Damaged and broken

I haven't heard this covered on any of the CBC podcasts I listen to daily so this story might not be anything any of you have heard of, but there was another child death in Winnipeg recently and Lindor Reynolds wrote a very scathing piece in the Free Press about it yesterday.

I have to say that it was refreshing to read a journalist who was willing to challenge the minds and opinions of her readers and she (in a very well-played fashion, I might add) hinted at sterilization for mothers who proved to be unfit to care for their children is a suitable solution.

At first glance I totally agree. Mothers who can't be bothered to take care of the children they so brazenly bring into the world shouldn't be allowed to procreate, should have their tubes tied, or ovaries removed.

But it's never that simple, is it?

Consider that this was commonplace in Nazi camps. Consider the sheer brutality of the idea of robbing someone of their ability to procreate and create new life. Consider how it would have to be handled on a case-by-case basis, the huge racial implications it would carry, and so many more obstacles that it would be like driving a tank through a over-stocked mine field.

So much of this issue boils down to a matter of race that it isn't even funny; I can tell you from working within the CFS that there is rampant racism on both sides and while neither side is completely without blame there is a significant generational issue within the Native community that needs to be addressed and begin to be dealt with if these issues are ever going to become a thing of the past.

Reynolds is right, the leaders of the Native community in this province need to step up and admit that there is something fundamentally wrong at the very core of what the children who grow up to be these negligent parents are learning. As Philip Zimbardo would say "the key is in the juice".

And so the subject turns to the idea of race, and what is being taught in some households compared to others.

Clearly there are exceptions to every rule; some people who come from fully-functioning, loving, nurturing households can become crack-addicted strung-out mothers of four FAS-riddled children and they don't have to be members of the Native community for it to happen. Unfortunately though there seems to be some sort of racial problem happening here, otherwise why are so many of these cases happening from within that ever-segregating society?

To be fair it is also the fault of the CFS; with over-worked and under-paid social workers, many of whom I interact with on a daily basis, it's near-impossible to keep abreast of every parent and sometimes children get released back into the care of abusive parents or negligent foster homes.

But if the situation wasn't present to begin with, or at the very least not nearly as rampant, the workers would be able to devote more time to each individual case and ideally prevent a repeat in future generations. What is happening in the Native community in this city needs to be scrutinized and re-shaped so we can start breaking the mold that these children are being placed into.

Lets begin to focus less on the idea that we're singling out an entire race of people, but rather whatever is being taught in their homes that is causing these children to die.





** I just want to make one thing clear: I am not racist. I wrote this post because I feel like there is an ever-widening gap between races in Winnipeg and people can't seem to look past skin color to what actually matters: the damage being done to countless children as they grow up with abusive or negligent parents, or are placed in an ill-managed foster placement in lieu of their bad home life.

I know most of you readers don't live in Winnipeg, so you probably see the situation very differently than I do and I would love to hear your feedback on this issue since you're not neck-deep in it every day.

-Alyson

Et sous ta caresse je sens une ivresse qui m'aneantit

It must just be a staple of living on your own to have Laundry Room Beef.

Tonight while in the middle of finally doing a much-needed Big Clean of my apartment I took my stuff down to the laundry room, put it in one of the two machines

(we only have two of each for some reason)

and went back upstairs.

25 minutes later I dropped my dusting rag and stopped chatting on msn and maybe five minutes or less than was due I went downstairs to find my wet delicates piled into my basket and both washing machines packed and running. Okay. Maybe they were in a hurry.

Put my shiz in the dryer.

Exeunt Alyson.

45 mins later, rush my ass downstairs to get my stuff (right on time I might add!) to find my stuff crammed unceremoniously again into my basket plus a lovely little friendly note.

In my shock I threw it away, but I will re-create it for you:
The ironic thing was as I was loading the washing machine I was thinking to myself that I'd never even seen another person in the room at the same time as me, and how weird that was.

Oh well, as long as nobody steals my pants like in Hamilton, I guess I can't complain.

In other news this chart of good/bad things to say during sex makes my eyes bleed in an amusing way.

Stop for a second and peep the top left corner, where it says

"you little minx".

I like that.

I want to be someones' little minx.

Someday.

How it whispered "oh, adhere to me"

This post is for Ophelia.


