Women Get More Cool Stuff Than Men

cowgirlI am painfully aware that writing about gender in these troubled times is like being the goalie on a javelin team, but I’m going to do it anyway.  Stereotypes be damned!  The truth has to be told: women get way more cool stuff than men.  Yes, I realize there’s the whole punitive underwear problem and, beyond Barbie, toys for girls generally suck. But look around you: women have tons more fun with life than men do.  Why?  ‘Cause they get all the good stuff.  Here’s a selection of evidence to prove it.

Sleeves — Women get more sleeves than men.  There are bell sleeves, cap sleeves, raglan sleeves, lily-point sleeves, bishop sleeves etc., etc., etc.  In fact, according to one source, there are over 40 different sleeves available to women.  And what do men get?  Long sleeves and short sleeves!

Hats — Put a hat — any hat — on a woman and you’ve got instant sexy.  Put a hat on a man, and unless his name is Indiana Jones, Humphrey Bogart or Che Guevara, you’ve got a candidate for Geek Of The Week.

Colours — Women get all the colours.  Men get several shades of mud.  Don’t believe me?  How many men do you know who are climbing the corporate ladder in a 3-piece, electric-blue hounds-tooth suit with  ruby red shoes and matching belt?

Hair — Even Stephen Hawking can’t calculate the infinity plus one number of things women can do with their hair.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the chromosome patch, men have the faux hawk, the man bun and bald.

Shoes — I’m not even going to touch this one.

Stories — See a well-dressed woman dining alone in an expensive restaurant and there’s an elaborate story there somewhere.  See a well-dressed man dining alone in an expensive restaurant and … he just got dumped … like, 20 minutes ago.

And finally:

Girl’s Night Out — Girl’s Night can range from a drunken pub crawl through the streets of Maribor, Slovenia — where someone ends up with her panties in her purse — to Ramen Noodle Night with sweatpants, jasmine tea and vintage Ryan Gosling videos.  On the other hand, since the beginning of time, Boy’s Night has always involved a game, junk food, alcohol and the eruption of various bodily gases.

I rest my case!

What Love Looks Like

I took a little flak from the comments I made about “relationships” last Tuesday.  Oh, well!  I’m not going to sweat the details.

This is what love looks like.

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High in the timber
Where the frost glazes crooked stones
And the trees are skinny and spare
Where the wind blows the surface snow
Like small blizzards in the morning air
Here hunts the wolf
With freeze in his face and blowing fur
A silent tracking into the further trees
When the moon is up and the night is cold
Looking for the cheerless sun of almost tomorrow
And it is stiff silent
Where the wolf pads through the uneven trees
Almost blue against the snow and moon
Tasting the wind with head down concern
And gliding across the flint of his eyes

Later he goes to her
A strong young female animal
Fresh from the kill with blood in his fur
And lays it at her feet muzzles and snaps
And she gorges and growls next to the foot of the trees

High in the shallow timber
The she wolf waits for her mate
And he comes to her
Red eyed and gray faced cold
And they gorge on the kill
She grooms the blood from his face

And he has his fill of her
And she has her fill of him
And they rest curled together against the cold

And they forage together
Where the blue cold waits
And the wind shifts a trace of snow
The hard eyed wolf and his mate
Where only the wolf can hunt
High in the trees strong and alone

wolf

“Relationships” Are Dangerous

love

One of the reasons I hate “relationships” is people are beginning to think they’re the natural order of things.  They’re not.  Antony was not in a “relationship” with Cleopatra; he was in love with her.  D’uh!  Unfortunately, in the 21st century, a lot of people think love is some kind of an emotional unicorn. (Everybody knows what it looks like, but nobody’s actually seen it.)  So, rather than taking a chance on a nasty kick in the heart, we’ve replaced the whole messy business of love with the “relationship” — a muddy little word that can mean just about anything.  This guarantees that nobody has too big an emotional stake in a very emotional game.  The problem is, however, once you’ve signed a pre-nuptial agreement on your feelings, most “relationships” last a lot longer than your emotional commitment to them — with disastrous results.  Here are a few ways an overdue “relationship” can suck the life out of you.

I’m A Coward — This is when two people stay together because — well — because.  Nobody wants to end up sitting alone on a park bench, feeding the pigeons.  However, staying together just to avoid that is something science calls inertia, and once that sets in, you’re already halfway to that bench.

Revenge — This is simple: “You’re not the person you told me you were, and I’ve wasted a lot of time on you. So now I’m going to make you just as miserable as I am.”

Emotional Paintball — This is the relationship that’s nothing more than a low-level firefight.  These people spend their days sniping at each other and setting up elaborate emotional ambushes.  They do it for the drama ’cause there’s nothing else there.

What About The Stuff? — These are the people who stay together because of the house, the cars and all the other crap they’ve accumulated.

What Will The Neighbours Think? — This is the couple who are always looking over their shoulders ’cause they believe everyone is so-o-o interested in them.  They don’t actually like each other anymore, but their collective egos won’t let them split up.

The Children — Worst reason ever!  Passing your dysfunctional lives on to the next generation is just child abuse.

Sex — Here’s the deal.  Eventually, gravity and Mother Nature are going to come calling, and you’re not going to look all that good naked, anymore. ( Just sayin’!)

And that, folks, is why you’re better off believing in love.