BE YOUR  *** ing SELF.

 

Be authentic. Express yourself!
Only one word comes to mind, you say?
Good thing you don’t live in the 60s when you had to spell it F***K. In the 70s they were more creative. Pierre Trudeau, for example, spelled it FUDDLE DUDDLE.

Last week, when a Brampton student tweeted that her teacher was an f***ing loser because he, like, ATE FISH STICKS, she was suspended. According to The Toronto Star, she shrugged off her week-old tweet: It’s so long ago. I don’t know why they’re bringing it up now. I’m amazed, but willing to learn: (1) Fish sticks are for losers. (2) The Toronto Star still doesn’t spell out the teenager’s favourite word. (3) Counting in teenage years, a week-old tweet is, like, totally prehistoric or something.

When Toronto Mayor Rob Ford said to a visitor Who the fuck do you think you are? Are you a fucking teacher? -- nothing happened. But when he used City Hall stationary to raise $3150 for a personal cause, the judge turfed him from office.

By contrast, Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion never said fuck. So, when she used her office to promote a land deal worth millions to her son, the judge ruled it was a BONA FIDE ERROR OF JUDGMENT. I’m amazed, but willing to learn: (1) Don’t bother with piddly sums when abusing your power. Keep it in the six-to-seven-figure range. (2) Never say fuck, and the judge will look kindly on you.

Young Justin Trudeau understood that principle and kept his white teeth clean. Fuck never passed his lips. But he didn’t observe the other all-important rule for politicians: Better have no platform than a platform that gives offense. He spoke his mind, saying he wanted to see more Quebeckers and fewer Albertans in politics. Well, he apologized on the double. But the damage was done. He should have stuck to FUDDLE DUDDLE.

So let me sum up today’s lesson: Be yourself. Speak up. And use plenty of a***s.

THE TRENDY HOME OFFICE 

Home office used to mean a cluttered desk in the basement. Today, in the era of closet-sized condos, it means a cluttered kitchen counter and pizza crumbs in your laptop.

Or so I thought. But that scene is totally passé, according to Sue Shellbarger. If you are a trendsetter, you’ve moved your mobile devices to a bed with a built-in outlet and are doing your work propped up on pillows. You share your office with a partner? No problem. Get a split model bed. Kluft has just come out with a giant 7x7 footer, which can be your “ gathering place, workplace, comfort zone.”  

Okay, now that you’ve relocated your home office to a bed the size of your condo living room, it's clear that other activities have to be shifted to the mattress. Let’s see what else can we move to your new gathering place?

Sex? Nah. Take that to the basement or the kitchen counter or wherever you did your office work before you got a giant bed.

Indulge your depression? More like it. Glow-worm complexion, produced by keeping your face close to the lit screen, is the perfect depressed look. Diving under the covers to avoid looking at the cruel world would seem the perfect movement to go with it. And should you feel like ending your depression for good, is there a better place to die than in the comfort zone of your bed?

But let’s not be negative. There are other, more active, uses for your giant bed.

Eating and drinking? Definitely. Are you worried about crumbs and gooey stuff -- the stuff that hasn't dropped into your laptop, I mean? Here’s what you do: Combine eating and drinking in bed with keeping a pet. Dogs are best. They’ll scarf up your food remnants no questions asked, unless of course you are a vegetarian, in which case I recommend a pet caterpillar. Very quiet, very unassuming, as long as your underwear is tight and you avoid rolling/squishing motions.

Gym is another excellent use for your bed. Whatever your preference -- wrestling, trampoline, yoga, sauna – a bed is the natural platform for those activities. Put perhaps you are into intellectual activities. Then let me suggest

The literary workout. American Poet Laureate Charles Simic, for example, admits to writing a “shocking amount” of his Pulitzer Prize winning lines in bed. Proust wrote in a cork-lined bedroom, using pen or pencil. Orwell slept with his typewriter. Edith Wharton wrote her novels in bed, tossing the pages on the floor for her secretary to pick up and sort out. So perhaps I should qualify my advice: by all means write in bed, but have a secretary to ensure the dog doesn’t eat the pages. And watch out for the voracious caterpillar!

All of this presupposes that your partner does not require the bed as a gym while you are trying to write the next Booker Prize winner. So I suggest drawing up a schedule. -- Oh, you work from home to escape the tyranny of a schedule? Well, then it's back to the kitchen counter, I'm afraid.

CLEANING MY CLOSET. Things I have and don’t need.

Yesterday I looked through my kitchen drawer for string. No string. But I found four little plastic cups, protective covers for the legs of a table that would be retro-chic if I still had it.

