Why can't I just keep my mouth shut?

I catch myself doing it.  Yesterday was Pink Shirt Day at school in support of anti-bullying.  Rissa loathes pink - she was wearing a coral coloured shirt.

"I thought you were wearing pink today... for the anti-bullying thing."

"This is pink."

pause, 2, 3, 4...

"That's not pink."

"Yes it is."

"Rissa I hate to say, but it's not."

"It is."

This is where I pressed my lips together so tight  that they were now between my teeth and I could taste blood.  Don't say anything....  Don't say anything...  Just turn around and leave...  I managed to make it out of the room without shouting to Rissa, the world and the universe,  "THAT SHIRT IS NOT PINK!!!" 

It doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter that she wasn't wearing true pink.  She'd go to school and say "This is the closest thing to pink that I have."  Of course she'd be lying, because I just checked in her closet,  and she totally has a fancy pink tanktop and a pink 1950s style shrug - both bought by me because they were cute and would look amazing on her, because despite my never wanting to dress my female child in pink, it turned out that she looked freaking amazing in pink and when she was an infant and had next to no hair, people kept mistaking her for a dude, so we dressed her in pink for a while there; but since about the age of 3, Rissa hasn't liked pink, so she's never worn either of the pink items in her closet.

She's 12.  She should be able to wear whatever she wants to - I mean I'm not going to let her out of the house at the age of 12 (or 19) dressed like Slave Leia, but if she wants to wear a coral shirt for Pink Shirt Day - I should just shut the fuck up and let her.  EXCEPT I CAN'T.  Because when she said the shirt was pink I could clearly see that it WASN'T. 

I chatted with David about it over lunch.


me:  I'm now writing about how hard it is to keep my mouth shut with Rissa.

David:  hah!

me:  I'm trying to be better, but that shirt totally was NOT pink this morning.

David:  no - it was not.   Though...it does seem to be a natural inclination to open your mouth in certain circumstances...

me:  HAH!  It's like telling me that a cat's an elephant.  It's almost impossible for me to say that a cat is an elephant when it clearly isn't... THAT CAT IS NOT AN ELEPHANT!!  That's like saying that a table is a chair...  or the sun is the...  Oh, good God - I'm the Shrew.*  FUCK.

David:  hah

me:  Rissa's mother is the fucking Shrew. BLARGH!

David:  choose your battles... that's all I can say. 

Wow.  That was a revelation!  I am the Shrew.  So I can either a) continue to be the Shrew and eventually drive my daughter away with endless nitpicking and the need to be right or b) I can keep my mouth shut and let her figure out her own shit and wait for her to ask my opinion.  (epiphanic sound of angels' chorus)  I've got to give up the 'being right.'  It's not gonna kill me to bite my tongue if she wants to define colour by a different spectrum than mine.  It might give me angina, because my body reacts to even the smallest of stressors in the most fucked up way possible, but it won't kill me.  And scotch can totally help the angina.

*Katherina Minola from William Shakespeare's  The Taming of the Shrew.  In my opinion his best comedy, but really NOT popular with the politically correct who can't seem to take it in historical context.

Faux Christians

I hate the faux Christians.  Love, love, LOVE the real ones - I know a bunch and they are the kindest, most supportive and liberal-minded folks out there.  The faux ones?  They're the ones who hide behind the Bible and pretend to be all godly, but are actually prejudiced, racist and pretty much ignorant of, not just how to be a good Christian, but how to be a good person. They're the ones who make organized religion sketchy.  They're the ones whose behaviour convinces me to talk about spirituality instead of religion.  The faux Christians are the ones who abandon their child when that child comes out or chooses the 'wrong' spouse, or lives a different lifestyle.

Those professed 'good Christians' love to lob around Biblical quotations, like "Love the sinner, hate the sin," or any variation thereof, as if Jesus himself was speaking through them.  So here's the thing.  Jesus never said that. Now, I haven't actually read the entire Bible, but I have spent WAY too much time this morning doing internet searches on that particular quotation.  And you know something?  It's not from scripture.  And it's not from Gandhi as is rumoured.   It's from St. Augustine of Hippo, who wrote 400 years after Jesus.  And you know what?  It's still a crappy quotation.

So for those who want to spout meaningful quotations that are actually attributed to Jesus in the actual Bible...  You know what a better quotation would be?  "Love one another."  How about if,  instead of following some archaic notion of what sin is and what sin isn't, how about we choose love?

So here's me, the next best thing to an atheist, starting a campaign. The  Let's put the Christ back in Christian campaign.   Because these faux Christians?  They're giving the real ones a bad name.

