I probably shouldn't start my first post in awhile by ranting, but fuck it. The whole point of this post is my impatience with censorship and prudishness, so taming my thoughts in said post would be a bit ridiculous. I'm trying to understand why such a flush of rage swept over me when I received a notice that Pinterest had removed one of my pins for "nudity". The pin in question is of a partially shirtless man with his finger hooked in his belt loop to pull down one side of his jeans to show his nicely defined hip flexor and some hair. GASP! No breast. No penis. No vagina. No buttocks.
I asked Pinterest to clarify their policy and they sent me an incredibly self-righteous generic note about how people look at their site around their families and at work, so they don't allow nudity. I pointed out that they had not answered the fucking question (I left out the f-bomb) and where exactly was the nudity? No reply. I don't know why this makes me so angry or why I feel so judgmental about all the Miss Prisses out there, but I just want to moon and yell a big FUCK YOU to all those uptight preachy people I've run into over the years.
Actually, I do know why. I've belonged to a zumba studio for the last few years and will start teaching a class in two weeks. Zumba is sexy. That's part of why people like it: it gets us back in touch with our inner 20 year olds, before parenting and full-time careers and the never-ending banality of daily life left us tired, old and fat. We've built a wonderful community at our studio and call each other our "zumba family."
Last week, a woman came to the studio for her second class and insisted that we keep all the doors closed (it was 30 degrees Celsius) and shut the curtains, because her religion doesn't allow men to see her. So the whole zumba "family," including at least two pregnant ladies, sweltered through the workout because Miss Priss wants to gyrate and writhe around in public, but only if no men can see her. What.the.fuck. I should note the studio is co-ed. Does this mean if a guy comes in we'll have to kick him out? Why does one person get to come into an established group and insist everything be rearranged to suit her, no matter how uncomfortable and in the case of the pregnant ladies, downright unsafe, it makes everyone else?
Usually I'm a more the merrier person who tries hard to be respectful and inclusive of everyone. Apparently I have a limit and this is it. I'm not a fan of strip clubs, so I don't go to them. It never occurred to me to go in and tell everyone to put their clothes back on and stop hooting and hollering because it made me uncomfortable.
And a partially shirtless man is NOT "nude". UGH.
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Still not dead
OMG! Allie from Hyperbole and a Half is back! I'm ridiculously excited - she is hands-down my favourite blogger ever.
Also, I'm not dead.* Just crazy busy and when it's 1:00AM and I have to be up in five hours, somehow I keep making the wild decision to sleep instead of doing blog stuff. After I write my fitness exam on May 24, things should lighten up a bit. Fingers crossed.
*I really should stop saying this, because I'm sure there's some poor blogger out there who has died and my jokes about it are in incredibly poor taste. Then again, I've said far more controversial things on this blog, so I suppose there's no point in worrying about this one.
Also, I'm not dead.* Just crazy busy and when it's 1:00AM and I have to be up in five hours, somehow I keep making the wild decision to sleep instead of doing blog stuff. After I write my fitness exam on May 24, things should lighten up a bit. Fingers crossed.
*I really should stop saying this, because I'm sure there's some poor blogger out there who has died and my jokes about it are in incredibly poor taste. Then again, I've said far more controversial things on this blog, so I suppose there's no point in worrying about this one.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Head in the sand
Somehow I haven't been kicked off the A-Z Challenge list yet, despite missing a rather large section of the alphabet so far. In keeping with my less-than-perfect performance to date, I'm deviating from my lost words theme again for the letter "N."
N is for News. Several years ago in my pre-kids life, a mom friend told me that she didn't read the newspaper or watch the news, because she didn't care what was happening in the rest of the world. I struggled to keep my surprised disdain from my face and wondered if this was a special type of parental stupidity, or if she had always been so clueless.
Then I had my own two kids, and although we get a daily newspaper and a weekly news magazine, I skip most of the "serious" news. It's not that I don't care. It's that I feel completely exhausted and bruised by the viciousness of our world. I want to gather up my little family and huddle under the blankets in the hope that the random demon of fate will pass us by. My babies are growing so fast and as difficult as I find the task of parenting small children, at least their universe is contained.
