Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The Other Man

A few weeks ago, I heard Kelly Atchison make a brave admission on The Hawk's Drive at Five. Her unabashed honesty has prompted me to stand up and confess to the same thing.

I have had a relationship with a man named Perez for about three years, and though not many people knew about it at first, I have come to learn that lots of others have become infatuated with him as well. Millions, in fact.

You see, Perez is Perez Hilton. He's a formerly-chubby (now remarkably svelt), sometimes-pink-haired, sometimes-green-haired, flamboyant, trouble-making, no-holds-barred gossip-monger. His online blog started about four years ago, and since has become one of the most visited sites on the internet. Literally. I think he averages about seven million hits per day.

That is why I'm no longer ashamed to admit that I take his information as gospel truth, whether I should or not; I'm certainly not the only one who does. He's got moles all over Hollywood, much to the chagrin of the celebrities he blogs about, and a movie star can't make a move, steal a kiss, buy a car, or get arrested, without Perez finding out in minutes and posting it online minutes later.

And not just the things you'll hear about on Access Hollywood later that evening. No, no, I'm talking about the indiscretions most celebrity-types really want to keep private. Things he calls "Not-so-blind" items, like which celebrity was seen canoodling in first class on a flight from New York to Los Angeles with a tennis instructor who looked nothing like her well-known husband. And which recently-rehabbed actor was downing scotch alone in the back of his limo after a night of toting a water bottle for show.

It's things like that which set Perez apart from the mainstream entertainment reports. Of course he'll post a play-by-play of last night's Dancing With the Stars, but he's also got the inside track that Mark Steines would give his firstborn to have. He has reliable spies who are willing to spill, based on guaranteed anonymity, little required corroboration, and absolutely no recourse. When actor A and actress B, who have been denying their relationship for months, take a vacation to remote parts of Utah, the waitress who served them lunch can email Perez and tell her story, without a 6-person camera crew from ET showing up and making her sign an exclusivity contract. Or it could be the cleaner at a high-end Malibu obstetrics clinic who confirms the pregnancy of a popular singer. There really isn't any way of validating the information you read, but it's entertaining nonetheless.

Why it's entertaining is something I can't really explain. It's human nature to gossip, and maybe it's easier to gossip about millionaires you'll never meet, than it is to talk about your neighbors and friends. Maybe you thrive on the misery of others. Maybe you're convinced Justin Timberlake is destined to marry you and you're waiting for news about his break-up with Jessica Biel and scheduled flight to Nova Scotia (hypothetically, of course). Everyone has their own reasons, I guess. I think the biggest one for me is the humanity.

Whether or not you're interested in celebrities, chances are, if you watch any television or read any newspapers, you're inundated with information about them anyway. With expensive publicists and PR firms spinning their every action, the seemingly-charmed lives of stars sometimes make me want to throw up (6 million dollars to work on a bad movie for 4 months? Crazy!). But to hear of a big star getting peed on by a dog at the park, or quietly donating a large sum of money to a food bank, or losing their brother to cancer, makes these people seem more human, and reminds people that, though they may be rich and beautiful, they're just regular folks like us.

So chances are, I'm going to continue my relationship with Perez. Where else will I learn such pertinent information as sales figures for Lindsay Lohan's clothing line, Madonna's new relationship, and Mischa Barton's latest rehab stint? Oh that's right, on the national news. Claim you haven't uttered the name Britney Spears in the past 18 months, and I'll call you a liar. A great number of you are just as bad as I am, only Kelly and I have the guts to admit it.

Sure, a large portion of the content on Perez's site is salacious and juvenile. It could also be fairly described as a waste of normally-useful brain cells, I suppose. But you can't convince me it's any worse than a few minutes of X-Box 360, an episode of "My Name is Earl", or any Will Farrell movie. We all have our guilty pleasures.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Winning the Battle

There comes a time in every overweight person's life when enough is enough.

When you realize you're not getting any younger, and you don't want to be fat and inactive and useless throughout your thirties, nor do you want to be riddled with weight-related health problems by the time you hit the big 4-0.

When you acknowledge that all your previous weight-loss "attempts" weren't really attempts at all, since going on that worthless soup diet or eating nothing for days to fit into that dress for your friend's wedding, was just a quick fix and not really a commitment.

When you stop making excuses about exercising and realize that your hour-long Big Brother watch-a-thon could be just as easily spent walking in place in your living room as it is sitting on the couch with a bowl of popcorn.