Further back in the same drawer I found a boxful of earrings which amount to A HISTORY OF CUSTOM JEWELLERY in the late 20^th century. Remember thin gold hoops that got tangled in your hair? Remember Indian jewellery with little bells that made your ears ring? They still exist, in my kitchen drawer.

Then there is the Mexican straw hat that’s hanging on a nail above my husband’s workbench. If memory serves, it came with a ride on a shaggy donkey parked in front of our hotel in Acapulco. Actually, not a ride, just a sitting for photographic purposes. We have four pics to document that event: the four members of our family each sitting on the same sad animal, wearing the same sad hat that’s in our basement now.

And speaking of workbenches. Do we really need three screwdrivers, each with pockets of exchangeable bits? Yes, we do. Or did. Because either they couldn’t be found when needed, or the required exchangeable bit was missing from the set. Could we discard two of them now? No way. According to my husband, you can never have enough screwdrivers.

Nonsense, I said.

But I’m only quoting you! he said.

He was referring to a recent conversation we had about my bedroom closet. But clothes aren’t screwdrivers! On second look, I grant you: I’ll probably never wear that brown business suit again. I don’t know why I bought it in the first place. I have nothing to go with it. I loathe brown. I bought it for a conference in LA and wore it exactly once.

For that occasion, I unearthed a bank-breaking pair of snake leather shoes which I had bought ten years earlier and worn exactly once because I loathe brown. I dug them out because they went with the brown suit.

When I landed in LA and stepped into the neon light of the arrival lounge, I noticed that the tips of my snake shoes looked brittle. By the time I got into the taxi, my toes were visible through the rapidly shredding tips of my shoes. I made it to my hotel room before they turned to dust. I guess snakes can’t survive in a closet for ten years. Anyway: I spent the remainder of the evening shopping for brown shoes. Has anyone told you that they don’t carry size 10 in fashionable shops in LA? I ended up with an unfashionable pair, which I wore exactly once and, for all I know, are still at the back of my closet. But I’m hoping they turned to dust and got sucked into the vacuum cleaner.

Which brings me to my bathroom closet, that is to say, THE HISTORY OF MY HEALTH. A quick survey shows that I had many colds and often suffered from heart burn, that I favour Aspirin (2 empty bottles) over Ibuprofen (one full bottle), that I thought I needed calming down (Manerix, full bottle) but had second thoughts and preferred to keep up to speed, that I did not follow doctor’s instructions and failed to take all of my antibiotics right up to Day 10. That I once believed in the possibility of improving my memory with pills (forgotten now if it were not for three packages of foil embedded stuff gone powdery). Also, that I believed in the possibility of strengthening my nails and hair. But I reserve that for another blog on THE HISTORY OF MY BEAUTY.

THE IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE. Wisdom gleaned from The Globe & Mail.

Eons ago, before we got our news online, when we still had to pick up the paper-paper from our doorstep, there was no escaping the bad news. You saw them at a glance on Page One: demonstrators being tear-gassed, missiles dropping on cities and killing civilians, tsunamis wreaking havoc, politicians lying through their teeth on the campaign trail. Day after day. On the front page. Thank God that era is over, and you can get your news online, where the logo of your favourite daily covers most of the home page. So as long as you don’t scroll down, you are safe and don’t have to look at gory pictures and appalling headlines or even at Petraeus’ follies which turn out to be less exciting than we thought. Alas, no Clintonesque goings-on below the desk. Just hundreds of emails, and nary a jpeg attachment of the general bare-chested or in his army-issue underwear. No, forget about what passes for news nowadays. Just click on the menu and go right to the stuff that really matters. Like, on November 16:

DO KIDS MAKE US HAPPY? ANSWER: YES (WE THINK). Now that’s the sort of magical thinking you need as you scrape crayon marks/poop/food fight remnants off the wall.

Or maybe go to: FOR A STRESS-FREE HOLIDAY, PACK A NANNY. Mind you, it’s a little pricey: $ 250/day for up to two children, plus travel expenses.

Maybe we’ll move on to November 17 and Dr. Sacks’ advice: IT’S OKAY TO HALLUCINATE. It’s an essential part of our human nature. Not to mention, much cheaper than reality. So, go ahead and hallucinate a travel nanny. No charge.

Meanwhile, being the careless type, I picked up the paper version of the Globe & Mail and couldn’t avoid seeing an article on AVOIDING HOME RENOVATION PITFALLS. The warning lights went on. Why get into that aggravating subject? Because I can’t pass up a special, and this article was marked SPECIAL. Oh, thanks for telling me: That’s just a fancy word for ADVERTISING. Still, there were some philosophical nuggets buried in the advertising muck. Indecision during the renovation process can lead to budget nightmares, says the MANAGING DIRECTOR OF REAL ESTATE SECURED LENDING AT SCOTIABANK. Wow! Is that a real job title or am I hallucinating?

