

You know, a lot of this seems trivial in retrospect.  So what?  Everybody had bullshit to deal with as a kid.  But it kind of fucked with me for a long time.  For years I had a difficult time making friend without falling prey to the suspicion that I was being taken for a fool, that I was being set up as part of some grand, Carrie-esque prank and I'd be the girl covered in pig-blood, only instead of wreaking my vengeance all I would be able to do is cry and hate myself a little.  I missed out on what could have been some wonderful friendships because I couldn't bring myself to trust.  That said, I'm thankful for the few long-standing friendships was able to forge over the years.

I'm not going to lie, I've let these memories color my memories of Aurora with a very dark brush.  I think sometimes that I would still like to go back.  To fight my way down Yonge Street where everything is so built up now that you can no longer tell there was ever any bordering area between Newmarket and Aurora.  I'd like to park at my uncle's house (which was the house where we lived) and walk the neighbourhood as I did when I was a kid - my parents were the free-range kid type.

There are still places I have fond memories of..

Mommy wants a new shiny.

Some people have what are called ‘Champagne taste on a beer budget'.  Not sure when it started, if it was as a kid when Christmas-season warnings that “There wouldn't be much under the tree this year' always seemed ludicrous when Xmas morning rolled around, or when I was a teenager and was content with thrift store clothing and a job that afforded me just enough money to keep me in cigarettes, but I've always been more of a Beer Taste on a Beer Budget type girl.  

Population: Me.

I'm not great with having money and I'm especially not great with spending it.  When I was younger it was just a case of not having a desire for expensive things but as I got older it's become a bit of a phobia.  A lot of it stems from some very bad financial decisions during my ill-advised way-too-early marriage.  The ex-hub and I were neither of us very good with finances, probably as a result of neither of us really having any money.

We got into what seemed at the time some pretty serious debt.  There were calls from collectors and there were days when I ate melba toast and jam from the food bank for days on end.

Eventually, with some help and guidance from my parents we were able to climb out of the whole we had dug for ourselves.  This is especially fortunate because it meant that when the marriage fell apart we really had no debt to speak of.  No real property either, but that's a story for another day.

As a result, I absolutely loathe being in debt and I have a hard time making large purchases, especially ones that I cannot pay cash upfront for.  Seeing as I am looking at buying a house within the next year you know this means I'm pretty much shitting my pants at the prospect.

Today I am a happy girl, because I got my tax return back with enough of a return to pay off my remaining credit cards.  I cancelled the one with the larger credit limit and the other one will be locked away, only for emergencies.

This means I am now down to one debt, my huge mother-loving student loan.  It also means I have a little bit to play around with, although the bulk of what is left over will be going towards my down-payment.  

Mommy wants a new shiny:

Say it with me:  “Ooooooh...”

There's one of these babies in our local pawn shop for about $400 bucks.  It's a Takamine acoustic (which is probably my favorite acoustic brand) with a built-in pickup.  This isn't the exact one they have but it's pretty damn close.

My problem is the actual act of spending money.  Over the next week I will probably hem and haw and think of a million and one things I *should* spend my money on... namely the kids, because maternal guilt, you know.  They NEED things like summer clothes and I need stuff for the house and blargh blargh blargh.

I totally over-think this shit.

I can afford it.  So why do I find every reason in the book NOT to treat myself?

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I have another post up at Different Paths, Same Destination.  Go read, and while you're there, give the other ladies there some love as well.

Some kind of witty title about teeth.

Two consistent themes that appear in my dreams are stairs and the feeling that my teeth are crumbling and falling out. The staircase dreams aren't bad, but these dreams that my teeth are falling out drive me up a frackin' wall.

I had another one this morning. In this one I still had the caps and spacer that I had gotten during the dental surgery I had when I was about four. Not only were my teeth shattered, the wires in the spacer were all bent.

I check out some dream interpretation sites to see what they had to say:

From Dreaminterpretationguide.com:

If you lose your teeth, you will have burdens which will crush your pride and demolish your affairs. If they appear decayed and snaggled, your business or health will suffer from intense strains. To dream of spitting out teeth, portends personal sickness, or sickness in your immediate family.

And from Dreammoods.com:

To dream that you have rotten or decaying teeth forewarns that your health and/or business is in jeopardy. You may have uttered some false or foul words and those words are coming back to haunt you.

So our lesson for today? Fuck online dream interpreters. I'm gonna go brush my teeth now.

I'm Pretty Sure June Cleaver Never Dealt with This Kind of Self-Doubt.

