Have a Good Life

This is what I don't understand.  Why do people tell you to have a good life after being exceedingly rude, when it's obvious that they mean the opposite?  If they've had no issue with saying such horrible things to you, why the pretense at being nice?  Or is it supposed to be ironic?  Huh.  If they're trying to be witty or something, surely they should have tried that route before they said all the mean things.  Or maybe they said the mean things first and they were witty.  And then it makes sense to say, "Have a good life" as a closing line.  But I'm still stuck on it.  I just don't get it.  Maybe they actually want you to have a good life, and are just using a sarcastic voice because they're afraid to let you know that they're wishing you well.  Or maybe it's a dare.  Like you can't have a good life without them.  Like... "Good luck on your life....without me."  Almost as if your life will never be as good without them in it.

But you know what? 

It will probably be better.  Because the person who says, "Have a good life" in a mean, sarcastic tone is a person who is better left outside your realm of contacts.  They probably didn't have your best interests at heart anyway.  And really? If they can't even be honest with you in their parting line (which the invariably meant to say - "Have a shitty life so I can feel vindicated and get some sort of vengeance even though I'm no longer in contact with you and will probably not even know that you're having a shitty life but I hope you do anyway.") then it makes you wonder what else they weren't honest about.

Like... when they said "Congratulations on your new promotion" did they really mean, "I'm so jealous that you got promoted because I'm so much better and way more talented than you and your shoes are ugly"?  Or ... "You look nice today" - is that really a euphemism for, "Every other day you look like crap, so I might as well throw you a bone for even trying to put something nice together".

The bottom line is this: someone told me to "have a good life" today.. and not in a nice way.  And you know what?  I'm totally going to prove to her that I will have a good life.  Simply by the fact that I'm not surrounded by people who would say that to me in the first place.

Also? 

That person can suck it.

Birthday Rants That Aren't About Birthdays

This morning as I was scrolling through my Facebook home page (lookin' at what people I don't have contact with beyond FB were up to and checkin' out my birfday wishes) I was struck by a post from one of the girls I went to university with (the first time around.)

She posted this: Jean Kilbourne's lecture on women in advertising.  And not women who write copy, but how women are portrayed.  And what she said struck a chord.  I mean, I know what kind of photoshopping goes into making these women more "palatable".  I've known for a long time that those images were harmful to the self-image that a woman has.  I was more shocked by the subversive copy that went along with it.  And how Kilbourne broke it all down.  The way that men (and even young boys) were presented in these very masculine poses while the women were always demure.  That there was a message that women should be seen, and never heard.  And while I'm always rather pissed at advertisers and their portrayal of women, I was even more angry when Kilbourne started pointing things out that I had never considered.

It also got me thinking of how I choose my books, and what kind of female protagonists I'm drawn to.  I definitely like the kick-ass-no-nonsense-got-plenty-of-flaws kind of girl.  And even those women always have a couple of guys hovering around her.  Now, I love me some urban fantasy, as most of you know.  And on any day of the week I'll take Elena Michaels (of the Women of the Otherworld series by Kelley Armstrong) over Bella Swan (of Twilight fame).  Elena kicks ass, doesn't take kindly to being manipulated and even though she's got an athletic body she still kind of wishes it had more curves.  Armstrong created a very believable female protagonist - and not just one, by the way.  Armstrong has created a number of great women who all have one thing in common - they know their own minds and will fight for what they believe in.  Also? Men tend to take a backseat to these girls.

And then there's Bella Swan.  I get the fact that she's a mopey teenager in love.  I do.  But, come on.   Stephenie Meyer has essentially created a female character that has set the equality revolution back by about 70 years.  Bella is seemingly unable to make it through life without a male counterpart by her side.  She falls into such a deep despair at the departure of her boyfriend that she becomes a living ghost.  But then... Jacob comes along and he lures her out of her funk.  Why couldn't it have been one of her female friends?  And for a girl that is apparently awkward and has somewhat of a low self-esteem, the fact that there are a number of males falling at her feet should have perked her up a little bit.  Don't even get me started on the teenage marriage part.  

I know there has been a lot of backlash where Twilight is concerned - and, honestly? Rightly so.  We should be providing the younger generations of women with strong role models who are able to go it alone and don't need a male to define them.  We should be empowering our younger sisters to love themselves no matter what they look like - because, truly, if you aren't beautiful on the inside, how will it ever show on the outside?  We should all be reclaiming our bodies from the despicable way that men use them in advertising.  We should be rejoicing in the fact that we are givers of life.  We are intelligent.  We are funny.  We are compassionate.  We are generous.  We are all beautiful.  We are women.  And we need to remember that it's okay to love ourselves exactly the way we are.  

Also?

It's because we're awesome.

