show me yours

Even the cleanest underwear is a little dirty...

When I was younger, I had the philosophy that life was too short to wear ugly underwear.

Now, I think mundane underwear is sexier.

Not necessarily ugly gitch, but the more boring stuff. Or cutesy panties... underwear with little flowers or cartoon bugs on it is sexier than anything lace or satin.

A thong or something tittlating with lace and bows screams "I was hoping you'd see this." But underwear with cutesy cartoon animals shows that you weren't thinking of getting any. Sex was the furthest thing from your mind that morning.

Goofy-looking underwear is worn to please yourself. To put a smile on your own face. It's not the sort of thing you envision revealing to a sexual partner. After all, wouldn't you wear something designed to generate heat in their loins, rather than giggles to stifle?

So they put something on that they thought no one else would see. Yet something happened during the day and now, lo and behold, you have before you a person wearing something more befitting a slumber party than what is soon to transpire.

What was to be a mundane day has become interesting.

decrassified

They take a freakin' thing of beauty and destroy it by taking the "fuck" out

I have a workout tape from way back in the late 90's.

As if that wasn't embarassing enough...

I've worked out to the dang thing I dunno how many times, but it wasn't until a year or two ago that I noticed the music to one of the routines was hauntingly familiar. The other day, I finally took it upon myself to compare.

Some "ar-teest" who calls himself Maxwell took it upon himself to draw inspiration from perhaps the best beloved song by strippers and disenchanted-oversexed-lovelorn folks everywhere, and sterilized it for public television consumption.

Compare:

Closer - Nine Inch Nails you let me violate you you let me desecrate you you let me penetrate you you let me complicate you help me i broke apart my insides help me i've got no soul to sell help me the only thing that works for me help me get away from myself i wanna fuck you like an animal i wanna feel you from the inside i wanna fuck you like an animal my whole existence is flawed you get me closer to god

Gotta get closer - Maxwell You let me violate you You let me desecrate you Sure enough I'll liberate you I want to do you and emenate you Everybody say, help me With your soul, your mind your body Tell me baby, help me Do you wanna come back home so we can do the freaky Help me, oh help me clear your soul Help me get away from myself so bad, I want ya to Ooh baby can't help myself Gotta get closer(ooh oh suga') Ooh ooh baby can't help myself Gotta get closer I wanna love you like an animal I wanna love you from inside I wanna love you like an animal You give me reason to live

What, you can say "desecrate", but when it comes to the word "penetrate", that's simply too dirty-dirty? I guess "do the freaky" is just discreet enough.

Why oh why are these people allowed to share my planet? They have removed the torn, soiled silk lingerie and smeared mascara from the original, and dolled it up in a frilly pink polyester baby-doll and glittery Bonnie Bell eyeshadow from Wal-Mart.

Not an improvement.

This is not a song about love making. It is a song about fucking. Love making is done with someone. Fucking is done to someone. Each have their specific time, place and purpose.

To take fucking, and pretend it's something else, is ... well... pathetic, sad, and at a certain level, simply revolting. It's as ridiculous as juggling to The Beautiful People.

Ugh!

zygote

This could be the something I've been waiting to find...

Holy crap... this is going to be big.

Bigger than anything I ever imagined or wished or dreamed. This is the hour after moment of conception of an idea, where everything seems possible and the whole world is lying open in front of me.

This is not going to make money. But it's not remotely about money. It's about change, and — if I don't fuck it up — the whole world is going to change. Literally.

They way we look at the world. The way people think and feel. What they do with those moments of quiet. How they pursue their moments of peace. The differences between faiths could melt away.

If this works the way I believe it will, people are going to re-evaluate what's really important to themselves and to the world around them. They'll discover the power each person has within themselves, and they will harness it for a combined strength.

We have to start slowly. Little baby steps. Not take on too much at once. We have to be realisitc about the changes that can be made, and the impact that a few strong thinkers will make.

