Ten of prime-time's most fabulous females

I stumbled upon this article and decided to reserve judgment until after I had read it in its entirety. My first assumption was that it would be a male entertainment writer's condescending attempt at giving recognition to the oft-overlooked female talent on television. I read through and my instinct was right.

TheStar List Week: 10 of prime-time's most fabulous females

Within the first three paragraphs, this quotation got me: “ 'It’s not just the man’s journey,' applauds Modern Family’s Julie Bowen, 'with the woman standing there shaking her finger, waiting for him to come back from, like, his fart fest with the guys...That is a huge change from the old standard Jackie Gleason format.' "

I know she's on Modern Family, but has she watched Modern Family?



Both female leads, Julie Bowen's Claire and Sofia Vergara's Gloria, are smoking hot stay-at-home moms who are paired with arguably less appealing male counterparts--Claire's husband, Phil, is an average-looking uber-dork who drools over his step-mother-in-law Gloria within plain eyesight of his wife; and Gloria's husband, Jay, is an old curmudgeon 20 years her senior.

The show may not portray only the man's journey, as Bowen naively lauds, but it certainly portrays the women as standing there shaking their fingers--I'm pretty sure this is one of Gloria's standard moves when she chastises Jay and her son, Manny--and waiting for them to come home. The only difference is that they're not coming home from "fart fests with the guys," they're coming home from work, a place to which neither woman ever goes. Claire is college-educated but feels she is needed around the house (despite the fact that her youngest child, Luke, appears to be in middle school and her teenaged girls are old enough to take the city bus and certainly don't need someone driving them to soccer practice or baking cupcakes for their class). Gloria stays home, too, but I'm not sure why she is needed there. She is not at all domestic--she can't bake or clean--and her precocious son, Manny, seems to raise himself.



I firmly believe that if a family is financially able to, of course one partner should be inclined to stay at home in order to give their children the most nurturing and enriching environment and bond possible. But why does it always have to be the woman, even when her children have far surpassed a need for her to help micromanage the minutiae of their lives? There is something tragic about the prospect of a middle-aged woman, who is less than a decade away from experiencing the sense of loss and insecurity that comes with Epmty Nest Symdrome when her children go off to college and the workforce, who has nothing with which to replace them--no job, no discernable hobbies, and few pasttimes besides rolling her eyes at her idiot husband.

Writer Rob Salem congratulates Claire for being as "goofy and neurotic" as her husband, Phil, but neurosis is a stereotypically female quality, and Phil is painted as an effeminate character (matched only by equally neurotic gay couple, Mitchell and Cameron). Only Jay, the patriarch of the family, is portrayed as the sane voice of reason in a family of feminine--both female and male--nuts.

I actually like watching Modern Family, but I acknowledge it for what it is: certainly not a groundbreaking formula that gives women an opportunity to challenge preconceived notions of traditionally female roles and responsibilities. It's just funny.

Let's not pretend it's anything else.

Gadhafi vows Libya will defend itself...

Oh shit.

TheStar Gadhafi vows Libya will defend itself as U.S. and allies launch missiles

Don't worry....I've got it covered.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/look-on-the-bright-side-positivity-linked-to-longevity/article1927370/

I just read this article in The Globe and Mail about how one's positivity in life is linked to one's longevity. I'm doomed. Seriously. I'm the most anxious, obsessive-compulsive worrier I know. I never look on the bright side. The proverbial glass has always been half empty--not because I'm not happy. That's not it. I adore my husband, my family, my friends, my students, my job--even my neighbours and my mother-in-law. And most people hate their neighbours and their mother-in-laws. Not me.

But I am convinced that everything will turn out horribly and I always have been. I remember not being able to sleep for weeks before the school year began in elementary; I was convinced I would have the meanest teacher in the school. My mom would try to reassure me and tell me to "think positively"--but it doesn't feel possible. I also recall going on an airplane for the first time when I was 14 and scrambling to pack every morsel I could fit into my carry-on backpack because I was 100% confident that the airline would lose my luggage and that I would never see it again. Despite the heat, I think I must have worn seven layers of shirts, shorts and pants. I had resigned myself to the fact that never again would I see those pjs, socks, underwear, and few shirts that I hadn't been able to stuff into my bag or cram onto my marshmallow body. Of course, the luggage arrived in Toronto just fine and everyone told me that I'd overreacted. But I felt like I'd only prepared myself for the inevitable disappointments and inconveniences of life.

