Birds of Paradise

I’m watching Planet Earth on Blu-ray.  The picture is exceptional and the sound superb.  My dog thinks there are actual sharks in the living room – he’s been trying to catch them for the past 10 minutes.

I just saw a segment on birds of paradise.  If you’re not familiar with the animals, I can’t think of a way to describe them.  They’re tropical birds that have upside down umbrellas for wings, and they lift these elaborate hula skirt-type things up to their chins to tap dance for potential mates.  Not only do they sing and dance, they clean!  Upon waking, they immediately tidy their dwellings, going so far as to sand their branchy bachelor pads with bits of bark (I’m not kidding).  When a curious girl comes looking for a possible baby-daddy, they turn their wings into superhero capes and do a jig that would take most people two years to learn.  

These bizarre birds turn into tiny dancing batmans with makeshift fedoras to impress females.  They bob and jiggle and thrust and gyrate and beat-box with their feet.  Their wings somehow develop glowing blue eyes to add a fantastical sci-fi element to the mating ritual.  

It makes me wonder if women were ever meant to chase men.  If male birds do choreographed hip-hop dances to impress females (sometimes to no avail), perhaps human women should request a bombastic song and dance routine on every first date. Something with spunk and colour and style, something that hints at how incredible sex will be.  

I think people would like dating more if they took the lessons of these birds to heart.  Even a failed connection would provide some entertainment, and a spurned man would have at least gotten a vigorous work-out in.  

Everyone would win, I say.  

“His personality wasn’t great, but those magical green eyes that popped up on his chest while he danced the charleston…that was something!”

I love it!

…When my dog lies on his back and makes little grunting noises.  His belly has this warm, distinct smell that makes me want to poke it.  I also like to kiss his dry nose and tell him he’s a baby (and an old man, because of his long white beard).

He’s such a cute boy

On other happy notes, I suspect this shall be a good week.  I have only one assignment due, a job interview, and my one year anniversary.  

So, here’s to life’s little joys.

On a sad note, a dear friend is departing for a year.  I’ll miss her long-winded complaints and deviant actions.  There shall be a great and terrible void in my life.  I better receive many novel-length Facebook messages about the rigors of life in a continent far from here.

Fat Politics

I’ve long been a loyal and devoted follower of Dan Savage (a great sex columnist, and an even greater writer).  I came upon his column while perusing a Now Magazine during an unbearably long lunch break.  

Being a life-long suburbanite, I never had access to an alternative weekly before.  At home, the only papers to hit my doorstep are the Toronto Star and Mississauga News.  Neither publication spends much time discussing obscure sexual fetishes, or advertising for strip clubs and escort services.  I also went to a Catholic high school, where no such reading material was readily available.  So you can imagine my delight when attendance at a notoriously liberal university led to the discovery of salacious material embedded in innocuous newsprint.  

I fell in love with Dan instantly, and shared his divine insight with everyone I knew.  

One day, he wrote about complaints from disgruntled readers.  He had angered them by saying that larger girls look bad in too-tight pants.  Specifically, he was referring to the roll of fat that hangs over a snug waistband.  More specifically, he was commenting on the phenomenon of size 8 women trying to wear size 4 pants, and looking like ruptured sausages because of it.  Now, the sight of strangled skin struggling to free itself from the confines of hip-crushing pants is loveably referred to as “muffin-topping.”  The consensus of the people (fashion experts, casual observers, my mother, etc) is that this trend cannot continue.  Fashionable attire is supposed to make you look better, not worse.

However, the argument was not about what looks good, but rather the “right” to feel good in unflattering outfits.  It seems like that excess flesh is political, a “fuck you” statement to a world that values women’s bodies rather than their minds.  It’s not terribly out of line to wave the finger at the media.  Hollywood likes its women dirty-skinny (and it likes to deride them for it, too).  No two people are built the same, and not everyone is meant to slither underneath closed doors or have legs the width of a man’s wrist.

However, we must be able to agree that a 5′2 person should not weigh 400 pounds.  Yet we can’t.  According to outraged Savage Love readers, being fat is just like being gay – a permanent, unchangeable aspect of one’s being.  To advise a torn man to gently confront his wife about her 90 pound weight gain is to encourage hate and discrimination.  

People counter these arguments with offensive remarks.  They decry the existence of disgusting excess weight, and demand that the whiny fatties hit a gym and stop eating gallons of ice-cream.

Why, I wonder, can people not be reasonable?  Why must things become so political?

It seems to me like excess weight (as in weight that’s close to double what it should be) is not always a product of laziness (God knows that they’re are lazy and inactive skinny people), but rather a product of a culture that’s lost touch with basic health principles.  Our portions are enormous, our cheap food loaded with fat, and our favourite gourmet lattes filled with sugar.  A lot of jobs require nothing more than the use of fingers to punch numbers into a computer.  

It cannot be denied that obesity is linked to health problems, but not a lot is done to curb the problem at a national level.  People would be horrified if the government taxed sugary pops (or sodas, for any American people reading this) like it does cigarettes, or forced restaurants (fast food ones included) to abide by pre-determined health standards (and they wouldn’t, because franchises are generally good for the economy).  Instead, we (sort of) encourage people to make healthy choices.

“Eat an apple,” we say.  ”Go for a walk.”

There’s nothing wrong with making a personal decision to eat less and move more, but it seems like some people don’t know how much they truly eat or how little they actually move.  North Americans have grown so accustomed to platters of pasta and buckets of fries (I’m only using mild hyperbole here) that some would find anything smaller dissatisfying.  Also, does everyone know that one can of Coke contains up to eight teaspoons of sugar?  Do people know that a venti white mocha from Starbucks has almost as many calories as a quarter-pounder with cheese from McDonalds?  

When people hear the word “diet,” they think of deprivation – of raw vegetables and tiny cuts of skinless, boneless chicken breasts.  Really, it can be hard to tell how much is too much, and it’s harder still when the fries that make your hips swell seem to melt off of your skinny (but perhaps more sedentary) friend.  

So, if there was less fast-food, less pop and smaller portions, would people be smaller?  Yes, they absolutely would.  A plump figure was considered attractive in the 18th century because everyone was thin and hungry.  Now we’re more than satiated, and we have the muffin-tops to show for it.  

Instead of arguing over what looks good, and what should look good, and why thinking a certain person doesn’t look good is akin to a lynching, we should be trying to figure out why this debate exists.  Why do some people need two seats on an airplane?  Is it because they’re lazy wastes of life?  Drains on the medical system? Inconveniences in crowded areas?  Or is because we’re a culture that consumes and consumes and consumes?  A culture that wants more food and more TV shows and more electronics?  We want big houses and big cars and big walk-in closets.  We want instant food for low-prices.  We’re too busy to cook and go grocery shopping.  

It’s not right or just or fair to make a thicker person feel like a lazy slob – he or she is no such thing.  However, we cannot, as a culture, over-consume something and incur no ill effects.  Too little food will kill, and it seems too much will too.  

What’s to blame isn’t bigotry or intolerance, but rather ignorance.  It seems we don’t know why we are the way we are.  We’re bigger than we want to be (and much bigger than we’re told we should be).  It’s hard when you’re tired and busy and want a quick burger before bedtime.  It’s hard when every restaurant serves you a meal that could easily be shared with two other people.  It’s hard when high-fat foods are delicious.  It’s hard when many jobs require that we just sit and stare at a computer screen.  

The problem has more to do with a culture obsessed with size and convenience.  Perhaps we’d all be benefitted by caring less about both.