I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve just gotten a glowing review from the incredible Jane’s Guide. I feel like a proud mama! Woot!

They said:

This journal is sort of a combination of personal diary entries and how-to articles related to sex. Steff is a confident woman that approaches sexuality in a pragmatic and mature fashion, but doesn’t let that lead to a lot of stuffy language. Some of the most worthwhile advice I’ve ever seen about being a good lover is here, “Being a good lover is: A) Knowing what you like, dislike, and love. B) Knowing how to express your needs. C) Being open-minded without compromising yourself, whatever that might mean for you. D) Not judging your lover’s desires, but being true to yourself so you’re not going to resent them after the fact.” Great advice! She has many other articles with titles like “Kissing: Oh So Telling” and “Bondage for Beginners”. I recommend this one wholeheartedly! – Vamp

This has been a great start to my day!!

Now, if you’re coming here by way of Jane’s and Vamp, please note that I’m just in transition and all my postings (except the “lesser” archives) are getting transferred to their new home at my new site — www.smutandsteff.com. This site’s going nowhere, though. Please add S&S to your bookmarks as that’s where all my new postings will be showing up.

Also, I’ll soon be launching a new podcast, too. So keep an eye out for that.

Tee hee… I’m a happy girl. I’ve been trying to get Jane’s to review me for a while. Thanks, Vamp!

(Okay, a disclaimer. I will NOT be posting the private info of anyone who has contacted me through Craigslist. Everyone will remain anonymous. I will, however, air certain message contents if it illustrates a point, such as: There are people who say mean and crass things for the hell of it. One might wonder why I feel such things need to be illustrated, but the fact of the matter is, e-dating scares a lot of people, and one or two bad apples may turn that person off the e-dating for good — and may well mean they remain single and lonely. And THAT would suck. So, for all those out there with skin not so thick as mine, this is a post for you, all right?)

It’s nice to think that we have this big, shiny world filled with rules and manners and protocol, but the reality is, they’re all guidelines, and it’s a choice as to whether or not you want to join the party of good, decent folk. Sadly, some opt out of that party.

E-dating’s kinda like dating on steroids. Bigger, better, faster, and able to smother you in a blinding second. It’s even worse if you’re female.

I haven’t been inundated with responses to my ad, I’ve had about 60 responses in about 36 hours, but this time I had the smarts to post on the weekend, and by the time the workday rolls around and office slackers everywhere are looking for time to kill on Craigslist, my posting’ll be buried down low. Not quite as fresh of meat, so to speak.

And that’s just fine with me. Fact is, a lot of guys seem to have form letters they send in response, and you know it’s the case because they say NOTHING about your ad. Ignore those. Then there’re the bright guys who send a “You’re interesting” note with two lines and a phone number. And there are the ones who don’t include photos, even when it’s bluntly stated I won’t respond without one. There’s a lot of crap to wade through, is what I’m trying to say.

I find this whole thing rather overwhelming. The trouble is, you need to believe you’re everything you’ve said you are. I do, kinda, but I also remember all the voices in the back of my mind from the folks who decided to opt out of the party, and that’s the part that makes it so much harder.

Let’s put it bluntly. There are some real bastards out there in the world, people who are petty, or have the wrong intentions, or just have chips on their shoulder that make ‘em lash out.

Me, I’m a good gal. One of the nice bunch. I say what I mean, mean what I say, and try to be as nice as I’m able. I’ve been trying to send nice rejection letters out, since there are men who’ll never fit my mold. Most guys are really cool and take it well and wish me all the best. Hence the saying “Take it like a man”, you know?

But assholes abound, nonetheless. Let me give you just a few examples of the ones I’ve encountered. But, here, if you haven’t read the comment and don’t know where my ad is, why don’t you go ahead and read it, then? Click here. In it, I mention I blog, but since Craigslist won’t allow URLs, I had to be coy about where my blog is, et al, by way of giving my Scribe handle and telling ‘em to Google it.