As I got older my pessimism never waned. I had convinced myself that I wouldn't be accepted to university (despite a 94% average); that I wouldn't get a summer job EVERY single summer (despite getting hired at Dofasco, Columbia International College, and Ford, all of which paid about three to five times the minimum wage my friends were making); that there was no way I was smart enough to successfully get into an MA program or Teachers' College (despite being offered a TA-ship and several scholarships); that I would never get a teaching job, what with the oversatuated educational job market (even though I didn't have to supply teach a single day in my life and had a full-time job come September 5th); and it goes on and on and on.

You'd think I'd have learned from these positive outcomes that if I'd just been optimistic in the first place, I could have spared myself the negative energy and enjoyed the ride a lot more. Quite the contrary, my friend. What if it is my cynicism that has been the precursor to the good experiences and outcomes in my life? Perhaps unequivocal certainty would have made me naive and thus unprepared or, worse, overly confident and thus arrogant.

So don't worry...about anything...I've got it covered.

I just read an article, "What Happens in Vagueness Stays in Vagueness," written by NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani's former speech writer, Clark Whelton, who shares a disconcerting observation about American youth: that they suffer from a "linguistic virus that [has] infected spoken language in the late twentieth century"--inserting empty words and evasive phrases, such as "like," and "you know?", as filler in their interrogative-toned declarations, resulting in often incoherent and indefinite statements.

As a high school teacher at what I consider to be the best school in the city, possibly the surrounding area--and I confidently make this claim beacuse of the students, not necessarily the staff--I am often blown away by the level of analytical thought of which many of my students are capable. However, I have also noticed a lack of confidence in the vast majority of my students' oral communication skills--and that's what I think it comes down to. I don't think young people subconsciously want to emulate the idiocy of Snookie and The Situation; in fact, I think they are quite critical of the aforementioned idiocy and comment on it in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. No, I think it is their collective insecurity about the possibility of saying something new or profound, which in the internet age, seems overwhelmingly impossible. So they precede their classroom contributions with: "Um, I was just going to say," and "Well, like, I think that..." This isn't a sign of the "decline and fall of American English," as Whelton suggests; it is a sign that we should encourage our students to build confidence in their ideas and opinions, even if they feel that someone "out there" has "already said it" and has probably articulated it much better than them, too. That's not the case. The sheer volume of "stuff" online certainly does not indicate that there is more knowledge or more heightened intellect today than when I was a teenager. No, half of the stuff online is pure crap. But its existence is certainly intimidating, and often appealing, which is why so many smart and competent students plagiarize.

Anyway, please read an excpert from Taylor Mali's poem, "Totally like whatever, you know?" and, even better, watch the link at the bottom!

"In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?"

Watch Taylor Mali on Def Poetry Jam here:

Anti-Platforms

Yesterday the student council president, Sean, and I organized a mock Mayoral election for students. The night before, after we had photocopied and organized ballots, we realized that most students wouldn't be familiar enough with all--or any--of the fifteen mayoral candidates to legitimately and purposefully vote (as opposed to outright guess). And so we went on the local newspaper's website to see if we could find a summary of each candidate to include in the voting packages.

What we discovered there seemed satirical, and I'm still not convinced that it isn't. One candidate, Edward H.C. Graydon, has a platform that consists, almost in its entirety, of hating the local CFL team: "I cannot stand football and believe that the people who go to the games are a minority. As your candidate for mayor, I want the voter to know that I have never gone to a game and I never will, (sic) I don't like it." Oh, and he also threatens to sell our steel plants to the Chinese.

