Save This, Greenpeace

Growing up, my brothers and I were subjected to a household of a mere five TV channels, not including the French one (which doesn’t count either way simply because it isn’t the superior language of English). Sunday mornings spent flipping desperately through the few stations we had access to taught me that not only are Sundays the most entertainment-devoid day of the week, but that there are a lot of causes you can support for the low, low cost of $19.95 per month. Moving to Victoria, however, has expanded my childhood knowledge and taught me that nearly everything which has suffered injustice is worthy of a band of official supporters. Personally, I have been accosted by those for abortion, against abortion, for sex, against whales, for marijuana, against evangelical movements and for polyamoury, amongst others. It has come to my attention, on the other hand, that there is a gaping hole in the repertoire of causes for creatures.
What of the paramecium?

Somehow society and the intellect of the scientific community have been avoiding the terrible truth of the abuses that happen in high school and first year biology courses everywhere. While I am generally not one to sign petitions or protest for any cause that does not directly involve me, my life or my personal comfort, the abuse of the paramecium is simply appalling. Compared to the imprisoned paramecium, the supposed ‘suffering’ of whales is an over romanticized notion of non-existent neglect. Whales already enjoy the freedom of nearly 68 percent of the Earth’s surface area along with international protection as opposed to the unregulated airtight glass slides that the paramecium is imprisoned within. Millions of the creatures are subjected to constant observation and manipulation under deathly bright lights; all of them are left to dry out and die. These injustices have become so normalized that somehow the end of feminism is a greater cause than that of stopping our teachers and roommates from continuing on this massacre of the noble single-celled creatures.

It is time that Sunday mornings (long abandoned by the hopes of even remotely interesting programming) be dominated by unfortunate and ignored causes, such as the promotion of meat consumption and egocentrism, for the low, low cost of a working TV. Forget starvation in downtown Calgary; I would rather spend my beer money on saving the paramecium.

Racing Stripes

Dear Fashionable Gentlemen;


We know that you primp, preen and hone yourself to as close to perfection as your physique and modern cosmetic technology will allow you. By ‘we’ I mean the female population in general and we, the part of the female population that appreciates your efforts to catch our interest, can completely sympathize with the pains you put up with simply for our benefit (I suppose it’s really all to your benefit if you are getting the attention, but that’s beside the point.). Regrettably, a sizable share of you has taken the task of preening too far. Luckily for you, however, a large proportion of the above mentioned women who, as much as this may personally bewilder me, more than simply value those of you who are well groomed, but swoon over men with perfect tans, frosted tips and that oh-so masculine diamond earring hanging off of your earlobes. Fine; I’m sure your matching tans and Luis Vuitton purses will look great together.

Over time, I have learned to repress my gag reflex (as it really is rather unhealthy to heave so often) when I happen to run into those of you who spend more time on your two inches of one hundred and fifty dollar hair than I did on my entire outfit before heading to the bar that night. Despite obvious distaste and a general disapproval for men who remind me more of my female friends than of those with bits that dangle, I have come to accept that you will forever be a part of the social scene. The past three years or so, however, have brought a new idea to the ‘fashion’ stage that has left me completely bewildered and near incapable of speech. It is just that horrendous.

Why the fuck would you shave racing stripes into the sides of your heads?

Do they make you go faster? (which is not something you should be advertising to get sex anyway) Is it perhaps an accelerator to your love lives that I have failed to notice? I suppose it is plausible that in my distaste for men like you, I have somehow managed to block an innate female draw to men with stripes by their temples. That must be it! The patterns you dropped your last pay cheque for (or had your mother cut in her kitchen) must be some sort of archaic natural symbolism designed to draw us females into your arms and bedrooms. Better yet, it is entirely possible that those outlines were not even a result of conscious design but rather that of a vicious street fight in which you were repeatedly knifed across the temple and nowhere else, thanks to your incredible testosterone drive and the inevitable defeat of your attacker.