The first notable dick was a guy who took time out of his clearly busy, involved life, to let me know I’m a legend in my own mind (my mind appreciates the notice since it appears to have missed that memo) and that a search of my name yielded just three or four hits. Yeah. Okay. (Google tells me it’s just under a thousand, not a huge number, but still cool.) Whatever. I didn’t claim I was Hemingway or some brilliant writer. Instead, I’m a chick chasing a dream. Some people clearly take issue with such naïve pursuits.

Then there’s this guy, “You seem to know how to write, creative and such, but than you focus on Partner in crime,………. what the heck does that really mean, is that just a loss for words, but you being the writer, must be a writers block. To me that means, lazy, no thought, non creatative and so on.”

I decided to leave his shitty grammar in because I feel like being petty. “Partner in crime,” Mr. Brilliant, means someone I plan to do a whole lotta-lotta sinning with. Lock the doors, turn off the phones, close the windows, call the coppers, ‘cos something nasty’s gonna go down.

Then there’s the guy that sent a few coy one-liners, including after I sent my photo, who I then politely told I was uninterested in because he didn’t know how to volunteer information. So, he responds, “All you have to do is ask, Kittycat.” Well. I don’t want to have to ask. I like a man who can express thought unprovoked. Naïve? No. I’ve dated them before. Functioning braincells, operational voiceboxes, powers of articulation. You know. The expressive man is not the Loch Ness Monster; he does truly exist. So, I said so kindly, at which point he said, “No skin off my ass. I lost interest when I saw your pictures.” Oh, that’s why you persisted in sending more responses? Right.

So, the moral of the story. If you post a public ad, develop a thick skin. There are jerks who will treat you badly. I, wisely or otherwise, posted a public ad that connects to something with my name attached – this blog. I’m trying to take the high road and respond to everyone politely ‘cos the last thing I need is someone spreading rumours that I’m a complete cunt. I recommend staying anonymous, if you can. I’ve done this publically before, and I’ll do so again. If I get a few extra hits, then that’s just spiffy.

But, in the midst of the dicks are some guys who offer a lot of promise. It’ll be hard figuring out into whose baskets to drop my eggs, but we’ll see how it turns out. I’m going slower this time. Last time, I cut off the competition on day two when a sort-of face from the past emerged. Ironically, if it’d been just two weeks later, he’d have shattered his leg and we’d never have met. There are some good aspects to that – I might’ve had an easier time of it at times and so forth, but I don’t know that I’d change anything that happened. I’d have gone through less hardship had we just been friends, but I’d have missed out on some good stuff, too.

So, now I’m going to take my time and see how things progress. I wish it were a little simpler, and wish I could be the heartless cunt that doesn’t let guys down gently, if at all, but I’m not. So, I’ll probably still get some more hate mail. I could be a total bitch and post them publically for all y’all just to get you rallying around me, but that’s beneath me, as I indeed travel the high road.

It was suggested that I might want to write about the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.

I’ve thought about it off and on for a while. The phrase “It’s not personal, it’s business” keeps ringing in my head, though, because this, baby, is business.

First, the campaign is brilliant. I relate to a lot of what it suggests about the media and the false ideal of beauty – how beauty is really a thing made these days and not a thing born. It’s an industry, beauty, but so too is advertising.

While I applaud the campaign, and I do rally behind its message, and I do think it’s high time someone said something, I won’t for a second pretend I can’t see some of the hypocrisy of just who’s being the messenger in this scenario.

Dove, a very nice soap indeed, is a Unilever brand. More than 150 million times a day, Unilever’s website states, someone somewhere in more than 150 countries internationally reaches for a Unilever-brand product.

They have a very big network of products – from Dove to Axe Body Spray to pharmaceuticals. They’re a very powerful player in the game of global industry. If their campaign for Real Beauty is serious, if they follow through and begin some kind of movement, then that’s wonderful. But they’re selling us Breyers Ice Cream and then marketing Slim Fast to us to take that ice cream off again. Some of their products have great mandates. Some, however, are perpetuating the very problem they’re pointing a finger at, like Axe Body Spray. If anyone ever used sex and idealized beauty as a sales tool, it’s the folks at Axe.

So, then, knowing full well who’s doing the talking (and, let’s face it, it could be worse) and all that preamble, let’s talk about the message.

