Don't dress as Bernie Madoff for Halloween

I mourn the end of summer -- juicy blackberries, plump peaches, and ruby-red strawberries disappear from the produce section of my grocery store. Sandals are banished to the back of the closet. The parks slowly become bereft. But the summer always passes away in a blaze of glory. The transition from winter to spring is painful, the way it hurts to fight back from the brink of death or despair. Cold rains leave brown rivers of mud streaming through the backyard; dirty piles of half-melted snow and ice buttress the sidewalks.

But autumn is different. My neighbourhood is transformed beneath a blanket of gold and orange foilage; even the halfway house two lots down looks enchanting with a smattering of ruby-red maple leaves hiding the cigarette butts littering the front lawn. Big bright pumpkins grin from front porches, stalks of wheat make the splintered door frames seem charmingly rustic rather than run-down.

And then there's the last hurrah before those cold frosts invade the night: Halloween. For children, it's a wondrous time of uninhibited gorging and feasting on chocolates and treats. For adult women, it's an excuse to slut it up, clothing-wise. (Attention-hungry partygoers, after all, are sometimes the most frightening guests.) I've seen girls in outfits amounting to little more than bikinis or lingerie (rabbit- or cat-ear headbands made it a "costume") party it up in clubs on Halloween night -- which wouldn't be completely ridiculous if said clubs were in Miami, or San Diego, or Austin. But when you're bordering Detroit and there's snow on the ground, these kinds of outfits look pretty stupid.

I love Halloween, personally. But, as a woman, I am not interested in going to parties and ogling girls in barely-there costumes. (Not that I don't enjoy making snarky "Oh my God, look at her" comments to my husband -- who has the good sense to pretend to share my condescending opinion.) And I don't have a young child to dress up and take trick-or-treating. (How I'll treasure those first few Halloweens when I can take all my kid's candy!) So what do I do? Gather some friends to watch the Halloween classics (just saw an incredible piece of Australian film-making that involved zombie fish), pig out on candy corn, and take the dogs to Petsmart's Howl-o-ween party. Baby is dressing as Snow White.

Happy Halloween, friends. Celebrate as you will.

Fashion Trends in the Time of Recession

With glimpses of fall fashion trickling into stores, it's become apparent that we're not going to be pulling out of the recession this season. Affluence is out. Want to purchase a jacket in a luxe brocade? You'll find them in funky neons rather than sophisticated jewel-tones, colours specifically chosen to degrade the luxury of the item, mocking the affluence originally intended for it.

Leggings returned full-force this year after disappearing following a heydey in the early 90s, perhaps because they're cheap and can be worn as a substitute for pants. (Not -- please -- not that they should be substituted for pants, or that they look good on anyone when worn this way -- just that they can be.) Goodbye, tweed trousers. Who needs to streamline her legs when unemployment has forced her to be more thrifty at the grocery store? Grab those leggings to show off those slimmer thighs!

Gladiator sandals, too, were all the rage this summer. Warrior footwear. No delicate, thin straps to highlight petal-pink pedicures were seen this season. I saw toenails in bright neons, deep greens, sea blues -- nothing flirty and carefree. Summer's shades were all about making bold statements, they were about being seen, making yourself stand out (which, incedentally, you need to do in a big way to get a job in today's market). But you also need to protect yourself -- hence the studs and grommets, the knee-high cages certain sandal styles formed around the legs. Sky-high heels, too, were all the rage this summer. Height equals power. You're sure to be noticed when you're towering above all the other women at the party. Two-inch kitten heels? Forget it. There's no place for demure or understated right now. Flats are permissible because they're so functional. You can move in flats. No one wants to hinder movement in a recession.

Trying to decide between sandals or boots for the transitional weather of September and October? Fall's most fashionable footwear will make your decision a little easier. You can enjoy a wide array of high-heeled boots with open toes and cut out heels. With no pointed toes to scuff or dent, your shoes will last a little longer, saving you money in the long run. (Just be sure to wear socks when it gets a little colder).

Department stores are also stocked with a preponderance of plaid. Although these styles are more fitted than their 90s-era counterparts, the patterns recall days of Goodwill shopping and wearing that shirt till it literally falls apart. Good thing distressed denim is back, too. Now you don't have to scrap your jeans when they get holes. You can even buy jeans that already have holes in them, but I think these are just out on the racks to let people know that it's okay to wear this style again. (Really, who's dumb enough to buy clothes with holes in it?)

And if health care doesn't get reformed, we might see burlap make an appearance just in time for spring!

Ugly People Can Sing, Too; and Other Lessons Susan Boyle Taught Us

So the middle-aged Scotswoman with Brillo-pad hair and Freida Kahlo brows didn't win "Britain's Got Talent," but she did win the hearts of American and Britain. And she didn't even turn into a beautiful swan at the end.

