Dear Douchebags on the Patio,

I give up. I have absolutely no idea what attracts you anymore.

On this particular Sunday, I was suffering from both a slight hangover and a headbangover, and was certainly not at my best. Walking down Bloor, on my way to water a friend's plants while he was out of town, I felt pretty invisible. Apparently not. Who knew that the combination of metal t-shirt, floor-length skirt, x-tra large coffee in hand, and makeup-less face would be such a draw to you?

I am not sure what exactly you said to me -- it sounded a lot like "GrrrAUWwwwAHHH TITS RAWrgggg." All I could do in response was throw my hands over my head in defeat. If there was something about the dark circles under my eyes that made you think I would in any way respond favourably to your overtures, there is really nothing more I can do.

Labels: Anger Management, Open Letters to Late Capitalist Society

Let's be friends.

2008 and I never managed to get things right between us. After an amazing 2007, 2008 seemed like ti would be a great years' quieter foil. Instead, it was a marathon of me getting kicked in the head over and over again. I was rejected from PhD programs. My marriage failed. I was more ill in more ways than I had ever been before. I lost friends. I failed, over and over again.

The only triumph, only success I can claim as my own is that I continued to get up again after each blow. Somehow, after some new horrible things happened, I resisted the temptation ( it often seemed like wisdom) to just lay down. My own stubbornness saved me. Each time a little bloodier, a little less steady, I found my feet, nodded to the ref and went another round.

By the end of the year, 2008 and I seemed to have come to a truce. It stopped trying actively to kill me every few minutes, and I settled down some. Or, at least, started over, started building rather than just struggling to endure. By the end, I found an apartment in my city, moved in with the best friends imaginable, and got an amazing job, and started actually having a little bit of fun. I got to spend he first holiday season with my family since 2005. And, right at the very end there, I remembered that once upon a time, I actually enjoyed Winter, and am learning to do so again.

2009, let's not have such a hate-hate relationship. Let's be friends. We can take up crochet and enjoy some of the quieter past times. I will pledge to be less of a psychopath if you keep the Major Life Changes to a bare minimum. Deal?

Okay. Let's rock this town.

Labels: Open Letters to Late Capitalist Society

Ah, small town. I now remember how I came to hate you.

My parents are very quiet people. My mom is the exact opposite of a gossiper, but she does have her few confidants. And one of said confidants hasn't grasped the meaning of her title and it's relationship to the word 'confidential.'

I was at a drug store yesterday, purchasing no less that three separate types of feminine hygeine product (if that's not a Do Not Disturb warning I don't know what is) when the cashier asked me if I had found a solution to my problem.

I stared blankly for a moment.

"You know, how you're going to move all your stuff to Toronto! I hear you were having some trouble moving. How are you doing, anyway?"

I mumbled something about a cargo van and blood loss, and fled.

That encounter was a little odd, but by far not the worst I have had. A few days ago, I went into a local coffee shop that may or may not rhyme with Tim Morton's, and ordered an XL triple-triple. Once again, this very obious Leave Me Be hint was not heeded and the cashier pounced.

"Hey, I was sorry to hear you left your husband."

Blink. "Yeah, that's not exactly -- yeah. Alright."

"We've all been wondering -- what are you going to do about your name?"

"My -- what?"

"Well, when J. got divorced, she changed her name back right away, but S. just kept hers for, you know, the kids. And E. has like twelve names. What are you gonna do?"

"Well, I kept my name. So I am going to continue to keep it."

Despite the hassle that I get every single damn time I say this, I insist on telling people that I kept my name. It is important. I had a name and I kept it. It is mine to publish under, to sully, to squander or to see in lights.

"Oh."

And then, anotehr employee, who had been taking orders from the drive-through (spelled "drive-threw" on the sign, incidentally) covers her headset mic with one hand and calls over her shoulder:

"You must have not been that committed then, eh?"

I left.

But I have been thinking, dammit. Thinking a lot about my name. It's the one thing that I haven't had to change, and I am deeply grateful for its constancy through this experience. And having a name that was half someone else's right now would be unbearable. Taking my name off the utilities, looking at pictures, and staying in the city where we met has been awful enough. Having to use a name that was really Ed's name every day, and decide to deal with teh pain of keeping it or deal with the pain of changing it again, losing identity again, might just been the straw that put me in the hospital.

But beyond that, I have been thinking about my initial decision not to change my name, the endless bullshit I had to out up with becauseof that decision, and how I have not regretted it for a second.

