8 Mysteries of Womanhood

Note to Male Readers: If the title is makes you think this is going to be about “female” things, it isn’t. So don’t worry. By the same token, if you think you’re going to get some answers, you might be disappointed. But who knows. Other people might have answers. I think the truth is that women are as mysterious to other women and to themselves as they are to men.

There are quite a few things that women do that I, as an actual and long-time woman, find confounding. And when I don’t understand something I ask questions. So, I want to ask about the following:

1. Make-up. I wear a little make-up. Slapping on a bit of colour in the morning makes me look like I’m awake and alive and not so drab. But it takes me less than 5 minutes and I’m good for the day. I don’t have a fishing tackle box full of products. I have maybe three, four products – tops. I see women in the washrooms at work several times a day with their tackle box, pulling bottles, tubes, boxes, cases and brushes and other things out of them and applying all manner of liquids and powders and colourful lines to their faces with them. Why? Why do you need to keep adding more make-up to the make-up you already have on? Where does the original make-up go? Why do you feel the need to bury your face beneath several layers of stuff? Also, I have never understood foundation and lipstick. Both of these only look good for about 9 seconds after you apply them. Foundation gets all dry and flaky and mostly makes your face look either dead or orange. What exactly is it the foundation for? It looks horrible. And lipstick? What’s that all about? It wears off instantly and leaves your mouth looking like a 6-year-old’s who’s too many eaten no-name brand Cheezies.
2. Nails. I find it odd that so many women are obsessed with their fingernails. They get manicures regularly. The manicurists do stuff to their cuticles. They soak, buff, file, trim and paint their nails. They glue on fake nails. They put little jewels and decals on their nails. They charge them money for all this and then send them on their way. By the time the women and their fancy nails get to their cars, their nails are beginning to chip. How do you live your lives with long, colourful nails? How do enjoy a meal knowing there is all kinds of crud and bacteria crawling around under those long nails with which you are handling your food? How do you….nevermind…I don’t want to know.
3. High Heels. So many, many women are passionately in love with high heels. I don’t, for the life of me, get it. Don’t get me wrong — I love shoes. I love shoes that are comfortable and durable, that I can walk in and that look “nice”. High heels meet none of these requirements. Sure, they make your calves look like baseballs and give you some height and men seem to think they’re sexy, but so what? They cause bunions, blisters, back problems, twisted ankles, falls, sprains and you can’t walk in them. Women in high heels hobble along, looking like they’re going fast, when they’re actually getting nowhere, slowly. Walking more than 10 feet is uncomfortable and I suspect men only think they’re sexy because they make women look like they’re vulnerable and unable to escape.
4. Home Decorating. Many women I know drool and talk for hours over things like colour swatches, paint chips, furniture, home “accents”, window treatments, knick-knacks, seasonal décor, china patterns, stemware, flatware, pillow shams, etc., etc., etc. I can’t seem to get excited by any of this.  I’d like to, because other women have nicely put together homes with stuff that matches and “works” and I can admire that, but when it comes to the crunch, I just don’t care. As long as my home is clean and tidy and things are pushed against the wall so I don’t trip over them in the night, what more do I need?
5. Taking pride in being overworked. So many women talk, blog and complain about how very, very many things they have to cram into their day. They don’t have a minute to themselves. They’re stretched in all directions. They have little or no help. They get only 4 hours of restless sleep every night. Why do they want to live like this? They sound fierce, yet miserable. You never hear a guy talking about all the stuff he has to do except when he says, “Ummm, nah..I can’t do that, I already have enough to do.” Men know how to say “no”. Why don’t women? Why do they cram every minute of their lives with stuff they have to do? Some people mock me for being impatient and in a hurry, but I’m only anxious to rush through the stuff I have to do so I can have more time to do nothing. I spend a lot of time doing nothing. I like it. Do other women like running around from morning ‘til night? If not, why don’t they stop? I really need to understand this.
6. Fretting over their bodies. I could never see the point of doing strenuous, uncomfortable, exercisey things and/or not eating things you enjoy to try and shave pounds off. Or undergoing surgery to make things bigger, smaller or smoother. Who are you doing all this for? So you can look in the mirror and say, “Oh look, I now look plastic?” Or, “Oh look, I look like I’m about to gnaw off my own thigh because I’m hungry, my blood sugar is non-existent and I’m miserable?” Why not put all that energy into just being healthy? Find a way to enjoy good, real food and find a way to enjoy doing something that keeps you vertical for a good part of the day.
7. Hormones. A lot of women are inordinately proud of their erratic hormones. They cite hormones as reasons for eating a pound of chocolate; for being extremely unpleasant and irrational; for not wanting to do stuff; and for killing their spouses. Men never get to say, “Whoa, my testosterone is way high today so hike your skirt up and bend over the kitchen table, woman or I’m gonna have to do the Starbucks barista on my way to work.” I’m probably doing a grave disservice to the sisterhood, but I think women are diminishing themselves as human beings by presenting themselves as slaves to their hormones. Don’t we still have brains and intestinal fortitude and other stuff with which we can keep our hormones under control?
8. Weddings. Maybe I’m unnatural, but never in all the years I’ve walked this earth has it ever crossed my mind that I’d like to envelop myself in a thousand yards of white lace and spend a billion dollars on hair, make-up, food, drinks, photographs, wedding favours, cheesy bands, boutonnières, cars covered in paper flowers, candied almonds wrapped in mesh, a towering cake with plastic dolls on top and a Man of God trying to make me promise stuff. As a general, abstract concept I get the idea of partnering up with someone that you figure will generally enhance your life, but why the medieval hoopla? Women get positively rabid about getting “their special day just right.” Even women who ordinarily seem like rational human beings! I don’t care how carefully you try to explain it, I will never understand this. I’m sorry.

