Fashion. I teeter between giving a shit and not giving a shit at all when it comes to fashion. But I acknowledge that clothes can be a way to distinguish yourself in this visual culture of ours, while also making room for self-expression, using no words at all.
Fashion communicates.
But what does it say?
I’m still processing the content of this video, which features swimsuit designer Jessica Rey, talking about the value of modesty in swimwear; its evolution.
When she mentioned the Princeton study, about how men “see” women in a bikini, I thought, “huh?” – and then I started this post..
Aren’t men accountable for their thoughts, like women? I wonder about these “studies” – who are these so-called subjects they study when they make these studies happen?
Question everything.
So what do you think about swimsuit modesty and female bodies in a bikini? And does modest swimwear need a revival, for the sake of male/female interaction?
Should women seek to be extra-modest in order to ‘prevent’ the male brain from shutting down, as the so-called Princeton study suggests (fast forward to around 4:45 mins to hear about it).
Just a thought, as I continue to read comments this morning about Darius, the boob-toucher.
You tricked me and for that, I’ve put a curse on you.
When you called out “Meligrove! Meligrove!”, as I was walking down Queen St., minding my own business and shit, I thought you were referring to the t-shirt I was wearing, which bears the emblem of one of my favorite local bands ever, The Meligrove Band.
Nobody really gives a shit about this band, other than their real fans, like me, and a few other dozen people. So, to hear “Meligrove! Meligrove!” made me feel happy – and open – and willing to talk to you about THE BAND.
You mentioned something about seeing the band play live in 2009. We commiserated on this for a second, because I was also at that show. I think. I could have been high. Not drunk, though, I rarely drink.
Then, once you had me in smiles, talking about music and our mutual respect for Meligrove, you decided that it was the right time to touch me.
Yep.
Just like that, you lifted your grimy, masturbation hands to my hooded sweatshirt, grazing my boob and asking me in a low, pervy voice: “Aren’t you hot in this thing? You should take it off.”
Asshole.
Who raised you? A rapist, probably.
Let me tell you something about women, you piece of useless shit: we don’t walk the Earth to be looked at, touched or even admired. We’re here, like your sex, to keep the population progressing from one generation to the next, dabbling in all sorts of human experiences, none of which involve your hand near my tits.
I’m guessing you do this to a lot of women and, sadly, you would probably try this with underage girls, too. You strike me as that kind of guy, Darius.
Oh, how do I know your name? Because immediately after I told you to fuck off, you called out, “Sandy and Darius, forever!”, which made me hate you more, mostly because the sound of my name coming from your mouth was gross.
And how do you know my name? Remember, you called me “darlin'” I told you that wasn’t my name, it was “Sandy” and then you came up with your idiotic statement about us k-i-s-s-ing in a tree. Remember now?
You’re a real poet, dick breath. A man for the ages. A man who, although tried to violate me in public because he thinks it’s his God-given right to do so, really has no man-hood to look forward to from now on – that green stuff on your dick isn’t just from you tugging on it all day. I’ve put a curse on you, as first stated above.
Women of Toronto, you’re welcome and can sleep safely tonight. Darius says hello.
People can’t have it all. And why should we want everything, anyway?
What is “having it all”?
You can’t live with one foot in one world and a pinky toe in the other, only hoping to make the leap to what you want when “the time is right” – YES, timing and calculating risks are a thing, important, but at some point, you have to decide: are you in or are you out? Are you here or are you there?
As I was building my writing career in my 20s, I had a successful small business: teaching yoga to sad corporate types at lunch and after 5PM.
In many ways, big and small, teaching yoga to sad faces was the way I was going to change the world. But it never quite turned out that way. People don’t want to be saved. Most don’t even want to be helped. They just want enough validation on a yoga mat to get through the next day, and the next. Very few people ever follow through with the changes they intend to make, and therein lies the sad truth of humanity: all talk, vague action.
So I gave up teaching yoga. Sold my business, dove deep into writing. And here I’ve stayed, riding the highs and lows, the abuse and the rejection, the triumphs and tears, the shit talking and the satisfaction I get from making a sentence fit.
I didn’t get to where I am by luck. I do not feel “blessed” – I worked my ass off until it hurt so much I couldn’t take it. I worked and worked and cried and thought a lot and, eventually, I took the biggest risk of all:
Believing that I am worth taking a chance on.
But I had to take that risk on myself first, before anyone else ever could.
