drag

I somewhat recently had an opportunity to dress in drag for the first time in, like, forever. An interesting opportunity it was. Having been graciously loaned a rather smart, grey, pin-striped suit, jaunty hat and slick shoes by a male friend my size, I tried to do it justice by doing proper drag. None of this still hot but boxier version of femme stuff for me. Boobs were bound, hair was tucked. I could have done more with make-up and faux facial hair, but it was like-hell degrees out and I couldn’t be arsed to go that far.

I was surprised to find that I as weirded out by the new, me in a suit with a weird shape. Like, really weirded out. Last time I’d done drag was shortly after my eldest was born when I didn’t feel very shapely anyway. I was still carrying a lot of post-partum pounds, so the effect was much less drastic. This time? I felt self-conscious. Seriously self-conscious for about 20 minutes as I padded around my friend’s home, trying to get ready, but going back to the mirror every few minutes to look again. I even thought about taking it all off, undoing the binding and making a sexier, curve-wrapping thing to wear out of the binding fabric I’d brought instead. Then I thought “WWFKD?” (what would Frida Kahlo do?), sucked it up, got over myself, did it anyway and had a blast.

Needless to say, the experience has had me thinking a lot. I think about our relationships with our bodies, what kind of power we assign them, what kind of power others assign them, and so on. In the last year and a bit of Big Life Changes ™, I’ve had to rethink and renegotiate my relationship with my body and how I project that. Singlehood does that because it drastically changes everyone else’s relationship with it. The single body gets uniquely different attention (and sometimes a lot more of it) than the taken body. Just as I’d got comfy, the sudden removal of that comfort of knowing how to dress every knook and cranny of the self in the face of what the tribe expects had me feeling very vulnerable.

My mind immediately juxtaposed this with the exposure I have to the raging hormones and the challenges of the ever-changing self-perceptions of the gaggle of teenagers that are in and out of my home on a regular basis. All of the donned bravado, the trying on for size of clothing, makeup, behaviours and language in the face of that vulnerability becomes very real and very explicable when you’re forced to feel it again. They do an awful lot of sucking it up, getting over themselves, doing it anyway and having a blast (or not, as the case may be), no? Probably a metric fuck ton of that on a daily basis.

It was a great exercise in the shaking up of self-perception.

It was a fantastic parenting lesson.

I look forward to doing it again in September.

Peace,

m

here’s to ’09 – the resolutions post

I don’t normally post about resolutions.  I rarely post about anything terribly personal at all, but one of my resolutions is to do a bit more of that at the request of a few readers.  I’ll get into that a bit more later, in the meantime, this is what I’m gonna do in oh nein:

– get the new website (a gift from the mister) up and running by the end of this month.

– lose 10 pounds and get my great legs back (we’re starting small here).

– reacquaint myself with visual arts in practice and not just in theory. I will produce and display 5 serious works, not just doodles, between now and the end of the year.

– I will finish painting the trim in the house.

– I will get my house in good-enough-for-a-visit-from-dad shape and keep it that way for at least two consecutive months.

– I will blog more recipes.

And now for the sticky one: I will make my blog more personal.  As I said before, this is by request.  I get asked quite a bit to blog more about parenting experiences and anecdotes I have no hesitations about relating in real life in the right company.  Truth is, I’m kind of scared shitless to do it.  It’s that kick in the ribs by the celtic ancestry which dictates that putting it down in written form commits it to the encyclopaedic memory and brings on the gestalt.  It’s also the sense of disenfranchisment from the rest of the parenting world which comes with being the girl too busy giving birth to write her OAC French exam, even though I got a 94% in that course without the exam and the kid is still alive.  It’s also because I find so many bloggers who write about their personal lives entirely insufferable with inflated martyr syndromes, save a handful (like this person, and this person, and this person).  I don’t want to be an insufferable, dripping sap with nothing better to share but stunted poetry about unmet, exceedingly high expectations which were never communicated through anything but passive aggression in the first place.