It’s about time someone finally pointed out that the ideal of beauty in the fashion industry is more of a, well, let’s call it The Photoshop Factor, shall we? If you’re more pedestrian and like to use your HP Image tools, they’ve been so kind as to dumb down the latest greatest photographic trend. You betcha. It’s the “thinnify” action. Hell, all ya had to do before was reduce the width by 3-7%, but I guess they had to go and create the “reverse the 10 lbs” button.

Let’s face it. If being thin is so hard that not even models can pull it off, so they need to be “thinnified” then how in the hell is the majority of the population gonna pull off the ideal, huh? Who the fuck are they selling to, anyhow? And why are we putting up with it?

Models in magazines were airbrushed for forever. Now they’re CGI’d and gussied up in Photoshop. There is no real beauty. It’s a figment. Boys with their opaque view of sexuality got it into their heads that doing a little thinnifyin’ was the way to go. Oh, and get rid of that scar. No, no freckles. Can we give her a bit of a tan? Green eyes would pop on that skin, huh? Yeah, change it all and have the file uploaded by 3.

It’s a factory, is all. Like the old Heart song goes, they can’t sell ya what you don’t want to buy. You want the unreal beauties. You want the plastic Barbies. Something about a plain ol’ girl with freckles and jeans is too normal for you. So, instead, our media’s littered with false ideals. It’s like a Babylon on the rise. Crazy shit, man. Falsehoods abound, but, hey, the public’s buying.

Demand more. If it means getting behind a corporation that’s doctoring for itself a big ol’ bleeding heart love-thy-fellowman-and-thy-big-ass image, well, it’s probably better than the alternative.

And, sure, some of Unilever’s products sell themselves with sex, but they seem pretty straight and narrow, for the most part. Could be worse, you know, as far as big bad conglomerates go, that’s for sure.

The message in the Campaign for Real Beauty is one that needs to be heard, even if the messenger’s a little on the dubious side.

And while we’re talking about this, let’s mention that one of my readers smartly called me out for saying I needed money to become the person I wanted to become. She said I should know better than anyone that a woman’s glow comes from within, et al. Yes. Well. Perhaps so. I should know, yes?

I also know what it looks like when your clothes hang off ya or are too tight, and what a bad ‘do looks like, and so forth. In an ideal world, a woman’s glow would cut it, but if I’m a semi-vain human who knows where to draw the line, well, that’s a start. Beauty does cost money. We’re beautiful creatures and there’s nothing wrong with a little paint to enhance a good canvas, you know what I’m saying? But I don’t buy brand names and I think a $50 hairdo’s as good as a $300 and I’ve even bought clothes second-hand. There are different kinds of vain. Mine requires a budget, but it’s doable. I know what my style is, and I take nothing really from the media by way of influence.

‘course, I’d kill for a new leather jacket, too, eh? It’s about feeling good, yeah. Sometimes you need to spend some dollars, and most of us tend to be reasonable on that topic.

I am a stark-raving liberal. I care about my fellow Earth citizens. I think “luck” plays too great a role in the human condition. Why am I not some rural African dead or dying from AIDS? Why I am not subject to the ludicrous conditions and threat of rape in modern day South Africa? How did I luck out, born middle class, white, and reasonably happy in free North America?

Couldn’t tell ya. Is what it is. I’m grateful daily for who I am and where I am.

But, also, I am apalled by the western world’s lack of involvement in the African condition. After all, if it’s just luck, then why is theirs so goddamned bad?

It was about 120 years ago that the first-ever human rights campaign began. The birth of photography made it possible to document horrors happening, and it was first used to document the horrors of the rubber massacre at the end of the 19th century. The Congo was being obliterated by King Leopold and his Belgian bastards because of the discovery of rubber trees there (the birth of the auto made rubber, for tires, a highly prized natural resource until a synthetic form was invented much later). It was an attrocity that became the basis of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, upon which the movie Apocalypse Now was based. Head-hunting was a sport, one could claim. Nearly 10 million Africans were murdered in what became the first modern genocide… greater than the Holocaust.

In that 120 years, incredible tragedy has consistently clouded the continent. From genocide after genocide to drought and starvation and racial cleansing and horrific rape statistics, the continent serves as a reminder of just how much can go wrong when political instability is inflicted on a region. Throw into that mix a little climate intensity and general social unrest and you have the hottest hotbed in the world.

