spoiler alert

Dredd 3D is a bad movie.  And not in the good way.

You know, like Black Sheep.  Or Dead Snow.  Or even ThanksKilling.  Bad like the third Matrix movie.  Or the last Hulk/Spiderman shit shows.  Or that garbage superhero one with Ben Affleck.  Or essentially anything that involves Tom Green.

The main character, Dredd, spent the whole movie growling from behind his steadfast frown and his over-sized helmet, which was never taken off at any point in time.  The secondary character (who I will name Blonde Psychic Pink Lips as I have no idea what her name was) was a blonde psychic with bubble-gum pink lipstick that ended up getting captured and held hostage.  Good psychic skills.  Very well used.  The antagonist was a woman (Mo-Ma) with bad bed hair and a wicked scar on her face who seemed to have no problems gunning down innocents while whispering orders to her henchmen.  Very quietly.  Very, very quietly.  What was most disappointing about her character in particular is Mo-Ma:

is also Cersei Lannister:

who you may recognize as that blonde bitch from the Game of Thrones series.  You know, the one who slept with her brother and then her cousin and spouted off gems of wisdom like “Tears aren’t a woman’s only weapon.  The best one’s between your legs” while organizing the killing off of people left right and centre.  And while Cersei is a brilliant villian, Mo-Ma was much like a quieter brunette version who said less and didn’t show her boobs as much.  There was so much potential for her to rip the shit out of that movie, but she was surprisingly subdued.  I dunno.  Go big or go home, I say.

Anyway, the film was also in 3D, and it was the first 3D movie I’ve seen since that near catastrophe Alice in Wonderland (Johnny Depp, your mad hatter’s dance was mad.  Madly horrible.  Madly horribly awful).  You’d think that maybe the novelty of having droplets of blood squirt right in front of your face would have saved this movie, but it didn’t.  Not at all.  The best part of the film?  Dredd and Blonde Psychic Pink Lips are trapped in a building that has been put into lockdown by Mo-Ma and are being hunted by the tenants of said building.  One man enthusiastically sprays bullets into what I’m assuming is a phone booth (although it’s near impossible to find a pay phone these days, god only knows why there are phone booths in the future) because he assumes that either Dredd or BPPL or maybe even both are in the booth.  He then opens the door and lets out a comically disappointed “oh” when he sees it is neither of them.  Then he gets his head blown up by someone or other, I’m not sure, I was laughing too hard at his reaction.  Cue squirted blood droplets.

So what would I have done to improve this movie?  How about a little bit of this:

Before

After

 

nocturne, opus 72, number 1

note:

chopin and gin go together well
until the notes start to blur
and the fingers are too slow
beethoven is far too cumbersome
trudging up and down the keyboard.

but back to chopin
some of those nocturnes
can break your heart
dancing up the scales
and falling back down
how amazing that such emotion
can come from 8 simple notes
9 if you count the sharp

chopin, i cannot walk through this smoothly
or be connected
your jumps across the octaves
inspire me
stretch me across the keys.

some of these nocturnes
break my heart.

The Other Other Eff Word

I was just lying in bed next to the Other doing some thinking.  It seems that I tend to do my best thinking when I’m in bed trying to fall asleep.  My little mind just won’t stop swirling.  I go through scenarios and do some day dreaming, map out dialogues and rehash over conversations past.  The usual.  Anyway, I was lying there thinking about something or other and I started in on the self-deprecation, and then the phrase “fat girl mentality” came screaming through my head.

“Fat” is not a word I like to use.  I’ve lost about 50 pounds since February, and I have at least 20 or 25 to go.  I’ve always been heavy, except for a two-year period about 11 years ago.  And when I say always, I mean the only time I wasn’t, besides those two years, was as a baby.  When I was just exceptionally cute.

oh so adorable

Anyway, the first time I lost the weight I used the tried and true method of going to the gym two hours a day and subsisting on protein shakes and cigarettes.  It worked well enough and for once in my life I was a little person.  I had just graduated from high school and broken up with my first boyfriend of three years, and had no idea what to do with myself.  I had a new body and a new freedom and was absolutely useless with it.  I remember standing outside of the bar one night while waiting for a friend.  It was winter so I was wearing my trench coat and toque, and there was a circle of people standing around smoking a joint.  I was just 19 and they were probably in their early 30s, and one of the women waved me over.  I walked up to them and they stood apart to let me in.  The woman who waved me in told me I was such a pretty girl, why was I hiding behind so many big clothes.  And then one of the men agreed.  And then the other woman.  And I had no idea what to say, or how to react.

