Ignorance is Bliss

This morning my journey into healthfulness took an unexpected and slightly disturbing turn...(Healthfulness? That's a word? Seriously? Ok spell check, if you say so....)

My sister has recently enlightened me to the evils of flouride, and so I have switched to using natural flouride-free toothpaste. Now any of you who have used natural toothpastes might be aware that as far as flavour goes, a lot of brands are quite hit and miss. Some leave you with a simple fresh mint taste, other's with the aftertastes of strange flavours like calendula and stevia, and still others are reminiscient of those times in your childhood where you used a foul word in front of your parents....

Out of necessity I have been trying to switch up the kinds I use to find one I like. Last week I was in the local organic market after my yoga class (Oh god...I know how that sounds, I am not a hippie. I swear I am not a hippie. I shave and use deodorant just like everybody else and I have NEVER liked patchouli.). I was perusing the natural toothpaste and soaps aisle as I pondered with apprehension the disapproving glances I would receive for forgetting my cloth grocery bag and having to use paper at the checkout, and wondering if there was any way I could carry an armful of celery, a bag of onions, a carton of milk and a frozen chicken two blocks without a bag....

My eyes fell on a promising looking tube of cinnamon-flavoured toothpaste. Cinnamon? Cinnamon is normal right? At least it has to be more normal than "calendula". I don't want my mouth to taste like I got hunger pangs in a florist's shop again.

I bought it, got it home and tried it. It seemed alright. Tasted fine. Seemed to do the job. However, the texture was odd. That and it was brown. Brown. So I got the bright idea of looking at the ingredients.

The ingredients were listed as follows: " purified water, xylitol, cinnamon essential oil, tea tree oil, clay". Clay.

Clay.

Clay. As in the brown stuff in the ground. As in dirt.

...I have been brushing my teeth with dirt.

So apparently I'm posting song lyrics now...

This is a song I wrote during a brief phase I went through earlier this year. There were a few months in which I decided it would be a good idea to go to open mic's about twice a week with my ukulele in tow and critically compare myself to all the well seasoned musicians I played next to who were all apparently impervious to cases of nerves and stage fright.  The end result of this brief period of masochism every Sunday and Wednesday evening was a particularly humbling evening of crushing failure and disappointment after a particularly bad case of nerves. Fortunately, it also resulted in my taking out my frustration by scribbling furiously on a rumpled sheet of graph paper until five in the morning, which resulted in this song:

Second Song

This is a little song,
I'm hoping that it ain't too long
I'm hoping I don't hit a wrong chord.
I'm hoping when I leave the stage
I'm not filled with self-directed rage
And applause comes not with pity, but of their own accord.

My first song usually goes swell,
I strum okay, I sing quite well
And usually there isn't too much goes wrong
But you see it is my norm these days
To mess up in a million ways
Every time I sing for you my second song.

So this is my second song,
Shit, I think it's gonna be too long
These lyrics sound contrived up here
I think I'm gonna die up here...

Please don't drag me off the stage,
Although I can justify your rage,
I promise you this is my very best...
Oh please don't beat me in the face
With my uke and call me a disgrace
This instrument was expensive...really really expensive... please listen to the rest?

(Get your shit together girl,
Try not to choke try not to hurl
Stop apologizing, don't you blame it on your uke.
These nice folks just wanna hear you sing,
They're not throwing bottles or anything,
But they'll be upset if you cry or if you puke.)

Still singing my second song...
I'm pretty sure those last few chords were wrong,
These words still sound contrived up here
I'm wishing that I drank more beer...

It seems like every time I try,
My brain implodes, shorts out, and fries
The inside of my head don't look that great
Instead of fine tuned and meticulous
I'm utterly ridiculous
I guess I'll give in to my tragic fate.

So here it is, I'm giving in,
I've tried you see and I can't win
This song is doomed to be an epic fail.
Folks I blew it, I knew it,
I'll just be glad when I get through it
And can slink down off this stage tucking my tail.

I can tell, you folks are swell,
I'm hoping I don't go to hell,
For making you endure my second song!

Just My Luck...

I am not a risk-taking person.

I drive the speed limit and wear my seatbelt. I dislike most roller coasters and thrill rides. You think you’re going to convince me to bungee jump? Have fun with that endeavour. Planes make me nervous.  I open boxes of mangoes carefully and check for black widows and scorpions. I swim in the shallow end.  I don’t step on the cracks in the sidewalk because, well, you just never know. I usually hit the remote lock button on my car about 6 times, and I don't walk under ladders. I don’t put my money in risky investments, I dread wearing spike heels, and I’ve played poker only once in my lifetime, loathing every minute of it. Jaywalking makes me feel like a veritable badass motherf***er.

