Pomp and Circumstances

I will need extra coffee to get me through the day on Friday, and it's all because of a tiny boy wearing a romper, playing on a blanket while his mother looked at him adoringly.

I was not yet a teenager when Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer nearly 30 years ago. But I was at the perfect impressionable age, where the thought of becoming an actual Princess was just about the most romantic thing ever. So I got out of bed that summer morning, probably around 5:30, and watched, my attention held rapt, while a 20 year old girl walked down the aisle towards a future that seemed, to me, to be pretty much perfect.  When she kissed her Prince on the balcony, I was sure they really would live happily ever after.

Like many women my age, I was fascinated by Diana. I have the scrapbooks at my parents' home to prove it.  She was glamourous, and beautiful and, not so very long after her storybook wedding, a mother to the cutest little boy.  I remember seeing the pictures of she and Charles leaving the hospital with their new son, she beaming as she held the tiny bundle. And I vividly recall seeing the family, when William was no more than 9 or 10 months old, posing for a photo op during a state visit, the baby determined to crawl his way off the blanket while dozens of photographers snapped away. He, as expected, stole the show, smiling and kicking and testing his chubby little legs with a step or two while Diana held his hands and smiled.

By the time I was in my late teens, I'd figured out that being a Princess wasn't all castles and tiaras. But I remained fascinated by Diana, and by the bond she so clearly had with her boys. When she finally separated from Charles, I was in my 20s, and I realized this woman, not so very much older than me, could finally have the life she wanted, instead of the life that we'd all wished for her. And then I watched, crying, as the terrible news of her death broke, thinking how those boys were far too young to lose their mother.

So I will set my alarm extra early on Friday morning. Not because I still believe in fairytales, but so I can see the young man who took his first tentative steps while holding tight to Diana's hands now take much steadier steps towards his future. I will watch because, nearly 30 years ago, I did still believe in happily ever after.  But mostly, I will watch William marry Kate because I wish his mother could be watching, too. 

The ABCs of Me, the sequel

N is for - nose. I hate mine. Always have. Straight on, it's fine, cute even. Side to, it's a different story. It resembles the ski jump at the Olympics.

O is for - (L') Orangerie. Or (D') Orsay.  My favourite museums in the world. I've realized I'm an Impressionism kind of girl; I don't even like my art to be literal. Les Nympheas take my breath away. I spent a very happy couple of hours waiting in line with hundreds of like-minded Gallic art lovers the first weekend L'orangerie reopened after a 7 year renovation. One very perturbed frenchman could not understand why I was going alone to see such beautiful art. I told him it was a long story, in any language.

P is for - photography. Photos are probably my favourite visual art form. I love paintings and sculpture and mobiles and all manner of quirky arty-ness, but the ability to exactly capture a moment in a photo is something I greatly admire. I love Man Ray, Cartier-Bresson, Brassai. Mapplethorpe, and Avedon. Diane Arbus was a genius, but she gives me nightmares. And no one does celebrity portraiture better than Annie Leibovitz.

Q is for - Queenie, my childhood collie. Lovely girl, incredibly loyal. Could have kicked Lassie's ass. I don't know if you've ever tried to get a half-blind, soaking wet collie out of a brook and up an embankment, but it ain't easy. For you or the collie.

R is for - rhinoceros. Got to feed a baby one and its mother once. Can never remember if it's black or white rhinos who are more dangerous and prone to charging. This was the non-charging kind. 

S is for - sauna. I am considering getting one of those 3 or 4 person ones for my deck. They look like a cross between a phone booth and a giant wine barrel. And what they say about drinking in a sauna? Very true. So I hear.

T is for - Tuscany. Love it. The food, the pace, the landscape, its essence. Driving around Tuscany in no particular hurry with no particular destination is a joy. The crazy quilt hills seems both familiar and like nothing you've ever seen before.

U is for - underwear. I have been guilty of spending way too much on lacy bits of impracticality in my day, and you know what I finally figured out last year?  Men don't care, not really.  Sure, they'll say they appreciate it, they may even give you an unprompted compliment, but when they look back on your relationship (and oh, they will), they will not remember the panties. But guys, if you could always wear those Calvin-esque boxer briefs, I'd really appreciate it. I promise I'll remember them.

V is for - vanilla. I love the smell of vanilla. Every perfume I've worn in the past 20 years has had vanilla in it. Maybe longer - anyone know what Bonne Bell's Skin musk had as a base note? I also remember being quite surprised at how not yummy vanilla extract is when sampled directly from the bottle. My brother was pretty surprised too, especially since I'm assured him it was a taste sensation. Seriously - who falls for that?

X is for - xylophone. One of the few instruments I can say I played decently. Granted, I think I was 11, but I rocked that mofo.