See, when you’re big, people don’t look at you.  I mean they do, to see how big you are, but that’s really all they see.  And they tend to look  past you.  It seems paradoxical but it’s easier to be invisible when you’re fat.  You may take up more space, but people turn away from what makes them uncomfortable.  It’s the same way your eyes glaze over and you stare into the horizon when you pass a homeless person.  Not you in particular, and not every time I’m sure, but you know.  People in general.  And when you’re used to people looking past you, it’s hard to know what to do when they start paying attention to you.

As I’m sure you can guess, once I started doing normal things like not working out two hours a day and you know, eating food more than once a day, the weight came back.  And because I hadn’t learned a thing about proper nutrition or how to eat like a normal person it came back with a vengeance.  First slowly, pants started feeling a little snugger, shirts started fitting a little smaller.  Then suddenly whammo!  Hello 70 pounds.  After a few years of not looking in any mirrors or allowing any pictures being taken of myself, I decided it was time to get back at it.  I joined a gym and hired a trainer for 6 weeks of personal sessions, including nutritional training.  Through a lot of perseverance, discipline, and hard work, I managed to get my body fat down to near athlete numbers.  I was strong.  Still heavy, but strong and healthy.  I ran, I did weights, I did pilates, I danced, I boxed.  I did it all, and I loved it, and I vowed that I would always maintain this because why wouldn’t you want to feel that good about yourself?  And I did maintain it, for a while.  Then it started slipping a little.  Not much, but enough.  And then in 2008 we lost everything in a house fire (the other eff word).  That was enough to send me right back to where I had started.

At the end of last year I decided that I wasn’t interested in spending my 30s the same way I had spent the majority of my life.  I wasn’t interested in being uncomfortable every time I’d get dressed, or being out of breath every time I’d walk up the hill from work to the parking lot, or knowing that every time I go somewhere with my friends I would be the fat quiet one in the corner too self conscious to look anyone in the eye.  So February came and I changed the way I was eating.  Nothing drastic.  More veggies, more protein, breakfast, no sugar, no refined foods.  Clean.  Not easy, but it made sense.  The weight started coming off.  And then I started exercising, and then more came off.  It’s plateaued over the last couple of months, but I haven’t exactly been diligent about the whole diet/exercise thing.  But I have been diligent enough that it hasn’t gone back up, which is something that tends to happen within the first two weeks for me.

So the funny thing about it is 50 pounds is a lot.  It’s like two small kids.  It’s like 50 bricks of butter.  It’s a noticeable amount, and when I look at pictures of myself last Christmas compared to pictures of myself now, there’s a big difference.  I get a lot of comments, and compliments, and it’s lovely to hear.  But when I look in the mirror I don’t see what I’ve done.  I see what I still have to do.  I see the lumps and bumps and rolls and jiggles, the flab and bulges and all the rest of those nasty sounding onomatopoeia-like words.  And when I see pictures of myself now, my eyes automatically go to those exact same elements.  It’s not enough to send me into an obsessive spiral of self-doubt or whatever, but it is enough to surprise me whenever a good-looking person pays attention to me in any way that isn’t tinged with either pity or that douchebag deluxe combo of disgust/contempt.

I went out on the weekend with a girlfriend of mine and was blatantly eye molested by a man outside in the smoking area.  I would have expected it if I had been wearing a dress, or even a cleavage shirt, but I wasn’t.  And that’s what I had been thinking about when I was lying in bed hours ago.  And then I started questioning what it was that he had been looking at.  He didn’t seem that drunk.  I was there with a tiny blonde chick that’s a total babe.  He couldn’t even see my tits.  What was the deal?

Enter the voice screaming at me.  FAT GIRL MENTALITY.  Old habits die hard.

