My Secret Shame

So, there is something about me, actually two things about me, that are actually quite odd. Or, they were quite odd, until last night. Regardless...

I've never been able to whistle or snap my fingers.

OK, on occasion, a whistle has managed to sneak out of my lips, but this is rare and not without a lot of effort on my behalf.

And snap fingers? Forget it.

25 years of not being able to do it. Can you imagine what that's like? I would gawk in awe at people striding at the street whistling and snapping their fingers to some jolly tune. Meanwhile I'm just blowing air and wailing my hands about like an idiot.

I couldn't figure it out but didn't really put much thought into it either. Until I told my boyfriend last night.

"Well, everyone can snap. It would be physically impossible not to."

There's a lot of impossible things about me so I just chalked it up to that. But I still jumped on the net and started searching to see if other freaks like me couldn't snap or whistle either. Meanwhile, the bf was on a mission to discover exactly what it is about snapping your fingers that makes the "snap" sound.

Eventually, I found out that there were some people out there who couldn't do it either, but they too, were labeled freaks of nature. And the Rockstar discovered the possible source of the sound.

He positioned my ring finger so it was resting high on the palm of my hand, near the thumb, confident that the snap was caused by the compressed air of the two other fingers and thumb hitting the third finger (or the palm, whichever).

I raised my hand in the air and...

***SNAP!***

My eyes nearly bulged out of my head. It took me 25 years of calluses and sore fingers and then he just comes along and teaches me in five minutes.

Enamoured and exstatic I started snapping my fingers like crazy (OK, it still only works 10% of the time, but still).

"If only I could learn to whistle now," I cried out, putting my lips into the position. I blew, expecting a pathetic stream of air.

Out came the most perfect whistle you've ever heard (well, to my ears).

So, my secret shame is now defunct. I can snap my fingers AND whistle.

Now I just have to figure out how to curl my tongue, juggle and wiggle my ears...all at the same time. Then I'll REALLY not look like a freak of nature.

Feminine Guys = faithful partners?

There was a study done recently by some British scientists at the University of St. Andrews, which found that women are drawn to more "feminine" looking guys when it comes to long-term love.

Apparently, "Men with square jaws, larger noses and smaller eyes were classed as significantly more dominant, less faithful, worse parents and as having less warm personalities.
Those with finer facial features, fuller lips, wide eyes and thinner, more curved eyebrows on the other hand were viewed as a better bet for long-term relationships."

Now, I actually found this to be quite interesting, mainly because I think it's true. However, what I don't know is whether more feminine looking guys really ARE better as long-term mates or if women just think that they are.

Looking back at the guys I have dated...well, yeah, a lot of them looked very feminine. There was the guy who wore makeup and vinyl pants and made out with guys, and the guy who had very pretty eyelashes and liked to wear tight shirts.

Both of these men, though, turned out to be absolute nutters AND jerks and were definitely not around for the long haul. They might have also been a bit gay.

Now that I think of it.

But I do seem some merit in this study and of course I think it comes down to stereotyping (something we all do). We see the studly men and perhaps dream about them but at the same time, we know they are no good. These are the men who sleep around, have too much testostorone, act like dumb brutes. Sooner or later, we learn to look past looks and see the real potential underneath. Which might explain why I spent the early half of my twenties lusting after Russel Crowe and my later half...well, I'm not there yet.

What I think it really comes down to, for me, is realizing that you just want "the nice guy." And perhaps, more often than not, the nice guy is not the stud.

Take my ex, for example. He was a nice guy - well, not that nice, considering the way things ended but all in all is a genuinely good, sincere and faithful person. I often have to remind myself of this since it ended so badly but that aside, it's still true. He was also, uh, not a stud. Not feminine looking either, although he was very pretty and looked nice in a skirt (sorry, kilt).

My boyfriend now is also not what you would call a "stud"...although he does have a nice bum...and an amazing smile....and is so damn cute, I just want to - ARRRG! Lost my train of thought.

Anyway the point is, he may not be some beefy, muscley jock dude with Hilary Swank's jaw, but he is a "nice guy," the kinda of nice guy that got overlooked in the past by shallow or naive girls who just want what they've been told to want. Luckily, in the end, it's the nice guy (whether he be feminine looking or not) that smart girls want.... proving that they don't always finish last.

