Canadian Feminist

Emily Murphy inspired by Lautrec on a day when I have not much energy to write anything.

Unsolicited Nocturnal Comforts

A short piece about comforting the cold:

We had a few drinks, things were good. I met her at a party in Osborne Village. She knew I was married, but she was totally cool with having drinks me somewhere else. Later, we ended up in her place for a few more drinks.

Things were getting hot and heavy, her thermostat finally started working and my bladder was getting heavy. It was this time when, unfortunately for her, she passes out.

This left me no choice but to do that thing which I believe most men would end up doing in such a situation… I grabbed a colorful Afghan from a closet and casually laid it over her. Manitoba mornings can get really cold.

Some might say I draped her. But I like to think there was some understanding between us after she took a couple of shots of Fernet-Branca.

Anyway, she’s now accusing me of being a drapist and dragging my good name in the mud.

An article from the Winnipeg Sun says that she woke up all stinky and sweaty, not knowing how she got to feeling so disgusting. She said she didn’t consent to being draped and was perfectly fine sleeping without an ornamental Afghan from Pier 1 Imports covering her.

That was just the beginning of my troubles.

No one bought her initial accusations, so she found some other women who claim I draped them as well. Some women were from as far back as college. I could barely remember their names. One woman in particular claimed she passed out after a party and I put a California king-size duvet over her. Then my buddies took turns putting blankets over her to keep her warm. It was -30 in Winnipeg.

She claims she was gang draped.

Another woman said I tried to put a small microfleece blanket over her while we were out camping in Portage la Prairie. I did, I’m not gonna argue that. But I thought she was cold and she was asking for it. Also, that blanket wasn’t so small. Some might say it’s even bigger than the average microfleece blanket.

A supervisor I used to work with in a nursing home claims she saw me putting bouclé blankets over people as they slept. They woke up all toasty, not knowing who draped them. Some don’t even realize they’ve been draped, to which I say is more plausible. They could’ve draped themselves!

The supervisor says she kept silent over the drapings because one time when she was in her office catching a quick nap on her desk, she claims I snuck in and covered her with a machine-washable Hudson’s Bay point blanket. She ended up sleeping for over an hour.

Of course I deny all of these draping allegations, except for that one incident back in 97.

There was an old gentleman sleeping on top of cardboard mat in an alley behind the Burton Cummings Theatre. I ended up covering him with 1200TC Siberian goose down comforter in the dead of the night without his consent.

Okay, I’ll give them that. I draped a homeless man once. But I swear he liked it. In any case, that doesn’t make me a serial drapist.

 

Mommet Dearest

My grandmother on my mother’s side is currently in a nursing home in Hawaii. She hasn’t been well for years, and we received a bit of a scare over the weekend. Last I heard, she’s recovering and is under observation. A relief, but for a couple of hours there I wish I was swept with strange emotions, but honestly, I really didn’t know what to feel.

I love my grandmother dearly, but I haven’t really been the best grandson to her. The last time I saw her was over eight years ago, that was when my mother died. Even then, a part of me resented her presence at the hospital. I was thinking, “I realize you’re weak and all, but my mother is dying. Can we focus all of the attention on her?” My heart and my mind wasn’t in the right place. And I’m not sure if it recovered after that. She lived in Hawaii, far from me, so I barely thought about her. The years after my mom’s passing, our family’s gone through so much without my grandmother, that I can honestly say I only remember her in passing.

Which makes the weekend strange. I felt somewhat like a bastard, like someone who missed the train (or someone who will soon miss it), and will forever be much less because he missed it. Even though I was upset, I felt like I should be more upset than I was. And the thing is, I don’t know what I was upset about. Was I upset about her, or more about me and how I’ve behaved? Or maybe I was just upset at the passage of time. Eight years…. What happened in eight years? What the hell?!

My best memories of my grandmother, we called her Mommet, was growing up and visiting her house every Sunday after church. I used to hang out with her and my great grandmother. I would help my great grandmother sew by putting thread through needles. The house back then had this great garden with different fruit trees. Mommet’s garden even had sugar apples. My sisters and I would recall her trying to feed us lucuma (chesa or dien taw)and none of us liking it. Weirdly, it was the place where I first saw my first salamander. It was also the place where I first stepped on dog shit. When I was a bit older, I remember discovering the Beatles at my grandmother’s house, when I saw my mom’s old records.

The series of Virgin Mary sculptures I made were inspired by my Mommet’s bedroom. It had a shrine of Catholic saints. I thought it was very pretty, and I made my series of sculptures inspired by the colors as well as the stories behind each and every character on that shrine.

Mommet used to be a bigger part of our lives, until finally she wasn’t, until she was in Hawaii and I barely saw her. I suppose it was better for her. After all, who wouldn’t want to live in Hawaii? It’s just a shame that in the process, I ended up losing a strong relationship with my grandmother. I’m relieved to know that she’s still with us, although it would seem that I’m writing an entry as some sort of eulogy. I’m not. I’m just ranting. I guess if anything, this is more of a eulogy for the dead part of me that wasn’t reacting properly over the weekend… or perhaps it is a precursor to how I’ll be devastated when the inevitable finally comes.

