Monster

I know I'm not the only one who used to be deathly afraid of stepping off my bed too close to the edge. If I had to get out of bed for some reason in the middle of the night, I would jump out as far as I could so that the monsters that may or may not have been under the bed couldn't grab me by the ankle and pull me under. I knew that there probably wasn't anyone under the bed. I knew that if there was someone under the bed, chances are they'd wait til I was sleeping to grab me and tear me into pieces. Duh. That's what I'd do.

When I was a kid I hated horror movies. HATED them. I once saw Freddy Kruger rip the tongue out of a guy's face. For 2 years after that I slept with the covers over my head. My older sister successfully kept me from sneaking into her room by hanging a giant flag of Freddy in front of her door way, until my mom made her take it down. Even then just the knowledge that the image of Freddy was somewhere in that room kept me from snooping. Freddy can come alive out of almost anything you know!

When I finally faced my fears in highschool - Freddy was the first monster I confronted. I watched every single Nightmare on Elmstreet. And Freddy turned out to be kinda funny. So I continued my quest to face the best monsters of Hollywood. Next, came the vampires, whose sexy immortality fueled my immagination for years. I understand the popularity of vampires. Teen vampires bore me. Remember Anne Rice? She wrote bloodthirst without all the garbage about vampire/human love. Vampires shouldn't be nice. They should be killers! Humans are just meat! This was a necessary lesson for me. So when at long last the zombies slowly dragged their oozing corpses into my life, I could understand the theory.

Everybody has a favourite monster, and mine is a mindless mob of festering drones. Devestation of the human race is a preoccupation of mine, and zombies give me a good pretext for avoiding crowds, shopping malls and the mindless automatons that frequent these places: just in case. Zombies are my number one reason for getting in shape. I run up the stairs of my building to train for that day when the human race gets infected with whatever virus causes the dead to return to life to eat brains. When they come - I hope I'll be in good enough shape to run to the nearest armory for supplies.

But what does our favourite monsters say about us? Do I use my love of zombies to keep the general populous at bay (just in case they want to feast upon my massive nogin?). Does my best friend's love of vampire romances mean that she secretly has a thing for bloodsucking immortals? Maybe. To each their own.

All I know is that in my mind, it was never really a monster under the bed. It was a real person, with untold desires to do heinous things to me if I had the gall to get out of bed before morning. The fear was not of Freddy, or Dracula but of real men with the capability of consience to really be heartless. Zombies aren't scary. They move slow, and they're stupid. Its the droves of mindless consumers who really scare me. Real people are fast and surprisingly clever when it comes to fulfilling their questionable cravings.

So excuse me if while you and I are standing in a crowd, I seem distracted. I'm just working out my escape route and looking for something I can use as a bludgeon, just in case.

G

So much to do so little time...

I'm not one of those people who would ever be content with conventional life. You know the image I'm talking about: the husband, a litter of precocious kids, 2.3 pets of various mortality rates,flower pots, a car, gardening on the weekends in canvas gloves, bake sales where everyone makes the same nanaimo bars, grandma's silverware, and flower embossed plates.

These things are lovely, and I'm not going to lie and say that these aren't things that I want. I would love to be satisfied with such a picturesque life. But in my hands, these things would not be picturesque for long.

That husband would soon be overweight thanks to all the mac and cheese I'll stuff him full of; the precocious kids would probably drive me to drink (as precocious kids tend to do); the 2.3 pets would be one by one, flushed down the toilet due to neglect, and then I'd probably have plumbing troubles, cause you aren't supposed to flush puppies down the toilet; I'd trip over the flower pots in a drunken stumble, crash the car and leave the garden to the grubs and aphids; grandma's silverware would tarnish, or get pawned, and the flower plates? Well I'd probably smash them upon sight. Flower plates? Who wants to eat off those?

