I Don't Have Any Dances Coming Up...

I've been a bad little Princess lately. I haven't been responding to any of the comments that you lovelies have been leaving. I do apologise, and promise to make it up to you, starting with this post!!

*Back to our regularly scheduled programming*

I was searching through some of the blogs that Google Reader recommended the other day and I came across the coolest site: Wikihow! Has anyone else ever been there? I now know how I'm spending the rest of my time at my job. And I thought I was going to be bored....

Like wikipedia, the information is submitted by regular joes. In this case, I think none of them are over the age of 14.

Obviously the first thing I was going to ask it was: How to get a boyfriend. I mean c'mon- it's a how-to site! It would tell me what I was doing wrong.

Here's what it told me to do: How to Find a New Guy

1. Don't force yourself to get over someone. You just have to let it happen. The more you try, the harder it is. Trust me!
2. When it happens, take a week or two and just explore. Does anyone just pop out at you?
3. If not, just keep looking. There's nothing worse than hurrying!
4. Day by day, you'll notice someone. I guarantee it. A guy you barely know or a best friend you've never seen as a guy. Seriously, it could be a guy you NEVER expected it being!
5. Next, you have to show him you like him. Is there a dance coming up? Don't ask him to the dance, but when you're at the dance, ask him to slow dance a lot! He'll start to get the point.
6. Have one of your friends call him and ask him what he thinks of you, then, have your friend tell him to consider liking you. Have your friend compliment you as if saying to the guy, "You should like her! She's pretty, smart, really nice!" (Unless you know that friend has a history of flirting with guys you like, then don't. Otherwise, she might end up getting the boy)
7. Then, the final step, have your friend tell the guy to ask you out. Have them say "You should go out with her! You guys would make a really cute couple." And have your friend make him as you out on the phone.

TIPS:

• Remember not to seem too desperate.
• Don't be all over him, remember. At a dance, don't ask him to the dance, don't scare him. Ask him TO dance! Not TO THE dance! (If you get what I mean!)

Score!!
My person? My Dear Anon? I have someone that I need you to tell to ask me out. His name is James....

Anon? Remember the rules from when we were 16: no flirting with Princess's exes, potentials or wannabe's... (true story).

xo

Man! I Feel Like A Woman

I've heard a lot about sexism, and discrimination in the workplace etc etc.

I don't put a lot of stock in it, in my own world (this is not to negate anyone else's issues). I figure if I make less than a man, I need to negotiate better. If I get less respect than a man, I need to be a bit less sweet and laid-back, and a bit more alpha female. I prefer to take on the responsibility myself, rather than blame it on external forces. I'm a bit of a control freak that way. I can change myself, but I can't do much to change other people.

Is this about to be a feminist rant? Not even remotely.

I figure, we, as women have a WAY better gig than men do. So much so, that I have no idea why guys walk around feeling so superior all the time.

Let's take pain threshold. Sure in the movies men act all tough when they're fighting through a gunshot wound. As if a woman would put up with that! Why were you silly enough to end up in a situation like that in the first place?

You wanna see pain? I tried to explain to one of my male friends once what cramps are like. He rolled his eyes and scoffed at me when I said it was like getting stabbed in the abdomen and having the knife run back and forth across the length again and again. I could've punched him in the face.

Next I suppose he was going to tell me that women are exaggerating about the pain of childbirth right? Cause that looks like a good time.

Next let's look at aesthetics. Look at a woman. They're soft and curvy, sexy and voluptuous. Men? Yeah, some of them look OK, but should we compare sex organs? Enough said.

But men miss out in the looks department. Though most women are of course naturally beautiful the second they roll out of bed in the morning, we at least have the option to improve on that perfection if we so choose. Looking a bit pale? Nothing a bit of blush or bronzer can't fix. OMG! A blemish?! (And may I mention, what am I 14? I can't believe those things still show up once you hit adulthood) Nothing a bit of concealer won't vanish.

And look at the rainbow of dresses, skirts, halters, stilettos, blouses etc etc etc that we have to choose from. A guy wants to look pretty? A suit it is. ("What colour tie should I wear dear?")
Not to mention the fact that we can get away with looking even more adorable than men in their own clothes. I've yet to see a guy look cuter than me in one of my little dresses.

AND, the biggest tragedy of all, in my little princessy opinion. Tears.
I cry at commercials, movies, talking about my job, thinking about my Mom, when my friends have babies, at weddings...you name it, I need a tissue. Men? Well, there's no crying in baseball is there? And while it may not be the most professional to cry at work when something goes awry, at least people won't look at you like you're a total freak if you happen to slip up a let a few tears escape. Men? Yeah, not so much an option.