Y is for - Yaz and Alison Moyet. One of my favourite Brit New Wave bands, and one of the best voices to come out of Britain in the 80s. I'd nearly forgotten about them until recently, when someone mentioned "Only You". Fantastic song. So imagine my horror when I youtubed it and realized that Enrique Iglesias had covered it. This is not recent, apparently, but I'm not really up on his alleged career.  Song ruiner.

Z is for - Zindel, Paul. I read several of his books in my adolescent years, and I remember loving them. It's the first time I remember laughing until I cried over a book, and I loved that feeling.  His Pigman books, My Darling, My Hamburger - so good. He gave Judy Blume a run for her money on my bookshelf.

There you have it - the second half of my own personal alphabet. Some of them were really hard. A few were incredibly easy. And a few have likely changed since I started this...

The ABCs of Me

A is for - Adele. I am having such a girl crush moment with her right now. I've had "21" since the week it came out, and I've played it to death. "19" was remarkably accomplished, but this one knocks my knee socks off. Check out her live performances on youtube. She is a life raft in a skanky sea of booty shakers and ridiculous S&M videos. I don't just want a song to get stuck in my head; I want it to get stuck in my soul.

B is for - banana. I love them. Have one every day. Yet have an irrational fear of overripe bananas and banana strings that just isn't normal. My colleagues are very supportive, and often encourage aversion therapy by leaving overripe banana peels on my computer mouse. Fuckers. You know who you are.

C is for - coffee. Love the stuff. Don't need a ton of it every day, but any sort of frappamachaspressolatte brings me joy. The staff at the Starbucks by work suggested I get a part-time gig so I could get free coffee. I'm considering asking for an application.

D is for - dessert. As my ass can attest, I love it. Ideally, apples wrapped in some sort of pastry. Or maybe a lemon tart. My grandmother made the best apple pies ever, so I am constantly searching, comparing, and usually coming up just a little underwhelmed. It's like looking for the Holy Grail. A cinnamony, buttery Holy Grail.  The exception - if raspberry kuchen is on a menu (hello, Fireside!), I'm faced with a not-so-very-terrible decision.

E is for - effervescent. I love this word. I think it's one of those words that sounds like what it means. It sounds like it is made of bubbles. There are three "e" words that I would love to be described as: elegant, erudite, and effervescent. On my very best of days, the best I can hope for is 2 out of 3.

F is for - falafel. Actually, it's for L'as du Fallafel, on the rue des Rosiers in the heart of Paris' Marais district. I'd had falafel lots of times in Halifax, but many years ago, when I went to Paris for the first time, I stayed in the Marais, and I made sure to visit this place (I'd read that Lenny Kravitz was a regular). It's vibrant and a little crazy and the ordering system is sort of whack. It's awesome. About a decade after I went for the first time, the New York Times travel section dubbed it the falafel destination in Europe. I realize how pretentious that last sentence sounds, and I don't care.

G is for - gummy candy. I'm like a 4 year old. I will eat it until I'm sick, vow to never eat it again, and then find myself at the bulk barn, up to my ass in high-fructose corn syrup, debating butterflies vs. worms vs. sour soothers.

H is for - hamburgers. I love love love them. And I almost never have them. This is criminal. I'm not one of those people who barbeque all year round, so the first outdoor hamburger of the season always brings me joy. Right now, there are spiders in my barbeque. I may have to throw it out.

I is for - Italy. I love it. I've been three times, and could happily go every year. Rome is infuriating and invigorating and insane and just the most fantastic city. I shall go back soon; the Trevi fountain owes me some change. Next time you see me, ask me about the club where the d.j. wore a leather butcher apron, knee socks and black satin bikin panties. And this was a guy.

J is for- I have no sweet clue. I have been wracking my brain trying to come up with a "J" word that is a part of my life. I keep thinking of words that have no real place in my day to day - "jail", "jambalaya", "jello".  Nothing. Moving on...

K is for - Kit Kat bars. If someone were to make me choose only one type of chocolate bar to eat for the rest of my life (which is a conversation I've actually had more than a few times), this would be it. I don't like the Chunky version (the wafer/ filling/ chocolate ratio is all wrong)  and the dark chocolate ones are okay, but I'm sort of a purist. FYI - I distrust anyone who would answer the Ultimate Chocolate Bar question with "Big Turk". Weirdos.

L is for - limoncello. Prior to having it, I became a bit obsessed with trying it. I like lemon. I like alcohol. I was on the Amalfi Coast, the birthplace of limoncello. It's fucking awful. I imagine it's like drinking Pledge, only with a slightly less pleasant aftertaste. Don't get me wrong - every time I was offered some, I took it. I'm not stupid; it was free booze. But I hadn't been that disappointed since...well....booze was involved then, too.

