...and sometimes why

With glowing hearts

2010-02-28T20:02:00.002-06:00

For some strange reason [*cough - Olympics - cough*], I'm feeling ridiculously patriotic.

They didn't just say it, they made it be

2010-02-14T00:00:00.008-06:00

Last night I hunkered down with a blanket and a bowl of popcorn and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. I certainly hadn't intended to. The Olympics hold little interest for me, but I was in Edmonton staying with a friend and she wanted to watch them.

I was amazed by how much I enjoyed the production. The music selections were fabulous. I loved the inclusion of First Nations and Inuit people and cultures. I teared up at the beautiful segment about my home, the prairies. I even felt a swell of pride seeing the Canadian athletes.

There were two highlights for me. The first was k.d. lang singing "Hallelujah." A. Mazing.

I wish the International Olympic Committee was allowing the sharing of videos because, although this is great, it doesn't come close to her performance in Vancouver.

The second highlight was Shane Koyczan performing "We Are More."

Again, there isn't the same energy in this recording as there was in BC Place, but you can maybe understand why by the end of the poem I had tears in my eyes.

Mostly? It was great seeing two people who don't look like Megan Fox or Brad Pitt completely fucking rock. Score one for the lesbians and one for the big people!

Still lives

2010-02-08T19:50:00.014-06:00

The days and nights are still. It's cold outside. Really damn cold. People do not go outside if they can help it. Cats sleep pressed up against the radiator. Orange extension cords snake from car to electrical outlet.

What do I do? I grab my camera, a white table cloth, and a bunch of things from around my apartment.

Still Life with Elephant

Sea Dog Matches

Still Life on Mars

Two Solitudes

My Grandpa's Cameras

Camera Detail 1

Camera Detail 2

The final photo I took was of two precious objects, both given to me recently for finishing all my cancer treatments. A friend gave me the figure and my mom had the pendant made for me. I'm DONE!

Still Celebration

Mama always said

2010-01-28T21:34:00.009-06:00

This morning I was lounging around in my PJs, playing on the internet, when my step-sister called to see if I wanted to meet her for lunch. Of course her lunch was in 1/2 an hour, so I had to race around to get ready before she picked me up. I'll spare you the details but there are three important points to note:

I decided not to wear my long underwear even though it was -25ºC
I'm not completely silly, though, and wore my warm winter coat
In all the rush, I left the house without going to the bathroom even though I had to pee

We had a lovely lunch with much chatting and eating of Vietnamese noodles. After we were done, I decided to take the bus to a nearby Extra Foods. I needed to pick up ingredients for a dinner party I'm attending on Saturday. (I'm making 2 things - prosciutto-wrapped stuffed shrimp and tiramisu - that I've never made before. Eep!) I wanted to run to the washroom before I left the restaurant, but a quick glance at the schedule told me there was not enough time.

I went to the grocery store, picked up what I needed plus a few extras, and then rushed back to the bus stop with seconds to spare. I did NOT want to have to hang around another half an hour for the next bus. The ride home was uneventful, if a bit awkward as I struggled to keep the bags from spilling their contents on the bus floor. I gathered all my things, got off at my stop, and started the 2 block walk to my apartment.

Well, I gathered most of my things. When I was half a block away from my door I discovered I didn't have my purse with me. My stomach sank as I realized I had left it on the bus.

Instinct #1: I have to call the transit office and ask if the driver found a purse.

Oops. Cell phone is in my purse.

Instinct #2: Okay, I'll go home, drop off my increasingly heavy groceries, and call from there.

Oops. Keys are in my purse.

Instinct #3: I'll wait around until another bus comes my way, ride it downtown to the transit office, and sort things out there.

Oops. Bus pas and wallet are in my purse.

I decided that contacting the transit office should come first, so I walked back to the 7-11 that is near the bus stop. I told the woman behind the counter what had happened and asked if I could use their phone. She said that was not a problem, but she had to dial for me. That's when the following conversation took place:

Woman: What is the number.
Me: It's 777-RIDE.
Woman: 7...7...7...what?
Me: R-I-D-E.
Woman: What?
Me: I don't remember the actual numbers but it spells out R-I-D-E.
Woman: (eying me suspiciously) Is this long distance?

Despite the communication failure, I managed to contact the transit office and receive the good news that the driver had found my purse. They had it in their office, which was a 15 minute walk away. No problem.

I realized, however, that my groceries had quadrupled in weight since I got off the bus and I needed to do something with them. I remembered that the front door to my building hadn't been closing properly lately and that I should be able to open it without my key. To my immense relief that proved true. I left the dry goods hanging off my apartment door and stuck the perishables out on the shared balcony. I was pretty sure no one in my building would take my groceries.

As I was leaving I discovered another problem. The trip home had tricked my bladder into thinking that relief was forthcoming. I had needed to go to the bathroom since before lunch and there was no way I was going to make even the short walk downtown to the transit office. There was no other option but to go across the back alley to the hospital and use the washroom there. I felt a bit goofy walking in, using the facilities, and then leaving, but I was desperate.

Thusly relieved, I walked downtown. I was thankful for my good sense to wear my warm coat but wished I had also worn my long underwear. The reunion with my purse was a joyful one and I discovered that, thanks to the good people that take Regina Transit, nothing was missing. Not my over-the-limit credit card, nor my six-year-old cell phone with the almost-dead battery, nor my favourite ballpoint pen. Treasures, all of them! And no one took a thing.

When I returned home I discovered all of my groceries exactly where I had left them, and the perishables weren't even frozen yet. I let myself into my apartment and scolded my cat Lucy for being a very useless kind of housemate in situations like this. She barely opened her eyes, meowed, licked her paw, and resumed her nap.

The moral the whole story is this: Your mother was right. Always go to the bathroom before you leave the house, because otherwise you might end up in the hospital. Or something like that.

There's no money in journalism

2010-01-26T17:31:00.006-06:00

Clark Kent brings the bus to a stop and opens the door. A man dressed in rags steps up, his pungent aroma rushing in ahead of him.

"I, uh, lost my wallet," the man says, narrowing his eyes as if daring Clark to contradict him.

"Sorry, sir," replies Clark. "I can't let you ride for free."

"But I got no money!"

Clark resists the urge to correct his grammar and instead says, "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to get off the bus, sir." His resolve is already weakening.

"C'mon, man. It's minus thirty out there!" says the man.

Clark heaves a sympathetic sigh and motions the man onto the bus with an almost imperceptible nod of his head.

As he pulls the Regina Transit bus back into traffic, Clark tries to remember how he ended up here. It all started when Lois took the job with that bank. No. Earlier. It started when he got laid off from the Daily Planet. Times were tough and they were cutting back on "superfluous costs."

Is it ironic that Superman is superfluous? He thinks it might be, but can't quite remember the definition of irony.

Yes, that's where this all began. He got laid off and money was tight. Lois was still working at the Planet - she escaped the hatchet, probably because of her gender (not that he's bitter). But rent kept increasing and bills piled up. He would call it pathetic and cliché if it wasn't his life.

Lois thought Clark should use his abilities to get them some extra cash, but he felt awkward asking the police for money when he helped them with a case, and he refused to do anything illegal.

That's when Lois took the job with the bank. "There's more money in PR and communications than journalism," she had insisted. She was right - she usually is - but it still wasn't enough. He tried to get other work but, because of the recession, no one in Metropolis seemed to be hiring. He kept up with the crime-fighting thing, but mostly just to keep in shape. His heart wasn't in it any more, and he spent most of his days eating Doritos and watching Dr. Phil and Oprah.

When the bank bought a small Canadian credit card company with headquarters in the middle of the prairies, they needed someone to head up Canadian communications. Lois jumped at the opportunity.

"Think of how great it will be to go somewhere that hasn't been hit as hard by all this crap!" Lois had said. "Rent will be cheaper, businesses will be hiring - we'll finally be able to stop living like this!"

And, again, she was right. Things are a lot better. They have a huge apartment downtown and pay one third what they payed Metropolis. He tried to get a job with the local daily, the Leader Post, but they weren't hiring. He writes a column in the Prairie Dog, but it's just a bi-weekly so he had to find something else.

That's how it ended up that Superman (well really Clark Kent) drives the #3 bus route in Regina in the middle of the Canadian prairies. He doesn't mind it. The wide open spaces take him back to when he was a boy growing up in Kansas. The people have that same friendliness, something that was missing in Metropolis, and he doesn't seem to feel the cold like Lois does. Sure, his crime-fighting has suffered a bit. After all, Regina isn't exactly seething with murderers and evil masterminds. However, he has stopped a number of robberies and has recently started tackling the inner-city gang problem. Yes, he likes it here just fine.

"Hey driver!" a woman shouts from the back, yanking him out of his reverie. "You missed my stop!"

"Sorry about that, ma'am," Clark says, his cheeks hot. He stops the bus and lets her off. Looking around, he tries to get his bearings and determine where he is on his route. He realizes he had been driving on autopilot for several miles. Kilometres, he corrects himself.

He spots Tim Horton's a block ahead and a smile spreads on his face. That is his favourite stop. If he arrives early enough, he gets to run in, pee, and grab a double-double and maple glazed for the road.

Clark hums tunelessly, pulls back into traffic, and forges on ahead.

Hey, Josh

2010-01-13T10:24:00.002-06:00

Sometimes we all need a reminder that people are wonderful.

On January 3, 2010, Josh Wilson decided to make a security lockdown in an airport a little less stressful for everyone.

My year

2010-01-02T22:50:00.006-06:00

Forget 2009 being the Year of the Ox - for me it was the year of cancer. My first appointment with my first doctor was in April and the very last day of the year was my 12th radiation treatment. But it was not all doom and gloom! I went on a few fun trips, saw some great shows, discovered I look alright with no hair, and reaffirmed that I have the best friends and family I could ever hope for.

Thanks to Madame Meow for this photo idea!
January: A trip to Winnipeg with shopping, beer, and visiting.
February: Layoffs at work mean lots of empty cubicles.
March: A trip to Calgary included a delicious sushi supper.
April: Sitting and waiting - in doctors' offices, at home, in shoe racks.
May: My lumpectomy.
June: The Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life, this time as a survivor.
July: Far too much fun on a houseboat trip on Shuswap Lake, BC.
August: The Regina Folk Festival.
September: Losing my ~~religion~~ hair.
October: The first snowfall.
November: Done chemo!
December: Radiation. Every. Day.

I resolve to not get attacked by cancer in 2010.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Can you feel the love?

2009-12-25T01:22:00.005-06:00

The scene: Nat and her family have just finished eating a delicious Ukrainian Christmas Eve dinner, complete with almost all twelve meatless dishes, each one made by either her mom or her grandma. Everyone is happy and stuffed and the table is cleared for games.

Mom: Let's play that card game Asshole!

Nat: Which card game, bitch?

I hope you have a fantastic Christmas filled with happy chaos or peaceful rest, whichever tickles your fancy.

I'm sorry, too

2009-12-20T22:16:00.003-06:00

My popcorn is judging me.

My fuzzy moment of the day

2009-11-30T10:33:00.002-06:00

This made me smile. (And made me a bit teary, if we're being honest.)

Some people's children

2009-11-19T00:00:00.003-06:00

I can't believe I said that my mom has a mustache. In front of a bunch of strangers. Strangers that included MLAs and the mayor! Oy. Some days I shouldn't be allowed out of my apartment.

My mom, stepdad, and I were at a banquet where my stepdad was one of the keynote speakers. As a result, we sat at a table with the other speaker, two MLAs, the mayor, and his wife. At one point the mayor addressed the room and, as part of his speech, talked about how November is Movember. He explained this meant that some men were growing mustaches for the month to raise money for prostate cancer.

When the mayor returned to our table, my stepdad complimented him on his speech and told him that I had just finished chemotherapy for breast cancer. The mayor asked how I was feeling and I told him I was feeling fine.

Unfortunately, I then went on to say that my mom had just shaved off the mustache she had grown to support me.

Sorry, Mom. Though...c'mon. That was funny.

How long can I blame stuff like this on chemo?

Health tip

2009-11-09T13:22:00.001-06:00

I apologize, but the boredom has set in and this site helped me pass several enjoyable minutes.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Individual results may vary

2009-11-03T19:43:00.012-06:00

I've told you briefly about my chemo experience, but I've received a few e-mails from people who are curious for more details. So here is, for better or worse, a blow-by-blow description of what I've been through.

I start preparing for chemo the day before. By that time it's the very end of my previous cycle and I'm feeling pretty damn good. It start the day with my pre-chemo doctor's visit. I take the bus down to the cancer centre and meet with my chemo oncologist. Actually, before I meet with her, a nurse takes me over to a station where she asks me my first and last name and my date of birth. She weighs me, takes my blood pressure, and then she ushers me into the doctors office where I wait.

When the doctor arrives, she asks how the previous cycle went. Did I experience anything new? Was anything worse? Do I have any questions? I go over how I felt and any concerns I have. This time around I asked her when I should get the H1N1 vaccine and she advised to wait at least 2 weeks after my treatment so that my white blood cells have a chance to normalize. (And before you yell at me, yes I'm getting the vaccination. I've done A LOT of reading and this is my decision.) The oncologist also gives me my blood work requisition form. It indicates all the things she wants tested before my treatment the next day. The whole consultation rarely takes longer than 15 minutes. Then I'm off to tackle the rest of the day.

I spend the day doing everything I'm not going to want to do for the next two weeks - washing dishes, cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming, doing laundry, getting groceries and other must-haves. I go to the lab to have my blood withdrawn (yay! another needle poke!) and I also try to fit in lunch or coffee with friends and a trip to the gym. AND I do it all while getting to bed at a decent time. I accomplished all of that yesterday. Go me! (Well, if I'm being totally honest, I didn't make it to the gym. But still, go me!)

I also have to start one of my drugs the day before chemo. It's an anti-nausea drug called dexamethasone and I have to take 2 tablets twice daily for three days (day before, day of, and day after). These pills make me hyper and super hungry, which might explain all the energy I seem to have to accomplish all my tasks. Also? One of the side effects of my anti-nausea drug is...nausea. No, really.

The next day I get up early enough so that I have time for a healthy breakfast. This morning I had an apple and instant quinoa with cinnamon, ground flax, hemp hearts, and rice milk. Way tastier than it sounds. Then my mom picks me up and we head to the hospital. With chemo, there is no urgency to get there early. As long as you arrive within a minute or two of your start time, it's all good. I check in the reception and they send me over to the chemo waiting area. There are regular chairs and recliners to sit on. Usually there are magazines to peruse but this morning the tables were empty, save for a note explaining that, due to H1N1, all magazines and pamphlets have been removed.

Within a few minutes Mom and I are called into the chemo area. Mostly it's a big room with a row of about 25 stations, each with it's own reclining chair, IV stand, cart, blood pressure machine, and other medical paraphernalia. There are also a couple of other hidden corners with 2 or 3 stations and some private room stations. I've been in the big room once, the hidden corners twice, and today I was in a private room. I think I like the big room the best - more to see and hear to keep me occupied.

After waiting at my station for anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes, a nurse walks over and tells me about my blood work. Mostly they've told me that my neutrophils are higher than normal and that indicates I've been fighting infection. They then take my temperature and blood pressure to make sure everything's fine, which, after that first time when I was sent home, it has been. So despite the high count we proceed. The first thing they do is insert the IV. This is my least favourite part. I have lousy veins that don't stick up above skin level. They have to heat these two bags of green liquid that looks suspiciously like lime Kool-Aid and then put the bags on my hands to get the veins to pop.

I should mention here that I always have to have needles and blood pressure done on my left arm. This is because of my lymph node surgery and the need to prevent lymphedema. So each time I've been poked for blood work and an IV insertion or been squeezed by the blood pressure cuff, it's always been on the left side.

This is what hangs out in my hand for 4 hours or so
Finally after 10 minutes of hand-heating and tapping, my bad veins are ready to be poked and prodded for the IV. The first time it took the nurse two tries but every time after that they've got it in one try. Thank goodness. Then they hook up my 2 pre-meds. These have names which I've forgotten but have the delightful function of helping the dexamethasone in the quest to make me not barf. The nurse also gives me the small white sedative to slip under my tongue and let dissolve like it's supposed to dissolve all my irrational white coat phobias.

After about 30 or 45 minutes of pre-med dripping, the machine beeps. This means that these bags are done and it's time for the next. Every time I hear the beep, whether mine or a neighbour's, all I can think of is "Fries are done. Better take them out." Flashbacks to my Burger King job, I guess. So the machine beeps until a nurse notices and he or she comes over and switches bags.

Before I'm given the first chemo drug, docetaxel, the nurse asks me my first and last name and my date of birth. If I pass that test, she hooks up the bag and I wait. And wait. The docetaxel takes about an hour and half to finish. During that time I have to have the blood pressure cuff hooked up to my left calf and the machine takes my blood pressure every 15 minutes. (It has to be hooked up to my leg. They can't use my right arm due to lymphedema, and they can't use my left arm or they'll cut off the flow of the drug up my arm. It's all very annoying.) Docetaxel has a tendency to raise blood pressure and create other nasty reactions. I've managed to escape with nothing out of the normal every time.

Then my fries are done and a nurse comes over to flush the line with a saline solution. That takes 5 minutes. About this time I really have to pee, so the nurse takes off my blood pressure cuff and unplugs my IV machine and I trundle off to the bathroom. I attempt to pee elegantly and gracefully while using only one arm and then I trundle back to my recliner.

Next, What's your first name? What's your last name? What's your date of birth? Phew, I pass. Then they hook up the cyclophosphamide. It only takes a mere 65 minutes to drip in, but by this time I'm feeling incredibly antsy. Remember a few paragraphs ago when I said the IV was my least favourite part? I lied. It's the waiting. The IV hurts for a bit but then it's done. Each time I went in, the treatment seemed to take longer and longer. But because of my small white sedative friend, I couldn't really concentrate on anything - I couldn't seem to read or do sudoku, and even having my mom read to me got sort of annoying. This last time the nurse could see I was getting restless, so she came over to turn the timer towards me - only 6 more minutes! Whew.

Then my fries are done again and the nurse comes in and flushes the line. Another 5 minutes. And then I'm free! The nurse removes the IV, presses a bandage on my hand, and provides me with a print-out of my next pre-chemo doc visit and my next chemo visit. She also hands me containers of ondansetron (anti-nausea), prochlorperazine (anti-nausea), and ranitidine (anti-heartburn) drugs.

Mom and I are finally free to leave for lunch or shopping or both because the day of chemo I feel fine. The truck doesn't hit until day 2 or (more often) day 3. Then comes the achiness. I've never felt anything like this before. It hurts to move. It hurts to not move. It hurst to breathe and blink. Ibuprofen makes it so that I can mostly sleep through the night, which is nice, but it's still close to unbearable. I also have a sore throat, a mouth that feels like I ate too many salt and vinegar chips, extreme exhaustion, and the most painful and annoying diarrhea I've had to endure. Too much information? Hey, you wanted to know. (Or at least a handful of you wanted to know.) All the nasty stuff lasts a week to a week and a half but the tiredness lingers. How much it lingers has increased with the treatments, so much so that it seems like I'm almost always tired.

(You may notice that nowhere in there did I mention barfing. That's because all those wonderful drugs they gave me through the process actually did their job with me and voila, no barfing. I still haven't broken my haven't-barfed-since-I-was-eight-or-nine-years-old streak!)

But enough about the bad stuff. Why am I telling you all this now? BECAUSE I'M DONE! I had my last treatment today and now chemo, she is no more! I must go do my happy dance and not think at all of the 5 weeks of radiation coming up.

The happy face the nurse gave me in honour of my last treatment

Two roads diverged

2009-10-13T19:55:00.005-05:00

When I was in university I wrote a paper comparing ideas from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" and W.B. Yeats' "The Second Coming". I has studied and enjoyed both poems in my Literature of the 20th Century class and wanted to share my excitement with the world...or at least with the professor. I'm not entirely sure what I wrote about, but the paper had something to do with Yeat's lines

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity

I was ridiculously proud of my essay. It wasn't one of the suggestions from the professor, and possibly nothing anyone had thought of before in the history of humankind! (Or at least I couldn't find any books or articles written on the topic at the U of R library during the 5 minutes I looked. Hey, back then that was considered serious research!)

When I received my paper back, written on the crisp, white cover page in dark red ink was this: "Very well done. You are a interesting and divergent thinker." Of course, I immediately had to go look up what "divergent" meant and was much pleased by what I read ("Using a variety of premises, esp. unfamiliar premises, as bases for inference, and avoiding common limiting assumptions in making deductions").

Later I excelled at comparing Holden Caulfied (from Catcher in the Rye) to Huckleberry Finn, and green policy in North America and Europe. I struggled through the close reading we had to do in my New Criticism class, and completely wrote off the need for accuracy in my chemistry lab. 14 mL? 16mL? Close enough.

One of my favourite projects from my education degree came from the Philosophy of Education class I took. I chose to present on a South American educator who believed everything in schools is political - from the language we use to the topics and books we study. As I researched my presentation, I learned that because females tend to be more "people pleasing" and males tend to be more "self centered," much of what we study is chosen because it will hold boys' attention.

