it's not you it's me

I think I'm going to take a break from blogging here for a bit, focus on some other endeavours. In the meantime, I finally found a way to share this slideshow I made with you. The song is "Encountering the Crippled Elephant" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

Best...

wordless wednesday

you

my interpretation of "Moving, Shaking" by the Great Lake Swimmers.

A coworker called me kind today. I don't think anyone has ever called me kind, certainly not at work. Neurotic, confident, warm, smart, assertive, annoying -- sure. But kind? It's unprecedented. And really nice.

the deal

OZ: We should figure out what kinda deal this is. I mean, is it a-a gathering, a shindig or a hootenanny?

CORDELIA: What's the difference?

OZ: Well, a gathering is brie, mellow song stylings; shindig, dip, less mellow song stylings, perhaps a large amount of malt beverage; and hootenanny, well, it's chock full of hoot, just a little bit of nanny.

XANDER: Well, I hate brie.

Yesterday we had a party. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of a deal it was. I mean, we had brie (which I actually don't really like but lots of other people do) and the song stylings were relatively mellow, but we also had several 2-year-olds so it was chock full of hoot. And there were definitely a few malt beverages.

It was a last-minute affair; I just decided to have a party on Friday when I saw the nice forecast for yesterday. If we'd had more notice I would have invited some bloggy peeps.

All summer long, my goal was to have a housewarming party before the end of September so we could enjoy the yard. This house really felt like a party house, like Burt Reynolds's house in Boogie Nights. But the issues we've had since we got possession kind of put a damper on my party visions, and I started to wonder why I wanted to have a party so badly anyways. I mean, who needs a party when you have seven seasons of Buffy to watch?

Unfortunately, the party segregated early on. None of my old friends have children, and the new friends do so they split along old/childless:new/childful lines. Which meant that I couldn't really catch up with the old friends OR get to know the new folks. After a while, the only old friends I have with kids showed up and provided a bit of a bridge between the groups. I felt all angsty about it last night after everyone left, but maybe that's just always how the host feels? Like they didn't get a chance to visit with everyone? And maybe people just have a good time anyways. That's the view I'm choosing to take.

As usual when I'm in the room, Myers Briggs came up. And you know what? They were almost ALL idealists (NFs) like me. Idealists are pretty thin on the ground at my work -- I only know of one, who is of course great to work with. No wonder I feel a bit out of place there. But discovering all the idealists I invited to the party made me realize that perhaps it's not so much that I need to make new friends, as that I have to reconnect with old friends.

The evening wound up pretty early in party terms, which was just fine with me. [Spoiler alert for potential Buffy watchers.] Earlier in the day it suddenly struck me that Buffy and Angel can never really be together again, now that they know what will happen if he ever experiences true happiness. How awful is that?!? Anyways, after everyone left and Swee'pea settled into bed, I popped my latest Buffy dvd in. It skipped so much I gave up on it. I'd rather wait until my new friend at work can give me her copies on Monday than miss any crucial scenes that involve Angel. Yes, I know I have a problem.

morning

On the way to work and daycare is a mansion. It’s newer but blocky and traditional, with a grand estate-esque stretch of grass around it. I’ve been meaning to take a picture of it for the last few days because its manicured lawn features no less than four signs (two large and two small) in support of our local Conservative candidate, all lined up in front of its attached, four-car garage. Somehow that image just says it all…

Anyways, this morning when we walked by there were a bunch of trucks parked in front of it and large men in jeans and black t-shirts going in and out of them: a film crew. Amid all that activity sat one lonely figure in a folding chair next to the sidewalk, hunched against the September chill and looking decidedly like Not a Morning Person. He was dressed all in black, and his hoodie was pulled low revealing only dark sunglasses and a reddish goatee, individual hair glinting in the morning sun like dew-covered blades of grass.

Yesterday our house was so cold, I finally relented and turned on the heat. It stank and made me sneeze but it was preferable to the kind of cold I’m pretty sure that dude experienced this morning. I’m really starting to hate our house, but I hate the idea of selling and moving again even more. And the location is growing on me with every walk to and from work. I’m shocked that door to door to door only takes about 10 minutes longer than it did with the car at the other daycare.

if you've ever thought about buying my work

Now may be a good time, especially for you lucky Americans.

Imagekind has a great new promotion until September 23, 2008: 20 percent off all custom frames. It also just so happens that all my images get free ground shipping in the US until the end of September, so now is a GREAT time for Americans to buy my stuff. Sadly, since my galleries at peripheral vision aren't working, you'll have to browse my images over at my Imagekind galleries.

To take advantage, type promo code FALL2008 in the promotion box at checkout. This from Imagekind: "Promotion expires September 23, 2008 at 10pm PDT and cannot be combined with any other promotion code. Limit one order per person. Promotion code must be used at time of checkout to apply. Your order must be placed during the promotional period to qualify for this special pricing offer. Discount promo applies to custom frames only."

transition

Yesterday was Swee’pea’s first day at the new daycare. When he woke up, he looked out the window and announced, “The sun’s up! I’m going to my NEW school!” And that’s pretty much how the day continued. No tears when we said goodbye, no breakdown when I picked him up – in fact, he didn’t want to leave. He was most pleased to get to wear his new indoor shoes with yellow dump trucks (NOT big tractors – our friend already made that mistake and was promptly corrected). This morning, our separation was once again a non-event.

