not that

less offensive and more rational alternatives to the asinine mantra for single women 'he's just not that into you' popularized by the pop culture phenomenon, sex and the city (aka more likely reasons for not being together) followed by a plea to the shocking number of women scrambling onto the supposedly liberating bandwagon:

he's just not over someone
he's just not willing to conquer his fears
he's just terrified of a great thing
he's just emotionally stunted
he's just afraid he's not good enough for you
he's just unable to stand up to his demons
he's just weak
he's just not capable of an adult relationship
he's just not that into himself

dear women who are buying into the hype: yes, indeed, let us all expend a little less energy forwarding emails to friends for vocab and punctuation analysis. and yes, let us let ourselves off all kinds of hooks so we can move onto more likely candidates. but in the meantime, let us NOT minimize the complexities and very real deficits that might be inhibiting him from being more, or from even just calling. maybe he's behaving like an arse because he's actually really really into you. if that's true, then more reason to feel bad about him than yourself, no?

alter ego

if writing styles have doppelgangers, could hers be that of mine?

wedded bliss

at the risk of musing too academically about canadian constitutional law and the charter and international human rights protocols, suffice it to say that the recently-revived hoopla around the same-sex marriage debate renders me simultaneously enraged and bored to fucking tears.

choking on headlines and bile, i find myself asking yet again, what the fuck is up your ass, mr. harper? (sorry) does he even have a point? oh right, that same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. never mind that a million constitutional experts have co-signed an open letter cautioning mr. harper about the validity of his position and plan. never mind that the federal supreme court has already green-lighted the thing, well after a number of provinces have taken steps towards same-sex marriage equality. dousing any flicker of hope for a future in the conservative party, even belinda stronach has come out (sorry) against the party line, saying she's in favour of same-sex marriage.

when you think about it, all kinds of unacceptable sex is enshrined within the traditional definition: no-sex marriage; bad-sex marriage; infrequent-sex marriage. yet the right thinks same-sex marriage just isn't right. and that it shouldn't become a right. because if we tinker with the definition of marriage, then "what's next? polygamy?" this represents the slippery slope branch of the nonsensical school of thought, the same one that worries that by moving towards equality for gays and lesbians, we're careening towards acceptance of beastiality and other such deviant behaviour. ass holes (sorry).

it got me thinking about a recurring dream of my childhood, one involving me in a wedding dress, walking up a dirt path in our backyard towards my intended groom. i recall the intoxicating joy i'd felt in that dream, surrounded by family and friends, my 5 year old brother playing violin, a beautiful sunny summer day, marrying my beloved. that groom was my pet bunny, snoopy. we were deeply in love.

i'm not clear as to why we're not married today. had it only been legal ...

stormy weather

what the fuck happened? you wake up one day to discover that the last eight have snuck by. unnoticed. on tippy toe. and what is there to show for it other than an unkept house and unkempt hair. actually, let's not even talk about the hair.

i'm so fucking tired of the top news story being about the snow storms. who fucking cares? i mean, blizzard shmizzard. when you grow up where i grew up, winter weather isn't newsworthy. it's life. (i won't go into how we sometimes had to trudge to school at a 45 degree angle or how we usually wore our halloween costumes overtop puffy snow suits). unless those time-wasting media reports contain: a) in-depth analysis about climate change and the stunning impacts of global warming and b), are followed by slick and directive messaging about how we can stop killing the earth, then c) fuck off. far less resilient people than maritimers have dug their way out of towering snow drifts. a little perspective please people.

as for me, a storm of my own has kept me indoors. if i'm not huddled under blankies or contemplating naps, i'm hunched at this fickle laptop trying to deliver some semblance of product to unwitting employers. while i'm nowhere near the locations hardest hit by the wacky weather, i believe my symptoms indicate that i'm smack dab in the middle of a good old fashioned winter depression. whew... a neat and handy theory to cling to, just in case i want to overlook that the bizarre moods and behaviours descended well before the fall fell away. nothing to worry about though, 'cuz i've decided to bear down. i've had this image in my head of a ram with its head lowered, ready to charge. but given the theme of this rant, let's just say that i'm cloaked in my one piece skidoo suit with my frosted eyes poking out from the oversized scarf wrapped four times around my head, pushing my angled self against the fierce blizzard wind.

j20 or bust

must march. no money + a bit of time + fevered passion = uncertainty about whether i should go down to dc for all the counter-inauguration hoopla. who can resist a week of anti-bush jackassry? fuck it, let's all go. no matter where one's bushometer points, there is a ton of useful planning info on the web about the shake-down in dc next week. even the washington post has compiled a nifty guide, replete with a long and tempting list of balls (as in gala events, sicko).