We want children to learn how to classify things and so we study dinosaurs. Why not flowers or cats? Because we'd lose the boys. In high school we read books like Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, Flowers for Algernon...well, I could go on. Yes, these are all fabulous books, but they're also all very male-centric. You know, to keep the boys' interest.

Making these sorts of discoveries and connections and then sharing them with other people made me feel alive.

Since university I haven't had much chance to think. My job is one that forces me to focus on details and minutia, which is possibly why I'm so dissatisfied doing what I'm doing. The other night, though, I got the chance to dust off those old skills again. I was at a pub, enjoying some tasty beer with friends and I managed to piss everyone off.

My friends were oozing superlatives about the TV show True Blood (especially the 2nd season) and the movie Fight Club. I offered up the extremely unpopular opinion that the former ended up being about nothing more than a pathetic, deluded woman searching for a husband, and the latter? Oy. Don't even get me started! They make this cool, anti-consumer, screw the man movie and then they make the character spewing these beliefs bat-shit crazy. And what does he do to make his big statement? He blows up CREDIT CARD COMPANIES! Oh great - now all of us who racked up our cards uncontrollably can go out and do it AGAIN! You can bet that if all of a sudden my credit card debt was at $0, I'd be out there buying a bed - one that had never been owned by anyone else before. Can you imagine how luxurious that would be?

Anyway, I digress. It felt great to use the ol' noggin and piss people off again. I felt that familiar tingle of coming alive. Now if I could just find a job that allowed me to do this.

Cubicle farm

Foxy thoughts, pt 2

2009-10-12T20:51:00.003-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow Canadians! I know that I should wax poetic about all the wonderful things in my life, but I'm always going on and on here about how grateful I am for absolutely everything. It's sickening, really. So I'm going to make it opposite day today and give you miscellaneous foxy rants.

(See here for an explanation of what makes these foxy.)

Queen of the Parking Lot

In Captain Corelli's Mandolin when Nicolas Cage kisses Penélope Cruz, it looks disturbingly like he's going to EAT HER FACE OFF. He's kissing her with such enthusiasm and she's just so freaking little that I thought for a moment it had turned into Captain Corelli's Zombie Musical War Movie. No, really! Watch it again (if you can stand it). Braaaaaaaaaiiiiiins...

The only good wasp is a dead wasp

Girls that kiss other girls and like it generally don't then go on to sing those exact words. Usually those are the girls who are just doing it to make their boyfriends all hot and bothered. The rest of us are too busy trying to get to second base.

Back alley treasures

I know that democracy is the best form of government that we can come up with and blah blah blah, but does it seem to anyone else like a giant high school popularity contest? I mean, the guy that the majority of the people like gets to run the place because he's so popular that he got the most votes, and then he gives cushy jobs to all his buddies. High school is the pinnacle of society? Am I still asleep? This seems an awful lot like that nightmare I keep having.

Autumn on the prairies

I hate when I go to a restaurant with friends and we go up to pay the bill and the server looks at me and asks, "All together?" I feel like if I answer "No, separate," everyone will think I'm cheap. And I AM! I just don't want others to know. So I end up feeling guilted into saying "Yep, together" and paying for everyone. Sometimes I'm awfully silly.

Sunrise on the rooftops

Why oh why are people here so surprised by winter every year? Everywhere I go I hear griping: "I can't believe it's so cold already!" or "Why is it snowing?" or "I'm not ready for this weather yet! Bring back the 30°C!" People, it's October and it's Saskatchewan. It gets cold and the snow starts. It's been this way since before I can remember and it'll stay this way until after I'm gone, even with global warming. If you hate it that much, please move.

Dead flowers in the snow

Brooding

2009-10-01T11:11:00.001-05:00

I'm going to see these guys tonight. I CAN'T! FREAKING! WAIT!

Games people play

2009-09-27T00:53:00.006-05:00

The scene: A small coffee shop/art gallery. There is a 60th birthday bash being thrown for Nat's stepdad. He knows the owners, who have shut down the place for the party. Nat's sister, the sister's boyfriend, Uncle Steve, and Nat have snuck away to the coffee shop's kitchen area to play some cribbage on a makeshift table while the party rages on. Uncle Steve arrived from Winnipeg earlier in the day just for the party.

A woman no one knows enters the kitchen.

---------------------------------

Woman: Ah, so this is where the real party is!

Uncle Steve: Absolutely. It's the kitchen party.

Woman: Do you use the coffee shop kitchen as your own kitchen, too?

Uncle Steve: [looking around to see if she's talking to him] Um...yes?

Woman: Must be nice to have such a big space to use for your own cooking.

Uncle Steve: [getting into it now] It's great! One of the benefits of owning this place.

Woman: I bet!

Uncle Steve: [gesturing wildly] Have you gone out back yet? We're expanding. We're building up, we're building down. We're building out and around and in.

Woman: [eyes wide] That sounds WONDERFUL!

Uncle Steve: You should see in the winter. Beautiful.

Woman: Oooh, I just bet! But I should let you get back to your game. Nice chatting with you.

Uncle Steve: [to her retreating back] Make sure you try the cheesecake!

---------------------------------

I sure hope that poor woman was far enough away before the four of us dissolved into laughter.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

2009-09-24T09:42:00.010-05:00

When I was ten years old, my then-step-grandma gave me a home perm. Please imagine horror movie strings screeching in the background when reading those terrible words: home perm.

Frog watching the sunset
I had been begging my mom for months to allow me to get a perm. She got them regularly - why couldn't I? Finally she relented after my step-grandma offered to give me one herself. I had high hopes for my first perm ever. I imagined myself walking into class with gorgeous wavy locks and all the kids collectively inhaling in awe at my new look.

Finally, after much burning and waiting and rinsing and drying, the unveiling occurred. It was HIDEOUS! I looked like a brunette Lil' Orphan Annie! I didn't know whether I wanted to to cry or shave my head first. Instead, I mustered up a shaky grin for my step-grandma and thanked her. Then I went into my room and cried.

The next day at school I tried to keep my touque on in class, but my teacher (heartless witch that she was) made me take it off. In front of everyone! The snickers and snorts still haunt my dreams.

Bridge construction
Since the home perm , I've struggled to find a hair style I liked. I cut it short, I grew it out. I dyed it red, I bleached it with Sun-In and lemon juice. I got real, salon perms. And through it all I uttered my all-too-familiar mantra: I hate my hair!

About four years ago I gathered up all my courage and had a friend give me a haircut I'd been aching to try. Short in the back, long at the sides, bangs - you know the one. I immediately fell in love with the style. It was quick and simple (two MUSTS for me) and I received compliments on it daily.

Flock of seagulls
And then April 28, 2009 happened and I found myself sitting in a surgeon's office being told I have breast cancer. And do you know what made me cry the most during that appointment (and, in fact, for days and maybe even weeks after)? It was when he told me that I would almost certainly need chemotherapy and I would lose all my hair. In our society, hair and clothes are seen to be expressions of personality and since I'm mostly unable to do that with what I wear, my hair became the way I showed there was more to me than people first assumed. And now my wonderful hairstyle was going to fall out.

I tried to put on a brave front for people. "I've always wanted to see what I look like bald, anyway!" or "They say it could grow back different - maybe I'll have those curly locks I've always wanted!" But that was mostly me saying things to make other people feel better. I didn't really believe it...at least at first.

A strange thing happened as I tried to placate others - I started to really buy in to what I was saying. Shortly after my aborted attempt at my first chemo treatment, I decided to get a kicky new pre-chemo hair cut. It was short and funky and I LOVED it! It made me stop dreading the whole growing-out process.

How many blackbirds can you see? I see 13.
Then a week and a half ago I noticed more hair in my hairbrush than usual. I decided that rather than going through the mess and the trauma of watching my fun new style go down the drain (and in the garbage and on my pillow and on the floor), I would have my friend Cake shave me. He couldn't do it until 4 days after the initial hair loss and by then my hair was falling off in clumps. There was a small section that was sticking out and I was trying to get it to lay flat and, instead, the whole bit came off in my hands. It was at that point that I realized that I was good and ready for what I was calling my Good Ol' Fashioned Shearing Party.

I went over to Cake's place, bottle of wine in hand. There were the obligatory before, during (complete with mohawk and fauxhauk), and after photos and to my utter delight, I didn't look terrible when he was all done! There were no weird lumps that were uncovered and my head isn't bizarrely misshapen or anything! I even walked home that evening without donning the funky head scarf I had brought with me in case of emergency.

Autumn sunset at the legislative building
Since then I've been embracing my new 'do, walking with my head high and scaring old people. But all of this doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to my hair growing back. I haven't spoken to my ex-step-grandma in 20 years. That should be a lesson to NOT MESS WITH MY HAIR AGAIN, cancer! I don't fool around about these things!

Mom: 3 Nat: 0

2009-09-21T21:31:00.004-05:00

The scene: Nat's mom picks her up to go grocery shopping. Nat just had her head shaved because her hair was falling out by the handful.

Mom: You know, if I thought I would look better bald I would shave my head, too.

Nat: How do you know how you would look until you try it?

Mom: It would start growing in and it would be mostly grey. I think it would look terrible.

Nat: So you're not going to be one of those moms that shaves her head to support her cancer kid?

Mom: Nat, you know I'm here for you to help with anything you need - but I don't love you that much.

How do bald people cope with the constant cold head?

Timing is everything

2009-09-15T01:35:00.006-05:00

Since being told I have breast cancer, I've been doing a lot of reading. I want to learn as much as I can about this gawddamned disease to help me get through treatment and ensure I never have to endure it again. One thing I've noticed over and over is that the literature urges me not to feel like I have to be superwoman. I'm advised that I shouldn't feel like I have to do it all myself, that there's no shame in asking for help.

This confuses me. Of COURSE there's no shame in asking for help! Of COURSE I don't have to do it all my self. And besides, do what, exactly? There's nothing in my life so urgent that it needs to be done if I'm aching all over and can barely keep my eyes open. How silly of all these people to even suggest otherwise.

Not all of my reading has been so serious, however. I just finished a book called Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocella Marchetto. My friend Cake gave it to me shortly after I told him about my cancer. It's fabulous. It's a graphic novel all about the author's journey through breast cancer. Even though her life is vastly different from mine (she's a high-powered career woman living a glamourous life in New York and I'm...not) there are so many similarities with our stories that it's like she's writing about me sometimes.

Nevertheless, one thing about the book annoyed me throughout. She is constantly fretting that her fiance is going to wake up one day, decide that he can't take it anymore, and leave her for someone younger and healthier. She can't see how lucky she is! She's with a man who clearly adores her and wants to support her every step of the way, and she can't even see her good fortune.

But then I realized that no one really knows how lucky she is. It's never a good time to have breast cancer. A woman doesn't think, "Oh thank goodness it's now when I have a caring, loving partner and children to help me get through this." No, she thinks, "What if this is too much for him to deal with and he leaves me? What if my children can't handle it? Why couldn't this have happened when I was still single?"

Just as I don't think about how lucky I am that I'm going through this now when I only have myself to look after and worry about. Instead, I've cried myself to sleep thinking about how women with partners have it easier. They've already found someone to love them and stroke their hair and help them. They're not stuck being single, hoping that one day they'll find someone who won't shriek at the sight of their Frankenboob.

I realized that's why the cancer literature urges us to not feel like we have to be superwomen. Many women who get diagnosed with breast cancer are wives and mothers and grandmothers. These women have people who rely on them. They have responsibilities and obligations.

Once I had this realization, I sat down and made a list. The following are things should make me writhe around on the ground with joy:

I have a wonderful family who I know is here to help me get through everything. My mother is alive and young enough to be there beside me every step of the way.
I have more good friends in my life than I've ever had before. Probably in all my previous years combined.
I have an adorable and cuddly cat that provides me with sympathetic mews and purrs.
I have a very low housework expectation level. Not only am I able to live with myself if I don't do the dishes for 2 weeks or clean the bathroom for a month, but that's just business as usual around here.
I have no one who's relying on my for income or care.
I have a job that provides me with benefits so that I can take months off to focus on my treatments, and a boss who has encouraged me to do so.
I'm young and strong and probably in the best health of my life.
When I eventually do find someone to love me, he or she will know exactly what they're getting into - Frankenboob and all. They will love me because of what I've been through, not despite it.

It turns out there really is a good time to have cancer!

Insulted by the mail

2009-09-12T18:58:00.003-05:00

Why? Why did I receive this in the mail, addressed to me and everything? How did I get on this mailing list? The woman on the envelope looks older than my mom.

Look how she's reaching for me, like she's saying, "Just a little bit closer, my pretty...muuuaaaahahahaha!"

I don't love Oprah, but...

2009-09-11T12:26:00.005-05:00

Oh how I would have LOVED to have been a part of this:

I'm not religious. I'm not a diehard fan of a big arena band. Hell, I don't even have a big family. These kind of collective events are rare and wonderful for me. They allow me to feel connected to people and part of something larger. This is what's missing from my day-to-day existence - I interact with a handful of people, really relate to one or two, and pass by hundreds of others like they're extras in the movie of my life.

Feeling part of a whole is why go to folk festivals, why I adored houseboating, why I've been in a concert band or choir for most of my life, and why I love comments on my blog.

Foxy thoughts

2009-09-07T10:07:00.017-05:00

I was lounging in bed yesterday and listening to Wiretap, a brilliant, hilarious, and sometimes poignant show on CBC Radio 1. Jonathan Goldstein was talking about Archilochus and the difference between foxes and hedgehogs. Foxes know a lot of little things and hedgehogs know one big thing.

I am definitely a fox. I don't have the patience, interest, or mental recall abilities to be a hedgehog. Hedgehogs do one degree, then a Masters, and then maybe a PhD. Foxes would take one or two classes in almost any discipline imaginable, get 3 bachelors degrees, and then do work that has nothing to do with any of them. Ahem - or so I would imagine.

The main stage crowd at the Regina Folk Festival
I'm not sure if it's the chemo, my frequent naps, or my lack of having to do anything at all with my days that is emphasizing my fleet, scattered way of thinking, but I sat down and found it near impossible to write one cohesive blog entry. The most taxing thing I've been able to handle is deciding when to stop calling it "napping" and start calling it "in bed for the night." And so today? You get my foxy thoughts.

At the festival, even the mannequins were Hipster Douchebags

Women who claim they would totally be a lesbian if only the right woman came along annoy me. I suppose that my grandma is right and the opposite is true, too. The reason I claim to be bisexual is simply because I haven't met the right guy, yet. Honey, I'm pretty sure you're not a lesbian because the thought of putting your tongue in a vagina doesn't make you all a-quiver. Not because you just haven't found Ms. Right.

Perhaps they're waiting for the right person

Also annoying? Articles written by people with glamourous jobs who try to claim their jobs aren't as glamourous as we think they are. Oh, assisting the casting director for a big budget Hollywood movie isn't all glitz? Writing for the New Yorker isn't all fabulousness? You mean it's tough, important, "nitty gritty" work? Talk to me about hard work after being a nurse or plumber for a decade. Talk to me about ordinary after your soul has been sucked dry as a receptionist at Don's Used Car Deals in Wichita Falls. No one thinks their life is absolutely fantastic - it's just life and you're living it day by day - but you with your mani-pedi-spa power lunches, your all-access passes, and your expense account - just recognize what you have and appreciate it for what it is, okay?

Okay, curiosity officially piqued

I just heard an interview with Salman Rushdie on CBC. (I've been doing a lot of radio listening, as you can tell.) He is fascinating to listen to and I recommend you check out the podcast. During the interview, he said how in all of us is a conflict between the dream of home and the dream of leaving. I really like that. He also said he used to wear a shirt that said, "Blasphemy is a victimless crime." I like that, too.

She's a woman on a mission

Everybody poops. No, really! Think about it. Everybody poops. Picture the celebrity or historical figure you idolize most. Impressive, yes? Perhaps even a bit intimidating. Now picture him or her in the can, pants around their ankles, slightly bored expression, taking a dump. Talk about the great equalizer! All of sudden Paris Hilton's a lot more human. (Why yes, she IS the person I idolize most. You mean you didn't guess?)

Wasting time in a prairie town

I feel there is such a huge difference between "This is a terrible movie!" and "I thought this movie was terrible!" One intimates that you're crazy for liking it, the other merely states an opinion. And if there's one judgement I'm willing to make, it's that I shouldn't judge people. That brings to mind a line from Austin Powers: There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures...and the Dutch.

Tulips from a friend

Under pressure

2009-09-04T20:20:00.013-05:00

"Nat, as a registered nurse, I just want to warn you about something. It's not so much the chemotherapy or the radiation therapy, but I'm worried about the retail therapy. If you have overextended credit it could lead to some vomiting, or you might have a burning sensation in your wallet. You might want to watch that!"

This was the message I received from my Uncle Steve after I got back to my apartment and he's not far from the truth! Good thing I only need 4 treatments or I'd be broke.

On August 20 I was scheduled for my first chemotherapy treatment. My mom picked me up at 7:30 so we could be at the cancer centre for 8:00. I was nervous but nothing too crazy. I more wanted to just get things started so they'd be over sooner than anything else. However, my eye had been twitching for the past 2 or 3 weeks and I'd had stronger-than-usual headaches, so I knew all was not well. The first thing they did was hook me up to a blood pressure cuff. One of the chemo drugs they would give me (docetaxel) can increase blood pressure, so my readings needed to be taken every 15 minutes while it's being administered.

"Hmm...that's pretty high," said the nurse. "You're probably nervous, aren't you? I'll give you a sedative." She gave me a tiny white pill to slip under my tongue and started the pre-chemo anti-nausea drip. She only had to poke me twice before she got the IV in.

Of course, when people are poking me and tutting over blood pressure, it does nothing at all to help. My mom was being all alarmed over how high it was and the nurse kept saying she'd let me sit for 10 more minutes to see if it would come down. People (ie, mothers) freaking the hell right out and saying things like stroke and heart attack is not an effective way of calming someone down. (To be fair, my numbers were ridiculous. Like, 165/110 kind of ridiculous.)

Think calming thoughts
They gave me 2 doses of the sedative but all it made me want to do is slip into a pulse-racingly high-thumping sleep. In addition to blood presure problems, apparently my white blood cell count was lowish as well, so after about 45 minutes of resting and waiting, they decided to send me home. They told me to go to my family doctor to get something for my high blood pressure. I know what - how about not having to go through chemo? I'd say that's an almost immediate guarantee to bring me back to normal!

My mom and I went to my doctor and I was set up with some samples to try to bring my blood pressure down. And then we went shopping.

Treatment #1 was rescheduled for September 1. (By the way, that's a mere 4 months after first finding out I had cancer. Does that seem fast to you? It seems fast to me.)

I tried not to be anxious about the day as it approached. I was on blood pressure medication but it only seemed to help at home. As soon as I would go to the oncologist or my family doctor for a check, my numbers would be high again. My doctor assured me that as long as it was managed at home, I should be fine. I just happen to have a sensitive system that magnifies any sort of outside influence.

Again, my mom picked me up and we went to the cancer centre. Again, they hooked me up to the stupid blood pressure cuff and jabbed me with a needle to hook up my IV. Again, my numbers were high and they gave me the small, white pill as a sedative. This time, though, my numbers came down enough to convince them to go ahead with the chemo drugs. I sat in the armchair for four and a half hours, successfully manipulating my chords and drips to the bathroom once. My mom read me the paper and we played sudoku. I dozed. The drugs dripped.

And then I was done! Free! To go shopping!

Purchases after the aborted chemo treatment:

4 head scarves (why not be bald AND fashionable?)
Bottle of Angel by Thierry Mugler (which was totally worth it and I can't stop smelling myself when I wear it)
A fabulous purple purse (who doesn't need a purple purse?)
A brown purse (it was cheap and cute)
A big bottle of pomegranate juice (complete with powerful antioxidants)

Yummy!
Purchases after the actual chemo treatment:

A Booster Juice (Sonic Soy, the best one there is)
Pair of black leather sandals (comfortable for walking)
Pair of black leather sandals (dressier and not really good for walking)
A white purse (it was on sale and I didn't get that colour last time!)

I'm not sure what I'm going to buy myself next time, but I'll be sure to think of some delightful items I couldn't possibly live without. Hey, if I'm going to suffer through this light-headedness, grogginess, and surprisingly orange diarrhea (just for fun, do an internet search on that last one), I'm going to do it smelling and looking fabulous. And shopping brings down blood pressure, I'm just sure of it!

The yellow survivor's shirts at the 2009 Relay For Life

Frankly, I'm thunderstruck

2009-08-24T22:55:00.008-05:00

Even though it is several kilometers away, I can hear the AC/DC concert from my apartment. I can hear the crowd roaring and the drums banging and good ol' Angus wailing on lead guitar. (Hark, is that "TNT" I hear? Yes, yes it is).

I can also hear the dog in the apartment below me barking and barking. I don't think he's a metal fan.

Truthfully, I'm not a metal fan either. I'd rather hear the Lost Fingers do "Shook Me All Night Long" than AC/DC. (If you don't know the Lost fingers, then you MUST click here for a snippet. They do 80s songs in a Django Reinhardt-type style.) Regardless of my dislike for the heavier stuff, I'm a little sad I didn't go to the show. I mean, it's AC/CD! My small prairie city doesn't get many huge acts and you never know which concert will be the one where an aging rock star falls and breaks a hip or something.