My life will be something different. There are so many things I want to do in my life. Just the lessons alone would render my poor children motherless. Here's a taste of all the things I want to learn:
1. Spanish
2. French
3. Painting - proper painting - not this amateur stuff I'm passing off for art now.
4. Dancing: flamenco, belly, swing, pole - you name it, I wanna be able to do it.
5. Cooking - so I don't have to live off mac and cheese anymore
6. beekeeping
7. stunt driving
8. mountaineering
9. Highdiving
10. Curling
11. Luge
12. Skiing
13. Sewing
14. carpentry
15. Welding
16. Skydiving
17. Yoga
18. Capoera

Really, with all these things on the horizon, who has time for a regular life? Plus there are a few hundred places in the world I still want to visit, and no one wants to be on a 12 hour flight with a bunch of precocious children.

G

The Hangover

My friend just turned 28. Because I'm a few years older, I take pleasure in reminding her how close to 30 she's getting. She hates that. But I think when she does turn thirty she'll take it in stride just to piss me off. When I turned thirty it took me a month to be able to say my age out loud. She still gasps when I admit it openly.

So she had a birthday party. Since she lives in the same building as I do, this makes for a very uncomplicated but messy elevator ride home. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The party was planned weeks in advance via a facebook invitation. It's always a little nerve wracking to watch a guest-list develop and according to facebook there was only supposed to be like 7 guests, all of whom were girls. And though there is nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned hen-party, I'm very glad that the boys did show up. It cut back on the recurrance of reproductive issues in most conversations.

So because I live 5 floors beneath my friend, I got blattered! I had a great time. I was the resident head-hunter, hiccough curer, and dance party starter. Though I'm not sure if you could call me demanding my more coordinated friends teach me to ball change, grapevine and box step would qualify as a true "dance party". Some of us were attempting to dance and I believe I was a major player in that activity - from what I remember.

All in all a great night. But oh, I know you can commiserate with me when I say - "Why do I do this to myself?" I woke up the next morning with black liquid eyeliner rimming my eyes like a racoon. At the time the worst thing about my state was that I felt like I had just finished licking the furry balls of a cat who relieves himself regularly in an ash-filled litterbox. Other than that I was hungry but otherwise fine.

So breakfast. Oh greasy bacon, egg yoke and peanut butter on toast! Thou art my saviour in my darkest ugliest times! When breakfast was finished I thought all would be well, but when I stood up I realized that the entire lower portion of my body had begun to cramp and stiffen painfully. I walked home as if I had just gotten off a horse. I used this as an excuse to lay on my couch for most of the day watching British soap operas and procrastinating my homework.

By nine o'clock I managed to finish my homework and groan my sad 30 year old self into bed - thanking god that the hangover would certainly be gone by the next day.

It wasn't.

Since when do hangovers last two-days? In my experience the hangover should be doled out in equal portions to the amount of partying. I've had 2 day hangovers, but that was only because I had partied for 2 days straight! 2 day hangovers should only occur if you've had more than 4 different types of alcohol. I was drinking red-wine exclusively! So where did today's gut-rot and blinding headache come from?

Is this karmic retribution for my light-hearted teasing of my younger friend? Was I supposed to let that charming man in the tie die of hiccoughs? I don't deserve this! It's because I'm thirty isn't it? Well, my friends, it would seem that alcohol is not the good-time party-buddy we thought he was. Alcohol is a ageist jerk, and maybe I should think twice before inviting him to a party in the future!

Who am I kidding? It was probably just the onion dip.

G

Sexapalooza

Last night, I found myself paying $20 to get into Sexapalooza a sex-trade-show. Someone had mentioned that Sexapalooza was coming to town and I figured that since I've never been to any kind of Palooza at all, I'd make this my first.

As my 2 single-girl friends and I wandered down the main street to the convention centre, I was cool as a cucumber. Sex is so just part of everyone's lives. I'm totally cool with my sexuality, and I'm cool with everyone else's too. I think I may have even strutted just a little, thinking about howI would capture this oh-so-Carrie-Bradshaw experience in an understated Times font.

But as we got nearer and nearer to the convention centre I began to worry a little that I might give myself away as a sex-trade-show nube. I've been in sex shops before sure; I even went to the sex museum in Amsterdam once. I silently reminded myself as I paid for my ticket 'Don't be awkward. Don't be awkward. Please, for once in your life G, don't be awkward.'

