blogthecat

Palmolive Vs. Cauliflower

Yesterday I tweeted the scintillating fact that I had eaten a whole cauliflower for dinner (true), then sat back, looked at it staring me in the face, and considered deleting my Twitter account. Peppering my TweetDeck feed every so often amid witticisms and breakfast reports were disgusted and impassioned pleas to help the Kurds in Kobane.

Kobane, and the whole revolting mess in Syria, is very frequently on my mind these days. Sometimes I chime in about it on Twitter, inserting and then deleting #ISIS or #Kobane hashtags because I’m paranoid about Canadian #ISIS sympathizers trolling accounts—which of course makes me a coward. So I revert to tweeting about cauliflower. And while ingesting an entire cauliflower is indeed a feat (it was roasted) you know what I’m saying.

Tangentially perhaps, I’ve been thinking about our media habits of old. Like TV commercials, which we mostly suffered through impatiently as kids unless they featured toys we then knew we needed Santa to buy for us.

Here’s the thing: I have the fondest memories of some of them.

There was the Palmolive Dish Soap series that seemed to last for my whole childhood, the one where Madge came to the rescue of sad housewives with dishpan hands. I craved Madge, and I would have sat in front of her for days on end with my hands in soap if she would smile at me like that the whole time. With the twinkle in her eye. With those perfectly manicured nails. In real life, I quite regularly soaked my own hands in the green goodness, to no effect but whatever. Felt good.

 

Then there was Pert’s glorious Bouncin’ and Behavin’ hair campaign. The trampoline. The bodysuit. The bouncin’ AND the behavin.’ As the goddess models explained, both their problems were solved (the limp dirtiness and the dry frazzledness, both so annoying!). Man, I wanted that hair! To be her! To bounce so beautifully! My poor parents put up with a lot of whining about my desperate need for Pert in the grocery cart.

Thinking back on commercials like these, I have such memories of feeling safe and soothed, which is mostly what television is all about. But when I checked them out, both campaigns launched at the start of the 80s—the heyday of the Cold War. The Iran hostage ordeal had just ended. John Hinkley Jr. had just shot or was about to shoot Reagan. Those were scary times, too.

The difference is that we were watching TV for an hour or two to escape. Our shows were doing the job for us, and we lay down on our floors or couches with a bag of chips to enhance the soothing.

I don’t watch TV anymore. I read at night, and I oscillate between Facebook and Twitter in the day, where the serious, the sad, the funny, and the overly clever are all mashed together. I am nowhere near a couch, and my brain is always on, if ricocheting against a million inputs. And it’s confusing, figuring out how to be, how to think, how to feel about your cauliflower tweet in the midst of all of that.

Fragments of Ourselves

I don't know what the research says now, but in 2012, two years ago (which is a long time ago in today's digital environment), 40% of Americans said they were more comfortable engaging with people online than in real person. I would imagine that proportion has, if anything, increased. The 2012 research also showed that:

• 50 percent of Americans spend less time emailing because they are on social networks
• 49 percent of would rather text than call a person
• 48 percent use the phone less because they communicate via social networks
• 40 percent feel more comfortable interacting with people online rather than in person
• 30 percent would rather connect with close friends via social sites than traditional methods

Oh la la la la la. Who ARE these people? Um. Me.

Here's the thing: I am an odd person, as we all are (right!?). I am effusive, shy, prickly, anxious, confident, smart, dumb, eloquent, and clumsy. Which is exactly why I love social media: I don't have to show any of the yuckier bits. I don't have to brush my hair, respond immediately to questions, engage with people I don't agree with, bristle when someone I love drives me nuts, cringe when someone eats with their mouth open, nearly faint after prolonged eye contact, maintain my posture, or generally make time for anything that doesn't fit precisely into my day.

I get to control everything, or a whole lot more of everything than I would were I dealing directly with people physically in from of me, or people on the phone. I get to "like" something someone says and thus show my endorsement of their point-of-view or humour. With one click! Not even a word!

