Thankful!

I am a compassionate person. The suffering of others bothers me. I hate seeing someone vulnerable, sick, sad, in need. I wish I could help everyone who needs help. I wish I could give money to all the charities that need assistance. I wish people didn't have to be disabled, in wheelchairs, mentally challenged, autistic, in hospitals, in chemotherapy, obese, poor, or any of the other things that make us hurt inside, or make life harder. Poverty bothers me. Seeing people without the luxury of a warm home, food, love.

Riding the train every day, I see my share of damaged people, sad people, angry people, alone people. I see the homeless, the working poor, the people with mental health issues, the drunk, the unloved. I wish I could save them all, give them something, anything to make their lives easier. Love them, give them a safe home, an environment with people in it who care for them and take care of them.

I feel for the human condition, for people who aren't smart enough or pretty enough or funny enough or rich enough or provided-for enough to make the grade, to make the cut, to get the things they want. For example, I am sure there are millions of people who are perfectly happy not being beautiful (me, for instance), but I think about all the people who's hearts ache daily because they didn't win the genetic beauty lottery and in fact, didn't even get a single number. I am lucky - I got a couple of the numbers - enough at least to make me pretty enough to be consistently ignored in public. Which is better than being gawked at for being ugly. Which is also better than being gawked at for being beautiful - which in my opinion is sad too because people want you and love you for the wrong reasons.

Life isn't fair. I learned that a long, long time ago.

I grew up with an alcoholic rage-aholic father and my childhood was full of fear and walking on eggshells and insecurity and anxiety. There were often fights and threats of someone leaving, violence and things getting broken, always loud voices, yelling, things being slammed. Racing hearts, being awakened in the night, police cruisers in the driveway. Life wasn't fair because it didn't give me a mentally balanced father, a *normal* father. But Life over-compensated by giving me a wonderful mother who shielded me from what she could, from what she was able, for her young age, to do. She is my hero. So I got lucky in that way.

But maybe that childhood pain and the struggles my father had was some kind of blessing. It is hard to find the blessing when your heart aches for your mother, when you are powerless to help her, to save her, to give her the life she really deserves, one pure and perfect and fine, like she is. It is hard to find the blessing when you see your father suffer also with the hand he was dealt, which seems, as time goes on, to have been no fault of his own.

It was hard to grow up in a house which was full of motherly-love and fatherly hard-work and pride, but also the counterpoint - alcoholism and emotional and physical violence. It made me very, very strong. And very, very angry. And very, very weak. Weak in that I have a very sensitive character - things bother me, I feel for others, I worry, I cry easily when I see people suffer. I feel and experience the vulnerability and frailty of others. I feel their pain. So I am many different, contrasting things. I can be a tough, hard person, but I am also soft and sensitive under the shell. I don't put up with shit and I speak my mind but inside I want to be liked and seen for who I am - which is a soft and good-hearted person. A person who seems to feel so incredibly much.

But I am thankful. I want to acknowledge my roots. My life has been what it needs to be. There are lessons I needed to learn, boundaries I needed to set, places I needed to see, things I needed to learn, things I needed to feel. And the future will hold more challenges and more pain, I am sure. I am afraid of it, but like the Buddhists, I will try to embrace it as my experience and not judge it. This is a full time job, to feel and not to judge yourself to be suffering. As I watch the suffering of others and feel the suffering I do inside (much of which is self- inflicted), I am slowly learning that this is the human experience, that this is the gift.

Hollywood and all its self-adulation and glorification of the wrong things isn't what life is about. Life is about living in a way that is true to you, appreciating what you have, caring and feeling for others, and working and planning to improve the life of others and yourself. It isn't about having a perfect ass or a perfect outfit. It isn't about weighing 105 lbs and having a tv show. It isn't about being smug and self-important. It isn't about driving a BMW "M" Roadster (which I did yesterday and it was amazing). All that is nice, but life is about being awake. Feeling. Loving others. Learning to love yourself and stop judging yourself. Learning to stop hurting the one person you shouldn't hurt - you. Learning to stop feeling sorry for yourself. Feeling sorry for others, but only long enough to help them, or at least to reflect on what their life might mean as a lesson for your own. It is about experience and reflection and not judging whilst still doing your best, even if no one is watching. But mostly it is about being thankful and not squandering the paradise you've been given.

When Being A Woman Sucks....

Yesterday I was invited by David (who was invited by his boss) to a Spring Ball. You know, the kind with cinderella ball gowns and champagne and glass slippers and men in tuxedos and bands playing waltzes. The ball is being put on by an Oil & Gas interest and is being attended by all sorts of O&G big wigs and little wigs and want-to-be hot shots and their dates. I imagine it is wonderful.

