Ahem...Did I mention that I'm a published author?

And no, I'm not talking about my stint as 'October Lily' in the Western Producers Young People Club, nor am I talking about my poem that was published in the Young Canadian Writers anthology - and subsequently 'publicized' through an interview with the Canora Courier...

A year ago I helped 'pen' a journal article regarding work we were doing at the City of Saskatoon...anyways it was published in a journal in May (just found out now)...so I'm trying to obtain a hard copy...but may end up having to dish out $32 for an electronic version (yes, I'd like to BUY my own copy!)....anyways...it just goes to show that while I may be awesome I still am like the little people...having to purchase my own copies...

My life is complete?

So I just thought that I would share with my readers that I can now die happy, for I have managed to finish reading what can only be described as an interesting, thought-provoking, and thoroughly entertaining piece of literature...

Victoria Beckhams 'That extra half inch' made me think long and hard about whether the jeans I am purchasing provide enough butt uplift vs. the flat butt syndrom, while also challenging a core belief of mine that empire wasite dresses look good on people with big breasts.

Words of insight were interspersed with her own fashion experiences, and the terror that she felt when asked to do a runway show. I can only imagine the fear that welled up inside her as she prepared for this very daunting role, one which would have surely pushed her natural talents while providing her with more fashion credentials.

Finally her advice on 'where to shop' for items was well received, though a bit reliant on the obvious mainstays of the British high-street - I'm sure every British female couldn't imagine a life without the overpriced and unnecessary TopShop.

Thank you Mrs Beckham for a truly insightful read. I do feel far more enriched having delved into a little piece of your life. If I had only known how difficult it has been for you to put together an appropriate outfit for the following day while making sure that the boys bedtime routines were attended to I would never have belittled your 'hectic schedule'.

:)

A Letter to the Columnist

This is so much more than Black and Brown....

Read:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/01/AR2006060102048.html

Rant:
Reading your article I was offended by the overused and generic message that you were sending. Why is it that female fashion faux pas' tend to only focus on those with a little extra? Why don't we ever admit that some people are too thin or disproportionately shaped to pull off certain styles?
Never do people suggest a low cut top on a girl with minimal breasts can look rather disgusting...nor do they boo when a skin and bones girl flaunts her ribs in a bikini (and not just Nicole Richie but even Kirsten Dunst recent France swimming episode left something to be desired), or when slit dresses expose legs that may be thin but are scrawny or unshapely (like Kate Moss -- her legs are 'not perfect' - we all know this, but she's not chastised for exposing us to them).
It makes me upset that the media (being you) continually overlook that thin isn't always the best frame for clothing. Do I wear low cut jeans, mini-skirts, shrugs and flip flops? Absolutely. Are some styles more or less flattering on my 5'6, 145 pound frame? Absolutely. Yet the same is true for people of all sizes and shapes, so stop picking on the people with a little more to love just because you can. It's an easy way to write an article without requiring any thought. I hope next time you research the subject a little more before you write down your own discriminatory expertise. I expect better from the Washington Post.

ULOB: So many thoughts

So it has come to pass that I must return ULOB to the library or incur a fine...so I leave my readers with these passages:

For L & D:
'Franz shook his head. "When a society is rich, its people don't need to work with their hands; they can devote themselves to activities of the spirti. We have more and more universities and more and more students. If students are going to earn degrees, they've got to come up with dissertation topics. And since dissertations can be written about everything under the sun, the number of topics is infinite. Sheets of paper covered with words pile up in archives sadder than cemeteries, ebcause no one ever visits them, not even on All Souls' Day. Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalance of words, in the madness of quantityt. That's why one banned book in your former country means infinetly more than the billions of words spewed out by our universities"'..

Uh, yeah...if I can get my dad to read my dissertation i'll be happy...that'll bring the total readership up to three -- and I spent $50,000 on that!

For M:
...Stalin's son habitually left a foul mess....Crying out to heaven in the most terrifying of Russian curses, he took a running jump into the electrified barbed-wire fence that surrounded the camp...
Stalin's son laid down his life for shit. But a death for shit is not a senseless death. The germans who sacrificed their lives to expand their country's territory to the east, the Russians who died to extend their country's power to the west - yes, they died for soemthing idiotic, and their deaths have no meaning or general validity. Amid the general idiocy of the war, the death of Stalin's son stands out as the sole metaphysical death.

Just like that supposedly Stalin's son ran into an electrified fence because he wouldn't clean up his shitter...


For JF:
"Kitsch" is a German word born in the middle of the sentimental nineteenth century, and from German it entered all Western languages. Repeated use, however, has obliterated its original metaphysical meaning: kitsch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and the figureative sense of the word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially unacceptable in human existence.

so does that mean kitsch is acceptable?