I get to "like" a lot, which I guess makes me a pretty positive, lovely person, eh? I get to post a lot about things I think about, which I guess makes me pretty confident and outgoing, right? I get to think about a funny way to say something, which I guess makes me funny.

Well, no. It means I get the time and platform to exhibit sides of me I prefer to show the world, and it means—because I work at home and I LOVE being alone—that fewer people really know me. And that, because I cannot be unique, that I really know fewer people, though I sure do like a lot more of them.

I can't decide how I feel about all this. I don't feel lonely. My life is nuts with two little kids right now—but they won't always be little and I won't always be so busy. Then what? Will I crave in-person company more? If I do, will I—in the expanse of time I indulged in more social media friendships than "real-life" ones—have lost a sense of what to say and do in public, and will I be even more inept at handling real one-on-one human, serious relationships with care and generosity?

Or will I continue on this path—because let's face it, social media is an amazing place for shy people who aren't so much shy as awkward or uncomfortable in public—enjoying and sincerely appreciating more people (or personas) than I otherwise would?

What about my yucky bits? Will I deem them even more horrid, distort them and magnify them because they are so much more handily contained now that I can hide them better? What about other people's? What if we don't have to work on ourselves—our whole selves—to be more functional in real life? What if we make less and less time for that cup of tea with a group of friends to find out that, gasp, we all are horrid and beautiful all at once, that we shine and fail, are mean and caring, and smart and dumb?

I don't know.

If this strikes a chord with you, some further reading:

Alone With Everyone: http://www.cbc.ca/books/2013/01/alone-with-everyone.html

Social Media's Small, Positive Role in Human Relationships: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/social-medias-small-positive-role-in-human-relationships/256346/

The Flight From Coversation: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html?_r=0

Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/308930/

On Turning Into Robots or Something: http://www.blogthecat.ca/blogthecat/2012/05/on-turning-into-robots-or-something.html

The real thing

Back in September, I posted about a PETA ad I found distinctly unsexy because of its earnest and clichéd tactics. More recently, I stumbled upon the opposite—dead sexy—only feet away from me.

It was in December, at the height of Christmas shopping madness. Craig and I had nipped into a restaurant around the corner from us for a quick bite. The main dining area was packed, so we had settled for a spot in the lounge. As we munched on calamari, an attractive couple walked in and made their way to the bar just in front of us. The man, who had distinguished salt-and-pepper hair and a fit, lean build, helped his female companion off with her coat, revealing her stunning cream-coloured crochet dress that hung just so—not too tight, not too loose. The woman had a lovely body, yes, but it was how she wore the dress—confidently but without too much thought, without any self-aware movements that would have belied her comfort.

They sat down and ordered drinks. She turned on her stool to face him, so that her legs nestled up against his under the bar. The drinks came. She took a long, indulgent sip, then began telling him a story or some important news, I imagined, because she looked quite serious and kept up a steady monologue. As she spoke, he listened intently, nodding sometimes, with his hand grazing her leg. Sometimes the hand remained still, sometimes it stroked her knee gently—not insistently, not with ulterior motives, but responsively and lovingly. In no way did his hand distract her. If anything, it encouraged her to keep talking. The man seemed unconscious of his gesture. It looked like something he was used to doing, something instinctual summoned by his being with her.

When we were finished our meal and walking toward the door to leave, I was unable to resist pausing briefly at the bar to tell the woman how much I loved her dress, and how great it looked on her. She thanked me happily, but it was her companion who really beamed. Not in a yep-that’s-my-trophy-wife, cock-of-the-walk kind of way, but with an expression of genuine delight that someone else had thought to compliment this beautiful woman.

Now, that’s sexy.

Bringing up baby

A couple of months ago, Craig and I found out that the science experiment currently underway in my belly will eventually be a little boy. Now, despite the fact that it could have gone only one of two ways—girl or boy—I have to say we were slightly surprised. Turns out my idea of “baby” was essentially a caricature: think cuddly, cooing, pink-swaddled, and with soft tufts of hair just aching to be gently combed into adorable ornaments.

Pathetic, yes, but true nonetheless.