It starts with a phone call or a paper invitation sent home in a school backpack.  The birthday party.  Some small child in your own progeny's class has decided that your kid needs to be at their birthday party.

And it's good.  Who doesn't love knowing their kid isn't a social pariah?

I sometimes wonder if maybe I'm a bad parent because I don't immediately wonder if the parents of these children are derelicts or Satan-worshippers or sociopaths.  You want to take my kid for 3-4 hours and feed them sweets and pizza?  Is it bad that I'm totally okay with that?

Whether one is prone to excessive paranoia or not, etiquette and basic safety rules dictate that you meet the adults to whom you will be entrusting the life of your little one.

There is little in the world to make a parent feel more inadequate than the prospect of meeting another child's parents.

I'm lucky in that I have a few close friends who are in similar situations as myself and have kids in my girls' age cohort.  But meeting parents outside of my social circle.. it's harrowing.  You may have been there, yourself.

It starts with a phone call.  An invitation.  A time and an address.

Dropping your child off at the address provided and realizing it's in a rather posh area of town.  These parents, they aren't renting an apartment in that sprawling century home.  They live in, and may even own the whole thing.

As you're invited to come in, suddenly you become hyper aware of your own tiny dwelling, and even though you're not there, you feel a little ashamed of the dust in the corners and the old futon on the front porch and the dirt and gravel driveway, as though each dust bunny, each unmade bed, each fingerprint is written on your face.  Walking into an immaculate kitchen, you think of the unwashed dishes in your own sink.

Was her coat that dirty when we left? you wonder as you try to casually run your fingers through your child's hair, using a seemingly-affectionate gesture to hide the fact that you're really just trying to get it to look neat as suddenly it seems impossibly messy.  And in need of a trim. You find yourself wishing you had some scissors.

You see the fridge with the professional portraits of each child taped neatly to the door and think of your own fridge, with pictures of your kids from five years ago and a number of magnets with off-color jokes and advertisements for fast-food restaurants.

You make idle chit chat with this parent who is the same age as you, looks five years younger, but seems so much older, so much more put together, so much more... grown-up and you take off your hat and realize.. holy shit, I'm standing here talking to this totally-put-together parent who is making fruit smoothies for her kids SNACK  - meanwhile your kids had a handful of goldfish crackers in the car -  and I have pink hair.  Pink fucking hair.  What am I, 15?


Feeling ridiculously uncomfortable, you just thank Gord that your Shut Your Whore Mouth or equally inappropriate T-Shirt was in the laundry today.  Standing there in your coat, you wonder when you should excuse yourself.. too short, and you might appear rude.. overstay and you might appear.. well... still rude, not to mention over-protective.  This is part is especially fun for the socially inept like myself.


You find yourself comforted when you realize that Ms. Other Mom is talking a mile a minute and it dawns on you that perhaps, just maybe, they are just as intimidated meeting you.  After all, you're entrusting your child's well-being to them.

Maybe one day I'll get over the nerve-wracking experience of meeting other parents.   More likely is that I'll be that parent who has a near-coronary when one of the girls wants to introduce me to the parents of their significant other.  Such is life.

The Tip of my Tongue.

When I was growing up in Aurora there was a restaurant down the street from my uncle's place, in a plaza (some may know them as strip-malls) on the Southeast corner of Murray Avenue and Yonge Street, at one point the longest street in the world and the eventual route that would take my family on our short but life-altering pilgrimage from Aurora to our current home on the Georgian Bay.

My memories of this establishment are fuzzy yet curiously vivid as well.  Glaring yellow signage ran the length of the outer end of the building - it was the last unit and faced the traffic of Yonge street.  I recall caricatures of old comedy acts such as Laurel and Hardy and W.C. Fields gracing either end of the stylized lettering, now blurred in my mind's eye.

It was a fairly large, licensed establishment, specializing in Italian fare - a family restaurant, before we became inundated with proto-family-cookie cutter chain eateries.  Upon entering, one would walk into a sparsley furnished, harshly lit entranceway with a small counter for picking up takeout orders.  In contrast, the main dining room was lush and romantically lit, a sea of dark wood, leather and tiffany lamps.  As a small child I would swing my feet from the huge bench seats of the booths and look around curiously, in my own world, ignoring the chatter of my parents and sister.