Many people, especially women, have watched her audition on You Tube, only to be moved to tears. When Boyle walked on stage, the audience jeered; the judges snickered. The set-up was perfect: an unattractive, middle-aged, thick-waisted woman with a double chin entering a competition dominated by nubile, radiant teens and twenty-somethings. The punchline was brilliant. It was all there: those crystal clear notes, the pristine voice, the unadulterated beauty that emerged from the ugliness that was both Fantine's desolate life and Boyle's unattractive features.

Judges and audiences alike were shocked that such a wondrous voice could come from the little Scottish spinster standing on stage before them. In a world obsessed with manufactured beauty and perpetual youth, virtue and usefulness stand diametrically opposed to extra weight, wrinkles, and crooked teeth. Everyone expected Boyle to fail miserably; and when she didn't, they were ashamed. As they rightfully should have been. Why didn't anyone in that auditorium think that Boyle had any talent to display when she walked out on stage? Was it her matronly dress? Her double chin? Her unkempt hair? Her age?

Boyle undoubtedly would have gone on to the next round of the competition for her performance of "I Dreamed A Dream" had she been twenty, slender, and pretty. But she wouldn't have been an international sensation. Why? Because if a young, stylishly-dressed woman with a trendy hairstyle had sang like that, we'd say she was talented, but not remarkable. We'd even give her the benefit of the doubt when she walked on stage, expecting her to wow us in some way. Because beauty equals competence, usefulness, talent, virtue. Had Boyle been anything less than extraordinary, she would have been booed off stage. Good wouldn't have been good enough; even "really good" wouldn't have cut it. Deep-seated social attitudes necessitated that she leave no room for doubt; she needed to be an atomic bomb. After all, no one expects an ugly woman to do anything heroic or creative. There's simply no place for these Quasimodos in today's plastic society.

Which is exactly why Boyle became such a sensation. "Look!" we cried. "It's ugly! But it's singing!" She didn't force us to confront our deep-seated misogynistic stereotypes that link a woman's beauty directly to her societal value when she opened her mouth and sang -- she knocked those stereotypes out cold.

Unfortunately, these misogynistic tendencies got back up and shook themselves off rather quickly. The judges' appraisals were more annoying than the offensive, drawn-out wolf whistle that greeted Susan when she walked on stage. "Well," they exclaimed, "we expected a middle-aged, unattractive woman like yourself to sound like hell and embarass yourself, so imagine how shocked we are that you actually have talent!" They didn't congratulate her voice (enough). Instead, they patted themselves on the backs for being moved by it. They praised Boyle for defying their expectations, when the hideousness of this episode is in the expectations themselves.

Timmys and Starbucks

Tim Hortons is a quintessentially Canadian institution, and, like the Great White North, packs a quiet but powerful punch. There was an episode of The Simpsons in which the family was at the mall, and every other store was a Starbucks; a sly commentary on the stranglehold the coffee titan had on the American psyche. This gag, of course, was an exaggeration.

Put that mall in any town in Canada. Change the Starbucks (Starbuckses?) to Tim Hortons (again, how to pluralize?) Show the clip to a Canadian audience. It will not be funny because there is no exaggeration to provide humour. That is because this is how Canada actually is. No matter where you are in Canada, you will always be within walking distance of a Tim Hortons. (Except in Whitehorse. Which is why the government has to pay people assloads of money to move there. That and the fact that Whitehorse is situated in an Arctic wasteland.)

I have resisted Tim Hortons since coming to Canada three years ago. The coffee isn't great, the baked goods are always half stale. I haven't been able to figure out why Starbucks hasn't been able to make any real impact here (Tim Hortons commands 62% of the national coffee house market, while Starbucks holds the number 2 spot at 7%) except that it must have something to do with national pride. Everything in Canada is American. Walk into any food court in any mall in Canada and you'll find that it's indistinguishable from an American one. We have the Gap, we have Quiznos, we have Diet Dr. Pepper. Even the Hudson's Bay Company is owned by an American conglomerate. But Tim Hortons is really, truly Canadian, and it alone has stood firm in the face of American cultural imperialism. It reminds Canadians that they are NOT defined by Americans, that they are a unique and distinct people and can hold their own on the North American continent. Tim Hortons is a yardstick by which Canadians only have to measure themselves.