So? Now you know. I’m maybe not a bona fide woman. I have no answers for any of this, just a lot of questions. Does anyone out there have answers to any of these questions? Does anyone have any more questions? I know I do.

These Boots are Made for Everything

When was the last time you fell head over heels in love with a product, not including a sex toy? Well, a few years ago, someone, I can’t remember who, showed me a pair of boots they were wearing and commenced to rhapsodize in an almost orgasmic manner about how amazing these boots were. I didn’t pay too much attention because I didn’t much like the person and found the whole display rather uncomfortable.

However, when one witnesses something particularly bizarre like that, one finds it difficult to completely put out of one’s mind the name of boots that would inspire such passion.  

Blundstone

And so the image of the apparently Fabio-esque boots remained in that special spot in back of my mind where I store all the clutter I accumulate every day that I have no immediate need for – much like that junk room, closet and/or drawer most of us have in our homes.

Years passed and I’d see the occasional person wearing Blundstones and I’d study them to see if they seemed much happier, more content, more satisfied than the average person. And you know what? I think they really did. And so I started thinking maybe there was something to this Blundstone coupling. And that maybe I was depriving myself of an essential life enhancing experience — like marriage except without the arguments and community property issues.

So I start doing a little research on these boots.  They retail for between $160- $180, which seemed pretty reasonable for a life-enhancing experience and for a good pair of boots for someone who walks a lot. And so more and more I became fascinated with what I read about Blundstones. They claim to be strong, reliable, comfortable, weather-resistant, virtually indestructible. How could I fall for such sweet-talk?

This mad Australian company who’s been building these very same boots since 1870 still only make 3 basic styles of boot (not including the steel-toes CSA safety boots) and only in black or brown – though curiously, one style comes in red, too.

I started to develop strong feelings for one particular style — #490

Aren’t they handsome? (XUP Jr. thinks they’re hideous, so I don’t mind if you think that, too)

Surreptitiously, I start checking Blundstones out in shops, searching for #490s. I couldn’t find them. But I’d gaze at the others;  touch them all, smell them, ask questions about them. I even tried a pair on once, but I never found #490s and it never seemed like the right time to boldly ask someone to have them ordered in.

Last year, whilst slumming in a second-hand shop, I came across an older pair of 510s.

They were a little big and a little brash, but they were only $10. I couldn’t walk away. I slipped on some insoles and let them have their way with me. You can see the actual pair up there in my masthead between the Dr. Martens and the gumboots.

For the last year we’ve been everywhere together – spring, summer, winter and fall. We’ve walked mile after mile through rain, sleet, slush, snow, ice; in minus 30 temperatures, on sidewalks, in fields, through the woods and on moonlit beaches.

We’ve gotten sloppy and messy together and then I’ve wiped them down with a bit of water and worn them out to dinner with a pair of tights and a skirt. They’re certainly not the height of elegance – but dressy enough for most of the places I like to go.

And my feet have never been treated better. Such comfort. Such stamina. They’ve been kept toasty warm on the coldest days and comfortably dry on the wettest days.

But…and there’s always a “but” isn’t there? While these lovely #510s have been nothing but good to me, I’ve never been able to forget about those #490s. And this past weekend I saw them, at last, in the flesh …beckoning me from inside a shop window.

The #510s and I bought them.

Oh, I know how tiresome it is to listen to someone gush about how perfect their true love is, and I know some of you probably already have a pair of Blundstones, so you can skip this if you want, but I still need to tell how amazing  Blundstones are.