(statue of resistance graphic courtesy of code pink)

sue nahmi

the havoc wreaked by that crazy tsunami seems to have touched an unyielding collective nerve. canadians have doled out up to $150 million already.

that's the total before tonight’s canada for asia special on the cbc, a tele-cornucopia of northern celebs - one big mega version of tears are not enough. this endless lineup of tele-thonners reeks of that truly canadian cologne of humility and reverence. and just like that 1985 bryan adams led fundraising exercise for africa, tonight’s is an austere display of canuck talent: no frills, just a good, clean, earnest attempt to raise money. sure, it’s a hodge podge of mismatched talent (sam roberts (yum) followed keshia chante who followed margaret atwood who followed murray mclaughlin who followed rick mercer who followed gord downey who followed paul martin who followed dahmnait doyle, and so on). yet the whole thing is utterly void of pretense. musical performances are being interspersed with weepy words from the likes of astronaut julie payette and cynthia dale, a woman who’s only famous for having once been sorta famous. i just watched rush perform the classic closer to the heart with barenaked's ed and the unremarkable bubbles, the oddest-looking of those trailer park boys. it's a beautiful outpouring of solidarity by our wee modest entertainment industry. i'm fucking moved.

ok, so what am i trying to say here. hmm... well, aid organizations are experiencing contribution levels never before seen, despite the fact that as critical relief and rebuilding efforts are being carried out in locations all over the planet, and have been for a long fucking time. more lives have been lost in darfur, sudan, than in the tsunami attack. some say this kind of generosity is a natural response to a natural disaster, that carnage and devastation resulting from civil (or uncivil) wars is too political to attract this level of compassion from the global audience. maybe. but decades of suffering have been caused by wave after wave of tsunamis of our own doing - it seems to me that the tragedies left in the wake of those too-political disasters warrant the more special reaction from the world. shouldn't it be easier to write a cheque when the finger of blame has a clear target? after all, the world is entirely capable of adjusting itself so as to prevent so many unnatural tsunamis from sweeping so many innocents off to their death. our death.

but we'll never fucking see 200 canadian stars assemble to televise canada for peace, or canada for a stronger UN, or canada for global equality.

10 liberal reasons

though i'm not a member, i figured i'd answer the catchy call of the great liberal party of canada and take a shot at the top 10 reasons its great to be a liberal. t'wasn't as mentally taxing an exercise as i'd initially expected. here goes:

10. i hold no strong opinions, and seldom even a mild one – i’m comfy in the mushy middle

9. i actually don't care to be politically active, and the only thing the liberals really fight for is more and more space on the political spectrum

8. we're hip since bono swooped in to our convention and said this - not as a manipulative tactic to advance the cause of third world debt relief but because he really truly thinks we're terrific (the ndp only attracts lameass local acts like this parachute clubber or the barenaked ladies)

7. it’s the quickest and easiest way i can find to get me appointed to the jobs that might fulfill my lifelong dream of being a career bureaucrat

6. party gatherings are great opportunities to suck up to people whose idea of political cred is relevant lineage and/or donor history

5. it’s a mainstream legitimized way to co-opt and use people of colour in ways that just might make me seem tolerant

4. delicious and accessible party fundraisers

3. it’s a safe haven for a right-winger who lacks the spine to come ‘out’ as a true Conservative

2. i’d rather be in a party that goes down in history thanks to scandal after scandal rather than in one that makes history by consolidating support or by generating unprecedented youth participation

and the top reason its great to be a liberal ...

1. the awesome party uniforms!

dear bio-dad

on the off chance that wherever you are on this planet, you've had access to the fox tv network and had the grave misfortune to have caught this week's airing of the latest reality hack job, who's your daddy?, and in case your palms became sweaty with fear that i might be shallow enough to drag your mysterious ass onto international airwaves so that we might profess an awkward love for each other after i spend 44 painful edited minutes snivelling my way into pop culture humiliation trying to pick you out of 8 possible sperm donor posers, let me assure you that even if i was so mentally unstable as to apply to such a show, i'm most definately not botoxed or siliconed or barbie-cloned enough for the producers to bother with, and i'm all kinds of certain that you are not lacking enough in taste or soul as to contemplate a $100,000 cash prize in the same breath as a chance to meet me.

besides, surely canadians and bajians are exempt. small miracle.