So what do you think? Is there any truth to this? Do you (as women) really believe the nice, feminine-looking guys to be a safe bet? Are they more often than not? Would you feel safer in a relationship with the Mac Guy (Justin Long) or with David Beckham?

Actually, ignore the David Beckham question. It's fairy redundant.

I mean, fairly redundant. But I'll just keep that Freudian slip in there.

Long Weekend Weirdness

The Rules: Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The game rules are posted at the beginning of the post. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment to let them know they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

The bastard that tagged me was Mitch. BASTARD! I have actually done this little questionnaire thing before and for the life of me I can’t really remember what I said. I can only hope I don’t repeat myself, and going with that, can only hope there are enough random things about myself.

Who am I kidding, though?

1. I HATE it when I go to a restaurant and someone orders the same thing as me. Can’t freaking stand it. Everyone thinks it’s weird and maybe it is weird, but I don’t know. I mean, imagine going to a nice place where the menu looks great and there is so much variety and you can’t figure out what to choose. And finally you settle on something and EVERYONE else orders the same thing. Where is the fun in that? I need variety, we can’t all have chicken quesadillas! I wanna see what the butternut squash looks like, what the halibut looks like (and by “see,” I mean “eat”).

2. I pick off my mascara during the day. I don’t know why, but I do know that I’ll have a full-face of makeup on in the morning and by the end of the day, my eyelashes are bare. Maybe it’s a nervous habit, but it does leave a lot of yucky mascara under my fingernails. Which leads me to…

3. My fingernails. They are quite a mess. As someone who takes a lot of pride in their appearance and who makes sure to take good care of every part of their body, my fingernails are shocking. Chipped polish, mascara under them, hangnails chewed off. Yeah. Ew. I don’t know, I just can’t be bothered to do anything with them.

4. I like to pretend my life is a movie, especially when music is playing. Just sit on a bus, listen to “Teardrop” by Massive Attack on your Ipod and you’ll see what I mean. Suddenly the most mundane thing is dramatic and brimming with meaning.

5. I sucked my thumb until I was ten years old. I quit cold turkey because I got impetigo, which is some weird chicken poxy kinda thing. It was disgusting and I obviously caught it because I sucked my thumb… and horseback rode a lot.

6. Speaking of horseback riding, I think I had mentioned before that I had a horse for about a year and that she hated my guts. Well, I never mentioned the most “difficult” thing I’ve had to do with a horse before. If that sounds suggestive, well, it kinda is. I’ve had to clean a gelding’s sheath a few times. It’s not fun. It basically comprises of putting on gloves, sticking your hand way up… it’s…well, sheath…. and pulling out all sorts of goodies (see a horse will often have it’s little general hanging out after it goes to the washroom, or just for fun, and during this state, sometimes it lies down on the ground. And when that happens…um, things can…stick?) Anyhoo, I’ve found gum wrappers, apple cores and wood chips. No wonder the horses look so uncomfortable sometimes.

7. I was born with club feet which meant for the first six years of my wee life I had to have two casts on my feet from toe to knee, 24/7, 365 days a year. It felt normal to me because I was born into it and didn’t know any better, but I do have not too fond memories of being in the Children’s Hospital for very, very long periods of time for many years. Now I can walk fine and run and do whatever the hell, although my heels hurt if I stand for long periods of time (one of the reasons I was never able to become a flight attendant), I have scars on my ankles which are the bane of my existence and the biggest thing affecting my life (and always has been), and my gait is affected by the fact that I have loose hips (hee hee) and short, tight hamstrings. But whatever, I can’t change any of it, all I can do is try and make peace with it (and I’ll let you know when I have).

8. When I was 13, I told everyone that Sam Neill was my neighbour and I threw up on his shoes. Don’t ask.

All righty, it’s the long weekend, BC Day, which generally means going camping and drinking Kokenee and a hell of a lot of weed but I am taking the classy route for once and I’m off to Whistler for one night with the Rockstar – Pan Pacific Hotel baby! Hopefully, this trip won’t turn out like last year’s trip with the ex… as funny/unfortunate as it was.

Adios!

