Tyin' The Knot!

I'm going through this very femme-y phase lately.



I have struggled with gender ever since I became aware of the fact that not everyone had the same junk. I think I must have been about three. In my brain, I am neither this nor that. I am between genders. My body, though, is female as all get out. It's busty and soft in quite a few places, and I find it pretty irritating, because clothing this body is a bitch. If tops aren't built to foist my bosoms upon the general populace, they end up either hanging off me mumu-style or looking downright matronly.

This isn't about my boobs, though. I don't even know why I went there. I apologize.

What this is about, though, is my new, uncharacteristic nail polish fetish. It started with Revlon's Mon Cherry cherry-scented nail polish, because, come on, it smelled like cherries! And then I ended up with Rimmel's Stiletto Red, because I wanted some red nail polish that didn't smell like cherries. And then I found a cheap bottle of a baby blue nail polish called My Lifesaver from Nicole's Justin Bieber One Less Lonely Girl line, which really should have tipped me off that I was developing a problem. And then I wanted something with a little bit of a sharper edge and bought Sally Hansen's Chartreuse Chase.

I was on a short break from my out-of-the-house job today, wandering through Shoppers on my way to pick up a bottle of water, when I came across a display of Sally Hansen nail polish in metallic shades. I found one I liked that was on sale and bought it, because I have reds and blues but no metallics, and what's a nail polish collection without metallics?

I kind of hate myself for having thoughts like that sometimes, but there you go. I have a nail polish collection now, and I am apparently completing it. I am also apparently shouting about it a lot on the internet. I have written about it not once, not twice, not thrice, not four times, and not five times (in reference to an entry that will be on Aiming Low later this week), but now SIX TIMES.

Anyway, my deepening obsession brought in this new shade, which is called Tyin' the Knot!.

TYIN' THE KNOT!

It comes with its own exclamation point. If I could punch a proper noun in that proper noun's throat, I would do it to this one. WA-POW. Take that nail polish name with too much punctuation what's making a sad effort to make marriage sound street.

I still like the colour, though.



The trouble is that now I'm having thoughts about how I must also own a warm tone of metallic to broaden the new metallics arm of my nail polish collection, because NOW MY COLLECTION IS GROWING ARMS. The new colour will probably be named something extra stupid like Golden Wedding, Yo!, and I will have to mentally stab it with forks to no avail while saying things to the Palinode like Look how nice my new nail polish is! and See how it goes with my favourite necklace? and Isn't it cute? Just look at it! and My fingers are sparkly!

The Palinode is an exceedingly patient human being.

Hopefully, this spate of femme-ing out is short-lived, because, while female drag can be fun in the short term, my feminism's getting cramps from all the recoiling.

Booby Girls, The Need To Consume, And Links Aplenty

Here is a great gallery of pictures chronicling scenes in San Francisco during the recent rush of same-sex marriages entitled “Justly Married”.

Stem cells may offer us the hope of bigger boobs. Whoopee.

Not that I trust studies such as this one so much, but I am having problems with evil women in my life lately. Maybe they're just incredibly fertile.

Einstein’s “cosmological constant”, or dark energy theory, may actually hold up according to recent measurements.