**

Y’know, Africa’s a part of the world I’d like to get lost and never found in. Something about that part of the world makes me wanna weep inside, the good way and the bad way. The cradle of civilization, indeed. If the earth is an animal, Africa is its pulsating heart. I wanna go, and bad.

But I really want to see it start to heal some. Believing in manifest destiny, white Europeans landed on Africa and decimated it for its bountiful and enviable natural resources. They brought firepower when Africans had only fire. The place has never recovered. Can’t we at least atone a little for the sins of our fathers? Just a bit?

So, I’m going to make a point of it in the next week to go to the Gap and buy a (Red) t-shirt. Bono of U2 fame and pal Bobby Shriver have come up with the idea. A (Red) brand shirt* will mean half the money goes to buy drugs for AIDS victims in Africa. Oprah bought shirts for her audience of 300, and that profit alone was enough to pay for the drugs to inhibit transmission of AIDS from a mother to her unborn child for 14,000 women.

More than providing cold hard cash for a problem that is more economic than it is anything else, though, is that it proves people care. It proves that western people WANT their governments to contribute to the global human condition in a positive, lasting way. It proves that we think they deserve to live, too.

I mean, you agree, don’t you? Then why doesn’t your government react? Buy a shirt.* Become a number. Become evidence. Become a powerful political platform. Become part of a movement that’s proving it feels good to give a shit. It really, really feels good.

Like that $20 was gonna go to something better, anyhow. Do it. Get (Red).

*Or shoes. Or blue jeans. Or an iPOD Nano @ Apple. Or a cell phone @ Motorola. (Red) is an entire line of products. All fall under the (approximately) 50%-to-AIDS-prevention/treatment guidelines for African charity proceeds.)

I’ve always been a tomboy.

When I was a kid, my most prized possession was my cowboy boots. Yep. I still remember the rage I felt that provoked me to take the extreme step of yanking off one of my beloved boots and hurling it across the yard at Devon’s head, when we were 8 and 9. I hit ‘im, too. Direct hit. That’s how much of a tomboy I once was. I’ve never thrown like a girl. He deserved it.

I never listened to the same pop music my contemporary chicks listened to. My movie collection looks like a guy’s. I never did the make-up parties. I never did “girl talk.”

Honestly, I’ve always wondered why I’m not a dyke, and the best answer I can come up with is that, well, they’re girls. I always liked playing rougher with the boys, so hey. Game on, y’know?

Back in the day, I despised going to Catholic school as a kid for a number of reasons, and at the top was that I had to wear tunics, then kilts, for more than a decade – daily.

There was a time in my late teens when I wore skirts recreationally, you know, outside of school and all. Then, I just stopped. I just swore off them. I hated skirts, I guess, for a number of reasons – insecurities, body image issues, a whole world of dumb-ass reasons have prevented me from wearing skirts since my youth.

In the last month or so, three or four skirts have been given to me. I’m mortified. I don’t know what to do now. I do know one thing, though: I’ve been rebelling against the whole tomboy thing for a while.

I last had my haircut at the end of July. I tend to like to do drastic things after a relationship ends when it comes to my hair, so I tried that this time, but with little success. The woman hacked off my bangs and a few other things that underwhelmed me. I was going for more of an Isabella Rosellini short-hair look, but it failed. I’ve been keeping my hair short-short for about three years now, and something in the last 6-8 weeks has snapped. I’m tired of it. I want to feel like a girl.

I’ve not had my hair cut in nearly three months now and it’s getting longish. Another three or four months and it’ll start looking like a bob, if you need a reference. My natural wave has returned and my hair’s doing some things I’ve never seen it do, despite having worn it down to my ass back in high school. (I once had a stranger approach me and say, “I’m married, so this isn’t a come-on, but you have the sexiest hair I’ve ever seen and I hope you never cut it.”) Stupidly, I did cut it, and it never grew back right since. Until maybe now.