Oh fuck and I have to tag people too. Arg. OK, I tag…NO ONE! Ha, you are all off the hook.

Except for Memphis Steve and Peter DeWolf, because I love them/love to torment them. And Adjil and Kass though I don't like to torment them. HA!

The Blogging Breed

It has come to my attention recently that, perhaps, us bloggers are a rare breed of people. After all, even though I blog and I read blogs and sometimes by scanning the seemingly fathomless scope of blogs out here in the blogosphere, you start to think that everyone blogs.

Wow. Totally overuse of the word “blog” there.

Anyhoo, this is simply not the case. It may seem like everyone is blogging but I am sure that if you started to look at number of blogs vs number of people capable of blogging, I’m sure bloggers would top out at 1% or something of the population.

This becomes apparent on some days when you peruse new blogs and see your “circle” of fellow blog friends leaving comments or being included in the links. It is indeed a small blogging world after all.

Besides, the whole “blogging phenomenon” has kind of gone way of the other techie phenomenons. Can anyone remember how “cool*” it once was to use a chat room? Now, that has gone to the wayside, just as blogging has. Just look at the number of people who USED to read your blog, who have fallen off the face of the earth or indeed your favourite bloggers who one day just stopped for whatever reason (Wombat, anyone? Where are you btw, we miss you!).

I put a star next to the word cool because, well, like chat rooms, blogging is not very “cool,” is it? I mean, to people who don’t blog, is it possible that we do is quite “nerdy” and “lame?” The thought never crossed my mind until recently, when I suddenly became aware of how potentially stupid it is for me to have a blog. OK, maybe not stupid, that’s a bit harsh. But how about dorky, geeky and nerdy?

Why, I am not too sure, but I think anytime you get a whole bunch of people together on the internet, for whatever reason, there is a huge NERD stigma attached to it. After all, we start to befriend each other, email each other, facebook each other and the “blog world” slowly becomes the “real world.” I know it did for me awhile back and once my therapist pointed that out to me, I slowly weaned myself away from the fake world.

But that doesn’t mean that the friends you make, the opinions you hear and the comments you leave don’t mean anything. It’s still real. It’s just maybe…not that cool?

Or maybe, just maybe, WE are the cool ones and everyone else is just technological pariahs.

Of course, this was the same kind of reasoning I used back in high school when I had a penchant for chain necklaces and guys who wore makeup.

So why do we blog? What makes us “bloggers?” Why do we do blog while many, many other people don’t?

I know with me there is no clear-cut reason. Just a few:

*Being a journalist (well, going to journalism school) is what opened my eyes to this medium in the first place (because, let’s face it, blogging/internet is a media outlet)

*I am a writer. That is what I do; it’s my passion (at times, I guess, like many writers) and is one of the few things I have been told I am good at. At any rate, blogging keeps me writing, and yes I write at work, but this is the one time I can have total artistic freedom. Hell, even when I am screenwriting and attempting to write a novel, I still have limitations of the market and genre and so on. In blog land, I can write about anything – all I have to contend with is a bunch of confused commentators at most.

*I like to make my opinions heard; I like the world to know what I think. Many years ago, I had ridiculous notions of being famous. Now I know that I didn’t actually want to be famous, I just wanted to have people care about what I thought, and that by being famous, I would be able to do through interviews etc. Blogging for me has squashed any stupid fame dreams because my opinion is heard and – for the most part – people DO care about what I think. Of course, you have to wonder about some of these people…

*I’m an open person – so I have been told - many times. I guess it’s true. I like to share and I like to listen to other people share. But of course, I do draw the line. I mean, I have a whole slew of family issues, personal issues, etc that I never have and never will blog about. But the other things, the things that aren’t close to me, I have no issue with expressing. In fact, sharing myself at certain times is actually a great relief.

*I am a storyteller. I work for a storytelling company, after all. And, believe it or not, I have a lot of stories that I have yet to tell. While I love (and will and do) hash out stories to my friends in person, it’s also fun to write it out in narrative form too.

So, why do you think you are a blogger? Are certain types of people drawn to this medium? Do you feel there is some stigma attached to you just because you do blog? And if you don’t blog but just like to read them, does it still apply to you?