Today it poured like a motherfucker

so I was excited to play in the rain and use my new parasol!

Isn't it nice?
It says "Hungover Empire" on it
(though it's a bit blurry now)
since it was given to me fo' freezies by Mel of Hungover Empire fame.

I'm quite fond of 'brellies.
Maybe it's the Brit in me.
(I know that that's where the term "brellies" comes from, anyway)

I was so stoked to take it out today
but was sort of sad that when I left the 9-5 it was sunny
and even though it poured while at the 2nd Job
it wasn't that bad when I left.

So when I went to Shoppers across the street I left my parasol at home.

And of course got drenched on the way back.

Pwnd.

Nothing's the way it's supposed to be

When the lady at my work told me in the bitterest tone when I met her last week that she was angry because they'd cut her shift short by half an hour, because she hated Winnipeg, because she used to live in Vancouver and "fly planes"

"Oh you were a pilot?" said I and she replied "no I was supper management but I could have flown one if I'd wanted to. I was allowed!" and I became frightened because she then proceeded to tell me about how her dad was sick and she'd been hit by a car and her son didn't like her hairdo and I could barely take anymore.

She was really grouchy and irritable and either made me want to punch her in her lipstick'd mouth or she would put me into Obnoxiously Happy Overdrive just because I knew it got under her skin and ruffled her feathers and she got so, so mad when I could type faster than she could.

She swore to us that the 'police thugs' were trying to break into her house at night, which of course meant black men in uniforms were trying to rape her, as she clarified as we stooed there slack-jawed in disbelief and as the mall security girl drove by in her secutiry car she backed away from the front window saying "keep her away from me!!!"

She hit on the assistant managers brother or friend, I forget which, by saying "well hello good lookin'!" and making several inappropriate comments because he's in his mid twenties and she's older than my mom and looks about twice that.

When she apparently couldn't get through the phone that hadn't rang all morning she drove to the store and demanded my assistant manager reimburse her $40 for the "gas it had taken to drive there and deliver the message in person".

Today she showed up and my floor manager said "you know you're supposed to call in two hours before your Flex shift right? That's how it works, it's a call-in shift and we don't need you today"

And she flipped her shit.

Throwing an envelope at my manager she screamed that there was her resignation and we could all fuck ourselves because we were all a bunch of cunty bitches and she stormed out and it would have been so dramatic if she hadn't had to come back and get her coat she'd left in the staff room.

We were all wondering what was inside the envelope and saw on the outside it read "*managers name* - $40!!!" and inside was a picture of the assistant managers' car, parked next to the store.

I don't know what it means, but it makes me a little uneasy.

Maybe we should send her a photo of $40 back?

Sable-colored skies

Friday I got too hosed to take pictures of Piasta's going-away shindig.
Yesterday I worked on 5 hours' sleep.
Last night I crashed hard and refused to party and leave my couch because all my business seems to catch up with me by about 4pm Saturday afternoon.

This morning I woke up to my phone beeping and Kats voice elling me it was Beach Day and I was coming out to Patricia Beach with her, Tyrone and Morley.
So off I went for a day in the sun.
As you can tell by my very weary and slightly burnt phote.

It's weird how a day of lying in the sun, swimming, eating yummy snacks, feeding gophers and little varmints, and burying Tyrone in the sand can tucker you out so much.

I almost didn't make it to the BBQ at Komus'
but of course I managed.
The big thing right now is hula-hooping, Carole is learning from a friend and is trying to rope Kat and I into it
what nobody seems to realize is I have no co-ordination...
but that doesn't mean I won't be picking one up for Hooping Circles within the next couple of weeks.
All you need is determination, right?
Logan joined in for a while, too.
"The Salad Burger... Not for Vegetarians!"

It was hilarious at the time, I swear.
We ran out of chairs so Komus improvised.
I feel like between socializing and working two jobs I've been super on-the-go so last night when I chilled by myself (even though it was a Saturday night Oooooooooh shut the fuck up) I really enjoyed it. Alyson Time is super important and even though I love my friends I'm pretty glad most of us fucked off relatively early so I could chill solo, blog listening to my new favorite band Beirut, and watch some Big Love.

God damn do I love that Bill Paxton.