But the section that truly takes the reality load off your shoulders is STYLE. Christmas is just around the corner, so read up on THE SECRET TO A WELL-STYLED HOLIDAY MANTEL. What you need here is good taste, right? Wrong. You need Mounted Antlers ($ 55) and a vintage white sleigh ($125). Don’t have that kind of money to spend on Christmas decorations? Move on to that all-important question: HOW TO PULL OFF HOUNDSTOOTH. No, we are not talking canine dentistry here. We are talking about the GROOVY PATTERN that looks good on Arab keffiyahs but somehow makes the rest of us look torn-to-pieces. So we’ll put that aside. In any case, I’m sure you agree that the paramount problem in your life are zits. The solution is simple, as it turns out. All you need is tomatoes. They contain a natural acne fighting antioxidant. That would be $ 1.50 for three nice Roma tomatoes, right? No, my friend, we aren’t talking about real tomatoes. That would be too cheap. You need to buy a ROLLERBALL thingy for 10.99. And another problem that spoils many a promising day in our lives: bangs that go frizzy on a rainy day. Now do not, I repeat DO NOT wait for sunshine, because that would cost you nothing whatsoever. No, apply FRIZZ FREE KERATIN SMOOTHING TREATMENT for 11.99. That’s cheaper than salon treatment, as the helpful columnist points out – that’s in case you were thinking of calling in sick and sneaking off to a salon for an instant fix.

Of course you can always do like Dr. Sacks, take a little amphetamine and hallucinate your bangs straight.       

What I like about the Petraeus Affair.

Monday was Remembrance Day. Not coincidentally, there were a lot of military faces in the media, average age creeping up to 90. So, you know what’s really heartening about the Petraeus affair? Two women, 40 and under, are at the centre of it. Yup. Youngish. Women. With toned arms. And hair you could lose your hand in (quoting Junot Diaz here). Yet those types don’t often make it to the top of the military news. Even Entertainment news, traditionally reserved for the young and bodacious, has been invaded by old-timers. You don’t think so? Read my post of 30 August on Geriatric Movies.

The dental implant smile is everywhere, oldsters looking into the cameras, beagle-eyed, sadly painful, nutcracker-style.

IN POLITICS Castro,86, half-dead and scoffing at death rumours. Baroness Thatcher,85, brain-dead, but reanimated in a bio pic by Meryl Streep. And Mao, fully dead but still staring down on the Forbidden City from IMAX-sized posters.

IN RELIGION, the Pope,85, recently declared that IT IS BEAUTIFUL TO BE OLD:telegraph.co.uk. He and the Dalai Lama, a youthful 77, rule their congregations de facto, while Ayatollah Khomeini is only present in the spirit and in glowering images, shaggy brows disapproving of all fun.

IN MUSIC, the average age of oldsters drops to the 70s. OK, Leonard Cohen is an elegant old codger and still has poetry in his heart. But can we get over Mick (“I got nasty habits”) Jagger and Wrinkled Richards? And what’s with Ancient Babyface Paul McCartney, rumoured to be dead since ’69 and surfacing alive once again after a terrifying experience. His helicopter became DISORIENTATED, as hecklerspray.com tells us. So, please, please, can we move on to tech-house music now? The synthesizers always look good.

IN LITERATURE, kudos to Alice Munro. She’s the exception to the old-timer rule. Refused to be considered for the Giller Prize, remembered that there is a next generation.

No kudos for octogenarian Tom Wolfe, author of Bonfire of the Vanities, best-seller of yore and master of overstuffed prose today. What can I say about his latest book, BACK TO BLOOD? Let me quote the master himself: AahhhuhwaaaAHHHHHock! I second the Globe & Mail reviewer: Toss Wolfe’s mimetic nonsense on the bonfire.

And then there is Herman Wouk, another former best-selling author. Reviewer Michael Posner coyly admits he thought Wouk was dead, but he’s 97 and alive. So, OK, I’ll go with Posner on that one. Respect your elders and concede: At that age WOUK SHOULD BE SALUTED FOR GETTING OUT OF BED, let alone writing a novel.

The merciful thing about authors: You don’t have to look at their faces. Skip the author photo on the back cover of their books. Don’t go there, and you’ll be fine on the aesthetic front. As for literary taste, consult your inner lit.crit.