Everything about the new daycare is better than the old one, not just its location. The teachers just seem so much more enthusiastic and focused. As soon as we walked in, his teacher asked for a hug immediately, and Swee’pea obliged, which is highly unusual. But it occurred to me afterward, that it was a great thing for his teacher to do. It sends a clear message to Swee’pea, that she is someone he can attach to, and doing it while Sugar D and I were still there, also tells him that it’s not a competitive attachment (please forgive the psychobabble: I’ve been reading Hold Onto Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté).

When I went to pick him up yesterday, his other teacher immediately started raving about what a great day he had, how cute he is, how laid-back he is, how chatty he is, how he even participated in circle time and started to show some interest in the other kids. The teachers just seem more satisfied and engaged. Another bonus is that some of the teachers do private babysitting at people’s homes – date night here I come!

I also like that they mandate parental involvement so you can build some community. I’ve already recognized several of the kids in his class as belonging to people I already know and often work with directly, and it’s allowed me to reconnect with two friends I’ve lost touch a bit with. And I haven’t even mentioned the morning walk across campus, by the grazing horses and cow barns… I hate to jinx us, but so far so good with the transition. What a relief.

On the Buffy front, I’m in trouble. I just discovered I’m running a marathon, not a sprint as I’d previously thought. My video store only has three seasons, so I assumed that’s all the seasons there were. I did think it was a bit strange that it developed SUCH a following in only three seasons, but I figured it was just one of those things, like the Caramilk secret. I figured I could finish the series in another couple of weeks, and then my obsession would relax and I could get back to normal life. But this morning I was told there are, in fact, SEVEN seasons. Now I have months ahead of me, and Amazing Race, Survivor, Grey’s Anatomy, House AND SYTYCD Canada (has anyone else been watching? The calibre of dancers makes me proud to be a canuck – but that’s for another post). There’s no way I can juggle Buffy with all those shows, not to mention two upcoming photography workshops, and that miniscule task called motherhood (and partnership for that matter but that always seems to be an afterthought these days).

On top of that, my latest disc started skipping and finally crapped right out last night. My video store is the only store in town that carries Buffy and they don’t have a buffer to try to fix the disc. A coworker of mine has a friend who owns the whole collection on dvd, and she’s going to bring me the disc in question tomorrow – but what about tonight??? I must watch Buffy every night! I’m getting twitchy just typing this… Fingers crossed I can get my hands on some more Buffy before I get into the really serious withdrawal symptoms.

step AWAY from the Buffy

I'm devastated. (I'm assuming I'm the last person on earth to watch Buffy but if you haven't seen it AND you're thinking about maybe watching it one day - SPOILER ALERT.)











I've been watching Buffy pretty obsessively, two, sometimes three episodes every night. The thing that keeps me starting a new episode, even when I'm so tired my eyes are watering, is - I'm ashamed to admit - primarily Angel. He had me at hello. Those deep longing gazes from delicious brown eyes, the tortured soul (Oh, I am SUCH a sucker for a tortured soul)... I think I fell for him as badly as Buffy did.

When he was about to go away to take the Judge's arm off to the ends of the earth, I was all, quick, have sex! You don't know when you might have the chance again! And then he gave her the cladagh ring (after I went to Scotland that became my number one teenage fantasy, a boy giving me a cladagh ring to match the one he was already wearing, heart pointed inward), and then he jumped in the water after her... I cried for a good chunk of that episode, I'm not sure why exactly. I'm thinking it had something to do with the unrelenting rain and spiders seeking shelter and just generally feeling trapped (and yes I feel stupid for whining about a little rain when Hurricane Ike just flooded Texas and Louisiana).

And then Angel lost his soul and I really lost it. Not so much that he turned bad, I kind of thought that might happen, but that it was because he experienced true happiness? With Buffy? The irony gets me even now.

It's ridiculous. It's like all I can think about, wondering if it's at all possible that Angel might have his soul restored. Knowing that he got his own spin-off series, and that Morrigan thought it was funny, I'm trying to figure out which would be more entertaining: totally evil heartless vampire or vampire with a conscious? At this point, I'm just holding onto the hope that since his soul was retrievable once for the gypsy, it's still out there somewhere, whole. Right?

In the meantime, there is Oz. And really, he's got a lot more personality than Angel.

I've been playing my wallow music on repeat for days now (so I know it's not just Angel): Great Lake Swimmers are my new favourites ("Moving Shaking" is SO haunting) but since I only have a few songs by them I've been forced to branch out. Now it's Cold Play. What's your favourite wallow music?

Real Estate Lesson Number One:

Every house is a money pit, not just the cheap ones. So if you thought you could afford a more expensive house because you wouldn't have to fund costly renovations and repairs, think again.