Laundry Wars

For those of you that don't know much about me, I live in a triplex in the basement apartment.  Stu and I moved in here two years ago after my mother-in-law's cancer diagnosis.  She owns the building and lives in the second floor apartment with my sister-in-law.  The main floor apartment has housed some of the "special" people in the world, including a fraudster, an inconsiderate couple and their child, Stampy, and our newest tenants - a family of four that happens to include two small children, one of which has tantrums for the bulk of the time that she's home.  The small spawn of satan hits her parents and screams at them - a lot.  I think she's about five years old.  She also beats up on her younger brother. 

Sharing is Caring

On Saturday Stu and I were supposed to go out with my best friend and her husband - two people that we both love.  Which is unsurprising, because my friends are awesome.  His, however... well, he may like his friends, usually I do not. 

Anyway.  That day, Stu woke up and told me that he wasn't feeling well.  I encouraged him to lie down and rest, hoping that he would feel up to going out by the time we had to leave.  But no.  Instead of resting, he decided to go and can tomatoes with my mother-in-law.  Firstly, he had plans with me.  Secondly, I didn't want his germs in my tomatoes.  Like the typical male he is, he ignored me and went up to his mother's.  Then he decided that he was too ill to go out.  (Which cause a domino effect of my best friend's husband then cancelling.)

Needless to say, I was not impressed.

Not only was he ditching me, but he potentially infected all the tomatoes with his germs.  Ick.

And then he gave them to me.  The germs that is.

When I told him I was sick on Monday with his germy cold, he told me that as my husband he was legally responsible to give half of what he owned to me. 

I glared at him.  He laughed.

Then I told him that I didn't forget things...ever.

He brought home dinner.  And made me tea.

And if I get sick because of infected tomatoes, I'm puking on his side of the bed.

OMFG I Hate Rogers

Now, before you get all crazy and think that I'm being racist because I've just declared that I hate Rogers, I don't mean people named Roger. I mean Rogers Communications. In case you live somewhere that doesn't have Rogers screwing up your life, it's one of the big cable/phone/internet providers in Canada. They own half of our country. Okay, maybe not half. But they own a lot.

Now, I have had a love/hate relationship with them for quite some time. But, there's only two companies I can get my phone and internet from - the other being Bell Canada, and I hate them even more. I can rant about them another time. Today, it's all about R.C.

So, we got new neighbours and the Rogers technician came to hook them up with all their stuff on Saturday. I know, who cares, right? Well, the incompetent idiot who came to hook the stuff up left all these plastic and metal bits on our lawn in the backyard, trampled our veggie garden and then knocked out the sattelite wires to the television in the living room. (It's because of my loathing for all things Bell and mostly Rogers that we have a sattelite with another company, that unfortunately does not provide the other two services.)

After spending an hour with our sattelite provider, we put two and two together that the reject from Rogers was responsible for our lack of tv. For whatever reason, my husband hates calling companies and telling them that they suck, so he leaves it to me. I think it's because he'd rather me be on the phone for hours. Fairplay. If I thought of it first, I'd do it to him.

After hours (literally, like 2 hours) on the phone, being transferred to five different departments, I was informed that a complaint would be lodged and someone would look at it. Really? That's the best you can do, Rogers?

Apparently, it is. We've been without sattelite for 3 days now (not such a big deal, we only watch a few shows in the evening, but still!) and we're not sure if the technician from our company is going to show up or not tomorrow. We had to clean up the mess in the backyard. Not incompetent douchebag. And we got nothing.

This evening a representative from Rogers called to follow up with my complaint. I asked them if they were going to give me anything for my time that I wasted on the phone with them, the inconvenience of having to wait around for some other guy to fix my sattelite, and cleaning up after the loser that left stuff all over the lawn. Nope. They just wanted to let me know that they got the complaint.

Seriously? What. The. Fuck. I had totally been over this whole episode, but Rogers managed to make me angry all over again. And they wasted another 20 minutes of my time. If I had Rogers cable, then they could make an adjustment on my television bill, but because I only have their other two services, then I'm ineligible to receive any sort of compensation.

I totally hung up on the woman. I just couldn't talk to her anymore. I didn't want to hear her apologies, or her empathisizing. Because, really? She doesn't care. And all I want to know, is what happened to customer service? Is this really an acceptable way to treat customers? Is Jerry the messy douche really going to be reprimanded for his bad behaviour? I doubt it. And the thing of it is, is that I just have to suck it up.

Oh. And blog about it.

At the end of the day, these big corporations are all about the bottom line, and when there are only 2 major players, they really don't care about the individual. Because they know that no matter how bad they treat you, your options are limited.

If I wasn't so addicted to "Community", "Coronation Street", "How I Met Your Mother" and "Chuck" I'd totally go off the grid. Totally.