valentime's!: a personal ad

i bet ya said it like that when you were a kid too...

valentine's day (yesterday) is suppose to be a lamentable day for us single folk. apparently we are suppose to lie around in our grubbiest clothes, stuff our faces full of chocolate and bemoan our loneliness. while 2/3 of those things sound like a pretty rad way to spend a quiet thursday evening, i gotta say to "they" or whomever invented "super sad singles day" needs to go eat a bag of dicks. seriously. the whole bag. and in a really nasty, rather than sexy, way.

because here's the thing i've decided about valentine's day, or maybe what i hope we can all agree to about valentine's day-it should be a day to celebrate LOVE in general. to acknowledge love in all its beautiful multiplicities rather than stick people who aren't "in love" in some dire corner where we are just to suppose to stand, mascara running, and hope that next year we can join the love club.

bullshit!

i am single, 31, and have more love in my life than any one person deserves. my dear valentines' are abundant and fuck, i choo-choo-choose all of them!

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so this gets me thinking: "bitch, if your life is so full of love why the fuck are you all over the internet looking for a boyfriend?"

and this is a real question i have to ask myself. because i love so many people. so many. deeply and intimately and in the way that would smash my heart into a zillion little pieces if they were gone. honestly.

i think this total love-fest in my heart, or at least the acknowledgement of it, began when i finished reading "the ethical slut". while i found it interesting i also found it dull and trite and incredibly bossy. too bossy for my liking actually... but the chapter that stuck with was the chapter on "single sluts" because it was about loving with an open heart and never being afraid of loving people-all kinds of people, not only the ones you have sex with (but them too, if you want!). period. and i agree! i think love begets love and loving, actually loving, heaps of people only makes you more open and receptive to even more love. and love, guys, is wicked. the rest of the book-well, we can chat about it later if you want. if you want to know what i think is a cool and more insightful book on poly-relationships i suggest you click RIGHT HERE!  (it's a sexier read too...)

so, back to the question at hand, "love slut, if you're so full of love why the fuck are you all over the internet looking for a boyfriend?"

valid question!

and here is the answer: companionship. i want to love a lot of people, and one person who i might love most (most of the time) and that i get to spend amount of time with. and hold hands with and cook dinner with and watch clean up after dinner and share my cat's affection with and do all that boring companion-y shit. that stuff. i'm not looking for love, i have that in spades, i am looking for my someone who i sleep beside and who i want to sleep beside. (c'mon, you know what i mean-we don't always fall asleep with people we really want to sleep beside). and maybe someone who loves me most in their world full of love too! love begets love and who ever i decide should be my companion better get this. not getting that is a pretty huge deal breaker.

so while i am looking for a nice solid companion to spend quiet times and loud times and in between times, i want us surrounded by love and not just clinging to each other desperately because we are each other's only chance. that makes me too sad.

so valentine's day-let's celebrate love in all it's beautiful craziness and leave the celebration of companionship to anniversaries and marriages and internet dating nightmare stories-er, success stories! because fuck...

I FUCKING LOVE LOVE!

on being bored...

one afternoon my smart friend charles and i went to see a movie. i think django unchained, but the actual title of the movie doesn't matter. well, it could sure, but not in the context of this conversation it doesn't. ANYWHO...

as we were waiting for the movie to begin we talked about boredom. both of us are the kind of people who don't really believe in boredom. with all there is to see, hear and read in this world neither of us can much fathom how anyone is bored. nothing to do? there are MILLIONS of books to read, itunes has the following ridiculous catalogue: 

• 28,000,000+ songs worldwide
• 1,000,000+podcasts (USA)
• 40,000+ music videos (USA)
• 3,000+ TV shows (USA)
• 20,000+ audiobooks (USA)
• 45,000+ movies (USA)
• 700,000+ App Store apps
  

and that's only just what wikipedia says about itunes! think of all the free shit there is to steal on the internet, all the movies playing in theatres, all the books at your local library and book store, all the people to watch at your local coffee shop, all the fat to sweat off at the gym or by going for a walk... heck, go masturbate! boredom is your fault, not the fault of there being nothing to do. enjoy the time to yourself, dummies! and i suspect that you will feel rewarded and relaxed when you learn to spend time alone and  entertain yourself. 