On a side note, I got my bike back from the shop yesterday and went for my first long(ish) ride today.  I took a wrong turn as I thought I would, seeing as I’m geographically challenged, and ended up going longer than expected, but I made it back in one piece.  Burning legs and burning lungs but man oh man, what a way to spend a Sunday morning.

Uh, just a lil bit lucky I live here

Lovely Words Loving Lovingly

I’m nearing the end of my second week of being off work.  Technically I was laid off, so I’m patiently awaiting EI and a phone call for a new assignment.  I’ve cleaned.  A lot.  And I’ve read, drawn, dusted off my synthesizer, taken my bike in for a tune-up, walked the dog, done several dump/salvation army runs, and reorganized my kitchen.  And now, I’m bored.

So today I decided to get out of the house.  After waking at 7am and then lounging in bed til 10:30am (so decadent!) I got up, got dressed, and packed the dog in the car.  We did another salvation army run and then I took the mutt for a walk around a lake.  And then I took the long way home, through the countryside.  As I was driving and the dog was panting furiously in my ear, slobber running down my shoulder, I started thinking about losing contact with people.

Years and years ago, when I lived in a different country, I made a very good friend.  I was hopelessly in love with him, and he knew it, and he was very sweet about letting me down without letting on that he knew (I was betrayed by an errant note passed in class.  The gossip got her hands on it and then everybody in the entire 9th grade class knew I thought he had a “mighty sweet butt.”  I guess class notes were kind of like the original text messages, hey?).  Anyway, after a year I moved to Canada and we stayed in touch via the email.  Through the years our friendship grew into best friendship, and then sort of blossomed into a very sweet, often dark, kind of twisted soulmate love, the kind that you can only have when you’re 19.  Eventually I decided to go and visit.  I went for 2 weeks over a summer and stayed with him and his college roommates, and it was a lot of fun, except for the part where I realized that I wasn’t actually as madly in love with him as I had originally thought.  He drank a lot, and he was kind of sickly, and very broody a lot of the time.  With his words it was intense and romantic; with his actions it was kind of irritating.  I was also seeing another boy at the time, one who ended up breaking my heart (twice no less) but whom I was very much infatuated with.  Anyway, the Very Good Friend made his move and I went along with it the first time, and then sort of tried to avoid it.  On the last night I was there they threw a party, and I remember sitting in the bathtub being absolutely hammered, with him sitting on the toilet next to me asking me if I saw him in my life at all.  And because I was oh so drunk I worded my response incredibly poorly, and a month after I got home he stopped talking to me.  I broke his heart, and I didn’t even mean to, and it cost me the closest friend I had ever had.  I still think about him all the time.  A while ago I did some research and googled him, and sent letters out to every address I could find attached to his name.  I got one response from someone telling me I had the wrong person.  And as shitty as that story is, it came from us falling in love not with each other, but with each others’ words.

A couple of years ago I joined an online anxiety forum, and started emailing with someone in the area.  We had a lot of similar symptoms for our panic attacks, and it turned out that we had very similar taste in music as well.  Our communication was very sporadic, and there would be months between emails sometimes.  It was always friendly, encouraging, engaging.  Nothing romantic, no flirting.  We hadn’t spoken in a while and a few months ago I sent him an email telling him I was going to be spending some time up near his neighbourhood at my mom’s, and he should let me know when his band’s playing because I’ll finally come and check them out.  He asked why I was going to be there, I told him about the separation, he expressed his regrets and asked how my anxiety was about it, I thanked him and told him I was managing it just fine.  And then two days later he declared his intentions.  He had always had a thing for me and hadn’t said anything out of respect for my marriage but now he had to let me know.  And then he let me know again.  And again.  Through a series of drunk texts.  I had to tell him while it was very flattering and incredibly sweet, I’m still married and not looking and besides, he couldn’t say “without a doubt” that I was the one for him because the fact of the matter is we’ve never met in real life.  And for the love of god, stop texting me at 2 in the morning.  And now I’ve had to stop talking to him, which bums me out because he’s a really nice guy.  I guess my words were just too much for him.