The Starbucks clientele has enough disposable income to throw $4.50 at a grande double soy latte. Fancy beverages are like designer handbags: the little white cup with the green mermaid logo says the same thing as the pattern on a Coach top zip: "Look at me! I'm upper-middle-class! My children have a Playstation 3!" If you're young, this cup has the added benefit of letting everyone know that you spent your spring break in the Caribbean rather than somewhere within driving distance. You also don't have to worry about whether to take that unpaid internship that will greatly increase your appeal to future employers or toil away at the mall for minimum wage because you have to pay tuition and rent. Starbucks represents the American Dream at its most egalitarian: while you're savoring this luxury coffee drink, you're a have-all, it says. Even if you're a have-not when the cup is empty.

Tim Hortons has no such pretensions. Construction workers in soiled dungarees line up at the counter along with businessmen in suits to buy coffee and a doughnut for under two bucks. No fancy half-caf espresso with nonfat soy milk here. This is the land of cheap prescription dugs and free walk-in medical clinics. If you want fancy, order an Ice Cap (essentially a coffee and cream Slurpee, much akin to the frappuccino). The employees know that none of the customers care what they're listening to on their Ipods; they aren't inspiring artists or musicians anyway. They're serving coffee, not changing the world, and they're okay with that. They aren't pretending to be more important than they are. That's what Tim Hortons is all about. And that's what Canada is about, too.

For the Love of Dog

wo weekends ago, my husband and I packed up our girls and headed to Toronto for Woofstock, North America's premier dog festival. Held annually in the St. Lawrence Market District, Woofstock is the dog party to end all dog parties. Big dogs, small dogs, young dogs, old dogs, dogs in sunglasses, dogs in wheelchairs, dogs in booties, dogs in strollers (including ours), and more. It is the one place where I can take my two little Bichons and feel perfectly, perfectly normal. The fact that they are decked out in dresses and bows and have a stroller for when they get tired is not unusual in the least.

There are some people, to be sure, who abhor the kind of extravagance we lavish on our pets. My dogs, for example, sleep in a more luxurious bed than at least half of the world's population. But they're content to conk out anywhere. Organic kibble? Wet food fit for human consumption? Sure, they snarf it up, but they also snarf up feces and dead birds. We like to pretend we pamper our pets for their sakes, but really, we do it for us. We've made our pets into surrogate everything: children, significant others, confidants. We aren't their masters anymore: pets have officially become equal members of our families.

It's no wonder why we've grown so attached to our pets in recent years: in a society that defines its people by occupation, dogs reassure us against the falsehood of such identification. When I come home from work, the sight of my two little Bichons wiggling in the window with glee, open-mouthed and bright-eyed, never fails to induce a smile. They are constant reminders that genuine happiness is not achieved as a constant state of being, but comes to us rather as a glimpse, here and there, into another level of being, a world held in place by the interconnection of souls. Your dog doesn't care if you go out to sweep the streets or to manage an office. The growing pile of rejection letters on the kitchen table doesn't make one bit of difference to her.

"So, what do you do?" It's the first line of small talk. Our identities are so wrapped up with our occupations that we come to define ourselves based on what we do for a living. So what does that make you when you're out of a job? The implications weren't as pressing when most people were getting up and going to the office each morning. But in this time of economic crisis and unprecedented unemployment rates, we have been forced to reexamine our very definitions of identity.

Unlike our other associates, dogs never defined us based on what we did when we left the house. When you walk through that door at the end of the day, your dog's reaction, unlike your spouse's, doesn't change no matter if you got a major promotion or got a pink slip. Your dog loves you simply because you're there. A new puppy will piss on your carpet whether you're a mailman or a statesman.

A dog never shouts at you. He does not scold for your mistakes. A dog will never betray your trust or your friendship. Open your closet door to show your dog all the skeletons you hide, he'll just want to chew the bones. Dogs remind us that we're only human, they show us the joys of being human. When our beloved companion passes on, we are forced to confront our own mortality; we are reminded that we, too, will perish someday, that we will all become food for worms. How beautiful, the tremors of their muscles as they sleep.

Simple Joys

I was in a foul mood the other night. No particular reason, just suffering a bout of low self-esteem and a general I-can't-do-anything-right-ness. The weather was nice so my husband and I took our two girls out for a walk. (The girls are Bichons, by the way, not humans. On the next block, we passed a neighbour we had not seen since last summer. This neighbour has Bassett Hounds, and so our dogs would always greet each other whenever they met. The lady let me know that her female had recently had a litter and asked me if I wanted to come inside and see them.

Oh. My. Dog.

If you have never seen a litter of little puppies, you must add it immediately to your bucket list. If such a sight does not appeal to you, you have no soul and should go on a spiritual retreat as soon as possible so that you can obtain one.