Another candidate, Andrew Haines, has a subliminal image of Abraham Lincoln flash underneath his personal photo on his website. Perhaps he's campaigning as the abolitionist mayor? Then he goes on to quote Jimi Hendrix (non-sequitor?), and to lament the loss of his web graphics company called, aptly, "420 designs," and to explain the respective failures of his small business and his marriage, and how he moved back in with his dad. Oh, also, he loves marijuana and karaoke, specifically after dropping off his partner Rhonda's kids in Niagara Falls and then "go[ing] out for dinner and follow that with a trip to the Clifton Hill Karaoke Patio between the Thriftlodge and the Pizza Pizza on the North side of Clifton Hill"--just in case you were wondering where. He has few bragging rights of his own, with no political experience, seemingly no humanitarian work, and no post-secondary education, but he does manage to brag about his his late grandfather, a lawyer; his father, a police officer; and his deceased mother, an active volunteer. Great job on having an awesome family, Smokey McBongwater, but this says nothing of your own personal merits.

Michael Baldasaro, of course, wants to grow marijuana across the city and use it for everything--food, fuel, clothing. This might appeal to some voters, if only he didn't openly advertise that he is a "Minister Plenipotentiary" of the Church of the Universe, and send Twitter messages that read "If I was in jail, I wouldn't bend over in the showers."

Oh, Hamilton; we've been together now 29 years. And oh, how I love to hate you.

Thanks a lot, Di Ianni

I was driving home from work yesterday at about 5:00pm, which is a common hour to perform such a task, and so I expected the Linc to be busy. Not only was it busy, but there was a full-on traffic jam by the Garth Street exit that forced me to slam on my breaks and the two cars behind me to swerve onto the shoulder. Now this was particularly inconveniencing because I had encountered one of those days so busy that you have time to neither eat nor relieve your bladder. And so I was anxious to get home and do both. Clearly I assumed that someone had had an accident, so of course I wasn't angry to have to stop. I always worry about who could be ahead of me, whether they're okay, and how frightened they must have been that split second before their car collided with another one. I crawled along every few seconds aside everyone else, patiently waiting in a nearly stopped car as it took a carefully timed seven minutes to drive just one kilometre. It was comforting to realize that I hadn't heard any sirens, which suggests that it was a minor fender bender.

That was until I looked up. And saw the true cause of the traffic jam.

Di Ianni.

Mayoral candidate Larry Di Ianni had asked (paid?) some of his supporters (homeless people?) to stand atop the Upper Wellington overpass holding his campaign signs and waving at the now enraged drivers. Drivers had been slowing down to see what was going on up there--was someone going to jump? Why were there children leaning dangerously close to the railing?--before realizing that it was just an arrogant local politician (crook?) who either didn't realize or didn't care that these schmucks standing up there trying to get drivers' attention would turn out to be a hazard. And the worst part about it is that Di Ianni himself didn't even seem to be up there I considered honking to show my disdain, but realized the begrudging sign holders might mistake my contempt for support. And so I sped the rest of the way, bladder full, stomach churning, forehead vein throbbing.

Feminists and White Men

If you have been following Hamilton's mayoral race, then you will notice something that may strike some as odd in such a diverse and culturally developed city as Hamilton: of the exorbitant number of candidates--fifteen--only ONE is a person belonging to a visible minority group and NOT EVEN ONE is a woman. Thus, there are fourteen white men, albeit with varied platforms, interests, and characters, competing to represent us, Hamiltonians, the majority of whom are NOT white men.

Now, you might be wondering, 'what does she have against white men'? Nothing. I happen to love white men just as much as I do anybody else--so much so that, in fact, I married one. But despite taking legal vows to him, I certainly don't want him to be the only voice representing my unique needs as a woman--nor do I think he should be the only voice representing a city whose population is comprised of more than 20% of citizens who were born outside of Canada (half of whom were born in Asia or the Middle East).

Feminism isn't about being 'against' a particular gender--namely, men--and equity isn't about coming down on any particular race--namely, whites; to think so is to egregiously misunderstand what feminism or equity is. On the contrary, I am quite happy for those candidates who are running in the mayoral race, regardless of race or gender, but I am unhappy that there isn't a more diverse collection of voices added to the repertoire. This being a democracy, however, I guess I shouldn't complain--I should run.

