The way I see it, you can worry all you want, let irrational fears in and think things unknown. Or you can focus on your love, take a deep breath and do something you’ve never done before. The absolute worst thing that could happen would be a case of temporary pain. And to be honest, you’ve probably hurt worse. 01/29/13 AG
After finishing the 50 Shades series, I was left with a lot of questions (what the F*CK did I just read?!) and a general sense of relief that it was over.
So let me get this straight, readers are supposed to believe that Anastasia Steele, a 21-year-old virgin who has a vocabulary unheard of in a young twenty-something, meets Christian Grey, a 26-year-old tycoon who has the personality of a 45-year-old misogynistic divorced man and “kinky fuckery” ensues? Right.
I take more of an issue with the general plot than the sex scenes, although how many times can you read the foreplay of the sex scenes and know that Miss Steele is going to say “oh my”, Mr. Grey is going to say “oh, Ana” AND they finish at the EXACT. SAME. TIME. Yeah, because that happens in real life.
Yes, I understand that the whole concept of these novels was originally supposed to be Twilight Fan Fiction. (For anyone unfamiliar with fan fiction: it’s an author’s erotic take on a show/movie/celebrity etc.) But now I have two fictional characters to add to my “dislike” list: Isabella Swan and Anastasia Steele. For God’s sakes, it’s 2012, female authors should not be making their young female characters so needy, naïve, and just plain oblivious.
Examples:
Anastasia Steele: “I just don’t understand what he could possibly see in me.” Well, clearly something if he has spent an obscene amount of money on you AND is propositioning you to be his sexual submissive.
Anastasia Steele: “Make love to me.” (FYI: This is her first-time request)
Christian Grey: “I don’t make love, I fuck hard.”
Now I don’t know about you, but if a guy said that to me, or ANY other girl on the eve of her first time, I would roll my eyes, put my clothes on, politely close the door behind me and then key his car. But no, she’s totally cool with it and we have to read her inner dialogue that is like “oh my” and “he touched me down there”, and, my favourite, “my inner goddess is doing backflips around the arena.” Yeah, well mine just threw up in her mouth.
Actually compared to the rest of the dull dialogue, the sex scenes aren’t so bad. Ana and Christian never refer to each other as anything but their first names or last names. How annoying would it be if someone began every sentence with your name? “Ashley, do you want some orange juice?” “Miss Guay, pass the salt please.” If someone uses my name in a sentence, it usually means I’m in trouble.
There’s also the annoying use of the word “shall”. “Shall we go to dinner?” “Shall I fetch it for you?’ Who talks like this? WHO? Yeah, no one.
Then there is the character of Ana Steele herself. I don’t think E.L. James does a good job of describing her because all I really know is she is a brunette with blue eyes who doesn’t think much of herself and who’s always trying to save everyone. Case in Point: In the third book, she gets a ransom call (Yeah, there is some action other than that going on with body parts) and the caller warns her not to tell anyone or he’ll kill her sister-in-law. Okay, so she’s described as about 5”4 maybe weighing 110lbs and for some reason thinks it would be a good idea to go up against the killer herself, oh and tell her husband she is leaving him in an effort to “get him off the scent”. Had she been super feisty, confident and independent from the get-go, I might have bought it but these were the scenes I had to push myself through just so I could say I finished the book.
Another scene that cemented my feelings for her was in the ending of the first book. She wants to show him that she can deal with his “50 shades of fucked-upness” so she lets him beat her ass with a cane (could have been a belt or a crop). She KNOWS it’s going to hurt, he TELLS her it’s going to hurt (and he’s spanked her before so I mean that pretty much should have told her she didn’t have the pain threshold to be caned) and wouldn’t you know it, it hurts. WEIRD. She goes all “You’re fucked up” (umm yeah) on him and leaves. The part that bothers me, you knew all this, so either suck it up and take it or suggest something that may not hurt as much? I don’t know?
Being an independent Twenty-Something, I would have been way more into the books if Ana was the dominant. If she would have played hard-to-get with Christian Grey it could have made for some much better built-up sex scenes. If she would have forgone marriage and said “I love you but I can’t marry you, I’m 22 and want to see the world first,” it might have made the third book more interesting. I mean, really, who gets married at 22? Yeah, exactly. At least Katniss in The Hunger Games gave both Gale and Peeta a good chase and didn’t place them anywhere near the top of her priorities.
I mean good for E.L. James for coming up with a way to make millions. Seriously, I applaud her. But if you have read these books and can’t honestly say one bad thing about them, I would be curious to know what your other reading material looks like.