We can’t have it all, but when you know what you want, it’s amazing how little you actually need. As long as I can keep writing – for fun, for pleasure, for therapy and to eat – I have made the leap, landing on my two feet. But I had to risk things to make it happen, because there is no easy road to what you want, which is exactly why “having it all” makes no sense. You have to choose. You’re worth the risk. And if you can’t wrap your mind around that, then that is the exact place you need to start from.
“If she’s amazing, she won’t be easy. If she’s easy, she won’t be amazing. If she’s worth it, you won’t give up. If you give up, you’re not worthy; truth is, everybody is going to hurt you. You just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.” -Bob Marley
(maybe Bob Marley said this, but who knows who says what anymore since the internet; but regardless of who is behind this quote, it rings true, because I am one of these women, and so are you.)
I took a bus, a subway and a bus to avoid the rain yesterday, only to remember – as I was walking the final stretch home at the end of a very long day – that I had forgotten to take my keys. So I’m locked out, in the rain.
I have somewhere important to be by 6 o’clock – it’s 5:30 and I’m outside my house shivering. I can see my set of keys through the front window, spread out on the console in the living room, taunting me.
How could I forget to pack my keys?
Lots of swearing flows out of my mouth for the next minute. Maybe longer.
I finally get wise and hail a taxi. “Dundas and Ossington, please” – only my destination is actually one block south at Queen St., but I don’t remember this as I jump into the backseat of the cab and start tapping on my phone.
So I keep heading to the wrong intersection in this taxi and, like most people in these situations, strike up small talk with the driver.
He noticed the sign on my lawn he says, the one that reads “For Sale”; he asks me about it. We talk real estate, neighborhoods, the city and our mutual disdain for unethical real estate practices in Toronto.
So we talk some more.
And then the conversation heads this one way that I didn’t expect – “Murdered”, he says, “my niece was murdered recently, back home.”
It’s bugging me a lot right now that I can’t remember quite how the conversation went there, but I’m just going to keep writing this story as I remember it:
She was engaged, betrothed to a young man.
They were a good family for her to marry into
“because you always marry the family”, he says.
Her father felt he knew them so well.
Then one day, he didn’t.
A missed dinner date between families. No answers, many questions.
They simply don’t show up as scheduled.
The bride is heartbroken.
“The first bad sign”; I can see his serious eyes in the rear-view mirror.
She, the jilted bride – his sweet niece – later confronts her suitor.
She asks why his family stood her up.
He screams a threat.
This is common, she thinks, and dismisses it.
No more engagement.
Everybody lets it go.
Then.
She doesn’t come home from work one day.
Panic for everyone, including the would-be groom.
Days later, a body. Her body, lifeless in a field.
3,000 people at the funeral. It makes headlines all over the country.
The ex-fiance is there also, shoving his fists into the air
he proclaims that he will bring justice, find the killer.
Then one day, the truth comes out: the killer is found.
He is the killer.
Her family dies again.
***
“He’s in jail now” says the driver as we pull over to stop, “back in my home country; what happens to him in prison is not up to the rest of us.”
My taxi ride is done as his story comes to a close. I pay, we say goodbye and thank each other for something more than just a ride and fare.
As he drives away, I check my phone to confirm where I’m supposed to be next and finally realize I’m a block shy of my real destination.
I hail another taxi, still dazed from the story I’ve just heard about a young woman killed at 21. I think about 3,000 people mourning her loss, together; I think about what I was doing at 21; I think mostly about not being dead.
“One more block south to Queen Street”, I say to the new driver, right before he asks me how my day has been so far.
the internet ruined the music industry, not music.
the internet ruined the publishing industry, not writers.
the internet is slowly starting to erode the film industry in the same way, but it’ll take more time.
But eventually, the internet will do it.
I like the Internet. I love it for all the things it’s given us, and hate it equally as much for all the things it’s taken away or made obsolete, like face-to-face communication and editing on paper.
I miss eavesdropping the old way, before social media.
I miss the anticipation of opening a card on my birthday, before emails.
I miss the effort it used to take to remember a friend’s birthday, before Facebook.
But for all the things I miss and all the things that got ruined, I have to side with the Internet on this argument, of whether its invention was good or bad for the world, since it’s because of the internet that I get to make this point, publicly, at all.
I’m writing this, you’ll see, to warn Toronto about a douchebag that you A) Don’t want near your kids; B) Don’t want to buy a hot dog from, ever, because he’s an asshole and C) Should make fun of, in general, because, see A and B.
Now, the reason I know A and B above are all because of last Saturday.