It's Always Sunny at Summer Heights High

After a long hiatus, I have resumed blogging alongside my second batch of Writer's Craft students. Right now we're about to embark upon a short "Writing for the Media" unit (within a larger fiction unit) and I'm going to be showing an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia for what I consider to be impeccable writing. This show is offensive--there is no denying that. But the writers seem to push the boundaries of what is 'tasteful' not to serve some kind of political agenda, but to maintain a spectrum of creativity that allows them to experiment with their writing in ways that avoid cliches and challenge conventional comedy styles. The show centres around four frenemies (two of whom are fraternal twins) who work together and co-own a bar. I would describe the show as Seinfeld-on-crack, with characters who aren't so much 'imperfect' or 'immoral' as amoral, outrageously self-centered pricks with an embarassingly flawed worldview who make their Seinfeld counterparts look like a clique of Girl Guides. It is worth watching for those who don't demand realism in their TV-viewing experience: each episode stands alone and there is no follow-up explanation or resolution, for example, after two of the characters become crack-cocaine addicts in order to qualify for welfare. The next episode simply begins anew as if nothing outlandish ever happened. This kind of postmodern viewing is an acquired taste, but the experimental style makes any absurdities well worth it.

Oh, and it's got Danny Devito as the twins' equally effed father--or, not their father. You have to watch to figure that one out.

p.s. I didn't end up showing this show to my class: I may, but I haven't yet.

Also, I initially intended to write about Summer Heights High as well here, but clearly lost focus--hence the confusing title. Summer Heights High, if you haven't already seen it, is pretty much a gift to all teachers who can relate to the overzealous but preoccupied teacher who is busy lamenting the loss of his former professional glory; the behaviourally-challenged but lovable (and hilarious!) at-risk student; and the sixteen-going-on-thirty-year-old teenaged girl who (thinks she) knows everything, especially how extraordinary she is. Watch it.

Fantasy vs. Realism

My friends are over tonight to watch Entourage together but, leading into it is the vampire show True Blood, which seems (upon first impression) little more than Twilight-meets-Showgirls-meets-Trailer Park Boys. I have never liked the fantasy genre. In fact, I wield a pre-existing determined, almost arrogant bias and--dare I say it?--hatred toward it. Some might call me a cynic or, in this case, perhaps even a buzzkill, because I'm just not that into a show that includes zingers such as "fucktard" and--whispered in a smouldering vampire voice--"we just fucked like only two vampires could," not to mention the consistent use of more double negatives than I care to count. I find the show laughable, but not hilarious enough to actually be entertaining. Plus, if there is one thing I hate more than fantasy, it's the cliched southern tale of benevolent white trash struggling against bigotry and their own set of inner demons--in this case, raging bloodlust.

And then there's Twilight--but Entourage will be on soon and I don't have time to get into my loathing of Stephanie Meyer and her Mormon claptrap.

No, I am a wholehearted realist. I went to see Louis CK last night at the Just for Laughs festival in Toronto. CK's bits don't include hypotheticals and he doesn't rely upon cheap puns or cliches to get a laugh. Instead, he laments his volunteer position at his daughters' elementary school where he tells a little girl that he doesn't "give a shit" about the little boy who used a "bathroom word" because she isn't his kid and he doesn't love her. Now that I can relate to.

What irks me

Every morning I watch the CBC with Heather Hiscox as I'm getting ready for the day. Every morning the CBC plays the exact same cycle of commercials. And every morning I find myself cringing when the 'Immunity FX' commercial plays, asking me: "Do you live healthy?" What gets me here is that live is a verb, which means that to be grammatically correct, it should be modified by an adverb, not an adjective. Thus, healthy should be healthily. Apparently this has become a trend in dumbed-down advertisements as researched in the magazine Mental Floss, which questioned whether we have witnessed the death of the adverb. As an English teacher and concerned member of the human race, this irks me.

And you know what else gets me? Plagiarism. Upon reading the Mental Floss article on the death of the adverb, I stumbled across a Boston Globe article on the same subject, written four years ago. I didn't see immediately that the magazine author had credited his newspaper counterpart for taking some of his words and using them verbatim. Upon a more careful reading, however, I saw that I had been mistaken. However, the brief interlude in which I mistakenly thought I had found a real-live version of plagiarism, outside of the microcosm of my classroom, I was both elated and incensed--elated because I had grand visions of busting this alleged plagiarist for being a complete phony in the writing world; incensed because I have dealt with plagiarism enough times to make me want to smack the culprit for wasting my time and insulting my intelligence. I take it very seriously--maybe a bit too seriously, as Lars pointed out as he mocked me in an exaggeratedly nerdy voice, finger wagging, "police, police, I have found an online plagiarist!"