* * *

The young guy who cleaned my ducts last week came back today with experts, to see if there was anything more they could do to eliminate the no-good, horrible, very bad mouldy smell. I was suddenly struck by how very good-looking the Duct Guy was. Sure, I'd noticed last week that I was cracking nervous jokes and he was laughing heartily at them, but he's really good-looking, complete with five o'clock shadow, not-too-coifed fauxhawk, and bright blue eyes. I couldn't look at him today. And all I could think about was how I couldn't look at him -- of course that's a much easier topic to contemplate than the FUCKING HUGE STINKY LEMON of a house we've just saddled ourselves with.

* * *

When we first looked at this house, its lack of a basement was a serious hurdle for me. But then I went back to our (old) basement -- nearly dirt floored, damp and smelly itself -- and realized that having no basement could actually be a selling point. As we sorted through all our stuff in the basement, all the stuff we'd forgotten we had, stuff that got damaged by the damp, completely obsolete stuff, as we swept the gobs of cobwebs down and I nearly died sneezing, the one thing that kept us going was the fact that we would never again have to deal with such unpleasantness.

WRONG. Now we just have to deal with it in our living space. And we have to figure out something soon, because it's getting colder and the stench is fucking awful when the furnace is on.

disappearing

"I fell for the American dream, female version, hook, line, and sinker. I, as many young women do, honest-to-god believed that once I Just Lost a Few Pounds, somehow I would suddenly be a New You, I would have Ken-doll men chasing my thin legs down with bouquets of flowers on the street, I would become rich and famous and glamorous and lose my freckles and become blond and five foot ten. I would wear cool quasi-intellectual glasses and a man's oxford shirt in a sunny New York flat and sip coffee and say Mmmm and fold my paper neatly and He would come up behind me and look at me with an adoring gaze. I would swing sexily into my red coupe, and the wind would blow through my hair as I drove into some great big city, stepping off the elevator and striding (with a feminine but authoritative step) into my office where everyone would be impressed with my every feminine but authoritative word. In the evenings I would go home and make magical gourmet meals and eat three bites, and He would look at me in the candlelight and I would be a superwoman 1980s goddess, yes indeed. As soon as I left my hometown and lost a few pounds."

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a book at my local used bookstore. I didn't know I was looking for it, but it pulled me in so thoroughly, I finished it in a weekend. It was called Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher. Partly it hooked me in a train wreck kind of way: I couldn't look away from its horror. But also, if I'm honest with myself, I identified with a lot of what Hornbacher said. I've never had an eating disorder, but I think most women in North America have disordered eating and fucked-up body images. Hornbacher is an extreme example, but she makes it pretty clear that, as a culture, we're pretty obsessed with thin.

When I was at the peak of my illness and anxiety, I didn't eat much. At one point I was down to only a very few 'safe' foods that I could eat - foods that wouldn't make me sick. I could only eat in strictly prescribed situations and times, mostly at home. Although I wasn't motivated by weight loss, I did lose weight. I got angry when people congratulated my weight loss, because, intellectually, it wasn't something to congratulate -- I was sick. But I secretly enjoyed being thin. I enjoyed that when I laid on my side, I couldn't let my knees touch each other because they were so bony. I enjoyed my jutting hip bones. And I remember times when hunger pangs meant power, they were good - they meant I had nothing in my stomach to piss out my ass, that I would be safe for a little longer. Hornbacher also enjoyed the emergence of her skeleton and the power that she wrought over her body, the power she felt in hunger.

* * *

"And when you decide you are tired of being alone with your sickness, you go out seeking women friends, people who you believe can show you by example how to eat, how to live -- and you find that by and large most women are obsessed with their weight.

It's a little discouraging."

* * *

"Now that I think of it, most of the women I worked with talked about diet and weight."

* * *

The cafeteria at my work offers several varieties of yogurt for sale. However, they are ALL zero-percent fat, the kind with ingredient lists the size of the container, all those ingredients to make up for the fat. I prefer my yogurt with more fat and fewer ingredients.


* * *

"Women use their obsession with weight and food as a point of connection with one another, a commonality even between strangers. Instead of talking about why we use food and weight control as a means of handling emotional stress, we talk ad nauseum about the fact that we don't like our bodies. When you decide not to do that, you begin to notice how constant that talk is."

* * *

I work in a woman-dominated field. Most of the women I work with are either dieting or actively managing their weight. Most of the time I don't participate, but occasionally I'm drawn into discussions. And several times various women have indicated an assumption that I must want to lose weight, that I'm struggling. Often the assumptions remain unspoken but they hang in the air, in a moment of silence, or a pointed question about my wedding photo - when did you get married? (When were you last thin?)

Yes, I'd like to lose some weight, I'd like for my body to become familiar again. But my self-worth isn't tied up in it. And I resent that others assume it is. And I'm just as willing to just accept my new(ish) shape as I am to try to change it. Frankly, diets scare me.

* * *

"When a study was done on a group of young, healthy men whose daily caloric intake was cut to just under a thousand calories, they began to: stash food surreptitiously, talk about food constantly, chew gum and mints perpetually, read recipes for dishes they couldn't make. As the study went on, they were frequently caught digging through garbage cans, sneaking into the hospital kitchen to binge. They began to purge, and -- interestingly enough -- they became incredibly worried about their weight, the shape of their bodies, and began to diet. They worried about getting dirty, got disgusted with their own biological functions, and didn't want to touch food anymore."


