Everyone's responsible for their own actions. Oh. Unless you have a penis. Then not you.

I've had several discussions and read several articles quite incidentally this past week or so that has loudly illustrated a rather depressing point: Men in our society (and more than likely the whole world) are consistently and thoroughly let off the hook when it comes to their character, conduct, and behaviour.  From the cop in Toronto telling a group of students that if women want to avoid being sexually assaulted they should "not dress like sluts", to the ruling in Thompson, MB that a woman's vicious rape was "a miscommunication by a clumsy Don Juan", women are constantly being held accountable for the actions of men.  Safety seminars and tips on how to avoid violence are constantly targeted at women: Don't dress a certain way, don't get sloppy drunk, never ever be alone out in public, etc.  How about occasionally throwing some advice then way of the fellas?  Maybe along the lines of....hmmmm.....don't rape people?  No means no?  A woman out dressed up and drinking is NOT, in point of fact, "asking for it"?  My cousin shared an article the other day about Joe Biden doing specifically this, and it was heartening to see:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52773.html

It was heartening but notable because it's so rare.  Especially between men.  And this needs to change.  Men need to start being able to expect more of themselves and each other.  It was a man addressing the student's group telling women how to avoid assault, and a man ruling that another man wasn't a rapist but simply "misguided".  It's likely the power structure in our society will continue to skew male for decades into the foreseeable future, and if men are going to continue to run the power structure over 100% of the population, they need to begin trying to understand the half that's underrepresented.  With only 22% of sexual attacks reported to police, and only 4% of THOSE ever receiving convictions, either  swaths of women in our society are malicious liars that go to self-harming lengths to act out those lies to no result, or something needs to change.

"Look, the world gets an F in their treatment of women, but we (America) are getting a C-minus and we're bragging about it." - Mick Foley

Stuff I'm loving right now

So after yesterday's gorgeous weather, today is rather dismal, it's still snowing 4 hours after it started, but it's ok because I know it's not going to stick around!!!

I'm not someone with a load of hobbies, or lifelong obsessions.  I'm really more of a passing-fancier.  I like things for a bit and then abandon them as a rule.  So I thought I'd share some of the things that are passing my fancy lately :)

- Parks & Recreation.  Because I love Amy Poehler, I've stuck with this since Day 1, and it's paid off.  Season 3 has been amazing.

- Kids in the Hall reruns.  They're not even funny about 97% of the time, but I guess I have a soft spot for dorky guys dressed up like middle-aged and elderly ladies.

- V.V Brown.  I dare you to listen to this song and not feel more upbeat than you did before:

- Not finishing the books I start.  Seriously, I have about 6 half-read books strewn about the apartment right now.  I kept feeling like I should finish them, but I've come to terms with it.

- Chubby Indian guys.  Love 'em.  Super hard to find though!  They're like shooting stars, but fat, brown, and on the ground ;)  Which brings me to my next item:

- Aziz Ansari standup.  Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening.

- Tobasco sauce.  I've gone through one of those huge bottles in less than a month.  I put it in chicken noodle soup the other day. 

- The fact that Pizza Hut has filed for bankruptcy protection.  Who's even still been eating there???  Skulk off!

- Carmen Sandiego.  Oh Lord I cannot get enough of this.  I loved it as a kid, but we only had it for DOS, and there was no such thing as Google to help you.  Gosh I feel old when I have to talk about things like DOS.

Hope you all have a wonderful and fulfilling week :)


If you don't like the road you're travelling, start paving a new one. - Dolly Parton

April's Fool's post-mortem

I am not a fan of April Fool's Day.  It usually illustrates the fooler's complete lack of imagination and somehow seems to just end up irritating people.  And this is despite having nice memories of it.  When I was little, I would usually spend part of or all of spring break with my grandparents, and April Fool's Day usually fell in there somewhere.  For years my grandmother would somehow get us to fall for her terribly lame April Fool's jokes (hurry up! come quick! there's a cow walking down the street!)  When I think back on it now though, it was sweet of her to try and make the day fun for us.  And maybe that's why so many people's "I'm quitting my job to trek across Siberia!" or the becoming-all-too-pervasive "I'm pregnant! Gah!" April Fool's jokes don't thrill me.  Because nothing will ever measure up to the cow walking down the street or Mickey Mouse in the backyard.  Or maybe I'm just difficult to amuse.  Lol, no, that's not it :) 

(Warning: as hilarious as I find this, there's some rather strong language in it, consider yourself warned!)