Another so-called pet peeve of mine may, admittedly, seem absurd to some, but I will call it 'unintentional understatement'. Case in point: I have a mixed classic rock CD that I made years ago and have recently rediscovered. There is a ridiculously powerful, spine-tingling live version of Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child (Slight Return), known to many as his magnum opus. Upon finishing with his final glorious guitar riff, a British woman in the audience is heard shouting in her hackneyed English accent "Ohhh, that was reeeeeally niiii-ce!" WTF? Seriously? You just sat and listened to JIMI-EFFING-HENDRIX play and "really nice" is your most fitting description? I hate this woman. Every time I listen to this song in the car, I have to be careful to skip to the next song before I hear her idiotic and exaggeratedly mundane comment, which ends up coming across as more insulting than had she said nothing at all.

Relatedly, I saw an episode of the HBO show US of Tara recently, and upon seeing his love interest in a wedding gown (which she was wearing before she was left at the altar by another man, a cliche I am willing to overlook here) he told her she looked "pretty." A woman in a wedding gown does not want to hear that she looks "pretty." Beautiful, extraordinary, stunning, exquisite. Any of these would do. A woman will take pretty when she is going out the door to work, or as a description of her in a photograph--but not in a wedding gown. I'm not suggesting that the unintentional understater make a concerted effort to suddenly start exaggerating everything--that would also be annoying and come off as disingenuous--but a little more carefully planned feeling and articulation of one's statements would be appreciated.

That's all for now.

Another school year bites the dust

My life is--and will continue to be, for the next twenty or so years--measured by seasons. Accountants count their years according to the annual tax season. Healthcare workers record each new cold and flu season. Retailers and markets tally each Christmas season as another one comes and goes.

My year begins in September, of course, as it has since I was not quite four years old. Every year Thanksgiving just serves as a reminder that we have a looooong way to go before we can take an extended breather. I notice the holiday season, of course, but it doesn't have any added significance other than a short break from work and a reunion with family and friends, who I seem to backburner every time a new school year begins and I forget how to manage my busy time after a relatively lackadaisical summer. I barely blink as March Break comes and goes, a pause that is more like a teaser than an actual holiday, since it is spent catching up on marking and lesson planning. May 2-4 weekend reminds us that our lives are once again soon to change, as they do every year, but we soon forget when we return to school and try desperately to get some of our most apathetic students to care half as much about earning a credit before the end of June as we do for them. And finally, just like the year before, the end of another school year bites the dust.

This one will be a particularly difficult one for me. As I have mentioned before, this time of year is always bittersweet. I really need and feel I somewhat deserve the break offered by my summer holidays, but I will miss some of my students terribly. That might sound pathetic or weird to some people; technically, students are considered "clients" or customers by the school board, and our job is to simply deliver curriculum expectations in a safe and equitable classroom environment. But here is where it gets confusing: our job is also to act "in loco parentis," which means to act in place of parents. So we are to act simultaneously like business people--salespeople hocking the product of education--and family members watching over our young as they move through a significant stage of life under our care.

I take this responsibility to heart. Our teachers' union warns us not to come into physical contact with a student. But if one of my students cries, I offer them a hug, as I hope any decent parent would. And I will likely keep in touch with several of them--the ones I feel are people who could use an advocate in life, or just the ones whose company I genuinely enjoy.

I don't want to be BFFs with my students, but I like the idea that a student would graduate and mature to be the type of person that I would like to see or hear from again. There is comfort in knowing that as my years come and go, measured by each passing June, and my students--also my clients and my pseudo-children--move on in life, that a few will have had a close enough connection to keep in touch. Otherwise, what type of businessperson/parent am I?