We need to build confidence in the group. We need to balance the concept of "reality" with that is really about to happen. We need to ensure the nay-sayers don't destroy the potential of this idea.

Research to back it up? I've been subconcsiously collecting it almost all my life. I can think of a wide range of places I can source information from to build the framework. I'm sure the idea has been conceived of in the past. In fact, heck, it's been scientifically studied on many occassions with results that are quite compelling. Those studies were just the tip of the iceberg. It's been informal all this time, and I'm sure there are some that are doing this right now.

But the others? Those on the fringes of faith? They can be turned to consider this. Heck, those of faith can be pulled into the fold, contribute their own power, and we will affect change.

Delusions of grandeur? Say what you will, but this is not about me. I am merely the conduit through which this will come into being. Just one of many. This is just the start. I cannot do this on my own, and surely those will realise this is not about me. It's not about any individual. It may be about fulfilling individual desires and goals, but the ability to do so will be in all of our hands.

This is the moment where all seems possible. Faith is not an issue because there is no faith involved. There are just facts and science and results to come. The truth will be in the testing.

Later, in the depths of creation, all these dreams might fall apart, and this grandiose idea may be something to be brought to fruition by another. But for this one slice of moment, just believe along with me.

vichyssoise

Is revenge really a dish best served cold? Sure, it's less messy, but perhaps a little bland.

How long do you think the heart remembers after the mind forgets?

If you've been hurt very badly by someone, you go through a phase where you fantasize about every conceivable way of hurting the person. Physically. Emotionally. Perhaps even an examination of what ratio of physical to psychic pain you're after. If you're dumb, you act on those urges. If you're smart, you find other outlets for those urges. Like smoking. Or kick boxing. Or "good living".

If you ran into that person years later, long after you've forgotten all that crap, could your subconscious formulate a plan to finally enact revenge, without you even realizing it? Is it possible that you'd act on that plan without realising it at the time?

Would you remember the magic key to hurting them, and use it?

...

I have a former friend who once stopped talking to me in high school.

We'd sit around in the morning before classes and she'd push-push-push my buttons. There were so many things that she and I disagreed on at a fundamental level. Sometimes it was fun, but often it wasn't.

Finally one morning said those three beautiful words: "Fuck off, bitch." (or perhaps it was "shut up, cunt"... regardless)

She stood up without a word and walked away.

The next day I went up to her at her locker and apologized. Got nothing but cold cold silence. And so I figured the friendship was over.

About 6 months later she called me out of the blue. And I just let her off the hook. Just like that. Ignored the fact we hadn't talked in what seemed like a lifetime, and just made it easy for her. She later gave a half-assed excuse why she hadn't talked to me for so long. I realised the reason she started talking to me again was her new friend drove her bonkers.

From then on, we'd orbit into each others' lives every so often through university and post-university life. From occassional contact to sharing a house, and back to occassional contact. Eventually she moved out of the country, and we talked maybe once a year. I was fine with that. More than fine actually.

The reasons don't matter, but I eventually decided that I felt better when she wasn't in my life. Not even worth spending the annual "let get together" lunch. So I decided to disappear. Just gone.

She's called. She's left emails. She's left heart bearing voicemails. And I decided cold cold silence was the way to go. I rationalise it away with "no one wants to know what they did wrong when the "wrong" is just be herself... Anything I say would be cruel and hurtful."

But I know her pretty well. And a few years later, I wonder if my heart has decided this was the best revenge.

you've reached the office of...

Does anyone actually look at the file names I give these things? - originally saved as corp-ophilia.htm

The people who work with me in the downtown offices of Toronto are nice enough. But I just don't see myself completely becoming a part of their high-falutin' corporate world. These "Things" were pretty much foreign to me until I started working in a downtown tower.

Thing A: The Tiffany item-of-the-moment.

A year ago it was the "Return to Tiffany" sterling silver necklace or bracelet. This year it seems to be the Tiffany beaded bracelet or Tiffany Elsa Peretti® open heart pendant. Every third woman seems to have one of these items of jewellery.