* * *

In university I once wrote a paper for Women's Studies comparing eating disorders and plastic surgery with female circumcision in other cultures. I got a lousy grade but I still stand by the comparison. A woman I know recently asked me if I noticed a difference in her skin. I looked closely, but couldn't really see any difference, or at least not one I felt comfortable noting. She confessed that she'd gotten a chemical peel and it really, really hurt, but she couldn't see a difference. And if there wasn't any difference, she definitely wouldn't do it again because it was so painful.

I reacted all wrong. I felt so badly for her, for how awful it must feel to hate your body so much that you would choose to corrode your face just to reduce your pores and look younger. But I didn't convey my compassion very well... instead I ranted about how that is self mutilation, how nobody seems to realize how violent plastic surgery is. How you don't solve body image problems by changing your body, how that just pulls you in further, pulls you into more and more extreme acts against your body.

I think the only thing she learned from the conversation was to never again tell me about any treatments she gets. About a week later, I did notice her skin seemed smoother, and again a few weeks after that. I guess it's working for her.

* * *

"Starving is the feminine thing to do these days, the way swooning was in Victorian times. In the 1920s, women smoked with long cigarette holders and flashed their toothpick legs. In the 1950s, women blushed and said tee-hee. In the 1960s, women swayed, eyes closed, with a silly smile on their faces. My generation and the last one feign disinterest in food. We are "too busy to eat, "too stressed" to eat. Not eating, in some ways, signifies that you have a life so full, that your busy-ness is so important, that food would be an imposition on your precious time. We claim a loss of appetite, a most-sacred aphysicality, superwomen who have conquered the feminine realm of the mind. And yet, this maxim is hardly new. A lady will eat like a bird. A lady will look like a bird, fragile boned and powerful when in flight, lifting weightless into the air."

* * *

In high school, one of my best friends was anorexic. She grew fur over her cheeks and arms while the hair on her head fell out in clumps and left bald patches. Her eyes were sunken and hungry-looking; she watched us eat like some kind of predator but I mostly only saw her eat apples. She ate them down to nothing but seeds and a stem.

I remember a girl in my chemistry class commenting that she wished she could be as thin as my friend. My telling her how sick my friend actually was didn't seem to revise her opinion. And, much as I never admitted it, there was a small part of me that, separate from worrying her heart would just quit, kind of admired how good her Guess jeans looked on her skinny arse.

* * *

"This is one of the terrible, banal truths of eating disorders: when a woman is thin in this culture, she proves her worth, in a way that no great accomplishment, no stellar career, nothing at all can match. We believe she has done what centuries of a collective unconscious insist that no woman can do -- control herself. A woman who can control herself is almost as good as a man. A thin woman can Have It All."

* All italicized text is from Wasted.

on vampires and cable guys

Wow, has it really been more than a week since I last posted? I've been trying to work on a thinky post, but as usual it's not really coming together. In the meantime, since we haven't had cable (I'm at home waiting for the cable guy as I type - a week and a half after the last appointment that the cable guy ducked out on me), I finally rented the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I'm totally getting sucked in. I've only finished six episodes, but I'm lovin' it, especially Angel.

****

So Mommy C has tagged me for a meme. Yippee! It's been forever since I've been tagged and I love myself a good meme. This one's a challenge though. Six unspectacular quirks. First off, after two years of blogging, I think I've already put all my quirks out there. Second, it seems to me that all quirks, especially mine, are spectacular by their very definition. But really, I just don't think I have any quirks left to mine. So instead, I will give you six unspectacular things about the new house.

1) The duct cleaner is currently cleaning our ducts, and there is a lot of poo in them. Mouse droppings, which I knew about, but also something much larger. I fear raccoons have been inhabiting the six-inch space between the concrete pad and the floor. Ok, that one's actually kind of spectacular in a horrible, horrible way. I'm trying to not think about it.

2) The dishwasher is great. We've never had a dishwasher before, and I can't tell you how warm the evenings of its grunting and swishing make me feel. Oh the warm and loving sound of dishes being washed that don't require hands, either mine or Sugar D's.

3) The driveway. Unlike our neighbours, we don't have a garage. We do, however, have a double-width driveway, and with our friend's car, it is SUCH a luxury to be able to fit both cars in the driveway. Not only do they fit, but I don't get scratched or soaked by the neighbour's shrub that never gets trimmed.

4) The den. I love having a separate room for the tv, so we have to go out of our way to watch it. (Of course, it helps not to have any cable, so we'll see how we do on this once cable is installed.)

5) The light is pretty spectacular, and I can see I'm going to have lots of fun with my camera.











6) Ok so I was starting to get panicky that there was only a half-hour left of the cable guy's appointment and maybe the phone had run while I was out meeting the duct cleaner or the time I peed and forgot to take the phone with me (as opposed to the time I peed and TOOK the phone with me). So I called Rogers to find out what was up. Guess what?!? Apparently the hooked up the cable a few days ago. Apparently they don't ACTUALLY need you to be there when they do it. What if I hadn't called? When were they planning to tell me that everything was a go? On the plus side, they're giving us free PVR rental for a year to make up for all the hassle. Wanna know how I got it? I said, "I know you're personally not responsible for this but your company's customer service TOTALLY sucks and it makes me want to just switch to Bell. Their service probably sucks too, but I bet they would at least call to cancel a fucking appointment."

just when I thought suburban alienation was a cliche not worth exploring...