Anyway, the point of this ridiculous and aimless diatribe is this:

This is a book I remember reading in elementary school.  It’s also a book that’s made a profound impact on my life.  If you’ve never had the pleasure of being exposed to it, Griffin & Sabine is the first book in a trilogy that’s a romantic (gasp, I know) mystery portrayed through postcards and letters.  This isn’t going to be a book review, so I’m not going to bother running down the gripping plot for you, I’m just going to show you what the inside of the book looks like.

 

And what some of the artwork in the book looks like.

And tell you that you should go and find it and read it and buy it and love it.  You’re welcome.

I’ve managed to collect all three books in the series over the years, and it’s definitely one of my proudest displays on my bookshelf.  It’s trite but words really are so powerful.  It’s amazing how much you can evoke from a person through a few paragraphs.  I’ve already fallen for several writers I’ve read on this grand WordPressosphere based purely on the images they’ve created for me with their writing.

That’s it. No snappy ending to tie this one together.

Keep Her Where She Belongs

So this morning I went to google “vintage ads” and noticed that “vintage ads that would be banned today” popped up on that handy little autofill google’s incorporated into their search bar. As a former media studies student, advertising is something that I’ve always found pretty interesting.  Not interesting enough to go out and get a degree in marketing or anything, but hey, I’ve watched all the seasons of Mad Men so I know all about the advertising game (although honestly I spent most of the show daydreaming about the dresses.  My god, so many pretty party dresses!).  Anyway, I suppose by some standards these ads are offensive, or could be offensive, but I think they’re pretty funny.  It’s almost unreasonable to believe that at one point in time the beliefs behind these ads were widespread.  I found a stash of them, but these ones are my personal favourites.

So at first I thought this was an advertisement for Kellogg’s own special brand of methamphetamines, but after a little careful research (read:  typing “kellogg’s pep for vitamins” into google and clicking on two different links) I realized that it’s actually a cereal.  Which I suppose makes sense.  Regardless, I didn’t realize there was a connection between hard work and looking cute.  Because you know what’s adorable?  Kneeling in front of a toilet trying to scrub shit off from under the seat with a paper towel.

Because nothing says “I love my man” more than shoving a couple of capfuls of CONCENTRATED GERM-KILLER up your vagina.  You filthy disgusting woman.  No wonder nobody really loves you.

Naked on the floor and in front of a shoe?

I love it when a man blows in my face.  I mean, blows smoke in my face.

Oh Van Heusen.  You truly are a king among men.  And lest these gentle readers worry that you are merely sexist, here’s another gem:

You can dress them up, but you can’t take those savages out anywhere.  On a side note, 1 out of 5 men prefer a tie made from the bones of their kill.

So there we have it.  Mostly misogynistic with a hint of racist overtones.  Actually, there were a lot of racist ones, but as a white woman I suppose the “women belong in the kitchen or maybe naked on the floor while men blow smoke in their faces” side of it appealed to me more.  I’ve never considered myself a feminist.  I think I’m more of a mostly equalist; I can do pretty much what a man can do, barring any physical restrictions (peeing standing up, for example).  And while I understand that these ads came from a different time, and almost a different life, they make me feel conflicted.  I have feminist friends that would roar in indignation at these, keeping women down, showing we’re not worthy of being considered people, we’re just delicate little flowers that need to be kept clean with the help of a man, get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich, so on and so forth.  What makes me feel conflicted is that I kinda do like wearing nice dresses and pretty aprons and cooking.  And I kinda do like nice shoes.  And I kinda do like getting stuff blown in my face.

Wait, what?  Scratch that last part.  Now bring me a bowl of Pep.  I have floors that need to be scrubbed.

Jitterbug

           And she cries, big salty
          alligator tears running through
          the cracks around her eyes
          and down her cheeks, pooling
          just before dripping off her
          pock-marked chin.

And she cries, nervous fingers
scratching at her neck,
collarbone, elbows, feet,
needle holes marching like
footprints down her
skeletal forearms.

          And she cries, eyebrows raising
          as he reaches for his pocket,
          rehearsed words about daughters
          and new starts on the lips
          of her mouth used for begging,
          and for other things, for her money.

And she cries, pupils scanning
across the street, down
the alley, eyes out but
mouth tumbling praises
and gratitude for one
more chance at the day.