Greeting us in the entrance was a giant plastic vagina. I picked up the matching giant plastic penis and took advantage of the photo op. Totally not awkward.

The first booth was full of cheap plastic vibrators and vinyl nurses outfits. Not awkward, but not what I was interested in. The next booth was called "Clitoraid", a charitable organization fronted by an awkward Stuart-Smalley type man in blue eyeshadow and ugly pink lipstick. We chatted about how successful clitoris rebuilding surgeries can be. 'I'm so progressive' I told myself.

But the next booth was a trap. It was a simple booth with bowl of chocolates and free condoms. I helped myself, and as I stuffed my face with chocolate hearts, a pretty girl approached me with free tickets to a gentleman's club, despite the fact that I am not a gentelman.

"Oh! A Gentleman's club!" I spat out. "Are you..." but I paused. Is it wrong of me to assume that just cause these fine ladies are manning the booth for a gentleman's club that they're performers there as well? If I finish this statement will I be committing some kind of sex-trade-show gaff? G, I reminded myself. Just cause they're spending their weekend handing out free tickets to a titty-bar does not make these women strippers. But my hesitation was noticed. My cheeks flushed a Stuart-Smalley-lipstick shade of pink.

"Don't be shy. Ask anything. You want to know if we're dancers." A towering blonde prompted me out of my dumb freeze.

"Yeah, thank god, I didn't know if it was ok to ask."

"Actually we're the bartenders." Another girl said.

"Oh! Well that must be a fun job." In my head I'm telling myself to move along. You've been saved G, but if you spend too much time here... "Sorry I'm a little awkward, it's weird for me to be here."

"Why?" the blonde asked.

"Awkward" noted my friend who just walked up behind me to witness the stumbling conclusion of this exchange.

"Oh I uh, its not. It's just not what I uhh... Thanks for the chocolate condoms, I mean chocolate and condoms.. uh." Crap.

New Sexapalooza rule. Don't talk to the strippers.

The rest of the night was spent cruising a variety of booths, looking for that perfect corset, testing vibrator settings and textures (on my hand-you sickos), and making a mental list of sex-toys I could make at home, from a candy-necklace thong to a beaded penis ring - or bracelet? I don't know what the proper term for it would be but I don't think I should have to pay $30 for it.

By the time we had left, the pink had faded from my cheeks and I was more comfortable with my kinky side, but still not totally cool with girls who may or may not be strippers. On my wishlist for next Christmas? A Leather corset with buckles and hooks, not zippers and a mustache trimmer.

G.

The Unanswered Question

As a single woman in her late-twenties I am often faced with the challenge of graciously answering a very stupid question. (Ok fine, I'm thirty. I mean "late-twenties" in the same way you might say "late-husband".)

Now, I'm a teacher, and like most teachers I have been known to say "there are no stupid questions". But there is an exception. I teach mainly adults, and I use that term loosely. Many of my students are teenagers, or in their early twenties. I have long suspected this period of maturity to be akin to toddlerhood. Most are still bottle-fed, over-indulged, whiny cry-babies, and in my line of work I get the broken sentences and sparse vocabulary to boot!.

Most of the students I have come from varying degrees of traditional cultures. In most of these cultures a thirty year old woman that's not yet married, engaged, or widowed is often viewed with varying degrees of curiosity, pity, or suspicion. The problematic question arises when students (or children), unaware of cultural taboo feels that my love-life (or lack thereof) is as easy for me to explain to them as grammar or pronunciation patterns.

So when a young, newlywed student, or honest-to-god toddler asks me "Teacher/G, why you no marry?" I have an appropriately flippant response prepared.

"Ahmed (or Mohamed, or Jin Su, or Juan, or little Johnny)," I say calmly "I'm not married because I have no room in my apartment to keep a husband." (If this question is posed by a real toddler, the topic is usually dropped. It makes as much sense as when their mommy tells them they can't have a pet elephant because there simply isn't enough room for one. )

But Ahmed (who may just have a pet elephant or two back home in Saudi Arabia for all I know) says "But teacher, you marry man. Coming to apartment new, big!"