I enquired and found out that last year the women wore (a) cocktail dresses (b) long ball gowns (c) every glittery thing besides a tiara. Men wore dark suits or tuxes. Hence the event is "formal" which to me means that I better look divine.

Herein lies the problem. The event is 6 weeks from now. I don't own a ball gown, nor suitable cocktail attire, and I am 10 lbs (at least) over my acceptable "half nude at a party" weight. This means that I need to do the following:

- drop 10 lbs in 6 weeks and miraculously get my upper arms/shoulders into shape as well as my calves, which will be poking out the bottom of my Barbie dress.
- buy a Barbie dress
- try not to hate the whole wretched time-wasting, humiliating process.

I hate all this feminine ideal crap. Ok, let me correct - I love being a woman, I love fashion, and I'd love to wear killer clothes, but sadly, the fashion world ignores women like me - the size 8 hourglass. Ok, the fashion world ignores anyone (female,that is) with body fat.

And a cocktail dress?! I just don't like being thrust into the stiffling feminine-ideal box, which is what you are thrust into when you need to shove yourself into a stupid half-nude dress. You need to be "in shape" for one thing, preferably look 18, and have small boobs to fit into those spaghetti-strapped and strapless dresses.

My boobs are 34D, and they aren't meant for those wispy little dresses. I need a *good* strapless bra (almost impossible to find in my size) which is preferably push-up (definitely impossible). Most of the dresses, even if they do have straps, have boob compartments that are meant for a B-cup not a D. So even if I did, miraculously, find a good strapless bra, there isn't nearly enough fabric on most to cover me without half the bra showing.

And another thing...if you do the cocktail version, your legs are bare (in April!) and need to be, well, shapely and cute at least. What about those of us who aren't 15 and don't have tans and have varicose veins and very average-not-fat-but-sure-not-sexy calves and don't even wear shorts any more? Why are we forced to expose our "flaws" (i.e. our normal human qualities) in clothes made for flat-chested 100 lb girls?

Menswear is so much more forgiving. Yay for men. You just cover up in a big navy or black wool sack with pyjama legs. You can look like shit inside your suit, which most men do. You can have a fat gut, man boobs, skinny legs, no ass, a big ass, a beer gut, a hairy back, flabby arms, etc. and no one is the wiser. Meanwhile, your female cohorts are painfully squeezed into a totally unforgiving slip of scratchy fabric, so that they might be appraised and assessed in rigourous detail.

Being female sucks sometimes. Society sucks for shoving female perfection down our throats. The female ideal is the 16-year old. Once you are past that point, you are desparately made to cling to your 16-year old body. Must lose weight, must remove hair, must sculpt and dye and nip and tuck to remain a little girl with a little girl body. Must not grow up. Must not have a voice. Must not be allowed to be a person, just a fucking object. I hate it.

So...unlike most women, I am not excited about wearing a Barbie dress. It makes me feel bad about myself. It makes me feel unacceptable and unsightly and I don't even weigh 140 pounds. I can't seem to find any dress options that provide any support or coverage or structural detail. Everything is flimsy and unforgiving. I am worn out already looking for a dress, store after store, and nothing fits. I would even take something ugly if it were a good fit.

Men don't get it. It would be like sending a 200lb Dad into the boys' clothes store and telling him to "find something cute to wear."

I guess I could wear a jacket - I did buy a cute little silk ivory Eileen Fisher short jacket (50's with 3/4 sleeves) that I plan to wear over whatever dress I buy. And I started back to the gym. But still, I feel unfeminine and ungainly and ballooning when I even look at these clothes. My arms are mushy and not hard like they used to be when I went to the gym 6 days a week and weighed 120lbs. And you know what - I don't even want them to be hard any more. I just want to be allowed to BE MYSELF. And that means not being a total hard body anorexic. However, the world won't let women BE. It won't let them be themselves. It forces us into these fucking moulds that I despise, which are so restrictive, so impossible, so dismally narrowly horrible.

And by the way - am I alone here? Why are there not cool, sexy, interesting, stylish, well-tailored, high-quality clothes for women over 30? Everyone is either supposed to be a "Mom jean" type or a little 90lb girly girl. I haven't bought jeans in 2 years since I can't fit my size 4 waist and size 8 thighs into anything. My hourglass figure went out of style in the 50's and I can't find a thing to wear that doesn't look middle-aged.

Fuck!

fuck.