…Right. As a gesture of peace, however, I wholeheartedly allow you to take those excuses as your own and run with it if you still feel the need to flex your waxed, cheddar-coloured arms and zoom by us ladies at the bars. Whenever you see any of us smiling at you from the dance floor, try not to ponder too deeply into whether we’re smiling at you or if we are really reading the message shaved into the side of your head; you’ll just end up lowering your hard earned self-esteem.

The Don'ts of Doing Me

Time and experience have taught me several lessons on what I will and will not accept… mostly on what I won’t. The oddities that men seem to think are sexy and the various things that they will bring up in the midst of a romp session are sometimes so damned amusing, that I have decided to document them.


1. Don’t ask me to say, scream, or moan your name as, chances are, I have no idea what it is and I generally don’t want you to feel too terribly about yourself if I am not quite done yet.

2. Don’t deny me the opportunity to take a shower with you. What are you; gay?

3. Don’t swing yourself in front of my face whilst wishing me “Merry Christmas.” I thoroughly chew the meat I find in my gifts.

4. Don’t call me up to help you heal your friend’s bleeding and broken heart with sex. As much of an experience and story as it may make in the future; the delicate way in which you drag me by the belt loops towards the big bed in the middle of the room with him watching is not the way to get my blood pumping.

5. Don’t threaten me with handcuffs if you do not plan on delivering. There is a reason that I am around you at all and without the handcuffs, that reason is very hard to remember.

6. Don’t insist that I compensate for your inability to keep a condom full. Get used to it or go home; I like to sleep with dirty men but that does not make me willing to ditch my clean record.

7. Don’t ask to keep my panties. Not only is that weird and brings to mind the Swim-Fan type, but I paid for those panties and I damn well intend on impressing more than just you with them.

8. Don’t try to lay me on your parents’ bed. That is the bed where they most likely conceived you and/or recreate the events of your conception regularly. I want nothing to do with your parents anyway, so don’t find a way to somehow include me in their sex lives.

9. Don’t dry hump me like you would your favourite space between the pillows; I have a dog and he can do that just as well as you can.

10. Don’t ask me to go out while I am straddling you. And please don’t correct my belief that you want to go outside to finish up in January. I would rather think your mind is on the sex than on possibly seeing me outside of the bedroom.

11. Don’t tell me that I look just like your girlfriend during our threesome. The reason I was invited to join in is because I am obviously hotter than she is.

12. Don’t blame me if your grandmother sees the scratches on your back; it means that you were at least doing something right.

13. Don’t tell me about the seven year old daughter you found out you had three months earlier. While her pictures might be endearing and the story may be quite cute, I do not plan on engaging in reproductive behaviours with someone who has already proven to be unexpectedly fertile.

14. Don’t make it a competition. I will win.

15. Don’t comment on the bruises left behind by the last guy; you know damned well that I just heard your phone call to one of your other call girls.

16. Don’t sweep me off the sidewalk for an aggressive kiss and then tell me not expect it of you in the future. That is like opening the door of the chocolate factory to Charlie, slamming it in his face and later anticipating a return visit.

17. Don’t ask me if the sex means anything to me. This is generally a good rule of thumb, but, for your sake, specifically refrain from asking me this after having met the day before.

18. Don’t hope to get anything out of me after telling me I belong to you. Don’t hope to get away alive, either.

19. Don’t bite my arm. Biting may be sexy, but the arm is generally not one of the erotic female zones and the fist sized bruise you leave behind evokes more sympathetic looks than my ego can handle.

21. Don’t try to hold my hand after sex. Unless I like you (and I probably do not) or plan on laying you again within the next five minutes, I do not want to be touched or cuddled by you.

22. Don’t invite your roommate into the room for a toke while I am still naked under your sheets.

23. Don’t cover my neck in so many hickeys that I look like I have a severe case of melanoma. I am not one of those women who enjoy wearing scarves inside.

24. Don’t hang yourself out the front of your jeans at the beach as the shock the tour group of septuagenarians may experience could only lead to several fatal heart attacks. You would not want that on your conscience, would you?



None of these "Dont's" are fictitious; I do fully intend to make fun of every man I’ve ever slept with... they deserve it, after all.