When Ed and I first started talking about getting married, long before we were even engaged, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do. I'd grown up in a world where women took their husband's names, and thought I might follow suit, save me the hassle, though that never felt right. Then my mother suggested, in jest, that we should both change our names, combine Walschots and Schmutz and become the Walschmutzes (which endured as a nickname for ever). I was actually quite taken with this idea -- the two of us conbining what we had to make something new seemed an appropriate meaphor ofr a marriage and a family -- but when I brought it up as a real option Ed flatly refused to consider it seriously. When pressed, he said that he had a name, he liked it, and he was keeping it.

I thought about that for a very long time. I too, had a name. I hadn't always liked it; I had tried on a few new ones, accumulated nicknames and titles and insults, but we'd eventually warmed to each other, my name and I. I liked the sharpness of my initials, the three consonants all angled lines. I had even published a little under that name.

So I kept it -- and the act of keeping it both made me fall in love with it, and seemed to invite the whole wide world's disapproval and input.

I did not keep my name to be contrary. I did not keep it because I was not committed to the man I believed I would spend the rest of my life with. I did not keep it because I wanted to invite all this trouble or rile up the locals. I kept it because it was mine. It was my name, what I was called, and it had the power of twenty (now twenty-five) years of being my name behind it, reinforced every time I was called. My name had the magic of being my name.

Labels: Le Divorce, Open Letters to Late Capitalist Society, Rants

There was a point when I was sick that I got very, very bored. After about 3-4 days, I was still too weak and achy to do very much, but I could finally think clearly and my brain didn't have anything to do. Ed recognized the signs of a Bored Natalie brewing and, knowing this to be one of the most dangerous forces on the planet, took the precaution of keeping many books and video games at hand, and even bought me a copy of the Lord of the Rings trilogy to keep my brain from turning in on itself.

Despite his best efforts, I still mounted every piece of jewelery I own to the wall with push pins, alphabetized the canned goods, and did this:

The colour of my hair is somewhere between that of a coke can and a fire engine, and I love it. It makes me look even paler, matches my new shoes, and causes very small children to squeal at me in absolute delight.

Dyeing my hair has reminded me of something that I find my turns amusing, fascinating, frightening, and (mostly) absolutely fucking maddening: that most of the world seems to believe that I am public property. I don't know what it is about the way I look that invites people to sneer, touch, and pontificate, but it occurs with alarming frequency. I have heard many pregnant women and women with small children complain about a similar affliction: people feel they have the absolute right to touch a woman's pregnant belly (or her baby!), give her advice, and criticize every aspect of her parenting. I can only imagine what liberties polite society will take when I choose to reproduce; for now, they just focus on my hair.

Here are just a few of the responses I've had to deal with. Please keep in mind I have had my hair like this for less than two weeks.

-- My first day back at work, still feeling queasy, my direct supervisor came up behind me and touched my hair. When I gave him my best Violation Face, he muttered that he "just wanted to see if it was real."

-- An older gentleman actually stopped me on the street to tell me that I would never get a job looking like this. I was on my lunch break at the time.

-- A woman openly stared at me for several minutes as Neil, Tara and I waited to be seated at Red Lobster.When I caught her eye and smiled at her, she became flustered and said "Well, my, don't you look interesting...in that outfit."

-- On the day of the snowstorm, my hair was wet by the time I got to work. A coworkers said I looked like a "drowned, unholy candy cane."

-- More than one person has looked at me, sneered, and then turned to Ed to ask him either how he feels about the way or look, or how he could possibily allow me to do such a thing.

It hasn't all been negative, though. Babies love it. And the day I dyed it, waiting on a street corner by the Palliser for Ed to pick me up, a group of young men walked by. They were wearing very expensive looking hoodies and very bog pants. This was during the Juno awards. As they approached, I had the vague itchy feeling that I knew them from somewhere, but couldn't place exactly where. I smiled at them, they smiled back, and one young man told me he loved the hair.

They passed, and then it hit me: I recognized them because they were the members of Finger 11. If Finger 11 likes my hair, what more can I really ask from the world?

Labels: Open Letters to Late Capitalist Society

Dear Women With Enormous Fake Boobs,

Congratulations. Your breasts now look like a pair of googly eyes.

Best of luck,

NzW

Labels: Open Letters to Late Capitalist Society

Dear Charles Burkowski,

I have never carried a mirror with me.

Labels: Open Letters to Late Capitalist Society

Fairytales are full of girls with preternaturally fair complexions. Princesses are the colour of snow or the colour of pearls. Their complexions mirror their purity. When the descriptor 'fair' is applied to a maiden, it means her general prettiness and good character, but also the whiteness of her skin. I am sure many little girls grow up wishing they had the epidermis of Snow White.

As a representative of the near-albino population, let me assure you being the colour of the flesh of a daikon radish is not all it is cracked up to be.

