My rant on sexual abuse didn’t generate any comments on my journal, but several people have come up to me in person to say they’ve read it. Liz Worth also wrote a post about not even being able to wait for the bus without being sexually harassed, and the objectification and assault that comes with visible tattoos. She also lives in Toronto.

I recently read Cordelia Strube’s Lemon, about a maladjusted 16 year old whose best friend is raped at a party, during which Lemon is also sexually assaulted. They don’t report it. Her best friend is wrecked, and Lemon attempts suicide. It shattered my heart. I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s not going away.

Young women are committing suicide after being victims of sexual abuse from coast to coast – Amanda Todd in BC and Rehtaeh Parsons in Nova Scotia are only the most recent and most publicly reported instances. Rape culture is pervasive and it needs to stop. Yet we have columnists – women columnists even! – who fail to recognize this.

Stacey May Fowles shared a newspaper article on the Scarborough Rapist in which a curfew was suggested for women. If women were found out late the police would not offer protection. “Don’t expect people to watch out for you,” Constable Vic Clark, who was, incredibly, a crime prevention officer for Scarborough’s 43rd Division. He goes on to say “‘It would be nice to think that you can go anywhere you like nowadays, but don’t put yourself in a vulnerable position.’” This is an article about  Paul Bernardo, prior to being caught. A man who sexually assaulted, raped and killed multiple women. He was active from 1987- 1990, and this article is from 1988.

In 1990, when model Kate Moss was 16 years old, she was told that if she didn’t remove her clothes for a photo shoot, they would never book her again. She locked herself in the toilet, and cried. Then went out and did the shoot. Alex Needham heinously defends the sexual extortion and exploitation of a young teenage girl as “taking one for the team.” This article appeared in the Guardian on November 1st, 2012.

When the news of the conviction of the two men in Steubenville who raped a 16 year old girl, posted pictures of it on social media sites, videoed their actions while in the background men can be heard laughing, CNN, ABC and other news networks were more concerned about the effect this would have on the rapists’ football careers, than the young woman they raped. This occurred across multiple venues in March 2013.

Last night, when I was cycling home from work after 10 pm in Toronto, twice cars coming towards me slowed down on quiet stretches of road to leer at me and honk. Mild in comparison? Maybe. But that’s just yesterday’s instance of sexual harassment. You know, the kind of every day thing every woman experiences on a regular basis. (For more, see Rant: Things are not ok.)

You can tell yourself rape culture doesn’t exist, but don’t expect to convince me.

Recently my sister and I played a fun game of “do kids still say…” with two teenaged cousins. Wait, did I say “fun”? I meant depressing.

I’m not yet thirty, but apparently I’m old enough. In a scant ten years, the lingo has changed. Apparently kids no longer used “taxed” for “steal”. Nor do they “teef” things. The words they do use these days have slipped right out of my head.  The cool kids (are there still cool kids?) speak a language foreign enough that I can’t pick it up as easily these days.

Language has a shelf life, by the time it’s in print it may already be dead. So how does one keep current? For modern and regional slang, I’ve found UrbanDictionary.com to be a great help. Even in trying to understand my husband, who uses (now largely dated) English slang, which, after more than ten years, can still surprise me.

Perhaps Anthony Burgess had the right idea with A Clockwork Orange – invent your own slang, and go from there. It’s difficult to seem dated when no-one’s ever said what you’re saying.

Then again, a friend of my cousin’s seems to be a girl after my own heart. She actively looks up old, obsolete phrases and slang and uses that instead. I think that’s pretty nifty, because that’s what I did that in high school. Jeepers, I still do that.

Though I did learn how to snail, turkey, and jellyfish a few months ago. Maybe there’s hope for me yet?

I took this picture on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011, during a Books & Martini Night with a few friends (before martinis, I might add), on Bloor Street West, somewhere between Bathurst and Spadina.

My first theory was that at some point in 2012 I will travel back in time to whenever the sidewalk was laid, and inscribe my name and year. Though Brendan Myers suggested on Facebook that it may be the pavement itself that’s travelling back in time. Mind blowing – I know.

Over the course of many martinis various alternative theories emerged, but either way, it seems clear that time travel will happen. Has happened.

Why such a short message, a mere eight characters? What could it mean? Is it a warning, or a promise of awesome things to come? Will we finally get flying cars and jetpacks? Gosh, I hope so.