Speaking of concerts, have I ever told you about the time I snuck into a Rolling Stones concert? Oh yeah. I'm hardcore.

Like I've said, my small city doesn't get many big name acts, so 3 years ago when the Stones concert was announced I knew I had to go. I've always fallen firmly on the Beatles side of the Beatles/Stones debate, but going to a Beatles show would be a hell of a lot more difficult. The Stones were playing 2 shows here, one on the Friday and one on the Sunday. My step dad has connections and he managed to snag me 4 tickets for the second show.

Friday came and went and I heard great things, so I was pumped to go. I was attending with my two friends Mike and Kate, and my mom's weird cousin Larry, who had driven down from Calgary for the concert. We lined up with the crowd, got our tickets scanned, and made our way to our seats. They weren't awesome but none of us minded - we were going to get to see the Stones! About 15 minutes after we sat down, four people approached us and said that we were in their seats. We checked their tickets. We checked our tickets. They were for the same section, same row, and same seats.

We were about to raise a fuss when I noticed something different on our tickets, so I hissed to my people that we should go talk to someone about this and let these nice people sit in the seats while we straightened things out. Mike and Kate objected but I kept insisting that we needed to just go. After I got them away from the stands, I pointed out that our tickets were, indeed, for those seats but for the other show. The one that had happened two days earlier.

Larry wanted to find someone in charge IMMEDIATELY so that things could be fixed. Mike, Kate, and I were pretty sure that all that would be fixed is that we would be kicked out of the stadium and miss the show. The people scanning the tickets at the gate had messed up and let us in, and we weren't going to ruin it by hoping some event manager had a heart. Our plan was to hang around the concessions until the opening band was done, and then find a row that looked like it had empty spots and sidle in. Everyone was on their feet for the concert, anyway, so we figured it would be a piece of cake. Larry didn't like our plan. He was worried that if we snuck in, the ticket police would find us and throw us in ticket jail. But he was outnumbered and begrudgingly agreed to stay.

The opening band finished and as the Stones took the stage and the concession area emptied out, we made our move. We walked up the stairs, scanned the rows, and found one that looked perfect. There were still a lot of people milling about and as we made our way to our new seats, our group got separated. Nevertheless, we made it. Well, actually, most of us made it. Somehow we had lost Larry. We looked around for him but the music was starting and we figured he had just found another good spot to blend in.

The show was great in a cheesy, big spectacle kind of way. Mike, Kate, and I searched outside the stadium for Larry for 45 minutes afterwards but we didn't see him, so we walked back to my place. That's when we finally found Larry. He had been sitting in his car for the past three hours. He got separated from us in the stands, panicked, and decided he couldn't handle the stress of sneaking in, so he went back to his car, unrolled his windows, and listened from there. He drove 8 hours from Calgary to sit in his car and listen to the Rolling Stones.

So that's my badass rock 'n' roll story. Ahh, but tonight there will be no sneaking in and I will not be able to rock out with my cock out. However, this weekend has not been without it's highlights. Behold, the newest member of my household.

"Swept Away" - no, really, that's the name of the style
Lucy, my cat, is enamored with her and she was ridiculously expensive ($300? are you kidding me?) but how could I resist those luscious lips? Shopping for her was considerably less fun than I anticipated, mostly because the woman who helped me at the wig store was rather humourless. Listen, lady. I'm getting chemo soon. I'm going to lose all my hair. If I want to try on the the Farrah Fawcett just for fun, let me try on the gawddamned Farrah Fawcett. I don't care that you don't think it will flatter my face shape. I don't care that you think blond will wash out my skin tone. I'm not purchasing it, I'M JUST TRYING TO HAVE SOME FUN! I sneak into rock concerts! Don't piss me off!

Anyway, I haven't named her yet but I'm working on it. Perhaps in honour of tonight's concert I should call her Angus.

Ridiculously fun!

2009-08-09T10:40:00.003-05:00

MOVEITS! - Fel Del Av Gården

Moving

2009-07-23T17:41:00.002-05:00

Well this sure made me weepy.

Water music

2009-07-22T01:13:00.006-05:00

Before I went on the fantastic houseboating adventure, my sister gave me the excellent idea of making a water-themed mix CD for the trip. And I now share that playlist with you, because I love you so:

SpongeBob SquarePants Theme Song - The Pirates
Sea Cruise - Frankie Ford and Huey Piano Smith & Orchestra
(Sittin On) The Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding
When the Ship Comes In - Bob Dylan
If I Had a Boat - Lyle Lovett
Wooden Ships - Crosby, Stills & Nash
Six Months In a Leaky Boat - Split Enz (Thanks to my Grasshopper buddy for this one.)
The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
Drunken Sailor - The Irish Rovers
I'm Shipping Up to Boston - Dropkick Murphys
The Boat Song (We're Gettin' Loaded) - The Ike Reilly Assassination
Ocean Man -Ween
Yellow Submarine - The Beatles
River Song - Dennis Wilson
The Banana Boat Song - Harry Belafonte (Couldn't resist linking to The Muppets! This isn't the version on the mix CD.)
The Last Saskatchewan Pirate - Captain Tractor (I'm from Regina - how could I NOT include this one? And yes, this is the same "semi-famous Western Canadian celtic/rock-ish band" that I wrote about before)
Sloop John B - The Beach Boys
I'm On a Boat - The Lonely Island featuring T-Pain

I was totally sloshed

2009-07-21T21:35:00.036-05:00

It's been 2 months since I had my surgery and I definitely miss the sloshing.

My view for a week
Since my lumpectomy, my body has been doing some weird things. Almost immediately afterwards, the site of my sentinel node biopsy began swelling. At first it was only a little bit, but soon it was like someone had left behind a small-but-filled-to-bursting water balloon while they were in there. I told people it was a replacement boob I was growing in case of mastectomy. I joked about it, but it was really quite uncomfortable. The skin was stretching and simple things like sleeping, wearing a bra, or letting my arms hang by my side were difficult.

Legs in the hot tub
Finally, I called my surgeon and he had me go to his office so he could drain the fluid. He assured me that all this was normal and would go away on its own. While I was there, he asked me if I had also noticed my boob sloshing around. A light went on. Yes I HAD!

The eye of the tree
Until that very moment, I attributed the weird noise to my stomach. You know that sound that happens after you drink way too much water way too quickly and then move around? That kind of glub plook sound? Ever since my surgery, I kept hearing it at strange times. I'd hear it when I bent over to tie my shoes or when I got into bed at night or, most often, when I put on my bra. And every time I'd think, "Hmm...weird. I don't remember drinking a lot of liquid," and just sort of shrug.

Falls that were a short hike away
Yeah, I'm a little dense. But excuse me for not realizing it was MY BOOB SLOSHING! I guess in the same way that my little Underarm Water Balloon™ was filling up due to post-surgery trauma, so was the hole left by the tangerine-sized chunk my doctor removed from my boob. The nice thing was that, besides the scar, you couldn't tell anything had occurred there at all. It looked like I had two normal boobs. This lumpectomy thing was going to be easy!

I see you hiding down there
And then just like my surgeon had said, the swelling started going away. This was great news for my underarm, but not so good for ol' Righty. As more and more fluid began to dissipate, it began to look like my boob was caving in on itself. It still does, and I think that's how it's going to stay. I suppose I should be happy I didn't need a mastectomy. I should be happy it's not some essential part of my body they had to hack away at. But my boob. Is caving in! ON ITSELF!

She has a new name - now she's Frankenboob. And Lefty is Boobberry. (My apologies to General Mills.)

Breakfast is ready!
Ah, lest you think I'm spending my days pining for the boob that once was, slowly rocking back and forth on my couch in a big lump of tears and fears, don't fret! The photos interspersed throughout this entry were taken on a recent houseboating trip to Shuswap Lake, BC.

Beached for the evening
A friend of mine got married and for his honeymoon, 22 of us hopped in cars, drove 13 hours away, piled into 2 houseboats and drank, swam, sang, drank, ate, and slept our way through Shuswap Lake. Oh, and we drank. It was marvelous. Surrounded by people, both strangers and friends, I was in my element. I soaked up the companionship and comradery like beach bunny soaks up sun. I didn't think about cancer at all. It was exactly what I needed.

A friend sitting watching the water
Oh, and FYI: I have an appointment with my chemo oncologist on July 27. That's where I'll find out what the plan is for radiation and chemotherapy. On one hand, I'm happy to get this phase started but on the other hand, I already have Frankenboob. Haven't you done enough? Sigh.

Wish me luck!

Close your eyes and JUMP!

Don't be such a boob

2009-06-05T00:45:00.020-05:00

I've been trying to write about this for a while now but it's difficult. It's difficult because I'd rather write a good news story where the worry turns out to be nothing and in retrospect, we can all learn blah blah blah. It's difficult because it still doesn't seem real. It's difficult because facts like "Only 4 of 10 people who get cancer are expected to be alive five years after diagnosis" are floating around out there, scaring the shit out of me. Granted, that's a figure for all types of cancer, but it's still a scary number.

I suppose I'll start at the beginning. I found a lump. I wasn't particularly looking for one, but I found it nonetheless. I told myself that it was probably nothing, and that if it was something, I'd rather not know. If it was going to kill me anyway, I'd rather not go through the pain and drama of dealing with it. It would be much easier to let it take its course.

But it was probably nothing. I'm young. I'm not on any sort of hormone therapy or even the Pill. There's no history of cancer, breast or otherwise, in my family except for one great uncle.

After a bit of time spent ignoring the goddamned lump, I drunkenly and off-handedly confessed its existence to a friend. (Hey, look at that - alcohol may have saved my life!) This friend has had too much experience with cancer to let my admission slide, so the next thing I knew she booked me in to see her doctor. My appointment was for April 7.

After poking at my boob for a while, the doctor tried to offer comfort. She told me not to worry until I had something to worry about, but I heard her instruct her assistant that she wanted me in for an ultrasound as quickly as possible.

That day after I went back to work, I told my manager that I was going through something medical that may or may not turn out to be something. I let him know that I may have to leave for appointments without much warning. He was wonderful and told me to do what I needed to do, no questions asked.

At home that night I threatened the lump that it better fucking well be nothing. I yelled for a while at Righty and told her that she might just be out of the will. I told Lefty that she was now officially my favourite.

On April 17, I went for an ultrasound and a mammogram, and 3 days later I was back at the doctor's office. She told me that they couldn't tell yet if the lump was cancerous or benign. She told me I needed a biopsy done and that the cancer centre would contact me with a date. I read the words possibly cancerous lesion on my chart while she was busy filling out another form and decided to walk the 3 km back to work, silently freaking out the whole way.

On April 27, I went to the cancer centre for my biopsy. I wasn't particularly worried about the procedure, but rather the possible results, so I waited calmly and patiently. An older woman in the waiting room entertained me, griping about the awful hospital gowns they make us wear, the pain of having to drive into town for these procedures, the awfulness of the MRI. I told her I hadn't had an MRI yet and she told me I was lucky. During the procedure, I stared at the upper left corner of the room and took deep breaths. The biopsy was unexpectedly painful, and the bumpy bus ride home didn't help. I called my boss to let him know I was taking the rest of the day off. The people at the cancer centre said I should have my results in 5-7 business days.

The next day I had an appointment with yet another doctor. I wasn't sure what it was about or who he was, but I went anyway. The appointment was in the medical offices wing of the hospital just across the alley from where I live, so I walked over. After a short wait, the doctor called me into his examining room and poked at my boob. He told me I could put my shirt back on and then he said that their goal with a breast cancer diagnosis is to have the patient in for surgery within 3 weeks.

My heart stopped. What? Did he just tell me I have cancer? He must have seen the shock on my face because he stammered a bit and said that he didn't need to wait for the biopsy results. Because of the location, size, shape, and feel of the lump, they can tell it's not benign.

I immediately started to cry. He offered me tissues and asked if anyone was there with me that we could call into the room. I told him that I hadn't told anyone because I didn't want them to worry if it was nothing. He was very kind and patient and advised that I should tell at least my family so that I have some support. He told me his wife was also 33 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and they just celebrated her 53rd birthday. He said she had been cancer-free for almost 20 years and that these days, a diagnosis is not necessarily a death sentence.

He then pulled out a booklet that provided information about my options: mastectomy vs lumpectomy, axillary dissection vs sentinel node biopsy, post-surgery treatments.

Before I continue, I'm going to give a little crash course in breast cancer surgery. A mastectomy is where they remove most or all of the breast. A lumpectomy is where they remove the tumor and a surrounding margin of breast tissue. A lumpectomy is also called breast conservation surgery.

Axillary dissection is where they remove most or all of the lymph nodes under the arm. This is done because if the cancer has spread, it spreads to the lymph system first. They examine the nodes for cancer cells. If there aren't any, then the nodes were removed for no reason. If there are cancer cells, good thing they got all the lymph nodes.

A sentinel node biopsy is where they remove only the first 1-3 lymph nodes. Radioactive fluid is injected into the breast the morning of the surgery and it travels along the lymph system. They use a special camera to detect first few nodes and the surgeon removes those. The sentinel nodes are examined for cancer cells. If they are clear, excellent - no further surgery is needed. If they find cancer cells, another operation is required to remove the rest of the lymph nodes.

There are benefits and drawbacks to both options. It takes longer to recover from axillary dissection than a sentinel node biopsy and there is a greater chance of lymphedema. However, with the sentinel node biopsy there is always the chance that a second operation is needed, and there is a 5% chance that even though the first node is clean, a lymph node farther up might be cancerous.

End of lesson.

The doctor advised me that I should probably make decision right there and then so that I could get on the waiting list for my surgery. He explained the difference between the lymph node surgeries and told me that I was a good candidate for a lumpectomy because of the size and location of the tumor.

Tumor. It wasn't a lump anymore. Now it was a tumor. I hardly heard anything else he said, but managed to agree to a lumpectomy and the axillary dissection. I signed a consent form and slowly walked back home.

I spent that night sobbing on my couch. The next morning my eyes were so swollen that it looked like I was on the losing end of a fight. I desperately wanted my mom to know, but I dreaded telling her. How could I tell my favourite person on the planet that I have a potentially life-threatening disease? Before I knew anything I had decided that until I had confirmation, I wouldn't tell her. Except now that I had that confirmation, I discovered too late that it would have been easier to tell her that I might have breast cancer than to tell her I do. Ah, hindsight.

Three long days after my appointment with the surgeon, I finally told my mom. There were tears and hugs. I told jokes. There were more tears. We told my step dad and my sister. There were more tears. It was a rough week. I told the rest of my family, my boss at work, and all my friends.

Everyone was wonderful to me and then next thing I knew, it was May 5 and I had an appointment for an MRI. They wanted to make sure it was only one tumor and they wanted to get a clearer picture of its size and shape. I was taken into a room and a nurse told me she was going to give me an IV so they could inject dye into my system for the procedure. I had to sign a consent form that advised me of all the 834 possible side effects of the dye, including death. I could die from dye? That seemed ridiculous. At the bottom of the form, it said that despite all these side effects, they believed the benefits from the procedure outweighed the risks. Easy for them to say. But I signed the form. The nurse came at me with a needle and I told her I wasn't going to watch. She laughed and said that was okay, she would watch. I smiled and told her that was a good way to do things.

The MRI wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I think that was because instead of being on my back, they had me face down on the table. My head rested on an opening, much like you'd find in a massage table, and my boobs dangled out of two holes. I couldn't even tell I was in a small claustrophobic area. The machine was incredibly loud, even with the ear plugs they gave me. The radiologist spoke to me throughout the 45 minute procedure, letting me know when one series of images was finished and when the next one was beginning. Halfway through they injected the dye and a cold, awful feeling washed over my arm. Before I could panic too much, I pictured diving into a cool, refreshing pool and after 30 seconds or so the cold feeling went away.

On May 7, two days before my 34th birthday, my surgeon phoned to let me know I was booked for surgery on May 14. If you're keeping track of all these dates, that's 1 month and 1 week after my initial doctor's visit. I've heard horror stories of the Canadian medical system - of people waiting months for diagnoses and years for surgery dates. For me, things were moving so quickly I didn't even have time to think.

I did, however, have time to do some reading. I learned more about lumpectomies and mastectomies and was satisfied with my decision. I also learned more about axillary dissections and sentinel node biopsies and began to doubt my decision to have the former. I advised my surgeon that I had changed my mind and he said that unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to get in for the radioactive fluid injections the morning of my surgery. I either had to stick with my original decision and have all my lymph nodes removed or receive a later surgery date and have the new operation. I decided to wait and was given another surgery date of May 21. One month and 2 weeks after my initial doctor's visit.

That weekend I had a birthday bash where I got as hammered as I could with 30 of my closest friends and family members.

At 9:00 on the morning of my surgery, my mom picked me up and we walked over to the hospital. My first stop was the oh-so-scary-sounding Nuclear Medicine. A lovely nurse applied numbing cream to my nipple and surrounding area and answered my silly questions with a laugh. After the injection, will I glow in the dark? (No.) Will I be worth more radioactive? (No.) If I get bit by a spider, will I turn into Spider Woman? (Not that she knows of, but I should call her and let her know if it happens.) Then a doctor came and poked me with 4 needles right around my nipple. It was insanely painful - not the actual needle, but rather the fluid. It burned and stung for 10 minutes after the injections. After that I went for photos which I thought would be quick, but ended up taking about an hour. Two of the photos lasted 20 minutes each and 4 lasted 5 minutes each. Like the MRI, I had to be completely still.

After the photos were finished, my mom and I were whisked off to pre-surgery. The nurses there were wonderful and funny and gentle with me. They inserted the IV and talked me through what was going to happen. They asked me questions and then asked me the same questions again. They checked my blood pressure and oxygen levels and offered me warmed blankets and slippers for my feet. I asked them to please let the anaesthesiologist know that I didn't want to be inadvertently turned into a vegetable. They laughed and told me they try to avoid that - too much paperwork.

Then, all too soon, it was time to go to the operating room. My mom hugged me. She told me she was going to get some lunch and she'd see me before I knew it. I was wheeled into a small room with bright lights. I told the person transporting me that it didn't look anything like it does on ER and he laughed. The anaesthesiologist came over and introduced herself. She said they were going to administer the anaesthetic through the IV and that I would feel a little like I was drunk. Not 3 seconds after she said that I felt like I had just done 12 tequila shots and then there was nothing. No counting backwards, no slow descent into sleep, not even darkness. Just nothing.

And then? Garfield! That was the first thing I saw when I came to again. The hospital has ceiling tiles painted with various pictures throughout the corridors and rooms and the tile above my bed was Garfield snuggling Pooky. A nurse welcomed me back to the world of the conscious and told me to rest. That wasn't a problem, since I seemed to be able to fall asleep while blinking. There was more taking of my blood pressure and oxygen levels. There was morphine. Then I was wheeled back to the pre-surgery area and my mom was at my side. She asked how I was and I told her I was fine. I asked her how lunch was and she laughed. For me, she went to get lunch half an hour earlier but for her it was more like 3 hours.

By 9:00 that night I had met the three requirements to be sent home: I had walked, I had peed, and I had kept food down. I was officially discharged and Mom took me to her place. She and my step dad had set up the guest room so that I could stay there as long as I needed. I staggered into the house and immediately went to bed. Over the next 4 or 5 days, I did a lot of sleeping. I also received dozens of phone calls, flowers, and visitors.

I've had doubts in my past whether people really like me or if they merely put up with me, but cancer has silenced those doubts. I feel so incredibly loved that I get tears in my eyes if I think about it for too long.

This week I found out that the tumor was 2.5 cm and the margins (ie, the extra tissue the surgeon removed surrounding the tumor) are clear of cancer cells. This means that the we can feel optimistic that my surgeon got it all. Also, I found out that the sentinel lymph node is clear as well. This means that the cancer hadn't yet spread and that I don't need any more operations! That would put my cancer at stage IIA. It's not stage I, but I'll take it.

I have one more week of recovering to do and then I'll be back to work...at least until Step 2: the dreaded chemotherapy.

Cancer is more common than I ever imagined. Everyone I talk to knows someone who died from it or who is going through treatment or who is in remission. It's so prevalent that it's almost blasé. Yet my life was changed so completely by my diagnosis that I almost expected my news to be the headline in the local paper. But no, life goes on bit by bit.

One of the first things I did when I emerged out of my post-surgery grogginess was go for walk and take some photos. My mom lives two houses down from a creek that runs through the city and I walked along the bank on a beautiful spring day. During that walk I realized that I had been wrong - not knowing isn't better than knowing. Not knowing only has one end, and at least now I have a chance to delay that ending.

Seems logical

2009-05-11T23:01:00.000-05:00

I saw this on someone's Facebook page and it was too good not to steal.

10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage Is Wrong

Being gay is not natural. Real people always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.
Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in the world.
Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Down with April

2009-05-08T01:00:00.004-05:00

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

- from The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot

T.S. didn't like April much. Me neither. I will now remember it as the month in which I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Good thing it's May now. Can we just skip April next year?

STRIKE!

2009-03-08T19:04:00.010-05:00

Are you kidding me? A windchill of -30? In March? That's it. I quit.