High Park was the best place to enjoy the good weather that finally (FINALLY) bestowed itself on Toronto. And because of the sun, perfect breeze and weekend, the park was packed: young families, couples, singles, runners, hobos, you name it – all enjoying the park as one.
So, my husband and I start to get hungry. We notice the only hot dog stand in the vicinity on our way into the park. Later, we make our way over to that same hot dog stand on our way out to buy a couple of dogs.
Now this is where it turns into a shitshow.
As I’m squirting yet another wad of ketchup on my food, husband says, “Here” and points a fork my way with a slice of pickle on the end – it came from the container of pickles on the nearby table for patrons of the hot dog stand – the condiments table. He knows I love pickles, so he handed me a slice. That’s it, just one slice. We both know better than to turn the condiments table into a buffet.
I notice right away the deathstare from the old lady – the hot dog nazi’s mom – sitting behind the stand, watching. Just watching. She’s a tiger mom about these fucking pickles. So I notice this and mumble something under my breath to my husband about the stare down action happening right under his nose. I file the thought away: these people aren’t very generous, possibly hate their customers.
Call it a gut feeling.
As I’m having the thoughts and the gut feelings, a yelling match hits my ears: one of the dad’s in the park – a hot dog customer – is holding his messy, ketchup’d kid. The kid who just ate a hot dog at the very stand, where her dad is now asking for a second napkin, please, from the Hot Dog Nazi.
Hot Dog Nazi flips out, yelling about “fucking napkins” and if he gives a second napkin (a fraction of fraction of a cent’s worth) to this guy, when does it end? Does he have to give a napkin to everyone?! And why does a lazy, bad, shitty dad who doesn’t bring wet wipes to the park deserve a napkin?! He says this all, in front of everyone.
I am fuming. I am stunned. I am suddenly very focused on this situation that is making my stomach turn.
It takes everything inside of me not to:
1. Throw my hot dog at the stand
2. Run off with the tub of pickles, just to make a point
3. Drop dead, right there, from the shock of this hot dog guy’s amazing rudeness
Mustard is now going on my hot dog, just as all this is going down. I’m amused by this sort of exchange – I always am fascinated with idiot human behavior – and so I stay out of it, against my better judgement for a minute, throwing my husband a look of “what the fuck is going on here”.
Then I hear the thing come out of Hot Dog Nazi’s mouth that sets me off for good, the trigger: he starts saying this dad is a bad parent, a shitty human being for not having wet wipes for his kid on hand; that we’re all “fucking hipsters” and should just get out of here, and fuck you for not bringing wet wipes. And YOU DON’T EVEN DESERVE CHILDREN, YOU SHITTY DAD.
The hot dog nazi has a thing for wet wipes. Noted.
I have the sensation in my bones I always get when I am compelled to get involved. In science it’s called adrenaline. In my world it’s called gut instinct.
“Woah, woah, woah”, I say to the Hot Dog Nazi, “You don’t even know what the fuck a wet wipe is, let’s be serious. And if it wasn’t for us fucking hipsters, you’d have no food to feed your own kids. LEAVE THAT DAD ALONE”.
I ask Hot Dog Nazi if he has kids. He yells back, YES. I cringe. Poor kids: a cheap, mean sonovabitch for a dad.
I have no idea what has set me off at this point, I am not a martyr, but I’m making total sense, I know it. So I keep going for a few more minutes, engaging this asshole – the hot dog nazi – before I decide to save my breath and walk away.
In the end, everyone around us watched him accost two customers, shame a parent for wanting a single napkin (after buying a hot dog from him), judge his customer’s life skills in front of his children and demean “the hipsters” who so loyally buy hot dogs from him every weekend.
In a word: thanks.
By letting him go on, he eventually just shot himself in the foot, as people of his nature often do. People like him probably fuck up a lot, I gather, so really, the revenge lies in just letting him be himself: an asshole hot dog nazi with a creepy mom who has a pickle fetish.
So the lesson here, I guess, is to keep your cool, even when the feelings rise up in you to act, and know when to walk away from a situation, because the pay-off is usually greater. But also, and more importantly, standing up for people is always okay, specifically when your guts tell you it’s time, and especially when there are huge assholes selling hot dogs to unsuspecting parents in the park.
-sandy.
update: according to some reader emails this morning, this is a hot topic. Two questions that came up: 1. “Where is his cart located in the park?” Answer: between the duck pond and the petting zoo; 2. How will we know it’s him? Answer: ask for a napkin..
She Works Alone. 