Call For Inventors

Posted on 2/28/2007 by cheesefairy

Let’s invent a deodorant and call it “Stink Balm”. Then I could buy all the chips in the world and you could buy whatever you want. Awesome.

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Most Banal Ever

Posted on 2/27/2007 by cheesefairy

You know what? Time goes faster when you have a car. It makes sense – after all you are moving faster. I am astounded that it is already Wednesday.

Ho! I have been driving on big roads and small; I have passed slow trucks and grumbled at those hesitant, left-lane hogs. I tried – and failed – to come up with a route from New Westminster to Point Grey that would keep me out of heavy traffic. Even at noon, the roads were clogged. Despite a couple of wrong turns I ended up at my destination – Discount Diapers, where I get all my cloth diapering supplies – in half the time it would have taken by bus (es). I bought more diaper covers for Trombone’s expanding butt and a pair of fluorescent orange baby sunglasses because he has decided that now he can take his hat off, why would he wear a hat?. He was ever so unimpressed with the sunglasses. He cried and cried and then looked at me through the strange, dark plastic and he was a dead ringer for an angry old dude in the ’80s. I laughed. And then I got back in the car and drove home.

I still don’t have bagels from Solly’s. Yesterday, our first day of car ownership, it snowed. Because that’s what it does here now, in Vancouver. It snows. Yup. Guess I had better get some of those white puffy boots and a hat with ear flaps because the rain forest is freezing over. Anyway, I chose a close-to-home rather than cross-town journey for our first, in case the snow was terrible and we should lose our car in a collision a mere day after signing the insurance papers. (The snow wasn’t terrible. And I found a “Signature” Liquor Store only 10 minutes from home!)

Here are the next places I’m going to go (stupid weather permitting):
– Solly’s Bagels. Probably the Main Street location since the one near Cambie and 7th is probably inaccessible due to the big hole they’re digging in Cambie St.
– The fabulous shoe store, which is the Ronson’s Rack at Granville and 13th or 14th ave. (not fabulous like whoo I got sequinned platform heels in my size! but fabulous like whoo I got butter-soft, hand-sewn leather sandals that won’t give me blisters – for half the retail price! I find that the Shoe Warehouse on South Granville also rarely disappoints. Once, I got one pair of shoes for $20 and the other pair for $10. Life was good that day.)
– Various peoples’ houses. Want a visit? Let me know!
– The beach.
– Superstore! On Thursday! No, I didn’t write it in my daytimer, shut up.
– Costco. We’re nearly out of vitamins.
– Liquidation World. We’re nearly out of useless crap that costs a dollar.

See, this is why car ownership is expensive. It’s not the insurance or the gas, it’s that you can go places and BUY THINGS.

OK. All this driving and squeeeing about it has given me precious little television time. I didn’t get all of TYRA’s GROUNDBREAKING show yesterday but I did see the very beginning. She gave us the preamble about why she was going to change the world with a red bodysuit but I couldn’t pay any attention because she was orange. Seriously orange. Like, the colour of Trombone’s new sunglasses. I kept waiting for her to say something like, “…and because so many people value appearances over talent or personality I have dyed myself orange to make a point.” But she never did!

TYRA is encouraging us all to have a “So What” moment – there’s even a red gummy bracelet so you know it’s a real movement – and regardless of the sentiment, now I can’t get Ministry out of my head. Ministry and red, strapless bodysuits. It’s the stuff nightmares are made of. I swear.

Posted in outside, television, trombone | 8 Comments

The Cheeseblog: Stream of Semi-Consciousness Edition

Posted on 2/25/2007 by cheesefairy

In the dark, in the glider, with a baby permanently attached to me, my thoughts flash bright like fireworks and then disappear. By which I mean bright like loud and intrusive, not bright like brilliant. To wit:

– I love my new bag
– Mary Poppins is a really nasty woman
– advice to the expectant mother esp. re: appropriate chairs for nursing/cuddling
– OMG We Are Totally Getting Our Car (in 3 days/in 2 days/tomorrow/Today!)
– places I am going to go in our car
– I had a dream that I was on the road with the Hillary Clinton For President campaign
– the differences between the 8 week and 8 month old baby, esp. re: public transit
– I would like someone to dance on my body till the bones and joints go back to where they’re supposed to
– I figured out why the knuckles on my left hand are cracked and dry
– should I dye my hair?
– I can go to the best shoe store ever in our car (add to mental list)
– screw having seen any of them – I have only heard of one of the Oscar nominated films

I can expound at length if one (or many) of these topics grabs you by the collar and shakes you senseless. I also take requests. I play wicked air drums but absolutely no Tom Waits covers. I like coffee.