When you figure out that body-slimming undergarments don't actually make you smaller, they just redistribute fat to places it wasn't before.

When watching televised accounts of incredible weight loss becomes less about drowning your "why can't that be me" sorrows in a Big Mac and throwing the remote at the finale of The Biggest Loser, and more about motivation and inspiration.

When you can no longer call it "baby weight", especially since your baby is able to tell you that, "Mommy, you have too much chubbs on your butt."

When you resign yourself to not having a "cheat day", since people with as little discipline as you do have become the size they are because of willy-nilly cheat days that spiral into cheat months.

When you stop blaming your thyroid problem for the way you look and realize your weight is of your own doing (I have a serious thyroid problem - in fact, I'm guilty of using the excuse myself - and I can tell you with certainty that a thyroid problem, even one as out-of-whack as mine, does not cause a 50lb weight gain. You can't eat deep-fried wings and laze around your house and still blame your weight on your thyroid.).

When you reach the conclusion that losing weight is a simple formula of burning more calories than you take in, and that even the fancy and expensive "miracle pill/supplement/concoction" isn't going to solve your problems for the long term.

When you finally admit that french fries aren't vegetables just because they're made from potatoes.

When enough is just enough, plain and simple. I've reached that point.

Being fat sucks. I've spent that past 12 years complaining about how much it sucks, yet I've failed to sincerely try to do anything about it. I've even written about it with the best of intentions of losing weight, but my words never concretely translated into actions.

I quit pop in mid-January, my biggest hurdle, and haven't touched a drop since. And, though I did see minimal results, I didn't change my eating habits. I went on a diet at the end of April, but through the chaos of kids' birthdays, the end of school, vacations, and many excuses, I fell off the wagon a month later.

Then I got on the scale. Yikes. That was "the point", and I haven't looked back since. All I had to change was my attitude.

I no longer feel a bitterness toward skinny people, food, or exercise. I don't harbour feelings of deprivation and resentment because I can't get a Blizzard, instead I feel strong and proud how I'm able to resist the temptation. I don't curse my husband's late night snack, I look at it with relief that it's not entering my stomach and disrupting my steady course.

I put a sign on my fridge that says, "you're only cheating yourself", along with two pictures: one of myself and one of Jessica Simpson.

Aside from the occasional glass of milk or juice, the only thing I drink is water. I have completely (and unbelievably) cut ice cream out of my life. Other junk food and sweets are cut to an absolute minimum, though not eliminated entirely. I make sure to eat breakfast every morning. I have a filling supper without stuffing myself up to the eyeballs. And I never eat anything after supper is over - not a carrot stick, not a cracker, nothing. Those are my changes, and it's working.

I've lost 35lbs because of those very do-able and realistic changes. The point I'm trying to make is, if I can do it, anyone reading this can do it, too. I was the best of the best excuse makers; the thyroid patient; the busy mom; the "did you hear about that new pill" queen; the chronic complainer. Not anymore, no more excuses.

And I've never felt better.

Passing the Torch

My husband's aunt just got some big news: she's been chosen to carry the Olympic torch in North Sydney during the official torch relay.

Over the course of my life, my attitude has been "Olympics, Schmalympics". But, it truly is more interesting than I thought.

The modern Olympic flame and relay take their origins from the ancient Games of Olympia, in Greece. At that time, torch and relay races were an important part of the cultural festivities during the Games, symbolizing peace and goodwill. Official messengers would travel the country, declaring a sacred truce for the duration of the Games, and that same spirit of peace continues in the modern day relay.

The torch relay itself, however, only became an official Olympic tradition in 1936, at the Summer Games in Berlin, Germany. Carl Diem, who Hitler reluctantly allowed to head up the Games, has historical credit for turning the abstract Greek philosophy into an ongoing Olympic tradition.

While Diem's brainchild was based on the purity of ancient Greek beliefs, Adolph Hitler, who had come to power in the time since Berlin's winning bid for the games, saw a greater purpose for the proposed relay. He believed that classical Greece superiorities were an Aryan forerunner to his German Reich, and thought a torch relay not only illustrated a link between ancient Greece and his philosophies, but also added a bit of myth and mystique to his regime (or, at least that's what the Nazi propaganda machine intended).

As a matter of fact, Fritz Schligen, the first torch runner to light the stadium flame, wasn't even a competitor in those 1936 Olympics; he was chosen by the Nazis for this graceful appearance and running style, which they felt would enhance the public's positive view of the "new" ceremony.