Sunday morning eye burns...

It's quite early for a Sunday morning, my inner clock is off due to working an unusual assortment of nights this weekend...so I thought....what better time to babble off?

Loving that spring is finally here...planning to rub glee in the faces of the select few who talked all winter about how great winter is...you get 6 months of the year in this province winter-dicks, time to pass the torch :)

I'm not loving how the phrase "awesome sauce" is turning up more frequently.  I AM however, loving that Charlie Sheen seems to be going away.  Slowly.

Things in Japan seem to be really standing still at "Bad to Worse" hey?  I thought in the beginning couple of days that people on the west coast of North America were being incredibly self-centered and unrealistic worrying about radiation getting to them, and not focusing on.....oh....I dunno.....maybe the people living right next door to the bloody thing, but apparently "radiation particles" from Fukushima were found in Newfoundland last week....How can they know they're the same??  Are the nuclear materials used at each nuclear reactor unique somehow??  I really don't know enough about radiation evidently (and I mean that non-sarcastically).

I found out my tattoo is going to take 2 sittings of about 3 and a half hours each....wow.  I think I'll make it....my pain tolerance is decent, it's not my first time (although this one is way bigger in scale than the last!).

In the veritable orgy of Elizabeth Taylor news in wake of her death, I heard she had some kind of genetic mutation that caused her to be born with 2 sets of eyelashes!  Like one row on top of another!  I suspect that's the look that godawful Brooke Shields is going for in those godawful Latisse commercials.  Elizabeth Taylor really was stunning in her younger days though, especially circa Cleopatra:

"Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry." - Gloria Steinem

Deep thoughts in the shallow end

Home from another beating with Leslie, about to leave to see Carly.

I don't know why but lately I've been thinking a lot about what it takes, or what a person needs, to be happy.  I've asked a couple of friends, and have gotten responses ranging from the very superficial (Xbox) to the fairly deep (intellectual challenges).  How much do material things figure into happiness (and no one's allowed to say they don't at all, because everyone knows that's not true)?  How much comes from sources outside us, and how much of our own happiness do we determine ourselves? 

I would be really interested to get some other perspectives on this.  For those of you not able to comment here (and I am given to understand that's a bunch of you), message me on Facebook if you have some opinions.  I'm ideally looking for people to give me 3-5 things they need to be happy.  Because I'm a nurse, I'm going to say this is in the interest of medical progress ;)

"Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little." - Washington Irving

Maiden voyage!

So this is my first shot at this, I have no idea what it's going to be, or what I'm necessarily going to talk about...Random crap is my best guess :)

I'm coming to a bit of a crossroads in my life this year, and maybe some outside perspective will help clear up what it is I think I should do.  At some point in SATC, Carrie says something about being so spoiled for choice as to be rendered unable to make one, and I think I'm almost there!  Do I want to do the critical care nursing program, do I want to shift over to L&D, do I want to pursue the States opportunity that's presenting itself, or do I want to stay put? My unit now is where I'm comfortable, it's where so many of my friends are, and it still provides me with opportunities to learn almost every day. 

But the winters here get me down, and they seem to be getting longer and colder.  Eventually I want to go back to school and do my masters (nurse practitioner), but I want a really considerably breadth of experience under my belt before then...If I'm gonna travel, now is the time to do it.  Everyone keeps saying it, so it must be true lol.  I'm single, I have no dependants, my apartment lease runs out this year (I despise my apartment, my neighbours, and my property management company anyways, so I'd have left no matter what).....

So in summation, if anyone has advice, tips, or a complicated algorithim for making big life decisions, I'd love to know about it.  Impart away!

I'm going for my tattoo consult tomorrow with Carly at Soul Survivors, I'm pretty jazzed, I haven't gotten anything tattooed or pierced in like....almost 5 years.  Long enough I've forgotten how much it hurts :s

Something else I want to do with this is acknowledge someone or something with each entry that I'm thankful for.  This go-round it's my physiotherapist Leslie at Physiotherapy Works.  She's gotten me and my back to a place I couldn't have imagined was possible, I had just accepted that my back was always going to be crummy.  But through all my grumbling and wincing, Leslie has done amazing work, and I can't overstate how much I appreciate her.


"When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die." - Eleanor Roosevelt