Posted in bloggity! | 5 Comments

Let The Record Show

Posted on 2/20/2007 by cheesefairy

You all know that I am simultaneously enthralled and horrified by Tyra Banks. I keep vowing never to watch her talk show again and then every day at 3:58 pm my hand moves to the remote as though my coffee table was a ouija board and the remote the little doohickey that spells out your fortune.

Speaking of inanimate objects that tell the future – or the present, even – how cool would it be to have customizable babies that were like Magic 8 balls? And when you wanted to know something from your as-yet-non-verbal baby you would just give its head a little jiggle (no, not shake, shaking is bad) and the answer would pop up in a window on its forehead or something. The window could slowly fade out or grow a new layer of skin or something by the time the kid started to speak in full sentences. I was thinking about this today or maybe yesterday as I tried to elicit a comprehensible response from Trombone while trying to get him to sleep: “You like the rocking? You DON’T like the rocking? I should stop rocking? I should rock harder? I should grow a mullet and be a groupie for Ozzfest?”

I guess a couple of weeks ago some tabloids took pictures of Tyra on the beach and she was slouchy so she looked kind of, well, slouchy. The tabloids said Tyra had gained lots of weight. Tyra FOUGHT BACK by wearing a bathing suit on the cover of People? I think? and publicly stating her height and weight. Then she had a show that, alas, I missed, where she told America and Everyone that she is tired of women being judged by their bodies, she is tired of an impossible beauty standard (ie: Skinny) being held up for all of us to emulate, she is tired of being criticized just because she has a booty yall her mama loves her booty and has a booty too so kiss their bootys! Booties!

I saw it on VideoDog. She cried at the end. Also, I know I have already posted about this, sort of, but I am following up because TYRA keeps following up and it is getting on my tits. I think from now on I will refer to her as all-caps TYRA because she is just that HUGE and I don’t mean physically.

Being me, of course, I won’t let it go at that and just stop watching TYRA No, being me, I have to keep watching TYRA and drive myself crazy AND tell you all what I think.

So why does it bother me that TYRA is proud of her extra 40 lbs? (People magazine said she was 165 lbs and her Mama said 10 years ago she was 123 lbs. Yes, that’s my cite.) It doesn’t. It bothers me that TYRA has taken it upon herself to re-define Beauty to include women who are not skinny. Why? Because it doesn’t actually change anything; it just appears to.

If TYRA shows love for the fat girls (and instructs the World to do the same) without changing the beauty paradigm, it’s just lip service. We can say whatever we want and hug each other all the live-long day but there still aren’t going to be any fat girls in Seventeen magazine, there still aren’t going to be any fat girls selling beer or cars…oh wait. Wouldn’t it be more revolutionary to take women out of advertising altogether? Seriously. I want to see all ads without women in them. You want to sell me a lip gloss? Tell me what’s so great about it. Use your words. You want me to buy your beer? You may explain in 50 words or less, perhaps using words like “dark” or “light” or “high alcohol content.” Relevant words. Not images. No more images.

On Monday some ancient part of my brain that stores inconsequentalia said, “Ooh, turn on the TV; today’s the TYRA show where she recreates her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Cover Shot 10 Years Later!”

It’s black history month, you see. The magazine cover in question was the first Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover with a black model. TYRA. TYRA made history. Black, female history. I can see how she’s proud of that. First black woman on the cover of a prestigious – if you’re a model – magazine. But in passing, one of her voiceover dudes mentioned that TYRA’s was also the LAST Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover featuring a black model. TYRA did not follow up on this.

It was standard crazy-TYRA fare (she brought out a “one to watch” young model, complimented her on her work and gave her three phone numbers.
TYRA: You remember, that time I said you could call me anytime?
Model: Yes!
TYRA: And you called me and had questions and then I called you back…but you didn’t return my call!
Model: (nervous) Heh, heh, yeah?
TYRA: You CALL ME ANYTIME!)

and didn’t faze me. But at one of the commercial breaks, a preview for next week’s show came on and it showed TYRA shaking her fist at the world again, promising a manifesto (I’m paraphrasing) of sorts to FREE WOMEN from the TYRANNY of the BODY POLICE! It was announced that TYRA was changing the world, that her STAND against the TABLOIDS was serving to rally a nation of discontented women. A quotation graced the screen, sadly I do not recall whose words they were, stating Tyra is a beacon of light!

The media-designed and supported concept of beauty is not freeing, it cannot be freeing, even if it gets bigger and includes more types of people, it’s still media-designed and supported and it is paralyzing. Why expand it? Why illuminate it? TYRA, you have so much pull in the modeling world, apparently, why not fucking destroy it? Get up on your show, say you’re sorry for AnTM, cease and desist with the “my beauty secrets,” and the “let’s all wear our underwear because it’s so freeing/here’s how to wear the right kind of bra so boys like you!” bullshit and do something important with all your monstrous power.

