And then, all at once my head exploded - or - The tale of the world's tiniest violin, which I shall now play for these poor forsaken souls

Somebody call the wahhhmbulance, already.

Is it me, or does this article sound like the weirdest kind of humble-brag?

Somebody gave this woman a platform to tell a heart-wrenching (I think that's what she was going for) sob story about how she and her husband, through meticulous planning and what sounds like a fuck-load of privilege, achieved everything they ever wanted -- two kids, some dogs, yearly vacations, and shit-damn, even a riding lawn-mower for the beautiful yard that surrounds their dream home -- but somehow, it wasn't enough.

You're basically Ross. And Ross is the worst.

(Image: Three panels of Chandler and Joey. Captions read "Oh, no. Two women love me. They're both gorgeous and sexy. My wallet's too small for my 50's and my diamond shoes are too tight!")

Because now they want another kid, but the cost of another kid would disrupt their perfect economic equilibrium and send them spiralling into the void of "possibly having to downsize to a less than spectacular dream home and maybe pushing a lawnmower instead of riding it" debilitating, abject poverty in order to soothe the literal ache in her well-planned out uterus.

Don't you understand.. they might have to sell the time-share!

Holy shit.  Cry me a damn river.

If I sound bitter, it's because yeah, I am. Because I, too, scrimped and saved and bought thrift store clothes and made a down payment on what was not my dream home, but simply a home, and even I can recognize how damned lucky I am that I have a roof over my head to call my own, even if said roof and attached walls have seemingly been cobbled together with high hopes, salvaged materials and sheer what-the-fuckery.

This article made me angry on a visceral level.

It is quite likely the most obnoxious thing I've ever read.

I almost wonder if we're not being trolled on a grand scale, because really, can someone really lack this much self-awareness, to not realize that there are people who cannot have children at all (instead of merely having to make a choice between a kid and a time-share).  Does she not realize the vast numbers of people who lack even a clean, dry place to lay their heads at night?

Does she think these people just didn't plan well enough?

Imagine, living off of canned food for a whole year? Buying consignment clothing?  What sacrifice! 

The idea of someone marvelling over eating canned food when there are people who are happy to, you know, eat food, makes me think of this guy. (Image: Old man chained to a wall. Caption reads "Wot I wouldn't give to be spat at in the face!")

Don't get me wrong.  There is nothing wrong - morally wrong - with working hard and planning your life out to a tee.  I'm also not going to judge people who get hit on the metaphorical head with their biological clock.  It happens, and plans change.  Wouldn't it be lovely if we all got a national platform to air our grievances when life doesn't *quite* work out how we expected.

Material or maternal, don't martyr yourself over choosing your luxury home over another mouth to feed like it's some massive sacrifice.

Shit or get off the pot, and just be glad you have a pot to piss in.

It's like we're regressing instead of progressing.

Oi people.

So, first off, it's been a while, hasn't it?  Yup. I've got no excuses, only a dearth of things I feel qualified to talk about, and blogging about the day-to-day is well.. Meh.

But every so often, a story catches my eye that is so mind-blowing in it's ridiculousness that I really have to wonder about humanity.

My source of ire stems from a story of an 8-year-old girl who was at a public pool with her parents, and in her excitement of "holy shit, SWIMMING!', threw her top off and jumped in.  Because 8-year-olds, they LOVE that shit.

The pool attendants told the parents to get a top on that kid, pronto, and the parents were all "Why?? To cover our child's likely non-existent breasts?" They were pretty pissed, and in my humble opinion, rightly so.  Because frankly, if the little boys are not required to wear a top, then it's kinda discriminatory for the girls to have to wear one, is it not?

You know how people always tell you not to read the comments on news stories? It's good advice. Because people are all kinds of awful.  You know how I know this?  I read the comments.  And the comments basically boil down to a few key pro-pool and pro-parent arguments:

Pro-Pool arguments:

- Rules are Rules!
- But, pedophiles!
- Also, more rules! and more pedophiles!
- Leftists, amiright??
- Girls are developing earlier and earlier these days, and also, pedophiles.

Pro-Parent arguments:

- It's been legal to be topless in public in Ontario for literally years.
- *most* boys and girls at that age are built pretty much the same
- The pedo argument is pretty much victim-blaming at its finest
- Boobs are boobs and not a Big Freaking Deal™.
- Also, she probably didn't even HAVE boobs, because eight-year-old.

The way I see it is this;  It's pretty damn disturbing that our culture has such a fucked-up relationship with breasts that we even flip the fuck out over the suggestion of a girl who DOES NOT EVEN HAVE BREASTS BUT OMG MIGHT SOME DAY enjoying the sun without a shirt or top, as the boys do.

Rules are rules, yes. But some rules are stupid and born of outdated ideals and morals that are not relevant in this day and age.  These rules need to be changed.