No, those are not the initials of my boyfriend circa 1999. I fell in love but not with a man (or boy in the previous case). I’ve been on the West Coast (and BEST coast, in my recent opinion) for over a month and am mentally kicking myself for not moving here sooner. All those years wasted, okay maybe not wasted but definitely not LIVED, living in a small region. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!
I was probably thinking a) (in a dramatic, high-pitched, whimsical voice best pictured while twirling in circles) I want to get married and live in Niagara with all my friends and family and b) I don’t have the balls to move across the country.
Well, as it turns out, I don’t and I do.
I feel like people abide by these imaginary set of societal rules that say after you hit 25 you need to grow up, have your shit together, and settle down. Well, I fell in a ditch on my 25th birthday so maybe that did something to my head AND view on these imaginary rules.
Sure, 25 is a milestone and a quarter of your life is over (Sorry, it is, deal with it) but that doesn’t mean you’re stuck wherever you are when you turn 25, or 26, or 27 for that matter.
Life is a short trip and would be made far more interesting by abandoning some rules and just living. I’m Living on the West Coast and this is where I am now. I might not be here in 10 years or even 5 years but I’m here in this moment. Oh, and I’m keeping it interesting. ;)
Did I seriously just drive across the country? Yes, yes I did.
I’m 14 hours away from my new home and feel a wide range of varied emotions. I feel anxious about leaving the place I spent the last 27 years of my life. I feel sad about the friends I’ve left behind. But I also feel excited about the prospect of what the West has in store.
Since I made the decision to leave, not only did I find one job but have also been contacted by numerous other employers. What was I doing wrong before? Maybe it’s not that I was doing anything wrong. Maybe I had to let go of some negative clutter to make room for positive energy.
Sure, leaving is scary and thinking I may not return robs me of breath. But if I have inspired anyone to make an impulsive decision and to take a few risks in their own lives, then it’s worth it.
Anytime I travel anywhere I’m always reminded of what a little shell I really lived in. The world is MASSIVE and you don’t realize what you’re missing until you see mountains up close for the first time.
Honestly, risk it.
Surprise! I’m moving to Vancouver. Did I get a job? No. I’m packing up my life and heading west. It’s a huge risk, I know, but if I never try then how will I know if I could do it or not?
Am I scared? Sure. Nervous? Obviously. But I could stay here forever telling myself things will change/get better/turn in my favour but sometimes you have to stop talking and make moves.
The best part is, I have no expectations. It may not work out, I could hate it but it’s a lot better than sitting here and going through the same horrible cycle month after month.
They say you should embrace change and that it’s good. Well then I’ll be bearhugging that sucker. Some things just need to be let go of to make room for all more amazing things to come.
Take a risk.
Let’s be honest. We’ve all had those moments where we’ve done something or thought something and have paused to mentally ask ourselves, “Does this make me crazy?” We’ve probably even shared this idea with one friend who would sympathize and make us feel justified in our craziness. Add your feelings into this mixture and you may feel bound for Crazy Town.
Take for example, the nuthouse that is texting. You like a boy, you text said boy. He doesn’t respond for 6.5 hours. In these six and a half hours your mind has come up with possible reasons why he hasn’t text you back. These usually include:
-Your text didn’t go through (But you don’t want to seem crazy and send another)
-His phone has been off for 6.5 hours
-He’s out with friends and doesn’t want to be on his phone
-He’s with another girl and can’t be caught texting you
-He got in a car accident and can’t use his phone
-He’s an asshole
We jump to these conclusions that make us feel like whack jobs when the truth is usually so far from what we thought, we genuinely do feel crazy for thinking these things (or it’s the last one on that list).
Why, after all, should you feel crazy for texting the boy you like when presumably he has given you his number for this exact purpose? (Add points on the craziness scale if you got his number off Facebook) If you’ve hung out, met each other out at a bar, spoke on the phone or wrote each other on Facebook, there is a huge assumption hanging in the air that your feelings are reciprocated. So why DO we feel crazy for texting someone and then revert to even crazier thoughts when they don’t reply?
We could just pick up the phone and call them and deplete every single one of those scenarios from our brains but then wouldn’t that not be crazy? Who calls people nowadays? I mean, really. Texting has become the quickest form of communication and, unsurprisingly, a fast track to the loony bin.
If no reply makes you feel crazy then all the related after thoughts will make you feel absolutely batty. You’ve thought them all, don’t lie.
“I’ll check his Facebook and see if he’s posted anything.”
“I’ll ask my friend who still has him on bbm to see if he changed his status.”
“I’ll check his twitter to see if he’s written what he’s up to.”
“Maybe I’ll block my number and call him and see if he answers.”
“Maybe I’ll just drive by his house and see if his car is there.”