I have never been more ready for spring. Usually, I try not to complain about the weather. What do I expect? I live in Saskatchewan where it's stupidly cold in the winter, freakishly hot in the summer, and spring and autumn are lovely and last 2 weeks each.

But this past month at work has sucked big time. I've had to sit and watch wonderful co-workers and dear friends get laid off, and every day I wonder anxiously when I'm next.

I'm SO ready for one of the coldest winters in 30 years to end. My whole body is aching for above 0 temperatures. I want to shrug off this parka and kick off these Sorels and run free in the muddy, flooded streets!

I want to gulp down too many pints of Grasshopper on the patio of my favourite watering hole!

I want to see the trees and shrubs blush green again!

I feel like a 3-year-old having a temper tantrum in the middle of the cereal aisle at the grocery store but I don't care. I'm on strike against the weather - who's in?

(Yes, I just wrote a whole post about the weather. So? If I was in an elevator with you, I'd ask if it was cold enough for you, too. Deal.)

Yes, I am alive

2009-03-05T20:44:00.003-06:00

I've been hibernating the past couple of months and being a bad, bad blogger.

Thanks to those of you who check back from time to time to see if there's anything new. And thanks to those followers who remain followers. Love you! Here. Have this delightful video as my apology. I'll be back soon.

Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance
Uploaded by IgnitionVM

Everybody dance!

2009-01-26T21:27:00.001-06:00

The Brighton Port Authority - Toe Jam

Miscellany

2009-01-11T17:20:00.000-06:00

A world economy that completely depends on continuous growth in a finite world can't be good. Can it?
I have none of these so-called core muscles. The only things that keep me upright are my spine and sheer force of will. Quit telling me to strengthen my core!
Choose-something-from-your-cubicle gift exchanges at work are fun, but at the end of the day you're left with a used coffee mug filled with breath mints and an old issue of People.
I always forget Suriname is in South America and, instead, think it's in Africa. Half a million Surinamese are not impressed, I'm sure.
When did I let "need" creep in and substitute "want" in my vocabulary? I do not need the following things:
- a haircut because I think my hair is doing wonky things
- more groceries when the overflowing shelves of my kitchen do not inspire me
- a new camera, just because my old one broke
- a beer after a tough day at work
(Okay, maybe that last one.)
I think everyone should read "Lullabies for Little Criminals" by Heather O'Neill. It's an amazing book that will break your heart, but in a good way.
Even though I live in an apartment, I can completely sympathize with homeowners who are tired of shoveling all the snow we've had this winter. I mean, when I'm trying to sleep until noon, and the building managers start with the scraping and the shoveling at TEN? How annoying!

Hi ho

2009-01-05T18:29:00.006-06:00

I've been dreading this day for a week. Today was the first day back to work after a delicious, restful TWO WEEK holiday! Work makes me sad and stressed and tired and for sixteen whole days I didn't have to worry about it at all. Instead I slept and read and ate and drank and talked and slept some more. And then ate more. Oh, and I don't think I really stopped drinking.

Nevertheless, I managed to haul my ass out of bed this morning (after pressing snooze a mere 5 times!) and I walked through the freezing cold to face reality — unless I want to sell my body on the streets, I need to work. Sigh.

But (surprise) it wasn't that bad! I got to chat with people I haven't seen in a while and hear about their family drama and falling-down Christmas trees. And what made it all worth while is that I got to have the following two conversations.

Conversation #1

The scene: Nat and her friend Brett are discussing what they did on their ~~summer~~ Christmas vacation.

Brett: I saw Doubt during the holidays. It's a pretty good film. You can tell it's been adapted from a play because it's very dialogue-oriented, but the pacing was good.

Nat: I saw Marley and Me. It was light but it sure made me cry. A lot. Not that that's tough to do.

Brett: But you're a cat person!

Nat: That's why I was crying. When Owen gave Jen a puppy I was thinking, "A dog? Noooooo! Think of the cats! Think! Of! The! Cats!

Brett: Sounds terrifying.

Nat: It was.

Conversation #2

And then there was this double-entendre-laden conversation about our upcoming bonuses, which brings us full circle back to the title of today's post. Some days I think I'm pretty clever.

Nat: "Pay For Performance"? Sounds...interesting.

Steve: I don't think it means what you're thinking.

Nat: Too bad. Betchya I'd make around...$1.50!

Steve: Oh, at least. I'd probably owe someone some change.

Nat: Don't sell yourself short. I imagine you'd get at least 98¢.

Steve: Hey now — quit exaggerating.

Nat: Okay, then. 93¢.

Steve: Maybe.

(What makes these conversations even better is that they both happened over our internal online, for-work-only chat program. This means that they are recorded and stored FOREVER! Or however long companies store techie stuff.)

Who knew?

2009-01-04T01:03:00.003-06:00

A friend on Facebook tagged me to do this meme and I thought I'd bring it over to the blogosphere. After all, someone out there may have made a New Year's resolution to read more wallowy blogs with too many cat pictures, and they're going to need a fast way to get to know me. So welcome, new friends! Here are

25 Miscellaneous Facts about Nat

Lucy, my cat, used to be owned by a woman who had 6 other cats. Then the woman killed herself.
My grandma taught me how to knit 2 years ago but I'm only able to knit flat, rectangular things like dishcloths or scarves.
I hate touching or tasting food off of new wooden spoons. The feel of the rough wood makes me cringe and shudder. Once they've been broken in and are nice and smooth, they're fine though.
The only radio station I listen to is CBC Radio 1.
One of my favourite bits on CBC Radio 1 is the National Research Council's official time signal, "where the beginning of the long dash followed by 10 seconds of silence indicates exactly twelve o'clock noon." I don't set my clocks to it, I just enjoy that my country actually airs this.
I'm a wonderful procrastinator. Almost every paper I ever wrote for university was done the night before it was due. I'm convinced that I could have received quite good marks if only I had tried harder.
I went to university full time for 7 years and then took 2 additional classes the following year.
I only have bachelor degrees.
I have terra cotta-coloured walls in my living room and bedroom.
I had my first burger from McDonalds this October. I was part of my friend's wedding party and we were between photos and the reception. We were all very hungry at the time and it was delicious.
I don't have a favourite colour. Who can choose with so many lovely ones out there?
Earlier this week I bought a Holga camera on the internet and I CAN'T WAIT until it arrives!
I love Clean Sheet Night, especially when the sheets were hung to dry on the clothesline strung across my courtyard.
I'm a sucker for Shopper's Drug Mart and I could spend hundreds of dollars there on potions and lotions and whatnot. It's dangerous that I live two blocks away from one.
I sleep until something external wakes me up. I seem to be missing an internal clock or that mechanism that says, "Okay, you've had enough sleep. Time to get up!" I have slept for 14 or more hours in one night. I didn't mean to - it's just that nothing woke me up!
I really dislike being by myself.
When I was very little, I wanted to grow up and be a cat. I still don't really know what I want to be when I grow up.
I love the smell of old dusty basements, musty books, and dimly-lit garages. If it hasn't seen the light of day in decades, I'll probably swoon at the scent.
I usually only clean my apartment when I know people are coming over, which sometimes isn't very frequent.
Despite point #19, I don't mind washing dishes.
Daisies are my favourite flower.
I have no patience for people who constantly trash the city in which they live. Either move or learn to love it!
I haven't rented a movie in almost 3 years.
I've had a headache since I was 5 years old. Every. Day.
I love when it's super cold outside and that first breath of air kind of makes my lungs feel like they're collapsing and for a second I can't breathe. Just for fun, I went out about an hour ago and inhaled deeply. Here's a snapshot of the conditions in which I survived:

-45°C with the windchill? Motherfucker!
I think I'm also supposed to tag people but I don't want to put that kind of pressure on anyone. If you read this and want to do one of your own, yay! If not, meh.

Conversation with my grandma - What a painful movie!

2009-01-03T12:13:00.000-06:00

Grandma: We should go see a movie while I'm in town.

Nat: Sure! What do you want to see?

Grandma: Not that movie with that Smith man. Oh I don't like him!

Nat: How about Doubt with Meryl Steep and Philip Seymour Hoffman?

Grandma: [looking confused] Gout? I don't think I want to see that. It doesn't sound very good.

Everything's going to get lighter

2009-01-02T03:06:00.002-06:00

I know that I tend to wallow here so here are reasons why 2008 didn't totally suck.

My sister and her boyfriend broke up. That's not the great part - he was a nice guy and she was talking about moving in with him. No, the great part was that in her grief, she turned to me for comfort and advice and someone to talk to. I'm fairly certain that's never happened before. I adore my sister but neither of us talk much with each other about our feelings. Her sadness brought us closer.
I joined 2 musical groups! I forgot how great I feel when I get to make music with other people. I joined a singing group that was putting on an autumn fundraiser. It was delicious. I got to experience that whole-body-vibration thing that happens when I loudly sing one note in a powerful and interesting chord. I was sad when it was over, but I also joined an adult concert band that practices once a week for 10 months of the year. Even though the loudest tenor saxophone player in the world sits directly behind me, even though the oboe player beside me assured me that he wasn't "a sex maniac or anything" when he offered to drive me home, and even though we have 1 French horn and 6 tubas, I love it. One week I was contemplating not going because I had a crappy day at work and I was tired and grouchy and my temples had their own pulse. Despite my resolve to ditch, I went anyway and on my way home I discovered that I was humming "Chimes of Liberty" [sound warning], headache-free and with a big goofy grin.
My mom continued to be wonderful. She is quite simply my favourite person in the world. She makes me laugh and cry and she loves me. This year she took me on endless trips to the grocery store to get heavy things that I didn't want to walk to get. She ate sushi and East Indian and Thai with me. She treated me to a glorious day at the spa with a manicure and pedicure and facial. When she ate meals I prepared for her, she made me feel like the greatest gourmet chef that ever was. She raved about the photographs I took, and showed up to my band Christmas concert. My mom, she is awesome.
I made some fantastic friends. A lot of times it takes a while to become good friends with people, but these new friends and I clicked right away. How can I NOT instantly love the coolest person I've ever met? How can I have a slow get-to-know-you period with someone who drunkenly confesses dark secrets to me the first time we go out for drinks and then introduces me to their whole gang of friends who instantly welcome me? And anyone who greets me at the door with a large glass of red wine and a cheerful "Hola!" is aces in my book. I have been lonely a lot this past year but you, my new friends, have made my heart warm.
I decided to not apply for a job with my company as a trainer in Winnipeg. On the surface, it seemed ideal. I have been so lonely and unhappy the last while here. I dislike my current job and would love to be in the Learning Services department. I already have friends and family living in that city, and I even know some of the people that work in our Winnipeg location. However, as I contemplated leaving I realized how much I have here. Not only did I have some fabulous new friends, but I have so many amazing people that I've been friends with for years. We may not see each other often but I know I can count on them for anything. I may not like my job, but the group of people I work with are awfully fun. This is home and it comforted me to realize that.
I received 3 mix CDs in the mail from someone I've never met! I love mix CDs! I also discovered a whack of new and new-to-me music that made me smile and dance and sing (sound warning for all links).

Here's to more non-suckiness for all of us in 2009!

Let's take a cup of kindness

2009-01-01T02:55:00.003-06:00

Happy New Year to you all!

My resolution? Guess!

Yeah, that's right - more blogging.

How about you? Any resolutions?

He expresses my loss for words

2008-11-17T18:44:00.003-06:00

I'd like to be happier that Obama won, but I'm not. However, I am happy that people like this exist.

A narrowly-avoided catastrophe

2008-11-16T19:28:00.000-06:00

I live in a fantastic old apartment building and I share a little 5'x8' balcony with my across-the-hall neighbour. This balcony represents Lucy's wildest dreams. Before I inherited her, she was an indoor/outdoor cat and she believes I am the most evil person in the entire world because I won't let her be out there! with all the bugs! and the grass! and the flying things! and the big metal animals that honk and run over cats!

I'm such a meanie.

A few weeks ago, Lucy was looking out the living room window to the balcony and meowing so mournfully that I decided to take her out there and let her explore. I've taken her onto the balcony in the past, but she heads straight for my neighbour's flowers like she has just discovered the casino's new breakfast buffet. I've had to explain to Lucy that I had no interest in her becoming my neighbour's new cat-skin rug and, therefore, we had to go back inside.

But! My neighbour was away for a few weeks and winter's a-comin' - those flowers did not have long for this world. So Lucy and I headed out to the balcony and, as anticipated, the first thing she did was make a beeline for the flowers.

Delicious!
That proved unsatisfying after a while, so she started exploring. OF COURSE this meant that she walked through the bars onto the wrong side of the railing, because apparently Lucy's main goal in life is to give me a heart attack. I lured her back through to the safe side of the bars but she would just hop back out again.

Then she decided this particular form of owner torture was boring and she walked out onto my neighbour's very narrow living room window ledge. She sauntered easily enough to the end but then discovered there was nowhere else to go but back.

I don't know if you know this but cats do not back up.

Lucy ended up reaching up, clawing the screen, and somehow pivoting herself around so that she was facing the balcony again. And like any good cat owner, I grabbed my camera.

Ah feck
After I was done snapping photos and giggling, I reached over and rescued her. I could feel her little heart fluttering in her chest as she dug her claws into my shoulder and purred in relief. I felt a teeny bit bad.

"I'm sorry, Lucy," I told her as I scratched her neck. "That was just payback for hiding 800 containers of lip balm somewhere in my apartment." Lucy licked my cheek to let me know she forgave me.

Powerful

2008-09-16T01:17:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I get caught up in the crap of life. And then I listen to this song.

It's not especially new and it's totally mainstream, so I'm definitely losing coolness points. But it fills me with so much orange and red and warmth and power and it makes me tingle from my neck down to the small of my back. Much flailing and singing ensues.

I hope it brings you some much-needed joy, too.

(Best listened to loudly. No, seriously, LOUDER!)

Coldplay - Viva La Vida

Due to popular demand

2008-08-31T16:37:00.005-05:00

Behold - my "different" hair

That went well

2008-08-27T19:06:00.004-05:00

I recently went for lunch with some friends and we were talking about how a huge age difference in a relationship doesn't always matter. A person might be 45 years old but act 10 years younger, so it's okay if they're dating someone who's 35.

One friend said that sometimes, though, it's just gross. She has an uncle who's in his late 40s who regularly picks up 18- or 19-year olds, and it causes her some discomfort to think about it.

"You think THAT'S creepy," I said. "When I was 12 and I would go stay with my dad, I'd have to go with him to the beer parlour and everyone would ask if I was his girlfriend."

My chuckle was met with a horrified silence.

I thought I was telling an amusing little story. Apparently I was wrong.

Conversation with a cat, pt 2

2008-08-20T19:40:00.006-05:00

Nat: I'm having people over in a couple of days, Lucy. I want you to be on your best behaviour, okay?

Lucy: People? Yay! I love people! I'm going to tell them all about how you torture me so they'll feel sorry for me and pet me and pay attention to me.

Nat: Don't bother. I've already warned them that you lie.

Lucy: I'm going to tell them about the beatings!

Nat: They won't believe it. They know I adore you.

Lucy: I'll tell them you send me to the dungeon when you leave.

Nat: Lucy, they know I live in an apartment.

Lucy: Well then I'll tell them how you lock me up while you're away.

Nat: If, by "lock you up" you mean "let you have free reign of the entire apartment except my bedroom," then sure - tell them.

Lucy: What about the water torture? You can't deny THAT actually happened!

Nat: I'll let them know it was because you decided to climb up the chimney and got yourself covered in soot. I think they'll be on my side.

Lucy: Um...what if I just purr and tilt my head a bit. Do you think they'll pet me then?

Nat: Oh definitely.

On the inside, looking out

New soul

2008-08-18T10:39:00.002-05:00

Last weekend the best event all year in this city occurred - our folk festival. There are people who live here who have never attended the festival, even though they're music-lovers who would enjoy many, if not all, of the acts that perform. I don't understand these people. I've been going since high school and I don't remember missing any years. I love everything about the weekend, and I look forward to it all year. The moment the snow on the ground starts melting, I count down the days. Why? Well, I'll tell you...

Reasons why I love going to the RFF:

1. Music: Over THIRTY HOURS of awesome music! Where else am I going to get to see Jill Barber, Pascale Picard, Final Fantasy, Rupa and the April Fishes, Weakerthans, Broken Social Scene, Great Lake Swimmers, Kathleen Edwards, Suzanne Vega, Jully Black, and Michael Franti all in one weekend? Where else can I see Jully Black and Final Fantasy do a workshop where they sing songs about love lost and found or Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Old Man Luedecke singing about the road not taken? Nowhere, that's where!

"Broken Prairie Scene" workshop where I discovered
a bunch of awesome local bands

"Un Monde Fou Entre Nous" workship with I fell in love with
Kathleen Edwards, Rupa from Rupa & the April Fishes,
Ndidi Onukwulu, and Pascale Picard

2. Nature: Music just sounds better when you're sitting on lush, green grass, there's a cloudless blue sky above you, and you can feel the sun sizzling your SPF-40-protected skin. And even though it rained the final day of the festival, it didn't wreck the weekend. In fact, as my friends and I were huddled under Walter, our gigantic tarp (he's big and cumbersome but when you need him, he comes through for you), we were cozy and together and having fun. And when a band I'd never heard of called Bellowhead came on and the music was SO! MUCH! FUN! that everyone was dancing and jumping and twirling in the rain, it felt absolutely right.

The Saturday evening sky

Sunday evening before the main stage show started

3. Peeps, pt 1: I live in a small prairie city. We have a conservative provincial government and a conservative federal government. There are a lot of conservative people that live here. Very nice, very generous conservative people, to be sure, but not really "my people." Once a year the vegans and dreadlocks and pot-heads and treehuggers and bicycle warriors and feminists and non-straights and socialists and old hippies congregate in the park for three days and even though I hardly know anyone there, I don't feel lonely. Where ARE you people the rest of the year?

4. Peeps, pt 2: The friends that accompany me to the festival are some of the best people on the planet. I love them all dearly and relish the fact that we get to hang out together for three whole days.

5. Peeps, pt 3: A family attends the folk festival. There's Mom and Dad and four younger, 20-somethings - two sons, one daughter, and the daughter's sig fig. By coincidence, I have sat near this family for the past four years and seeing them interact makes me very happy. They are so nice to each other. One person will go for food and offer to bring things back for everyone. People buy each other gifts. They joke and chat and have fun with each other. Whenever I see this family, I want to run up to them and greet them like long lost relatives. This year the oldest brother was working on a cross stitch, but I couldn't quite make out what it was. Good stalkerish paparazzi photos are more difficult to take than I thought!

What does it look like to you?

6. Size: It's a small folk festival. I believe the main stage host for Sunday night called it a "perfect little elf festival." Because of its size, the festival has a different feel - it's more intimate, more personal. You see the performers wandering around, checking out each other's daytime shows and chatting to fans. You end up being 20 feet from the stage during the daytime shows. Small means it can take place in Victoria Park, which is right smack downtown. It feels good to hang out in the middle of the city at midnight and not be scared. Once I stake my claim on my patch of grass at the main stage, I feel absolutely comfortable leaving my gear on the tarp and wandering around. In all the years I've attended the festival, I've NEVER had anything taken from me.

The Saturday evening main stage crowd

7. Food: Oh, the food! This year we have our choice of African, East Indian, Thai, and Afghan. Everything from organic to super-bad-for-you. I shall have my fill of smoothies, butter chicken, and mini donuts.

Mini donuts, where have you been all year?
I've written before about how I feel quite lonely and isolated, how I don't feel many connections in my life. In a lot of ways, the rest of the year slowly chips away at my "me" - at my essence. But this weekend is the one where my soul gets built up whole again.

How odd

2008-08-06T21:42:00.004-05:00

I have different hair. It's not completely crazy, but it's also not a cut I've seen often. I have eyebrow-length bangs, longer-than-chin-length pieces that frame my face, and the rest is pretty short. I call it the Reverse Mullet because it's a party in the front and business in the back.

It's the kind of hair that made my grandma say, "Did the hairdresser MEAN to do that?" And then she booked an appointment for me to get my hair set (whatever that means) and took me out to buy a nice blouse and pair of slacks. Gotta love grandmas!

Oh, did I also mention that I FREAKING LOVE MY HAIR? Cause I do.

The other day I was at a pub with a friend and he commented on our server's hair, calling it "odd." It was a bit unusual - short, pixieish, bleached blond with electric blue chunks - but I liked it and told my friend I thought it was funky.

"Of course you think that. Your hair's odd, too."

I was instantly reminded of a dream I had the night before. For some reason I had to break into a fancy hotel room and steal something. I don't remember what I had to steal and I don't remember the reason behind the caper. I don't even remember who gave the order. I do remember thinking how if I got caught, I would undoubtedly be fired from my job.

So I clumsily broke into the hotel room and before I could exit the hotel, an alarm was sounded and everyone was on the look-out for me. As I crept past a security guard, I saw a description of me on his clipboard. Under hair it said "Layered and strange."

I told my friend about the dream and he laughed.

"See! Even YOU think your hair's odd!"

I think I might set him up with my grandma.

All about meme

2008-08-04T17:43:00.001-05:00

Even though I wasn't tagged to do this meme, I stole it from Madam Diva. You should read her list because her answers are fun and thoughtful and interesting.

