The feminist male...

Puts me in mind of Hillary Rodham Clinton at the unset of Bill’s campaign for presidency, you know more detriment than aid.

Pietro Rotari's Penitent Girl

The effects of the feminist movement on men came up in conversation the last time I had lunch with a few of my girlfriends and besides being a point of contention very little was resolved. My argument was and will continue to be that its effect is negligible. Now, before you demand my head on a pike, hear me out. The movement was not intended to effect men and there was no agenda at its root or in thought thereafter to change one man’s mind let alone the entire perception of their genders view of ours. The entire point was to empower women and provide laws that enable us the same rights as men.

There was no initiative to encourage men to see women as equal only laws and shaming tactics that stopped them opening doors while we fight the immoveable glass ceilings. I’m certain that you like me have heard the arguments from reasonable to absurd: My personal favourite is that bit of madness where the feminist movement was dreamt up by some horny man looking to liberate women from their brassieres and there is that bit of insanity about the sex positive feminist caused the down fall of the entire movement.

The truth is nobody really knows any more.

I personally believe the truth is that womankind lost sight of the goal long before the war was won. We went along to get along and yes it may seem unsophisticated but it is no less true. It is our fight not theirs and no man no matter how lovely or well-intended can be our champion for then what would have been the point?

My love my care,

Simone

Metro Story

I was telling my sister how I always seem to be on the train cart with the eccentrics when she told me this little gem.

Erik Suidman's De Stofzuigerkoning

She said it had been just before dinner time last summer. She was en route from the shops downtown to our mother’s place in the east end when at Sherbourne or maybe it was Broadview Subway she was no longer sure which when an older gentleman rose and got off. Now, she swears she would not have remembered him beyond the next stop had a mid-aged fellow not called all their attention to him.

‘Take a good look at him,’ he said pointing to the man by then walking on the platform towards the stairs. ‘For it will be me that’s like him in a few years, going home to an empty flat and working well into my seventies for fear of the alternative which will be staying in my lonely apartment all day.’

To this little outburst someone said something like, ‘Don’t project your short comings onto a stranger cause for all you know he could well be married to his high-school sweetheart who has a hot meal waiting for him as we speak.’

To which the upset fellow said only, ‘Did he look to you like he was going home to someone?’

There was nothing else said, the upset fellow sat staring off and everyone else prayed for their stops or his to come soon.

My love my care,

Simone

A sort of grand spectacle

The lot was already seated when I got on the late train heading east at Young and Bloor and they had been in no way spectacular these children of East Indian immigrants. The girls in colours from their mothers’ countries – pretty jewel tone scarves, yellow gold bangles and light delicate sent – paired well with super tight blue jeans enviable boots and designer handbags. Though, the young men with them seemed less exotic in their beer commercial attire all of them in crisp white sneakers Lacoste, K.Swiss and the like with pop-star jeans and goose down jackets they had been no less foreign.

Mademoiselle Lange as Venus by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Triosson

They were happy with something like youth and sprawled over a dozen seats even though there I’m certain there was no more than eight. At their centre was a voluptuous goddess with eyes ideal and hundred watt smiles. It is for her the grand spectacle was set forth. Her escort for the evening by then mad in love with her peeled of his jacket to straddle the handle bars in an impressive show of strength for one his size. She granting him restraint smiles even as the other girls teased and the young men whistled and cheered him on.

Then a lone clapper, our protagonist entered from the front of the cart his tone openly mocking as he offer insincere near provoking encouragement that is utterly misinterpreted by the other commuters who now clapping in earnest for the lovesick fool now doing push-ups at his lady’s feet. Though his display had backfired it had produced for our protagonist the desired effect for now he had the goddess’ eye.

It had been posturing to garner her attention and it had worked. He knew he showed well compared to the overgrown adolescent now seated at the goddess’ side talking workout regime with other young men in their group for he was a good five years older than the lot. He was a sort of urban professional, dressed in grey with the trendy cross-bag and the Brooks Brother shoes compete with arrogant self-confident smile.

