Why this feminist white girl adores 2 Live Crew

Uh, I was about to explain why I love 2 Live Crew but I've been hitting the red wine tonight and I'm a bit trashed so I'll see how far I get. First off, when I say that I love 2 Live Crew, what I mean is that I love the three songs of theirs that I listen to on my way to work:

Me so horny
Face down ass up
Hoochie mama

I didn't always love them. In fact, ten years ago when I was with Dave I told him that I did not want to hear Me So Horny every time I walked into his place. At that point I was uptight and couldn't get over the depiction of women. However, since that time I have come to love the songs. In fact recently I've had the oddest urge to go up to adults on the subway (male/female/seniors/whatev...) and state, "My favourite time is 69. Bitch you know it's hoochie time!"

Luckily I resist that urge.

It used to bother me that I loved 2 Live Crew. After all, the portrayal of women in the songs isn't exactly empowering.

Okay, will write more later when I'm not trashed...

The Road Warrior

I so wish I could say that the above was the result of some dramatic moment like a car turning suddenly, but I just forgot to 'unclip' when coming to a stop. However, I felt so tough after the fall by having to cycle another 15km or so to complete the ride, and then later washing off blood and grease. I'll just pretend that I didn't have to sit at the side of the road for a bit in shock and trying not to vomit because of this mild flesh wound.

Montreal or bust

I forced myself to do a training ride on Saturday. Some points of note:

• My fag is also doing the ride so it's so fantastic. Also, I just found out yesterday that another of our friends volunteered to do food crew. yay! This is going to be a fun trip.
  
• My team captain is a guy who grew up three houses down from me. I haven't seen him in years but our families always got together for Christmas. He's amazing and it's so nice to see a familiar face
• There weren't many people on the training ride and on this one I was by far the slowest. I wasn't the last because they have designated volunteers doing 'sweep', meaning that they waited for the stragglers [party of 1, ie. me], and made sure we knew where the route was going.
• My team captain waited for me at the half way point and then cycled with me the rest of the way. It turned my tears of frustration and embarrassment into confidence
• I cycled 34km and that was the first time on my bike (apart from cycling home a few blocks from where I bought it), and really the first time on a bike in two years
• I will have to cycle 3x that every day for six days on the actual ride. Good grief.
  
• I went for a coffee after with my fag and the team captain. It's the one where I work so I saw the manager (who is delightful) and was laughing and explaining why I was there on a Saturday and how much I sucked at bike riding but hey, it was for a good cause. She said that if I needed help with fundraising that the store could help out. This is the nicest store ever.
• My thighs were in so much pain that evening that I could barely walk. I stretched, but it was a generous application of TigerBalm that did the trick
• It's so NOT a good idea to get a Brazilian bikini wax done 36 hours before a massive bike ride

I'm so happy I'm doing this. Now my next project is to learn how to clip-in/clip-out of my pedals. I haven't attempted that yet.

I need love

I am going mental at work today. Not much time to do anything but in these times of stress I need love. Lots and lots of love. Send me love.

connections

I met someone really quite spectacular in January (yes, yes - the married guy). We only had a coffee together, but there was something so delightful about him. And yet, I went away to Wyoming and it all fell apart. He has disappeared into the ether, but really, I'm not going to lose it over some guy who I only met once, and who is dealing with his own life changes at present. Still, meeting him still makes me smile. Makes me realize that there are some incredibly unique and spectacular people to be met on cheesy dating sites. I'll find another who will be a tad more available.

I'm sharing some time with another person right now, and in his own way, he is equally as spectacular. I'm not sure how this is going to develop as I thought he was in an open but very committed relationship, but it turns out that he's single. Hmmm.

I'm glad that I can still love and praise Rob for what he gave to me and what I shared with him, but that I am able to move on. I can also accept that Rob didn't choose to maintain a frienship, for whatever reason. I used to feel so guilty because my depression caused me to be such a fucking energy suckage at the end, and so nasty in my pain - it was my terror that I would never be able to bond with anyone. Yet here I am, putting out positive energy again and although I have had to accept that I can't right past behaviour, I did get treated, and I did learn. Today this little moment is making me smile.

External appearance

Today I got my hair cut. It's still the messy mop I always have, but my stylist allowed me to have the hair around my face cut shorter. I don't exactly have bangs, but there isn't the horrific hanging dead length anymore. Anyhow, this completely made my day. That, and having coffee with one of my brothers.


Confession: I'm babbling about my hair and I'm terrified because I just sent an email to my ex. It was meant as a happy memory of him and some sort of closure from my long and traumatic break-down after our break-up [some day when I feel up to it I'll describe the scene of me sobbing and declaring undying love to him over my cell phone as I walked through a lightening storm. Sigh.] I don't mind if he doesn't answer as really, our connection is lost, but I'm scared he'll react in anger as he did once before because he wanted more space than I had realized and I was annoyingly obsessive in wanting to 'talk things out'.

the Blogger Decameron

Part of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

Ah 'tis April and a fine month which gets me to thinking of the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. I adore that text - especially in the Middle English as posted above. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Canterbury Tales, it is a collection of tales that travellers (off on a pilgrimage) tell to each other to pass time on their journey. I sometimes think of Bloggers like that. We all tell our odd little tales - some true, some not, some bawdy, some moralistic - but all great in their own way. But since we tell endless tales, I thought I'd look to another author from that time - Italy's Boccaccio - and give us some focus.

