Friday, July 29, 2005

The Inherent Problem with the Itty Bitty Bikini

Someone please explain to me the evolutionary purpose of pubic hair??!!

(Okay, I know ... this is hardly esoteric and deep material, although what the hell make anyone think they could expect that kind of stuff here??!!)

Seriously, what exactly is the point of hair in the nether regions? It's obviously not for warmth, otherwise we'd have been born with it. Is it supposed to be like raising a red flag to a bull -- a sort of come-hither-look-what-I've-got-hiding-under-here message? And if that's the case, why do we then devote so much time (and so many products) towards removing it?

And not to get too graphic or anything, but for those who have seen me naked and remember the experience (my eyes! my eyes are burning!!), being Asian (and according to Philippe Rushton therefore more highly evolved), I don't exactly have huge quantities of hair other than on my head. I don't even have hair on my legs. And yet, here I sit debating whether or not to wax before my cottage weekend during which I shall spend the majority of the time clad in my pornographic silver bikini.

The reason for my private debate? The last time I donned this bikini, it was pointed out to me quite indiscreetly that I had a few short ones popping out of the sides (I've seen eye patches bigger than this thing for crying out loud, so naturally something is going to show). Personally, I don't know what this person was doing with his face so close to my crotch that he'd notice this kind of thing but then again, maybe it is glaringly obvious to all.

But as I sit here trying to muster up the courage to wrench the little buggers out by their roots, I am perplexed as to why in the world we in even have them in the first place?

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

It's Not All About You

It's an interesting experience, this whole blogging thing. I now understand what Snooze was always talking about re. the worry about censoring content, etc.

My earlier post vis-a-vis old boyfriends and lovers elicited a few reactions from some, none of which were anticipated. Obviously, the intent to simply detail how I've matured within the past decade-and-a-half fell flat in the face of some of the details about my amorous affairs.

In this particular case, a number of my ex-lovers suddenly contacted me, wanting to know if in fact they were the subject matter of my blog. One in particular, was very sweet, because he was really concerned that he'd put me through terrible emotional stress, and although he didn't remember doing this (duh -- maybe because he had always been a fabulous, considerate friend and lover, albeit with a shoddy memory bank), he was worried that it had somehow stuck with me through the years, and I was still nursing my wounds. Or maybe he was worried that I was going to make him pay for his past transgressions (even, I am not that evil).

Anyway, it's reassuring to know that people actually read my blog and pay attention. Please know however, that if I have an issue with you, it would be taken up privately with said person, and not aired openly for all bloggers to read.


Monday, July 25, 2005

Flipping to the A Side

Ugh ... my mother-in-law is visiting me. For the record, we are on day 10 and counting. Her date of departure is somewhat up in the air, but she has so kindly offered to stay until sometime next week. Just how many swear words can you string together in one sentence?

I know I shouldn't complain. After all, she is a nice lady and a great grandmother to my children. She would also do anything for me, which is wonderful and heartwarming. It's not that I don't love her, but it's quite an adjustment to make whenever she comes for one of her visits.

For one thing, she's an avid soap opera fan. I thnk she watches four a day religiously. The hours between 1:00 and 5:30 p.m. are spent on perched on the edge of my family room couch, nodding her head vigorously to the asinine cliched scripts of All My Children or Days of Our Lives or whatever the hell it is that she watches (take your pick ... they all churn out the same idiotic far fetched drivel).

For another thing, she is somewhat of a negative thinker. The glass is never half full. She came back from a one week, all expense paid vacation to Vegas, courtesy of my brother-in-law and his family, in celebration of her eightieth birthday. Not once did I hear a "Gee, I'm so lucky that someone cares enough about me to take me to Vegas and make sure I have a good time". All I heard was her complaints about how my brother-in-law and his wife raised their kids, how they were made to wait for thirty minutes prior to checking into their hotel and how much of a prima donna she felt one of her grand daughters was. Yeah, okay, so she got to go see Celine Dion, Wayne Newton and gamble to her hearts' delight (she can spend hours at the one armed bandits), but someone else is a prima donna?