I know what you're thinking, this probably sounds rehearsed

When I was sixteen I woke up and decided I was going to pierce my own belly button, so I went to Garden City mall and bought a bunch of barbells from the Claire's in the 3 for 5 dollars bags, took them back to my friend Natalias' house and spent two hours shoving a needle through the final millimeter of skin in my navel; I didn't have any ice to numb it so I just had at 'er.

I remember the other girl at my school who did it herself but pierced the bottom of her belly button rather than the top and everyone made fun of her.

I dated a guy who used to like to lick it; it was weird and I didn't enjoy it and I kept wondering if maybe somehow my belly button smelled funny or he would get lint on his tongue and jump up and run out of the the room and I'd be left there sprawled on the bed just waiting for him to come back, playing with the barbell still wet with his saliva.

It's sort of old now, passé, blasé, just a part of me I really don't notice or expose because I've had it so long like a weird mole or tattoo. It's just a part of me now.

I remember once at airport security they wanted me to go into another room and take off my shirt because of the metal which was stupid because can't they tell I'm not packing heat between my breasts or under my skin-tight shirt? Luckily I didn't have to, but that would have been weird.

I wonder if there would have been a cavity search, that would have made things even more awkward. The idea of someones penis in my ass let alone their hand freaks me out and what poor sap draws the short straw that he has to reach into people's asses all day?

I hope he gets great benefits and maybe a bonus each month. Especially if he manages to find that back of crack-cocaine he's rooting around for.

There's an episode of Dead Like Me where a bag of cocaine explodes in Masons ass and he gets fuckered to shit and I've heard of people doing stuff like that or stuffing caps of e up their asses but somehow, maybe because you shit out of there it's just unimaginable.

No high is ever worth putting fingers in my own ass so I'll just sit here and drink while the rest of you fuckers flip out and roll around in the grass feeling it with your fingers with sweat beading off your forehead and gnashing your jaw, eating your face.

Me and my bottle of Baby Duck, we'll have a fucking party.

I wax poetic as you're waxing your legs

It's still pretty ridiculous when, after being out as long as it has, Transformers 2 is still selling out and after conniving that on a beautiful evening nobody would want to be inside a movie theater so early in the evening Garett and I couldn't manage to get seats. So since the next show wasn't until 10:10 (c'mon, Silvercity?!) we scoped out the Johnny Depp & Christian Bale action that was Public Enemies.

Having never seen a "Gangster Movie" before I didn't really know what to expect and was really thrilled because I love basically anything that throws back to the Dirty 30's etc, there's just something that I find really enthralling about that time period that I can't seem to get enough of.

In any case, if this is what a Gangster Movie is supposed to be, then you can count me out.
Now wait, I didn't say I didn't enjoy it because to some extent I did. I always like looking at Monsieurs Depp and Bale but moving past the beautiful sets, costumes, hair and makeup and old cars there wasn't a whole lot happening and that was a really big let-down because with two huge megastars I really anticipated this movie would deliver and it fell pretty short of my expectations.

Did I expect some epic masterpiece? Not really, but I at least expected to care about the characters and what happened to them, and I basically had the same emotional attachment to Dillinger, his girlfriend (who we never really find out why he loves aside from maybe the distracting mole on her forehead) and the rest of the cast than I am to a paper airplane or maybe some Skittles.

Actually I probably care more about Skittles because they're tasty.
It would have also helped if, for the vast majority of the movie I had known which characters were which; I had to imdb the movie when I got home to find out if my assumptions were right. Maybe that's a fault of my own but I feel like it's the movies job to be clear about that sort of stuff.

Being a girl I guess I'm supposed to like the mushy, gushy romance scenes between Depp and the no-name actress playing Billie but honestly I felt like they really dragged and didn't contribute to the plot any. I felt myself feeling nervous because I'd brought a guy with me to the movie and what guy wants to watch that fluff? I'm a girl and I was getting bored by it so I can only imagine how he felt.

The only time I really was impressed by the writing was the line "I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars... and you. What else you need to know? ". I may have dropped an egg over the smoothness of that one.

To sum it up I walked in expecting an action movie to at least some degree. Maybe not of the Pirates or Batman variety but at least something. Instead I got a strung out story with no real linear plot or character development, and had to sit uncomfortably through some really stodgy, forced-feeling romance scenes.

On that note I didn't see any tits, either. What a waste of my 9.99$.