Those adrenaline-pumping, thrill-inducing, heart-pounding activities that seem to exhilarate others only seem to succeed in making me feel ill and dizzy. While others are lining up for round two, I’m stumbling around on legs made of jelly and wondering if I’m in the early stages of a heart attack.

However there is one area of my life in which I’m forever chasing unlikely possibilities, venturing into the great unknown, and betting all against all odds. This area my friends, is the utterly retarded state of twitterpation some people refer to as “love”.

When I meet someone and they lean in for that all-important first kiss, I’m like a skydiver hanging off the edge of the plane. I let go without a second thought. I don’t even check if I have my backup parachute. If a certain guy squeezes my hand I do a backflip off a diving board twenty feet high, having not the slightest clue whether the water is hundreds of feet deep or two inches shallow.  When it comes to love I could have the worst hand possible and still be all in, just because I thought I saw a twitch or a smirk on his handsome face. He whispers softly in my ear and smiles, and suddenly I’m burning all the lifeboats on deck and dancing in a circle around the flames, or just chilling with some metal poles in a thunderstorm.

I would love to say it’s glamourous and edgy, like those brilliant men you see in movies winning back thousands in a single evening against all odds, throwing down their cards at the end with just a sly smile of understated, sophisticated triumph.

It isn’t. 

I’m more like the guy who gets roaring drunk at the community fair and spends his whole paycheck on over half the fifty-fifty tickets…and loses to someone who just bought one.  Or that broken man in a worn out suit, still sitting at a blackjack table at three a.m., shamelessly weeping because he just lost everything. I always forget the odds are never in my favour. Several billion to one, in fact.

I don’t want to end up one of those wizened up, creepy old women, deathly figures in a haze of cigarette smoke, their skin creased with disappointment and hard living, melting into the seat in front of a VLT machine.  They waste away there like souls in purgatory, feeding in their coins again and again because they won twenty bucks two years ago and they know, they just know that surely this time they’re going to win the grand prize, and everything will be perfect. No, I don't want that to be me.

I think it’s finally time for me to cut my losses.

Gentlemen, I fold. 

Damn you, Barry White....

Dear Elderly Couple in the Balcony Above Me,

Hello. Based on the sounds emanating from the stuccoed ceiling above my patio, you are not aware of this, but I am the person staying beneath you.

I am fully aware that as a single, childless, non-golfing woman approximately thirty to fifty years younger than the vast majority of the couples who presently occupy this lovely resort, I am an anomaly in my present environment. Naturally, I have felt out of place at a few points during my stay. You are not aware of this, but the activities you have chosen to occupy yourselves this evening have made me feel even more so.

I am accustomed to hearing the sounds of drunken conversation, stumbling, and what I assume are glasses being filled with alcoholic beverages and being subsequently knocked over.

When produced by people nearer to my own age, I can tolerate these sounds with, at best, a good humoured chuckle, and at worst, a state of mild to moderate irritation.

However (with my sincerest apologies for my discrimination against the elderly) when these disturbances in my audible atmosphere are being produced by couples of your age group, I find them disturbing and slightly alarming.

Perhaps I do not appreciate the musical stylings of Barry White, but as the first song began to play, a great ball of unease began to grow in the pit of my stomach. By the third, after I had confirmed that it was not a mere fluke of the shuffle feature on someone's stereo, or someone playing it to seek ironic laughter, and someone was in fact playing a Barry White album, I was thrown into a full blown state of panic. The several loud thuds followed by the sounds of faint giggling which accompanied the music severely exacerbated this.

I can only hope as I beat a hasty retreat back into my suite that the sounds of your subsequent activities will no longer be audible once I close the patio door.

Please. For the love of God.

Sincerely,

Me

Okay okay, I'm back on the horse...

Bailey: Hey!

Me: Mmmht?

Bailey: I'm mad at you.

Me: (hangs head guiltily) Mmmph mow. I whhhmfffnt domf mmmny mmmmfllhg mmmumphs.

Bailey:.....Uhh...okayyy....Yeah all I got from that was the smell of rice crispies. Swallow.......

Me: (gulps and gasps) Sorry my mouth was full of rice crispies. I know. I haven't done any blog posts.

Bailey: Yeah. What the hell.

Me: I know. I'm gonna write one tomorrow though I swear! OH MY GOD I COULD TOTALLY WRITE THE CONVERSATION WE'RE HAVING RIGHT NOW!! This is perfect! I'm totally gonna go grab my computer right now and.....

* * *

A little while later....