Last night, I was out with the Fiery One and Friday Films to a local restaurant/bar. We had gone to a film at the indie theatre, and the thought of going to the same pub again that we always go to was depressing, so we ended up at this restaurant/bar we don't usually go to. It was a welcome change. The cold weather and lack of a vehicle has limited the distance I am willing to travel when I leave the apartment, but it is finally warming up enough to increase my radius. The three of us had to jam ourselves in around a tiny table, because the place was packed, and when our food arrived it got a little tight, but it helped with the coziness factor. I was seated at the end of a row of tables, so I had a view of everyone sitting down the line. I am an avid people watcher, and there was definitely a watchable group of girls just down from us. There were three of them: Almost Pretty, Getting Dumpy, and Decidedly Homely. They were an awful lot. They were terribly fascinated with the fact that they had boobs, and that they could be hoisted and squeezed together to entice males. As much as your average male is into the whole boob thing, especially boobs of good size such as these three had, the male half of the crowd at the restaurant were having none of them. On the other side of these three was a table comprised of two male-female couples who were of the glossy and styled variety. The two women left to go to the bathroom, leaving the two men alone at the table. Within ten seconds, Almost Pretty had re-glossed her already gloss-laden lips and was leaning her breasts against one of the men’s arms. He kept his head turned in the other direction, obviously trying to avoid the overdone and unashamed advances of the girl, but then she reached her arm across his chest, pressing it firmly to him as she did so. I’m not sure what she was doing, but she seemed to try to engage him with a question. He brushed her off with a really short answer and was saved by the return of his tablemates. The three girls kept desperately trying to draw attention to their breasts, which were less impressive than the average rack, by pointing out certain aspects of their bras and touching their breasts to indicate how they fit. When no one approached their table with any interest, Getting Dumpy and Decidedly Homely tried to insinuate lesbianism into their display, alternately hugging each other, pointing out each other’s boobs, and looking deeply at each other. Ick. Almost Pretty was missing out on the lesbo act, so she tried her best to oh-so-seductively apply lipgloss while staring intensely at me and doing that weird porn star thing with her mouth. They finally gave up after a guy came by their table to say hello and Almost Pretty stood up unnecessarily so that she could press her breasts against whatever part of him was available for boob pressing. He was obviously uncomfortable and made his getaway. I have never seen such a bizarre and desperate display as that outside of the cougar set, and I do hope that I am not made privy to it again. They were an embarrassment to women everywhere.

There is yet another thing that may possibly lead to breast cancer. What doesn't now?

Check out these great posters from a recent era in Chinese history. (To read the slogans in english, hover your pointer over the image).

How great is it to come from one of the fattest provinces in the country? So great.

Despite the fact that he failed painfully during the first round of auditions for “American Idol”, William Hung received a recording contract for $25,000 US before the competition has even finished. If you don’t remember him or didn’t get a chance to witness his talents the first time around, watch the video of his audition.

I had this idea a few days ago, and I thought I would share it with you. I have been thinking lately about the impending oil crisis and why the United States seems bent on using more and more disposable, one-time use items and selling huge polluting vehicles, which only increases the mass amounts of oil that are already being consumed. Here’s my idea: the United States has to continue to consume oil as they have in the past, and in fact, they have to continually consume more and more, in order to maintain their buying power in the world oil markets. So, the less oil they consume, the less clout they have politically. They have to consume more and more oil just to keep up with themselves and maintain their international status. Just a thought.

Conrad Black claims that he is trying to retrieve his reputation. He obviously doesn’t know what people thought of him even before this scandal.

Jerry Falwell is the latest member of the clergy to decide to devote himself full-time to fighting gay marriage by forming an anti-gay marriage coalition. It is none of the church’s business what a secular government decides!

Arnold Schwarzenegger says that courts in San Francisco are “dropping the ball” by allowing the granting of marriage licenses to gay couples, but a California judge will not be pressured.

Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, has turned 80, and he has assured the people that he will retire within the next five years. Why do bad people get to live so long?

I had Friday off, so I am in the middle of a three-day weekend. Did I ever need this long weekend what with work stress and it being the tail end of a hellish winter. I thought that I should use my extra time off constructively, which it turns out, is good for all of you. I have added an extra links page! Its links are mostly ones that I already have on this main page, but there are a few extras, and these will be added to whenever I come across links I would like to keep. So check it out. (I’ve added a couple of really good smut links if you are into that kind of thing).

I get so steamed when I hear that women, in this day and age, are still not allowed to go somewhere simply because of their sex. At least this golf club in Ireland has been forced to change its anti-women rules.

