Opinions, art, debate
. . . if a person came up to you at a party and said,
“Oh, you must be Anna’s friend Clarissa! I heard so much about you that I recognized you immediately. Anna and I always talk about you at length. By the way, I’m her psychotherapist.”
For some reason, I felt extremely uncomfortable and did all I could to avoid this person until the end of the party.
Time and again, one encounters people sharing a tired old maxim that “monogamy is incredibly hard.” Just like any other piece of “common knowledge”, this one is half-right. Monogamy is extremely hard for people who are not monogamous. Just like passing for straight is for a gay person. Or pretending to be polyamorous to please somebody when it isn’t your thing.
For people who are monogamous not as a result of interiorizing societal dictates but because it is their own, genuine sexual preference, there is nothing complicated about it. Just the opposite, everything other than monogamy is incredibly hard while being monogamous is the only thing that comes naturally and easily.
So if you find monogamy “incredibly hard”, maybe you should look into what your true sexuality is like. Chances are, monogamy isn’t the problem. Rather, your efforts to adopt a sexual preference that doesn’t come naturally to you are causing you all this hardship.
And here is the likely winner for the Stupidest Ad Campaign Ever contest:
This is how the campaign is presented on the company’s website:
Integrated ad agency WFCA in Tunbridge Wells has created a fun and frothy press campaign featuring the endline ‘Bake it beautiful’. The ad is made to look like a stunning perfume or makeup ad and shows a wholesome girl-next-door posing with a cupcake in the style of famous supermodels posing with lipsticks or perfume. She’s radiant with a post-baking glow having been captured in a moment of baking ecstasy and the headline ‘Cupcake pour femme’ gives the ad a deeper level of humour. Shot in London by renowned fashion photographer Julia Kennedy and conceptualised by creative team Arpita Banerjee and Mats Persson, the campaign is ready to take the hip and happening baking set by storm!
In case you are wondering what the company is selling, it’s not what you thought, you dirty-minded person. It’s eggs.
Nominatissima shared some hilarious stories about passing through the customs at the US-Canada border as a person in a long-distance relationship. I was such a person, too, and have funny stories of my own to share.
“What is the purpose of your trip?” the customs officer asked me the first time I traveled from Montreal to Indiana.
“I’m going to see my boyfriend,” I responded.
“A boyfriend? When did you meet? Where did you meet? Have you stayed with him before? What does he do? How old is he? What is his income? Has he been married before? [Before what, I wondered.] How serious is this relationship?”
“I’m sorry, officer,” I said. “I just wanted to mention that my boyfriend is a citizen of Russia.”
“Oh, you should have just said so!” the officer replied, looking relieved. “Have fun with your boyfriend. Next!”
In the future, I just stated outright, “I’m going to visit my boyfriend who is a citizen of Russia”, and nobody had any questions.
WordPress asked me this question, and I couldn’t resist answering.
Even though it can hardly be described as a “town”, the friendliest place I’ve ever been to is Seville, Spain. I only went there once but the experience was very memorable. On my first day there, I went out for a stroll and immediately got lost in the maze of tiny little streets.
“Excuse me, how do you get to street such and such?” I asked a passerby.
“Ah, you must be a tourist! Where are you from? Canada? You will love our beautiful city. Let’s go, I’ll take you to the street you need. Ah, here is the coffee-shop of my friend Francis. He makes the best coffee in Sevilla. Hey, Francis, come here. This is my friend from Canada, give her some coffee. And bring churros, too. Have you tried the real Spanish churros? You’ll love them. Hey, Francis, don’t be stingy, bring her some more to take back to the hotel with her. Have you seen a bullfight yet? No? You need to see one! Look, here is a ticket for tonight. I was going to use it myself but you need it more. Take it, and here is an invitation to another cool place. Money? What are you talking about? We are friends, aren’t we? Hey, Maria! Look, this is my friend from Canada!”
“Ah, you are from Canada! What have you got here? Churros? From Francis’s place? Nah, these are no good. Let’s go to Pepe’s cafe and you’ll taste real churros there. Hey, Pepe, this is our friend from Canada. Give her some churros. No, give her more to take to the hotel with her. What’s your name? Clarissa? We have a party tonight, Clarissa. I’ll pick you up at your hotel at eleven. Hey, Jose Miguel, look, this is our Canadian friend Clarissa!”
At the end of the outing, I returned to my hotel with my hands and bag full of tickets, invitations, souvenirs, and churros.
What’s the friendliest place you ever visited?
While I was away and had a very sporadic Internet access, the Spam detector on the blog went nuts. In an effort to weed out spammers, it spammed comments from valuable commenters (J. and Ellenor). It even spammed a comment of my own that said “Cool video!” Why that happened I have no idea. I have now liberated these comments from their Spambox captivity and I apologize for the inconvenience.
A store in Montreal put a mannequin of a regular-looking person in its window. When I saw it, I thought how nice it would be if we saw more mannequins that look like actual people rather than the weird extraterrestrials they put in the stores right now. I always wonder why use them at all since mannequins don’t look even remotely like human beings, so it’s impossible to figure out from them what the clothes will look like on you.
And this is the kind of bouquets that Russian men give women they love to greet them after a long separation of 8 endless days. 🙂
I’m hiding my nose in the flowers because I’m sick and it’s swollen. My outfit is also kind of messed up after 12 hours of traveling. I envy those people who manage to stay put together while traveling. As for me, I always arrive looking like a mess.
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