Me: (runnning down the street) MMMMMGH!! MMMMMMGH!!! MMMMMMMMHHH!!!

Bailey: (rolls down window) OHMYGOD you scared the crap out of me!!

Me: MMMfffhh (gasps and muffled giggles) mmmmfhfhhh....hahah....mmfyuou fmmmgot hat!!!

Bailey: Haha um thanks. You know it's not a big deal, I'll be coming back, I could've grabbed it next time.

Me: Mmmbut....(gulps and swallows as powdered rice crispie sprays from the mouth).........sun? (makes baseball cap gestures in front of forehead)

Bailey: Umm question. Are you wearing any shoes?

Me: No.

Bailey: I didn't think so.

Hah. THERE Bailey. Blog post. Still counts. :P

Accessory

Women seemed to be afflicted with some strange need for the ultimate accessory. There is a fervent and unspoken search for that one perfect object of desire to hang off your arm, that adorable little clutch you feel some strange compulsion to store your whole life in…

And one day this beautiful little purse catches your eye.  Maybe you were just walking down the street, busy and harried and tired after a long day of work. Or maybe you were even out looking for one, buzzing from one place to the next with one or two of your girlfriends, keen eyes watchful for that holy grail of possessions that will surely complete you.   Whatever the circumstance, caught your eye it did.  You’re pulled in by its glimmer like a fly to a lamp. Did it just wink at you?

You. Must. Have. It. But surely such a thing of beauty, with its dazzling color and sparkling studs and fasteners, is out of your reach?  Surely a plain-Jane girl such as you couldn’t afford such a piece of arm candy? Surely not. You’ve learned from past experience how the scenario will go. You reason with near certainty that you will be rejected by its costly glamour, and will end up making a hurried exit, slumping a little in shame.

And yet….

Barely daring to hope, you gingerly lift the price tag. Oh my! It’s so cheap! You are so floored that someone like you can actually attain such a glorious item, you buy it without a second thought.  Bursting with newfound confidence and just a smidge of vanity, you skip out of the store with a new prize in your claws.

At first you decide you’ll only use it occasionally.  It would lose that thrilling sparkle that comes with newness if you just committed to using it all the time, right?  So you dress up nice and take it with you for occasional nights out on the town, smiling to yourself at how complete, and cute, and utterly together you look with it hanging off your arm.  And at the end of each these glimmering evenings you take your valuables out of it (don’t want to wear it out now do we?) and hang it neatly in your closet, looking forward to the next time you head out to show off your new acquisition.

Eventually, you find yourself using it more and more until you never seem to go anywhere without it hanging off your arm. And the more you carry it, the more the little bits of your life start to creep into it. Oh of course there’s the basic stuff you commit to any handbag, small, insignificant things you had left there from the beginning – chapstick, Kleenex, receipts, small change.  But there are also the important things.  Wallet, chequebook, keys, ID – you’ve trusted these precious bits of your identity to this shiny stitched vessel.  Little personal things that you loved - things like that pair of earrings that were a gift from your sister, or that snapshot a friend gave you of good times shared – these things get gradually absorbed into your purse as well.  But you trust it with them. Well of course! You should be able to, right? I mean, you picked it out after all.

People notice it. Some say “Hey, you got a new purse! Oh it’s adorable, it’s so you!” and you smile and glow and feel all warm and happy about the choice you made, the wonderful steal you snagged.

But one of your close friends says “Yeah, that’s pretty cute. Be careful though – I bought one just like that a while ago. Piece of shit completely fell apart on me.”

This irks you. And all of a sudden, just for a moment, you turn into a nasty little person.  Seemingly without your control, a phrase will flash through your head.  Perhaps it was just a simple “oh shut up”, or maybe a “why’s she so bitter”, or possibly even a “jealous bitch”. You walk away in a huff, marveling at the audacity, the gall of that woman to make such a comment about your lovely new purse, and ignoring that little tickle of unease growing in your stomach that just turned into a gut-ache.  

Because you have started to notice things. Admit it you will not, but in your deepest core your are realizing your perfect little clutch has flaws. 

Bits of wear become evident.  The edges of the fabric and vinyl fray.  Those sparkling rhinestones you thought were crystal - they turned out to be glass. Maybe even plastic. Some have even fallen off. Amazingly enough, you reason that it surely must be you at fault.  Oh yes! You know what it is! It must be because you use it too much!  You shouldn’t be so hard on it!

It’s too small? Oh well that’s just because you fill it too full.  You weigh it down so much with all of your possessions and obsessions.