A doctor in Germany, Dr. Mechthild Bach, has been accused of killing as many as 1500 of her patients.

In Nairobi, Kenya, a huge fire has destroyed a vast slum, leaving 4500 people homeless.

I love this architect’s idea of Regina, Saskatchewan’s airport expansion. He wants to embed the art right into the building. Yum.

Wal-Mart is evil for even more reasons, and it’s not good for any of us.

The Red Cross has had a sit-down with Saddam.

Hair Removal (Or Not), A Dream, And Hooters

I found this on cyrenity’s site, and just had to share it with all of you – gay penguins. I keep thinking how desperate those two were to try to hatch a rock.

Too cool. Zoom in on everyday things.

Apparently, Joy Adamson, of Born Free fame, was not the sweet lady portrayed in the film. I remember watching Born Free when I was a kid, and I even learned the theme song. I wanted to grow up and be as strong and noble and courageous and change-effecting as Ms. Adamson, but now I will have to find someone else who is strong and noble and courageous and change-effecting.

I shaved my armpits this morning. To many of you, this doesn’t seem to mean much. If you are a male, you probably assume that I shave my armpits, and if you are a female, armpit shaving has probably become such an ingrained part of your rituals of physical upkeep that you don’t think of it so much as assume it. Actually, none of you, male or female, probably gives any thought at all to whether or not I shave my armpits and how often I do it. Since you have been thinking so little about it, I will tell you all about this hair issue of mine.
When I was in highschool, I shaved regularly, both my underarms and legs. I usually did it every second or third day when the stubble would get really uncomfortable. Looking back, I realize that the only reason I did shave so often was that I went to a boarding school where the girls had to wear navy jumpers, and so my legs were exposed a good portion of the time. After graduation, this routine fell by the wayside. At first I found myself shaving my armpits regularly and leaving my legs go until I wanted to wear shorts or a skirt or the leg hair became too easily visible to the unwary eye. This carried on until I was twenty, a time when the things that dictated my hair removal changed markedly. I began dating a granola hippy type whose circle of hippy friends welcomed me with open arms. Why shave when those around you are woolly and unashamed of it? I felt brave and wild and a little dirty. It was very alluring this conscious decision to fuck those who would have me be ashamed of my natural state. Any razors left in the house were for the shaving of pilly sweaters only, furry armpits and legs aside.
Despite my pride in what felt like a gutsy approach to my femininity, when that relationship ended and I drifted away from the hippy crowd, my body hair became more of an issue. My next boyfriend was relatively okay with the hair, but most other men were less than enthused and often showed stifled disgust when they caught an accidental look at my hirsute ankle. Most of the women I knew had similar responses. My mother caught sight of my exposed ankle once and had to cover her mouth to quell her gag reflex. That reaction was so ridiculously out of proportion to the situation that I openly laughed at her, but ever after I held that image of her in my mind and took more care to cover up what had by then become my dirty little secret.
From about the age of twenty-two on, I developed a semi-regular routine of shaving my armpits whenever the hair growth threatened to make shaving difficult if left unchecked for too much longer, and leg-shaving took place approximately once or twice a month and was based on whether or not my leg hair was determined enough to weave its way through the fabric of my stockings. This habit grew simply out of laziness. From the ages of about twenty-three to twenty-seven, I was mostly single, if you don’t count some one-off lustful encounters and a four-month stint with someone I did not even feel like I was dating; since I didn’t really care one way or the other about my hairiness, and no one else was looking, and I did not tend to wear revealing clothing anyway, I just let the damn stuff grow as it would, for the most part, and stayed covered. Aesthetically speaking, I have to admit, my leg and armpit hair does nothing for me, as my hair is quite thick and dark and my skin is very pale, but laziness won out. It won out so regularly and for such lengths of time that my razors grew deep orange rust stains on their blades and developed layers of soap scum.
In recent months, this issue of my body hair has become a much bigger deal to me, and I am not sure why. I notice it constantly. Maybe it is because I have been allowing it its full growth for a whole year now, maybe it is that my body hair has become somewhat thicker in recent years, maybe it is my slow realization that a good number of the women shilling facial creams and other beauty products on television and in magazines are younger than me now, but I want to be rid of it. No, regular shaving won’t do it. If I shave in the morning, my legs are bristly by evening, and I am just not fastidious enough to keep up with it on a daily basis. My armpits have a small enough surface area and are easy enough to get at that I have started shaving them on a once-weekly basis. Silly as it is, I feel a small sense of accomplishment over this and wear smaller t-shirts proudly, confident in the knowledge that no tendrils of my underarm growth will be peeking out if I raise my arms. From the waist up, I look acceptably feminine in terms of our culture: my moustache is burnt away by depilatory creams, my eyebrows are plucked, and my armpits are as smooth and hairless as a ten-year-old’s (today, that is). From the waist down, it is a different story: there is too much work involved in shaving, too much pain in certain other methods of hair removal, and summer is not yet here with shorts and skirts to coerce me into pruning my unruly growth. But still, there it sits, and I want rid of it. I am woman, hear me wince at the thought of waxing.

