My idols

I logged into Facebook two nights ago to see a post from my friend Eve. She works for a major university, and she mentioned her day had been brightened considerably when she walked back from lunch behind a group that included Dr. Jane Goodall, on campus for a lecture. 

This made me happy for a couple of reasons. That Eve was so thrilled about her almost-encounter, and that many of her friends were commenting about how envious they were. These days, I fear many young women wouldn't recognize one of the most trailblazing women of the 20th century, but they could name every member of the extended Kardashian family. I don't have many idols. But I can tell you this: there's not a pop singer or reality show cast member in the bunch.

First up, Dr. Goodall. I have been fascinated by her since I was a child. I suppose I became aware of her through National Geographic, or Life magazine, or television specials. I don't remember a time when I didn't know who she was. I am in awe of her pioneering work at a time when women didn't jaunt off on posh holidays alone, much less set up camp on the rugged terrain of a lakeshore in Tanzania to study chimps. Young women were meant to be housewives, not scientists. The woman was also the subject of her very own Far Side strip. If that ain't cool, I don't know what is. Dr. Goodall will be 77 next week, and the word that comes to mind when I think of her is formidable, 50 years after she first went to Gombe.  I may have an opportunity to meet her next week during her lecture tour, and I will be hard-pressed to form a complete sentence. I love her.



Miep Gies. It is one of the big regrets of my life that I didn't ever get her to sign my copy of  Diary of a Young Girl. Well into her 90s, she would apparently sign copies of the book sent to her from all over the world. For those who don't know her, she was the woman who helped hide the Frank family in that attic for just over two years. When I visited the Frank house and walked through that bookcase into their hiding place I had a physical reaction.  At great personal risk to herself,  Miep helped to shelter eight people and, when the Nazis took them, gathered up Anne's writings for safekeeping, without reading them. Years later, she would say of finally reading the diary, “The emptiness in my heart was eased. So much had been lost, but now Anne’s voice would never be lost. My young friend had left a remarkable legacy to the world." And this one tiny woman, barely five feet tall, who risked her life to protect her friends,  is the sole reason we know Anne's story.  Miep literally gave Anne's voice to the world.

Josephine Baker. Now, admittedly, I love most anything to do with Paris in the 20s and 30s. But Josephine...
Ernest Hemingway said that she was "...the most sensational woman anyone ever saw."  She was a muse to not only Hemingway, but F. Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso, Christian Dior. It is a rare woman who could star in the Folies Bergères, work for the French Resistance, and go on to speak at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King. She rose from sleeping on the streets of St. Louis to becoming the toast of Paris at the start of the Art Deco movement. She married many times, adopted a dozen children, and refused to perform in segregated venues. She staged a triumphant "comeback" in her late 60s, though to the French, she'd never really left. She died four days after opening a retrospective revue of her 50 year career to raves and an audience that included Mick Jagger and Sophia Loren. She was laid to rest with full French military honours.

As for why these particular women are my idols, it isn't about fame, or fortune, or even a truly awesome banana skirt. I want my idols to do far more than hit a high note. It's about what they accomplished but, more than that, what makes these women so special to me is who they were, and are. It's their intelligence and strength of character, their integrity, courage, and spirit. It is the things about them that I hope, in some tiny measure, might someday be said of me. And okay, maybe that banana skirt had a little something to do with it.  It was pretty darn cool.

Spring Fling

Just like the first little crocus starting to peek up through the ground, there's the April issue of Cosmo, peeking its smutty little head out from behind that boring Good Housekeeping. I give you the highlights.

The cover promises 50 Ways to Seduce a Man (in a minute or less). Presumably not while wearing What Guys Hate for You to Wear to Bed, and likely while having some Kinky Sex (which 64% of you tramps secretly want to try). I'm in!

