Is dating dead? It seems it is - the New York Times op-ed page says so, Michael Kimmel, the author of Guyland says so, and Laura Stepp says so in her book Unhooked.
I’m not sure I entirely buy into this concept. Yes, I think the modes of meeting people are different - Facebook anyone? - and sexual activity may occur sooner than it used to (although really, from someone whose teen years fell largely before AIDS was seen to be a big deal, I wonder about that a bit).
But it seems to me people — read: teens and young adults — still fall in love and try to make a go of a relationship. I think the people who are “hooking up” may just be the people who always dated fairly widely.
What do you think?
Ford’s unveiled self-parking technology that will apparently debut in 2010. It’s been a while since a new feature on a car made me sit up and listen, but that’s something I could get behind - especially when squeezing between snow piles in Toronto’s East End.
It got me thinking about what else I’d like to see:
- self-cleaning fridges
- self-locating keychains that position themselves on the hook overnight
- self-returning garbage cans
- self-nagging spouses (okay, maybe this one is not something technology can address)
What do you hope our tech gurus will work on for 2009?
Most of us focus our time and energy on using makeup to make us look younger, but the fashionistas at Vogue Paris have done just the opposite.
In their November 2008 issue, they took Gucci model Eniko Mihalik, (who is in her early twenties), and using cosmetics, aged her a decade at a time from 10 years old to 60. It makes for a fascinating photographic study, and it really goes to show what the power of makeup and lighting can do to make us look older or younger.
Yet another reason why I need to hire my own personal lighting assistant.
I kid, I kid. *cough*
Hands down, my favourite is the 40-year-old version of Eniko. I love the 80s style influence and the completely OTT snakeskin jacket. Which do you prefer?
It’s funny how poor weather - cold, stormy, snowy, transportation-halting weather - can unite Canadians. I’m not sure whether it was that or the coming vacation, but yesterday I witnessed a few small kindnesses here in the big mean city:
- I dropped a 5 dollar bill and someone ran up the escalator to hand it back
- Someone left her gifts on the GO Train and through a series of complex maneuvres, the staff got them back to her
- A woman slipped on the stairs and no fewer than 4 people helped her collect her belongings.
I wish every day could be so charmed. I think I’m going to work on bringing some of that glow into the New Year. Any tales from your neck of the woods?
I confess that I really do read the New York Times’s Modern Love column almost every week. Last week Karen Karbo (she wrote How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great, which is why she sounded familiar to me!) writes about being the “accidental breadwinner” and how that impacts on her love life.
In the piece she says Jackie Onassis told her that a piece of advice she often gives to young women: that they should never marry or mix their money. Advice you’d want your daughter to take?
My husband and I do the split shift with daycare: he drops our son off, and I pick him up. So I really have no idea what goes on between the hours of 7-9 am at my house.
So it was a bit of a surprise to take my son into Starbucks and hear him say “Hi, Bob!” That’s right, Bob the barista. It gets scarier: not only did my son have a song about “Bob barista” ready to go, and Bob had my son’s order (a slice of banana cake and a small milk) all set for him within minutes, Bob also had a gift for my son.
This has caused a bit of a crisis of conscience at my house. Does my son know the librarian’s names? No. Does he know the names of the people at our local church-based food bank? No. But he does have not only his own order at Starbucks down, but my husband’s.
On the one hand, I know that Bob is a person, with a family, and that Starbucks really is pretty much the local coffee shop in our area. (We do have a mom-and-pop one and I am going there after work to drop $20, honest.) My husband and I had our child later in adulthood and one of the nice things about having kids late is that we aren’t quite as strapped for cash as in the early years (although I think we will have to have a talk about budgets regardless).
But at the same time, this just seems crazy to me. Honestly, when I was growing up, going to McDonald’s was a twice a year event where my sister and I planned our orders out a week in advance.
And I know we’re kind of in the easy stages still where this monster is of our own making. But now I’m really wondering how we’ll manage consumer issues and brand loyalty and yes, budgeting, in the future. What are your thoughts?
Via the Globe and Mail:
For Dr. Chandra’s 50th birthday, she decided she would conquer… boredom by running five marathons on five continents.
One of the races she chose was the 100-kilometre Antarctic Ice Marathon. And yes, she did it. You go girl!
Nope, not talking about plastic surgery, but Christmas trees. According to an independent Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) conducted by ellipsos, inc., the natural Christmas tree has lower impacts on the environment than the artificial tree. You can read more here.
This is something we never worried about in my youth; it was more a question of aesthetics, tradition, and just maybe the thrill of the hunt.
I have to admit that I am just the tiniest wee bit unwilling to experience more guilt about the tree I may or may not actually manage to get up. Thanks to a stomach bug that’s been making the rounds, a crazy work schedule on the part of my partner and the usual life craziness my schedule of events is completely trashed. At this point I feel a bit - well - Grinch-like. Except he came early!
Tuesday night I was in high stress mode over food and finally used a Toronto-based Internet grocery store to play Santa. My blood pressure went down at that point. I’m not sure of the environmental impact from a carbon perspective, but from a human mood perspective - thumbs up to delivery of chocolate. Anyone else got some tips for making life a little easier? Besides just calming down!
Calling all last-minute holiday shoppers: I’ve just discovered a great cheap and chic gift option for friends, co-workers or relatives.
My Tagalongs is a Canadian lifestyle accessories brand chock full of genuinely useful goodies. When the company founders were researching their product line, they interviewed - and rummaged in the handbags of - over 200 women across the country, and it shows. This is some clever, cute stuff here.
Take my favourite, the Purse-onifier, $18, a little black bag that holds all essentials so you can change handbags quickly and easily - just swap it over and eliminate the last-minute, nail-breaking rummage through the dark depths of your purse in search of gum, tissues, or lip gloss.
The Little black dis-tress kit, $30, comes with deodorant remover sponges for touching up white marks on clothing, a pair of stay ups, foot cushions (for those killer high heels) and a 911 tin containing a hair elastic, sewing kit, band-aids, dental floss, tweezers, double sided tape and a nail file.
We’ve all been given gifts that are either totally impractical or unusable; I guarantee anything gifted from this line will be a big hit. (That’s if you can bear to part with it!)
Products are available to buy in the handbag section of The Bay stores across Canada, or online at www.mytagalongs.ca
I think I’ve crossed a creepy kind of line.
Earlier this month I accompanied my ‘tween daughter and a few of her friends to see the hit vampire flick Twilight. Having read the book the movie is based on (at the insistence of my daughter who is obsessed with the Twilight series), I had a mild interest in seeing how the role of main character Edward Cullen was cast. In the book, Edward is, well, perfect – a handsome, romantic, and dangerous man in the body of a 17 year-old boy. (Be still my Cougar heart!)
Not only was I not disappointed, I walked out of the theatre with a weird, and serious crush on young actor Robert Pattinson who plays Edward. I experienced feelings that hadn’t stirred in me since David Cassidy was singing his heart out on Partridge Family.
Of course, my daughter and her friends were similarly smitten. And as I drove them home, listening to them gush about how cute Robert/Edward is, it was all I could do to restrain myself from joining in the conversation.
And it all felt kind of odd. I’m a grown woman for goodness sakes. I’m a mom. I should have crushes on people like Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson, not boys’ young enough to be my son.
I decided right then and there to not be a pathetic middle-aged woman who stoops to public displays of celebrity worship.
[see Karen’s blog for ways she channelled her crush.]
[Editor’s question: Do you ever find yourself attracted to someone younger, or do you get unusually into your child’s interests?]