 It doesn’t have enough compartments, so everything ends up in a jumbled heap in the bottom.  You lose little bits of your life in it, they almost drown in it.  But that’s just because your disorganized, isn’t it? Surely if you were less scatterbrained and could reduce all your shameful baggage it wouldn’t be so.

Of course, since none of this is the poor purse’s fault now, you don’t give up.   With noble missions of self-improvement, you press on, determined to make it work with the piece of arm candy you’ve gotten so attached to.

Then it happens.

One day you are just going about your business when the unthinkable occurs.  As you are strolling down the street with your clutch hanging familiarly on your arm, a huge hole rips out of the side.

Suddenly your whole life is spilled all over the sidewalk.  Loose coins trickle down, ringing like sad chimes as they hit the hard cement.   Chequebook, wallet, loose cash, makeup, jewelry – everything, everything spills out and crashes on the concrete.

For a moment you just freeze, realizing what just happened. And then you are brought to your knees. You are crawling now, like a lower life form, pathetically bowed to the ground as you try to gather all the scattered pieces of your existence.  You fish that snapshot out of a puddle, totally ruined.  You find one earring, but alas, the other must have fallen into the gutter. 

People walk by and your face flushes red and hot as you feel them staring at the mess around you.  Humbled and ashamed, you try to pick up the mess as quickly as you can and get out of this awful situation.  Thinking of what a beautiful thing invisibility would be, you just want to go home. 

Realizing after you’ve picked everything up that you can no longer trust that purse of yours with it – it would all be lost again – you begin the long walk back to your place.  Left trying to carry it all in your hands and pockets, you awkwardly amble home as you try to keep it all together and not drop anything. It’s hard.  You realize now how much you relied on it, how much you depended on that adorable, cheap, unreliable accessory.

You finally make it home, awkwardly unlock the door, and reach your bedroom. You lay everything in you arms, all your precious cargo, on the bed.  And the purse, that beautiful purse you loved so much, you stretch open your fingers, and you let it fall to the floor. You don’t even look down.

You turn to you valuables and put them away, set them on dressers and tuck them in jewelry boxes, and then you sit down on you bed.  Your eyes stray down to the floor, and you look at your purse collapsed on the rug.  What used to be your prized clutch just looks tired and crumpled now.  You wonder how you never noticed before how worn out and cheap it looks now.

Seeing it lie there, you would like to imagine that it maybe feels a little empty inside, misses your life inside it just a little.

But you know it’s not true.  The truth is, it would be more than happy to let someone else fill it up and use it.  

The truth is that, really, that purse doesn’t give a damn whose arm it’s hanging off of.

After all, it’s just an accessory.

Buses Versus Underwear

Throughout my childhood, there were numerous puzzling bits of advice fed to me by parents, grandparents, and elders in general.  And while I eventually understood the rationale behind ones like “don’t lick rocks”, “don’t eat snow off of metal surfaces in winter” and “for frick’s sake stop shoving marbles up your nose!!” (I wish you would have told me THAT one sooner Mom and Dad, I still have big hippo nostrils), there are a few that, even today, stump me.

Perhaps the one of the most puzzling bits of advice I ever received was this: “Always wear clean underwear, just in case you get hit by a bus.”

I can’t be the only young child who was confused by this.  I could understand loads of reasons to wear clean underwear, but the possibility of getting hit by a bus was never one of them.  Especially seeing as I lived on a farm 3 miles outside of a hamlet with a population of about 300.  Getting hit by a moose or tractor seemed more likely. 

Was there some sort of secret bus-repelling power that clean underwear possessed? Could I walk into the street in front of one of those enormous, exhaust-spewing monsters only to have it bounce off of me and my super-clean, flowered, little-girl panties? Maybe I could be like one of those super-heroes in cartoons, bouncing speeding buses off my hips to save puppies and little old ladies in the street, as I triumphantly shout “Hahaha! Buses cannot defeat me! Not with my super-hygienic undergarments! Hahaha!”

Really, when you tell children things like that, can you be so surprised when they believe superman underwear gives them powers of flight, and they leap off of their top bunks full of confidence and enthusiasm?

Even after I was old enough to reason that it was unlikely that my favourite pair of purple panties could save me from becoming a smear on the sidewalk, I still didn’t understand this strange directive.  If you got hit by a bus, wouldn’t trying to remember if you put on a clean pair of tightey-whiteys that morning be the least of your worries?  I eventually stopped worrying about it and decided it would all be explained in the secret handbook that I was told you mysteriously receive when you have a kid.

And while I’m not about to step in front of a bus anytime soon…

I MAY perhaps have been doing superhero poses in the mirror this morning in the new matched lace set I bought last week.

Sue me.