• They’re made with a 2.5 mm thickness of leather.
• The leather folds under the sole for almost an inch for extra durability and weather-proofing.
• The soles are “injection molded” not glued on.
• The leather is treated with “dual-density polyurethane” so I never have to treat, spray, wax or condition my boots.
• They came with a little pouch of wax which they said I could use if, by chance, I ever felt the need to shine my boots up a bit some time down the line.
• They have no laces or zippers or buckles – they just slide on and off.

 I have to wonder why not all outdoor footwear can be made this well.

The Blundstone website has a page called Art to Boot which invites artists and celebrities to “art up” their Blundstones, which are then donated to raise money for various charities. Have a look at some of the gorgeous things people have done with their boots.

There’s also a page called Your Boots where you can enter a photo of you and your Blundstones and a little story of all the places you and your boots have been and gone. There are tons of  stories –funny, interesting,  crazy, charming  stories. I hope my 490s and I collect some interesting stories like this over our lifetime together.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve had a lot of great sensible and not-to-sensible shoes and boots in my life – a lot!  I make no apologies for my footwear sluttishness. But all those shoes and boots were only infatuations – short-term flings. Sooner or later the shine wore off my affection. The soul fell out of the relationship. I’d feel too tied down. And I’d walk out – kicking them off like an old pair of boyfriends.

But the #490 Blundstones and I? I think this is the real thing at last. I really do. And the #510s? We’re still good friends. We’ll get together for some rough-housing once in a while and maybe,  one day, I’ll fix them up with someone else would would really appreciate them.

Seasonal Wardrobe Disorder

We were out shopping on the weekend for a spring jacket and some seasonal footwear for the kid. (Yes, even in Ottawa we live in hope that spring is not too far off). I’m allowed to go shopping with her for stuff like this because there’s the expectation that I’ll be paying seeing as how these fall into the “essentials” category.

Since she’s had a job, she has to buy her own frivolities. I’ll get essentials like coats, boots and maybe  jeans as long as she keeps outgrowing stuff. I suspect she only keeps growing at this point so that the essentials remain as broad a category as possible.

I wish she’d stop it because in this climate, I need two jobs just to keep us both in outerwear.

I wonder if people in places where they only have one or two seasons save a lot of money on not having to buy 3 or 4 completely different sets of clothing or whether they just spend a lot more on the clothes they do buy? And what do they do with all that extra closet space?

 Our front closet is jam-packed with:

•  2 every day winter parkas, bulky, heavy hooded
• 2 ski jackets
• 2 wool winter coats (for “good”)
• 2 pairs of warm weather-resistant pants for blizzardy days or playing in the snow
• A massive collection of scarves, gloves, mitts and hats
• 2 raincoats and rain pants
• 8 in-between coats; some that can be worn on a warm winter’s day with a heavy sweater or in a cool spring day without; some for warmer spring or fall days; some for cool spring or early summer mornings that fold up nicely for when it gets warmer later on in the day; some for when the days get nippy in fall (which is a completely different thing than when it’s still nippy in the spring because right now 10C or 50F seems really, really warm to us, but in the fall we get all shivery when it drops to 20C or 70F. So, this requires a whole different jacket paradigm)
• Boots: lots of boots – big snow boots, rain boots, warm boots, walking boots, dressy boots, etc., etc.

Then, of course, you need a collection of warm long pants, lighter long pants, Capri pants, shorts, winter, spring, summer and fall skirts and dresses, long and short sleeved shirts and t-shirts, tank-tops, sweaters, cardigans, a multitude of shoes and sandals and a vast array of seasonal-appropriate accessories.

Even hair needs to be taken into account because of the seasons.

In the winter you’re going to have a hat jammed on your head all the time, which makes for attractive static-hathead. And between the dry indoor heating and the dry cold outdoor winds hair develops a frightening brittleness. In summer, the humidity turns hair lank and droopy or into a nice halo of frizz. This means different hair cuts and different hair products depending on the season.

Same for your skin. With every season comes a skin metamorphosis and the need for different products.

Trying to protect ourselves from the elements pretty much takes up all our money and energy, which is probably why we tend to be hopelessly unfashionable. The uber-chic chickies who trot along in their stilettos and teeny, but gorgeous, jackets without hats or gloves in the middle of winter just make us laugh.

Still, we eagerly look forward to the advent of every new season with a little thrill of excitement (even winter for the first couple of weeks).  It’s fun to bring out clothes from storage you haven’t seen for a few months; to bundle up again after sweating continuously for 3 months; to shed clothes after freezing continuously for 5 months.