The torch relay has come a long way since the early days. Though it is normally carried by runners, through the years it has been transported in many different ways. The fire travelled across the English Channel by boat in 1948 en route to the London Summer Games. It travelled by airplane for the first time in 1952 when it went to Helsinki Games, and even by horseback for the duration of the 1956 relay to the Stockholm Games.

As years go by, even technology is impacting the variations of the torch and relay. In 1976, the flame was transformed to an electronic pulse, which was transmitted by satellite from Athens to Montreal. The signal was then used to trigger a laser beam to re-light the cauldron at the stadium. Pretty cool, wouldn't you say? Another specially manufactured torch saw the Great Barrier Reef in 2000, as divers transported it to the Games in Sydney.

The first global torch relay, in celebration of the 2004 Athens Summer Games, lasted for 142 days and almost 12,000 torchbearers carried the flame more than 78,000km. An even more ambitious relay was undertaken for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, when the torch was taken by over 20,000 carriers a distance of 137,000km, and visited the majority of the Orient, in addition to many other countries worldwide.

The transfer of the flame from torch to cauldron at the host stadium marks the official beginning of the Games. In a phenomenal ceremony at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, a Paralympic archer ignited the cauldron by shooting a burning arrow over a stream of natural gas above it to activate the flame. (Look it up on YouTube, it's amazing.) In Lillehammer, the final torch was delivered by a ski jumper. Over the years it has become tradition to have the final fire lit by a famous athlete or someone else symbolic of Olympic ideals. Everyone from Mohammad Ali to the 1980 U.S. Olympic Gold Men's hockey team, along with many other notable athletes, has held this honor.

Most people who want to be involved in the relay for the 2010 Vancouver Games have a series of applications to fill out to be eligible for consideration. Official Olympic sponsors each have an allotted number of positions to fill, usually with a theme (like this year's "Pledge" theme by the Royal Bank; each applicant has to write a pledge to Canada, demonstrating how their pledge is relevant to their journey with the torch, the Olympics, and Canada overall). While most spots have already been filled, information is available online as to how to apply for future years (although, you're responsible for your own transportation to and from your relay position, something that might not be practical for someone in Nova Scotia applying for the 2012 London Summer Games).

The whole relay experience (the Olympics in general, to tell you the truth) isn't something I've ever given much though to. It is only after hearing the account of someone personally involved that I looked into the history and came to find how symbolic and extraordinary a journey it is.

Pale is the New Tan

From the Associated Press (via Perez Hilton, but no matter): After years of describing tanning beds and other sources of ultraviolet radiation as "probable carcinogens", cancer experts have now moved both into the top cancer risk category, deeming them as deadly as arsenic and mustard gas. The new classification means tanning beds and other sources of ultraviolet radiation are definite causes of cancer, alongside tobacco, the hepatitis B virus and chimney sweeping, among others.

The classification of tanning beds as carcinogenic was disputed by a big wig from The Sunbed Association (of course). "The fact that is continuously ignored is that there is no proven link between the responsible use of sunbeds and skin cancer," the big wig said in a statement. She said most users of tanning beds use them less than 20 times a year.

But as use of tanning beds has increased among people under 30, doctors have seen a parallel rise in the numbers of young people with skin cancer. A new analysis of about 20 studies concludes the risk of skin cancer jumps by 75 percent when people start using tanning beds before age 30. In Great Britain, melanoma, the deadliest kind of skin cancer, is now the leading cancer diagnosed in women in their 20s. Normally, skin cancer rates are highest in people over 75.

Previous studies found younger people who regularly use tanning beds are eight times more likely to get melanoma than people who have never used them. In the past, World Health Organization has warned people younger than 18 to stay away from tanning beds.

Scary stuff, eh?

And it's true, more people are using "fake bake" than ever before, and it's starting at a younger age. It's the girls preparing to graduate from high school who spend hours working on their tan for the prom. It's the special event tanners, who get a package before a wedding or a trip down South. It's tanning addicts whose skin is now an eerie shade of burnt orange and looks a bit like a leather boot, but who feel the need to get darker and darker. I've even heard of doctors recommending tanning sessions to patients with bad acne.

I'm guilty of it myself, as I said last week. First it was for my sister's wedding, then it was trying to get ready for summer, but for people who think tanned skin looks better than untanned skin, there will always be an excuse. I regret encouraging anyone to do it, so I thought I'd present an alternative.

