Tag Archives: feminism

Nov9

uncensored Canadian thoughts on living in America today

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It was a very long night, and this morning is not looking much better.

I’m oscillating between Debra and Maya Angelou; between Fuck absolutely everything and Oriah Mountain Dreamer; between running home to Canada, and staying here to fight for what I believe at my core is the right thing to do.

Hey, I never said I was perfect. Zen Bitch, remember?


I love you Debra

Still I Rise
Maya Angelou, 1928 – 2014

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

The Invitation

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

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Oh Canada, I love you and I miss you, but there is more work to do where I am.

And I wouldn’t be a yoga teacher if I didn’t tell you to breathe. Slowly and Deeply. Repeat.

If you would like to, try breathing in sync with this

Oct24

somewhat un-zen life hacks

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Things I have learned lately and not so lately

Topic 1: Not Remotely Zen and the Art of Automotive Maintenance

v1

  • Be wary of Google maps when they suggest a ‘faster route’ to your swanky restaurant date with your daughters (one cooking for you, one eating with you).
  • Faster routes in Google maps can mean potholes the size of large bowling balls.
  • Potholes the size of large bowling balls can mean tire blowouts/flats in questionable parts of Chicago at night.
  • When changing a post pothole the size of a large bowling ball tire in questionable parts of Chicago at night be sure to turn your car lights off so the battery doesn’t get drained.
  • When changing a tire at night in a questionable part of Chicago saying ‘Ok Google turn on flashlight’ to your phone works better that ‘Ok Google where the fuck is the flashlight?’ – the second will have Google autocorrect ‘fuck’ to ‘phone your ex who told you to stop swearing so much’ and no good will come from THAT conversation.
  • When flat tires won’t come off even though you’ve removed all the goddamn lugnuts and pulled as hard as you can, you can try calling AAA, and you can try the police to help – because questionable area –  but do not try this  on the night the Cubs get into the World’s Series, because all of the police are at Wrigleyville and not in your questionable part of Chicago.
  • When flat tires won’t come off, even though you’ve done every bloody thing correctly and you’re going to be late to your reservation using ‘Very Loud Creative Swears’ whilst yanking on the motherf’ing tire will, in fact remove the flat tire and send you a few feet back with a filthy tire on your trendy, I’m going to a swanky restaurant outfit and your ass on the equally filthy roadside, but you won’t care, because pulling that motherf’cker off was extremely satisfying.
  • Once a goddamn flat tire is finally off the car, two motivated women can get a spare tire on in less than two minutes because Bitches Get Stuff Done and there was a swanky restaurant waiting for us.stephen_portrait
  • And just in case handling a flat Like A Boss wasn’t satisfying enough, the Chef comes out to greet us personally and gives us a tour of the kitchens because besides being cool and badasses, we also love eating exceptional food.

 

 

Topic 2: Dating or Dr. Really Strangelove and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

  • images-2Never date musicians
  • No good has ever come from dating a musician, so when screening potential dates ask first if they can play an instrument.
  • Playing piano might be okay, but plays electric guitar in a band is RIGHT out – do not walk, RUN away.
  • Never date Scorpios
  • I’m certain there are some very lovely Scorpio men out there, but do not date them. Scorpio in any part of their chart, just to be safe. Scorpio Moons especially no.
  • No more Latino men – no, no, no, no, and Hell no. Write this down, because apparently this is a smooth spot in your brain – NO Latino men. Mexican, Peruvian, Ecuadorian, Spanish doesn’t manner, don’t do it. It will never end well.
  • Catholic Latino men who adore their mother. Just don’t. You can’t even. You will never ever even. You will be switched from Madonna to Whore and back so many times you will get whiplash. You will swear too much, smile too little, never cook as well, be respected too much or way too little. You will never be good enough. This is a fact, at least for you, it is a fact. For the love of your remaining sanity and shattered ego, don’t go there.
  • Scorpio Latino Musician? Run.
  • Never date Irishmen, especially if they’re poets. No good ever came from dating an Irish poet. Write that down in your journal till you remember it.
  • Basically dating is a bad idea. Dating will invariably lead to adding another category to the list of men you are never to date again.
  • You might think being a yoga teacher with long curly hair would attract suitable men to date, it does not. It does however, attract all manner of suggestions regarding flexibility and comments about anatomy.

Topic 3: Approaching Interesting Men with Beards in restaurants images-1

  • DO IT. They could turn out to be a really cool band and invite you to come do yoga with them and go to their gigs
  • Do not date them – see above. Hang with them, do yoga with them, be generally be cool around them.

