*JENlightened~

Somewhere (probably in the greater Ottawa area) there is a speechwriter who is looking for a job.

Read this article

It’s laziness. If I have to come to work everyday and come up with original material, then so should the prime minister’s employees.

p.s. If you’re wondering why I haven’t been blogging a lot lately, it’s because the two biggest topics in the news right are the two things I know nothing about: economics and politics.

I’ll try to have a personal crisis tomorrow for some good material.

I had the pleasure of attending two back-to-back weddings this weekend. I enjoyed both! I also observed some things about weddings that I would like to share with you.

Slide shows

I noticed that when creating slide shows, people focus way too much on baby pictures. Sure, we all enjoy a few photos of li’l Jimmy and li’l Susie with spaghetti on their faces, but we don’t need to see baby’s first everything. There is a limit. The disproportion is especially obvious when the teen pics start rolling out and there are only five, taking up only 15 seconds of Butterfly Kisses as opposed to all two and a half minutes of Good Riddance. Maybe babies are more photogenic. Maybe teens don’t like being photographed. All I’m saying is I don’t think you need to force content in the slideshows.

My suggestions:

• 1. Don’t be afraid to condense. I watched a 12-minute slideshow once. That’s a long time. Consider that we only watch eight-minute segments (if that) on television before a commercial airs. For the 21^st century viewer, short = sweet.
• 2. Keep it simple. Don’t get too crazy with the PowerPoint widgets. I can only handle so many photos cartwheeling onto the screen.
• 3. Instead of a parent, let a friend make the slide show to avoid unnecessary attachments to pictures of Billy in the bathtub.
• 4. Avoid choosing Rod Stewart as background music. In fact, avoid all cliché songs about rites of passage. There are millions and millions of songs in the world. All are accessible (via the powers of the interweb). There are no excuses for bad slideshow music anymore.

Big money versus sweet love

The more money spent on a wedding, the more details there are to forget. I used to think that I wanted a $35,000 wedding until I attended one that cost only $5,000. The simpler wedding was beautiful in the same way that all weddings are beautiful: the celebration of a couple’s love and commitment. Really nice things were said about really nice people. There were vows and kisses and friends and family. Who cares about wedding favours and seat covers? The love was there.

Music

iPods are cheap DJs, but they are crappy DJs. Unless the couple puts effort into the exact musical line-up, the dance portion of the evening will suffer if left up to your MP3 player. People figure that they like all the songs on their playlist, so the ‘shuffle’ setting should suffice. It does no such thing. You can’t hype me up with Hey Mickey only to bring me down with Unforgettable. It’s not fair.

Also, just because you like a song doesn’t mean that it’s appropriate dance music. Think about The Killers. They’re catchy. You wanna sing along. But can you think of one song that you can legitimately dance to? And don’t say Somebody Told Me, because you can’t.

Food

I ate Ethiopian food at one wedding. You eat it with your hands and it was fabulous. Maybe this is less about wedding food and more about Ethiopian food. Either way, I highly recommend it.

Conversation

Be prepared.  If you’re ever going to talk about your own singlehood, it will be at a wedding. I can’t tell you how many times I was asked when it was my turn to get married. If you don’t have a prepackaged answer in your back pocket, you could be looking at a very long and uncomfortable conversation.

That’s it. The rest is just looooove–the wedding that is, not the marriage. I heard those were more complicated to summarize.

I was almost hit by a cab today.

I know that almost being hit and actually being hit by car are a lot different in their levels of interest. But as the ‘almost’ victim, I must say that it was the scariest thing I’ve experienced in a long time.

If nothing else, the near-death incident reminded me that (a) you simply cannot trust cabbies, and (b) humans have the most absurd perspectives.

Almost being eaten by a shark. Almost dying in a plane crash. Almost being trampled to death at a KISS concert. Almost falling from a 10-storey building. These scenarios are newsworthy. The person who survives gets a spot on TV, writes a book and has the best bar story around for decades. It’s these stories that stay with people and get into their imaginations. Some become weary of crowds, heights, open water etc.  Even though all scenarios could end in death, no one seems to be all that afraid of cars (and car accidents happen way more often).

I started thinking about the inequality because I was really shaken up after the fact. The car was literally six inches (if that) away from breaking my legs and running me right over. If I hadn’t jumped out of the way, I would be dictating this blog from Toronto Western hospital.

All I wanted was a little solace. This is what I got:

“Really? Yeah, you gotta watch those cabs.”    

I didn’t even see a montage of my life flashing before my eyes. I only saw yellow, as in the hood of the taxi. Even the grim reaper discriminates.

I could have died. DIED. In my mind, there is no difference between me and the guy who survives a shark attack. Death is death, people. It’s time to take it seriously. And you can start by giving me a book deal.

I read this article and I want to talk about it. So, if you have the time, give ‘er a read and let me know what you think. Summary: it’s an article arguing that homosexuality is a choice. The author is a lesbian. I really found it intriguing and I want to hear what other people have to say about it.

In the meantime, I gotta write something fresh. I know it’s lame that I haven’t posted in a week, but that’s overtime for you, baby. Give me a day and you’ll have your precious post.

