Category Archives: SEX

International Hug Day! Smooch!

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Today is International Hug Day!  What an ending to a week that started off with the Saddest Day of the Year.  Here’s a question: how is the date of International Hug Day actually decided, and by whom?  Not that it matters; I plan on ambushing all my friends with giant hugs all day long.  Well, except the friend whose daughter had the stomach flu yesterday.  Germ phobia trumps International Hug Day.
I’ve been having somewhat of a strange week.  You know the days when your kids are annoying, your husband is a jerk, everyone is stupid, you are completely uncreative and will never accomplish anything, ever, the world is completely depressing and life is wholly unendurable?  And then you look at the calendar, do some back-counting, and it dawns on you.  Like St. Paul on the road to Damascus, it’s like the blinding light and suddenly it All Makes Sense.  It’s not you, it’s me and my hormonal derangement.  Throw a full moon in there and you have my situation, and now you can sit for a minute and let that Too Much Information just sink in and perhaps feel a pang of sympathy for the poor souls who share my living quarters.
This video pretty much sums it up.  Her face is actually a perfect replica of my facial expression.
Remember ParticipAction?  The word still strikes terror into my I-don’t-feel-well-I-have-my-period-I-have-to-sit-out-of-gym-class heart.  Years of ParticipAction and I only ever got those “Participant” stickers, never a badge.  Side note: my husband actually once won the Award of Excellence, and that is how I knew I had to procreate with him.  In fact, when he told me that I think I ripped off all my clothes right there, so arousing did I find that information.  Recently my kids asked me if there was anything I didn’t like at school, and “GYM” was my answer.  They couldn’t believe it!  How could I not enjoy gym?  When I recall gym class I recall doing the 4K run in the freezing cold, standing outside in the gusting wind in a dry brown field during Track and Field, a module in which there was absolutely nothing I was competent, let alone good at.  I recall the dirty, smelly gym, my inability to throw a ball and my screaming with terror and ducking when a ball was thrown my way.  Gym class and I did not get along.
But I saw this article about ParticipAction and its new approach to activity and personal goal setting, and truthfully I think it is a good idea.  It seems much less scarring than the old approach, and certainly it’s a step in the right direction in our childhood obesity, inactive, video game world.  I know that my kids do love gym class, and perhaps that’s because gym is much nicer now – no more “last-one-chosen” team selections, a lot more emphasis on fun things.  Or maybe the boys take more after their father.  That was my hope, after all.

Sports, honesty, and mating…what are those dinos doing?

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Saturday morning a loud buzzing noise filled my head. It kind of felt like a giant swarm of bees had invaded. I was puzzled; after all, I had only one glass of wine the night before and I didn’t feel ill or dizzy in any way. “Do you HEAR that?” I asked my husband hesitantly, somewhat worried that I was just going crazy or something. Turns out it was just the background noise, from the World Cup and those weird vuvuzelas.

I always thought my husband was a total sports nut, a junkie, but then I met some REAL sports nuts and not I realize that he is just a fan, someone who follows a lot of sports and could tell you who placed first and who choked and who set a record, for pretty much any sport from football and hockey to horse racing and Nascar. He only watches a few sports very closely: American football, which I enjoy watching to some degree, and golf, which I do not enjoy at all thanks to the monotone-voiced commentators (“…and here’s the chip shot out of the bunker. Oh. Nice shot. Now it’s a putt for birdie…”) and also anything international, like the Olympics or the World Cup.

Mark, perhaps due to his participation in community soccer, has taken an interest in the World Cup. “Do you think I could play in the World Cup one day?” he asked. How honest is too honest? It’s hard to find the balance between being truthful and breaking your child’s spirit. “Um, maybe if you practice really hard, you could,” is the response I went with.

But really, how honest are you with your children? My friend sent me this article, and I am not prudish, I don’t think, but I was absolutely creeped out by it. For one thing, Mr. Purple? That’s what you call it? For another thing, your child was touching your sex toy? Ew. I couldn’t even get past those two pieces of information. Maybe I’m more prudish than I think I am. Mark had gotten a dinosaur book from the library, and apparently it was meant for a much older child, as it had a picture of Allosauruses mating. Mating! What are those dinosaurs doing, Mom? Um, let’s turn the page and see! Look! Baby Allosauruses! I have a feeling this is not the last of it.