I’m loving it, actually. My eyes are popping now, my lips look fuller. This hair’s working for me, so I now need to decide how much further I want to take it. And in there are some real identity issues. Something about this hair is reminding me of being 9 and 15, some pretty formative years. It’s having me ask a lot of questions of how I went from what I wanted to be to becoming what I am today, and just… you know. Am I happy with myself? I was, for a while, but now I want more. I want to be better. Inside and out.

I’m on the verge of revamping my identity both internally and externally. I’m really trying to change the way I feel. I don’t think I should be so repelled by the thought of being feminine, and over the last year, I’ve taken baby steps. I play cuter for the boys when the thought crosses my mind. I get how to be that little kitten-ish type female, but I can still dial into the girl within me, the one who throws like a boy.

The most recent major step in this revamp was to buy pointy-toed high-heel shoes. Yep. Some serious clickers there. I’ve always been the Doc Marten-boot or clunky-heel chick. The type who wears cargo pants while vamping up with eyeliner and painted lips, you know? Some days work better than others. But real, genuine heels have never been in my wardrobe. Sure, nice cute flats, etc, but never heels like these. These are the kinda heels a girl wears when she knows she ain’t comin’ home alone tonight, you know what I’m saying?

I’ll tell you what prompted me. I may be straight, but I appreciate the aesthetic of the female body. Do I ever. I was going into my new/old job and on the first day, a couple weeks back, and I came to a stop right behind this chick on a bicycle. She had these cute tight faded jeans rolled to mid-calf, a light white sweat jacket fitting smartly on all her curves, and she’s got her left leg down for balance – on the back of the calf, a nice tattoo of a broken heart, and then she had a 3” heel on either foot. Never have I wished I had my camera more than right then.

Fuck, man. That was h-o-t. I just thought, “Shit.” That’s the kinda gal I’d get all tangled up with if I went that way, you see. And I’m not it. I’d never have those heels on that bike. And why not? That’s precisely the kind of rule I love to break, and, in a way, it completely suits me. But I’m not it. Yet.

Doesn’t it make sense, though? You want to feel and look the way you think “hot” is defined, don’t you? I’m never, ever gonna be hot in the Britney Spears sort of way, and never do I want to be. I’m more turned on by the girl next door from your childhood who can really kick your ass now. You know the type. You’re secretly really wishing to lose a wrestling match with her? Yeah. That’s my style. I’m working towards that.

I guess I’m getting to that point, though, where I feel like I’m moving past all the troubles that have been my 2006, finally, and I feel like I want to have something to show for it, externally. I’d like to get a tattoo sometime next year, for instance, and I want to master these new high heels I have. I’ve never gone higher than 1.5 inches before. I have height issues. What can I say? I’m a pussy.

Starting this weekend, I’m taking my new heels on walks for the next week or two. Then, I will have to arrange a girl’s night on the town and see if I can play a good little skirted girl for the masses. There’s this cute pink-and-cream skirt I want to show off.

Now I’m in a strange headspace. I’m acknowledging to myself that I’m not really what I find attractive. I’m close, but I’m not quite there. To get there, I need more money. Sigh. But maybe I can fake it after all.

This is the new, improved World of Steff.

Consider this, then, Steff v2.0. Steff on “go” juice. Okay, no, not that. This is my new home.

The long and the short of it is pretty simple: I was interviewed on the radio and the hostess couldn’t use my blog’s name because it had a durty word in it. I couldn’t get listed in any non-sex mainstream blogs because I had a durty word in the blog name. Ironically, it was the name “Cunting Linguist” that first brought all my curious readers.

“Why, who’s putting the “cunt” into “Cunting,” I wonder?”

Me! Me!

Sadly, the gig is up. The name Cunting Linguist took me as far as I could go, and if I want to make a living from this, I need to take a fresh stab at things.

What kind of content will you get here? Well, much the same as at the Cunt. If anything, the posting freqency might go down, but that’s because I work 40 hours, have a podcast to record, and am now beginning to be more conscious of quality versus quantity, and I’m wanting the former but have been achieving the latter. The tables are due for a turning.