I am: super excited for the folk festival! Only 4 more sleeps.
I think: in my next life I'd like to be a duck.
I know: things aren't as bad as I always think they are.
I have: a clean fridge! I finally cleaned it for the first time in, oh, let's just say YEARS!
I wish: plane tickets weren't so bloody expensive.
I hate: when you try and pop a zit and it doesn't pop and you end up making it a hundred times bigger and deeper.
I miss: my sister. Why do you have to live away?
I fear: being unliked.
I hear: the wind rustling the leaves on the trees, someone using a band saw, and the ever-present hum of the hospital's heating and cooling system.
I smell: deliciously like Lush's Flying Fox body wash.
I crave: sushi!
I search: eternally for the perfect t-shirt - one that fits well, makes my boobs look good, and has the perfect picture or saying on it that lets everyone know how awesome I am.
I wonder: where I'll be in twenty years.
I regret: not taking biology in high school because I thought the teacher was a tool.
I love: easily.
I ache: to go on a big trip.
I am not: good with money.
I believe: that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. I also believe that this season of So You Think You Can Dance is rigged.
I dance: badly but with abandon.
I sing: all the freaking time!
I cry: WAY too easily about anything and everything.
I fight: my urges to live off nothing but Diet Coke and salt and vinegar Pringles dipped in hummus.
I win: the fight to eat well...most of the time.
I lose: that fight approximately once a month.
I never: burped until that one summer I stayed with my dad and step-mom for a month and everything we ate was either deep fried or chocolate because FRUIT AND VEGETABLES GIVE THEM HEARTBURN!
I always: put on a mix CD of my favourite happy music and sing when I'm doing dishes.
I confuse: everyone when I try to tell a story after drinking 4 pints of beer.
I listen: to my music loudly - too loudly, considering I live in an apartment.
I can usually be found: at lunchtime reading a book and eating my sandwich on a bench in Victoria Park.
I am scared: of taking the bus to visit my family in Winnipeg after that HORRIFYING murder.
I need: to get laid.
I am happy about: the Roughriders' season so far - 6 and 0!
I imagine: that won't last long due to the 8000 injuries on the team. I also imagine there are a few people reading this who are surprised I like CFL football since I say quite regularly that sports are evil. What can I say? I'm a hypocrite!

Mom: 2 Nat: 0

2008-07-29T20:57:00.000-05:00

The scene: Nat is trying on dresses for a wedding and her mom is helping. Nat tries on a strapless dress.

Mom: This one's my favourite so far.

Nat: Mine too, I think.

Mom: But if you buy it, you might want to think about getting some colour on your skin.

Nat: I have colour!

Mom: Nat, translucent is not a colour.

A matter of perspective

2008-07-28T21:25:00.008-05:00

I have a friend who possess an uncanny knack for pointing out truths, even if we don't want to hear them. He recently made a very wise observation that got me thinking. A co-worker had been talking about how busy she is at work. She mentioned how she was already working a ton of overtime but people kept piling more and more demands on her. At the same time, there was someone else in the same position in another area of the company who seemed to not have as much to occupy her time. Our co-worker was going to go to her manager to say she couldn't handle any more tasks, and to suggest a good portion of her work be handed off to the less-busy colleague because "she just sits and plays computer games all day, anyways."

Clearly, our co-worker was overworked and very frustrated and needed some help. However, as my friend pointed out, she didn't need to bring down the colleague when she asked for help. She could say that she had too much to do, yes. She could request help, sure. Hell, she could even suggest that the colleague might be able to take on some of the work. But pointing out that the colleague was just sitting there playing games helps no one out in the situation. In fact, it just might make circumstances much worse for the colleague.

And who knows what's really happening? Perhaps the colleague plays the games on her scheduled breaks and that's when our co-worker walked by. Perhaps she was playing the game in a rare down-time moment between meetings. Or perhaps she was playing them because she didn't have enough to do at work and would welcome an increased workload. My friend pointed out that we had no way of knowing the whole situation, so why even get into it?

Why bring other people down when the problem is with ourselves?

I realized today that I do this all the time when I read blogs or when I talk to friends about their problems. I'll read about a man who suffers from depression and he'll talk about his wife and how wonderful she is and how she helps him through the dark days. And instead of thinking, "How awful for him," I'll think, "What's he complaining for? At least he has someone!" Or I'll read about a woman who has postpartum depression and I'll think, "How can she be depressed? She has a husband with a good job, lots of money, and a baby! What more could a person ask for?" Or I'll talk to a friend who has issues with people and I'll think, "Gawd! I'd LOVE to have all the people she has around her constantly! I'd love living with 2 friends and having very little Me Time. Sounds like heaven! Why is she so upset?"

Because of my friend's comment to our co-worker, I can see now how I'm doing exactly what she did. I'm having some issues with my own life and I bring others down with me. I look at their lives and see how they have all the things I want and I conclude that they're just not appreciative enough, that they just don't know how good they've got it.

Yet I have a lot of things other people would want, and I take these things entirely for granted.

For example, I got home from work today, watched Arrested Development, had a nap, ate cheese, crackers, and a cold leftover hamburger patty for supper, and wrote this blog entry - all without pants on. I didn't HAVE to cook or clean anything for anyone. The only demand made on me was Lucy's incessant "Pay attention to me" bleating, and I shut her up with a handful of kitty treats and a comfy lap to nap on.

What did I do this weekend? Friday night I went drinking beer for so many hours that by the end of the night I had to close one eye to see properly. Saturday I slept until noon and then hung out with my mom. Sunday I went for brunch with friends, hung out at a public pool, and went to another friend's house to watch the football game.

My life isn't horrible. In fact, it probably is the envy of at least ONE person out there. Right now someone feels trapped in a marriage to a person he doesn't like. Someone else is being disowned by her entire family because she just came out to them. An introvert is being forced to attend yet another dinner party. I'm saying none of this to take away from how I feel about my life - my feelings are very real and entirely legitimate - but, rather, to give myself some perspective.

I realize that I'm lucky to have someone like my friend to help me see things differently. Some people may not even have that much.

Clear skies in the distance

Mom: 1 Nat: 0

2008-07-13T22:35:00.000-05:00

The scene: Nat is over at her mom and step-dad's for a Sunday barbeque

Nat: You two should get a dog. I like other people's dogs.

Mom: Well, I like other people's kids. You should have a baby.

Nat: Umm...touché.

That's all I've got today so I'll leave you with this song that I'm currently in love with. It woke me up one morning on the radio and I was happy for the rest of the day.

Jason Mraz - I'm Yours

Weighty issue

2008-07-10T19:56:00.002-05:00

So Facebook totally thinks I'm fat and I don't know why. Well, besides the obvious "because I am." But how does it *know*?

The reason I know Facebook thinks this is because there are always little ads on the left-hand side of the page saying things like, "33 and overweight? Special study of an ancient asian root allows a safe loss of up to 30 lbs over a three month period!" or "Are you in your 30s and want to lose weight?" with a picture of some hideously obese woman.

I know why they know I'm a woman and I know why they know I'm 33 but HOW DO THEY KNOW I'M FAT?

Speaking of losing weight, ever since Earth Day (April 22), I have set my alarm earlier than necessary and hauled my ass out of bed. I've thrown on sweats or shorts, a t-shirt, and a hat. I've slurped down some yogurt and then laced up my runners and gone either for a 5 kilometre walk around the lake in my city or I've gone to the gym and ellipticalled until I can't elliptical any more.

I'm doing this for a very dumb reason. In fact, it's so dumb that I'm not going to get into it here. Let's just leave it at I want to prove a friend wrong. But, if a side benefit of all this dumbness is that I'm a healthier person, who cares how dumb the reason is, right? Whatever gets me out of bed in the morning!

The walk itself is extremely beautiful. Yes, it's a man-made lake and yes, none of the trees are here because of nature, but it's still really really pretty! Don't believe me? Here are some pictures.

Map of the park

The fountain they added to provide some water circulation
and our legislative building in the background

Always with the geese

There was some sort of rowing thing on the lake

Who cares if they're hand-planted - they're still pretty!

Did anyone actually think fishing in this lake was a good idea?

Wait a minute - that's not lake water, is it?

I wonder, though, how much weight I'll have to lose before morons stop shouting things out their car windows at me. Things like, "Hey fattie!" or " Wide load!" or "Look out! Earthquake!" or other equally encouraging comments. Sometimes I really dislike people.

Only connect *

2008-07-06T14:46:00.013-05:00

"It's been a year and I'm not sure it's helping," the alien thinks. She sighs, takes a sip of water, and absentmindedly scratches a mosquito bite on her thigh.

The alien was sent on her mission just over 33 years ago but she's been having some difficulty sorting out all the information she's taken in.

And so, one year ago today, she decided to try a blog.

Many times since her mission started, she's wanted to give up. Can you blame her? She doesn't know why she's here. All she knows is that she was sent here and she's staying until she's learned what she needs to learn.

But the alien is painfully lonely. It's not as if she hasn't made an effort. Just the other day, she was out trying to learn more about the humans. She went to the pub and drank the beer and tried to fit in. When the females talked about giving birth and about what body parts they would fix if they could and about weddings and shopping and shopping for weddings, she sipped and smiled. When the males talked about renovations and the money market and which women wanted to sleep with them, she smiled and sipped. When Male 1 hinted that Male 2 didn't like women - that he liked men - and everybody laughed and Male 2 got angry, the alien really tried to see why that was funny. When everybody started talking about which golf courses were the best, she pictured herself...no. The alien will never understand golf.

As much as the she would like to give up on this whole mission, she knows she can't. She would miss beer. She would miss music. She would miss the smell of rain and the sound of wind blowing in the trees and the way ducks stick their bums in the air when they bob under the water for food.

The alien feels something brush against her ankle and she looks down. "How could I forget?" she says, scratching the cat behind its ear. She watches Lucy - dear, cute, annoying Lucy - stalk and kill a mosquito and knows she would miss her cat dearly.

She would miss the human family that took her in all those years ago. They are the best, kindest, most loving people she's encountered on the planet. In her years approximating a human, she's made many mistakes. She's modeled herself after some rotten examples. She's been mean, deceitful, ugly. They've forgiven her.

If she quit now, she'd never again see the beauty that is out there. She can't really remember what home looks like but she knows it's not beautiful like this. It can't be.

"Home. There's a funny word," the alien thinks. What is home? Where is home? She doesn't feel like she belongs here among the humans, but she's never really known anywhere else. She's studied humans to try and understand them but she feels so completely alone. The humans notice things she doesn't. They look at a person and notice her eyes are too close together, that her pores are too large, that her lips are too thin. They notice her pants aren't the right colour or shape and neither is her body. Try as she might, the alien doesn't see these things.

The humans have different values, too. The alien knows that money is important and that she needs it to sleep in her apartment and eat strawberries and sushi and chocolate (all excellent inventions), but she doesn't understand why the humans always want more and more and more of it. And some of them aren't happy with more, either - they want it without having to work for it. They want fame to go along with their fortune and...she just doesn't get any of it.

Everyone is so ambitious and dissatisfied and they're missing the best part of being human. They're missing each other. Not everyone and not always, but still, they miss connecting. The alien gets up and paces. She's done it a few times - she's made that connection - and each time it's been magical. There's that second she looks into someone's eyes and she can see the naked light that is who they really are, and she knows everything is going to be just fine.

The alien has discovered over the past year with her blog that you can even make that connection over the internet with people and eyes you can't see, and it's given her a bit of hope. No, the alien will not give up, despite her loneliness.

"There are too many things I would miss," she tells Lucy. Lucy purrs in agreement. "Sure could do without the mosquitos, though. Fuckers."

* From Howards End by E.M. Forster

Happy Canada Day, everyone

2008-07-01T11:15:00.003-05:00

Miscellaneous observations

2008-06-29T23:57:00.003-05:00

You may think it's a good idea to pick up the 4 kg box of frozen chicken breasts at the grocery store and carry it home because, after all, it's ONLY a 15 minute walk but dude, reconsider your decision.

"So You Think You Can Dance" really and truly is the best television show ever.

Nicolas Cage is an awful actor. He's wooden and stilted and I hate his "schmoopy" face and yet...I kinda love him.

You know how there are some people that you absolutely adore? And then you go out drinking with them and you end up walking home sobbing because you find out that the people you invited to go for ONE DRINK with, and who declined because they were far too busy and "nocando," actually went over to someone else's place to hang out and have fun. And it's not that they're bad or mean or anything, and they don't dislike you, they just don't LIKE you that much - they prefer themselves to you? And you tell yourself, "Screw them - who needs them?" but really you're asking yourself what the hell is wrong with you, and you're just fooling yourself because you really and truly adore ALL of them? But it makes you so sad to know that they look at you like you might examine dirt under your fingernails, so you try to delude yourself into thinking that you don't care about them? But really the whole situation makes you so sad that you start thinking that your family, if they loved you at all, would totally be happy for you if you stopped being alive because daily life is so fucking miserable for you that to want you to stick around is totally selfish of them?* Yeah. That sucks, hey?

Overheard at the Loverboy concert (oh shush - I was selling merchandise): Ah, back in the day me and my wife used to be BIG concert people. We'd go to all the good ones. We were pretty much famous for always being at the best gigs.

* Again, please note that I'm not going to actually do anything stupid. Promise.

It's a brand new game!

2008-06-27T22:18:00.006-05:00

Lately, I've been playing a new game every night around 3:00 a.m. I call it "Identify That Sound." Let's play, shall we?

Bang-rrrrrrrrrr
That would be my tub of lip balm hitting the floor and rolling s-l-o-w-l-y under the bed, stopping just at the point that no human arms can reach.

Th-thunk
That's the sound of my glasses plummeting to the floor and (hopefully) not breaking.

Smack
Easy one! That's my book almost falling on top of my glasses.

Bonk
Also easy - my tissue box hitting the hardwood.

Crash
That's my alarm clock on the floor now.

Ka-ching...thonk........ka-ching...thonk........ka-ching...thonk
This repetitive noise had me puzzled for a while but I eventually realized it was my lamp being knocked against the wall and then falling back in to place over and over again.

Mew? Purrrrrrrrrr
Ah, and that's Lucy saying, "Can you PLEASE pay attention to me? I'm bored and your night table seems to be bare."

Hair raising

2008-06-25T22:36:00.001-05:00

My hair is inexplicably changing colour and I don't like it. About a month ago I noticed it seemed lighter than usual and that I had roots. Yes, I've dyed it recently but I dyed it darker, not lighter, so it didn't make sense. But logical or not, it just keeps getting lighter and lighter. Colours that used to look good on me no longer do. The whole look of my face has changed. It's weird.

At this rate, I'm going to be naturally blond by the time I'm 60. Then we'll see who has more fun!

A note to my mom

2008-06-22T21:54:00.008-05:00

There are many reasons why I love you, Mom, and I want the world to know how awesome you are:

I was in some sort of musical ensemble from age 7 until my mid-twenties. Band, choir, vocal jazz, chamber choir, musicals, the works. I can count on one hand the number of performances you missed, Mom. For hundreds of other shows, you sat in the audience, smiling, proud, filled with excitement and never bored, and you tried your hardest to clap louder than everyone around you. I always loved the moment I spotted you in the crowd.
When my girlfriend moved hundreds of miles away, you took me to the bus station to say goodbye. You held back while she and I hugged and cried and then you kept me busy for the rest of the day. You took me to buy a vacuum cleaner. We went grocery shopping. You made me lunch - I still remember what we had: salami, mustard, and melted Boccancelli on crusty rolls, and comforting soup. We went to a movie. You made sure it was a comedy. You gave me rumpled tissues from your purse and many hugs when I cried. I was 31 years old but you made me feel as safe as a child again.
I still remember those tough, sad days after we left dad and moved to the apartment in Winnipeg. I was 5 years old, so I didn't think that maybe you were hurting, too. You created special rituals that made me feel better. To this day I get the urge to sit down in front of the TV on a Friday night, watch the Muppet Show, and eat homemade pizza with a banana milk shake off of a TV tray.
Growing up I sang. All the time. From morning to night. It must have been annoying but you never told me to stop. (No, that's a lie. I recall practicing a song for choir while we were eating supper and you told me to give it a rest until after the meal. I can't blame you - I imagine my food was flying everywhere.) This past Christmas, I went over to help you decorate your tree and the two of us sang carols the whole time. I launched into an enthusiastic and quite-on-purposely bad rendition of "O Holy Night." You smiled and gave me looks. "Am I bothering you?" I asked, hopefully. "Not at all. It's nice hearing you sing again, even if you are being a smart-ass." Well...if it wasn't bothering you, what was the point of my badness? I kept going, though.

When you make my favourite soup (beef barley), you always set aside a huge container of it for me.
When I was little and we were not that well-off, you saved your money and took me to Boston Pizza for a Valentine's Day supper. We shared a heart-shaped pizza and you drank water so that I could order chocolate milk.
You put a self-centred teenage Nat in my place many times. "My hair's not done - I can't go out with you! Everyone will laugh at me," I would wail. "Yes, because everyone in the mall has absolutely NOTHING better to do than scrutinize you and your hair. I think they might have the spotlight ready for your entrance," you'd snark back. It helped turn me into a decent, kind, thoughtful human.

Thanks for everything you've done, big and small. You're my favourite person on this planet. Hope you have a great birthday tomorrow, Mom. I love you lots.

Last night I had the strangest dream

2008-06-19T00:00:00.005-05:00

I hardly ever remember my dreams. I know I have them because I'll wake up and think, "Huh. That was weird." But even as that thought is forming in my head, the content of the dream is slipping away and I'm just left with a vague impression. Sometimes I'll have sad dreams and wake up sobbing, yet I won't be able to remember what it was that made me so upset.

Or, if I do happen to remember my dreams, they are unremarkable. I recall one time my ex dreamed she was fighting ninjas and got sliced in the stomach and was bleeding to death and then woke up. That same night? I dreamed I took a shower and when I was done, I discovered someone took my towel! I couldn't dry off! The horror!

But last night I had the best dream I've had in AGES. It was a Hollywood movie-quality dream.

It started at a party. My friend Cake and I were incredibly drunk and left at about 3:30 a.m. We were really far away from my place but right next to his apartment. Public transportation wasn't running and I had no money for a cab. For some reason, he didn't suggest that I crash on his couch. Instead, he said I should go sleep at his old apartment. (In real life, Cake just moved from one apartment to another.) Cake said that he knew the front lock on the building was broken and he still had his old key, so I could get in with no difficulties. AND his old suite wasn't yet rented out!

Not wanting to sleep in the street, I took him up on his offer. I walked a short distance and found his old building. Sure enough, the front door lock was broken and I could easily enter without causing suspicion. I walked up the stairs to his apartment and saw 2 men at the other end of the hall, talking. They looked familiar but I was still really drunk from the party and just wanted to sleep, so I didn't pay them much attention. I opened his door and sure enough, no one was living there yet. Oddly, the place was fully furnished but I didn't question it because in dreams, things just make sense.

I stumbled to the couch and had just started to drift off when I noticed that the apartment didn't smell right. It smelled like soil, like a garden. So I got up and snooped around to see what the source might be. I opened the door to his old bedroom and discovered that it had turned into a HUGE marijuana grow operation. There were plants of all sizes, in all stages of growth, crammed into that room so tightly that there was hardly room for a person.

"Holy shit!" I thought. "I better get outta here before whoever's running this comes back!"

And, on cue, I heard the voices of the two men I had seen in the hall earlier. The were talking about "checking on the plants" so I knew I had to get out fast. Somehow I snuck out of the apartment without them noticing which unit I had exited and as I walked past them, I was surprised to see that they were none other than Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill.

"Those guys woulda killed me if they had found me in there!" I oh-so-rationally thought.

I safely got out the front door of the building and onto the sidewalk when I noticed that in my haste to leave without being killed by stoners, I had forgotten my shoes. So there I was, miles and miles away from home, penniless, drunk, and barefoot. At that point I checked my cell phone and saw that Wizard, a friend of mine, had called me only ten minutes earlier! What luck! So I called him back.

"Hey, Wizard. I see I just missed your call."

"Um...nope. I called you hours ago."

"But my phone says you called, like, ten minutes ago."

"Couldn't have. I was sleeping when you called."

Then I heard a woman giggling in the background and asking who it was on the phone. Wizard shushed her and then said, "Sorry, Nat. I've gotta go." Then he hung up.

I clearly wasn't going to get any help from him! Despondent, I started shuffling along the street towards home. A vehicle drove up along side of me and honked and I turned to see another friend, Mutton, driving the Love Bus. (In real life, the Love Bus is a Christian initiative in the city where they've transformed an old school bus into a traveling refuge of sorts. The take it to the rougher areas of the city and offer prostitutes and people on the street a place to warm up and a cup of coffee if they want. My friend Mutton is quite active in the Christian community here, though I don't know if he's involved with the Bus directly.)

"You need a ride home, Nat?"

"Aw, Mutton! That'd be awesome!"

"Well hop on."

And then I woke up.

Was that a great dream or what? I mean, guest appearances from Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill!

If there's anyone out there skilled in interpreting dreams, feel free to tell me what it all meant because fucked if I know.