Anyway, I am ranting and drifting all over the place and I don't mean to. I guess all I want to say is that it makes me annoyed that I need to expose myself and feel bad about myself for an event that is supposed to be fun. Instead, I need to go half naked to some function in an ill-fitting dress that it took me 6 weekends to find. I don't want to waste my time and money on this, on something that frustrates me, and angers me, and insults me!! I can't find a dress anywhere, I know, along with the jeans and everything else, that will fit my body right. I'm not the target demographic for slutty white trash ball gowns I guess.

And sadly - the answer to my prayers does exist. I went to Holt Renfrew and saw a gorgeously stunning Chanel dress which would look amazing on me. Thanks to the vanity sizing, the size 4 or 6 would be plenty large. It was refined and classic looking, with a cute little Jackie O jacket over an empire wasted dress made from a heavy woven fabric (hence structure and coverage) with lots of elegant detailing in pearl and ribbon. So pretty. And only $2300!

I know I need to relax. Hey, I am too serious. I have way too many feminist (humanist) thoughts to be a proper lady. I need to embrace my inner girly girl and buy a poofy dress and act perky and cheery. In the end, I will buy a conservative dress and a little cute jacket to wear over it and will feel entirely under-dressed and too serious next to the dim-witted ignorance-is-bliss party girls who love the chance to wear a poofy dress and heave their wee boobs on a platter. Ugh. Sometimes I wish I could think less and be more of a standard-issue life is wonderful kind of girl. But the truth is, life isnt wonderful. It is very unfair to women and I am sorry for noticing that.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane ~

David and I are off to gorgeous west-coast Victoria tomorrow for a 4-day long weekend.

What a wonderful way to celebrate my birthday weekend! We are expecting plenty of rain (my favorite thing after chocolate), green grass and flowers, and otherwise stormy oceanside weather. I'm looking forward to wandering and walking with David, visiting with my best friend Margaret and my aunt Sharon, who both live there, and basically feeling free and happy for 4 whole days!

We're also hoping to buy some table linens for the new house. Calgary, despite the oil and housing boom, doesn't have much in the way of unique home decor boutiques. Okay, there are some but I've exhausted them all. And Victoria has some little gems. Plus, thanks to its English colonial roots and wealthy retirees, we expect there to be plenty of stuffy linen stores!

I just can't wait to walk in the rain and admire the greenery and breathe the cool ocean air...

Beautiful Things

There are so many things I find beautiful in the decorating world...so many lovely ideas! And I am thoroughly and happily immersed in that world as we slowly begin to decorate our new home, our new little nest.

It's often hard, very hard, to decide which theme or overall mood to choose for a room. I want to try them all and I seem to love too many different styles. Mostly my eye seems to prefer traditional decor, but nothing too prim or too stuffy or too ornate. I don't like superfluous details nor too many flowers and frills. And although I love traditional, elegant, sophisticated decors, a huge part of me loves simple, rustic, easy stuff. So I guess I fit into the "eclectic" or the "town and country" camp. My ideal home is a country manor with a stable full of horses outside and a house full of antiques inside.

There's also challenge in identifying not just one's key "style(s)" but also items one likes within that style. I like "vintage" but I hate rusty buckets full of flowers and clutter. I do like the soft white palatte and the "worn" look. I love beachy, breezy, light-as-sea-air interiors, complete with seashells and driftwood, but I am painfully afraid of appearing cliche.


I love the vintage organic botanical conservatory look, with its glass jars and antique prints. I have a lovely little collection of botanical flower and antique bird prints I want to use. I find lots of inspiration at www.Anthropologie.com and www.Cavallini.com










And to make matters worse, I also happen to adore Arts & Crafts and Craftsman-inspired looks and have some Mission furniture that needs to find a home.








Sooo...lately, I've begun worrying less about content and style and more about following my heart: choosing colours that I keep coming back to, and items that I love. But trying to follow your heart and do grown-up coherent decorating is a challenge!!

This past weekend, David and I bought an unlikely pair of modern (yes, modern!) Mikasa glass candlesticks which we paired on our 1920's sideboard with some blue pottery, a large Arts & Crafts mirror overhead, and a gorgeous Art Deco reproduction lamp I bought years ago in Toronto. The mix looks great because they're all things I love and despite the varying styles, they all have a curvilinear quality that makes the look coherent. FYI...the candlesticks are called Florale and from the top they look like stylized flowers...

Eventually, I promise to post some photos of the house, some rooms "in progress". But sadly, my home computer isn't working and I can't (legally) upload my digital files at the office, so I can't do much with my photos!! And the rooms are all in monstrous flux anyway. I am constantly moving things!

But I'm beginning to really love this, as much as I just want to get ONE ROOM "done"!! Although, I am beginning to sense that serious decorators are never "done" and this decorating thing, well, I feel like I am falling in love...xo : )