There have always been pedophiles lurking about. Pedophiles and sex offenders are not a new thing and they're not going to magically go away because your kid is wearing a shirt. A shirt is not a force-field, and a pedophile is not likely to strike at a public pool because the key word is public and most child sexual abuse tends to happen behind closed doors, not at public swimming pools.

And yes, suggesting that not wearing a shirt to a public pool will lead to a child being targeted by a pedophile is victim-blaming. Sorry, but really, not at all sorry.

The thing that gets me is not only this is a particularly US/Canada-centric attitude but relatively new! Not the weird breast-squeamishness, but putting this fear of breasts on children.  I remember being a kid, a scant 30ish years ago, and I remember seeing both little boys and girls on the beach without shirts on (myself included) and nobody batted an eyelash. In fact, some found it more bizarre that people would put their little girls in bikinis and other two piece bathing suits, due to the sexualization factor - making the suggestion of breasts where there were none.

So it seems that not only is our society incapable of looking at breasts in a non-sexualized manner (see almost EVERY debate about public breast-feeding), but people will actually freak the fuck out about potential breasts.

Are we actually getting more repressed? Sometimes it seems that way.

PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN! - SOURCE

P.S. There's a really fantastic image that I saw on Tumblr a while ago that I wanted to use here, but as per usual, I fail on the image search front, and SafeSearch (or alternately, the sheer wrongness of the internet at large) foils my efforts again.

Some small justice, or, Depressingly, comment sections fail to surprise me. (TW Sexual Assault)

Source

I read a blog post this evening.  It was a post from Dennis Canning, the father of Rehteah Parsons.  You may remember her.  She killed herself two years after some guys she was drinking with raped her, took pictures and circulated them around her school and community.  One of the guys involved recently plead guilty to producing child pornography, as the who took the pictures of Rehtaeh and the catalyst to the images being disseminated

If you click on that link, just don't read the comments.

I read the comments.  I have the rage.  All of the rage, and the anger, and the bilious, spitting, horrible "fuck this world and the people in it" disgust.

Most of the comments were sympathetic.  But who in the bloody-minded hell goes onto the blog of a grieving parent, who sought justice for his daughter and was so utterly failed by the authorities involved as they basically shrugged off a gross violation, who now will share with Rehteah's mother the everlasting grief of losing a child, especially one who could have been saved if only someone, anyone, gave a flying shit... 

What vile creature tells this grieving father that he MUST forgive the boys whose callousness and cruelty cost his daughter her life?

Who tells this family that by seeking justice for these wrongs, they will be ruining a kids life? The kids involved were old enough to know what they did was wrong.  The fallout is theirs to deal with.

What kind of person quibbles over the semantics of saying that Rehtaeh's death was a result of her rape and subsequent humiliation, by pointing out that sometimes people who DON'T have something so horrendous happen to them may also commit suicide? 

If Rehtaeh had mental health issues, I'm sure they were not helped by two years of reoccurring humiliation and a lack of compassion from institutions - the police, her school - that were supposed to help, not turn a blind eye.

And who, I ask, thinks it appropriate to pull out the "Where were this girls PARENTS??" card, when I am sure that Glen Canning and Leah Parsons wonder on a daily basis what THEY could have done different.

I know I would. 

I would bet Vegas odds that the jackass anon who made THAT comment probably lied to their parents at some point in their life.  Probably drank before they were legal age as well.

There but for the grace of something, go you, anon.

I'm a parent of two girls on the cusp of adolescence.  If this was one of my children it would take everything in me not to want to track down these kids and tear them apart with my bare hands.

I cannot fathom what a bitter victory this guilty plea must seem.  Small consolation for a family that will never have their daughter back. 

Crowdsurfing, like so many other things, does NOT justify sexual assault.

Trigger Warning, because obviously.

Full disclosure:  I do not know who Iggy Azalea is, nor do I really want to.

I'm old.  I'm not hip.  I'm not cool.  I'm okay with this.

I am told this is an Iggy Azalea.  Source

Ye old Facebook feed is chock-full of debate over an interview she gave with the Huffington Post where she talks about how she had to stop crowd-surfing because people, both male and female, were using this as an opportunity to sexually assault her.

Gross, right?

Just as gross as the load of people who are using this to spew the same old rape-apologist B.S. about how women, when going certain places and doing certain things, should expect to be assaulted, even though it's totally bad and wrong and of course no one is saying it's okay, but that still, we should expect these kinds of things.  Cue shrug.

Nope, sorry.  No one should expect to be sexually assaulted in any context and nobody should shrug it off like it's just one of those things.

The two popular arguments seem to be A) Men are disgusting, so we should just expect them to be disgusting and violate us; or B) People who are crowd-surfing should expect to be touched because duh! Women like Azalea are just being over sensitive.