Apparently I'm a jerk

My niece, Camryn, "performed" in her first-ever dance recital this morning, though I think both "dance" and "recital" are misnomers. The kids neither danced nor did they recite; instead, they stood awkwardly on stage, sometimes waving to a mom here or a grandpa there, staring like the proverbial deer in headlights and occassionaly looking into the wings to watch their instructor desperately prompt them on--but of course to no avail. Everyone around me laughed, applauded, and oohed and aahed their approval of what they seemed to believe was a display of intrinsic cuteness but what I can only describe as incompetence. These kids sucked. Even Camryn. At least she smiled, and walked on her tip-toes; but her routine, overall, sucked. After "working" for the past two months they accomplished nothing besides forcing 200 family and friends to wake up at 8:00 am on a Saturday morning.

Oh, and one girl somehow mastered the art of simultaneously picking her nose, scratching her behind, and looking up at the ceiling--a child prodigy.

This experience was a fine contrast to last night, where I witnessed another form of "dancing" altogether: hopelessly awkward--and hopelessly hormonal--teenaged boys stood with their knees shoulder-width apart and proceeded to uncomfortably rock back and forth, as if trying to maintain balance in a canoe. Apparently it's called "grinding." It was a sorry sight indeed--but at least more entertaining than the atrocity I witnessed this morning.

Teaching

I was at a friend's wedding shower today and met some other teachers who work all over Hamilton and Halton. We chatted about how some teachers don't really seem to like their jobs; in fact, some actually appear to hate teenagers, or to hate the act of standing up and actually teaching stuff.

I said to one of the women I met, Melina, that I honestly can't believe some days how great my job is. I get paid to laugh at the goons in my Writer's Craft class. I get paid to travel to Italy and to see 37 students' faces the first time they explore the sloping streets of Assisi. I get paid to work with the Model United Nations club students who will, undoubtedly, change the world we live in and improve people's lives in tangible ways. I get paid to be surrounded by youthful energy and students like Haakim Nainar or David Yoon exchanging lines from my favourite TV shows with me. I get paid to read original works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that few other people may ever be exposed to.

I always feel nostaglic at this time of year. I have been teaching at least two grade 12 classes every year since I began at Westdale four years ago, and I always--ALWAYS--cry at graduation. It's always my finest hour: smudged mascara, puffy eyes and sniffling. Watch for me at grad, kids; I'll be the classy broad sobbing in the corner.

The Death of Embarassment or the Resurgence of Anxiety?

I was just reading an article in an online journal called In Character. The article, by Christine Rosen, laments what she perceives to be the death of embarassment in North American society--from people getting laser teeth whitening in the middle of a shopping mall to people obnoxiously cuddling and making out all over the place. She cites other journalists' studies which blame social networking sites like facebook, online sharing sites like youtube, and reality television for our collective desensitization to embarassing situations and thus our subsequent ability to up the ante of our own personal tolerance for embarassment.

What she fails to acknowledge, however, is how contrived all of these media actually are in the first place. On facebook, people's profile pictures, status updates and comments are carefully constructed (for example, tilt head slightly to the left, hold camera at appropriate distance from head, and try to appear natural, as if the webcam just happened to snap your image without your consent). On Jersey Shore, the producers cast the eight bronzed shore dwellers, make suggestions to them for how to behave, tempt them with copious amounts of booze, and continue filming even when things escalate far beyond the level of ordinary embarassment to which the rest of us are accustomed. When Snooki "fist fights" a group of girls who show up one night on their patio, it is difficult to feel actual embarassment for her because I know how fake the experience is in the first place and how pride, the antithesis of embarassment, is Snooki's primary emotion. Garnering attention is her objective, and thus it would be a waste of my own feelings of embarassment for her.

With the alleged death of embarassment, why do so many of us suffer from anxiety, whihc seems, at times, like an extreme and preemptive version of embarassment? We are so excessively worried about what others will think or say about us that we have panic attacks before leaving the house. Hm.

Betty White and Nana

Part of the reason I begrudgingly created a facebook account about six months ago was that I had heard there was a "Betty White to host SNL" group--and I wanted in. I simply adore Betty White. I own several seasons of Golden Girls on DVD; I watch the show on reruns as often as I can after work; and I have even been swayed to watch rom-coms, like "The Proposal," when I heard that Betty White had even a minor role. I just can't get enough of her. She truly is "(North) America's Grandma"--or nana, as she was referred to in several sketches last night on SNL.