Condom Races

"Anything interesting happen in school today?"

"My Mom lost to Your Mom."

I gave her a look.

She sighed, despairing for my ignorance.  "In dodgeball today.  We lost."

Ah yes.  Rissa was in a Dodgeball tournament.  She and her friends were split between two teams.  Rissa's team was "My Mom"  and the other team was "Your Mom."  These names were chosen for the sole purpose of how they would sound when announced by the principal over the PA system.

"Today in dodgeball, we have My Mom vs Your Mom." 

"Right.  I'm with you now.  So you were on which team?"

"I was on My Mom."

"And who was on Your Mom?"

"Jacob and Liam"

Mental head shake.  "And My Mom lost?" This was turning into a variation of Who's on First.

"Sadly yes.  We were hoping that we would make it to the finals and that way the principal would have had to announce it all again."

David chimed in.  "Maybe next year you could have new teams.  My Mom's Meatloaf vs Your Mom's Mac & Cheese."

I roll my eyes at him.  "Anything else interesting?"

"In health we had condom races."

I do my best to imagine what that could entail.  "Were you blowing them up and then letting them loose in the classroom?  Passing them like a HOT POTATO game?"

"Let her finish..." David says.  In my mind I'm thinking BANANAS!!!!!

"We had bananas."

"HAH!"

David shoots me a disparaging look.

"There were four to a team." 

Now I was confused.  "Four to a team?"

"Whichever team of four who put all their condoms on the banana first won."

"You were putting four condoms on a banana?"

"Yes."

"One on top of the other?"

"Yes."

David shrugged. "Better safe than sorry."

Jet Engine Torso

Is it hot in here?

I have solved the impending energy crisis!  It's so simple.  We hook up all the women in the world who are having hot flashes... into a power grid.  Women 'of a certain age' giving off their heat - the combined estrus  would produce more energy than the SUN.  As long as there are women enduring peri-menopause - we will have a never-ending energy supply!

Not quite sure of the logistics yet... the way the machines stole power from humans in The Matrix kind of wigs me out - although frankly, if I kept my hair long, the outlet thingie at the base of the skull might be hidden.

Or... no, wait!  WAIT!!  The outlet thingie could be a feature!  You know - embellished with Swarovski crystals and other great shit.  It'd work like Mary Kay!! But instead of a pink Cadillac for so many sales - the more heat a flashing woman gives off - the more bedazzled her outlet would be.  High heat producers would have higher quality platinum outlets with more precious gems - the most prolific of heat producers would get the rarest gems in the world like blue garnets and jadeite.  Women in their 40s and 50s would be the saviours of the planet - we'd be frickin' rock stars.

"Bow to us you lowly youth - we rule the world!  Shower us with chocolate and salt and we will share our mighty power with you!  Show disdain for our wisdom and beauty and you shall die an Antarctic death!"

David just added his two cents.   "Or..."  There is a gleam in his eye.  "You could use some sort of turkey thermometer type thing, but you know with a, uh... vibrating capacity.  The power stations would be more like spas and you would, ahem, insert the, uh, vibrating probe, while women are on chaise lounges having pedicures.  Plus, you could film it.  Pretty much win-win all around..."

Microbes for Movember???

So this appeared in my news feed recently...

Movember moustaches may hold hazards

Seriously?  This is a news story?  What is the CBC doing?  And show of hands, how many men out there don't wash?  And by that I mean EVER.  How many don't wash their faces EVER?  How many don't take the time to wash after having raw fish and/or spaghetti and/or steak tartar? How many wait days and days and days with food and or bodily fluids resting upon your facial hair before you wash? Anyone?  'Cause I'm pretty sure that's when you're going to have hazardous microbes in your 'stache.

So, if you ARE one of those dudes who NEVER washes your face - for God's sake START WASHING - you are not a teenaged goat!  But otherwise, could the CBC stop trying to instill panic in the public at large not to mention the dudes who are just trying to raise awareness for men's health issues??

I think my fingers are having a stroke...

Or... I'm being possessed by the spirits of homophones past.  Instead of the word 'do' I type 'due.' Instead of 'red' I type 'read.'   I actually typed 'aisle' instead of 'I'll' this morning.

So?  Any thoughts?  Any closet neurologists out there?  'Cause right now?  I think I might be in a cross between Memento, Primer & Inception, my mind's feeling THAT fucked.  It's not like they're just typos.  Is this where all those brain injuries I've had through my life are coming back to haunt me?  I really should have had that brain MRI a loooooong time ago.