These are usually the thoughts we let one friend (who we usually consider equally crazy) in on. They tell us we’re not crazy. We exhale and begin to dial *67. Whatever happened to the good ol’ fashioned days when crazy meant people who heard voices or believed they were Marilyn Monroe reincarnated? Why is a term that means ‘mentally deranged’ used to explain feelings behind a stupid boy not realizing the importance of a response text? Maybe it’s because in 2012 relationships are defined by following each other on Twitter, being Facebook official, and letting ‘seeing someone’ mean ‘we text each other’.
Sigh. It’s a crazy world.
In the past few weeks I’ve done quite a bit of thinking. More than I would have cared to have done. In this reflective state I started comparing life in 2012 to life in the 50’s or 60’s and could think of one word to sum up the difference: Risky.
Whatever happened to risks and risk-taking? Is it extinct or out of style?
People 50 or 60 years ago would pick up from wherever they were and venture across oceans in the hopes of starting something new. Some did this for love, most did it out of necessity. A risk now seems to be investing your money somewhere.
I feel like, as a species, we’ve grown lazy. Maybe we hate our jobs, maybe we hate the point in our lives we’re at, but we don’t do much about it. Instead of saying, “I’m going to pick up my life and go in search of something better somewhere else”, we look at all the possible ways we could fail or it wouldn’t work and by the time we’ve run this scenario in our heads the idea disappears.
Are we that content with settling and being content with what we have? Should we not strive for more? When I’m 95 (Yes, I plan on living a lonnnng time) I want to be sitting on my porch and thinking back to myself that I took every possible risk I could and was satisfied with the outcome. Maybe it wasn’t the easiest path but hell, it was exciting.
Our actual time on this planet is far shorter than any of us could imagine and although we may think we have all the time in the world, precedence begs to differ. So eat that double fudge sundae, plan that impractical trip, and confess your ridiculously inconvenient love. After all, they say that the biggest regrets you will have will not be about what you’ve done, but what you never did.
With all the hoopla surrounding Chris Brown and his double appearance and win at the Grammy’s, something began to irk me. It wasn’t the popular “How dare they let him on stage and give him a Grammy.” It was more of a “Who gives a sh*t?”
Chris Brown hit Rihanna: fact. This was also three years ago and he has been on probation and doing community service since. I do not condone his behavior nor agree with it. But why should anyone’s personal life interfere with recognition of achievements over their professional career?
The Grammy’s are about recognizing achievements in music. Chris Brown’s F.A.M.E. was a good record. Good enough, in fact, to beat out all other nominees in his category. If you separate the man from the music, you’ll probably bob your head to the beat of ‘Look at me now’.
The isolated event of Brown and Rihanna’s altercation was made public due to the leak of a photo of a battered Rihanna. Weeks later photos surfaced of the two on jet skis. There were also interviews where Rihanna suggested that she knew she had to choose between staying with Brown and quite possibly lose fans or her blossoming career. She chose her career.
Rihanna’s behavior towards the man who physically abused her certainly doesn’t suggest feelings of rage. She has followed him on twitter, been linked romantically to him again, and was able to attend the Grammy’s knowing, I’m sure, that he would be making two appearances.
Brown is one of many on a list of Hollywood abusers. Let’s not forget the likes of Charlie Sheen (reported to have abused past wives), Mel Gibson (reported to have abused last wife), and even Nick Carter, of the squeaky clean Backstreet Boys, was to have reportedly abused Paris Hilton when they were an item.
Regardless of what goes on in a celebrity’s personal life, if their career deserves applause, we applaud. We idolize celebrities who sound off on religion, race, condone heavy drugs, have been arrested countless times for DUI’s, and have chosen a plethora of other morally/ethically/politically wrong choices.
In no way, shape, or form do I AGREE with Chris Brown hitting Rihanna, I like Rihanna and appreciate her music. But I think if she’s gotten over this entire debacle, so should the rest of us.
Ten days away from my 27th birthday and in the midst of what may very well be a quarter life crisis, I cut off a significant portion of my hair. I had sworn to myself that I wouldn’t cut my long hair (by long I mean waist length) until I got married, which seems laughable now. It took me years and years to get it that length and I always balked when my stylist asked to take off more than my usual less than an inch. So why all of a sudden was it so easy to take it just below my shoulders?
Maybe I expected to look drastically different and not much like myself, which was the reason I wouldn’t cut it before. Maybe I felt defined by my long hair which was such a staple of who I was. Maybe it was a way to keep control over everything, the way I need to control every situation I’m in.
I feel liberated to be honest, that whatever part of my life I was hanging on to, I’ve let go of. I know that I can adapt quickly to change and that although there are days I might regret the decision to cut it, I’ll make it work.
Besides, it’s only hair. It, and whatever else you cut away, grows back in the end.
—Me