Issues that I consider of greatest interest to me, myself, and I include:

• The unlikely ideal of beauty as portrayed by the media.
• The struggle to love oneself and the importance of understanding your body image in the “grand scheme” of things.
• Sex in politics.
• Politics in sex.
• Education.
• Putting my spin on the world at large.
• Having fun.
• Playing safe.
• Overcoming adversity/disappointment.

And some things I’ve not tackled enough: Life after abuse, coming to terms with what you deserve, having the courage to take chances, and some more things gathering cobwebs in the attic of my mind.

Yes, the Cunting Linguist will one day cease to be. For now, I’ll be first posting here and shadow-posting on the Cunt. But if you could update your links sooner rather than later, I would be an appreciative Steff.

Thanks for all the loyalty, people. It really rocks.

And speaking of the podcast: After three solid months of having one stupid technical problem after another, I have finally solved the issues. I’m now beginning to record, so it’s finally starting to feel like a reality. I’m sorry it’s taken so long, but since this is to be our first time getting together aurally, I wanted it to be something special, and I’m trotting out all my tricks in order to try and bring the bang I feel such a union deserves. Stay tuned. Thanks for your patience.

Surprisingly, I don’t get as many negative comments as I would have expected, considering the volume of comments I get through here. Now and then, though, someone does leave something dick-ish, or just plain stupid.

The other day was one such day. Someone left a bit of a rude comment accusing me of wanting to be the Dr. Ruth of the BDSM crowd and how my advice was not expert advice, ergo a grain of salt should be consumed by anyone taking my advice.

Well, duh. Thanks, genius.

I have indeed said it before and I will say it again: I am NOT an expert. NOTHING I say should be taken as “real” advice. Any tips I give are from MY EXPERIENCE only.

I am not an expert. I am, however, an enthusiast.

And I’ll tell you something else: I have no wishes of being the Dr. Ruth for the BDSM crowd. I am utterly removed from the BDSM crowd. I’ve never really done any serious toying there, but the older I get the more curious I’m finding myself. Still, I know nothing, not really. My “intro to bondage” is actually the piece that raised this dude’s rancor, so let’s tackle that for a second.

My “intro to bondage” is perfect for people who are entering that area completely ignorant of what to do. Dude took issue with my saying how *I* will go and run off to the kitchen to get a few things with my submissive fellow all tied up. Dude said no one should ever be abandoned when bound. Strictly speaking, dude was right, and the content of that comment was pretty spot-on, but the delivery left a lot to be desired. And that’s why comments are enabled — so others can weigh in.

So, yes, I’m a bad little bondage girl and I abandon my bound subs. However, my kitchen is literally 15 feet from my bedroom, and any man lucky enough to find himself tied up in my world winds up under my constant supervision, even if I’m 15 feet away. And everyone should take heed to ensuring their submissives are being watched good and close.

If you want an intro to all things BDSM, this is probably not the spot to get it. I’m thinking about tackling more topics in that realm, but not just yet. Like I say, I’m not really big on that whole world.

But let’s get back to the “enthusiast” bit. I’m not an expert. I’ve never taken any courses in psychology or human sexuality. I’ve never gone sleeping my way around town for better working knowledge. I’ve not read every sex book ever written. I have no real credibility for writing about any of this shit.

It’s a blog. Get a fucking grip, right? And that goes for anyone who takes me too seriously. This is a blog. I take great pride in it, but it’s not a job. Not yet. I don’t have the time to edit every posting perfect and make sure things I post have no flaws. That’s just reality. Sometimes, I come up a little short. C’est la vie.

Whatever I say, I say it only as a natural response. I’m smart, I’m well-read, I’m open-minded, I’m thoughtful, and I have a pretty good cause-and-effect meter. Therefore, I write about things from my POV. If you missed the “You are entering the world of Steff’s rant and whimsy” sign upon entry, then take another look.

I suppose the next step is that I’m going to post a legal disclaimer on my new bloggie. You know, just in case anyone’s silly enough to think my advice should trump a medical professional’s. Sheesh.

And to the 90% of you who seem cool enough to know it’s just a blog, thanks!

It was a Canadian long weekend — I think the States had one too — and turkey was had by all. Happy belated Thanksgiving, my fellow Canucks.