Yesterday, my motivation to continue unpacking never returned. I guess I needed to rest a bit after all the craziness.

In the afternoon, I decided to explore my new neighbourhood, and I took my camera.

I wanted to photograph some of the differences between this neighbourhood and the one we left. The one we left was the original working class neighbourhood, where most of the houses were about 100 years old on very narrow lots. This one is not precisely a suburb, since it's so central, but it's definitely 50s suburban: huge lots, almost entirely bungalows. It wasn't until I got home and saw all the photos that I realized the number one difference: built-on garages.

















I saw barely anyone walking. A few people worked in their yards, but more than anything was a ubiquitous twitching of front curtains and heads peeking through windows only to withdraw as soon as I tried to look friendly or determine for sure what that movement was.

The most twitching by far occurred at the last house of the above series. The little old lady who lives there even came out and asked me suspiciously what I was doing. She was hard of hearing and I had to repeat myself quite a few times. "I like your house. I took some pictures."

"But what are you going to DO with them?!?"

"I'm just an artist..."

"Who are you?!?"

"I just moved into the neighbourhood. My name is Cinnamon Gurl. I live over on ___ street."

So we chatted, but her suspicion never really left her.

My first stop had actually been the United church that I once thought was heinously ugly in its modernity, but which now I quite like.



Behind it in the parking lot were a few sheds and an institutional-looking building behind it. As I shot, a few kids rode through the background on the bikes, so I shot a bit longer (you can just make out one of them - the white speck between the sheds). They noticed me immediately, so I smiled and waved, then turned around. The shot wasn't really working.



Halfway across the lot, one of the kids called out, "What do you want?" I wasn't sure they were talking to me, so I turned around, gestured questioningly to myself and said, "Me?" They said nothing and turned around.

Later, they caught up to me. "Excuse me," one of them said. "We were just wondering why you were taking pictures of us."

"I'm just an artist," I said. (I've never called myself an artist before but it seemed like it would make for fewer questions than photographer.)

"Oh, sorry" they said, like I had some horrible affliction.

This neighbourhood is so suspicious! In my old neighbourhood, people asked what I was shooting, but it was out of curiosity, not to uncover my nefarious plot to harm them in some way. The whole rest of the day I felt like this is a horrible neighbourhood, and I don't belong here. What the hell were we thinking?!?



I also discovered that the institutional building behind the church was an abandoned school. It's so sad that they're doing away with the small local schools and bussing kids to mega-schools.



My town is in the midst of a by-election, which makes it a good time to get a sense of the neighbourhood. As much as I'm trying to curb my judgments, I still judge people by their politics. My old neighbourhood was full of NDP and green party signs. They were everywhere, with only a single liberal sign on my street.

Here, there are virtually no signs. I guess these people are just apathetic. Either that or they have a bizarre need for privacy -- who KNOWS what people could do if they knew which party you supported! Especially in this day and age with the whole Internet thingie. Of the signs that are here, most of them are liberal and conservative, with the odd renegade NDP and green party sign.

I'm still really torn myself. I love the NDP candidate as an individual, but the thought of being the first riding to elect a green party MP is pretty tempting.







(those campaign shots were all from a few weeks ago)

almost back in the land of the living

I'm sitting in our new house, boxes still all over, Death Cab for Cutie on the speakers, and I'm not sure what to do. Swee'pea's in daycare and Sugar D's back to work. There is lots of cleaning and unpacking to do, but we took care of the high priority rooms yesterday (kitchen and bath), Swee'pea's room we did Monday.

I really just want to vent, but I have no real-life friends outside of work, and I'm not at work.

**************

Dear Rogers,

Just a thought, but when a customer moves to a different house, you might want to consider NOT depending on the phone to find out whether the customer is at the new house at the agreed-upon time for the cable hook-up. You might want to try, oh I don't know, KNOCKING? on the door? before deciding that the customer hasn't shown. Because sometimes Bell fucks up too and the phone may not be working. The dead air that comes after you dial the number? That's a pretty good indication that something may be a bit off with the phone rather than the customers not being at the house.

We were here! Waiting! For all three hours of the stupid three-hour window you force customers to hang around waiting for a hook-up.

If you do insist on depending on the fickle phone lines, you may just want to keep a few appointments open every day, just for the people who took two fucking weeks off work for this g-d move (why did we want to do this again?!?) and who may not want to wait a further two weeks just to have to leave work for ANOTHER 3-hour window of sitting at home waiting for the cable guy.