Things I miss

2008-06-09T22:17:00.006-05:00

I've been on this planet for 33 years and I have lived with at least one other person for 31 of those years. Living alone isn't all bad. I get to do what I want, when I want. I never have to share the bathroom. If I put a bag of cherries in the fridge, I know that when I go looking for it later that it's going to be there. I always leave the toilet seat down.

Yet there are times when I miss being around people so much that my chest aches. Here are some of the things I miss

The smell of bacon when I first wake up in the morning and the sounds of someone making me breakfast
Talking
Not talking and just being
Snuggling in bed
Being goofy with someone
That feeling of joy when I'd discover that I had an unexpected morning or evening to myself after weeks of no Me Time
Road trips at night when it's raining and I'm snuggled under a blanket, eating junk food, listening to great music, and talking to someone I can't get enough of
Sharing moments of reality-TV-induced incredulousness or delight
Singing harmony (or trying to)
Feeling a bit sick and laying down on the couch while someone moves around in the kitchen, listening to CBC Radio 1 and puttering around
Lazy Sundays filled with Scrabble, chai, knitting, fires in the fireplace, and homemade meals

Days like today, when the loneliness is palpable, I long to be a kid again and living with my mom, feeling safe, warm, and loved.

So long, farewell, yes those pants do make you look fat

2008-05-25T20:44:00.000-05:00

I need help and I'm accepting resumes.

The last few times I've gone out for drinks with friends, I've noticed that I tell a lot of stories that are, in fact, neither funny nor interesting. I also talk WAY too much.

On Friday a bunch of us went to a nearby pub to say goodbye to two co-workers who are leaving the compnay. Here are just some of the things I said that night that probably would have been best left unsaid.

Said to someone who I've only talked to at work, who was drinking Hoegaarden:
• That beer you're drinking tastes like cat pee. Why do you drink cat pee beer?

Said after a friend accidentally brushed again my arm and commented on my skin:
• My skin's soft? I know! It's because I use cheap, no-name lotion.

Said to a co-worker who has a pretty high opinion of himself:
• I know you think you're all hot and stuff, but I don't think you're attractive. Like at. All.

Said to the table in general, at a time when most of my co-workers feel they are vastly underpaid:
• They pay me a ridiculously huge amount of money to do my job!

Said to a friend who is my age:
• My mom think you're hot. Too bad you didn't know her a year ago - I could be calling you dad now.

Said to a very good friend who is in a newish relationship:
• In university, a friend of mine dated your boyfriend. They didn't go out long, though. She said he was creepy.

Said at the end of the night:
• I'm not gonna pass out in the bathroom. I just want to have a little nap here.

I shudder to think of what I said that I no longer remember.

So yeah, send your applications by e-mail to me and I'll get back to those I feel qualify for an interview. Your job will to be to follow me when I go drinking and to make me shut the hell up.

At least I didn't ride the pig in front of the pub like one of my co-workers did.

May-day! May-day!

2008-05-07T19:42:00.014-05:00

It's May and that means something fantastic - MY BIRTHDAY! Can you hardly stand the excitement? I know, I know - how old am I? Ten? The big day isn't until Friday but In anticipation of the momentous occasion, I thought I'd offer you a glimpse of birthdays past.

May 9, 1975 - I was born. It was a Friday. According to the poem, Friday's child is loving and giving. That's something I try to be every minute of every day. Sometimes it's tougher than others but overall I think I do alright for myself.

May 9, 1976 - Oh my poor mom. 1976 was a leap year and so my 1st birthday fell on Mother's Day. She spent the day cooking and cleaning and throwing a barbeque for a couple dozen members of my extended family. Since then, my birthday has fallen on Mother's Day an additional 4 times (when I turned 7, 18, 24, and 29). The next time this will occur will be 2010 when I turn 35 (eep!).

May 10, 1980 - I did something bad before family arrived to celebrate my birthday and as a result, was grounded to my room. I remember my 2 older cousins hanging out with me but not for long. Outside my room seemed like much more fun to them than being stuck inside my room with a mopey, sullen Nat. Of course, I completely forget what it was I did that was so bad and my mom thinks I'm making up the whole story.

May 11, 1991 - Star, a friend I've had since high school, has a birthday on May 1. My other friend Lynn had the brilliant idea to throw her a surprise Sweet Sixteen party. As the preparations got more and more elaborate, I got more and more bitter. I felt unloved and left out and was so jealous that all this fuss was being made over her and not me. I had community band practice the day of the big party and by the time I was done I was hot, tired, sunburned, and even more upset. I decided that I should just skip the party due to "not feeling well" but my mom would have none of it. She practically had to drag me out the door and over to the my friend's house. I walked down the stairs to the party room and everyone yelled "Surprise!" "No - wrong person," I laughed. But nope - turned out the party was for me, too. Lynn, the sneaky monkey, had turned it into a joint bash for the both of us and a good time was had by all.

May 9, 1995 - This was my first birthday away from home. I was taking a month-long class on Quebec politics at Laval University. The class had just started a few days earlier and my awesome new classmates helped me celebrate from the moment I woke up (to off-key strains of the happy birthday song) until the moment I collapsed into bed (after eating, drinking, and dancing like a crazy woman).

May 9, 2000 - This was my second birthday away from home. As a convocation gift, my fabulous mother bought me a train pass so that I could travel out to the east coast and back for the month of May. On May 9 I found myself, again, in the lovely province of Quebec - this time in Montreal. My mom told me to listen to Richardson's Round-Up on CBC that day. She had asked him to play "Mario Takes A Walk" by Jesse Cook (a favourite) and to dedicate it to me, who was taking my own kind of walk. Awww. Later that night my friend Lime (who was traveling with me at the time) and some crazy guys from Mexico we met at the hostel went and drank La Fin du Monde until we believed we were fluent in French.

Thanks to my beautiful, strong, brilliant, generous friends and family, I've had many other memorable birthdays. I'm sure this year will be no exception. Thank you to everyone for walking with me through these past 33 years.

But enough about me - tell me about you! More specifically, tell me about a fabulous birthday you've celebrated in your past. Oh, and don't call me before noon on Saturday, okay?

Of snowflakes and friends

2008-05-04T01:50:00.013-05:00

Have you ever tried to keep a snowflake? It's so beautiful and delicate and it seems the harder you try to stop it from melting, the faster it melts. At first you can still see the shape in the water but then even that grows hazy.

I have (had?) a friendship like that. It was beautiful yet incredibly delicate and it took me a long time to nurture it into being. My friend didn't open up easily and only lately started giving me glimpses of the soul that lies beneath that sarcastic outer shell. And then I went and did something stupid and the whole thing melted before my eyes. The trust my friend had in me was broken. The respect was gone.

My hope is that my friend feels there's something worth hanging on to. It may take a while to get back what we had but maybe, just maybe it's not completely over. I think it's this stupid little spark of hope, the one that says that my friend isn't ignoring me and this is all just a coincidence, is what makes everything worse. It tells me that maybe my friend is just busy. Maybe feelings haven't changed at all and it's just that taxes are due, or a house needs renovating. The spark of hope flickers and grows in my chest and I check for that familiar string of entertaining, though-provoking, insightful e-mails...only to find nothing. The spark shrinks, but never completely goes out. If it did extinguish, I could go about the grieving process because I'd know that snowflake is gone forever. But it's a stubborn spark that flickers like a distant star that refuses to die and it makes breathing painful.

I wish I could say that I couldn't imagine doing something so awful that a wonderful, precious friendship changes forever but I'm afraid I know exactly what that's like.

I'm sorry. I hope you forgive me before I forgive me. But how do you fix a melted snowflake?

I've been less than threed!

2008-04-19T00:00:00.003-05:00

Aw, the Diva likes me! She really likes me!

See that award there? It's my very first one! Isn't she wonderful for giving it to me? You should all go check her out so you can see why I'm so tickled that such a fantastic person likes me.

I think the deal now is that I get to hand these out to 3 people I really enjoy. That's so difficult because I less than three all y'all! Okay, here it goes.

Savia, I want you to have this because your blog always brings a tear to my eye or a smile to my mouth. And you're the one who inspired me to write this crazy thing in the first place!

I would also like Paul to proudly show off this award. You're a sporadic updater but you make me laugh. (And your girlfriend's hot!)

And I'd like to give this to the mysterious Letter A. You take photos of my city. Often, they're scarily close to some of the photos I've taken. I don't know who you are but I less than three your blog.

Thanks to you all!

Pity party of one

2008-04-10T18:55:00.011-05:00

I think I'm a little distracted today. How do I know?

My alarm went off this morning and instead of pressing snooze, I turned it off. I then rolled over and slept for another hour.
When I changed into my work shoes at my desk, I noticed that I was wearing one brown and one black sock.
I almost missed two meetings.
When I got home at the end of the day, I stood there waving my security badge at the front door of my apartment building for at least a minute before I realized that no, that's for the office. The key is for home.
I tried to open my mailbox with my bike lock key.
When I used the correct key (yay!) to open my apartment, I discovered that I had forgotten to lock it this morning. If you would like to rob me blind, apparently you can go right ahead.

The reason my mind is elsewhere today is because exactly two years ago I took the day off work, went to the Greyhound station, and said goodbye to my girlfriend of almost 6 years as she left for BC. It was a gloomy, rainy day (much like today) and it ranks right up there with the day I found out that my parents were splitting up and the day of my grandpa's funeral as one of my saddest days. It's funny how quickly grief just become a part of who you are. It's a flicker in the corner of your brain, not really fully realized but there nonetheless.

I spent much of that first year devastated. I missed K yet I hated her for what she had done to me. I cried myself to sleep many nights. I agonized over what I could have done differently or how I could have changed so that she would have stayed.

Two years have passed and I'm still sad, only the reason has changed. I now see that K and I weren't the best for each other and it was a very good thing that she left. However, since that time I have remained very much alone. Though I've had crushes on a few awesome people, no one has expressed any interest in me. On the other hand, K has had 2 serious relationships. My sadness used to stem from "Boo hoo I want her back." Now it centres around "What's wrong with me? Why am I so unlovable?" I'm starting to accept that I will likely be alone for the rest of my life.

It's a tough idea to get used to. I'm working very hard on making my aloneness just another fact about me, rather than something to get upset about. "Yes, that's Nat. She has brown hair, blue eyes, and she's alone." Probably you think I'm silly. Again and again people have told me to just get over it already. Well that's what I'm doing - I'm just taking a bit longer than some people.

So if you'll excuse me, I've got a pity party of one to attend. I think I'll put Badly Drawn Boy's "The Shining" on repeat (cello AND French horn? you're killing me!) and curl up under the covers with my sweet cat who has kept me company for the past 730 days. After all, the sun will come out tomorrow, right?

Wash, rinse, repeat

2008-04-01T20:41:00.008-05:00

Alarm goes off - press snooze for an hour
Drag body reluctantly out of bed
Zombie-walk to the bathroom
Trip over cat
Stand under stream of hot water until able to move muscles
Wash, rinse, repeat
Towel dry
Moisturize
Dress in barely-appropriate business casual attire
Make toast
Eat toast
Brush teeth

Walk to work

Sit in cubicle
Stare at computer screen
Do work
Read blogs
Check e-mail frequently and obsessively
Silently plead for someone to walk by and say hi or offer invite for coffee
Eat lunch
Stare at computer screen
Do work
Read blogs
Check e-mail frequently and obsessively

Walk home

Change out of barely-appropriate business casual attire
Trip over cat
Watch Simpsons and Arrested Development
Check e-mail frequently and obsessively
Make dinner
Eat
Watch something trashy or forgettable on TV so there is something to talk about the next day at work in the off chance someone stops to chat
Brush teeth
Wash face
Read a few pages of a mildly interesting book
Sleep

Repeat
and repeat

and

repeat

You gimme fever

2008-03-16T16:56:00.009-05:00

I'm going to tell you something that I probably shouldn't say out loud - at least not yet. But I'm going to be brave and risk the possible ramifications. SPRING IS HERE! Hooray! Let's all go dance in the puddles!

If you were to ask me sometime between June and February what my favourite season is, I'd respond strongly and confidently, "Autumn!" But dear-oh-dear, something happens to me between March and May. I toss off my down-filled jacket, kick off my Sorels, and poke my head out my front door like a prairie dog surfacing after a long hibernation. I walk until my feet fall off. I grab my notebook and practically skip to a favourite coffee shop, where I sip my London Fog, write, and watch all my other fellow prairie dogs venturing, blinking in the brightness, into the sloppy streets. I want to smile and say, "Hi! I've missed you!" to everyone I pass on the sidewalk - even the scary teenagers and the wheezing old people. Even the hipsters!

I'm the kind of person who adapts to crap. One time my cold water tap stopped working for my bathroom sink. Instead of calling the owners of the building right away and getting it fixed, I forgot about it and just got used to brushing my teeth with hot water. Anyway, I'm fairly easy-going and I try to look on the bright side of everything. Thankfully, I don't have seasonal affective disorder, so when I'm in the middle of our long, dark, cold winter, I adapt to the circumstances. Oh, it's -30C and none of my friends want to meet for drinks? I guess I'll just eat some popcorn and nuzzle a bit further down in these blankets. But as soon as that first thaw arrives, I feel like I've been released from prison. Whee!

So for the rest of the year, I can treasure the crisp coolness of autumn but right now I'm going to plunge headfirst into spring fever.

I'm going to leave you with this fun little ditty. Yes, I know that it was used recently for a computer commercial and yes, I know that means I'm supposed to hate it. But how can you hate a song with a la-la chorus? And a trombone!

Edited to add: The song is "New Soul" by Yael Naim, in case you were wondering.

Star light, star bright

2008-02-26T22:13:00.003-06:00

For as long as I can remember, I've had 2 wishes. I used them on all stars, wishbones, and birthday cake blow-outs. One wish was to be skinny. I remember using that one for the first time when I was 7 years old. My mom told me to make a wish on the first star I saw in the sky, but not to tell anyone or it wouldn't come true. I wished with all my heart that I would be thin and I didn't tell a soul. As you can tell, the results of that were highly unsatisfactory.

The other wish is for something that probably sounds really bad, but I'm going to assure everyone right now that I'm fine. From the time I was little, I've wished that the universe would make it so that I could no longer be alive. Of course, I've always been overly concerned with the welfare of those I care about, so my wish always had a caveat. I only wanted to cease living if everyone around me would be okay with it. It was more like a wish to have never been born. I wasn't too fond of this whole living thing and wanted to simply disappear off the planet and, more importantly, from everyone's memory.

I was about 10 years old the first time I thought about killing myself. Life as I knew it was full of crying and being teased and bullied and beat up, so not existing sounded...peaceful. I knew exactly how I would do it, too, but I immediately changed my mind once I pictured my mom and grandma having to deal with my death. They would be utterly devastated and I just could not do that to them. Ever since then, I've held on to that desire to disappear. I know it's silly. I don't believe in superstition or gods or anything, yet I still wish my wish.

Tonight I was watching television and an ad came on for a new show about someone who is immortal. The ad flashed through all the problems that come with immortality - you don't grow old but everyone around you does, everyone you care for eventually dies, etc. You know how it goes. It's been done to death in literature and movies and, now, even TV shows. It's the type of show that would normally make me roll my eyes and change the channel but tonight, the ad made me think how humans are always searching for ways to live longer but how long would be enough? 100 years? 200 years? Would we want an extended life if no one else had one?

For some reason, all these thoughts on immortality and life and death resulted in a burst of light in my brain. It sounds utterly cheesy, but all of a sudden I could see that life IS good. That I think I would rather be breathing than not. That our time here really is a blip and that I have to enjoy it as much as I can. That my apartment has been around longer than most people. I've been told these things dozens of times before and even though I could agree, logically, I never felt it. And now I do. And now I have to find another thing to wish for on that first star.

Seven things

2008-02-11T20:10:00.001-06:00

The super-fantastic Savia has tagged me for the following meme:

7 random or weird things about yourself

The rules are as follows:
# Link to the person who tagged you
# Post the rules on your blog.
# Share seven random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.
# Tag seven random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
# Leave a comment on their blogs so that they know they have been tagged.

I don't drive. I have my learner's license but I haven't really operated a vehicle since I was about 16. Well, there was that one time when K tried to teach me to drive the Jetta I had just purchased but that ended in mild whip-lash and much laughter.
I haven't puked since I was about 9 or 10. I remember the day clearly. My family was going to the Travelodge hotel for Sunday brunch and I had a migraine. Instead of letting me stay at home or postponing the meal, my mom and step-dad decided I could lay on one of the couches just outside the restaurant when they went inside. I slumped over on the leather in my nice dress and white tights and moaned softly while they ate and laughed with their friends. After everything was over and we were leaving the hotel, I puked all over the lobby. Ha! Told 'em I was sick.
Related to #2 - I've never been hung over. I've been drunk, oh yes. Many many times - just this past Saturday, in fact. It was one of those can't-really-see-straight-so-you-try-looking-out-of-one-eye-at-a-time nights. In other words, it was fabulous. But Sunday morning? I was perfectly fine. Okay, well "fine" might be pushing it a bit. I was low energy and a bit dehydrated but there was no queasiness or feeling like the world was too bright or too loud. I'm lucky that way.
I've had a headache since I was 5. Some days it's bad, other days it's hardly noticeable unless I think about it, but it's always, always there.
I looooove the smell of books. When I get a new book, one of the first things I do is open it up near the middle and inhale deeply. My favourites are those old, musty books that have been sitting in someone's basement or garage.
I really enjoy smoking but I don't really want to become addicted, so I follow some rules. I can only smoke by myself, outside, just before bed at night, and I can never have more than one in a night. A package usually takes me a month or two to finish, so I keep it in a plastic bag in my freezer.
I can't skate. The last time someone tried to make me go skating was a couple of years ago. I stepped out onto the ice, slipped, and hit my head so hard that the world turned momentarily black. The experience went downhill from there.

So there you have it, folks. I'm a non-driving, non-puking, non-skating, book-smelling, hangover-avoiding drunk quasi-smoker with a headache. And I'm tagging:

— Paul
— The Diva
— Palinode
— EJP
— May-B
— anyone over at A Mandolyn and Ky
— That Girl

* Edited to add: Apparently I'm not very good at this tagging thing. I tried to find people who hadn't done this meme in the last little while, but I neglected to check the comments for recent tagging. Sorry all of you who have been double- and triple-tagged!

Three little kittens

2008-01-28T19:24:00.000-06:00

It's official — I'm no longer the crazy cat lady.

It started with one cat, like I'm sure it always does. Her name was Felix. Felix used to belong to my friend Lynn. Well, kind of. Lynn was dating Al, who was a bit manipulative. Lynn already had 2 cats and didn't want a 3rd. One day Lynn came home to find a little fluffy kitten. Al said that the kitten was found in the big garbage bin in the back alley. Lynn knew she couldn't say no to THAT and said they could keep it. They thought the kitten was male and they called him Felix. Later, 2 things proved to be false.

Felix was, in fact, a she. This was demonstrated nicely by Felix's pregnancy and subsequent litter of kittens.
Al had not found Felix in a garbage can, but had bought her at a pet store. Al made up the story because who can say no to a garbage can kitty?

Lynn's relationship with Al eventually dissolved (the dishonesty about the cat was just the tip of the iceberg) and Lynn always maintained a level of hostility towards Felix. When Al left, Lynn gave Felix to her roommate, who never took great care of her. So when another roommate, K, moved in, Felix became hers. K was my girlfriend at the time and when we moved in together, the two of us became Felix's new owners.

Felix was quite happy to finally have 2 devoted, cat-loving owners, but she seemed lonely so I got a tiny orange kitten for K for Christmas one year. The 4 of us cohabited relatively harmoniously, with Zen, the tiny orange kitten, growing into a big fat orange cat and Felix assuming the role of mom.

Then K and I acquired a 3rd cat - Lucy. Two people, three cats — we were inching towards crazy cat lady territory. But how could we say no to Lucy? Her owner had committed suicide and she had nowhere to go. Plus, she was the most affectionate, most adorable cat either of us had ever met. She was also really really bad. Of course, this meant that she quickly became our favourite.

After K and I broke up, K moved to another province and left all 3 cats with me. I discovered in a hurry that's a lot of cat for 1 person who wasn't home very often. So my friend Cake adopted Zen and, to my delight, is a wonderful owner. The other morning another friend came and adopted Felix and I really hope the 2 of them are doing well. But now my apartment feels empty with just Lucy and me. I miss the sound of 12 little feet galloping on the hardware floors. I miss the cat fights. I miss the little furry purring bodies walking in and around my ankles. I kind of miss being the crazy cat lady.

A place to keep my stuff

2008-01-10T19:29:00.000-06:00

Do you develop irrational attachments to stuff, or is it just me? Big, small, expensive, cheap - it doesn't matter. It's as if the object becomes a sponge that soaks up all the circumstances and meaning that surrounds it and if I get rid of the object, I'll lose that experience. Here are some of the items to which I've been irrationally attached.