Many pro-life advocates agree that abortion is wrong in all circumstances except one: risk to the mother’s life.

I was thinking about this when I heard about Sarah Palin’s views on abortion. She maintains that in cases of rape and incest, abortion is deplorable, that all life has potential.

Sooo… does life not have potential if the mother has serious health concerns? And who is to say that the mother’s life is more important than the baby’s, and by what authority? This, my friends, is called grey area.

I find it remarkable how even the most black-and-white people will allow some grey on their own terms. Morality, to said people, is supposed to be objective. Something is either wrong or it’s right. Period. Stop. By their standards, if abortion is wrong then it should be wrong on all levels; there should be no concessions.

But there are always concessions, aren’t there?

This post has less to do with abortion and more to do with humanity and our (in)ability to referee. The short story is that we’re biased and illogical beings. We have no real place in the judgment seat because if placed in a similar situation, we would most likely make allowances and compromises-even if it’s not for immediate personal benefit. It goes beyond hypocrisy and into the realm of human impartiality. And there’s the age-old issue: can anyone be truly objective?

The black-and-white life is a hard one. One that requires you to know exactly what you believe and why. Because if you’re ever caught in situations where you can’t back yourself up, it only takes one blunder to lose all credibility. When you allow for grey, mistakes aren’t as damaging.

How could you be scared of him? Look at his face!!

I’m convinced that, before I moved into my neighbourhood, it was ruled by a tyrannical pack of dogs. Under their oppressive canine administration, every person within a 10-kilometre radius of my house was ritualistically bitten every morning before they left for work.

If I’m right about this, then my community’s fear of my puppy is completely rational. If wrong, then I live around some pretty messed up people.

My dog, Argo, is almost 6 months old. As a border collie/lab mix, he’s not small but he’s not huge either. Argo is a simple beast: he sniffs around, chases leaves, retrieves sticks and gives plenty of licks. For the most part, he’s a friendly pup with a refreshing joie-de-vivre. The point I’m making here is that he’s not a ferocious animal with insatiable bloodlust.

People in my neighbourhood have *literally* screamed, jumped out of the way, forced a person in between them and stepped onto (a busy) Bathurst Street when Argo has walked by. I’ve seen kids run away, baby boomers get nervous and elderly people stop in the street, waiting until Argo passes.

Yesterday, I was walking the dog and he got within 2 feet of an old woman walking ahead of us. He didn’t bark; he didn’t even touch her. He was just traipsing along the sidewalk. I had him restrained so he couldn’t get any closer to her, and just as I was about to pull him back, the woman turned around and tore me a new one. She rebuked me for scaring her.

I respect that not everyone can love dogs, but I think there’s a genuine sickness in my neighbourhood. It’s everyone, absolutely everyone.

I’m sorry that there isn’t a real message or take-away in this blog entry. But this is what’s on my mind. This is a part of my daily grind.

This article is the sort of thing that keeps me up at night.

I don’t think I need to get into the reasons why taking your nine-year-old daughter to get a bikini wax is a poor choice–it’s pretty obvious, or at least I hope it is. Of course this kind of parenting behaviour is extreme; I don’t know too many mothers who drag their girls to the spa every Saturday. But I do think “baby waxing” is an expression of a larger issue.

Sometimes, my boyfriend’s daughter will come over and ask me if I think she’s beautiful. I will reply with something like “you’re always beautiful.” If I ask her why she wants to know, she never has an answer. I think it’s just something she wants to hear.

It makes me sad when she asks. I think about how she’s only five and has the rest of her life to fret about how she appears. I want her to know that along with being beautiful, she’s smart and thoughtful and sweet. I want her to focus on things that really matter.

In her case, I’ve observed that the importance of beauty is emphasized in her home. She’s been encouraged to match her clothes and jewelry since I’ve known her. But I’m not ready to hold her mother solely responsible for her fixation. It’s a cultural thing, resting at the very root of socialization. We all praise little girls for how pretty they look in pouffy dresses and matching accessories; we buy them make-up kits and dolls to dress. We compare them to the Disney princess that looks the most like them[1].

I don’t want to make it sound like concern over appearance is inherently evil. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look your best and fashion can be great self-expression. But when beauty becomes the factor that determines how you perceive yourself as a person, it’s a dangerous game. And it’s one that we reinforce all the time.

The focus on appearance is one that it intensifies with age. It becomes a female’s currency in the heterosexual marketplace. The competition is over who is the prettiest, because the prettiest girl gets the most attention from the opposite sex. And it usually works backwards from there. All of this sounds petty, because that’s what adolescence is.

What if we started raising our girls using words like ‘intelligent’ and ‘talented’ and ‘kind’, instead of ‘adorable’ and ‘gorgeous?’ It might just change this whole marketplace so that the smartest (or nicest, or most considerate) girls get recognized. Character-building behaviour will be emphasized instead of who has the longest lashes. Then again, I just may be an idealist.

Until something changes, I wish the world’s little princesses the best of luck. All I can say is that I hope you’re not ugly or hairy, because if you are, you’ll have to work hard at the things you are good at. Sure your smarts will land you a job somewhere down the road, but not before you enter a deep depression of worthlessness and self-pity. Enjoy girls!