Hippies and Drum Circles and Bonfires, oh my

This past weekend I discovered something that kind of bummed me out.  Actually no, it fully bummed me out.  This weekend I discovered that I no longer have fun when I’m out with the Other in a social setting, especially when he’s drinking and I’m not.  In fact, I’m generally uncomfortable around him when with others.  And it bums me out because it wasn’t always like that.

It’s not that he’s out of control.  He’s not.  He used to be, but it’s changed.  There was a long period where we’d go out to a party or to the bar for a show, and I would spend days after apologizing to random people for things he’d said or done.  He can get quite snippy when drunk, and a little obnoxious (or a lot obnoxious), and sometimes very mean.  But it’s in a weird way, because the thing is, he thinks he’s being funny when he does it (a la Tony Clifton).  Even when no one is laughing.  There was also a time where he fancied himself a purveyor of truth, so long as he had a six-pack and half a bottle of Sambuca in him.  He was once instrumental in starting a brawl that involved four different people directly and two more indirectly, that ended with half of the birthday party crying in various areas of the house.  That’s right, at a birthday party.  Of his best friend’s girlfriend.

Anyway, he’s calmed down quite a bit in his older age.  Now he slams his six-pack, says things that are sometimes insightful and sometimes absolutely nonsensical leaving other people either laughing or backing off slowly in confusion, and will then usually pass out quietly in a corner somewhere.  Gone are the days of him puking in parking lots, or yelling at cop cars because he thinks it’s hilarious.  And it’s a good thing too, because I would have packed my bags and said goodbye a long time ago if they weren’t (or at least I like to think I would have).  What it ultimately comes down to is, he has a problem with alcohol.  He’s always had it, as long as we’ve been together.  He goes through a six-pack (or a bottle of booze) the way I go through a jar of Nutella;  elbows up, breathe through your nose, keep going til it’s done.  And I guess that’s why I don’t keep Nutella in my house.  But also, I guess that’s why I get so uncomfortable when we’re out.  Usually if we’re both out then one of us is driving, which often ends up being me because the Other has this trick where he’ll start to drink before we leave, rendering him incapable of driving.  Smart, no?  So we’re out, he’s drinking, I’m sober and irritated that I’m driving again, and on the lookout.  Even though I know I don’t really have to be, my guard is up and I’m watching.  And it stresses me out.

And it stresses me out that I know I don’t need to stress out about it.  Someone once told me I act like I’m repulsed by him when we’re out with friends, and that really upset me.  I don’t do it intentionally, and what a horrible way to act towards someone who you love and you’re supposed to be spending the rest of your life with.  But it’s true.  And it’s not that he repulses me, it’s that he makes me uncomfortable. I’m always worried that he’s going to say something insulting or something stupid or embarrassing, because he likes to do that too.  And even when my friends say “don’t worry about it, just have fun and ignore him” I still fucking worry about it.  Because apparently I looove to worry.

I think what it comes down to is for the better part of our 10 years together, I’ve been begging him to curb his drinking.  There was a point in time when it was absolutely unbearable.  He never got physical (except for one time he threw his shoe at me as I was walking away, but it was because he thought it would be funny.  It wasn’t.), but he has said some pretty disrespectful things before, to me and to others.  And like I said, it has changed as he’s gotten older.  But I still don’t like him when he’s drinking.  My stomach starts to turn when his words start to slur.  Maybe it comes from having to watch my mom when she was going through her alcoholic phase (which involved a lot of incredibly frustrating and pointless drunken phone calls).  It doesn’t stop me from going out and getting my drink on, but it does stop be from getting my drink on with him.  And he’s my partner, so isn’t he the one I should want to be going out with?  My friends all like going out to party with their significant others.  It feels like I’m the only one who doesn’t.

