Back to Basics

In the spirit of last minute posts, here is a quick one.  A few months ago I acquired a hair comb again, after years going without.  It is not that I avoided using one, I actually didn’t have one at all.  Back in high school I did the hair gel thing, which required gel and hands, not much more.  Then came university, long days, and sleepless nights.  My hairstyle of choice evolved into the “shower, and put a hat on” style.  It was highly efficient.   I rolled with this until quite recently.  But a few months ago I started cutting my hair a little differently, and having a comb helps make it look nice. 

However I still tend to put a hat on after combing it.  Sometimes this helps (stupid cowlicks), other times it hinders.  Maybe I just need to find a certain type of hat, which will have less interference. 

Also, similar to Megan, I cut back on my grooming while away on site.  The comb definitely stays at home.  While on a job my hair is generally covered by a toque, hood, hardhat or some wild combination of these items.  So there is no need to try make it fancy.  Also, bring on the beard!

"Feminine" Hygiene

Feminine hygiene is a phrase that always grossed me out. It's got that vaguely clinical sound to it, like there's a euphemism buried in the term just waiting to smack you over the head with some antiseptic and shame for being too direct about your "lady problems." Ignoring that sense of foreboding, I am about to embark on some good ol'-fashioned period talk. Squeamish beware?

For all the menstruate-ers out there vaguely sick of tampons or pads, I WHOLEHEARTEDLY recommend menstrual cups. The one in particular that I have had (positive!) experiences with is the Diva Cup, but I'm certain there are other good kinds out there. What's good about using these?

1. Less waste - you just buy the one cup and then use it for a long time (how long totally depends on your particular item). Less waste in terms of trash from pads or tampons, and also less wasted time going out to buy those things!

2. Less expensive - of course, you're going to spend a bit more up-front, but over time, these things will save you money. I'd estimate that I've saved about $50/year from using the Diva Cup instead of tampons/pads.

3. Good for the lazy - as much as I love reasons #1 and 2, 3 is by far my most important reason. Changing pads or tampons is something you often have to do several times a day, and overnight can be stressful because you're asleep long enough to cause murderous-looking accidents in your pants. What I like best about the Diva Cup is that it's supposed to be emptied every 12 hours - it's a lot *easier* to deal with periods now.

Now, I'm pretty sure these aren't for everyone. But I thought I'd share the one personal hygiene product that has most improved my life in the past five years, rather than rambling about how much I hate putting on sunscreen in the summer (oh, how i do!). If you, dear reader, or any of your friends are even remotely curious about menstrual cups, I say try 'em!

Plucking Eyebrows and Picking Battles

Right now my job requires me to fly north every Monday and then back home every Friday. I spend four nights each week in a "camp." There are bathroom/shower facilities there that are perfectly serviceable, but still, each Friday when I get home, I immediately close myself up in the bathroom and go through a whole process of shaving and plucking and showering with a variety of different scented products. Then I put on either my sweat pants or my "city clothes," and go about the rest of my weekend.

This is very much a ritualized practice that I've developed to transition between my work and home life. It helps me to relax and also reacquaint myself with home. But why not just take a long shower? In other words, what's up with the shaving?

Well, our culture is super weird about body hair, basically.

I totally get that. Some people will tell you that even if nobody else in the world shaved their legs, they would still do it. I believe that for the most part these people are lying, most of all to themselves. Sure, I might love the feeling of freshly shaved legs on clean sheets, but if I didn't know that feeling and had no reason to ever even think of experiencing it, I wouldn't seek it on my own, and 99.9% of people are almost definitely the same way.

There are people who are trying to combat this whole body hair weirdness. Basically they just let theirs grow, and that's cool. But even though I know that this is a nurture thing rather than a nature thing, I'm not going to stop shaving my legs or plucking my eyebrows anytime soon. I would happily give up makeup* for the rest of my life (another bit of cultural weirdness), but this is one fight I don't want to have with myself or the culture at large.

I know that it's silly to feel like the armpit hair that the vast majority of other adult women also have needs to be shaved off. But the fact is that good body image is hard enough to cultivate without counterculture contortions thrown in. For all kinds of reasons, I feel way more comfortable with no makeup on my face than I do with visibly hairy legs.

I think that we'd all be better off if we could be happy with ourselves without any kind of modification. But I don't think that should be forced.


*My original idea of what to write about for this month's post!

February Topic!

Happy Groundhog Day, everyone!

Sorry about the slightly late update this month.  The January poll closed with the following breakdown of votes:

• 0 votes: writing, travel, coworkers, counting, rainbows
• 1 vote: colours, the sea, cacti
• 2 votes: personal hygiene

So the topic for this month is personal hygiene.

Contributors: You can interpret this topic any way you want, and you can write as many posts about it as you want (within reason, obviously, not like 200 posts over the course of the month, but I don't think any of us have that kind of time on our hands). When you write your post, make sure you tag it with the topic and your name/blog identifier, so that if any potential readers like you and hate the rest of us, they can find your posts easily.

Everyone: There is a poll for the March topic in the sidebar, and you can vote until the last day of this month. Whichever topic gets the most votes gets written about next month.

Writing and travel got kicked off of the poll this month. If you really want to see what we have to say about them, you'll have to suggest the topics again.

Comment on this post or the topic ideas post if there's anything you'd like to see added to the poll in March.