Eight tiny five-week-old Bassetts squirmed in a large fenced-off area of the basement. They climbed on top of each other to get to their new visitor, who was melting into a glob of mush as she crouched in front of the low gate. They clambered into one big pile of bellies and ears and noses. Every puppy was wet because every other puppy had either drooled on it or gummed it. Some of them fell over onto their backs in the ensuing crush, exposing me to the fact that puppies are indeed 75% tummy.

In a time when too many people look for answers in a pill or a bottle, it's easy to forget that natural remedies are often far more potent. The perfect cure for a lousy day? Puppy therapy. Guaranteed to work every time. Side effects may include urine spots on the carpets, chewed-up shoes, overturned garbage bins, holes in the sofa, stolen sandwiches, vomit in the backseat of the car, and terrified house cats. Puppy therapy is not be recommended for people with new carpeting, expensive shoes, or white floors. Do not leave your puppy unattended around your collection of rare books. If you do leave your puppy unattended around your collection of rare books, contact your insurance agent immediately.

Prop 8: the American Dream

Believe me, I understand why some people are so vehemently opposed to the idea of two people of the same sex getting married. Homosexuality is a direct threat to the stability of our society.

Look at what we're up against, America: we've got a black man in the nation's highest office. We almost elected a woman to be our presidential candidate. More fathers are assuming the stay-at-home role. Homosexuality is becoming mainstream. We've got to fight this demon that is gay marriage before the patriarchal power structure of American society is turned on its head!

A lesbian is a huge threat to a male determined to retain his concentrated power. There is no room for the male in this relationship: he cannot define a lesbian in opposition with himself because she takes control of her identity. Whereas heterosexual women are defined by their relationships to men, lesbians cannot be defined this way because they reject such a relationship. Surely you can see how detrimental this is to a patriarchal power structure. To the straight male, the lesbian represents the possibility of true gender equality. Danger, danger!

Gay men, too, are sources of concern for the status quo. A gay man who can embrace his inner femininity is a threat because he does not need to dominate the female sex. He recognizes the female part of his psyche and can accept it and nourish it; it is not something to be feared. He doesn't need to cage it because he has tamed it.

So letting gays get married will upset the status quo -- it will change the power structure of our society, it will change gender relations, it will bring us another step closer to gender equality and also helps to blur the rigid lines along which our ideas of gender are constructed. And just think about what will happen if we let gays raise children! Someday we might end up with an entire generation of teenagers who don't dress like absolute douche bags.

But seriously, we've gotta hand it to the GLBT community. Gays are the new black people. A generation ago, our oligarchs used race as the smoke screen for class inequality. Now that we have a black man in the Oval Office and racism is officially over, the ruling elite needs something else to keep the calamaty of social democracy at bay. Muslims and terrorists filled in nicely for a few years there, but there aren't a whole lot of Islamic fundamentalists in America. The Muslim terrorists are good "outsiders," but we really need something on the inside to hate. We need rats, we need to be able to pick out saboteurs working from the inside.

Enter the gays.

Well, gay community, by taking all this heat over wanting to give your profound romantic love the fullest possible social expression, you've provided the far Right with a means to distract public attention from pressing economic concerns. But we're in full-blown recession now, you know. We've even got politicians talking about universal health care. You need to put on your tap-dancing shoes and step up your game, because right now Western capitalism is weak. Turns out Reaganomics was built on a faulty foundation, after all. You need to get ready for war, because if the plutocrats don't fight you, they'll be forced to fight socialism instead. And we all know that there are dangerous people lurking in the shadows, just waiting for the prime opportunity to dismantle the ideal is the for-profit health care.

The American dream is under attack by the forces of social democracy -- and only a gay marriage ban will save it. Let's keep gays from getting married so the media outlets can focus on that story instead of universal health care debate. If we don't get Congress to talk about how we can stop two consenting, responsible adults from building a stable family unit, it might start talking about labour reform instead! And what's worse, if these two consenting, responsible adults are allowed to build stable family units, they'll be mainstream, they won't be banished to the fringes of society anymore, and they'll have all this energy left over from the equal rights struggle! And what do you think they're gonna do with all that excess energy? They're gonna wanna fix even more shit!

Well, I for one am going to write to my Congressman and let him know that I support a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Because America's robber barons depend on that to divert public scrutiny away from them. And what better diversion could there possibly be than the sexual activities of complete strangers? I mean, America's charting her course towards the future. If we don't have things like gay marriage to keep us focused, we might end up with a social welfare state.

Ronald Reagan dreamed of an America where anyone can get rich. If you don't fight gay marriage, you might have to fight the issue it's been used to mask instead. It's up to you, America. Do you want to live in a society where a gay couple can enjoy the same tax benefits as a hetero couple, or do you want to live in a society where everyone is free from want?

Get those pencils ready!