A pen. There was absolutely nothing special about this pen except that I liked the way it wrote. And then after it quit working, I continued to carry it around with me in my purse. People would ask if I had a pen and I would give it to them, forgetting it didn't work. Everyone was happy when I finally lost it. (The pen, that is. Not my mind. I managed to hang on to that.)
A 1991 Volkswagen Jetta I named Jetta the Hut (or Huttie for short). I don't have a driver's license but I did have a girlfriend with a car and I got very used to being driven everywhere. She would even wake up at 5:30 a.m. so she could get me to work in time for my 6:00 a.m. shift. Then someone hit the car and it was unfixable. I was quite sad to go back to the life of walking and taking public transportation everywhere, so I did what was obviously the rational thing and bought her a car. Oh gawd I loved that car. It was boxy and had a crank sunroof and when you put the key in the ignition, it played that little bit of La Cucaracha. It was in such good shape that wherever we would go, strangers would leave notes on our windshield saying that if we ever decided to sell it, we should call them. And then some 15-year-old without a license rear-ended us and the car was written off. When my girlfriend and I went to drop off the car, I was devastated. It was around the same time that we were breaking up and that car symbolized a whole lot of good times together. There were spontaneous car trips and make out sessions and jaunts around the city singing Paul Simon songs at the top of our lungs. As we walked away from the compound, I felt like I was losing all of our good memories and I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.
A piece of cement I picked up off the wall around the old part of Quebec City. I was there in 1995 for a month-long course on Quebec politics and I scooped it up one night while partaking in some herbal refreshments with friends. That's right - I got high and stole a piece of the wall around Vieux Quebec. I saw it as a big FUCK YOU to separatism. Eventually, it crumbled in my bag. (Is there delicious symbolism in that? Probably.)
A malachite pendant that I bought at the Vancouver Folk Festival. I had an fantastic time there watching all the hippie men wearing dresses and dancing in circles and all the non-straight couples making out under every tree. I saw Ani DiFranco and the amazing Utah Philips and a whack of others I can't remember. One day several months after I returned, I was showering. My sister moved my bath towel out of her way and put it on top of the some jewelry I had on the counter, including the necklace. When I reached from the tub and grabbed my towel, everything fell on the floor and my pendant broke. I was FURIOUS at my sister. I remember snarling at her that I felt like going and breaking something she really loved. She went crying to Mom that I threatened to smash her brand new $1300 flute because of something she didn't even do. Now, I never specified what it was that I wanted to break but to be fair, when I said those words I was picturing myself using her flute as a baseball bat. In my defense, I didn't say I would actually do it. Yes, sometimes I'm horrible. But you still love me, right?

I don't know why I do what I do. I'm not a new age type who believes in auras and energy and transference. I'm an intelligent atheist who knows better than that. However, I'm also a person who still hasn't thrown out those broken pieces of malachite.

Overheard through the cubicle wall

2008-01-07T12:36:00.000-06:00

Marlene: Do you still have that shrimp dip recipe?

Bernadette: What shrimp dip?

Marlene: The shrimp dip you made.

Bernadette: That I made?

Marlene: Yeah, at your place that time.

Bernadette: Well, what was in it?

Marlene: I dunno. Shrimp?

Bernadette: Oh THAT one! Sure, I’ll bring it for you.

Beauty tips for 2008

2008-01-05T19:24:00.000-06:00

I should be getting together my resume and cover letter so that I can quit my bitching about not liking my job and actually do something about it, but a rant is rolling around inside my head that I absolutely MUST obey.

I was at that panacea for modern ennui, Shoppers Drug Mart, standing in line and flirting a little with the woman in front of me. (Actually, were were just discussing my scarf, but I did smile a lot and I'm sure I batted my eyelashes at least once.) (Why yes, I did get my flirt training from a 1950s romantic comedy.) After we had exhausted our conversation topic ("Who knit your beautiful scarf?" "Uh, I don't know. I bought it at a store." "Where?" "Uh, I forget." "Oh. Excuse me but I think I will move away from you and do something terribly important over here. By the way, you have spinach in your teeth."), I turned my attention elsewhere. Nearby stood two 10- to 12-year-old girls flipping through fashion magazines, oohing and ahhing over the clothes and talking about how they needed to go on a diet this year.

It struck me that, without exception, all those colourful, glossy, enticing magazine are designed to make females feel simultaneously empowered and yet physically wrong in every way. "Lose weight in 2008! The secret may surprise you!" screamed the cutsie, rhyming headline. I felt like screaming at the girls, "Put those down and run! Love yourselves as you are!" (Then I remembered that one should not scream at other patrons if one does not wish to be kicked out of the store.) (Not that I speak from experience or anything.)

As I glanced from cover to cover I became increasingly madder. What kind of messed up society do we live in where we're told we can do and be anything we want...but first we have to shed those unwanted pounds, develop abs of steel, make our faces prettier, banish all blemishes, and find the man of our dreams, all so that we can be truly happy? Barf. So, to help combat the spread of stupidity, I present to you

Nat's Beauty Tips for 2008

Hair too straight? Sigh. I know what you mean. But 32 years of wishing and hoping has not produced a single natural curl on my head. My advice? Get a really awesome hair cut that both works with your hair and that you LOVE and never let it go.
Hair too curly? Gimee a break! Why would you not want curly hair? Thank the deity of your choice each and every day for your beautiful, wild, sexy curly hair.
Eyes too small? Open them really wide and spray them with hairspray. This fuses together your eyelashes and your eyebrows. Or maybe just try to look startled all the time.
Eyes too big? Squint a lot.
Tired of doing battle with blemishes all the time? Know what? My mom is 53 and she still gets zits. Know what else? She's gorgeous. Not gorgeous-for-a-fifty-year-old. Just absolutely gorgeous. Zits do not equal ugly. Most people won't see them anyway - they're too busy staring at your boobs.
Embarrassed by in-grown hairs in the bikini area? Take that as a sign that you shouldn't be removing hair from there. Trimming is a must (especially if you like to occasionally be munched), but waxing? Oh HELL no! And if your boy/girlfriend complains that your pubic hair is gross, tell them it's not as gross as their desire for you to look like a pre-pubescent child.
Having trouble keeping up the ol' shaving routine? Try my routine: in the summer, shave once or twice a month; in the winter, shave once or twice all season. If the hair is getting a bit unruly, try braiding it. Everyone looks more attractive with a nice underarm French braid. Thumb your nose at a society that makes us feel disgusted at the appearance of our own body hair. Insead, feel disgust at something important, such as how unfair it is that poor Paris got jail time but that skank LiLo, like, totally didn't.

Those are all the tips I'm willing to share for now. Oh no, you don't have to thank me. But feel free to flash a smile my way and bat your eyelashes a few times (as long as they're not stuck to your eyebrows).

The ideal place for a neatly-trimmed bi chick

For auld lang syne, my dears

2008-01-02T21:46:00.000-06:00

Before I went out on New Year's Eve, I began a blog post. It went like this:

For the first time ever, I'm feeling rather melancholic about the old year ending and the new year beginning. And I'm not really sure why. The transition from New Year's Eve to New Year's Day has always been about newness and excitement and fresh starts to me, never about regrets or sadness. Yet here I sit, sad and...what, exactly? I'm not sure. Maybe disappointed. Restless.

I listened to CBC Radio 1 today while I prepared appetizers that I'm taking to a New Year's party tonight. All the different shows have been about looking back at 2007 and even though it was a pretty crappy year, I felt myself yearning for the recent past. Remember that day at work when someone actually SPOKE TO ME? I wish I could relive that. Or what about the weekend I went out BOTH nights? Good times, good times.

Realistically, tomorrow is only one day away from today, but tonight represents the passing of an entire year. It's like I can see the inevitable forward march of time and I have a sense of the impermanence of everything. This is not some, "Oh no! I'm going to eventually die!" thing. My death has never bothered me. In fact, I welcome it. Life is so bloody tough and tiring and filled with sadness that it'll be nice when it's all finally over. No, this is not about me getting older. It's about everyone and everything else fading away. Who knows if my beloved grandma will be around to celebrate Christmas with us next year? Who knows if I'll still be in my fabulous apartment? My job that I dislike? It's a hell of a lot better than nothing and maybe next year at this time that's what I'll have.

Then I ran out of time and had to get ready for my New Year's party. And know what? Something happened at that party. Even though I hardly knew anyone, I had fun. No, seriously - I had LOTS of fun. I underestimated the power of the following:

Really nice people who, for some reason, think I'm cool and interesting
Karaoke
A litre and a half of red wine

I got unbelievably drunk but I never slipped into bad drunk territory. I sang many songs (Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, Sweet Caroline, AND MORE!) and I'm sure I was awful at each one. I didn't care. The people were awesome and some were equally as bad. My cab ride home even made me feel good. I gave the driver a nice big New Year's tip and he beamed back at me, telling me that his last two pick-ups had been no-shows but I just made up for his bad luck. By the time I ~~slipped~~ stumbled into bed that night, I was eagerly anticipating the wonderful year 2008 was sure to be.

Looking back on the wild mood swings of my day, I have realized it's ridiculous how extroverted I am. Not in the sense that I'm outgoing (though there's lots of that, too) but more in the sense that I get my energy from interacting with other people. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love people. I love talking with them and learning about them and singing and dancing and drinking with them. I wish I didn't like people quite so much. It would be great to be one of those introverts who can get their personal power from withdrawing from the world. That way, even if I had no friends, I'd still feel worthy and complete.

Jeez. I spend a day with myself and my thoughts, and I'm gloomy and pessimistic and I wish I was dead. I spend the evening with friendly, outgoing, fantastic people and all of a sudden, the new year doesn't look so bleak. In fact, it looks positively fucking rosy. Ah well, I'll take it where I can get it.

So how about you? Did you have a great New Year's Eve or was it terrible? Are you anticipating 2008 with hope or with dread? Did you make any resolutions? I did. I resolve to be nicer to myself. Well, and other people, too. But mostly myself.

Since this is a bit of a yay-boo post, I'll leave you with something that made me sad and something that made me happy.

I think it's sad we have to put needle warnings like this on little travel sewing kits.

I think it's great that hoar frost still happens. It's even greater that it's still called hoar frost.

Google me this

2007-12-21T22:25:00.000-06:00

I've never really paid attention to the stats for my blog but today I perused. Here's what I discovered.

Google searches that have led people here:

- Bony M
- Mary's Little Boy Child
- circulatory system
- went without glasses
- stringing popcorn and frozen cranberries
- the joy of an eye exam
- why love why
- wrapping garland on a tree
- Hawksley Workman
- glasses wear them all the time
- fucking accordion
- Ukrainian rhyme beets cabbage onions over the fence
- Winnipeg lola hairdresser job
- dirty dishes
- your mother called

(That Ukrainian one has me scratching my head. I'm sure you were disappointed when you clicked on my link, my friend. I know of no Ukrainian rhymes that involve beets, cabbage, and onions being thrown over the fence.)

I also discovered I've had visitors from Vancouver (BC), Baltimore (MA), New York (NY), somewhere in Ontario, Berea (OH), San Francisco (CA), Cumberland (RI), Winnipeg (MB), Kaneohe (HI), Georgetown (TX), Madrid (Spain), and Istanbul (Turkey). Hi everyone! (Picture me waving vigorously.)

Neat, hey? Oh shush - I think it's neat.

Well, here's a picture of Lucy so that you don't feel like you came here for nothing today. (You do enjoy pictures of my cat, don't you? Yes, I thought so.)

As cool as a high school musical

2007-12-18T23:42:00.000-06:00

"Nat, you are a very mysterious person."

That is one of the best things anyone has ever said to me, and it was completely unexpected. Granted, I was being rather coy at the time. It was about three years ago and I was at work chatting with Michael, a co-worker. We were talking about some fabulous concert that was coming to town and I mentioned how I was much too broke to go.

Michael: Broke? It seems like you're always broke. You make as much as I do and you don't even have a family to support!

Nat: Yeah, well, I have a lot of bills and...stuff.

Michael: What, do you have a nasty drug habit or something?

At that point in my life I was quite firmly NOT out as a bi person. In fact, I was so far in the closet that I was practically hanging out with Mr. Tumnus and eating Turkish Delight. (Not that I'm terribly out now, but that's a different post for the future.) No one had any idea that I had a significant other and that she was a female! How could I tell him that my girlfriend wasn't working and so I was actually supporting us both? How could I explain that together we had a lot of bills to pay and sometimes we'd be so broke that I'd have to use my gas card to buy us groceries at the corner gas station? (Expired bologna and Wonder Bread, anyone?) I couldn't go into any of this, so I simply smiled and said, "No, just a lot of bills."

I've always wanted to be one of those mysterious women. You know the ones - they have this aura about them. You want to know everything about them but they give you nothing. They make you feel flustered and nervous when you try to talk to them. They're just so...so cool!

That's when he called me mysterious. I was THRILLED! I am the opposite of mysterious. You will know my life story within seconds of meeting me. "Hi-I'm-Nat-I'm-a-feminist-socialist-treehugger-who-hates-being-patronized-and-who-likes-music-and-art-and-taking-pictures-of-weird-stuff-and-long-walks-on-the-beach-and..." I'll go on and on. SO not cool.

However, as time goes by I've accepted that I will never be that dark, mysterious woman in the corner who everybody wants to know, and I think I'm alright with that. I like me, even with all my nerdiness. This brings us to the latest reasons why.

17 Reasons I'm Not Cool (And I'm Okay With That)

I've always like school, not for the social aspect (I never had many friends), but for the learning. How geeky is that?
I play the flute. Not the sultry saxophone or the wailin' trumpet or the pounding drums. The flute. Like Alyson Hannigan in that awful movie franchise, only with less body invasiveness.
I'm an adult and I'm taking beginner piano lessons.
I cry. Oh MAN do I cry. None of this stoic, strong stuff for me. I cry, I weep, I sob, I blubber. I cry when I'm sad, mad, or happy. And I don't look all cute when I do it, either. My whole face turns red and blotchy and swollen, my nose runs, my voice turns raspy. It isn't pretty. I'm just one big ball of deeply-felt emotions.
I get excited about things like sunsets and autumn and Northern Lights and hoar frost. (By the way, as I write this there is a particularly beautiful batch of fresh hoar frost outside. Fucking gorgeous.)
I take the bus. Or as my co-worker is fond of calling it, the Loser Cruiser.
I love reading!
I will go to the movie theatre and watch a movie by myself.
I am not cynical. I usually believe the best in people and give them second and third and fourth chances when they let me down.
I don't really do sarcasm. I tend to not realize when others are being sarcastic towards me and when I try to say something sarcastic, it comes out all wrong and people miss it entirely.
I like things! Cool people never seem to like anything. It doesn't matter if it's a movie, a band, a song, a holiday, or whatever - chances are I like it and all the cool kids don't.
I really really love my family. I know - how uncool! You're supposed to barely put up with your dysfunctional relations. You're supposed to make a sarcastic, cynical appearance at Christmas dinner and then get the hell out of there as fast as you can. You're NOT supposed to stick around and play crib or Scrabble.
I play crib and Scrabble.
I go to the library regularly and take out books.
I don't have cable television.
I can't dance yet I love it so I flail around every chance I get. Cool people either don't dance or dance very well.
I have a video tape of when I was in the community band. It is of our summer tour to the mid-western United States. It's filled with concerts and marching competitions. I love this video tape. When I first met my ex, I made her sit down and watch it with me. To her credit, she did not go running for the hills.

All I need to do now is find people who think this list is what makes me cool, not what prevents me from being cool. And if one of them should also think I was kinda cute, well that wouldn't be so bad either.

Hope

2007-12-17T00:59:00.000-06:00

I saw this a while ago and it made me feel happy.

My Christmas wish list

2007-12-13T22:42:00.000-06:00

A job where:
- I feel like I'm contributing in a meaningful way
- I get to interact with people with whom I have things in common
- My co-workers acknowledge my existence, are curious about me, and will actually initiate conversations with me instead of just answering direct questions
- I am doing something I enjoy
- I can somehow help people
- Even one of the above
More friends. Don't get me wrong - the ones I have now are awesome and I couldn't love them any more. However, I'm always on the lookout for more so that my current friends don't reach their Nat Saturation Point (the NSP) and get annoyed at everything I do and say. Have I mentioned that I REALLY like people and enjoy being around them a lot? The NSP seems to occur quite quickly these days.
A photography class where I can learn how to actually use my awesome little digital camera properly. When I purchased it at the beginning of the year, I had no idea I'd turn out to like photography so freaking much. To be more accurate, I've always enjoyed looking at photos, but I've never been much of a taker of photos. It used to take me an entire year to finish one roll of film. However, since I bought my digital camera? Look out! Um, so yeah. Knowing what I'm doing would be nice.
Peace, love, and understanding.
Someone to clean my apartment. Gawd, I hate cleaning.

Everyone's a critic, especially Lucy

2007-12-04T22:01:00.000-06:00

I've been listening to Christmas songs for a couple of weeks now. Yes, I'm a bit of a Christmas nut. In the interest of spreading joy and settling nerves everywhere, I shall share some of these favourites with you.

Nat's Nineteen Beloved Christmas Songs

A Christmas Festival by Leroy Anderson - The band organization I was in from when I was 7 years old until I was 16 years old was made up of 4 levels - D (beginners), C, B, and finally A (the best musicians). Every year, all 4 bands put on a lavish Christmas concert in our local concert hall. We'd have sets and special guest and a huge audience. Near the end of the concert, the A band would play this song and I can remember thinking each and every time that I could hardly wait until I was in the A band so that I could play it, too. You know how sometimes you hope for something so hard for so long that when it finally happens it's a big disappointment? That totally didn't happen here. I was in the A band for 4 years and I relished each performance of this song. I know it so well I could hum to you the different instruments' parts. My favourite bits include the chime notes in Silent Night and those fantastic triplets in O Come All Ye Faithful.
Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson - I also played this in band. It has to be the version with the whip-snapping sound, the jazzy section, and the trumpet-horse at the end. It was always amusing when someone new tried to do the horse sound. Sometimes in rehearsal they ended up sounding more like a wounded moose than an whinnying Clydesdale.
Claire Fontaine by Hawksley Workman - This song is not overly Christmassy by it's on his Christmas album and is fun, nonetheless. What's not to like about a tribute to a paper-maker? Claire Fontaine you seem to bring the best out of me and the things that I write to sing.
Happy Christmas (War Is Over) by John Lennon and Yoko Ono - You can't get cheesier than a couple of peaceniks and a children's choir but I love it.
Go Tell It On The Mountain performed by Mahalia Jackson - She has such a powerful voice that she kicks my ass all over the place and makes me temporarily forget that I'm an atheist.
Fairytale of New York by the Pogues - Any Christmas song that includes the words scumbag, maggot, drunk, and slut is tops with me. Him: I could have been someone. Her: Well so could anyone. Amen, my sistah.
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings performed by the Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan - I know it's not cool to like BNL but I do. They're goofy and fun and their voices sound so damn good together. Add a kicky beat and the beautiful voice of Sarah and you have harmonic perfection.
Carol of the Bells performed by whomever - I know all the words to this and sing along vociferously. What? You don't believe me? You think this song doesn't have words? Hark how the bells, sweet silver bells, all seem to say, "Throw cares away." Christmas is here bringing good cheer to young and old, meek and the bold... I could go on. I won't.
3 Generations by Hawksley Workman - The words remind me so much of my own family Christmases, which tend to revolved around the kitchen. Put away the turkey to make sandwiches tomorrow and put away the bones to make the soup for the winter - but not the wishbone, just put it on the counter and let it dry out this week in time to make a wish for New Year's Eve. And then there's that last verse that always makes me feel a little sad.
O Holy Night performed by Mahalia Jackson - When I was about five years old, my mom had a record of Christmas songs. When you opened the album, the middle had a pop-up nativity scene and I loved to look at it while I listened to the album. The one song I HATED was O Holy Night because it was performed by a soprano whose goal seem to be to shatter all the windows in my house. As I grew up, I associated the singer with the song and avoided it at all costs. Then I heard this version and the resulting goosebumps proved to me that the Mahalia is amazing and the song is actually quite lovely.
Baby, It's Cold Outside performed by Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews - This is an awesomely jazzy rendition that makes me want to dance around and sing loudly while twirling a feather boa.
What Christmas Means To Me by Stevie Wonder - Who doesn't like Stevie?
The Christmas Song performed by Nat King Cole - That voice makes me melt.
All I Want for Christmas performed by Samantha Mumba - Her voice is a tad whiny but that beat makes me move. Also my friend likes to sing along, including the super high note, and she always laughs at my attempt to hit the note. Sue me - I'm an alto at heart.
Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses - Even though I love Christmas, I acknowledge that it can be a bit trying at times. This song sums up all the frustrations of the season.
Mary's Boy Child performed by Bony M - Oh. My. GAWD I love this song. So much fun to sing at the top of my lungs, especially the last section with all the different parts being sung at the same time.
Winter Wonderland performed by Aretha Franklin - What a voice. Also, she makes one change to the lyrics that makes me giggle: Later on we'll conspire as we groove by the fire. Hee. Oh Aretha.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Ella Fitzgerald - What's Christmas without a little Ella? It's nothing, that's what it is.
Hallelujah Chorus by Handel - When I was in band, we got together with an amazing choir and performed this in front of a gigantic audience. I'm pretty sure the shivers I experience during that performance stayed with me for weeks after. And he shall reign for ever and ever - King of kings, Lord of lords.