Does anyone else do this sort of stuff?  And before you suggest it - I don't use auto-spelling. I don't do text speak.  EVER.  That's not what's happening here.   I spell out my words - I never even type "laugh out loud" let alone the ... the... acronym for it.  (Just can't do it - would rather drive a frickin' nail through my eye.) I usually write "hee hee hee" to indicate I'm giggling or "HAH!" to indicate a guffaw of laughter.  And just to really screw me over this morning, it took me a full 30 seconds to come up with the word 'acronym' just then.  BANJO!  Just checking.  I don't use "8" for the 'ate' sound.  So WHAT.  THE.  POOH. 

Last night, I was trying to explain the misplacing my homophones thing to David.  I then spelled the wilderness mammal BEAR as B A R E.  And that was NOT my intention.

"You just spelled B A R E."

"No I didn't!"

"You totally did!"

"Oh God, that's it.  I'm having a stroke right now.  Or I've had a stroke and I've lost all my homophones.  Is my mouth drooping?"

"No, your mouth isn't drooping.  Why would you only lose homophones?"

"It's not just homophones - I lost BANJO the other day, and... and... I lost - SWEET MOTHER OF ALL THESAURUSES...  What else did I lose?"

"I don't know sweetie."

"You see?  OH GOD.  You could totally Gaslight me!!!  If you wanted, you could totally  Gaslight me.  I think I'm losing my mind anyway - so how would I even know?"  I back away from him in the bed, my eyes wild and wide.

"Good thing I'm not independently wealthy.  All you could get would be some crazily bad lounge music and a plethora of holiday decorations with a side of vintage dresses.  Maybe it's the dresses you're after!!!"

He shoots me a look of utter disbelief.

"Although frankly your back is much wider than mine and you'd have to have them altered.  No, not possible.  The amount of body hair that you'd have to shave/wax would deter that.  You don't even like it when I pluck your shoulder hair."

"Shhhh.... It's okay..."  He tucks me into his side and kisses me on the forehead.

"It's NOT okay.  I'm having weird-ass aphasia!"

"Sweetie if you didn't remember the word 'aphasia' then I'd be worried.  I think you're good."

"Due ewe reely mien it?"

If I were ridiculously wealthy...

The phrase "SPARE NO EXPENSE!!!"  would readily fall from my lips.  My holiday shopping would be joyfully a la carte.  I would tip with bills, not toonies.

I don't have that kind of disposal income... right now.  But very soon, very soon (insert scheming world-domination maniacal laughter here) it shall come to pass...

So here's what's going to happen until then.  Every time I see something that I know my loved-ones would go apeshit for, but I can't afford - I'm going to file it.  And for Christmas, I'm going to let everyone know about all the things I will get them when I am ridiculously wealthy.

I'm starting file folders for everyone I know.  That way, when I see that $700 etched print by Liz Menard  that would be perfect for David, I'll add it to his file.  Same with the ridiculous cat bean-bag warmer Cuddle Kitty that would make Rissa giggle...   And when I see an exorbitantly priced coffee table book that I know Meg would salivate for - it's going in her file.   Then I'll just give them the lists of their future gifts.

This epiphany hit me yesterday while I was helping my friend Lisa at the Moose Show.  Lisa, my crazy friend, my incredibly talented artistic friend, the friend who makes me snort ginger ale through my nose.  (That makes it sound like she has me tied to a chair and is waterboarding me with ginger ale.  She totally doesn't do that.  She does, however, make me laugh so hard that I snort and just so you know, snorting ginger ale is painful.  "It burns!  It burns!")

I was watching Lisa yesterday do a wire sculpture of a gold fish, from a freaking photograph.  She had the photograph and was artistically extrapolating.  My brain just doesn't work that way.  What I want to be able to do for her?  I want to be able to commission pieces and pay her WHAT THEY ARE WORTH!!!   If she spends 150 hours making something - she should be earning WAY more than just a couple of bucks an hour for her artistic labour.   I want to rent a public space in downtown Toronto to display her astoundingly awesome 7 foot long Korean Dragon wire sculpture so that the A freakin' G O stands up and takes notice of her brilliance.  Check out her works here: www.lbrunetta.ca

And now I need to research sand sculpting companies who might offer workshops.  Then I can tell David and Rissa that as soon as we're rich, we are going someplace like Hawaii or California and we're going to learn how to build even bigger and more bad-ass sand sculptures than the ones we do now.

'Cause you know what?  Dreams come true.  It's happened to me over and over again.  And I am determined to continue my dreaming in TECHNICOLOR and no frickin' bank statement is going to stop me!

Carly Sioux 2012

ps.  I'm included in a Blogger Soundoff this month at Circle of Moms along with other fantastic women!!