The world is running out of oil. You know it, I know it, we all know it, so how come this is the first article I’ve come across recently that speaks directly about it?

I don’t know how much I like the idea of setting out to destroy and entire species of fish by sending out a genetically modified terminator. It’s creepy.

I haven’t read Please Don’t Kill the Freshman by Zoe Trope. It’s one of those books that I glance at whenever I see it, but for some reason have never opened. After reading this review, though, I might.

My dreams are still coming along well. My lack of decent dreaming over the last few months is definitely being made up for. As an example, here is a dream from a couple of nights ago:
I was wealthy and had no need of a regular job, so I worked with different charities to bring good into the world. For this one particular charity (it’s purpose was unclear to me, even in the dream) I had come up with a unique way to raise funds and awareness. I had decided to put together a temporary zoo of small exotic animals from around the world. People would pay to visit the zoo, and then there would be an expensive dinner where the elite could sit and dine in a room whose walls were lined with the cages of these exotic animals. I was unpacking a crate that contained three Burmese tree rabbits, which I had never seen before (in fact, nobody ever has, because my dream self made them up). The Fiery One was enchanted by them. They were smaller than your average rabbit and had the softest, medium-length, greyish-brown fur I have ever felt. They were also floppier than your average rabbit, like they had all this loose skin or something. I fell in love with them, because they were so people-friendly and affectionate. (It only occurred to me later upon waking that importing exotic animals is just not acceptable, even if it is in the name of charity. Those poor Burmese tree rabbits).

There is something really funny about the fact that sites like Friendster, who are there to connect people together, can't even keep their own popularity up.

This is a great entry from anyone’s any. She wrote so well about something I struggle with every day.

When I started writing this entry yesterday morning, it was about 7am, which means that it was still dark out. This means that when I was sitting here in front of the window at the computer with the lights on, I was easily visible from the office building across the street. I noticed that a couple of the people who work in that building were there early, so if they happened to glance out the window, there I would be. Just then, the Fiery One came into the room, and I referred to my breasts as hooters, which suddenly seemed like the funniest breast reference ever. Partially, I think the hilarity rose from the fact that I had been sitting there topless for over an hour and knew full well that anyone across the street could see me. I wanted to write “hooters” across my chest at that point, because as funny as it was to think of people going home after work and telling their friends and spouses about this naked girl in the apartment building across the street, it was even funnier to think of people going home after work and telling their friends and spouses about this naked girl in the apartment building across the street who had “hooters” written across her chest. I am not normally an exhibitionist, but yesterday apparently called for it.

So, since it’s here now, what do you think of my new layout? I still don’t know much about html, so I worked very hard to construct this new look for myself. I rather like it, if I do say so myself.