Of course, it didn’t take long to adjust my vision. A lot less pink, a little less hair, and a need for me to brush up on my understanding of outer space, superheroes, Star Wars, and (gasp!) trucks and trains. I figure that not every one of these stereotypes will turn up in little dude (aka the LD), but that if I prepare for all of them, I’ll stand a fighting chance of keeping up and not being a drip of a mom.

Plus, I secretly know, just know, that the LD will be a voracious reader and nature-lover, and be uncommonly mellow for one of his gender. He might even let me grow his hair a little long and allow the odd accent of pink into his dapper wee wardrobe. We will sing songs together and play sweetly with Lego, with all his stuffed animals looking on beatifically.

And he will not be beaten black and blue in the schoolyard.

I cling to these things.

So it was with horror that I read Kate Fillion’s January 9 article in Macleans, How to Fix Boys. In it, she interviews child development expert Leonard Sax, who asserts the following:

• The brain of the five-year-old boy—in terms of maturity, particularly in the language area—is at about the same place as the brain of a three-and-a-half-year-old girl.
• There are huge differences in the ability of the average six-year-old girl and boy to sit still and be quiet.
• Boys develop a notion in kindergarten that doing what the teacher wants and being good is unmasculine.
• You should never ask a five-year-old, especially not a boy, to sit down and stay quiet.
• Boys often find school so prohibitive to their natural impulses that they vent by spending hours sitting in front of their video-game consoles, banging away on the game controller.
• Online pornography has displaced the pursuit of real girls for a significant number of boys.

OH MY GOD! I don’t know how else to put it. Anyone know of a good home schooling link?

December pep talk

It can be a bugger to get much work done at this time of year. Christmas, in our society, is not one day but a month, when you take into account all the travel arrangements, gift choosing and buying, parties, cooking, and general chaos and mayhem. If you’re self-employed, as I am, December can paradoxically be the month in which we spend the most money and make the least.

Which is why I’m turning to a book I got a few months ago on the recommendation of my friend, Kathy: The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. I’m generally suspicious of self-help books, but this one defies my cynicism and really delivers when you’re having trouble jumpstarting your creative or productive forces—when you’re giving in to procrastination and self-defeating sluggishness. Esquire calls it “a vital gem … a kick in the ass.”

In case you feel like a kick in the ass is precisely what you need on this Monday two mere weeks before the 25th, as I do, I am sharing with you an excerpt from the book espousing the benefits of self-discipline. This excerpt, like many in The War of Art, underlines the truth that our best work doesn’t get done until some work gets done, a lesson I need pounded into my noggin on a regular basis.

“Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. ‘I write only when inspiration strikes,’ he replied. ‘Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.’

That’s a pro.

In terms of Resistance [the self-sabotaging force Pressfield says must be beaten down at every turn to accomplish anything], Maugham was saying “I despise Resistance; I will not let it faze me; I will sit down and do my work.’

Maugham reckoned another, deeper truth: that by performing the mundane physical act of sitting down and starting to work, he set in motion a mysterious but infallible sequence of events that would produce inspiration, as surely as if the goddess had synchronized her watch with his.

He knew if he built it, she would come.”

It’s so easy to get impatient with slow, menial tasks, yet they are the very ones that set the stage for something greater. So off I go to stare down Monday and imagine there’s glue on my desk chair.

The power of the underdog

“There is no excellent beauty that has not some strangeness in the proportion.”

—Francis Bacon

Bacon’s assertion is spare, eloquent, and bang-on. I saw proof of his claim today when I tuned into a summer phenomenon that I somehow missed: Paul Potts on Britain’s Got Talent. My mom told me about Potts last night, explaining that she and her colleagues have been watching his performances on YouTube at the office around a communal box of Kleenex. Now, my mom is not a reality TV person, and neither am I, so I decided her account of Potts’s effect was worth checking out. This is the video I watched on YouTube (Potts’s audition for the show):

I just regained normal breathing functions a minute ago after watching this for the fourth time. As much as I still want to jump on an airplane and hug the unlikely hero Potts for his stunning courage, tenacity, and talent, I am also able now to be a little objective about what reduced me to a pile of blubbering jelly on the carpet below my desk. It’s the way the clip highlights the complete improbability that Potts will be successful, while at the same time hinting that his success is exactly what we’re about to watch.