The thing is, you never know what other shit your customers may be dealing with during a move, things like -- hypothetically of course -- dangerous electricals that the home inspector didn't catch, mould, an automobile accident and an insurance company that made a "small mistake" when they didn't include the driver and part-owner of the car on the policy (woops), a mistake they're fixing but which is taking a long time to fix since the driver was out of the country for a week right before the move. Oh - and maybe a broken phone line, which got fixed but apparently the maintenance package they hosed the customer for doesn't come into effect for 15 days so they have to wait to get the broken JACK fixed. You never know if your unwillingness to knock on a door might be the straw on the poor camel's back and might cause ordinarily reasonable people to yell at your poor customer service reps at 7:30 in the morning. Of course, the 20-minute hold time didn't help either.

Next time, please just knock?

Sincerely,
Sin

***********************

For Swee'pea, the move has been effortless, as Mad predicted. We had to stop at the old house for a few things after we picked up Swee'pea, and he yelled, "No! New house!" He stayed in the car and had no interested in seeing the old house. Bedtimes aren't quite so smooth and he's cried a few times in the night, but mostly he's slept in his own bed. He loves it here. It helps that when my parents babysat on the weekend, they spent most of it here, my dad fixing stuff and my mom cleaning a bit in between Swee'pea chases, so he's totally familiar. I love my parents.

Over the summer, I met two different women at the park who have boys almost exactly the same age as Swee'pea and who live in our new neighbourhood. They gave me their addresses and I'm wondering if a drop-in would be ok? I got the sense that they were kind of desperate to make friends nearby with young kids, since mostly the neighbourhood is full of old fogeys. But we didn't exchange numbers... what do you think? Should I wait until I have Swee'pea with me? Or should I go alone? I'd like some real-life friends...

closing ceremony

I'm always a bit sad when the Olympics close, especially the most recent few. For whatever reason, we've had something momentous going on during each of the last three Olympics. In 2004, we got married about a week after the Opening Ceremonies, and we spent our honeymoon in a house in Tobermory. We'd brought our bikes and big plans for hiking and biking the Bruce Trail, but we only did that a few times before we succumbed to the allure of the Olympics. After weeks of wedding preparations, we needed some veg-out time, and we took it.

In 2006, the Winter Opening Ceremonies were playing on the little tv in our hospital room, as we packed up wee Swee'pea into a sleeper that was way too big for him (now impossibly small!). We needed the nurse's help to figure out how to put him into the carseat without breaking him. Once home, the Olympics kept me company through the long night feedings, and it was so nice to have good tv to focus my bleary eyes on. The Closing Ceremonies meant 3 am infomercials, before, finally - at six weeks - I just brought Swee'pea into bed with us and nursed him lying down forever more. "Move over, Sugar D," I said in the middle of one night. "He's comin' in!"

This past June, or maybe it was May, I commented to a coworker that although the last two Olympics had coincided with major life changes, this games would be uneventful, because clearly we didn't have anything significant on the horizon. Now, the Closing Ceremonies coincide with our last full day at this house.

I feel like I should take a moment to thank this house for its shelter, to honour the memories it now holds in its walls and floors. But I don't have the mental space, what with all the logistical details darting around my mind, all these things to remember. Don't forget the stuff in the shed, or the little castle slide in the backyard, or the tools in the basement. I'll have to label the pieces that are staying, and the furniture that's going with the rooms they're going to. I worry I'll regret not taking a moment to say goodbye.

I was 8 years old when I read Black Beauty. My sister gave me a beautiful, leather-bound edition with gorgeous illustrations for Christmas. And immediately I was riveted. But that book sort of broke me. I had to put the book down at one point for more than a week because every time I picked it up, I started sobbing uncontrollably again. It was in the middle of the scene when the old cavalry horse is left riderless in the battlefield, terrified and bewildered in the midst of such carnage. I empathized so strongly with what he must have felt, not having any instructions on how to get out of that chaos alive.

Other scenes from the book made me cry almost as hard, and they always involved horses being taken away from their friends without knowing in advance they were leaving. The saddest thing for me was not moving away or losing friends, but not having the chance to say a proper goodbye, not knowing that the last time you saw them was the last time you would ever see them. It's what makes me the most sad about death, the possibility that you may not get to say goodbye to the people you love.

Later in my life, break-ups that bothered me the same way, because you never knew that the last time you kissed or made love was going to be the last time ever. Or at least that's how it was with all of my previous relationships. I always wished for a do-over, just once, to know enough to savour it in the moment, this last taste of tenderness before it all goes to shit.

And I'm more than a little torn about tomorrow. The movers are coming while Swee'pea is in daycare and we'll no longer have access to the house after we pick him up. We've told him about the new house and he's excited to stay there, but I don't think he really gets it. And I doubt he'll really get it until it's too late to say goodbye. On the one hand, I don't want to put my stuff on him, but I don't want to screw him up the other way either.

I had a panic attack last night. It's been years since I had one. I've had a few panicky starts, but I've always been able to manage it and get the panic under control. Last night, I couldn't. It felt just like the spells I used to have nine years ago, back before I knew they were panic attacks. I thought I had some bizarre disease that, without warning, made me suddenly nauseous and shaky and increased my pulse till it was pounding in my ears.