The A crowd are doing both women and men a huge disservice because they basically imply that a man's default setting is rapist, and that women need to suck it up and just not go anywhere.  It's patently untrue.  Most men are capable of controlling themselves in almost any situation.  We call these men 'decent people who fucking get that you don't assault others'.    This argument also ignores that she said that BOTH men and women have done this.

I believe the B crowd probably haven't bothered to read the actual article.

There's a big difference between someone brushing or palming your boob or ass to support you as you're passed overhead, and what Azalea described in her interview.  Not sure what the lingo in other places is, but where I come from, "fingering" refers pretty blatantly to digital penetration of the vagina. Which is something that is pretty damn difficult to do by accident.  Not to mention that in her interview she cites people actually tweeting her saying that they were going to try and 'finger' her while she's surfing the crowd.

I will get lurk tweets for like a week before my show, like 'I'm about to go to the Iggy Azalea show and I'm going to finger her,' and I'll see it and be like, please don't!," she said. "That's a violation. I don't actually like that stuff."

If you tweet a celebrity to tell them outright that you plan to assault them at a show, then all arguments about "accidental" grabs and brushes being blown out of proportion flies right out the window.

"Tut tut, looks like rain."

Oh, these glorious spring days, when I can sit on my porch and watch the world go by.  I feel utter contentment settle around me as my cheeks warm from the kiss of the sun.  Where I can lazily strum my guitar, pausing to sip a cold drink.

People pass by: on bikes, with their dogs.  A mere few weeks ago, snow banks still stood multiple feet high next to driveways, now melted ice flows down the gutters and pools in the corners of my yard.

My neighbour waves a friendly hand, just before he proceeds to turn around and pee on a nearby bush.

*sigh*  

Maybe spring is over-rated, I think to myself, shuddering as I head back inside.

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This post is part of the Studio30plus weekly challenge.  This week's prompt is "Kiss of the Sun".  Visit them at www.studio30plus.com

Forty Dollars

"Momma? I potty..." The little girl's golden blonde curls bounced frantically as she tugged her mothers sleeve.

"Mmhmm?" came the absent reply.  Heavily pregnant and in her early 20s, the child's mother scanned the shelves in the dingy bargain store, searching for the half-price soup that had been promised in that weeks flyer, but there was none to be found.  Sold out already.  What a wasted trip, she thought to herself.  I'll have to get a rain check.

"Momma! I potty! Go potty!!" She yanked her mothers arm again, more vigorously this time, and began jumping up and down in frustration.

"Wha..?" the mother said, snapping out of her reverie. "You.. Oh, jeez.  Okay, sweetie, let's find a bathroom."  Taking her daughters hand, she led the two-and-half year old towards the back of the store where the bathrooms were located.  She silently prayed that there wouldn't be an accident.  They had been in a rush that morning and she had neglected to pack extra pants and pull-ups for the child who was only somewhat potty-trained.  She also hoped that this wasn't a false alarm, borne out of boredom and her child's need for a change of scenery.  Exhausted from the strain of carrying not only her late-second-trimester pregnancy but also a diaper bag (minus the aforementioned diapers) and a heavy winter coat as they had trudged through the snow to the local strip mall, she did not relish the idea of hanging out in a public washroom while her daughter dawdled.

The woman awkwardly pushed her way through the heavy door to the washroom, holding it open as the little girl skipped through the doorway and headed into a stall.  She caught the eye of one of two teenaged girls who stood in front of the mirrors.  It was a weekday, and these two looked, in spite of their psuedo-sophisticated air and heavy eye makeup, like they should probably be in a classroom somewhere, instead of sneaking cigarettes in such a depressing place as a mall bathroom.

Truth be told, the woman was a bit envious.  She craved a cigarette like crazy and had indulged a few times over the last six months, feeling both guilty and relieved every time. It had been a rough winter, after the father walked out, and it seemed to her that the risk imposed to her fetus by the occasional cigarette was mitigated by the need to not break down crying twenty four hours a day.

"Momma.. Help," the little girl called forlornly from the stall as she struggled with her pants.  Crouching down, the woman tugged the tiny denim pants and underpants down and lifted the little girl onto the toilet.  The girls by the mirror snickered and whispered to each other.  She tried to pay them no mind.  Grunting, she struggled back into a standing position.

"Hi! Hi girls! I potty!" the little girl shouted proudly.  The girls giggled.  

After a few minutes, a faint tinkling noise could be heard, indicating that the bathroom trip had not been for naught.  The little girl carefully lowered herself to the ground and shuffled her way across the bathroom, pants tangled up around the tiny snow boots on her feet.

