You Know What Sh!ts Me?: The imbalance of freedom

Posted in Opinion, What Sh!ts Me by

People suck. They really do.

Let’s use this scenario as an example: you’re at a party and you have one bottle of premium lemonade. A stranger comes up to you and asks you for it, saying “Please, I’m so thirsty and cannot find a drink anywhere else” (you know, despite water being readily available nearly everywhere but bear with me). Being a kind and considerate person, you give the stranger your premium lemonade. The next day, you’re thirsty and you feel like a drink. You find someone with a bottle of premium lemonade and ask them for a drink. They say no and walk away. Unfair, right?

If that’s so unfair, how does an individual try and demand freedom if they’re not willing to give it themselves?

Don’t get what I mean? Let me give you a proper example that doesn’t involve fantasy lemonade. A black man who demands racial equality but hates gays and doesn’t want them to have the choice of getting married. A gay woman who demands gay rights but hates men and anything they decide to do. A free-spirited animal activist who wants animal equality but doesn’t think people are allowed to wear whatever they want.

Equality means accepting all colours, not just the reds, oranges and yellows.

Equality means accepting all colours, not just the reds, oranges and yellows.

In other words, people who demand freedom but don’t give it back.

It just stems from the basic rule “treat others how you would like to be treated”. If you want people to respect your freedom in choice and lifestyle, then you should respect others, even if you don’t agree with it.

I had a friend who was very passionate about gay rights: he, as a homosexual man, didn’t understand why people were blocking his right to marry his partner and why he felt discriminated against for who he chose to love. Fair enough right? Well, as vocal as this former friend was about gay rights, he was also equally vocal about how he didn’t like black people and openly discriminated against them. My reaction?

This picture is so relevant to life.

This picture is so relevant to life.

My argument with him was this: “I’m sorry but how do you expect people to respect you and accept you as a gay man if you’re not going to respect and accept a man down the street because he’s black? Where is the logic in that?” His response was simple: “If people don’t respect me for being gay, I don’t have to respect black people.” It is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever heard anyone say – ever. It’s like saying “If I don’t want to play tennis, why are other people playing tennis?”

News flash: there are other people in this world besides you.

My point, which I am going to reiterate here, is this: treat others how you want to be treated.

I’m not going to hate someone because they like rap music and I don’t. I’m not going to ignore someone because they choose to wear baggy trousers (as opposed to the painted on hot pants that I wear). It’s just stupid.

There are so many freedom fighters nowadays that are apparently striving for equality, but some of these people don’t even know what equality is.

End rant.

– by The Black Widow

Review: A Private Affair

Posted in Books, Entertainment by

Note to the reader: this book isn’t about a holiday on the beach like the cover suggests. At all.

If you’ve picked up this book (like I did) with the guise that it’s about a bunch of girls who meet on a tropical holiday resort and talk about boys and get into all sorts of drunken shenanigans… you would be wrong. In fact, the cover could not be any more misleading.

A Private Affair by Lesley Lokko is actually a story that follows four very different women with one very big similarity: they have been army wives or girlfriends at one point in their life. Samantha Maitland, a no-nonsense business woman who grew from ugly duckling to beautiful swan meets a mysterious army man on her holiday; Meaghan Astor runs away from her abusive home and finds solace in the handsome Australian army man Tom; Abby Barclay who grew up in an army home, is now the perfect army wife; and Dani Kingsley-Safo, the young and stunning Sierra Leonean with a dark past regarding a mysterious army man.

Misleading, right?

Misleading, right?

I’ll start by saying that I’ve heard some pleasant things about Lokko and her writing so I was expecting pretty good things by this book, especially because it is a very thick read. However, I was pretty let down and I was pretty disappointed by this book in general.

Besides the fact the cover is misleading, I just thought some of the scenes in the book very irrelevant to the overall storyline of the novel. The flashbacks for all four characters were to set their story and describe the type of person that they are, and most of it did that, sure. But some of the scenes were just pointless and some stories were told for no ultimate reason.

Regarding the characters, the only character I really connected with was Meaghan and that was because she’s Australian. The closest character I even remotely felt something for was Nick Beasdale. I didn’t feel a single spark with any other main character and thought they were bland. Dani was annoying and I genuinely resented reading her parts of the story; Samantha was a pain in the arse and fell for a guy straight away because he looked at her; and Abby was a selfish mutt. I would like to say why, but it’ll spoil the story. But that’s just my opinion.e

This book was really hard to get into and it took me well over three months to finally put the book down and declare it finished. Granted, there were some saving graces about the book (Meaghan and Tom’s cute relationship anyone?) but I thought the novel overall was rather uninteresting. I will say that it did shed some interesting light on a topic I had no prior knowledge on but wish I did: being an army wife. I never imagined it’d be as difficult or as lonely as this book had described and sympathised with Meaghan and Abby as they would go days or sometimes months without seeing their better half. It also gave a brief insight onto what it’s like in the army, and that to me was pretty great.

Wid-o-meter
Storyline: 5/10
Style of writing: 5.2/10
Overall: 5.1/10

The misleading cover may have put this result to bed but the disappointing storyline put the nail on the coffin. Being my first Lokko book, it is sad to admit that this is my first impression of her. But, alas, like a good reader, I won’t let that stray me away from reading her other stuff.

– by The Black Widow

The Lazy-asses guide to losing weight: the workout edition

Posted in Body, Health & Fitness by

Not to be confused with the lazy-asses guide to losing weight: the food edition, which will be posted at a later date.