Boccaccio wrote the Decameron. It is a collection of 100 novellas. The frame is that there are ten themes and the same ten people tell one story per theme. Yeah, I never read the collection. I only read the Women's Decameron. That's a fantastic version of 10 fictional women telling stories on 10 themes.

So here are the original themes:

examples of the power of fortune;

examples of the power of human will;

love tales that end tragically;

love tales that end happily;

clever replies that save the speaker;

tricks that women play on men;

tricks that people play on each other in general;

examples of virtue.

Two free days [open topics]

So, my suggestion is that we try a little "Blogger's Decameron". Here are the rules:

1. The two free days are going to be the idea of journeys: travels you've had be they real or spiritual. We are going to start and end with those.
2. for the topics that says, "Tricks that women play on men", expand that to anyone in a relationship. Bocaccio wasn't up on same-sex partnerships
3. I'm not going to worry about if we have 10 stories per topic - in fact I think that would be a bit nutty. Just pick a topic you like. I'll deal with the submissions.
4. Send your submission to me. I don't care if it's something you've already written/posted. I don't care if it's your own work - if you want to share a fave story go ahead, but PLEASE credit where the story came from and don't send me copyrighted material
5. It doesn't matter if I know you or you've ever commented here before, but you must have some sort of Internet presence so that I can link to you. I'm not going to stick to true Decameron theme of having ten people write on ten themes although maybe sometime we can try that
6. I will post your tale on this blog on the theme week, and provide a link to your site - please try to keep your tales at a reasonable length - meaning no multi-part stories.
7. Don't worry about signing up for a particular theme. This is going to be a relaxed process. I'm not going to write for every topic, but if there are gaps, I'll write a story. Hell, I have a feeling I might be writing all ten. Please people, send in something so that I don't feel like a complete loser. If there's a topic you really love, note it in the comments and I'll start harassing you near the due dates


Email to submit to: letmesnooze
[I'm on gmail]

Topic #1: A journey you've had. It can be metaphorical if you want, but please check other topics to see that you don't overlap.

Deadline: I'll post these the second last week of April. Future dates will be posted as this progresses

Bib* attempts to wear skinny jeans

Last night I went to a workshop and I chose to wear my skinny jeans. Right now they are my fave jeans and I wanted to wear them. I had wanted to wear them to work, but my workplace was not that casual. As such, I was determined to wear them on my own time. They were not the appropriate outfit for the workshop though. It was a rope tying workshop (bondage ties, but we were all fully clothed and it was a fun casual atmosphere), and I was lacking serious mobility in my jeans. I hadn't really thought about it because I can walk fine in them. My main concern before leaving the house was in controlling my belly flab.

See, my skinny jeans look nice on [at least in my opinion and since I'm not providing a photo, y'all can just take my word for it], but I have to wear a longer shirt with them or else I look like the drunk old guy at a baseball game. You know the type - sitting right in front of you where you can't help but notice him slumped in the bleachers, t-shirt riding up to expose his pasty belly flab, and pants lowered down enough in back to give you a hint of his ass cheeks. In order to avoid this frightening look, I not only wore a longer t-shirt, I also wore a half girdle that held in my flab so that if my shirt did ride up, people would only see the black fabric of the girdle.

Like I noted, I was fine. I was walking fine, I'm flexible enough that I can bend over and place the palms of my hands directly on the floor in front of my feet, and I could sit. I figured I was good to go. Unfortunately the one thing I can't do in those jeans is anything that requires squatting down as jeans get too tight to fully bend my knees.

I was reminded of this when I reached the place and couldn't remove my shoes. One woman offered to untie my shoes for me, but I decided to get them off by that awful method of stepping on the heels and pulling my feet out without untying them. After that I was fine. At least for a while.

At some point in the evening as we were gathered around our instructor demonstrating how to fashion a new type of knot, I either lost my balance or was bumped into by someone. In any event, unable to quickly move my legs and adjust my weight, I completely toppled over sideways like some sort of tin soldier in a child's war game. Or perhaps more like the Leaning Tower of Pisa that leaned a bit too far. It was the most ridiculous fall but luckily the floor was padded where I fell and I didn't hurt myself. And even more fortunately, the girdle held the belly flab in place so I was able to readjust myself while lying on the floor, without exposing uncontrolled fleshage.

I don't think any woman needs bondage or rope when we endure such things as skinny jeans. And high heels. And tight skirts. And a million other fashions which render us immobile. Still, I love my skinny jeans. I wore them to a bike repair workshop tonight.



* Bib (or rather, Bibendum) is the name of the Michelin Man. I learned that from the host of this workshop who told the story of some guy who after a nasty divorce referred to his ex as Bib. I was definitely in danger of resembling Bib before I dug out the girdle.