romantical

Two of my special friends from undergrad used to say the word "romantical" instead of "romantic" because they just didn't know they were pronouncing it wrong. The funniest thing was that one of them must have learned the word from the other one, but we couldn't figure out who imagined the word first.

It was my four year anniversary today. I'm not at all romantic. I can't even say the word romantic without feeling like a goof, so I say "romannic". I bought Rob a card (because making an anniversary card is just way too corny for me) with 2 goldfish on the front. Inside it said "I'm glad you're here with me". See, that's tolerable. I almost bought a card with a monkey in a banana-shaped car on the front. Inside it said "You drive me bananas". I thought, "how unromannic...I love it". I knew that Rob would be hurt if I gave him a card with a monkey and a banana on it, so I chose a more "heartfelt" card. Isn't that what real love is all about? Awww.

Gag.

they're all a bunch of boobs

Is this trend towards "plastifying" ourselves ever going to end? Or does the move toward plastic surgery and other "upkeep" procedures go on ad infinitum...until being attractive means looking inhuman? What happened to natural beauty? You don't have a chin? It doesn't matter--force some botox into your lips and put on some frosted lipstick and no one's the wiser. Eyes too far apart/close together? Load on the eyeshadows and mascara and when people look into your eyes they'll think "sex" instead of "ugh". It's at the point where a naturally "ugly" person can spend enough time and money to actually become hot. Check out the hotornot website where naturally attractive people consistently get lower scores than women who are decked out like porn stars. You're right, I'm indignant--it breaks all the rules of "survival of the fittest". For eons we've let evolution weed out the trolls-- it seemed to be working, right?

Maybe I'm so cynical because I live in a fairly materialistic and appearance-oriented part of town. The other night a few friends and I went out for some drinks. At one point I looked around and thought I must have missed the "Barbies only" sign on the entrance to the lounge. It wasn't the tanned skin, tiny thighs, blonde hair, sparkling white teeth, carefully applied eye-makeup, or breasts that looked too big for their bodies that bothered me. It was the deliberate combination of all those features women are told are beautiful and sexy into one package that was indistinguishable from the one beside it. Clones. Creepy, well-dressed, giggling clones.

"The Beauty Myth" is still the monster under all of our beds, but I cannot feel sorry for the women buying into it with such gusto. At some point we're no longer the victims and became active participants in the race toward "perfection". There is an unspoken competition to look the most similar to a certain ideal, and in the process everyone ends up looking exactly the same. By investing in certain procedures (such as breast implants) it's an obvious statement that you wish to be admired and valued for your looks above everything else. How awful, and how sad.

I get just as incensed when men put themselves down for their beautiful manly features...hairy arms, a bit of chub overlaying strong muscles, full eyebrows. It scares me to think that men will latch on to this beauty ideal as desperately as women have. Despite metrosexuality, most men still haven't achieved the slave-status that women have.

I don't tan or wax my arms, I despise the upkeep of hair-colouring/hilighting and heavy porn-star make-up, pedicures creep me out, and 90% of the time I feel really ugly. But I'm smart enough to know that if I spent the time and money to look like the ideal of beauty, that I would still feel unhappy with my appearance. And I think I would feel as if I was cheating on both my genuine self and my familial ancestry.

So next time one of you Barbies see me staring you down with a furrowed brow, don't be thinking I'm jealous. I'm concerned, and a little bit angry--did your mothers and grandmothers work so hard so that you could choose between silicone or saline?

Tomorrow morning we get to sign up for our courses. I can't believe I wasted so much time perfecting my schedule when I'm probably going to end up with Christie, Wexler, and umm...maritime law. That will be useful when I start my career as a nervous, philosophical pirate.

woe canada

I love Canada a little less today than I did a year ago. I'm embarrassed about the direction we're heading, and I'm a little bit broken-hearted that the ideals and values I considered profoundly Canadian seem to be mere illusions--superficial semblances of something I thought went deeper into the core of our country.

15 billion dollars spent on the military recently. I'm not going to play the hippy card and claim that we shouldn't spend anything on our armed forces (for PEACEKEEPING), but 15 billion dollars? Imagine what that money could have done for healthcare and social programs. I can't. Because 15 billion is a number so big, my puny little primitive human mind can't wrap itself around the sum. Where did that money come from, anyways? Was the previous government just saving it for a rainy day? Did someone get lucky when doing the laundry and find a spare 15 billion dollars they never noticed was missing?

But that's not the embarrassing part. It's that a former arms lobbiest is now Canada's Minister of Defense. How come the politicians involved in such blatant contradictions, many of them former lawyers, don't recognize this "minor" conflict of interest? A dumb rhetorical query to be sure--I'm sure they do recognize the ethical conundrum and choose to exploit their power rather than act with integrity. Shameful.