Only he didn’t take into account familiarity and comfort. The silly boy at her side was already a member of her set and mad in love with her. She knows he will grow into a man in time and she could guide him to dress the part of the urbane professional if she so desired. He won the battle, her attention but lost the war for she was sensible and rooted perhaps a more romantic girl would have...

My love my care,

Simone 

Sugar euphoria

Or what results from a sweet induce coma

I had slept as one content and spent but not from orgasm and still there had been a fulfillment that made even the sleeping itself sweet. Then I woke and it had all been somehow different, I could not have said for certain how for it was not as tangible as say the ugliness of hairs erect on the back of one’s neck nor was it the haunting displacement  in the near anticipation of du déjà vu but it too was a misalignment of one’s psyche. I was uneasy and got more so with every shallow breath taken and still I pressed on washing then readying myself for the day ahead.

Woman Clothed with the Sun by Alice Pike Barney

At half-seven I stepped out the front door, into the sunlight and knew right away with certainty that the sun had been flipped upside down. As alarming as it had been it did no more than set my mind at ease for no longer did I have to fret at what it was that had so set me on hedge. I went back inside to check the news but it had been business as usual on all the morning shows and news outlets. I was late getting to the shop and noticed nothing out the ordinary for most the day. Well... there had been an unusual number of women celebrating being ten pounds lighter. It kept popping up the entire day, women treating themselves to an extra peace of sweet in praise of their good fortunes. I was positive it had something to do with the sun but did not understand how until moon rose and it was closer.

My love my care,

Simone

The Stunner

I sometimes see a woman so beautiful I want no more than to write her a happy ending and it is not always just a charming face either. Sometimes it is no more than a small gesture or kindness done that makes her in that moment worthy of notice. I’ll give you an example; there is an elderly oriental woman who panhandles at Young and College in front the Starbucks on the corner. She sits there silently with a baseball cap in her hand looking slightly embarrassed and apologetic. I’d often give her the change from my coffee rather than tip the barista and feel pretty okay about it until a few days ago when I saw this pretty black girl sitting beside her with Tupperware in hand. I’ve seen this young woman before and thought her lovely enough and even spoke with her once something about notebooks and her being French, Caribbean from Martinique but it was not until I saw her sharing her lunch and listening with open interest as the little beggar whisper some secret to her did I want to write her story. In that moment she was perfect heroine and goddess deserving of brilliant happy end. Oh, and beautiful, she truly was. Her smile held such tender understanding for the little woman sitting next to her it filled my heart and broke it all at once.

first female astronaut candidates

I imagine that in order for something like that to work well – me writing her happy ending, that is - I would have to interview her and find out what that constitutes for her because it simple would not do. Now, would it? For me to write for her some happiness I dreamt up but which she finds hellish.

My love my care,

Simone

My ideal, the wrong me

I’m often cruel without having been sentential and can even be sentential about my cruelty but then the focus of my malevolence is almost exclusively self so I image there is no help for it. 

  

Tamara de Lempicka's Dormeuse

I loved this man once for whom I wanted to be a hundred impossible things. I would see him and instantly take catalogue of my flaws. He made me desperate for with him I was nothing but want. Want for his love, for longer legs and smaller waist and firmer tits. It drove me mad wanting to be younger, faster, stronger for someone who was no more than sweet for who I already was and so I left him. It took time for me to love again and when I did it was to a man who right from the beginning kissed me as if anticipating a long parting.

My love my care,

Simone

April’s fool

I really do believe in love you know and that despite never having seeing any true manifestation that could not be explained away as something else. It is a matter made worse I believe due to these long conversations I have with my sister about the plausibility of romantic love where the end result is always dread of dying alone. Following that line of reasoning, lately the idea of tribe or rather our society’s lack of connect to an extended tribe where one feels ownership and connect has been running parallel with the notion of love lost. There is this idea that we love our pets, best friends, children and all else is a matter of necessity or chance. Fool that I am I want to explore more this idea.



James Childs's Bow Bridge

Then again our only duty is beauty to put forth what is true and good, which would make love the entire thing, right?

My love my care,

Simone