What Passes for Conversation

The problem with most issues these days is that people get married into their camps and more often than not would defend their worst members. It makes a lot of political/social debates disingenuous and quite unbearable when sides spend a lot of their energies defending their weakest links as if they were their strongest.

An example: a week ago, I’ve been called a “shitty, shitty person” because of my opinion regarding a rape activist who live-blogged her rape minutes after it happened. She’s an activist and thus an educator, so I don’t think this sets a good example for people. I believe victims should report their attack first and not have Instagram as their priority. I’m also particularly turned off by some facts regarding the case. I know a woman’s actions should never justify an attack, but the woman went to a foreign country and showered naked with a stranger in a hostel. After said attack, she posted the alleged attackers picture on the Internet. It appears she’s trying to convict her alleged attacker via social media. Not only that, her previous efforts at activism haven’t really garnered much media attention, and this appears to be a cry for attention. So much about it just sounds either foolish or disingenuous.

Now, many feminists and advocates would advise that people suspend all of their suspicions when it comes to rape victims despite Occam’s razor. I tend to agree, but I also believe in things such as innocent until proven guilty, and not showering with strangers in hostels. So the conversation in the Internet goes:

Me: Rape victims should report the crime first. Give social media a rest.
Commenter: Misogyny will even dictate to women how they should react after suffering rape. (Because apparently that’s exactly what I was doing, hating women and “dictating” to them how they should react.)
Me: New feminists define misogyny as anything counter to their message, no matter how ill-advised that message is.
Commenter: You’re a shitty, shitty person. (So much for a debate!)

This attitude is not unique to new feminists. You can also see this among atheists, religious people, and both sides of the political aisle. People will defend everything the likes of Dawkins and Harris say despite both men fueling Islamophobia. Same thing with the religious. How many times have people excused their actions “because of faith?” And while sometimes people won’t defend every fundamentalist on their camp, they would sometimes vilify everything on the other side, no matter how much it benefits them. Just look at all of the conservatives who rail against Obamacare.

I once joked that I’m now too old to follow professional wrestling, so now I follow politics for my drama. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people do so but with much more fervor and they’re not aware of how swept up they are in the whole thing. The drama consumes them (Going back to the wrestling analogy, they’re the fans who believe it’s all real). They get so entrenched on their own side of the argument that they fail to examine opposing point of views. Worse, they neglect to be critical of things happening in their camp. Just look at Fox News when they wonder why Muslim communities don’t condemn acts of fundamentalist Islamic terror, even when most Muslim communities actually do. The same Fox talkers turn a blind eye to crimes committed by Christians, like the uniquely American Christian anti-gay wave in Africa (“Kill the Gays” anyone?).

So yeah, good luck in finding an honest debate/opinion/report on any issue. Many of the major news outlets have their own slant, and the minute you voice an opinion, you’re bound to find some nut job just waiting to contradict anyone on the other side.

I guess what I’m advocating is not to be married to an ideology. I’m a Catholic, but I acknowledge the fact that Mother Teresa is a fraud and that the church has been covering up pedophilia. I like Dawkins, but sometimes he can either get petty or downright bigoted. I consider myself a feminist, but I’m not gonna jump into every feminist/rape bandwagon.

Catching Up on All Things Old

So I’m just discovering the beauty of Twitter. Well, I had an old Twitter account which I used to follow people before but I’ve been very active with tweeting. But recently, I find myself tweeting thoughts and replies more often. It’s a great way to just put a thought out there. And it’s a bit of a payoff to see someone share the sentiment. I’m not gonna go crazy about it and start tweeting all of the time, but it’s good to put in my two cents with popular issues now and then, especially since I’m a bit of a news junkie.  (same thing goes for  Instagram)

My wife and I are enjoying Minecraft just now. She’s more into it than me, but I can definitely say that I now understand the appeal. When I first tried it out over a year ago, I didn’t really care much for the interface nor for the unappealing tutorial, but we picked it up at a discount and I’m now seeing why people have gone nuts over it. I’m actively trying not to spend too much time with it since it can suck up hours of your day easily. (Same thing goes for Clash of Clans and Nintendo 3DS)

My Christmas was spent playing mahjong, a game I haven’t played since my teen years. My grandmother taught us how to play mahjong when she stayed at our place back when I was in elementary school. She was bored and needed someone to play it with. Later on, my sisters and I would play it with our nanny, with real money. I taught my wife and her friend how to play. I’m rekindling my old love for the game. It’s good to have an indoor activity where we don’t have to stare at the television, even if it involves a bit of gambling. (Same thing goes for Monopoly)

I started reading more magazines, well, their pdf versions. There’s just something about reading a magazine that has all of the information right there instead of news websites where it’s one click bait article after another (no more loading!). With magazines, it takes a fair bit of dedication to devote space to an article, as opposed to some websites and aggregators that print out badly-edited articles about things that just happened to be popular that day regardless of how inconsequential they are.

I realize this has been a fairly innocuous first entry for 2016, but there’s been a lot of bad news in the headlines as well as with people around. Better to sit back, enjoy the mundane, and count our blessings. God knows, we have the rest of the day to be paranoid about our existence.