This morning, I finally faced up tot he fact that my tinted moisturizer wasn't just low, it was running out. I use one product line almost exclusively: Stila. I discovered them about a year ago, and immediately became shamefully dependent. My love of Stila stems largely from the fact that they carry a shade of tinted moisturizer and pressed powder whose equal I have never found. They call is 'fair.' It is unbelievably, almost hilariously pale, and it is perfect for me.

So I wandered into Holt Renfrew, backpacked and bespectacled, hoping to purchase my makeup and be gone before too many make-up ladies had a chance to snicker at me. A quick trip was not to be had. While the powder was in, the tinted moisturizer was not. I should have simply bought what they had available and ordered the rest online. Instead, I made the fatal mistake of asking the very bubbly bronze-complexioned girl behind the counter if there might be something else she could recommend.

the next thing I knew, I was in a chair with no less than four makeup artists clustered around me, arms crossed and brows furrowed, speaking in hushed tones.

"I've never seen anything like it."
"Should we try the 'bare' from Kiehl's again?"
"It was too orange."
"That's impossible."
"Well, it was."
"And the Yves Saint Lauren in 'pearl'?"
"Too yellow."
"Huh."
"You know, Bobbi Brown has a product in 'alabaster.'"
"That product is ridiculous. Nobody can use that shade."
"It's worth a try."

There was a moment of scurrying to find the 'alabaster,' then several beats of silence as all held their breath while one makeup artist brushed the concealer onto my chin.

"Well?"
"It's too...heavy."
"I can't believe it."
"I'm blending it and you can still see the line. It's just a little to rosy."
"Wow."

Eventually, they all gave up. there was truly nothing else they could do, short of applying white-out to my face. I bought what I could and left.

After all that, it seemed a lot like giving up not to find something. In despair, I turned to Quorra.

"Hi," I said to the girl at the counter, "I need a tinted moisturizer."
She cocked an eyebrow. "With that complexion?"
"...Yeah."
"I'll see what I can do."

After rifling through all of her samples and testers, she found one bottle of face tint by Paula Dorf. The colour was called 'capri.' It was the colour of a white-sand beach. On her hand, it looked impossible. On my face, it was perfect.

"I will totally buy some of that."
"We'll have to order it."
"Huh?"
"We don't actually bother keeping this colour in stock, since so few of our customers ever need it. But I can it in for you in a week or two."

I gave them my name and phone number and scuttled out. I am not sure if I'll buy it. Part of me really wants to just give up and order my original product from the Stila website. Part of me also wants to never leave my house again, lest i accidentally blind someone with the reflection off my forehead.

After my afternoon adventure, I decided to visit Ed at work. I skulked into his office and told him my tale of woe. At one point, I took out my pressed powder to show him.

"Whoa."
"What?"
"You actually wear that?"
"...Yes."

He took it from me and compared it to a sheet of white multi-purpose printer paper. The powder was darker, rosier, by the barest degree. He then CALLED IN ONE OF HIS COWORKERS to show them how ridiculous it was.

I think I should start charging admission.

Labels: Open Letters to Late Capitalist Society, Rants

Dear Fashion Industry,

I think we should see other people.

I know you might take this poorly, but we haven't seen eye to eye in a long time. How long has it been since we really spent any time together? Shared a common interest? I think that time apart will really help us both gain perspective on the situation, and, really, I just don't think you're good for me.

First of all, you never think about my needs. I mean, half-pants? Pants that end right at the knee? Pants that end at the knee, CLING to the knee, then PUFF OUT like a PANTALOON?! I am a short girl and I weigh more than 80 pounds. Clearly you're just thinking about yourself and never considering that I might want to look something other than stumpy and fat.

Also, you really don't know anything about me. Your colour choice for this spring is clear evidence of the fact that we just don't connect. Pale, anemic yellow? I look like I have comsumption in that colour, and it's EVERYWHERE. You clearly haven' considered my feelings at all, and I am tired of trying to have faith. Next season will be better, I think, and it's only getting worse.

Finally -- and I don't even want to bring it up, but I feel I must -- the footwear fiasco. I know we've agreed to disagree on this matter for a long time, but I can't just let it go anymore. HEELS AND JEANS!? I've suffered enough jeans trying to avoid wearing heels with formal wear, but now you've mated them with casual wear? That's low. Also, the slouchy-boot-with-heel, it -- You know, I can't even talk about it any more.

We need some time apart. It's for the best. You need someone younger and thinner and more impressionable than me, and I need to wear burgundy hiking boots. Maybe one day we can be friends, but for now, let's make it a clean break.

take care,

NZW

Labels: Open Letters to Late Capitalist Society