From the beginning, we’re made aware of Potts’s strangeness through shots of him pacing nervously in the waiting room and delivering a moving but far-from-leading-man introduction of himself to the show’s interviewers. We gulp a little when at the start of his audition, Potts tells the judges that he “wants to sing opera”—this, on a show that regularly rewards Celine Dion-like balladeers and other cheese. We witness his distress as the camera pans among the show’s skeptical judges, who look as though they’ve just smelled something unspeakably foul. And we feel his pain via several segments showcasing his confidence problems, which occur at the same time we know the judges are pondering his fate. Especially effective is the shot of Potts standing on the stage in hell as he awaits the verdict. When Simon Cowell tells Potts to go ahead, the expression on the notoriously callous judge’s face is closed and ungenerous; classic narrative tension is at an apex: all odds are against the underdog.

Now, who doesn’t love an underdog? Who hasn’t felt bullied and trodden on and swallowed by the world? Who doesn’t want Potts to wipe that dour look off Simon’s face and vindicate us all?

Within ten seconds of Potts’s performance, we know we are watching something phenomenal. Through crooked teeth, with eyes ablaze, Potts unleashes a voice powerful and pitch-perfect, a voice strengthened by the humiliations its owner has suffered over the years. It’s a voice everyone in the audience is desperate to hear; it is a salve, proof that there is justice in the world. It is a story of redemption.

The clip’s producers capture the universal, emotional response to this story by alternating between Potts, audience members shaking their heads and wiping their eyes, and the judges, whose skepticism visibly melts into willing submission and gratitude. The YouTube clip masterfully conveys the unexpected ferocity of Potts’s beauty. Potts’s voice is a marvel, but it’s the story that makes us weep.

Tell me what you really mean

My husband and I work together. And when I say work together, I don’t mean in that new-age way where we strive toward mutual goals using assertive, positive language. We work together for a living, for our moolah, our coin, our dineros. For the most part, this is an excellent arrangement. But sometimes, it can be interesting. We tend to cut to the chase, for one. In a recent phone conference with a client, I indicated that the floor would now be turned over to Craig for his assessment of where to go with a rather painful project. I had seen him scrawling furiously, and was eagerly anticipating some wise words to help move us forward. “Craig,” I entreated, looking over to where he was sitting at his desk, “how would you sum up—” Craig popped his FUCK sign. “Um, Craig, is there anything you wanted to say about—” He held the sign higher, in case I hadn’t quite got it. FUCK. This, the result of all that scrawling. We were by now both stifling laughter, and moving our mouthpieces away from our jagged intakes of breath. Thankfully, Craig put his artwork away, and managed a decent response to the question.

We are normally quite professional.

A small murder

I felt the blissful tug of drowsiness at about 3 a.m. Monday morning, after hours of tossing and turning. Closed my book, turned off the light. Embraced the heaviness of imminent slumber.

I only vaguely registered a sinister whine, as much a sense of disturbance in the air as an actual sound. Then, an insistent itch. Just off the knuckle, in the tender skin between the second and third fingers on my right hand, the mosquito had bit. Hard.

Enraged, I flicked on the light again, focusing my eyes on my immediate surroundings. It didn’t take long. The mosquito clung heavily to the wall above me, fattened and lethargic, gorged with blood. I raised my hand slowly, then slammed it home.

I pulled my hand away and brushed the tiny carcass from it. Examined the red smear on the wall. Vindication.

In the normal course of events, I’m all about empathy for little things. If a fruitfly falls in my wine, I’ll take great pains to try to rescue it, blowing on its wings to dry it out and sober it up. But mosquitoes are something else. Mosquitoes taunt you before attacking. Mosquitoes hit you at 3 a.m. when you’re already having a shitty time trying to sleep. Mosquitoes go for the skin between your knuckles, or between your toes.

Some murders are justified.