What stands out in my memory, clearer than anything is the Pac-Man game.  The PacMan game sat in the entryway, close to but not quite in the dining area.  It was one of those table-top arcade games where two players could sit on either end and play head-to-head games of Pac-Man.  Occasionally I was lucky enough to be given a shiny quarter to play while we waited to be seated, but even when no quarters were available I was content to sit hunched over the bright flat screen and trace my fingers along the plexiglass, following Pac-Man's gluttonous feast.  My little brain, just then learning to read, would watch as the screen flickered and switched from the demo to the menu screen and mouth along as the rival ghosts were introduces.. Inky, Blinky, Pinky and...

and...

What was the last one's name?  I can never remember.

The last time I was there, I was seventeen.  My friends and I had embarked on a road trip to the city for some reason or another and I, being full of ideas, suggested going to Aurora and driving by my old house.  We stopped there for lunch and it was as I remembered it, mostly.  I don't recall now if the game was still there, but the food and the atmosphere was as I remembered.

That was nearly fifteen years ago.  The restaurant has since been shut down, re-named, under new management.  It's funny though, that with all that I can remember of that place, of the details in the decor and the food and how my child-mind perceived eating in a  big, grown-up fancy-pants restaurant with china and cloth napkins and where I was even allowed to order a Shirley Temple and felt very grown-up doing so... well, with all that, to this day I cannot recall it's name.

Funny, that.

UPDATE:  So, I was at work and standing in the bathroom washing my hands and out of nowhere, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Barrel Pizza.

I'm gonna let you in on a little something.

It's probably thoroughly un-progressive of me to say this, but I have a confession.

I kind of want to be the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Go ahead.  Laugh.

I would.

It's true, though.

I want to be a muse.  I want to inspire someone to live life to their fullest.

I'd like to be that crazy, quirky, fascinating girl who breathes life into someone who has otherwise lost all interest.  Destroyer of the Cynical.

I'd like to be the object of undying affection, fascination, adoration.

I'd like to be the person who changes someone's whole outlook on life.

I'd like to choose who would be that person.  Which is where the fantasy falls apart, I guess.

Meh.

I've had a couple glasses of wine tonight.

Avatar Generators, Body and Gender Normativity

So, having too much time on my hands and possibly some bizarre form of narcissism, one of the things I like to do is make cartoon avatars of myself.  If I stumble across a cartoon generator, I have to make a version of myself.  I just have to.

And since I am somewhat of a chameleon, changing looks fairly often, I sometimes have to update them.  But some examples:

Myself, as a Pickle. 

Sadly, there's more where that came from.  I'm not sure why the need to cartoonize myself.  Maybe it's because I see myself as vaguely cartoonish to begin with. Maybe, like I said previously, it's some bizarre manifestation of a narcissistic personality disorder.  More than likely, I'm just bored and spend too much time on the intertubes.

What I've found that irks me somewhat is that, with the exception of the Simpsons generator and the South Park generator, it's very difficult to find my body type represented in these generators, so a certain suspension of disbelief is required.  I'm sure it just comes across that I totally see myself as some skinny broad but no, truth is, the cartoon generators don't give me much choice but to be some skinny broad.  The Simpsons generator, if I recall, did allow for a choice of two female body types.. a slim build, and a slightly thicker build (as shown in my own av above).  The South Park generator is the only one (that does a full-body av) that I found that doesn't default to a slim female body, mainly because it defaults to the short, dumpy form that everyone in South Park Colorado is blessed with.

Being recently shorn, I found it less difficult to find my hairstyle represented as well.. Most generators have a wide assortment of long hairstyles for female-presented characters, but not so much for the short styles.

I'm also perturbed that one generator, called Rebel Girl, didn't have an option for glasses.

Anyway, that's a few observations I found.  In all honesty, I'm sure a book could be written on the ways some of these sites, like girlsgogames.com and dressup247.com enforce a whole whack of gender and heteronormative crap onto the young, web-savvy preteen girls which seems to be their market.  Likewise, generators like the Marvel Make-Your-Own Superhero enforce their own ideals on boys and girls (when you choose your initial character shape, you have three choices.. a huge muscly dude, a grotesquely huge and muscly dude or a slim, large-breasted woman).

It'd be kind of awesome to see avatar generators that are capable of incorporating a wide array of body types, shapes, colours, hair types and less gender-normative options as well.  Does anyone have any examples of good sites like that?

just a random thing that sucks...

listening to a really awesome song.. then pausing to listen to the lyrics and finding that they're.. um.. well, a bit rapey.

I know, I know.  Everyone and their grandma goes through bit of cognitive dissonance this at Christmas time when they listen to 'Baby it's cold outside' and find themselves singing along with Dean Martin (or possibly Will Ferrell) as he alludes to spiking his date's drink (in Ferrell's case, the adorable Zooey Deschanel) during what is possibly the rapiest christmas carol going.  Possibly? No, definitely.