Anyway, I suppose I'm focussing somewhat on the negative by complaining, and God only knows, I don't think of myself as being a negative person. I should instead, try and think about all the great things she brings into my life. It's hard though because sometimes we all end up gritting our teeth when she blathers on and on about something that has bugged her (a long list). But okay, here goes:

Good Things My MIL Brings to My Life
  1. She is obsessive about cleaning my kitchen, hence I can slack off whenever she is around (although when she is gone, reality sure hits hard);
  2. She is always willing to help out and watch the kids -- no easy task if you've ever been subjected to the Terrible Three;
  3. She never forgets a birthday or anniversary and always sends a card containing a cheque -- also no small potatoes when you consider the fact that she has nine grandkids;
  4. No matter how much of a pain in the ass we have been, she has always helped us out in times of trouble, and there have been a few, and more importantly, she has never once reminded us of what she has done, nor made us feel that it was done begrudgingly. To me this is probably the most amazing thing since my parents consistently go out of their way to make me feel as though I should be indebted to them eternally for the most basic things (like feeding me);
  5. She thoroughly enjoys and loves my kids unconditionally.

Well, that was a good exercise for me. Because really, it makes a visit with my MIL seem somewhat more tolerable in the face of our history together. Of course, as soon as I finish this and go downstairs and subject myself to about fifteen minutes worth of her, I may be fleeing back up here to review my list as though it were somewhat of a mantra, but the important thing is that I at least have a list, right?

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Retrospect

I was cleaning out my basement the other day and came across a whole bunch of stuff from my university days.

Flipped through a number of my term papers, some of which I now realise were complete and utter horse manure. No wonder I got so many B plusses during my academic career. Well, what could one expect given that I would be frantically pounding the conclusion out on my typewriter at sunrise on the due date?

Two things I found that made me realise I've come a long way since my early twenties:

Firstly, I unearthed a file folder containing copious amounts of correspondence from an old boyfriend. We were together initially for a year, spent a year apart and then got back together briefly. He used to write me notes quite a bit, both when we were together and when we were apart. Sentimental person that I am, I kept each and every one of his letters. I flipped through and read a few of them as I stood in my dimly lit furnace room. It was hard to believe that there was once so much love professed between the two of us, and so much pain involved around the extricating of one from the other. I remember when we first broke up, I felt as though a part of me had been wrenched violently away. It took me years to get over this man.

Now, re-reading his letters, I felt strangely divorced from both him and that part of my life. It was as though I was reading something belonging to someone else. I wondered if I should dispose of the file lest one day my kids come across it and realise that there had been someone else before their dad. Would it crush them to know that their mother had once upon a time contemplated marrying another man?

As I continued to root around in the box, I also came across a couple of my journals from university. I flipped to the pages which contained my thoughts before I began first year, as well as those from the early months. It was weird because a great number of entries dealt with my feelings about this one guy that I'd had this on again, off again pseudo-relationship (polite term for random sexual encounters). I spent hours ripping my hair out trying to decipher what he was feeling and thinking when he would insist that he really cared about me, but that he wanted to remain just friends (this after we'd slept together) and didn't want to get tied down with a relationship. He kept telling me that he was seeing other girls, but would get upset when he would see me with other guys. Stupidly, I took this to be a good sign -- evidence of his feelings for me, instead of some stupid male territorial issue. The journal entries are rife with paragraphs devoted towards analysing what his fear of commitment denoted and how I should just be patient and show him how much I cared. As an older, wiser and far more experienced woman, I had to resist the urge to shriek scathing recriminations to my younger self. "Just how stupid were you to let him treat you that way?"

The crushing blow came when, without warning, he suddenly acquired a girlfriend -- nice girl with all the right credentials (i.e.very unlike me, i.e. virgin), and I was therefore forced to come to the conclusion that he didn't have strong objections to relationships in general, but that he just didn't want one with me.