The holidays tend to depress me. I’ve got one parent dead and six feet other, and every holiday reminds me how, sooner or later, that number’s changing to two. It’s looking sooner than later by the looks of my dad, so I’m feeling a little sad and scared, really. I feel like his counter’s officially counting down now as his diabetes looks like it’s winning the battle they’ve been fighting. Suffice to say, I’m in the right mood to have found this website.

I don’t really have a lot to write about today, though, as it’s been a busy weekend.

I’ve thinking a lot of my dad and taking the chance that he doesn’t read this blog at all, by posting here, but if he was to read it, that’d be fine too. I love my dad, even though we’re cut from very different cloths. I’m much more into culture and I’m more worldly than he his. He’s more of a bingo player than anything, really. But I still love him, even though we’ve got nothing in common.

I tell him I love him and have tried to make him see that I’d like to ensure he’s around down the road for me. If I do marry, I’d like him to see it happen. If I do become the success I’d like to be, I’d like to have a shoulder squeeze and giddy smile from my pop.

But he eats horribly. He will eat any and all things, and he’ll even have wine, though he’s been told his heart can’t handle it. He’s diabetic, and he has weeping ulcers on his leg, and worse. And, me, I remember I’m not that far off from being a little girl after all. I saw him yesterday, and I would be surprised if I was very wrong about how long he might be around. I’m scared, I’m sad, I’m feeling a little alone.

Worse is, I remember the day I looked at my mom and knew she wouldn’t be around for another year — long before a doctor’s diagnosis ever confirmed anything.

I’ve gone through some phases with some anger in the last week, moments when I feel terribly guilty, as if my mother’s death was my fault as a result of my inaction after my suspicions began. My father, though, has long known of my concern and chooses to ignore it. I now avoid him a bit, but mostly because it breaks my heart every time I go over and see how much he’s not doing to improve his health. I can’t sit idly by as someone so obviously decides not to choose life in front of me, you know?

All things considered, I’d rather have a hug. What can I say? Holidays suck when it means you’re constantly realizing that parents won’t be around much longer. Yeesh. It’s hard to watch someone slowly lose a battle to a disease. The five-minute cancer death of my mother’s was easier, in some respects. Sigh. Well, one major holiday down, one to go.

(I wasn’t meaning to write two posts today, so, hey. Lucky you. Seeya on the weekend.)

The greatest gift the internet provides us with is universality. Through it, we have become Hillary Clinton’s Global Village. Through a series of microchips and fibre-optic wires, a person in Nantucket can wake up and realize they’re having the exact same kinda day as their favourite blogger in Guayana. Suddenly the human condition isn’t caught in only brief snippets in plays and movies. Now, it’s all over the world wide web.

It’s with great irony that blogging has become such a public way of revealing the private self. Anonymity allows for nearly anyone to open up the wellsprings and let it flow for the world at large to be a part of. The anonymouses of the world, aware of just how little voice they have in day to day life, are speaking pretty loud and clear these days.

Every now and then, someone comes along who’s able to tap into the darker currents that course through their innerselves. Every now and then, someone captures that elusive truth of what makes the human condition such a mesh of experiences — the highs, the lows, the sub-terranean depths of it all. And it’s all free. With an ISP, you can log into the wired world and tap into someone feeling, experiencing, being everything you relate to. And that’s a good thing.

It’s an even better thing when we realize just how much some people need to find that commonality. I’ve been through some pretty dark times, and that does not make me exceptional. It makes me pretty plugged into that universality I mentioned earlier, the proverbial Matrix. Of course our pains and loves and triumphs and losses are things we understand only up until a certain point. It’s so mysterious. Such a muddled mess to wade through. When others can express what we feel, well, suddenly it’s like we’ve had a light shine onto us. Wow, that’s my sentiment exactly. And there you are, in your own skin, feeling just like I do. Why, we’re not so very different after all. Thank God, it’s true: I’m not alone.

Loneliness is quite possibly one of the worst feelings I’ve ever endured. Hopelessness is hard, too. So’s plain old fear. I’ve been there, done that, didn’t want the ugly ass t-shirt.