I've run into it other times as well.  Outside of the Hair Metal and Gangsta Rap genres, even.

Example?

Bruce Springsteen's "Fire" (mistakenly attributed to Jeff Buckley on my Grooveshark playlist)  Honestly, I don't know who performs the version I have.  all I know is that although I still dig the melody I get a little squicked out when I take a close listen to the lyrics:

I’m driving in my car, I turn on the radio
I’m pulling you close, you just say no
You say you don’t like it, but girl I know you’re a liar
`Cause when we kiss, Fire

Late at night I’m takin’ you home
I say I wanna stay, you say you wanna be alone
You say you don’t love me, girl you can’t hide your desire
`Cause when we kiss, Fire

There's something off here.  Bruce as the narrator doesn't seem to quite grasp enthusiastic consent, and seems a little co-ercive in his efforts to woo his date.  Accusing one of lying is definitely romantic as well, don'tcha think?

I betcha 'But... Your Honor... When we kissed.... FIRE!!' would be an awesome defence in a date rape trial.

This is why I can't have nice things.

Tasty tidbits.

I've been driving around without my insurance information handy. Oops.

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I JUST remembered today that I have a take-home exam that needs to be done by Tuesday morning. Since tomorrow is Nanny's birthday, and Monday is grocery day, I guess that means my day today is pretty much planned. Gah. I hate spur of the moment essays, even if they are only three pages. Can't wait to pass Enviro-Sci and never have to take another science course again.

EVER.

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I've come to the realization that I have an irrational fear of people thinking I am trying to take advantage of them. I think it goes back years when one of my 'friends' moms allegedly called me a mooch. Ever since then, I worry that people are going to think I'm using them for stuff. That's why I never ask anyone for anything.

Came to this the other day when I ran into a friend I haven't really talked in a long time invited me to come over a swim. Now I feel weirded out if I call, because it may be construed that that is the reason, when in actual fact, I just used to really enjoy hanging out with that person.

Yes. I am a little neurotic.

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I have to clean my car today. It's really really gross. Still need to figure out how I'm going to fix the ceiling as well (see Pride day blog).

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Went Karaoke legioning with the parentals last night (I know sammi, I didn't call you. Call me in the next day or two because I think we are going to karaoke on wednesday if you can get yourself up to midland you are welcome to come!)

My parents incredibly drunk friend kept putting his arm around me while his wife gave me dirty looks. Uncomfortable. Cue impromptu 'pee' break (read: Get me the fuck away from these people). *shudders

I kick ass at Led Zepplin (new KDJ's had Ramble on. Happy Andie. But only two Tragically Hip songs. Slightly Disgruntled Andie)

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 Hit Wasaga Beach on Thursday with Dan and the girls. Had a good laugh at the fact that people's assumption that he is 'with' me and my kids, makes his ogling of women on the beach not just lecherous, but particularily detestable. And makes me a clueless doormat.

In the eyes of others, I mean.

I got sunburnt on the backs of my calves and on my cleavage.

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My allergies are bugging the shite out of me.

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Last night after dropping the girls off I sat and played my guitar until the pain was too excruciating to even touch the fretboard, and I had to stick my fingers in frigid water between songs. What a thrilling feeling. My callouses are coming back. I'm almost ready to try playing in public again.

There's an Open Mike night at the coffee shop downtown tonight. If I'm done my essay, or at least have a good chunk of it done, I'm gonna go check it out. Don't know if I'm gonna play or not, but at least I have one or two songs I can do well, and all the way through. I'm gonna take the guitar with me and see what happens. 

Get so nervous. The last time I played in public (read: on a stage. Campfires are different) I fucked up pretty bad. Mind you, that was about 7 years ago.

7 Years? Holy shit.

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Because I'm feeling cheesy, I feel like posting a poem I wrote a while back. If you all like it, cool. If not, meh. Whatever.

ON SMALL TOWN ADOLESCENCE

I remember like it was yesterday

The diamond lights

Stretched shadows across the park

The night settled in

We played Hide and Seek in the dark

Not quite children now

We held on to our freedom

Pushing back our adult selves

As the twilight pushed back the sun

We hid in the trees

Drank beer behind the community centre

Took off our shirts when the summer heat 

Drenched us in cool sweat

Running into the bushes when

the cops came

And we laughed at how it screamed

we're up to no good

Changing letters on advertising signs

Risque messages left for passers-by

The police still circling, circling

As if to say 'move along'

But there is nothing here to see

we're still hiding in the trees.