Time to Get a Life

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Last night I stood on the soccer field in the pouring rain, watching the Green Geckos run, herd-like, after the ball and slipping and falling on the soggy, wet grass. It’s cold here, as it often is in June, and it seems to be sapping my energy and also my personality. On the “news” this morning, the weatherman mentioned that the average temperature for this time of year is 20 degrees Celsius and for some reason this enraged me beyond belief. I wondered aloud how that average was derived, because to average 20 degrees, the temperature must have at some point been above 20 degrees, and when has this occurred?

Note to self: having a heated and one-sided debate with the TV weatherman regarding his data and how he obtains his “average temperature” is neither healthy nor productive. Neither is looking up temperatures for the past ten years on the internet, stopping only when a) your data source goes only back ten years, and b) realizing that you really need to get a life.

Speaking of getting a life, Today’s Parent magazine arrived yesterday and on the cover it says “Surprising Marriage Advice: Get a Life!” It spoke to me. I haven’t actually read it yet, given that I have been busy with normal daily life and also trying to figure out where the City TV meteorologist gets his data, in a crazed way. In addition, I have been writing a piece about sex and I have had a little anxiety about it – people are going to know I have sex! Like the two kids and a twelve year monogamous relationship wasn’t a giveaway. Like I’m actually sixteen years old and trying to figure out how to hide birth control pills from my parents – is a school bag better than my sock drawer? Hoo boy. I really do need to get a life. Plus it’s going to improve my marriage, apparently. Must read the article to figure out how.

The rain has not been dampening the kids’ spirits, happily. We have been busy having a living room campout today, complete with marshmallows stuck on chopsticks and pool noodles, which they have been pretending to swim across the floor with. Very fun. Too bad this wholesome play wasn’t occurring on Monday, when a sweet yogi friend came by with her adorable three-month-old daughter. No, the boys decided they would tell our guest all about their penchant for guns, battles, and killing. Nothing says good mother like having your children talk about how they want to destroy Mickey Mouse, of all fictional characters to choose. Maybe I should go read that Today’s Parent. And also get a life.

The Sun Came Out!

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This was the view from my back door yesterday morning:

Spring!

It’s mostly melted now, but it was snowing and grey for most of the day until about 6:00 pm, when the sun festively came out. Jake’s mystery illness presented itself as a nasty headcold, and I just could not face bundling him up, running through the snow and howling winds, dropping Mark at school, and doing it all over again two and a half hours later, so I decided to keep Mark home yesterday. “If I let you stay home, we need to do some schoolwork”, I said sternly, to which Mark replied, “Oh boy! Okay! What’s my first assignment? This is going to be great!” So evidently my nerdy and bookwormish tendencies have been passed on to the next generation. In fact, the entire day was spent pretending our house was a school. Mark kept asking which “centres” he could play at. “Is the writing centre open? Is the dinosaur centre open? I’m going to set this book aside for the reading centre. Okay? Okay Mom? Okay?”

The other night I was premenstrually sobbing to my husband about the passage of time and how the boys are not going to want to spend time with me as they grow and how I’m just going to be the horrible bitchy mother-in-law everyone complains about and in a couple of years Jake is NOT going to want to grocery shop with me and woe is me, I’m sad. My husband replied cheerily that, not to worry, Mark will likely always want to do math puzzles and crosswords with me, which seems apt, after yesterday’s events. (“Is the science centre open?”).

Ah, it’s all good. Of all the characters in The Breakfast Club, I have always secretly identified with the character played by Anthony Michael Hall – “In the physics club, we talk about physics, properties of physics” – although I had a huge crush on the Judd Nelson character. Ooh, the bad boy. It’s funny how all of the most attractive movie characters are also the ones who would be the worst to be in a relationship with. Take the Ralph Fiennes character from The English Patient, for example. Ralph Fiennes, so yummy, so intense, and yet, imagine being married to the guy. It would be terrible! The guy hardly ever smiles, and forget about lighthearted conversation. “What do you want for dinner, honey?” “I HAVE BEEN WALKING. FOR THREE DAYS.” I know this is controversial, but it would be much more amiable to be married to the jovial Colin Firth character than the sexy Ralph Fiennes character. At least he remembered their anniversary.