Despite SNL writers' near exploitation of White with their highly sophisticated formula--old lady + swear words (prison rape and genitilia jokes) = haha--White still managed to pull it off with a wit, charm and sass that only she possesses. I had heard that there would be extra guest hosts (Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, etc.) to ease the burden on an 88.5 year old woman--but White appeared in every sketch and showed no signs of slowing down by the time 1:00 am rolled around. She reminds me of my own nana, who lived to be 89 and only passed away after a slip in a nail salon (she still received regular pedicures, which only made me love her more) led to complications to her internal organs. Before the fall she was healthy, spritely, and lively, and didn't miss a beat when it came to telling a joke or giving a good belly laugh.

My nana, who passed away in my last year of university almost five years ago, meant more to me than perhaps anyone else ever has or ever will. She had that same combination of playful adorableness and astute wisdom that Betty White seems to possess. I loved my nana so much and from such a young age that my first sentence was "I want my nana." As I grew up, we only grew closer. Nana came on every family vacation with us, and would sit in the most uncomfortable seat in the minivan--the middle seat in the back row--just so my brother and I could both lean on her and sleep. She literally sat with an enormous smile on her face the whole time--almost three full days of driving and two overnight stop-overs to Florida--just because she loved being with us.

And as I got older, entering into university and living in student housing, nana treated my every experience, as mundane as it might have been, as a milestone: she bought me a housewarming gift every time I moved into a new abode, and would deliver it herself, climbing the steps to my apartment above Fabutan, or the Westend Pub, or whatever sketchy place I had found to rent at a cheap price. And despite what loser I might have been dating at the time, nana would always make him feel like a part of the family, even though she always knew before I did that it wouldn't last.

I guess I am feeling particularly sentimental since it is Mother's Day and my mom is on vacation. I hope anyone with their own nana, oma, gran, grandma, nona, or jadda appreciates her while she is here.

A Good Ol' Fashioned Fish Smacking

I am in a wedding in July and this past Saturday we ran the stag and doe. I have never helped to oversee a stag and doe before, but apparently there is some kind of rule whereby every guest must purchase, in addition to their $10 door ticket, something called "fish insurance." My friend Kristina, the bride, is a staunch vegetarian and animal rights activist, and so I pointed out the blatant hypocrisy of having one of her guests swallow a live goldfish (which is what happens to the one unlucky guest who hasn't purchased said fish insurance). Instead, she agreed to purchase a dead fish from the grocery store (not a fillet, one with eyes and everything still in tact) and allow a member of the wedding party to smack an uninsured guest across the face.

For some reason, more people seemed to pay attention to the fish carcass than they did the bride. The fish had a prominent place on the front entrance table--on ice, of course--where people proceeded to touch it, talk to it, add cigarettes and gum to the inside of its stiff mouth. I wanted to see the humour in this, but for some reason I felt really bad for that fish. We can be so melodramatic about human death, and reserve such grandeur for the memorialization of the human dead, but we degrade and debase the lives of so many other creatures. I tried to spare the fish any further indignity by hiding it, but it was discovered.

It's difficult to be political when a bunch of drunk people want to see another drunk person get slapped in the face with a fish.

Faking it

I came across the following article on the Freakonomics Blog today, and the title alone was obviously enough to intrigue me: “We Pretend We Are Christians.”

Here is an excerpt from a reader who admitted to "faking" a pretty significant aspect of her life:

We are agnostics living deep in the heart of Texas and our family fakes Christianity for social reasons. It’s not so much for the sake of my husband or myself but for our young children. We found by experience that if we were truthful about not being regular church attenders, the play dates suddenly ended. Thus started the faking of the religious funk.

It seemed silly but it’s all very serious business down here. We don’t go to church or teach or children one belief is “right” over another. We expose them to every kind of belief and trust that they will one day settle in to their very own spirituality. However, for the sake of friends and neighbors, we pretend we are Christians. We try not to lie but rather not to disclose unnecessary information. As the children are getting older, this isn’t so easy for them and an outing is probably eminent.