And what’s really heartbreaking is all he wants to do is go out and have fun with me.  He tells me that all the time.  He’s been telling me that since this whole separation thing started coming to a head.  But I just can’t.  We went to a friend’s birthday party on Saturday, they had an awesome potluck and a bonfire by the beach and a drum circle and other hippie things.  And of course, I was driving because he had downed four out of six of his ciders by the time we were ready to leave.  And he sat there socializing, even though we didn’t know most of the people there, and I sat in the corner quietly watching.  Waiting.  Wincing every time he’d say something and the person he was speaking to would raise their eyebrows or ask him to repeat himself.  I barely said anything to any of the people I did know there.  And then 3 hours later, when the hallucinogens came out (I mentioned it was a hippie party, right?) I stood the fuck up and said it was time to get out, because if he put those party goods in his mouth things would get messy.  Because that’s like booze times a hundred million, and he LOVES that shit.  And then the next day he kept telling me how much fun he’d had, and how he was so glad we’d gone.  And I had to lie.  “Yeah, I had fun too.  It was a good time.”  But I didn’t have fun.  I didn’t have fun at all.  I rather would’ve stayed home.  Actually, I rather would’ve gone alone so that I could have done mushrooms and danced around a bonfire to a drum circle.  But it didn’t matter, because I couldn’t.  Because he was there and he’d gotten to drinking first, so I had to take care of it.

And that’s something that really bothers me.  I’m the primary care giver.  That was a big reason for this separation.  I’m 31 and I’m taking care of a man who is 7 years older than me.  There were times it felt like I was taking care of a child.  And I’m not saying that I want to be the one taken care of, but I think that there should be give and take.  One person shouldn’t have to make ALL of the dinners, or do ALL of the groceries, or drive ALL of the time, or make ALL of the plans, so on and so forth.  It’s fucking exhausting.  And how’re you supposed to take care of yourself when you’re spending all of your time constantly taking care of someone else?

But this ends on a somewhat positive note.  Last night I found my pencils, and I have time now (because I have time to myself now, which is fucking amazing) to start drawing again.  A work in progress, much like my life.

 

 

Classical Music and the Art of Self Love

When I was just a wee one, many moons ago and on an entirely different continent, my grandmother used to take me to the symphony.  I still remember sitting in my seat in an enormous theatre and watching with awe as the conductor waved his baton in the air creating this amazing music filled with strings and horns that would just crash over me and into my ears, wave after wave as I soaked up concertos and nocturnes, all the while dreaming of the day that I would stand in front of those people and wave my arms around in whatever time signature the piece called for and produce for others the incredible experience I had taken each and every time.

My love for classical music is something that I attribute to the fact that I was pushed so hard to take (and continue) piano lessons from the age of 5 to 15.  My father was pushed by his mother due to both of them having “so much talent but never enough drive to do anything about it,” which was something I heard again and again every time I’d grumble about having to do hours of scales.  Even though I took lessons for 10 years, I’d only had 2 instructors, and both of them were little old ladies that had that old lady hump and bald spot that I’d always eye so warily (my god, what if I look like that some day?).  They were both fairly kind, although the first instructor was much more inclined to smack me on the knuckles if my hands weren’t held in the proper manner (wrists up, fingers slightly bent, light fingertips).  She would give me hot chocolate with enough sugar to leave a delicious sugary chocolatey pile of diabetes at the bottom of the cup, so I never held the reprimanding against her.

As I got older more of my friends started taking piano lessons (seemed to be the requisite thing for a child to do in my area), and a lot of them started delving more into jazz piano, or contemporary.  But I stuck with classical.  There’s something about it that works for me, timing wise.  Even when the time signature does change, it’s still always within an established structure.  Improving with those jazzy riffs was something that I could never wrap my head (or my fingers) around; it always sounded so clunky, and just a little off.

And so, obviously, I developed a love for classical music.  I kept it hidden at first for fear of being recognized for the nerd I am (I was in deep denial as a child, but it’s something I’ve grown to accept and embrace), but would secretly yearn for the day I could spread my arms and yell to the world “I LOVE VIVALDI,” or at least for the day I wouldn’t feel the need to hide my tapes when my friends would come over.  And then one day, one glorious, eye-opening, life-changing day I saw the movie A Clockwork Orange, in which one Ludwig Van Beethoven is very prominently featured.  It wasn’t my first introduction to Ludwig Van; obviously I had been playing Fur Elise and the Moonlight Sonata for years at this point (little fun fact, Fur Elise is the piano’s version of Stairway to Heaven in music shops.  They don’t want you to play it.  Maybe you’re amazing, but chances are you will mangle it and drive all customers from the store).  And then I watched the incredibly historically inaccurate but still absolutely stunning movie Amadeus.  Maybe it was just the age I was at, or I was coming in to my own, or whatever feel good tag line you’d like to put on it, but I decided to throw the self-induced shackles of shame aside and stop hiding it.  I am a classical music nerd.  Not in the sense that I can rattle off every opus of every nocturne written, or even that I can recognize the name of a piece, but in the sense that I know the difference between adagio and allegro, and I will stop what I’m doing to close my eyes and absorb the beauty and power of something like this:

or this

or of course, this

or this.  Holy shit, how good is this?