"But Ahmed, I like my small apartment. Men are dirty like elephants." Ahmed thinks about this for a moment. Something doesn't make sense to him.

"Teacher, you have brother? Father?"

"Yes, Ahmed"

"Teacher, they are dirty?"

"I don't live with my father or brother, Ahmed. They live far away." The gears turn audibly.

"Teacher!" Ahmed is desperately trying to make sense of this strange culture where single women are permitted to roam free. "You no live with you father? Only you?"

"Yes, Ahmed. I like it."

"But teacher, you marry to husband you no work. You go shopping."

"But Ahmed, I don't need a husband if I work. "

"But children teacher! You must marry for children!"

"I don't want children." I tell him honestly. "I don't need a husband." This is where it all makes sense. Teacher doesn't want children. Teacher can be single. Teacher will go to hell for all eternity, but teacher does not need a husband. Poor silly western woman all alone in her tiny apartment.

The reason this question bothers me is not really because its so personal but because it really never has a sufficient answer. In traditional cultures, my preference to live childless is suffient reason to not have a husband. But in the west, this is no reason to live solo. Everyone expects to meet that perfect someone that will share the same goals and dreams and help you pay the rent, children or no. The question gets worse when its asked by a kid who doesn't stop at "no room in the inn", and is aware that culturally everyone is looking for their soulmate. Inevitably the real question arises.

"What's wrong with you?"

And I inevitably answer it just as flippantly with "I'm too tall. I'm afraid I will trip over him."

Which really, if I answered honestly, is not too far from the truth.

G.

Magnifesto

There is a part of me that is always trying to overcome my faults, but there is another, much more persuasive side of me that is quite happy to accept that all the faults I see in myself are the very things that make up who I am and have always been and so I've sometimes been known to revel in, even celebrate the very traits which I often attempt to exorcise. This is no less of a fair description for how I feel about humanity in general. On one hand all the ignorance, stupidity, and foolishness of human beings makes me crazy with fear, shame and intense disgust. On the other hand if none of you were fucked up - I'd be the only ass left still trying to lug my baggage up this big ol' mountain of crap we call life.

I've always been a procrastinator. Why do today what you can put off til tomorrow? I've also recently taken up the habit of taking on more work than a procrastinator has any right to commit to. Currently, I have 2 part-time jobs, I'm trying to get ready for my first (as of yet not scheduled) art show, and I'm taking 2 courses a semester in Linguistics. So, rather than spend this fine evening on any of those things, I've decided to start a blog. Perfect!

In my life, I've read two blogs. Both were in the last few days. I once heard a writer waxing on about the degradation of modern writer's craft in the new blogosphere (I guess its not so new anymore). He went on and on about how our expectation of good writing is being destroyed by this stream-of-consciousness lack-of-editing style of communication. At the time, in my ever so smug English-Lit-BA-toting mind, I thought "here! here!" Who wants to read these people's self-serving uncrafted garbage anyways? Well I still certainly don't, but you might, and I will now officially stop judging you for that.

Thanks to the following two blogs, I am now a blogger too.

philbertun.blogspot.com
raymitheminx.com

G.

A Brief Glossary of Terms

prorogue [prəˈrəʊg]
vb

(Law / Parliamentary Procedure) to discontinue the meetings of (a legislative body) without dissolving it

[from Latin prorogāre literally: to ask publicly, from prō- in public + rogāre to ask]

prorogation [ˌprəʊrəˈgeɪʃən] n

perfection [pəˈfɛkʃən]

n

1. the act of perfecting or the state or quality of being perfect

2. the highest degree of a quality, etc. the perfection of faithfulness

3. an embodiment of perfection

[from Latin perfectiō a completing, from perficere to finish]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 6th Edition 2003. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

Gin also: jinn, djinn (jn)
n.pl
In Muslim legend, a spirit often capable of assuming human or animal form and exercising supernatural influence over people.

[from Arabic jinn, demonic, demon, from jinn, demons, from janna, to cover, conceal; see gnn in Semitic roots.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.