Huh. I meant only to write today about the snow, and my bookworm of an older child, and Jake’s miraculous recovery today and how I have a very! exciting! weekend! ahead of me, but somehow I got on the topic of attractive movie characters who would be hell to be married to. So, that sounds like a great game for a Friday! What movie character do you find terribly attractive and yet, you know would not be good relationship material? Ooh, just thought of another one: John Cusack in Say Anything. I know. I know. Controversial. But really, wouldn’t that lack of ambition get to you after a while? Okay, weigh in, this should be fun!

No. I don’t like Pina Coladas.

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Music. It speaks to us. It’s like when you fall in love for the first time and you listen to “What a Wonderful World” and you identify with every single lyric – I DO see trees of green AND red roses! – and then maybe you break up with that love and you hear “Against All Odds” and the lyrics are like purposeful daggers to your broken heart. How can he just walk away, when I stand here taking every breath for him? Sob.

Or maybe you go Mexico and you hear “Margaritaville” and it captures the foggy, unfocused essence of your vacation, or you’re having a night out with your girlfriends and you hear “We are Family” and it’s like the soundtrack of your life is playing?

Sometimes, however, a song comes along that you cannot identify with in the least. I’ve mentioned before that I am the exact opposite of the desired person in Rupert Holmes’ song “Escape”. “Escape”, for those who don’t know, is actually the Pina Colada song. Who knew? I certainly didn’t; I always thought that its proper name was the Pina Colada song.

The 1970’s must have been a strange time to be on the dating scene, no? I mean, there was all that casual/ anonymous/ unprotected sex, and the penchant for mustaches and chest hair, and those truckers who had bumper stickers that said “Grass, Gas, or Ass: Nobody Rides for Free”, and the obsessions with zodiac signs (which I kind of get, I mean, I’m superstitious that way). The fact that long-haul truckers practically had a cult following says something about that era. Strange times to be dating, I imagine.

And so the Pina Colada song made it onto the charts. Did it top the charts? I have no idea. I do know that it is one of the most sing-able songs ever written, and also it has a very weird theme: a guy is bored with his “lady” and answers a personal ad, and it turns out his “lady” was bored of him, because she placed said personal ad. Clearly, communication was not a big thing back then.

Reasons why I would be un-dateable in the ‘70s, according to desirable qualities as stated in the Pina Colada song, and separate from my dislike for chest hair, mustaches, bumper stickers, and obviously, the whole casual/ anonymous/ unprotected sex thing (thanks to My Mom the Style Icon for the topic idea. If I was sure that my mom wouldn’t find out and murder me, I would totally send you a picture of her in a 12 inch mini dress.)

Do you like Pina Coladas? No. I dislike anything with coconut flavour. Actually, I dislike anything coconut related. Shredded coconut, to me, has the consistency of dried out dental floss and if there is one way to ruin a good cookie or dessert, it’s by adding shredded coconut to it.

Getting caught in the rain? No. I have very fine hair that goes completely limp in humidity. So you can imagine what I look like after being caught in the rain. Also, I don’t like walking around in wet clothes. Two kids = deflated bosoms = very depressing wet t-shirt contest.

If you’re not into yoga? I practice 5-6 times a week. I get up at five in the morning to practice yoga, so I guess you could say that I’m “into it”.

If you have half a brain? I have a whole brain. Unfortunately a large portion of it is taken up by useless information, like the lyrics to this song.

I’m not much into health food. This one makes me laugh. Yes, I like health food. This is not the ‘70s anymore wherein people who enjoy health food are walking around with unshaven underarms, hemp ponchos, and Birkenstocks, munching on mung beans and wheat germ. Normal people can like health food.

I am into champagne. I’m a red wine girl, myself.

If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape. Okay, stop it right there. I’m not even addressing dunes of the cape. I’m addressing making love at midnight. It’s a miracle if I’m up past nine thirty, let alone getting jiggy with it at midnight. Seriously, my husband is sexy, very much so, but if he woke me up at midnight he would be facing my groggy and somewhat comatose rage. He would not, as they say, be tapping that.