And dirty/messy/icky jobs? Sure, I'm completely capable of: killing that bug, changing a tire, lugging that heavy box up the stairs. But would you be a dear and help me out just a wee bit with that? *flutter flutter*
Can a guy get away with that without emasculating himself?

AND, let's not forget the beautiful ability that women have to be irrational, emotional and freaky. Can we burst into tears because we broke a nail? Yes. Is it irrational? Yes- but it's our God given right to do so, so just back off there skippy!

Do we ask completely nowinnopossiblecorrectanswer to questions such as the following: Do I look fat in this? Is she prettier than me? Of course we do. And we expect the right answer. A resounding and completely convincing "NO!" And we get it.

If a man tried either of the above. Yeah, we'd laugh. In his face. And so would all his buddies too.

So men, you want to rule the world? Start wars? OK- while you're off doing that, I'll be at the spa getting a mani & pedi. Which sounds more fun and relaxing to you?

xo

I Love a Girl in Uniform!

I went to a private Catholic School. I am not Catholic. Nor were my parents particularly rich. However, my brother got into a lot of trouble in school and my Mom wanted something better for me.

I recently found out that my brother was bullied a lot in school and that is why he has some anger issues. I was thinking about bullying today, as "cyber-bullying" was a topic of discussion on the radio a few mornings ago.

I realized that I too had been bullied in school. To the point where I (quite melodramatically) was on my hands and knees begging my parents to send me to public school.

I claimed that I had no friends in my neighbourhood, and that taking a bus to school every day meant that all the other girls I went to school with everyday live far away.

This was only partially true. The fact was, while I was a nice, smart girl, I simply had no friends. The one token "nice girl" in the class, who didn't bully me became, by default, my best friend.

The other day, the "head bully" called me up for an interview for the event that we did this past weekend. This wasn't the first time that I had encountered her since elementary school, however I simply had no patience for her that day, so I quickly passed the call onto our event partner. The woman of course butchered his quotes and mis attributed some of my company's events to him.

The first time that I ever saw her post- Catholic school was in a summer course that I was taking in second year University. "The Age of Chaucer." I was taking it with a friend of mine, and at the time I was at my thinnest and most flirted with. It was a relatively small class and I saw her sitting alone everyday.

The thought occurred to me to tell her off. When I was 9 years old I had no friends. She bullied me into leaving an entire school. I had done nothing wrong to her other than exist, and she rallied an entire classroom of girls to making my life miserable. I felt strong and righteously indignant. I was the wronged party, and she was in a vulnerable state. She should know how it made me feel!!

Then I decided to just let it go. We were now 19, and no doubt she had grown out of her bullying phase. She was alone. And while I didn't welcome her with open arms into my little group, I decided to just let her be.

A few years later I discovered that she was dating one of my friends. I told him how I knew her, and since we weren't close his behaviour distinctly cooled towards me. I understood, thinking that I probably shouldn't have immediately launched into a diatribe about how his girlfriend used to be a total bully. Perhaps not my most shining moment.

A mutual friend of ours got engaged. I ran into this girl and my friend at a wedding social. ( I tried looking up "wedding social" on wikipedia to give anyone not from Manitoba something to link to and failed. Think of it as a fundraiser for a couple's wedding where people buy tiockets to go, spend money on alcohol, dance to outdated music and enter to win prizes. It's a lot of fun, and a purely local phenomenon). I went out of my way to chat with her and make nice.

Then she married my friend. My friend invited neither me, nor my person. He snubbed us when he saw us, and began to do the same to some of our other friends. At this points all bets were off. She was evil.

Needless to say, when she called me for the interview I couldn't handle it. I can barely stand seeing her face in the newspaper every weekend. As previously mentioned, I don't believe in the word "hate." However, if I had to pick someone - she would certainly be on my list of considerations.

Bullies suck. Young or old.

Lamest Party Ever- Finally!

So last night was the Lamest Party Ever. It was a great time, although I think it may very well be the last party that I ever throw. Party planning is a bit too much like work to me. I do events and promotions, and it all starts to meld together after a while. I kind of found myself being kind of bossy to people, as if I was working - and how much fun is that for anyone?

There were about 20 - 25 people there altogether, which is a nice number. I wouldn't have wanted many more than that. The food went over relatively well- I had a fish shaped jell-o mould, fig newtons, Peak Frean creme cookies, and deviled eggs. I'm really craving more deviled eggs now though. I hadn't had any for a long time...they're really good. I'm sorry that I forgot to take a photo of them- I used a pastry bag to pipe in the yolky part and everything!