I got to spend just under three years with my mother before she died. I’d left town, moved to the Yukon, fell in love with Northern Lights and wide-open spaces and that silence that bludgeons you dumb (as Robert Service once said), but the expense of living in the great white north just about crippled me. Too dumb to live within my means, I came home to Vancouver at 22, my tail between my legs, and some $35,000 in debt, sans job. I moved back home and stayed there, at first because I had no choice, and then because I realized something was wrong with my mother (though it would be some time before the cancer was diagnosed; take it from me — if you suspect something’s seriously wrong with a loved one, do not follow the complacent course I took — get them to a doctor. Get involved. I wish I had).

But when I arrived home, late one night my mother had had a couple glasses of wine and said to me, “Don’t ever leave me like that again. I couldn’t bear the quiet.” And I never left her again. I would have, but she beat me to the punch.

Being alone is hard. There is nothing I feel more empathy and understanding towards than people who fear aloneness. And while it would seem to be an easy fix — it’s a big world, getting bigger every day, billions of others walk this terrain, just like you, and all you seemingly need to do is step outside your four walls — nothing seems harder when you’re on the other side of it.

The walls seem thicker, others seem happier, things just keep happening, and all the while, you’re experiencing none of it. An outsider peering in. It’s like some puppetmaster is holding strings and keeping you back from it all.

Unfortunately, that’s often your choice.

I write from time to time about all the injuries I experienced over the last few years. In one year, I was on crutches for more than 20 weeks. I’ve never felt as alone as I did then. There were a lot of long, quiet nights, and I felt pretty abandoned by the world at large. It was during all that that I first turned to blogging. A lot’s gone down since then, and while I’m often playing the solitary game, it’s pretty much by choice these days. I’m single now, but I’ve had a couple recent chances to change that status and have passed on ’em. Partly because I wasn’t ready, and partly because I really don’t mind being a party of one. It works well with the writing gig.

But being injured did force me to learn that others were there when I wanted them, and, more importantly, when I needed them. All I had to do was speak. Out of all the lessons I’ve learned in my life, learning to ask for help has been the one I’m most proud of. Learning how to admit that I need someone or something has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I’m a proud, proud woman, and I have been reduced to fucking dust at times in the last few years. I’ve realized something, though, that it’s in that dust that something new in me began to grow. I realized that reaching out, asking for help, allowed others to give. It allowed them to be there when I needed it, and allowed them to feel like they were really contributing to me and my life. It profoundly changed my closest relationships, and the friends who stood by me then, I know they’ll always be there.

So many of us never really let our friends and family be there for us. We let our pride fuck with us and we tell ourselves our loved ones are too busy. We fail to realize that most people hang around the peripheral, waiting on us to speak up and tell them what we need — because they know we’d be there for them if the tables were turned.

So, if you’re among the lonely and you feel you’ve been abandoned, well. You might just be surprised. It’s more that people are busy, they get involved in their lives, but somewhere in the back of their minds, they’re waiting for you to speak up, to tell them they’re wanted around, or that you just plain need’em. What are you waiting for?

Every now and then, I get reminded of how dumb corporate America really is. This is the tab on the Always Slim Maxi with Wings. You pull this off, and you adhere it to your panties. I’ve mentioned this before, but now I’ve photographed it for proof. Dumbasses.

Have a Happy period? And what part of it is supposed to be the happiest — the cramping, the irritability that has successfully been used as a defense in murder, the occasional staining of sheets and underwear, the fact that it costs $10 a month in products, the inability to play/do certain sports, like swimming? Which part is supposed to make me happy, huh?

Here’s a memo, Corporate America: I bleed because I have to. I bleed only because biology deems it necessary. I’ve tried to suppress the bastard through drugs, but when I became a murderous, depressed bitch, I decided that bleeding was an only slightly better option, because then my murderous depression would at least be on the clock.

And you fucking know this slogan was written by some mama’s boy who’s always the first to show up on holidays and who tries to constantly please every woman in his life.

Happy ain’t part of the gig, man. I’d be more loyal to a product that called it like it is. How’s this:

Your period sucks, and we know it. That’s why we’ve made the best product we can. Here’s hoping it makes things just a little better for you today. Oh. And don’t kill anyone. Here’s 50 cents off your next bottle of Midol.