/rant.

yes, sure, there are things in life that are genuinely boring. of course there are. and lot of them are people! sure, sometimes those books, movies, etc you pick up or attend are boring. it happens, the thing you chose to do is not entertaining. sometimes you can move on right away and sometimes you have to wait until the boring thing is over... a bad play for example. but what if you can't? what if you are fucking trapped in a steel can on the open prairie and everything you want to do makes you feel like puking. 

here is a list of things that give me motion sickness on the bus:

• reading (immediately)
• writing (within 3 sentences) 
• playing games on my phone (immediately)
• watching movies if it's too bumpy (within 25 min-and it's always too bumpy)
• scrolling through my ipod (immediately-so i better find something i like and listen to it over and over again) 

so today, i was bored. allow me to swallow my snarky words whole. they taste like shit. for about 1.5 hours i had literally nothing to do because everything i either needed or wanted to do made the bile rise in my throat and sweat through the leather seat of the bus. 

but there is a silver lining... i slept. i did get to do that. sleeping is never boring.

canada vs. the fighter jets

sometimes when i can't sleep-and sometimes when i am just sitting places with a moment to think and worry-i wonder if our concept of democracy is in fact, a myth. our elected "leader" appears to have no care or concern for the citizens of this huge country and is content to let people starve, freeze and die in favour of... what? fighter jets? environmental devastation?

i don't know what the answer and i don't know if i know anything at all about politics. i just know that so often i feel totally baffled by our government and i can't help but wonder who is at fault? is it ours for electing them or theirs for lying before we elected them? what about all of us who didn't vote for those who are now in a position of making decisions for us? is the system broken or are we responsible for allowing it to function when it is so clearly broken? 

i don't know. i don't know if i want to know.

all i do know is that last night i was awake most of the night worrying about a lot of things (love, money, friendship, the future...) and in the wake of "idle no more" these questions of democracy and the safety of our country's people remain chief among all the worries. i feel guilty for being here instead of outside but the reality is that i need to be at work to earn the money i make to pay the bills that far surpass my income. appearances can be deceiving...

anyway, i don't know what to think or feel today save for overwhelmed and a little bit sad. i hope that the future is bright for us but i don't know... today, i just don't know.

Tit for tat!

I overhear a lot of bullshit about tattooing. A lot. Rumours and conjecture and all sorts of totally unbelievable (and sometimes offensive) nonsense. Normally I don't comment, I stand quietly hoping people will notice how tattooed I am and just shut the fuck up on their own. But today, today was different...

Some back story: I am approaching heavily tattooed. I have spent 50+ hours and big bucks under the needles of some of the best artists in Canada. I have been tattooed in my kitchen, in other cities and in places that sent me running for a Hep C test! None of that tattooing has ever been for anyone but me. They are not a badge of honour or proof that I'm "tough" or badass (I am); they are art and I love them all. I love the communion between my skin and the artist; I love that I have 5'6" of skin to colour in and share the work of so many amazing artists in the process; I love how fucking hot they are! Anything else, and anything you think of me in the process is on you and my patience for ignorance is limited.

So there I am in Lester B. Pearson airport in our nation's unofficial capital listening to these middle-aged morons complain about their kids getting tattooed. I ignored it for the most part until one of the men started talking about how one of his coworkers should have been fired when she got a small tattoo on her wrist because it made her look so trashy. At this I began to prep myself for security-I took off my jacket and sweater revealing to these 4 assholes standing behind me a woman with a full sleeve. They didn't notice and I needed them to so as they began to talk about how "tattooed people are always sick because their immune systems are attacking the ink" I bent down, facing them to tie my shoe and as I stood up I made eye contact with one of the morons and said, "that isn't true."

Him: well, I heard it was.
Me: my doctor loves my tattoos, has some herself and is impressed by the health and shape I'm in.
His wife: well, you can't have an epidural because the ink will get into your spinal fluid and kill you."
Me: that's also untrue.
Wife: a nurse told me that.
Me: my tattooed gyno told me the opposite.
Wife: (with disbelief) both your doctors are tattooed?
Me: lots of people are tattooed. More than you would ever guess...
Him: whatever.

They still continued their tattoo conversation but at least it was just a boring one about tattoos they have seen and liked.

For the record, I have no idea if either of my doctors are tattooed. Neither of them are visibly tattooed but it doesn't matter, the truth of that is not important. My lie was silly and designed to prove a point to people who don't want to hear from a tattooed writer, they wanna hear from a doctor, even if by proxy, that everything they think is utter bullshit.

So people, if you get tattooed you will be able to get a job, have major surgery, give birth how ever you desire and your immune system will not destroy itself. And if you want, and I'd be cool with this, to be less of a dick about things that are completely unrelated to you, we'd all have a better time in airport line ups.