Even though I’m scared shitless I’ll do it anyway because I’m goign to be 33 in 6 days and it’s time I grew the hell up and realise that I’m not a teen mom anymore, that I’ve been around the block a couple of times and that I’ve got a debt to pay to all those other uncensored parents out there who shared and made me a better person for it.   I’ve grown a 13 year old and an 11 year old.  I bought a house when I was 20 and put myself through post-secondary school after that.  I’ve been married and am almost divorced (after almost 8 years after separation – I’ll be sad to lose my matrimonial prophylactic) with narry a lawyer in the scene and maintain a working relationship with the baby daddy.   I guess I’ve got a bit to share so I will.  All y’all are responsible for telling me if I’ve become insufferable.  Deal?

and the hippos were boiled in their tanks

The work has been published and I’m a conflicted soul.  Kerouac and Burroughs both felt the work to be sub-par and unworthy of publication but can’t very well argue from the grave now, can they?  We selfish, living folk decided to go against the wills of two of the 20th century’s greatest creative minds and plublished their work posthumously.  We trusted their judgement then, what happened?  Pandora’s box has been opened and I feel that in owning this work I puts the blood on my hands, but in not owning it I would be missing out on that feeling of connectedness with something really special.  The feeling I got sitting by Louisa May Alcott’s grave and experiencing the weight of history & utter loneliness bearing down on me whilst exploring West Kennet and its surrounding moors while chasing my Heathcliff.  So do I put it on my wish list or do I honour their wishes and leave well enough alone?  What’s a girl to do?

Oh, and if you’re interested you should check out what the always lovely Jaime The Nonist (RIP) has to say about it.  He’s far more eloquent than yours truly.  I have a huge nerdgirl crush on him.

where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

Did anyone catch Harper’s and Dion’s addresses tonight?  I felt it a weak move and not just because it was Harper’s idea.  Honestly, he needs more grass-roots support and is using the wrong medium to reach his intended audience.  Harper made an ass of himself in insisting that this coalition involves a deal with the devil in the form of a ‘separatist party’. First, no such deal exists.  Please remember the Bloc’s signing on at Harper’s request back in oh four when they were questioning Martin’s effectiveness.  Secondly, I don’t see how his choice in wording – …ahem…’separatist’ comes immediately to mind – can be seen as anything other than vitriolic and two-faced at this point.  When you’re up against a community and political party of and backed by heritage/language proud citizens one had best not use the nicer word to its face then turn around and use the nastier word behind its back.  Hello, Mr. Harper, there are far more English speaking Francos than there are French speaking Anglos per capita.  Please also remember that Harper, at one point, pleaded with our then Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson, to side with the same ideas he and his supporters are now referring to as ‘undemocratic’ even ‘communist’.

Dion’s follow-up was less aenemic but kind of sad in that he felt the need to be reactionary in this.  He could have done a better job and made a stronger statement simply addressing questions from the hacks.  He’s so much better in an impromptu arena.  Plus the whole late tape fiasco was stunningly idiotic.  Someone had better get a stern talking to for that one.

This is a nation built on a socialist-capitalist hybrid platform and the truth of the matter is that we’ve been leaning a lot more heavily on the capitalist side than we have the socialist side for a great many years.  The foundation is starting to buckle.  My hunch, and I’m a pretty intuitive person so I think it’s a good one, is that we’re a people yearning to look after our own.  Harper’s government is not out to look after its people.  Harper has proven time and time again that his government is ready to buckle in the name of its own perverse idea of victory.  They’re already buckling.  They have been for a long time. Now they’re being called on it.

Though this is an exciting (terrifying?) time in Canadian political history, I don’t like what’s going on in parliament right now.  It’s not pretty.  It’s not the ideal…not mine or anyone else’s…even those of the parties most likely to benefit from it.  It makes me sick and anxious.  I want something dependable.  I want something which stands for me.  I do support the coalition but I want this to be fast and efficient.  A clean kill.  I want the coalition to act like Vulcans until it’s over.  I want something from which we can quickly move on from in order to address and act upon other, more, MUCH more pressing needs.  I think we’re all in the same boat and will just be happy when it’s over.

denial is no longer an acceptable response

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

When are we going to hear similar words of commitment from you?  Are you aware of the fact that our country is host to a major portion of the world’s natural resources.  Resources which other nations are dependent upon?  Are you aware that with that comes great responsibility?  When are you going to do us proud and proclaim your commitment to environmental rehabilitation and resource management?

Your lack of action is an embarrassment.  Your ignorance is shameful.  Just because you have the power to be apathetic doesn’t mean you should be…ever.

Yours in resigned bliss,

Melanie

economically interesting art for economically interesting times

Mark Wagner uses $1 bills to mess with your head.  The mister pointed me in the direction of his oeuvres last night and I haven’t turned back.  His works are sometimes overtly and sometimes subtly challenging, but always technically impeccable and visually stunning.