The 50 tips are a fairly typical grab bag of short skirts, discreet public crotch grabbing and a slutty maid costume. Not just for Halloween anymore, I guess. The one that made me laugh AND gave me pause was this: "You know those treats you used to find at the bottom of a cereal box? One morning, I hid [my] new finger vibrator in my guy's cereal for him to discover." Maybe I have a startling lack of imagination, or maybe guys are different, but this doesn't make me think of sexy times; it makes me think of questionable food safety practices. I'd be on the phone to the Superstore faster than you could say "Want to frost my flakes,  Big Boy?" And here's the thing about the dozens of monthly tips: how are you supposed to remember them? Do you pick a few and commit them to memory? Flash cards in your nightstand? Create a mnemonic device? Many years ago, I had a copy of this somewhat racy "how-to" book, along with a willing partner who agreed to hold the book while we gave the alleged number one tip a whirl.  It was called "The Firestarter". He made me promise never to read that book, or any like it, ever again.

Guys apparently would like us to stop wearing nightgowns to bed. You know the ones - usually long sleeves, a neckline, possibly a ruffle, a hemline that hits the knees.  What shocks me is that they needed an article to tell women this. Were you home-schooled? They should have to card you before you head for that rack, and if you're under 55, sorry. T-shirt. Boy shorts. Tank top. Donair sauce. Anything but a little number from the Little Women collection.

Okay, pervs, I know why you've kept reading this far. You want to know what 64% of you want to try. Turns out it's the training wheels version of S&M, the stalwart combo of a blindfold and handcuffs. There are a lot of assurances that it's perfectly okay to find this appealing, your guy won't judge you, etc. The experts suggest bringing it up by mentioning you find the video for Lady Gaga's "Alejandro" really hot, and asking him if he thinks it is, too. I admit I'm out of the loop, but if any guy I'm sleeping with has any opinion whatsoever on a Lady Gaga video, we have bigger things to discuss than whether he wants to play good cop / bad cop. Whatever happened to "hey, you know what might be fun?" I swear, this inability or reluctance to say what you want is an epidemic. And since I know you're wondering ....please. I came of age with "9 1/2 Weeks" and Madonna's "Sex" book. I'm not saying I've seen more blindfolds than a Spanish firing squad, but I could probably put together a decent  Lone Ranger costume on very short notice back in the day.

Apparently, 48% of men say they've learned pretty much everything there is to know about sex. How sad that would be, to think there's nothing new to discover. And gentlemen - no,  you haven't.

There's a whole page dedicated to "Ferosh Date Shoes!"  I didn't know what they meant. At first I thought they'd misspelled "fresh". Or "frosh". But then I realized they meant a derivative of "ferocious". This bothered me more than it should. Then I realized I was horrified over a Cosmo colloquialism, and this bothered me even more. It was like I was on one of Escher's never-ending staircases, wearing ferosh shoes and searching desperately for my dog-eared copy of Strunk & White.

Do guys have signs they look for to guess whether a girl is going to be good in bed? My guess is if she's holding a one way ticket out of town dated tomorrow morning in one hand and a jumbo margarita in the other, but I could be wrong.

Oooh - there's a bonus section they don't tell you about on the cover. It's Cosmo's Sex Fantasy Game. There are 12 cards, each printed with three words, and you're to weave those words into an erotic scenario involving you and your partner. You're supposed to describe the scenario in a sexy way, and act it out as best you can. It's like "Whose Line is it?", only with lube.  Let's see - I think my favourite word combo is this one: bar / over-the-knee boots/ phone. Maybe it's my fashion sense showing, but when I think over-the-knee boots and bar, I assume the phone would be for your clients,  since you're clearly a working girl.  And I literally cannot imagine any sort of scenario involving bench/ bra/ mints without giggling. I must admit tent/ chocolate/ camera has potential. But who am I kidding? I'm a simple girl who thinks many of the bells and whistles are fun, but unnecessary. My ideal card would say  Kettlecorn/ PVR/ Missionary. What? I have to work in the morning.

Weird fact I learned: a study by the University of New Mexico found that lap dancers earned up to 80% more in tips on days they were ovulating. I smell an awkward conversation with my boss in about 8 days.