Don't get me wrong — I like jewellery. It's nice 'n shiny. Looks pretty. But these Tiffany things are simply a "look what my husband/boyfriend/career bought me... and baby I'm so worth it" baubles. Every pussy-whipped dude in a suit is buying his gal one of these things, and he's getting laid because he brought her something in a little blue box.

I think these women like the fact that it's a signature Tiffany piece, because that will mean every other woman will know she got something from the exclusive boutique on Bloor. It's not what it looks like, it's about where it came from.

Thing B: The spa day.

I have heard many times the virtues of a spa day. Seems there's few things more indulgent in these women's lives than to sit around and have other people attend to their egos and epidermis by slathering, scrubbing, rubbing, scraping, massaging and filing away at parts of their bodies.

I'm not all that comfortable with physical contact with strangers, let alone most people I know. I don't like bumping people in elevators, accidentally nudging people in line, getting a physical pat on the back or arm, and such. In fact, if we've made bodily contact, and it wasn't obliged by societal standards (ex: hugging a relative good-bye), you should consider yourself honoured.

I'm also not good with just sitting in one place and doing nothing. I get restless watching TV. I'm not good at lying by the pool or sitting in the bar.

So the thought of having a complete stranger dabbing mashed avocado on my face so I can sit immobilized for a fifteen minutes... it gives me the willies.

I've never had a pedicure or manicure. I have had waxing done a few times, but the results were either inconsistent, incomplete, or bruised me. Yeah, giant nasty-ass bruises right at my crotch... THAT's what I want to show the good people of Playa Del Carmen. I'm sure they'll think it's the esthetician. Even if I strike a "who cares what others think" attitude, John doesn't need evidence that other people have recently been that athletically involved around my fiddly-bits. Ack!

Thing C: The power 'do.

Okay, I'll admit to getting into the habit of straightening my hair for work. And I will also admit to having it coloured ever-so-subtly twice. The straightening now is because my hair has been doing its own thing lately... fine for the weekends, but not so great when you may have to talk to a VP or the CMO of the bank. So I try to make sure I don't look like weekend-me.

However, some of these women are crazy about their hair. They get it highlighted on a bimonthly basis. They form lasting relationships with hairdressers and colourists. They get their hair done during multiple-hour lunches and will miss important meetings because they're having a colour crisis.

If everyone could just take it down a notch, I know it would make me feel just a little more comfortable about my occassional bad hair day.

Thing D: The "gym".

I go through cycles where I enjoy working out. (Enjoy in the sense that I find it therapeutic and without it I would possibly go on a homicidal rampage.) But ever since I had to undress in front of my classmates in Grade 7, I've hated the idea of working out in a group.

I know I have some areas for improvement. I know my half the time I look like I'm about to fall over. I know my face goes beet red when I exert myself beyond opening a jar of spaghetti sauce. I don't need to share common space with strangers, or possibly co-workers, who look at me with concern and say "You okay?" I don't need to spend more than a donut-a-day for a health club membership. Frankly I'd rather have the donut.

There's so much guilt and self-righteousness wrapped up in whether someone does or doesn't go to the gym. Guess what: That half hour of running isn't going to work off two hours of drinking. Get over the guilt, take the stairs once in a while, and either buy a girdle or cut out the weekly martini nights.

Thing E: The "help".

Housekeepers, cleaning ladies, dog walkers and nannies. They blow my freakin' mind.

I have a hard enough time calling the plumber for anything other than when our well pump goes out. I'd love someone to clean the house for me, but I simply don't want strangers in my house when I'm not here. I don't want to have to worry about locking up my "private things". (You wanna know what they are? Not tellin'... that's what makes them private.)

I know if I was a housekeeper, I'd snoop. Especially if someone said "just clean the downstairs." Quite frankly I don't want to think twice about where I leave my tiddly-winks. I don't need the stress of "gotta tidy because the cleaning lady is coming tomorrow".