A few months ago, I found a lady in the area who does "spray tanning", a sugar based dye that is airbrushed onto the skin to simulate the perfect tan. This method is widely available in larger cities and I've known several people who have had it done, but it's not something you can get around every corner in Port Hawkesbury. I've heard both horror stories and glowing testimonials about spray tanning, but I decided to be a sport and give it a try.

It's really quite simple. Shower before you leave, but don't use any moisturizers or lotions, as the spray solution won't adhere as well. You stand on a towel in the middle of a private room (in your bathing suit, birthday suit, or whatever will allow the coverage you want), and she sprays you with this fine mist. You can get a few more coats on your legs, a few less on your face, whichever combination you feel looks best. You stand in this room for a few minutes afterwards to dry thoroughly, and voila: you're tanned for up to ten days.

No, it didn't come off on my clothes or drip or fade or turn orange, none of the terrible tales I had heard. It develops slightly over a few hours, but only a shade or two darker than you were when you left the salon. It looks just as natural as any tan other method I've tried, perhaps even more so.

But, not only are you tanned with a completely harmless sugar solution and no harsh chemicals, you've avoided the cancerous rays, you've saved countless hours of time at a tanning salon, and it costs about half the price of a package of tanning sessions.

Statistics and medical research are hard to argue with. It's fine for us to forge ahead with our vanity thinking "it won't happen to me", but evidence suggests otherwise and it's about time we take our health into account before superficial nonsense like tanning. Magazines and television shows make us think that only select, flawless beauties look good with pale skin, and that the rest of us should darken things up. True or false, is any measure of beauty worth getting cancer for? Not for me, thanks. Pale or spray, and that's it.

Summer Woes

Last year, I wrote an article about the best things about summer. This year I'm going to do the opposite. Make no mistake, I'd take July over February any day of the week. But, like everything else, there are a few aspects that I could do without.

For starters, mosquitoes. Bugs in general, and how their population multiples exponentially this time of year, but especially mosquitos. A perfect summer evening on the patio or around a campfire is instantly made less enjoyable by swarms of relentless, humming mini-buzzards. You get cramps in your arms from constantly flailing them around like helicopter blades. The fabric-softener-tucked-into-your-hat trick doesn't work, no matter how much you want it to, and all the tiki torches in the world aren't going to get rid of them. You can douse yourself in deet and light expensive mosquito candles all you want, they're still going to get you. It's how they're programmed.

And, relate with me here, is there anything worse than a mosquito in your room at night? I think not. Just the other night, I was awoken abruptly by that familiar hum in my ear - you know the one, at first you think it's just your ears ringing, until it gets closer and closer. I leapt out of the bed on the attack, crazed and flustered. Mr. Mosquito and I spent the next hour playing Mantracker in the early morning darkness of my house. I had turned on every light, creeping around like a trained assassin, sandal in one hand and book in the other. I have to give it to him, he was pretty stealthy. It took me longer than I thought, but eventually I found him sitting innocently on the wall in the hallway, and I introduced him to my sandal. I slept like a baby after that.

Next on my list is humidity. I certainly don't mind heat, especially in contrast to bitter winter temperatures, but here's the thing: when it's cold, you can put on a sweater or grab a blanket to warm up. When it's hot and humid, there's really no escape. Sure, you can all crowd around an air conditioner, but that's not practical or even possible sometimes. For those of us with naturally curly hair, a humid day turns our 40 minutes of hair-straightening work into wasted time, morphing "Winnie Cooper sleek" into "Diana Ross in concert". Or, what about heat in cars? The heat that welcomes you after an hour at the mall, is enough to choke you. A sunny day with a nice breeze is perfect, but windless, dead heat is not my cup of tea.

And, what about sunburn? Almost everyone I know has been careless with sunscreen at some point and ended up with a scorching burn. However, getting a bit red on the shoulders is nothing compared to failing miserably at the art of the summer tan.

Getting a tan is much harder than it seems. As soon as the sun starts to shine and school ends, we're expected to pack away our neon-white bodies and turn into golden sun goddesses (a wise woman once said, brown fat looks better than white fat). We all make big plans to ease into it by cheating and heading to the tanning booth, but few irregular tanners (those of us who aren't brown all year round) make the commitment and get a solid primer coat before hitting the beach.