We are not the only ones. We have found a few other fakers out there. I would love it if you ever explored this subject in a future book. I should mention that the friend who recommended Freakonomics to me is the head of the bible study at her church. Interesting.

I am interested in hearing similar stories from readers. I would not be surprised if political ideology is another vibe that gets faked once in a while.

This makes me wonder about myself: how much of my own idealogies might I "fake" to a certain extent, or at least (pardon the expression) bullshit? Despite priding myself on my open-minded liberal humanitarian values and (my consciously ironic) moral relativism, I sometimes cringe at my own reactionary and even--dare I say it?--ahem, conservative judgments and assumptions. When you have to sometimes remind yourself of your values, how much are they natural and how much are they contrived?

Sometimes I also "fake" not liking children. In fact, I have, even recently, told people that I hate children. Hate. I don't hate children--far from it. I am in love with my nieces and nephew, my little cousins, and my friend-since-grade-five Amy's daughter Hailey. But I can't stand, as a relatively newly married, healthy young heterosexual woman who is financially, emotionally, and romantically stable, that everyone assumes that my partner and I want to have--or worse, should have--children. And so I have perhaps exaggerated my opinion of children in order to deter would-be child-pushers from commenting on my choice not to automatically spawn.

Art - Lapham’s Quarterly

I found this image in Lapham's Quarterly and it reminded me of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. Woolf asserts that essentially women--as writers, artists and other producers of culture--were limited not only by sexism or their roles as wives and mothers per se, but specifically based upon their lack of two essential elements: independent finances and her own private space in which to write.

Carol Shields also visits this notion in her novel Happenstance. The female narrator and protagonist must have her own space in which to design and make her quilts. Often feeling as if she exists only in her husband's shadow (he is an academic and an historian), she is empowered in her own space, creating her own works of art--so empowered that she decides to attend a crafts convention and ends up having an affair.

I wonder how many of us--male or female--truly have our own space in which to write. Despite being an adult and having moved out of my parents' creatively oppressive home years ago, I still struggle with finding the right space in which to write. I have a bedroom, but I share it with someone else and can't stay up writing into the wee hours of the night. I have an office, but it is full of school supplies, binders, and pedagogical books. I have a living room, but it faces onto the street and we don't have sufficient window coverings to offer an privacy. Then there is the family room, which is typically where Lars and the dog hang out watching sports and scratching themselves (respectively, of course).

My summer project--after three wedding showers, two bachelorette parties (one to the Caribbean), three friends' weddings, a friend's surprise 30th birthday, a two-week trip to Germany for Lars' Oma's 90th birthday, and planning for next year's IB course--is to create a suitable room of my own.

Art - Lapham’s Quarterly

http://www.economist.com/culture/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15767439

http://www.economist.com/culture/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15767439

Students

Oh, students. I'm not sure if any of you read this, and if you do diligently read your teacher's blog, then these comments likely do not concern you to begin with.

I'm sure many student archetypes remain unchanged since I was in high school just a decade ago. There are the cliched try-hards, the uber-athletes, the misunderstood "mean girls", etc. But you're all so much more interesting and complex than that. However, I have noticed that many of your generation have embraced this Seth Roganesque persona of the intellectual slacker--but not like I knew this stereotype, as the dopey, grungy, rock'n'roller with unwashed hair who was born two decades too late--a new brand of the proverbial lost soul, a precocious cynic trapped in the body (and branded American Eagle jeans) of a North American teenager who has all of the cerebral tools, charisma, and hygiene to render such antiestablishment attitudes redundant.

We teachers keep lamenting the loss of due dates; we worry that none of you will be prepared for post-secondary--whether that means receiving a zero on that late paper in university bio, getting fired from your retail job for three consecutive lates, or even failing to catch your flight from Paris to Berlin on time as you trek across Europe. You've heard this countless times, no doubt, but it is a cause for concern when returning students tell us that we failed them. And I feel ashamed when I realize how many students I am failing right now--both in terms of poor grades, and in terms of poor fundamental life skills.

Keep writing on your blogs and I will keep reading them. Keep submitting work. Or start. Either way, try to compromise your anti-establishment side with the inevitable conformist that, to a certain extent, we all become. Actually submitting your writing to me doesn't make you any less talented. I promise.