The nannies are the people that really freak me though. My co-workers somehow earn enough to pay for another adult person to live — and that's on top of the money they need to pay for the x# of kids and the xxx# of toys for themselves and their kids. I just can't wrap my head around it.

I suppose it's guilt really. I'd feel way too guilty to pay someone jack-squat-all to do something I could do myself.

Admittedly, some of the things above are things I think I should give a try, if for no other reason than to enrich my life. I'm considering them for Kathleen Improvement 2006©. Perhaps I'd enjoy a hot stone massage. It has been waaaay too long since I got my hair cut, so perhaps I'm overdo for a new 'do. And maybe, just maybe, I can try locking up my private things and see how the other half gets their houses clean. But personally, I'd rather just take all that dough and put it toward something that will set us free, like eradicating our debt.

entertain this

Another long forgotten, recently found theory of mine...

A Theory : Omnipresent entertainment and "info-tainment" is increasing the rate of mental illness.

It seems to me that people all over North America are becoming increasingly neurotic. And I think it boils down to a couple of key things.

One: people are getting less sleep

When you sleep, your dreams unfold to help you go over events in your life. They may have happened the previous day, the previous week, decades ago. The longer you sleep, the more time you have to dream. Thus, the more time you have to analyze, evaluate, and create closure to these events and issues that are nagging on your mind.

With the increased demands on our time, we are getting less and less sleep. So we have less time to re-balance ourselves and prepare for the daily workings of life.

Importantly, much of the time we spend awake, we occupy ourselves with entertainment such as books, television, movies, websites and other forms of distraction. Which brings me to…

Two: entertainment is overloading our capacity to analyze the state of our lives

We involve ourselves with the situations and affairs of the characters in these pieces of entertainment. While watching, reading or listening, we are forecasting the plot and evaluating how we would react to and resolve the conflicts faced by the characters.

Now we have more items on our minds, churning in the background, evaluating what other fictional or not-so-fictional characters should be doing with their lives. And this churning spills over into our dreams.

So when it’s three a.m. and we’re fast asleep, we may find ourselves asking our father why he wouldn't let us have a party on our 7th birthday, only to discover an episode of Three's Company invading our space, with the explanation that Jack Tripper was too busy at the Bistro making pies for Chrissie to eat.

Some find their ability to resolve their past becomes crippled. How do they try to resolve the neuroses that are surfacing at an increasingly rapid pace? They turn to outsiders for advice. Many reach out to ones that are accessible, that they have seen the work of, and that they deem “good advice givers”.

We call in a radio show to find out what we should do about our overbearing mother-in-law, and the listeners call in to give their own advice. Other listeners sit at home and mull over their own solution to the situation. More of their brain power is dedicated to the caller’s problem, sapping their power to address their own issues.

By sharing our problems, we are sharing the burden, but achieving no resolution. By avoiding our neuroses with entertainment, we are handicapping ourselves to deal with them.

A vicious little circle it is.

Dear Abby, Dan Savage, Carolyn Hax, Dr. Phil... They're all people with few pointed answers, but many questions that weigh on our minds. We are provided with insufficient data to arrive at a solution to the issue. We're filling ourselves with neuroses and drawing away from our ability to void them from our systems.

Part of the hope in immersing ourselves in these outlets of angst is finding the one situation, the one example that makes it oh, so clear what exactly we should do to solve our current situation, be it a fear of spiders or an obsession with the mailman.

But no two individuals or situations are exactly alike. So the advice doled out doesn't fit our problem, and we are left with less help than before.

Some individuals go to counselors, psychiatrists, and psychologists. They listen to our problems, and dole out analysis, advice, and sympathy in some cases. But visits with same can cause an anxiety all their own, and be counter productive.

We may all be better off by just stepping away from the computer, turning off the TV, and taking a nap.

sweet dreams

December 6 2005 dream - wrote this down as soon as I got to the office.

Yes, this jumps around quite a bit.