Quiz time:  Do Guys Think You're Exciting?  Let me reflect on the weekend just past. Hmm. Yeah, I'm gonna save myself some time tallying those answers. But one question caught my eye:  "You're dying to get with (really?) your man, but he's still at work. How do you let him know you're craving him? " Answer b), worth the maximum 2 points, is "Tape your panties to his garage, so when he pulls up, he can't miss 'em".  Okay, maybe I'm overly concerned with details, but what if he lives in a building? And I'd like to address this directly to any future paramours who happen to read this:  Honey, if you ever come home and my delicates are taped to your garage, it does not mean you're about to get your world rocked. It means I've been kidnapped and the unsub is sending you a sick, twisted, lacy message. Call the police.

One final tidbit from Cosmo this month. They asked 100 guys about their dream way to end the weekend. 31% said cooking a big dinner together. Where the hell are these men? They sure as hell aren't in my kitchen on any given Sunday. If they were, they'd totally find a beer/ remote control / Lone Ranger card beside their dinner plate.

A little romance

I've said it before, but I'm not really one for the grand romantic gesture. This may be because I've dated more than one man whose idea of a romantic gesture is returning my phone call, and also because I'm naturally suspicious. If I came home to find rose petals strewn about on the way to the bedroom, I'd assume the cat got bored and was now somewhere in the house yacking up bits of greenery. And if some guy tried to draw me a nice bubble bath, there's a better than average chance I'd assume he was trying to drown me. I may watch "Criminal Minds" a bit too much. Anyway...those things sort of leave me lukewarm. Romance to me isn't candles and chocolate so much as it's a bag of Kettlecorn and The West Wing on DVD. I think for many women I know, romance really is the little things. But it seems like guys are getting bombarded with the message that a truly romantic gesture needs to be one that sets you back a week's pay and might be visible from space. Wrong. Let's look at some of the most common gestures, and why you might want to rethink them.

1) Roses and chocolate. Sure, they're both lovely, and chicks dig 'em. Nothing wrong with that at all. But it seems a bit impersonal and, let's be honest, way over-priced.  You know what would knock my knee socks off? Tulips and/or my favourite lemon tart. Or tulips and gourmet sea salt. What? I cook, I love salt, and I can't justify that pink Himalayan salt I keep eyeing. And fyi - sending flowers to her workplace? Tread lightly. You may make her office mates (at least one of whom will read the card before she does) hate / mock  her a little. And is it really about how much she means to you, or is it because you want her co-workers to assume you're going to rock her world later? Or that she rocked yours last night? Thought so.

2) In recent years, we've somehow been led to believe that grand gestures of affection made in public are always better, more special. Romantic comedies starring Kate Hudson might be to blame. See: Jumbotron proposals aplenty. Have you seen the youtube video where the guy proposes at centre court during a basketball game? Let me save you the time -  these sorts of things don't always end so well. Unless you define "well" as tears and fleeing.  And some people just aren't built for LED professions of love. You know what, for me, is romantic? An arm on the back of my chair or a hand on the back of my neck. In public. Does this mean I'm easy to please? Maybe. But public displays of affection are great even when they're not 12 feet wide. For many of us, smaller might even be better.

3) Buying us lingerie. I think the idea of slutty undies as high romance reached critical mass when Victoria's Secret started airing commercials. So did inappropriate erections, probably.  I know this seems sexy, and it certainly seems to work wonders in movies. But there are a couple potential problems, even if you do manage to get our size right (good for you, by the way!). Odds are, you're heading home with a gift-wrapped no-win situation. Get us something too naughty, and we may think you're bored with our sex life. Something too tame, and we may assume we're either too slutty, you don't think we're hot anymore, or you're gay. Bet you never knew those skimpy little cups could hold boobs AND so much subtext, did you? A silky little chemise or something similar is usually a safe choice, but a handful of lace, a tiny clasp and a couple of underwires, in the wrong hands, can be Macgyvered into an IED (instant emotional drama) faster than you can say 36C. And for the love of Heidi Klum, make sure it's a PMS free zone. Because ass-tastic lacy boy shorts + raging hormones are not a cocktail you want to mess with. Why would you get her those? You know she hates her cellulite. You must have her confused with your crazy ex-girlfriend. Do you even know her at all?  Bastard.