Sass goes to school next year. It terrifies me to think of her tiny legs entering a world where going to see a movie, eating an ice cream cone or sitting in a classroom can be fatal. I don't know how to cope with this fear other than preparing her and protecting her the best I can, and I don't need to gorge myself on real-life tragedies to do that. Sometimes it's impossible to look away, because the shock and grief is so deep, and the least we can do for the victims is hear their stories. But I try to avoid reading about every horrible event that happens across the globe. My head is full of enough sadness already.
N is for News. Several years ago in my pre-kids life, a mom friend told me that she didn't read the newspaper or watch the news, because she didn't care what was happening in the rest of the world. I struggled to keep my surprised disdain from my face and wondered if this was a special type of parental stupidity, or if she had always been so clueless.
Then I had my own two kids, and although we get a daily newspaper and a weekly news magazine, I skip most of the "serious" news. It's not that I don't care. It's that I feel completely exhausted and bruised by the viciousness of our world. I want to gather up my little family and huddle under the blankets in the hope that the random demon of fate will pass us by. My babies are growing so fast and as difficult as I find the task of parenting small children, at least their universe is contained.
Sass goes to school next year. It terrifies me to think of her tiny legs entering a world where going to see a movie, eating an ice cream cone or sitting in a classroom can be fatal. I don't know how to cope with this fear other than preparing her and protecting her the best I can, and I don't need to gorge myself on real-life tragedies to do that. Sometimes it's impossible to look away, because the shock and grief is so deep, and the least we can do for the victims is hear their stories. But I try to avoid reading about every horrible event that happens across the globe. My head is full of enough sadness already.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
It's a wonderful life
I have to say that I'm not enjoying the A-Z Challenge as much as I expected. It's my own fault. I didn't write my posts in advance like I wanted to, and between my full-time job, two sick kids under the age of three and studying for my fitness instructor certification, blogging is the last priority on my list. I'm not reading as much as usual, which means no one is visiting, which means when I'm trying to motivate myself to write a blog post instead of going to bed for my four hours of sleep, I think of the one or two people who might read it and find I don't want to spend so much time for so little return. Ugh.
I'm supposed to be doing lost words for the Challenge, but I don't like the word choices for "L," so I'm going rogue and using a normal word instead.
L is for Love. I'm so in love with my life right now that I feel disoriented. Jay and I have a great routine going where I drop the kids off at daycare in the morning and he picks them up in the evening. This means I can go to zumba several times a week after work, which means I'm steadily losing the baby weight and seeing a hint of my old self in the mirror. Work is going well, mainly because I've stopped worrying about losing my job (my company is going through a series of major transitions) and just do the best I can each day and leave it at that. Que sera, sera and all that jazz.
I dropped a volunteer commitment that was taking up more and more time and feeling like a chore. I don't keep reading books or watching TV shows that don't thrill me. Sass is slowly growing out of the terrible twos, Little Man continues to be a happy, mellow little baby and Jay and I are in a smooth phase of married life. Outside of my job, I've distilled my life down to people and activities that fill my soul and deserve every precious moment of time they get. It feels fantastic.
Maybe this is why I'm less into blogging right now: my life is perfectly in balance, and blogging is such a time hog that it throws off that balance. Then the vicious circle of visiting less, so fewer people visit you, so you think "what's the point of writing when no one's reading," starts again. And then you quit. I hope it doesn't get to that point, because I do love reading blogs, writing my own posts and the resulting conversations and friendships. But I have other things to do too. All blogging and nothing else makes me a bad wife, mother, friend and employee. That's not OK.
I'm supposed to be doing lost words for the Challenge, but I don't like the word choices for "L," so I'm going rogue and using a normal word instead.
L is for Love. I'm so in love with my life right now that I feel disoriented. Jay and I have a great routine going where I drop the kids off at daycare in the morning and he picks them up in the evening. This means I can go to zumba several times a week after work, which means I'm steadily losing the baby weight and seeing a hint of my old self in the mirror. Work is going well, mainly because I've stopped worrying about losing my job (my company is going through a series of major transitions) and just do the best I can each day and leave it at that. Que sera, sera and all that jazz.
I dropped a volunteer commitment that was taking up more and more time and feeling like a chore. I don't keep reading books or watching TV shows that don't thrill me. Sass is slowly growing out of the terrible twos, Little Man continues to be a happy, mellow little baby and Jay and I are in a smooth phase of married life. Outside of my job, I've distilled my life down to people and activities that fill my soul and deserve every precious moment of time they get. It feels fantastic.