As for the lame games? Well, the first one was called "Confessions." When each person arrived I hauled them into a room and had them tell me a secret. They ranged from : I tried pot for the first time this year, to I had a crush on Kirk Cameron growing up, to I called in sick to work, but I was actually in Minneapolis at a basketball game...
Then each guest had to draw a "secret" from the bowl and find out who owned that secret. It was a pretty good ice-breaker game that forced people to talk to everyone.

The next game was musical charades- I had a collection of song titles, and people had to act them out. Then people had to sing the answer...
My dear Anon was psychic last night- D3 proclaimed that his title had 10 words, Anon asked if it was an REM song. Yes. "It's the End of the World as We Know it." Yes!? He didn't even have to do any charades...Weird. She ended up doing that several times throughout the night...

Then groups of people had to act out a movie scene and we had to guess what the movie was. This was so popular that we ended up doing 2 rounds of it...My team of course could have used a bit more rehearsal time. (Anon guess right away that our movie was "Pretty Woman" when she saw me hauling out my hooker boots...)

All this while we played New Kids on the Block, Michael Boulton & Paul Abdul in the background. We also watched Skid Row & Bon Jovi videos. (PS. I got Bon Jovi tickets on Friday- Yay! I can't wait for Dec. 9th!)

All in all, I would say that it was a pretty successful party. I WAY over-dressed in a black halter dress, and my new slutty red sling-backs. "Yes" shoes as Zig calls them.

Then everyone got loot bags as they left. A typical loot bag consisted of: a piece of string, a bobby pin, a safety pin, an outdated flyer, perhaps a calculator, an old bookmark or a button.

I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the night, but I think everyone had a pretty good time...
Thanks to everyone who came!!

xxo

Sex and Veggies

I went to a vegan potluck with K tonight. I felt like a traitor- both to the people at the party, and to myself. I eat meat. K very quietly tried to explain to me the dogma of veganism. She didn't want to get into it there in case they got violent.

Seemed kind of paradoxical to me. People who have such respect for all living things that they won't even eat eggs or honey would get violent if I didn't understand?
So I resisted the urge to say "But honey is bee puke, why can't they eat that? It's not like we, the humans, are forcing the bees into bulimia for the sake of my orange pekoe."
I was proud of my self-restraint.

On the way home K and I started talking about random things, and of course the topic of boys came up. Somehow we ended up talking about my first boyfriend when I was 17 ( "D" of course. Let's call him D the First, or DtF for short.)

I was explaining to K that DtF gave me the sex ultimatum. He calmly explained to me about 2 months into our relationship that if I didn't have sex with him soon I would be forcing him to break up with me. Oh. Well when you put it that way of course I could see how unreasonable I was being. So, being the stupid naive little girl that I was, I put out.

I can't say that I felt much about it either way. I didn't feel used or abused. I just kind of felt like I got it over with. Of course all my girlfriends asked me immediately afterwards "how was it?!"
How should I know? I had nothing to compare it to. I was just pleased that I fit in with the rest of my friends and had accomplished losing my virginity.

He was a bit of a condescending jerk now that I look back on it with a bit more perspective. He would rate my kissing in the beginning. As I was rather a novice at it, he felt that it would be useful to let me know how I was coming along. (N.b. NOT helpful. Humiliating.) He also noted on his calendar "LTC" one day. What does that mean? "Learned to cuddle." Apparently I was coming along nicely in that area too.

I was the only one of my friends in high school to have a job. I worked most weekends, so I missed a lot of parties etc. One Saturday I got a call from my Dear Anon and her friend M. Apparently M and DtF had gone 2 1/2 bases the night before. I could hear M wailing in the background "I'm so sorry Princess!!!" In the meantime DtF had made arrangements to stop by to pick something up on the way to baseball.

I was in shock when DtF arrived from this news of his infidelity. I had put out- what more could I do?
I greeted him at the door with:
"I just got a call from Anon & M."
"Yeah. I figured you would."
*blink blink*
"Well...can you assure me that something like that won't happen again?" (WTF?! Why didn't I dump him on his ass then and there- clearly there were no signs of remorse.)
"I don't know what's going to happen when I'm drunk."

Not the right answer.

Needless to say we broke up shortly thereafter. Even as young and naive as I was, I wasn't a total idiot.

Good Lord, high school boys suck. Anyhow, an amusing memory on the ride home with K that I thought I would share with you all.

xo