4) Whisking us away for the weekend. Granted, I know perhaps two people who've ever had this happen, so I don't know how common it is, but it seems like it would be an awesome idea. You meet her at work on a Friday, have her bag packed, she has no clue where you're going on your dirty weekend getaway. Except...the surprise just might be on you. Take me for instance: I'm usually exhausted on Friday after work. And I know the cat food bowl is empty. And if you packed my bag, I guarantee you didn't realize the hair stuff I really need is in the downstairs bathroom, and god, why did you pack this top - I keep meaning to throw it out because it makes my boobs look weird. And did I actually even give you a key? See where I'm going? Not exactly the foreplay you were hoping for, is it? Better to tell a woman you'll be leaving at 10am on Saturday, returning around dinnertime on Sunday, she'll need one nice outfit, and yes, you can stop for coffee first thing. Happy? It's not that we don't love spontaneity; we just usually like to be prepared for it.

I think there's way too much pressure on guys to come up with these big romantic gestures. And these days, who has the time, the money or the imagination? Worse, do it too often and they might become expected, and that's never good.  Sadly, gentlemen, there will always be some women who want to be swept off their feet. But then they reach their 23rd birthdays. Sure, we all want to be dazzled every so often, but it's not really necessary all the time. You know what counts as romantic for most women? Do you think she's awesome? Have you told her lately? That's romantic. So bring me a lemon tart and return my phone call. I'm swooning already.

Missed connections

A friend was at a dinner party recently, and found herself seated next to a man she'd never met. He was engaging, witty, attentive -  all the things you'd want in a dinner companion. She felt a very strong connection between them. And then, towards the end of the meal, he stood up. He was much shorter than she'd expected. She immediately questioned whether the connection she felt was as strong as she'd first thought.

Hey, we all have things we think are non-negotiable. For some, it's height. For others, it's age, or  whether someone has been married before, or even their taste in music or tv or movies. You know who you are. But feeling a connection to someone is so wondrous when it happens, shouldn't it be worth negotiating? Even if that means wearing the occasional pair of  flat shoes? Or going to a movie with both "fast" and "furious" in the title? FYI - one of those is a trick question.

In my 20s, I felt that bond more than once. And back then, I didn't hesitate when I felt it; I took a flying leap towards it as only an invincible 20-something can. Turns out it wasn't always a connection; sometimes, it was horniness. But at the time, I justified my occasionally questionable choices by saying things like "but we have such an amazing connection..." You know what? We usually didn't.

Half a lifetime later, I now realize what real connection is, and how rare it can be. So when we're lucky enough to feel it, why do we, more often than not, run from it, or talk ourselves out of it, instead of leaping towards it? It's not because someone is too short, or has an ex-wife, or thinks Anderson Cooper is overrated (as if). It's not about our non-negotiables. Not really. It's because we've learned it's easier to be huge fucking chickens. And really, telling someone you "feel a connection" to them all seems a bit too Stephenie Meyer for those of us well past our Twilight years. But I think we often end up selling ourselves short (no pun intended). What if that feeling is the universe (or, more likely, our gut) pushing us to take a chance?

Except...sometimes my gut is a damn liar. I know the few times as an honest to goodness adult I've felt "it", thrown my hard-earned caution to the wind and climbed out there on the ledge, it has not gone so well. There's a reason this blog isn't called "You say completely fulfilled like it's a bad thing". Those few times, I've regretted it. But you know what? I'd regret not climbing out on that ledge more. So once in a great while, I trust my gut, pathological little bitch that it is, and I put myself out there, teetering somewhere between humiliation and hopefulness. And if, like the times before,  it turns out to be less a connection and more a rejection, it'll make a good story at your next dinner party. Just don't put me next to someone who thinks Anderson is overrated.