Hi, I’m the Black Widow, and in the past three months, I have lost ten kilos. To some, that may be a walk in the park, but for me, that’s a whopping change. For my entire life, I have relied heavily on my metabolism to cut down my body weight and remain the trim little spitfire that I am, but it eventually caught up on me and I packed on a few extra kilos that weren’t necessarily wanted. Finally, after snatching a good deal with Anytime Fitness, I decided to shed that extra weight and return to my most fitting form.

I know some of you have read weight loss stories and thought “But these people have all the motivation and discipline in the world to achieve their goals, and I don’t. How will this work for me?” The solution is simple: me. I can honestly tell you that when it comes to physical exercise, I am one of the laziest mofos in the world. Usually, when someone starts going to the gym and they get into a regular pattern, they love going to the gym and can’t get enough of it. For me, after three months of regularly attending the gym, I still dread going to that metal clanging-and-banging hellhole.

Those are interesting coloured paperweights...

Those are interesting coloured paperweights…

To help others get fit and get into the shape they desire, I have compiled a list of steps that I personally took to help me achieve my weight loss:

Step one: Set a goal
I know it’s cliché to say this but a goal is needed if you’re even thinking of getting into shape. I set a goal as soon as I decided to go to the gym and it’s definitely helped me. When I am struggling to breathe as I run for my dear life on the treadmill, or my arms are about to snap off when I’m lifting weights, I think of my ultimate goal and picture it in my head… and it allows me to keep going. For at least another like two minutes or so.

Step two: Stay disciplined
After a few days of hitting the gym, you’ll feel really pumped and think “Yeah! This is for me!” but then you’ll gradually stop going until you realise you’re donating money to the gym. Don’t fall into this trap. If, for some reason, you feel yourself thinking “Hey, I don’t need to go tonight” or “I can do without the gym just this one week”, discipline yourself . You won’t achieve that goal if you skip a day or two. You’ll go back to the way you were if you miss an entire week. For me, if I keep this thought in mind, I will always go back to the gym: “If I miss the gym tonight, I won’t get to walk around the beach without a shirt on because people will think a whale has washed ashore and throw water on me.”

Step three: Stick to a schedule
In a similar light to setting a goal, planning a weekly schedule will keep you going. If you go to the gym with no real set plan in mind, you’ll just aimlessly wander around, pretending to use cardio machines and looking at your dumpy ass in the mirror and then go home. What did you achieve? Nothing. However, if you know that Monday is leg day and Wednesday is abs day, then you’ll know what to do, how long to do it and what’s up next. For me, I plan to go to the gym at least five times a week with three of those days being dedicated to specific parts of my body. If I miss a day, you can bet your sweet ass I’ll catch up with it next week.

Step four: Believe you can do it… the results will show
I had a really good week at the gym in mid-December. I had been hitting the gym really hard and felt great about myself. I stepped onto the scale and… still the same. Honestly, it shattered me a bit and I thought “I’ve been killing myself for so long and nothing is showing!” Like all good things in life, however, it’ll come to the patient ones who wait. Don’t let a bunch of numbers and results slow your efforts down. Stick to your plan and I can guarantee you the results will show themselves eventually. It also helps if a friend of yours stops and says “Hey, you’ve lost weight!” because then you’ll know that something is changing, and it’ll motivate you to keep going.

Now I’m sure there are plenty of other things you could do to maximise your efforts at the gym, but these four fundamental steps will prove vital in your journey to your ultimate weight loss destination. If a naturally lazy writer like me can get off my laptop and go to the gym (begrudgingly, of course), then I’m sure you can as well.

Of course, the other (bigger) half of weight loss is eating properly. Stay tuned as I tell you what I did to my diet which led to my weight loss.

– by The Black Widow

The Black Widow’s Bucket List

Posted in Lifestyle by

In celebration of my 22nd birthday, I’ve decided to publish my personal bucket list.

Before I had never really thought of having a bucket list. I thought my life was pretty great and didn’t really feel the need to go extreme and jump out of a plane or bungee jump off a bridge in New Zealand, but then I stopped to think of all the things I haven’t done.

How cute is this movie though?!

How cute is this movie though?!

I haven’t gone travelling (which will be rectified later this year).
I haven’t even left this country.
I haven’t been hiking at night.
I haven’t been part of an animal rights liberation protest.
I haven’t stepped foot in a wrestling ring.
I haven’t fulfilled my wildest fantasies.

So by the time I pass on – and if my palm is to be believed, I’m dying pretty early – I want to have accomplished at least 80% of this bucket list.

Alas, here we are:

The Black Widow’s Bucket List
[x] Attend a wrestling class and make a Beautiful People style entrance.
[x] Go skydiving, regardless of how much I hate heights.
[x] Attend an animal rights liberation protest, with my own sign.
[x] Go hiking at night.
[x] Travel across Europe by myself (and hopefully not be that naive traveller who gets their things stolen)
[x] Fill a Ute bed wtih pillows and blankets and sleep out under the stars.
[x] Abseiling, also despite my fear of heights.
[x] Perform a flash-mob like pole dancing routine OUTTA NOWHERE.
[x] Cycle through Central Park.
[x] Go (country) star hunting in Nashville.
[x] Go on a trip with a fake persona and back story and make it last for the entire duration.
[x] Volunteer at a soup kitchen.
[x] Organise and host a charity fundraiser for the local firehouse.
[x] Go on a hot air balloon ride… despite my fear of heights.
[x] Mud wrestle.
[x] Publish a novel.
[x] Go on a blind date.
[x] Take up capoeira.
[x] Live in a different country for at least six months.
[x] Fly first class.
[x] Dress up as the Bella Twins for a costume party (another person required).
[x] Tell Katy Perry she sucks.
[x] Change the world.

I encourage everyone to start their own bucket list and see what kind of whacky and crazy things they can come up with. A life not lived is not a life I want to live.

– by The Black Widow