 

I understand why kids don’t get behind classical music.  It’s not cool.  It’s music your grandparents listen to.  It’s not on the radio (well not on any of the good stations, at least), it doesn’t have catchy lyrics or even words you can understand (although truth be told, I have no idea what OutKast says in 80% of that Hey Ya song).  I used to get really frustrated when my adult (or older) friends would say they didn’t get classical.  How can you not get it?  I’ve had many arguments with metalheads about how theoretically speaking, a lot of classical music is original metal.  I’ve loosened up on that a little now.  Fair enough, I don’t want to listen to Nickleback or ColdPlay, you don’t want to listen to Chopin or Handel.  I get it.

I was chatting with a friend of mine about music a while ago, and he referred to himself as a total electronic music snob.  Then he said something silly about not liking band music (not all band music, just a lot of it).  Not band like grade 8 marching band, but like… regular music, I guess.  And I said to him that he should think of all the music he’s  totally missing out on because he’s not willing to give it a chance.  And not give it a chance like listen to the first 5 seconds of it before shutting off the youtube video and cursing me for sending it in the first place.  I mean like listening to it critically so you can make an informed decision on your feelings on it, and then you can actually back it up with valid points about why you like or dislike it.  Because I used to be a music snot, and was very specific about what I would or wouldn’t listen to. And then one day I realized that I like music, and the music that I like tends to span across the genres, and why would I want to cut myself off from that enjoyment just because I don’t think the whole “idea” of the music is cool?  Ridiculous.  Because of that realization I was able to finally start enjoying the radness that is Biggie Smalls.  It’s the same reason I don’t believe in guilty pleasures when it comes to music.  Sure there’s stuff I like that my friends don’t, and I won’t play it when they’re around.  Not because I’m worried what they’ll think of me if they know that I actually rock out pretty hard to Britney Spears’ Toxic whenever it comes up on my mp3 player.  But because I know that they don’t want to hear it.  It’s cool, no biggie (see what I did there?).  And I love love love hearing new music.  I ask my friends for new music all the time, and I’ve discovered some amazing stuff because of it.  And even if it’s not really my thing right away, if it doesn’t make my ears bleed, I’ll give it a second shot.

Okay, so where does the self love come in?  Honestly, I just thought it was a catchy title.  But it is pretty applicable, in a platonic way.  In order to truly love yourself, you need to embrace yourself, and all aspects of you.  Sure, it’s normal to have things you want to change, and even things you don’t like about yourself that you know you can’t change, but you can still accept those things.  I think denial is not only a form of self-delusion, but it’s a form of self-deprecation as well.  Know thyself, accept thyself, love thyself.

And listen to more classical music.

A Proper Southern Gentleman

Why My Dog is Awesome:  A Pictorial Tale

1.  

He’s a total beefcake.  Appearances are important, and nothing says “awesome” like a home-made cut-off tank top.

2.

This guy knows style and isn’t afraid to embrace it.  Plus he realizes the importance of protecting your eyes from the sun.

3.

Motherfucker can walk on water.  Okay maybe not, but he can stand on rocks in water making it look like he can walk on water, so he clearly understands the subtleties of illusion.

4.

He gets that being a good friend means sometimes you gotta let your buddy have a little nappy nap on your back.

5.

He’s a master of deceit.  No, I most certainly was not digging up anything anywhere in any sort of dirt.

Conversation #2

he cries
on her shoulder
wets her sleeve and
breaks her heart
soft kisses in the dark
lead to danger
muddy intentions
unspoken expectations
falling back into the trap

stupid girl
should have learned
your lesson
the last time