And if you’re not going to do that, then just stop. Stop telling me what beauty is and isn’t. Stop telling me it exists as something that can be defined, held up for examination, emulated. Stop thinking I am so stupid as to buy this kind of lip gloss because your definition of beautiful girl is wearing that lip gloss and if I buy it I can be beautiful LIKE HER or, even better, beautiful LIKE ME, unique, because I am wearing the lip gloss that makes unique girls uniquely beautiful.

Stop telling us it’s okay to not be perfect when the definition of perfect is based on sales and marketing.

I submit that fat is more than okay. I submit that skinny is more than okay. I submit that big boobs little boobs big feet little feet big heads little heads are more than okay. I submit that whether you are beautiful enough for a Vogue cover or a Dove campaign or neither has no bearing on whether or not you are beautiful enough. I submit that whatever the shape of your body is; you are enough, you are enough, you are enough. Go kiss your mirror.

Now gimme my talk show.

Posted in television | 7 Comments

Brain Mystery Explained

Posted on 2/18/2007 by cheesefairy

Tonight we were sitting on the couch; Saint Aardvark and I eating a delicious dinner of 3Cs (Chili! Cheese! Chips!) and Trombone between us. Trombone was alternating playing with a maraca from Cuba, an old remote control and a duck rattle with teethable wings. Suddenly he leaned to his left, towards me, and began to hoist himself up to standing, using my shoulder and (ow!) rib-flesh as handles.

“Heh heh heh ha!” he chortled, his two bottom teeth gleaming. He did a little dance and plopped back down.

Trombone is not a laugh-y baby. I have met babies who are eternally amused by the world, who laugh if you look at them, poke their tummies, tickle their feet. Trombone – so far – is more like me, in that he stares a lot, smiles a lot and occasionally laughs uncontrollably. In recent weeks he has been more easily amused; if you fly him in the air like a plane, he giggles; if you rub his tummy on your head (watch his hands they’re gonna grab your OW! HAIR!) he giggles; today when I danced around the kitchen with pants on my head, well, he giggled. As would anyone, I like to think. But this evening was the first time he ever laughed at himself, at something he did, with self-awareness and the pride that accompanies it.

And oh, the baby laugh. It’s like being in a room full of helium and cupcakes. It makes my soul ache. And zap

just like that

– all the months of aches and pains
– sweating with 40 extra lbs in the hot hot spring
– labour
– hospital food
– well-meaning public health personnel
– the screaming
– the crying
– the fussing
– the whining
– the despair
– lately, the pinching
– the behavior that makes no sense

all vanishes.

My brain says, “Oh. What a lovely, lovely baby. Look how he sits up and watches you and passes toys from hand to hand and smiles and laughs at his own accomplishments. And so beautiful. Fuzzy soft hair. Round peach cheeks.”

And then my brain says, “HOLD UP. You told me to watch out for this. You said, Hmm, I wonder why so many people have their children 18 months apart? I wonder if it’s because of hormones or lack of birth control or on purpose to space them just so or if something WEIRD happens to people 9 months post partum and they start to think it might be a good idea to do it again. You said, I should watch out for this when I am 9 months post partum. Because I am SURE I will not want to do it again, not so soon. It took me 30 years to convince myself to do it once. 9 months is obviously not long enough to convince myself to do it a second time. So hi. Just letting you know I’m still paying attention over here.”

There are as many reasons to have one’s children 18 months apart as there are beautiful blades of grass in a glistening soccer field. But as a person to whom none of the other reasons apply, I am telling you; the biologically-induced amnesia is a tricky son of a bitch. Even up until 2 weeks ago I could not fathom why anyone would ever have more than one child. I could still smell that hospital meatloaf. I didn’t feel like my head had crested the water long enough to take a meaningful breath of air in, oh, about a year. Every once in a while I would do a quick self-check. Self? I would say, Is this baby miraculous enough to make you forget what a pain in the ass he is yet? And my self would cackle and curl up into the shape of a comma and wait for the next question.

It’s not that Self doesn’t think the baby is awesome. No no no. Self loves the baby. Self even likes the baby a lot of the time. But the scales hadn’t quite balanced. There had not been enough happyfantastic to outweigh the crankycraptastic. Sometime in the past 2 weeks, that changed.

Luckily, I write everything down – especially when I’m sad and / or angry – and have an accurate record of the past 7.5 months to hold up for my brain’s examination. You will not get the best of me, o trickster biology. I am keeping my pants on and remaining vigilent throughout the next several months. And if any of you hears me swooning Oh, I miss my TEENY WITTLE BABYKINS please feel free to belt me soundly about the head.

OK but also? Unstoppably cute:
Hello!Einstein?

Posted in trombone | 5 Comments