I am going to get my hair done — highlighted. On my way, I end up running into Andrea, a co-worker from the company I used to work at. The area I'm in strikes me as Norval (the far side of Georgetown), though it looks not much like it.

I locate a hair salon, and go in to speak to a hairstylist. Along the wall of stylists's chairs inside the salon is the opening to a 6-foot wide pipe. The pipe runs from the salon horizontally to, what I can see out the window, a large dry pond bed. If the pond was full, it would be maybe 8 feet deep. but it's dry. It does not occur to me at the time that, should the pond be full, the salon would be flooded. However, it does occur to me that they must have some security measures to close up the pipe every night when they close for business.

I am looking though colour swatches and find some of the ones I used the last time I had my hair done. An older Korean lady tells me I cannot pick from that book, and hands me a ring of hair swatches. Some are long and furry, like the flowers of a chenille plant. The colours are bright, sparkly and tinsel-like. I recall thinking they look fun, but are probably not for me.

We are upstairs in the salon, in the bedroom of Matthew McConaughey. The bedroom is untidy, with two twin beds. The beds do have sheets, pillows and blankets, but are unmade. There is a dresser between the beds. I don't notice what is making the bedroom seem untidy — must be general bedroom stuff (clothes, books, etc).

I am reclined on the bed waiting for MM to come into the room. Andrea is there too, standing by the bed, and we are chatting about nothing. MM enters the room and we start to talk.

He starts to say things that I don't agree with. The content of the conversation is beyond my recollection after I awake, but I do recall his comments are distasteful.

I look around the room and notice there are large houseflies flying around. The closer I look, the more there are. There are hundreds. Maybe thousands. These are large, hairy houseflies - the largest I've ever seen, but still realistic in size. They are on the windows, the grid tile ceiling, the walls. They are clustered in twos and threes, and the camera of my dream zooms in on two involved in an act that seems procreative.

I'm shocked and disgusted by the filth, and stand to leave.

I notice as I stand up that there are hanging flower baskets. Inside the baskets are decaying plants, and larvae eating away at the plants, writhing and audibly eating. Sucking and chewing sounds, small, but by the thousands. I realise MM is intentionally breeding the filth.

Andrea and I have to duck to avoid hitting our heads on the baskets, although we both accidentally bump the flower baskets once or twice. We are revolted.

MM asks us where we are going. His question is more of a statement to get up to observe what's about to happen. He starts clapping his hands — once, twice —I turn around to see the flies starting to swarm. MM delights as the flies are swarming to the upper left corner of the window (which covers about half of the far end of the room). The sound of buzzing is overwhelming. In the same corner is a spider web, and the many flies are being caught in the web. The buzzing is in anger and horror. His clapping has driven the flies into the spiderweb to die.

I scream at the actor "You are sick! Sick sick SICK! You sick sick fuck! What sick person breeds creatures only to torture and destroy them?! You fucking twisted sick fuck!" I am screaming this as I storm out of the building.

I am outside of the building now. "What a perverted... twisted... sick sick person."

I continue to scream at the top of my lungs about MM's actions. It's less frequent now... the type of screaming a drunk person does after a confrontation, as they replay the events in their mind. Andrea makes some statement along the lines of "he wasn't so bad" and wanders off east, away from town. She demonstrates tolerance and acceptance for MM's behaviour and pastime.

John approaches me. He has wandered into town from home looking for me. It is as if he knows all that has transpired. We are walking west, in the general direction of home as I say "I don't think I will see her again ..." speaking of Andrea.

We walk to another salon and I open the door. The place is empty. I scan the room and find the books of hair swatches. As I pick one up and open to look through it, a woman comes into the room to tell me it's Sunday and they're closed. The only way out of the building seems to be a sliding basement window, high off the ground (Don't ask me what happened to the door I came in through). We try to get me out of the salon, and discover I can barely get my head through the window, let alone my shoulders. Firemen arrive (they must have been called). They come in through the front door. They grease the window and I am able to pull myself the rest of the way through, out to freedom.

-30-