"Oh.. Oh, honey.  Come here. Let me pull your pants up.  We're going to have to wipe your bum first." Setting the diaper bag that doubled as a purse on the counter, the woman began pulling items out of the bag until she came across an oblong plastic container, filled with hopefully at least one or two wet wipes.  The toilet paper provided looked little better than number 2 sandpaper.

Cleaned and re-pantsed, the mother lifted the little girl up to the counter so she could wash her hands, then set her down and started tossing things back into the bag, before exiting the washroom.  She thought about letting someone know that the mall's "No Smoking" policy was being violated, but it was getting close to lunch time, and then nap time and if these errands took much longer she knew she'd have a very cranky toddler on her hands.  And cranky toddlers make for cranky mommies.

They made their way back to the grocery section of the store, where the mother grabbed a few staples.. Milk, bread, some arrowroot cookies, a couple of boxes of KD.  Money was tight that month, and there was still a few days until payday, she thought, as the cashier rang up her purchases.  In order to stay within budget, she'd have to stick to whatever could be covered by the forty dollars in her wallet.

My wallet.  

Rummaging through the diaper bag, she reached down into the very depths of the bag, feeling around for her small leather wallet.  

"Uhm.. Can you hold this stuff?  I.. Um... Can't seem to find my wallet."  A vision of the bathroom counter flashed through her mind.  "I think I may have left it in the bathroom."  An older, somewhat chubby woman with a slight suggestion of grey in her hair nodded.  The woman grabbed the little girl by the hand and pulled her in the direction of the washroom.  The child whined and resisted, too close to nap time, so the woman picked her up and kept going.  When she burst through the door, there was no one to be found.  Nor was any wallet.  Dejected, she trudged back toward the cash registers.

As she approached, the cashier greeted her with a smile.  She held up a small, black object.  "Is this your wallet? Another customer just brought this to the customer service desk.  She said she found it in the washroom."

Putting her daughter down, the woman sighed with relief.  "Yes, yes.  Thank you.  That is mine."  The cashier handed her the wallet and she opened up to pull out the two twenties and pay for the groceries.  

It was empty.  Tears sprang to the young mother's eyes.  

"Mommy.."  The little girl whined and fidgeted.  

"Is everything okay, ma'am?" 

The woman swallowed hard, trying like hell not to cry in front of the cashier. "Yes.. Erm.. No.  I mean, no.  There was forty dollars in here."

"I'm sorry, ma'am.  There was no money when it was turned in."  The cashier looked at her with sympathy in her eyes. Feeling the sob building in her throat, she mumbled an apology and took the little girl by the hand.  They walked out of the story, leaving the few merger groceries behind.  Outside, the woman sunk down onto a nearby bench and proceeded to let the tears of frustration flow.  

"Mommy?"

"Yes, honey," the woman sniffled.

"Mommy, you sad?"

"Yes, honey.  Mommy sad."

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This was written as part of the Studio 30 Plus weekly writing challenge.  This week's prompt is "Stolen".  Visit them at www.studio30plus.com

An open letter to the guy who insulted me as I went for breakfast.

Dear Asshole,

Today I got up and went for breakfast. The man friend was not up for it, so I decided to take a book for company instead. Seeing as it was a lovely, sunny, brisk morning I decided to walk to the restaurant. It seemed like it could shape up to be a decent day.

Thanks and a hearty "Fuck You" for ruining it.

As I was entering the front door of our local dining establishment, you and your probably equally douchey friend were coming out. I guess my appearance caught you eye because you felt compelled to exclaim "Wow! Holy fucking teeth!" at me.

For those who may not have seen pictures, I have prominent front teeth and a bit of an overbite. I know this, because assholes and dentists have insisted on pointing this out to me pretty much since my adult teeth came in. I'm 32 years old. It's nothing I haven't heard before. Doesn't mean it doesn't feel just as shitty now as it did when I was a kid.

So, thanks a lot for reducing me to feeling a goddamned awkward twelve-year-old and making me feel ugly and insecure once what you had said registered.

And then.. And THEN, you had the audacity to look outraged when, realizing that I had just been insulted to my fucking FACE, I turned around and told you to fuck off. Like I was the asshole here.

My apologies to any diners who were within earshot of that, by the way.

Believe me, that was the least you deserved for not keeping your bloody comments to yourself. A full-on public shaming would have been fitting so you could have felt as humiliated as I did at that moment, but unfortunately I'm not verbally eloquent when I'm upset. Hence why I blog.

So fuck you for making me feel like shit about myself when I was just minding my own business, enjoying my Saturday. Fuck you for the fact that I was just a little scared about walking home after breakfast, in case you and your friend decided I needed to be put in my place for speaking up. And fuck you for the good possibility that had the man friend been with me, you probably wouldn't have said shit because I'm pretty sure that's precisely the kind of cowardly piece of excrement you are.

I hope a large piece of frozen airplane toilet water crushes you from a great height.