I didn't make the same mistake I did last summer, by coating myself in dark tanning oil on Canada Day and laying out in Port Hood, and I actually put some thought into how to accomplish this elusive tan. I laid the groundwork early (tanning booth occasionally since April), I was diligent (no skinny straps in the sun, sunscreen an inch thick when I wore t-shirts to avoid the dreaded "farmer's tan"), and I was hopeful. I came to find that getting a good tan is much like baking a souffle; not everyone can do it right, no matter how hard they try. It's either going to turn out or completely flop, and no amount of trying can ever fix it once that happens. Let's put it this way, I won't be making a career in souffles any time soon.

I was hesitant to moan at all about this time of year that we spend the rest of the year waiting for. After all, in a few short weeks we'll reluctantly welcome autumn, my favorite season, and we'll all be more than willing to put up with the mosquitoes and sunburn for just a brief dose of that same miserable heat.

And the Winner is....

On Thursday evening, I attended the Festival of the Strait Princess Pageant at the mall. Great job, girls!

I miss the days when pageants were the centerpiece of a summer festival. Picture the Scooby-Doo dream-sequence effects, and bear with me.

The annual River Bourgeois community festival used to be a really big deal, and every year it began with the princess pageant.

Those in attendance for the packed-house Saturday night affair were probably oblivious to the meticulous preparation required for the show to go on. The contestants had, by this time, found sponsors (businesses and organizations to donate money for the girl's sash and other pageant-y things). They had already posed for the all-important Reporter photo shoot, where their picture would appear in a full-page spread opposite the festival schedule, noting their name, sponsor, and parents' names (so all the older women could say, "you know Lisa, at Joe-Jim's"). They had even attended a "tea", where they practiced their best smiles and manners at a get-together with the judges. It was all very serious business, especially to the girls who, like me, were too young to participate.

When the lights dimmed, a Master of Ceremonies announced the procession and the hall filled with more chiffon and frills than I care to remember, as was the style of "teenager fancy dress" back then. The girls, usually more than a dozen of them, filed up the center aisle, introduced themselves briefly ("Hi, I'm Lisa Smith and my sponsor is J&C Take-Out!"), and took their place on stage.

Once the judges had been introduced, it was time to get down to business. Each girl would give a more thorough introduction, telling everyone their age, grade, perhaps what they liked to do, what career they intended to pursue, things like that.

After the introductions came speeches. The topic was up in the air, completely up to each contestant, and it was always interesting to hear what the girls chose to talk about (even though the delivery mattered more than the content).

When the speech portion was complete, the girls would head downstairs to prepare for the talent competition. There were usually singers, dancers and piano players, but every year had a wild card - whether it be demonstrating a cadet Drill Team routine, or teaching the crowd how to cross-stitch. After everyone had shown their talent, the girls went to sweat it out downstairs while the judges made their decisions and the audience mingled and chowed down on coffee, tea and sweets. (For the record, River Bourgeois hall sweets are still in my top five favorite foods of all time.)

Eventually, the MC would inform the masses to be seated, the results were in. The crowd buzzed in anticipation every time and you could cut the tension with a knife; well not really, but I want to make it clear how intense a scene it was. The contestants nervously took the stage, the previous year's Queen took her mark in the wings after her swan-walk, and the envelope was handed over.

Miss Friendship, decided by the girls earlier in the evening by secret ballot, was announced first, followed by the expected squeals and hugs, and awarding of the trophies, flowers, and other pageant swag. The first winner was followed by 2nd Runner-Up, 1st Runner-Up, and finally Queen. It was all very climactic and wonderful, and I'll never forget it.

The very first pageant I attended was in 1984, where I met my future-best friend, Amy Doary, for the very first time. We were both very impressed with the pomp and circumstance of the whole thing, and our 5-year-old heads were just about spinning. We swore we'd be in it one day, and we would have - if only pageants hadn't become pretty much obsolete sometime after 1995.

Someone must have decided that being a teenager in a pageant was uncool, and that's a shame. Not only are they great confidence builders for girls at a crucial age, but they're a showcase of talent, a platform to experience public speaking and an excuse to dress up like a princess for a day other than prom.

Most of all, it's an excellent opportunity to bring a community together. Everyone is busier these days, and our local festivals are visibly suffering, with attendance, participation and volunteer numbers lower than they've been in years.

I'd love to see a big pageant in every festival, and a rightful Queen take her seat at the front of a parade float. It's something I'll always miss watching, and I hope someday they become "cool" again. (If there are any girls between 14-18 interested in participating next year, get in touch with me and I'll certainly be willing to help put it together.)