M is for - making out. Don't get to do it these days, and I miss it. A lot. It's not doctor's orders or anything; I'm just single. Even when you're dating someone, at my age good old-fashioned making out seems to fall off the radar a little bit. I've lamented this more than once. It seems like you go from zero to "Ow! Ow! Leg cramp!" way too quickly. I like the in-between bit. And I don't even mean that in a dirty way.

This is much harder than I thought, and I'm only half-way. I'm saving N-Z for another day. I can tell you this: X is going to be a bitch. I did once Xerox my face, but who hasn't?

Nice guys and bad boys

If this isn't your first time (and I can tell when it isn't), you might have noticed how my mildly interesting romantic history is largely seasoned with men who might best be referred to as "bad boys". Not thugs and creeps, exactly, but the type of guys you might think twice about leaving alone in the room with your best friend. Or your credit card. It's so completely unoriginal, and lord knows I've been right there along with the sisterhood lamenting how we can't meet nice guys. And who doesn't have at least one male friend who's asked "Why don't girls like nice guys?  You always seem to go for the bad boys."  Yes, we often do. And you want to know why? It's not the swagger (well, not entirely), or the direct gaze, or the tattoos. It's much simpler than that: because the bad boys go for us.

Hear me out. Sure, your average bad boy has a cocksureness that can be pretty appealing, compelling even. But that's not to say nice guys aren't confident, too; it's just a bit less of an in your face (or your pants) confidence. And it's not that we don't like nice guys; quite the opposite. But nice guys are often too shy or too cautious to take that chance and lay it on the line. And nice girls (and I include myself in that category)  aren't exactly keen to stick their necks out, either. So where does that leave you? With two nice people, home alone on a Friday night. I sometimes feel like nice and nice simply cancel each other out.

Bad boys, on the other hand, are only too happy to meet you more than halfway. They'll actually meet you all the way. Like on your doorstep ("we don't need to go out, baby") if you let them. There's something comforting (and, let's be honest, flattering)  about not wondering if a guy is into you. Bad boys just so clearly WANT you, and that can be intoxicating, even when you know it's temporary. And unless you're an idiot (or me in my 20s) you'll figure out pretty quickly that you're just the latest date on an Around the Girls World tour. But while he's focused on you, you'll have a lot of fun.  As evidenced by Monday night booty calls, Wednesday morning hangovers, and the occasional episode of public indecency.

The nice guy, on the other hand, often wants to be friends first. Which is great, but often confusing. Because we usually can't tell if this is a stopover on the way to Sexytown or if we've arrived at our final destination, Platonicville. Population: me.

Here's my theory: nice guys might not like to admit it, but they tend to go for the slightly bad girls for the same reasons nice girls tend to go for the naughty boys. They don't have to make the first move and risk rejection. That no guesswork thing works both ways. However, the downside to this is that they lose the ability to read female subtlety when conditioned to blatant sluttery. So the nice girls are thinking "What is his problem? Is he blind? This is my A game" and he's thinking "She seems to like me, but it's hard for me to be sure what with this other girl on my lap."

Bridget Jones, the patron saint of conflicted women everywhere, gave us perhaps the quintessential Bad Boy vs. Nice Guy grudge match with her suitors, Daniel Cleaver and Mark Darcy. Sure, they were archetypes, and it isn't always as easy to distinguish one from the other; you can't always spot the nice ones simply by their reindeer sweaters. Especially in the summer. I find this to be a more reliable field guide tip, honed by years of careful study: a bad boy has his hand on your ass; a nice guy has his hand on the door, holding it open for you.

But our Bridget was onto something when she headed out into the snow in her panties, literally putting her ass on the line for a decent guy.  I think we all remember what happened next. One of the best movie lines of all time, that's what. And something those of us with a bad boy penchant would do well to remember: 

"Wait a minute - nice boys don't kiss like that."
"Oh yes they fucking do."

So what's the answer? How do you get off the bad boy merry-go-round?  I don't know. I do know that I'm no longer the least bit interested in taking a spin with the Daniel Cleavers of the world. Here's the problem: in the past, I've thought I've shown Def Con four levels of obvious interest, and my male pals  have said "Really? I'm not so sure. I'd read what you're doing, at best, as something between indifference and mild distaste." Which likely means I'm hopeless, since it's getting a little late in the game to whore it up. Not that women my age don't do it all the time; it's called a mid-life crisis. I think, for better or worse, the nice girl is here to stay. I'll remember the bad boys (mostly) fondly, but I'd very much like to see if Mark Darcy was right and if, indeed, yes they fucking do. I just hope I don't have to end up on a busy street in my underwear to find out.