 

 

Topic 4: Retail / Food therapy or Eat, Read, Love

  • Buy the sweater, it will be warm and soft and gorgeous, feel like a hug and it will never judge you, tell you to smile more or to be more ladylike.
  • Buy the book(s), they will be interesting, expand your thinking and always there for you and will never ignore you when you need them most.
  • Buy infinity scarf with e.e. cumming’s poetry  i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) all over it because poetry that some men write is so much better than most men.
  • Reread Neruda, because poetry… so much better than actual men.
  • Buy the fingerless gloves with that section from Wuthering Heights that you love because well-written words, so much better than…. men.
  • Buy dessert, eat it whenever the fuck you want, and love every moment of eating it, because life is short and often needs chocolate. Also chocolate never judges you, ever.
  • downloadMovies – Go to them. Find a friend,  go alone. Put butter on your popcorn, eat it all. Movies where the creeptastic man meets a very satisfying end are especially good.

 

 

Also, yoga. Do some yoga, get sweaty, fall on your ass, get up again. Repeat.

 

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moments before a less than graceful landing

 

Sep18

the post in which I swear. a Lot.

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images-20Last week I had a small issue with my garbage collection. It was actually more of a collect some of it, dump some of it on the street and leave most of it behind. Oh, and then drive over what was left behind making sure it was impossible to pull my car out without driving over it again. Let me tell you there is nothing I enjoy more than cleaning up garbage that I have already cleaned up right when I need to leave for work.

If only there was a way to actually express how that felt…..giphy-2

Well! Gee Willikers and Jiminey Cricket!!

Jeepers, somehow that just wasn’t satisfying, and wait, it’s also taking the Lord’s name in vain

gee willikers
a humorous or outdated extension of gee, which is a euphemism for Jesus.
Gee willikers, that wind’s a-blowin’!
#gee #geez #sheesh #jeepers

 

I love you Debra

Holy filet of fuck-minion!

Feckin’ flesh-turd dropped stinking from the poxy arsehole of a hare-lipped harlot! 
– Christopher Moore

There, that’s a little better.

Once again I was told to stop swearing and to be  a  Lady by a man who uses fuck like a comma.

So, for all the well-intentioned people who have told me to act more lady-like, this badger-shagging spunk monkey of a fucking blog is just for you.

As The Vagenda’s Holly Baxter explained in the summer: “Women are routinely told to hold themselves back and pay special concern to their language. It’s a foundation for real misogyny.”

 

Some people will continue to believe that swear words are unladylike. Others will claim, like (Quentin)Letts (who wrote of Dame Helen Mirren “blurt[ing] out filth like an uneducated trollop.”), that they indicate a lack of education, intellect or imagination. To those, I present some of my favourite words: Cackle. Hoodwink. Loquacious. Pusillanimous. Vernacular. Galumph. Because, if using a singular monosyllabic curse is unimaginative, or unladylike, then maybe we should dress it up a little. Put a metaphorical tiara on that obscenity, if it’s so deeply unfeminine. – 

So why would a well read and well educated modern woman feel the need to use profanity? Perhaps it is because I am well read and educated.

mark-twain-quote-when-angry-count-to-four-when-very-angry-swearwhoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch
vacant common-kissing coxcomb!
mammering weak-hinged canker-blossom!
currish shard-borne maggot-pie!
clouted fat-kidneyed foot-licker!
quailing lean-witted bladder!
– William Shakespeare

In th’ isle of Britain, long since famous grown
For breeding the best cunts in Christendom,
There reigns, and oh! long may he reign and thrive,
The easiest King and best-bred man alive.
Him no ambition moves to get renown
Like the French fool, that wanders up and down
Starving his people, hazarding his crown.
Peace is his aim, his gentleness is such,
And love he loves, for he loves fucking much.
– John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye’ve produced. Choose life.
– Trainspotting, by Irvine Welsh

And maybe, just maybe there are a few really good reasons for women to swear.

images-21Women have far better things to do than express their frustration in a way that’s pleasing to patriarchal values. Today’s most offensive swear word comes from what’s between our legs – so surely we should best how to use it?
Caitlin Moran“I personally have a cunt. Sometimes it’s ‘flaps’ or ‘twat’, but most of the time, it’s my cunt. Cunt is a proper, old, historic, strong word. I like that my fire escape also doubles up as the most potent swearword in the English language. Yeah. That’s how powerful it is, guys. If I tell you what I’ve got down there, old ladies and clerics might faint. I like how shocked people are when you say ‘cunt’. It’s like I have a nuclear bomb in my pants, or a tiger, or a gun.