I was worrying about some stuff in the new house, worried it will lead us to financial ruin (which I've never actually worried about before, strangely). (The new place smells mildewy in the front hall and dining room despite dehumidifying and airing out - and without a basement, we have no way to investigate the situation. I have one of two visions flitting around: 1) we all get sick and die from mould or 2) we lose all our money tearing the house apart to find the mould and sink into financial ruin. Please don't comment on this bit - we have a tiered action plan.)

I was thinking about how deeply Black Beauty affected me. I was trying to sort out how best to help Swee'pea through this transition, whether to keep him out of the movers' hair as originally planned or let him witness the physical process of moving homes to help facilitate the emotional process. But mostly I was utterly exhausted and unable to sleep. My muscles were all tense and I started to feel some gastrointestinal twinges. Then I felt like I was going to vomit. Or my head was going to explode with all the worries darting around. The intense fear made me suspect panic over food poisoning, so I did the things that usual help me resist emerging panic. But it didn't work. I just felt sick and scared and alone, and Sugar D was still packing the kitchen downstairs (yay West coast jet lag!) and I didn't feel like I could manage the stairs to get the company I needed. So I laid on the bathroom floor for a while until I felt well enough to go downstairs, then dozed in front of the Olympics, with occasionally screeches of packing tape behind me in the kitchen.

When we went upstairs, I realized that it was shortly after I read Black Beauty that any time I was overtired, I would become convinced that our barn was going to burn down in the night. I imagined the horses panicked and squealing in the barn all choking black and angry red and the vision was so clear I just knew I was having a premonition. I felt I had to stay awake so I could save the horses. I remember the first time my parents told me they would stay awake so I could sleep, and I was only a little angry to discover in the morning they had gone to bed after all, but not really because the barn was still standing, not a streak of charcoal anywhere. Last night, it struck me that those late night fearfests were probably my first panic attacks, or at least a precursor.

And I don't know where this post is going. Is it a treatise on panic and anxiety? A plea for advice on what to do with Swee'pea? A musing on goodbye and the Olympics? I really have no idea... except I have to keep packing.

I was a little concerned about how exhausted I was yesterday, when the real hard work is still ahead. Luckily, my mom had told me to take it easy, to just hang out in the new house and figure out where the furniture will go and sit in the backyard. So I did. I also ran a few errands, returning overdue books to the library, dropping off paperwork at Swee'pea's new daycare (starting date Sept. 15), getting a bit of cash to pay the hardwood installers to put the baseboards back on.

I read an article about Mandela's leadership style in Time magazine, while listening to South African pop accompanied by the roaring nail gun and whining saws of the floor installers. I was surprised to discover just what a strategist he is, but I guess that makes sense given that he accomplished the seemingly impossible. I think he must be ENTP. I think ENTP's make the best leaders. I know ENTJ's probably have a stronger urge to lead, but the J can rub people the wrong way and lead to hasty decisions. ENTP's get the benefit of the logic with the P to keep them open to new ideas and able to change track at a moment's notice. (My Myers Briggs obsession hasn't abated at all -- I've found myself on more than one occasion trying to figure out what types our new neighbours are based on their lawns and gardens.)

I read another article about the science of love and romance, which mentioned a study that discovered female strippes' average tips change depending on where they're at in their cycle. Apparently their tips average $70 an hour when ovulating, $35 an hour when menstruating, and $50 an hour when neither ovulating nor menstruating.

Ok... I can't procrastinate on packing any longer.

This Marriage

May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk,
this marriage, like wine and halvah.
May this marriage offer fruit and shade
like the date palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
our every day a day in paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
a seal of happiness here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
an omen as welcomes the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe
how spirit mingles in this marriage.

Kulliyat-i-Shams, 2667


Nine years ago today, around 2:30 pm, you reached into your breast pocket and pulled out a tiny scrap of paper. You blushed and stammered as you gave me an excuse for using the phone number on it. I know you hate it when I say that part about blushing and stammering, but it's important to me. It showed me you don't make a habit of giving your number to strange girls in stores, that I was somehow special.

I used to feel a mild guilt that I never wrote you a love poem in the following months the way I did for previous loves. I worried it meant it wasn't real, but enough time has passed now to know this is as real as it gets. I was just too busy being with you to write about it.

Four years ago today, around 2:30 pm, I walked towards you down an aisle of green grass (I remember I wanted to start our marriage when the clock was on an upswing). We spoke and heard beautiful words in a beautiful place. I never felt a moment of doubt or fear.

Anniversaries used to be important occasions to me. Now I see it's the year in between that matters. We've barely spent any time apart in the last nine years, less than 30 nights I'm guessing. If we had been separated during an anniversary before now, or before Swee'pea was born, I would have worried that it was a bad omen, that it foretold future separation. But the distance between us today (5000 kms?), just reminds me how strong our relationship is, and how strong we are individually.

Every time we lead up to you going away, I dread having to do everything on my own. But once you leave, I discover it's not your doing I miss but your being. I unlocked the door of our new house for the first time by myself, without blinking an eye. I am fine on my own, but boy I sure like having you around. It is good to be reminded so clearly that it is you, all of you, that I love, not just your hands.

Being with you has taught me so much about myself, about you, about compassion and how to be together. It makes me a better person. Many times over the last several months, I have reflected on how peaceful and loving and full of laughter our relationship is. Here's to many more years...