It was moderately painful reading some of this stuff as it was proof positive that I'd once been either naive enough or insecure enough to allow someone to jerk me around for a prolonged period of time. I also couldn't believe that I was so stupid as to bill it as being patient and perseverant, as though what I was doing was an act of virtuosity rather than one of complete idiocy.

It's very difficult when you have to stop and consider how much crap you've taken in your life that you shouldn't have. During the course of my yearlong relationshp with my letter-writing boyfriend, I also endured certain things without complaint or comment which I now wouldn't even put up with on a single date.

So where does this propensity for being the grateful recipient of ill treatment come from?

While I don't have regrets about much in my life (even the fact that I had those two relationships), since all of what we experience is what brings us to the point where we are today, and I wouldn't want to trade on where I am today for anything, I still worry about why it is that I didn't consider my needs to be as important as those of others. Given that I have this kind of a past, how do I teach my kids? What if one day they let someone walk all over them because they don't feel secure enough or good enough to demand better treatment? How can a fish teach a fledgling to fly?

Monday, July 11, 2005

Correct Conversation 101

I've come to conclusion yet again that men are just plain dumb. Or is it just my man?

You'd think after thirteen-and-a-half years together, he'd figure it out, but apparently the learning curve for him is a long one. Or maybe it's because he's taken so many blows to the head with the frying pan.

Allow me to provide all you lost men out there with a good script.

When your wife dons an outfit, it is in bad form to say to her "Well that dress looks better on you. It makes you look thin. Not like the other one you just had on". This causes said wife to look in the mirror and wonder if she is fat. Yes, I know this sounds just so female, but you see there is a certain amount of history around this whole scenario.

The worst thing a man can do when asked by a woman how she looks, is to survey her closely up and down, make repeated requests for her to turn every which way, open his mouth to say something, interrupt himself by looking down at his watch and then say quickly "You look fine. We'd better go now or we're going to be late". The translation of this is "You actually don't look so hot, but if I say that, I know you'll start going through your entire wardrobe and we don't have time for that now".

The other day I got dressed and came downstairs to begin my day. My husband was unusually silent after giving me the once over during breakfast. I have to state firstly that I was wearing the dress that apparently didn't look as good on me as the skinny one. After I backed the car out of the driveway and was on my way to my kids' camp, my phone rang. It was hubby with some work-related question, after which I commented to him that I have never felt comfortable wearing this particular dress after he'd insinuated that I looked fat in it, and that I now worried that I looked frumpy and fat to the rest of the world at large.

Here is where all you men should be taking notes. When a woman says this, the correct answer is "Really sweetie? I don't know why. You look completely hot, sexy and irresistible in that dress. How could you be anything otherwise?", not "Why do you wear it then?"

In similar fashion, the following are not considered to be a good compliments:

"You look good for someone who has had three kids"
"That's a flattering outfit. It hides your tummy"
"I like your haircut this time better than I did the last one" (particularly if you say this every haircut)
"You're not fat. Just look at so-and-so" (so-and-so has about fifty pounds on me)
"Don't worry about what you look like. Most people aren't very good looking anyways".

Okay, so it may sound as though I'm completely and utterly vain and shallow since all of these comments have to do with my appearance. The reason for this is that I don't doubt that I'm reasonably intelligent. Hell, my parents essentially told me throughout my childhood to give up on what I look like and concentrate on my wonderful brain instead. That's got to count for something since my parents never gave out compliments.

Will I sound terribly anti-feminist if I say that lots of women don't just want to be thought of as smart, capable people, but also as beautiful, sexy and desirable people?

Monday, July 04, 2005

A Pound of Flesh

Had a day containing events only slightly more preferable to the Chinese Water Torture.

I had promised my step-daughter that I would take her shopping for bathing suits as she desperately needed a few for her job as camp counselor. If ever our kids reflect back upon the past with lingering doubts as to whether or not they were unconditionally loved, I hope that they recall moments such as these.