Of his work Wagner says ‘The one dollar bill is the most ubiquitous piece of paper in America. Collage asks the question: what might be done to make it something else? It is a ripe material: intaglio printed on sturdy linen stock, covered in decorative filigree, and steeped in symbolism and concept. Blade and glue transform it-reproducing the effects of tapestries, paints, engravings, mosaics, and computers-striving for something bizarre, beautiful, or unbelievable… the foreign in the familiar.‘

Can you say ‘gestalt’?

remember…

…and then make a wish for peace.

58%

I can’t say I blame the other 42%.

The following excerpt from this document prettily sums up how I feel in the aftermath of our federal election so that’s all I will say on the matter.

Three wolves and six goats are discussing what
to have for dinner. One courageous goat makes
an impassioned case: “We should put it to a vote!” The
other goats fear for his life, but surprisingly, the wolves
acquiesce. But when everyone is preparing to vote, the
wolves take three of the goats aside.
“Vote with us to make the other three goats dinner,”
they threaten. “Otherwise, vote or no vote, we’ll eat you.”
The other three goats are shocked by the outcome of
the election: a majority, including their comrades, has
voted for them to be killed and eaten. They protest in
outrage and terror, but the goat who first suggested the
vote rebukes them: “Be thankful you live in a democracy!
At least we got to have a say in this!”

via CrimethInc.

In other news, keep your eyes pealed here early next week (I hope!) for a little gift to the three of you who read this blog.  A thank you, if you will, for putting up with my political rantings.

disgruntled puggle says GO VOTE!

on my soap box

Me and the mister sat down and started watching Michael Moore’s Slacker Uprising before going out last night and it made me sad and angry.  Sad and angry because, for all his effort and good intentions, he fails to touch upon the fundamental reason why his nation’s president did not get voted into power but took it by default and why he’s come up snake eyes in increasing voter turn out.  He comes so close.  The answer is always right in front of him throughout his appearances, but he just didn’t catch it and his words and appeals are not going to make a difference if he doesn’t.  Under 50% voter turn-out does not a slacker voter generation indicate.  What it does indicate is a nation whose government is inaccessible to 50% of its population.  Theirs is a government created and maintained by rich white boys for rich white boys and fails again and again to bridge the gap to engage and create representation the formidable portion of their population who does not fit that demographic.  Canadian government is no different and we’re quickly approaching the United States’ levels of apathy and blindness on this matter.

This is where my voting vs. non-voting soap box comes into play; I know that there really and truly are individuals and entire groups of people so entirely disenfranchised and unrepresented by our government and the system it works to maintain. People the political machine can’t reach because they don’t speak the right language.  Because they don’t have a TV or a computer.  Because they work 3 jobs and still can’t afford a roof under which to read a newspaper.  Because our governments’ policies are so alien to the way they live and breathe on the same soil as the rest of us.  Because they live in communities so far removed culturally or geographically that our governments’ have written them off.  Because they’re ex-pats and students and soldiers and travelers in other countries who don’t receive their ballots until weeks after election and are not informed that their vote still counts. I can’t reach these people.  Michael Moore can’t reach these people.  It’s our governments’ job to reach these people and our nations’ abilities to thrive, I would even go so far as to say survive, depend on reaching these people.  That our governments’ don’t reach out is indicative of the weakness of the governments we have (or have not, as the case may be) voted into power above and below the 49th parallel.

Then there are those of you who choose not to vote because you feel unrepresented and disenfranchised, but you aren’t.  If you look deep down, can find something valid to relate to in at least one party’s platform you really should go out and cast your vote based on that no matter how futile you feel your contribution is.  If you’re reading this and considering not voting, you’re not one of the people I listed above.  You are the person Michael Moore has tried to reach.  You are the person I can reach.   You are not one of the actually disenfranchised bodies and I implore you; vote.  If only for those who are actually, really and truly unrepresented.  Vote for a government which will empower all of us through grassroots changes and bring the rest into the fold and foster undivided nations.  Vote for a government which makes itself accessible to all citizens and not just those of us who are privileged enough to bear witness to its propaganda and false promises.

If you really really feel the need to not vote, go cast a ballot anyway – don’t check off the name of the candidate simply write that you’re choosing not to vote and write down one reason why.  Do this knowing that there are also us in-betweens who have thrown all of our support at our more grass roots politicians but who will turn up to the polls on Tuesday and toss in a vote against the party we don’t want to have in power.  We don’t necessarily condone your choice, but we kinda get where you’re coming from and we might be able to sway your decision if we get you face to face =)