For Me:
There are situations in which people are condemned to play act...

lIke me at work each day...

Seriously people, I loved the book...fingers crossed the next one will be just as good!

I'm Back for Part Three

You didn't think I'd be this intent on sharing the word of Kundera, but I am...I have seen the light...and it's a black one so the white fuzz shows up everywhere and your teeth look freaky...

a few words first. I am becoming more and more hippy like with my return to Saskatoon. I live downtown. I walk to work. I go to the YWCA. I work for the city. I have now signed up for a local food basket delivery service and am thinking of how to save my scraps for the community compost pile -- I will not get a plot in the community garden but I plan on using my brother's garden to grow some veggies...Soon I'll be jamming to the dead and hanging out in the hallway of my basement inhaling the excess fumes...


Awesomeness insight #3:

'Being in a foreign country means walking a tightrope high above the ground without the net afforded a person by the country where he has his family, collegues, and friends, and where he can easily say what he has to say in a language he has known from childhood'.

fuck language -- this goes beyond language...the norms, values, customs of another country constantly keep you on your toes for fear of judgement, for fear of being told well you wouldn't understand, you don't count, you aren't from here, etc etc etc. You hold fiercly to your own customs and upbringings but don't want to be judged for them, you want to feel like its ok to debate possibilities, but you are constantly seen as the foreigner...you never get to 'fit in'...and this goes for canadians in america and americans in canada...there's always the subtle differences...even if they are more regionalized than nationalized, a different region within the country has more 'right' to contradict than does a different nation....this is an fucking awesomeness insight...because its sooooo spot on...anyone disagree?

Hookah Shoes and Part Two

To cap off what has been a lovely, albeit somewhat tame, four-day weekend, I decided to purchase some new shoes from the local outsource shop, Walmart. Along for the ride were my dear little bro's roomies, Moir and JW. As I sat there, admiring my feets in my new slippers, Moir suggested I also pick up an extremely tacky pair of shoes...clear plastic heels with clear plastic straps. I smiled and said no, that they were in fact, hooker shoes and that I preferred to look like an escort, being classy like that. We laughed and proceeded down the aisles to where a little girl, age 10, was trying on the aforementioned shoes, her mother loveingly watching on...snickers abounded and we realized that the little girl had in fact been pulling the shoes off the shelf when I had made the comment...nice...my influence on the youth of north america continues to be steller...

Now on to part deux of the most amazing book ever...

Awesomness Insight #2:

Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitious occurence (Beethovan's music, death under a train) into a motif, which them assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life.

Notes:
How very true this is. It's like horoscopes in a way...as a daily reader of my libra predictions, I take to heart what is true and discard what is not with a, bah, tis only a horoscope. In much the same way I can romanticize past incidents by drawing 'circumstantial' connections, composing fate to my liking. I take individual elements of remembered situations and force upon them an idealized mosiac, which I can then remember and point others to, saying, see...es muss sein (a geeky ULOB reference meaning It Must Be).

Further insights to come...stay tuned

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Part One

As everyone who has talked to me in the past two weeks knows, I'm currently reading Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being. I have professed this to be the best book ever, which I'm sure, it is not. However for the time being it is 'speaking' to me on so many levels. I plan on renewing this book so that I can share those insights which have caused me to embrace this book like no other...

I will begin my dissection of the awesomeness of the ULOB...


Generic Background Synopsis:
The story centers around four adults, three of which are Czech (probably yet another reason why I love the book as my Prague adventure forever endeared me to the country, it's arts, sports, etc). Two are married, the husband sleeping with the mistress who connects us to the fourth person. The story follows their thoughts as they move through life, and how they perceive things in contrast to those around them....

Awesomeness Insight #1:
"We can never know what to want, because living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come".

Reason this quote is so awesome...
Numerous times in my life I have often thought, 'next time around, I'll do that'. I have used this rationale to put off learning Mandarin, studying medicine, approaching crushes, dealing with negotiations, etc. Of course, I know that there isn't a next time around but for the brief seconds that I think this thought I truly believe it...as if to rationalize my current actions. It lets me think that I can continually revisit a subject and perfect it when I need to. Then I'm brought back to reality and I realize I won't be a doctor, I won't be speaking mandarin when I'm a teenager, and at the age of 16 I will always be the shy girl who will never get the crush, etc. And then I accept it as it is and make a vow to work with what I've got right now...

So this is an awesomeness insight because it lets us know that being confused, our 'crises' are perfectly legit, because how the fuck are we supposed to know what we want. Choosing one path means giving up another, and we have the right to be happy with the path we choose but to mourn the loss of the path we reject. I guess the trick is to mourn but to get over it...how one does that, I'm not exactly the expert on it...

Stay tuned for more awesomness insights...

This has been the word of Kundera, as translate by Lyla