In the first place, shopping is my least favourite activity (unless it's for books). In the second place, I haven't purchased a bathing suit for myself in years, much less a bikini. Seriously, for awhile I was wearing my maternity bathing suit (mind you, it's from Paris and is totally gorgeous, but it's still maternity wear for God's sakes). For those who are not acquainted with my step-daughter, or haven't seen her in awhile, allow me to paint you a little picture. She stands about five feet nine inches tall (all legs), weighs in at 115 pounds, and is drop dead gorgeous. It is hard to sit there and watch her pop out of the dressing room in barely there swimwear, only to have her ask if the pink bikini makes her look fatter than the black one.

Since, as I mentioned before, I lack any appropriate swimwear, I was coaxed into trying on a few numbers myself. Picture me in a claustrophobic, terribly lit dressing room struggling into what my step-daughter described as being a skanky bikini (she meant it in a good way, apparently). Then while surveying myself in the mirror (not a skinny one either) and wondering if I could pull it off, I would hear her calling me, asking me to come out of the dressing room so I could see her in whatever suit she'd tried on. So yeah, I had the added stress of having to dash out in an itty bitty two-piece so I could log in my opinion. Fortunately, I only tried on a couple of suits to her dozen (in sizes about five times bigger than hers, too, I might add), so the humiliation factor was somewhat contained. The highlight was when I came out shyly in this pornographic white bikini and she nodded her head approvingly with the statement "I'm into it". To my question "But isn't it a little too hello-these-are-my-breasts?", she gently replied "That's the whole idea", completely oblivious to my fear of unmentionable body parts making themself known to the general public at any given point in time.

It was either an example of unconditional trust or sheer insanity on my part, but I elected to purchase the bikini that she'd deemed to be acceptable. I kept reiterating though that if I found myself poolside and people were pointing and snickering, I would come after her ass with a vengeance. She shrugged her shoulders and just proceeded to the cash register without comment, leaving me with the lingering question as to what that meant.

I kept flashing back to my university days when my mom used to take me clothes shopping. My mother and I are built quite differently. She has a very petite feminine frame to my Amazonian one (the latter is my dad's description, not my own). At the age of twelve, I was already starting to outgrow her sweaters and shirts.

Now I could be paranoid, but I swear that my mom used to delight in taking me shopping in the days when I was a little more well-endowed and couldn't fit into most dresses, jackets and tops comfortably. We used to get adjacent dressing rooms and she would pick out identical dresses for us to try on. Mine was always about four sizes larger than hers, of course. When we would emerge from our rooms, she would look fabulous, and I would either be wearing my own clothes because I couldn't squeeze into the dress, or I would come out looking completely ridiculous. Since I'm not exactly well proportioned, the dress would be straining in the bust and shoulder areas. It really was a crushing experience for a twenty-something-year-old to have her middle-aged mom look better in an outfit. From the look of glee on my mom's face, I think it was a completely pleasurable one for her though. Actually, she used to entertain herself during my visits by showing me her latest purchase and then suggesting that I try it on, despite my protests that it would never fit, after which she would laugh at the sight of me.

(Thankfully, things evened out for me a bit after having had my kids. While I still have somewhat of a problem finding dresses because I lack that perfectly proportioned feminine figure that designers based their prototype upon, I don't look so ridiculous anymore. Time and menopause has also altered my mom's figure so that she is now more bottom heavy than she used to be, and therefore can't fit into any of my stuff. For some reason though, she is still under the delusion that I am five sizes bigger than her and continues to purchase me clothes that essentially fit me like burlap sacks).

With all of this in mind, I followed my step-daughter to the checkout counter with my bikini clutched tightly in hand, all the while wondering if she just didn't care what I bought for myself, and was simply humouring me, since after all, I was footing the bill for the whole shopping expedition.

I love my step-daughter to death, but should one of my breasts make an unexpected appearance, I'm going to kill her.