Maybe this is why I'm less into blogging right now: my life is perfectly in balance, and blogging is such a time hog that it throws off that balance. Then the vicious circle of visiting less, so fewer people visit you, so you think "what's the point of writing when no one's reading," starts again. And then you quit. I hope it doesn't get to that point, because I do love reading blogs, writing my own posts and the resulting conversations and friendships. But I have other things to do too. All blogging and nothing else makes me a bad wife, mother, friend and employee. That's not OK.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Tipping tyrants
INOBLIGALITY (noun): Quality of not being obligatory
Service staff, ready your pitchforks!
I don't understand why I have to tip you.
Oh, the fury! I can feel you screaming and frothing at the mouth from here. But I don't get it. Who decided a sub-set of jobs should be exempt from minimum wage legislation, forcing hapless customers to bribe people to do those jobs properly? If I sulked and did everything half-assed unless my co-workers slipped me a $20 along with their requests, I would get fired. What's the difference?
I guess it's a not-very-subtle consumption tax, but why? Perhaps it's to encourage us well-fed, well-groomed folks to start cooking our own food, cutting our own hair and sleeping in our own beds, instead of gallivanting about town dining and boozing it up before smushing our well-coiffed heads into fluffy hotel pillows. Why the government objects to the little people enjoying ourselves and stimulating the economy at the same time is a mystery to me.
The expectation that I tip on the after-tax amount is especially effective in making me think twice about doing anything I have to tip for. Ontario recently took another huge swipe out of our wallets by introducing the HST (neutral, my ASS! BWAHAHAHA!!). I love my hair stylist, but when my $150 haircut turned into a $203 haircut ($150*13% tax*20% tip), I started stretching those root touch-ups out as long as possible before abusing my credit card again.
What I find fascinating is how angry people who receive tips get when customers complain about tipping. All the anger is directed at the cheap, miserly customer instead of their low-paying employer or the government who lets the employer get away with it. But again, why is it the customer's responsibility to directly subsidize an employer's payroll costs? Yes, poor you that without my tip you don't make enough money to survive and would have to live in a box on the street. Isn't that your employer's fault? Shouldn't you be out lobbying your local politician to ensure you're paid a living wage? Why is it my problem?
There also seems to be no logic at all to who gets tips and who doesn't:
You can untie me from the stake: I tip 18-20% where expected. I just don't understand why.
Service staff, ready your pitchforks!
I don't understand why I have to tip you.
Oh, the fury! I can feel you screaming and frothing at the mouth from here. But I don't get it. Who decided a sub-set of jobs should be exempt from minimum wage legislation, forcing hapless customers to bribe people to do those jobs properly? If I sulked and did everything half-assed unless my co-workers slipped me a $20 along with their requests, I would get fired. What's the difference?
I guess it's a not-very-subtle consumption tax, but why? Perhaps it's to encourage us well-fed, well-groomed folks to start cooking our own food, cutting our own hair and sleeping in our own beds, instead of gallivanting about town dining and boozing it up before smushing our well-coiffed heads into fluffy hotel pillows. Why the government objects to the little people enjoying ourselves and stimulating the economy at the same time is a mystery to me.
The expectation that I tip on the after-tax amount is especially effective in making me think twice about doing anything I have to tip for. Ontario recently took another huge swipe out of our wallets by introducing the HST (neutral, my ASS! BWAHAHAHA!!). I love my hair stylist, but when my $150 haircut turned into a $203 haircut ($150*13% tax*20% tip), I started stretching those root touch-ups out as long as possible before abusing my credit card again.
What I find fascinating is how angry people who receive tips get when customers complain about tipping. All the anger is directed at the cheap, miserly customer instead of their low-paying employer or the government who lets the employer get away with it. But again, why is it the customer's responsibility to directly subsidize an employer's payroll costs? Yes, poor you that without my tip you don't make enough money to survive and would have to live in a box on the street. Isn't that your employer's fault? Shouldn't you be out lobbying your local politician to ensure you're paid a living wage? Why is it my problem?
There also seems to be no logic at all to who gets tips and who doesn't:
- Taxi driver, but not bus driver
- Bartender, but not fast food worker
- Wedding planner,but not garbage man
- Hotel maid, but not front desk staff
- Hair stylist, but not registered massage therapist
- Coat check person, but not drycleaner
- Manicurist, but not gynecologist
You can untie me from the stake: I tip 18-20% where expected. I just don't understand why.
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