Compared to this the most powerful swear word men have got out of their privates is ‘dick’, which is frankly vanilla… I love that ‘cunt’ stands, on its own, as the supreme unvanquishable word. It has almost mystic resonance. It is a cunt – we all know it’s a cunt – but we can’t call it a cunt. We can’t say the actual word. It’s too powerful…”― Caitlin Moran, How to Be a Woman

 

Beyond classical literature, feminist empowerment, fighting the fuckwitted patriarchy there are many good reasons to swear.

TOP TEN REASONS TO SWEAR LIKE A LADY

  1. It’s fun and it can be funny. Try saying badger-shagging spunk monkey without at least a smirk.
  2. It makes TV shows and movies more engaging. Who doesn’t love Samuel L. Fucking Jackson? More profanity equals more viewers. Not shitting you – Ask Monika Bednarek senior lecturer in linguistics at the University of Sydney, ‘The Wire’ outranked other comparable shows because it “averaged more than 100 instances of profanity per episode”
  3. It improves communication. By swearing, we not only communicate the meaning of a sentence but also our emotional reaction to it. It clearly lets someone know if they need to back off without having to resort to physical violence, and nobody wants to mess up a manicure when a well placed “back off you fucktarded asshat” will do.
  4. It’s more persuasive. Studies have shown that swearing can increase the effectiveness and persuasiveness of a message. It is an intense, succinct and powerful way of expressing yourself. Ever read Go the Fuck to Sleep? It’s succinct.
  5. It increases pain tolerance. Stub your toe and see how effective Rats! feels compared to Sweet muppity mother of Christ!!! Also, there are like 5 billion studies by real scientists backing this up. No, I’m not fucking linking all them, JFGI yourself. Okay, here’s one.
  6. It correlates with a higher vocabulary. No, I did not just make this up, read this published the journal of Language Science. They concluded the people who could recall a lot of swear words also tended to be more eloquent in general.
  7. It’s good for you. Health benefits of swearing include increased circulation, elevated endorphins, and an overall sense of calm, control, and well-being.
  8. It means you’re creative. Fuck can be used as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective and interjection and it still makes fucking sense.
  9. It’s cheaper than therapy and makes you feel better immediately.
  10. It makes you feel stronger and more resilient.

Really that’s what is comes down to. Being a lady in this world does not mean we have to censor ourselves from all of the beautiful terms of endearment like “shitgibbon” and “hellbeast” and “thunder donkey snot eater.”

Speaking of increased vocabulary, there are many British terms one can substitute and sound more cultured than crude. For example – “Yer fulla shite ye feckin’ arsehole” is a fancier way of saying “You’re full of shit you fucking asshole”. Options people, you always have options.

Creative swearing aside, I still know how to behave in polite society. I will not go all Pulp Fiction in front of your kids or when I meet your mother, unless she starts it, then we’ll probably get along famously.  I am in complete control of my vocabulary, and would only say ‘fucknuggets’ when it is truly warranted. I have never said “shitgoose” or “Jesus Christ monkey balls” at church or a PTA meeting. 

 

Just in case you were looking to expand your swearing vocabulary I’ve added some of my favourites, guaranteed to fill any swear jar

jerkwater
jerkpants
sassy jerk pants
quim
bitchenator
dickwhistle thundertwat
Sugar tits
Clusterfuck
Twat waffle
Motherfuckinator
Assclown
Silly Bunt
Turd burglar
Sweet muppity Christ
Fucktard
Fuckwit
Son of a shit biscuit
Wanker (what one does before tossing)
Tosser (what one does after a wank)
Interminable suck bastard
spank wanker
Holy filet of fuck-minion
Fucknuggets
Fuckstockings
Knob, knobend, knobhead, knobber
Ass jar
Ass hat
Gobshite
Shitehawk
Bag o’ shite
Bollocks
Cack-Handed (full of shite)
Bellend (head of a penis)
Bibbity bobity poop sac
Bastardised fuckwitted vagina captain
Flatulent bottom feeding wrangler
Monkey wanker
Bollocks
Sod Off
Feck Off
Hell’s own bunghole.
Badger-shagging spunk monkey
Bum tumpet
Fiery flagon of dragon toss

and from Christopher Moore’s “Fool”

“She can be a whirlwind of tits and terror when she puts her mind to a purpose, can’t she, sir?”

“You whoreson scalawag!” said I. “You flesh-turd dropped stinking from the poxy arsehole of a hare-lipped harlot!”

“Oh, we are but soft and squishy bags of mortality rolling in a bin of sharp circumstance, leaking life until we collapse, flaccid, into our own despair..”

“Love? Sodding, bloody, tossing, bloody, sodding, bloody love? Irrelevant, superfluous, bloody, ruddy, rotten, sodding love? What ho? Wherefore? What the f*ck? Love?”

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