Thank you for the last nine years. Travel safely tomorrow.

Love...

Wordless Wednesday: Wish you were here

(Not an accurate representation of the current paint colour.)




(Note the lime green door - it's the back door but every single exterior door -- there are 4 -- is painted that colour.)












(this is the first time in many, many years that I've had naked toenails.)

On this day five years ago, I was painting kitchen cupboards in an empty house. St. Germaine was playing on a small cd player. The painting took much longer than I'd expected, and the blackout brought a welcome surprise. As a non-essential Ontario government employee, I was required to stay away from work. Oh, the hardship. That week let me finish painting the kitchen cupboards before we moved in. Sugar D still had to work, so I worked completely alone, and I enjoyed the rhythm and the solitude.

When I discovered the extra painting needed at the new house yesterday, I decided to take today off. With Swee'pea in daycare and Sugar D in California, I had visions of the same scene. Brush up brush down, dip in white paint... Too bad we've already packed the St. Germain cd. I loaded supplies into the car: some old tapes, a few cds still unpacked, a drink, a cup, a chair, a ladder, and all the painting stuff. My lawyer told me I'd probably be able to get the key at noon, so I duly called at noon. But apparently I chose the mortgage provider who's slower than everyone else, and suddenly my peaceful afternoon of painting has disappeared.

So now I'm sitting in the same house, only this time it's full of furniture, boxes, and cluttered lives, and my hands are on a keyboard instead of a paint brush. I'm listening to "Abrakadabra," and desperately trying to find some St. Germain. And my imagination is full of another house, all square corners and rectangles to this one's curvy trim and wonky dips.

in search of the perfect beige

I thought I had our bedroom colour chosen weeks ago. But it's been niggling at me that I just don't like the colour (Benjamin Moore's Waterbury Cream); it's too green. So yesterday, after Sugar D left for California, I decided to open it back up again. I have one day to decide, and today was my final walkthrough of the house. The winner? Benjamin Moore's French Toast (CC-224). I don't have time to second-guess myself... anyone have happy French Toast stories to share?

In less happy news, I discovered that I have to paint the baseboards. They have knots showing through. Not sure exactly when I'll find time to do that because I have only eight daycare hours before the hardwood installers come.

We also discovered more electrical work than we expected, thank to strategic placement of furniture. Oh well...

unprecedented

For four out of the last five nights, Swee'pea has slept through the night, all alone. That's two times two nights in a row. He has never, ever slept through the night in his own bed two nights in a row. It's such a treat to cuddle while awake, taking our time to reconnect and greet the day, instead of the nocturnal cuddles and immediate leap to consciousness.

You'd think I'd be Ms. Calm after all that uninterrupted sleep, but I am not. Last night, just before I fell asleep, I heard a jet fly overhead. It made that freaky whistling sound that I associate with plane crashes in the movies. For one irrational instant, I wondered if it was going to crash into our house and I felt a jolt of panic. But I caught myself: this is just because I'm stressed out. The more stress I feel, the more panic and anxiety I experience (AND the more ice cream and beer I consume). I have to remind myself that the world didn't suddenly just get a lot more dangerous.

Sugar D leaves first thing tomorrow morning for six days in California on business. I have a final walk-through of the new house on Monday afternoon and the electrician is coming to give us a quote on some work we need done before we move in. We take possession of the new house on Tuesday afternoon and I have one day to paint our bedroom, rip up carpet in two rooms, and remove the baseboards before the hardwood installers come. Sugar D comes home on Friday night, just in time for two days of intense packing and one day of intense moving. And that's just what I planned.

What I didn't plan was for Sugar D to crash the car yesterday while he parked it and I got a money order for the lawyer, right before our appointment to sign all the g.d. papers (this was after the whole daycare dilemma and tour -- which we have to decide on by Monday, also unplanned). Sugar D wasn't hurt at all (thank goodness!) and the other car wasn't damaged. But our car is looking a lot like toast. We just got a quote to repair it: $2000. Our insurance agent is unavailable until Monday so I can't find out what our insurance policy covers, what our deductible is, or what a claim like that will do to our premiums. So apparently I have to fit all that decision-making and coordinating in between all the other bullshit I'm dealing with next week. Of course it's not bullshit, but it's feeling just a touch overwhelming.

This morning at the market, I saw a guy from the drop-in centre. He's taken to hugging me hello, I don't know why. But we tend to see him a lot when we're out and about. Anyways, he's having to stay at the men's shelter while his wife stays at the women's because he lost job and they got evicted, all within days of each other by the sounds of it.

I'm feeling so overwhelmed, I almost bailed on the drop-in this afternoon so I could get more stuff done, but then I thought of that guy and wondered what he'd think if I didn't show up after he just saw me this morning. I imagined explaining my problems: my husband's going away and we're buying a big house and our 2006 Toyota needs to be fixed and I have to arrange insurance, and wah wah wah. Um yeah, a little embarrassing.

I can handle this week; I just don't want to. And we can delay the car fixing if we need to because we still have our friends' car. So I'm going to the drop-in momentarily.