I got a little too loud with the singing on that last one and woke up Lucy. Here's the look she gave me:

So what are you listening to? Drop me a comment with the Christmas songs you love to love (or hate to love). If I had more readers and it wasn't illegal, I would hold a contest where the winning poster received a disc of all the above music. Ahem. [wink, wink]

Death by garland

2007-12-03T19:21:00.000-06:00

This weekend I went to my mom and stepdad's house to help with the Christmas tree. I absolutely adore Christmas. I love the music, I love decorating, I love the fresh smell of a real tree, I love Christmas lights, I love baking, I love buying things for other people, I love cold Christmas mornings with sparkling snow, and mostly I love the warm, friendly chaos that comes from a house full of people who mean the world to you all rushing around getting supper together and presents wrapped and trying not to kill one another.

Naturally, when my mom asked if I wanted to go help, I jumped at the chance. Because this is the first year my mom and stepdad will spend actually living in the same house, it's going to be a bit weird. I figured by helping decorate, it will help me to feel that much more at home over the holidays. Plus, since my ex and I broke up I haven't decorated my own place. She was also cuckoo for Christmas and it's just not as fun putting up a tree and decorating all by myself.

When I got to their house, my stepdad was hanging decorations around their sunroom and the tree was all assembled. It's the kind that comes with the lights already in there to make life easier. Mom and I started with the garland. THREE HOURS LATER we finished hanging it around the tree. "What happened?" you may ask. Were we interrupted? Was there a tree-falling-down catastrophe? Did we construct a gingerbread village in there somewhere? Oh no. It was all garland, all the time for those three hours.

You see, my mom doesn't like the usual tinselly garland that most people use on their trees. She thinks it looks tacky. (Yes, Mom. Because none of our other Christmas decorations are tacky. Here is an actual ornament we hang on our tree every year:)

One year she made my sister and me string popcorn and cranberries but that didn't work out as well as she had hoped. We used frozen cranberries and when they thawed, the colour bled all over the popcorn, turing the whole thing into a bloody mess. Also, our cat like to eat it. So one year my mom found this looooong string of silver beads that was to be used for garland and ever since that year, we've had to deal with the Law of Garland Attraction (or Death By Garland).

Fig 1. This is what the garland looks like in its resting state. (Clearly I am still traumatized by the whole incident, because this should be labeled Fig. 1, not Fig. 3.)

Did I mention this fucker is LONG? Because it is. And as long as the string is not touching any other part of the garland, life is fine. However, it's not so easy to wrap garland around a tree when the string is stretched across the living room, out the front door, down the road, and along the highway on its way to Vancouver. This means that you have to wind the string around your arm or neck or body or something. And so begins the Law of Garland Attraction - AS SOON as this particular type of garland touches any other part of the string, the silver balls are so attracted to (or enraged by) each other that they must get all twisted up. See Figs. 2 and 3:

For the result of this twisting, see Fig. 4:

For the result of the dreaded garland knot, see Fig. 5:

My stepdad kept poking his head into the living room and saying one of the following:

Are you two still untangling?
I can't believe how long that's taking!
I can run to the store and get a different kind, if you want.
You guys are crazy.

We just snarled back and kept on untangling. We'd get a nice length all sorted out and work on another section, only to have the first section end up in a knot. At one point my mom remarked that we must be the only people in the world who used that garland more than once. I think she's probably right. She has vowed to find something nice and simple for next year but I'll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, I'm going to enact my revenge by ending with a final picture of a beloved, not-at-all-tacky decoration that ends up in a place of honour every year.

Supersuspicion...ain't a word

2007-11-22T18:18:00.000-06:00

I received this from the always-awesome Wench:

Tag, you're it!

The Rules:
Write a list of things of which you are suspicious. Any number of them will do. Even the number 0 works. This is the first meme that can be done without even doing it. In fact, you're doing it right now.
Include the list of rules, if you feel like it.
Link back to the person who tagged you. Or not.
Tag however many people you want to tag. You can skip this step.
If you acted on rule four, leave comments on their websites to let them know that they have been tagged. This step is also completely optional.
Feel fantastic.

So, with no further ado I present you with

Four things that cause me to be suspicious

1) Miracle cures - Today it's goji juice that cures all. Yesterday it was cranberries. Tomorrow it's going to be aloe or pomegranate. PEOPLE! There is no magic pill. No fountain of youth. No miraculous elixir. Eat well, exercise, and be kind to one another.

2) Studies - The media is always reporting on studies done to prove this or disprove that. Who did these studies? Who funded them? How conclusive are they? Are there other studies that refute the claims? The other day I was ranting about the prevalence of gender-specific marketing for children's toys. If I see one more happy little girl in her playhouse with the realistic kitchen (to cook her man some supper), I might just vomit. Anyway, my friend said there was a study that proved little girls are naturally attracted to dolls while little boys went for the trucks. Really? Who did this study? Who were these children? Were they newborns? Because that's the only way to avoid preconceptions. If they live in our society for any amount of time, they're going to be exposed to gender stereotypes everywhere they look. That HAS to impact the study! Did the media report any of that when they presented the study? Which takes me to...

3) The media - There is no such thing as unbiased media, so instead I choose the radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and TV shows that have a bias I agree with.

4) People who compliment me - Whenever someone makes a positive comment about me, my gut reaction is, "What do you want?" because I can't actually believe they simply like something about me. Through rigorous training, I now just say, "Thank you."

And that's all, folks. I'm not overly suspicious. I'm that trusting person that makes it on the news because she let a stranger into her house to use the phone and ended up dead. Except I wouldn't do that (due to my rigorous training mentioned in #4).

I don't think I'll tag anyone, but if you're reading this and want to make your own list, leave a comment letting me know and I'll check it out.

Home again, home again, jiggity-jig

2007-11-21T02:07:00.000-06:00

Okay, this time I've REALLY taken off my travelin' shoes. Honest. See - there they are in the back corner of my closet.

I have just returned home from another week away, this time in the far-less-glamourous (and much-less-smokey) city of my birth: Winnipeg. My time in Winnipeg is always a swirly mixture of eager anticipation and dread, fun and boredom, happiness and sorrow. It's great to see my family, but I'm never there long enough and people usually end up with their feelings hurt and fighting over me. (Sidenote: This used to drive my ex crazy. She didn't see why I put up with the snide comments and manipulation. Once she accused me of actually liking it. I quickly set her straight.) To tell you about my rollercoaster time there, I shall divide it up into the different people with whom I visited:

My dad
As you know, my relationship with my dad is not ideal. He's a long-time alcoholic who still acts like he's 16 years old. Most of the females he has dated since my ex-step-mom left him 2 years ago have been my age or younger and have been...oh, how can I say this nicely? Alcohol-soaked bar flies who used my dad for his money and generous spirit? Yeah, that has a nice ring to it. Well now he's dating someone one year OLDER than he is that he met at a pig roast! She's lovely and the two of us got along quite well. Normally when I visit my dad, he drinks rye and cola, I drink diet cola or water, and we sit on his couch and watch movies on his gigantic screen TV while I inhale 2 packages of second-hand smoke each day. This time, though, I hung out with his girlfriend and went shopping and got a pedicure instead. It was nice. Oh, there was still a lot of TV-watching on my part and rye-drinking on his part. And karaoke. My dad is a regular at a beer parlour on north Main Street and they have karaoke every Friday night. I tried to escape it but I couldn't - he wanted me to go experience the fun for myself. He wanted to show me off to all of his drinking buddies, including the guy who couldn't talk due to years of inhaling household chemicals, the 350-lb biker dyke with the black eye, and T-Bone, who only communicates by grunting. It was an interesting night, I must say. Oh yes, and my dad and I sang a lovely rendition of Bye Bye Love.

My grandma
I love staying in my grandma's house. I have my own bedroom, bathroom, and television in her basement. She cooks me delicious meals (I'd stab someone with a chef's knife to get at her buttermilk pancakes and chokecherry syrup). We go shopping, we play crib, we go for walks, she does reflexology on my feet. I adore my grandma. However (you knew there was a however, didn't you?), she tends to drive me a bit crazy. She points at my hair and says, "Did the hairdresser mean to do that?" She squints at my year-old, snazzy winter jacket and says, "You've been wearing that old thing for 15 years! Let's go get you a new one." She also jealously guards her time with me against anyone else, especially my dad. "You've stayed at your dad's for 3 night and only 2 nights with me. When are you coming back to my place?" she'll inquire. Sigh. This time she was actually quite understanding. She knew she'd be seeing me for Christmas and that I hadn't seen my dad for almost a year, so she allowed unequal visiting time. She also bought me a new winter coat because she didn't like my old one and a new pair of shoes because she didn't like the ones I was wearing. I drew the line when she suggested making an appointment for a hair cut with her hairdresser.

Uncle Steve
Uncle Steve is recovering nicely from his operation. It was great to spend some time with him. He cooked me breakfast one day and lunch on another. He drove me places, even though he's not supposed to be driving much yet. We talked about books we were reading (me: Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan; him: Death at Sandringham House by C.C. Benison), good movies we had watched (me: Martian Child; him: Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time ever), delicious new recipes we've discovered (me: Curry Zucchini Soup; him: Mediterranean Salad) and recent obsessions (me: taking photos of homeless people; him: finding cheap organic tomatoes). It was a little startling to see him looking so skinny and moving so slowly but his sense of humour was still there, thank goodness.

Auntie Beth
I don't often spend a lot of time with Auntie Beth. She's my dad's sister and I've never been especially close to anyone on my dad's side of the family. They're not what you would call a loving bunch. Nonetheless, my aunt wanted to get together for supper with me one night and introduce me to her girlfriend, Lola. We went to a Chinese buffet restaurant (bleh) and actually had a pretty good time. Even though I don't know her very well, I like Auntie Beth. It took me FOREVER to figure out her roommates were more than roommates. Even after I knew they slept in the same bed, it still didn't dawn on me they were anything but friends. I was a slow child. Give me a break - it took me almost 25 years to figure out I was attracted to both men and women. (We'll save that for another entry.)

Jane
Jane and I have been friends since university. Here's the story of how we met. It was my very first semester of my very first degree. I walked into my first French class and scanned the room for a friendly face. I saw someone who looked interesting and sat at the table in front of her. The tables sat groups of two - why I didn't sit with this potentially-interesting person, I'll never know. As the room filled up, a really odd-looking woman entered and looked for a place to sit. "Please don't sit here, please don't sit here...ah crap." She ended up being as weird as she looked. The next day, I made a beeline for the interesting woman's table and said, "I don't want to be stuck with that weirdo as a conversation partner all semester!" We laughed, bonding over the poor weirdo's weirdness. That was Sharon. (The interesting person, not the weirdo.) Sharon was friends with Jane and introduced us. Today, I haven't spoken to Sharon in years but Jane and I remain good friends. Sadly, she lives in Winnipeg and I don't get to see her much. I managed to see Jane not once but TWO WHOLE TIMES while I was there! It was great. There was beer involved and, on one of the occassions, her equally fantastic and hilarious sweetie.

Princess
Princess is a relatively new friend. We met through work - she works in the Winnipeg office, I work in the Regina office. Her position required her to take trips to Regina every now and then. We clicked immediatley and even though she no longer works for the same company, we've kept in touch. Before I left, I informed her that I would be visiting her city and that I'd love to get together one night. When I called her from my dad's house to see what she wanted to do, she informed me she was kidnapping me Saturday evening and not returning me until Sunday afternoon. She had a whole big adventure planned out - dinner, beer, dancing, and brunch the next morning. (My dad and my grandma weren't very happy about losing one night to someone outside of the family!) We ate sushi for dinner (delicious!), met up with her husband, Jane, and Better Than Awesome Paul for drinks (goofy good fun), and went dancing until the wee hours at a club located in an old bank, complete with the carved stone pillars and high tin ceilings. The next morning, while we were getting ready to go for brunch to a little bakery/eatery down the street, we heard on the news that a guy was stabbed to death in the very same nightclub where we were dancing to "Sexyback"! We both agreed that I should tell my family we were at a different club - one where there were no fatalities!

And that was my trip. I'm good until at least next summer or fall, when I'll have to do it all again. One of these days I'm going to take a secret trip to Winnipeg where I just tell Princess and Jane.

Just took off my travelin' shoes

2007-10-29T19:19:00.000-05:00

I know I don't update here very often but it's been a while, even for me. That's because I was away all last week in sunny San Diego. Only it wasn't sunny because of the fires.

Before I left home, I had heard a bit about some fires in California, but nothing big - just a blurb or two on the news. Then on the flight from hell (it was freaking hot, there was a "big sitter" beside me (you know, the kind that don't know how to tuck their arms in and CLOSE THEIR GOD DAMN LEGS a smidge), and the kid behind me had two notes: crying and whining), the pilot came on the intercom and advised us that if we look out the left side of the plane we'd be able to see the fires. I looked out the window and saw great plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky. Obviously this was bigger than I thought!

When I got to my hotel, the place was all abuzz. A dozen people were in line to check in, people were walking to elevators with boxes of household items clutched in their arms, and dogs on leashes were around every corner. After I got to my room, I turned on the TV to see if I could get some news on the fires. Could I ever! Fire coverage was all that was on. I found out everything I wanted to know about "FIRESTORM 2007" in a few minutes. The Santa Ana winds were making the situation worse. There were 5 major fires to the north and the east of San Diego and they were between 0% and 5% contained. Nearly 600,000 people had been evacuated, many to Qualcomm Stadium, home of the San Diego Chargers. FEMA was coming to the rescue! California had to import energy from Mexico. And on and on and on. It was information overload.

The whole state-wide crisis helped reinforce something I've always maintained - it's not individual Americans that I have a problem with. It's America. The people are very much like me and those I know. A lot of people in my class were from the area and had their families staying with them due to emergency evacuations. My classmate were both stressed and relieved. Stressed over the proximity of extended family and relieved that every was safe. People everywhere were helping any way they could - cooking meals, providing shelter, donating tents and blankets. Whenever it was obvious that I wasn't from around there, someone invariably asked if I was there because of the fires. Upon seeing me pouring over a city map, one server at a restaurant even asked if I needed a place to stay because a community centre in his neighbourhood had free beds. After I explained that I was there from Canada for work, he aplogized and said sadly that my timing was unfortunate because usually it's a really nice city. He apologized for the inconvenience of a bit of smoke and no Sea World! People are people. They love and fight and fear and care and hate and they can amaze you wherever you are. Even in the U.S.

On the way back home I did a lot of waiting in the San Diego airport as my flight got delayed again and again. One of my fellow waiters was this guy in the red sweatshirt:

He had just graduated from basic training (or whatever you call it) and was on his way back home. I know this because he spent much of his time calling loved ones on his cell phone to tell them the good news. Here are some snippets I overheard:

I got sharp shooter! It means I can kill bodies at 500 yards! Awesome, hey?
I'm different now. It's amazing. I've definitely changed.
I can't wait to put some of my new skills into action. I'm definitely in a combat frame of mind. I want to show those terrorists who's in charge!
I love you Uncle Bill....Yeah, I'm proud of me, too. God bless you.

The whole thing made me really sad. The fact that he had to go kill and possibly be killed didn't phase him at all. He was so happy about such a scary thing.

To end this off, here are a couple of reasons why for you:

Why I Like Travelling:
Newness. When one goes to a new city, it's all so different. I love wandering around with only a vague notion of where I'm going and how to return. I get to discover new types of trees, flowers I haven't seen before, flavours I've never even though of. (Speaking of new flavours, there was a Ben & Jerry's not too far from my hotel in San Diego that had a new flavour - pumpkin cheesecake! If you get the chance to try it, do!). I want to go everywhere and see everything. I want to experience what life is like in that particular place. What makes it fun/unique/boring/sad? I want to know it all.

Anonymity. It's pretty neat to be in a place where absolutely NO ONE knows me. I could make a complete idiot of myself in the middle of downtown and it wouldn't matter. I could trip and fall on my face. I could run around with a sign declaring that the end is near. I could dress in a clown suit and dance a jig. Some people might think, "Who is that whacko?" but that would be it. Um...not that I did any of those things. Ahem.

Why I Like Coming Back Home:
Familiarity. I know exactly where I can buy stamps or a good cheap meal and I know where I can walk alone when it's dark and where I can't. I can find all my stuff in my apartment, even with my eyes closed. I know the city well enough that I don't feel like I always have to go exploring. It's nice sometimes to do nothing.

Music. When I'm away I usually just have my mp3 player with me. I'm able to consume music (through the earbuds, the radio, or the TV) but not make it. I miss my stereo and my piano and my flute. The first thing I do when I get home is put in one of my mix CDs where I know all the songs and belt out the words so loudly that even my toes vibrate. It's wonderful.

I will leave you with another photo from my trip. One thing I can say about all the smoke in San Diego: it made for some awfully nice sunsets!

Images of broken light which dance before me

2007-10-19T01:46:00.000-05:00

I have three stories for you today. The first one is really long, the second is much shorter, and the third is so short that it's not really a story. All three are rather meaningless.

Story One
I got on the elevator at work today. I had just finished my lunch in the 2nd-floor cafeteria and was going back up to my cubicle on the 5th floor. A man I didn't recognize followed me in and as I leaned to press 5, he pressed 3. I started mentally rolling my eyes at yet another 2nd-to-3rd-floor traveler, but then I noticed he was also carrying a huge and heavy-looking black case. The case had a sticker on it that read MUSIC IS MY LIFE. I immediately felt a tad guilty and judgey for my eye-rolling and my curiosity was piqued. This intriguing case made the man infinitely more interesting to me. What treasures lay inside? Why would somewho works in the IT department of a financial institution proclaim that music is his life? (There goes the judginess again.) Why had he brought part of his private, non-work life to the office with him?

These thoughts must have passed through my head rather quickly because, even with the nausea-inducing, speed-of-light, one-floor elevator ride, I still had time to ask him what was in the case. He flashed an embarrassed smile and informed me that he was lugging around an accordion. Then the door closed and the mysterious accordion-playing IT geek was gone.

All this elevator excitement forced a memory to come bubbling up to the surface. It was a fresh new 2003 - January 1st, to be exact. I was awake and moving around on a statutory holiday at the ungawdly hour of 5:30 a.m. because my job involved shift work anywhere between 6:00 a.m. and midnight, 365 day a year. I was one of the lucky New Year's Day suckers. So at 5:30 I stepped outside into an absolutely beautiful morning. It was one of those crisp, brisk winter mornings where the cold sucks the air out of your lungs and makes you glad to be alive. Of couse, it was still dark - in the dead of winter it seems like it's always dark - but it was that curious bright darkness that happens so often in December and January. Snow was floating down in large, fluffy clumps and the city was so quiet.

At the time, I was living with my then-girlfriend in the basement suite of a house. As I walked out the back door into the gentle morning, I noticed a strange, dark object in the back yard by the fence. My heart quickened at this intrusion but the object was too boxy to be a dangerous and feral animal, so I crept over to have a look. It was a large black case with band stickers plastered all over it. Even though I was running late for work I dragged the surprisingly heavy case in the house, undid the latches, and peered inside. If you're following along, I'm sure that you have guessed that the mystery object turned out to be a nifty, shiny accordion. Before I could explore any further, I noticed the time and realized I had to leave for work tout de suite. I closed the lid and scrawled out a note ("Look what I found in the yard!") so that my girlfriend wasn't completely mystified when she awoke.

While I was gone, she poked around in the case and discovered that the accordion belonged to a semi-famous Western Canadian celtic/rock-ish band. I e-mailed them, asked if they were missing anything, and explained the situation. The accordion player sent a very excited and grateful message back telling me how they had played a New Year's Eve gig at a bar about 2 kilometres away from my house. They had finished their last set, loaded their gear into their van, and returned inside for a few drinks. While they were imbibing, some rotten people broke into the vehicle and made off with amps, guitars, and yes, the accordion. We made arrangements for me to sent it back to him by bus and he sent my girlfriend and me a whack of their CDs as a thank you.

To this day I enjoy imagining the thief that nabbed the accordion. He and his buddies probably took off running at breakneck speed but eventually the weight of the case would have started to slow him down. (Accordions can weigh between 15 and 25 pounds!)

"Guys! Wait up!"
"C'mon, faster!"
"I can't do it. What the fuck is in this, anyway? [thump, click-click, creeeak] What the? Fuck this shit! I ain't carrying no fucking accordion!"
"Fine. Here - throw it over this fence. Now come ON!"

Story Two
I bought a new pair of work pants last weekend. They're really quite lovely - dark, slate grey, stretchy material, a nice flare from the knee down. I decided to cut off the tags this morning and wear them to work. Well, apparently these pants were not made for my body because all day they kept sliding down my waist and I kept hiking them back up to avoid showing everyone my underwear. The pants got worse and worse as the day dragged on. My walk home was ridiculous. The pants were in surprising danger of slipping right off of me, so with one hand I carried my briefcase/bag thing and I shoved the other hand into my jacket pocket and clutched the top of my pants through the fabric of my pocket and my shirt. This meant that one side of the waist slid further and further down past my hip bone but the other side was safely secured in my grasp. This also meant that I had no free hands to stop stray hairs from blowing into my eyes and sticking to my lips. As well, a small stone managed to hop in and hitch a ride in my right shoe. If I had been wearing sandals it would have been easy to dislodge it but because I was wearing normal shoes, it seemed like far too big of a hassle to do anything about its presence. I'm certain my pants would have slipped down around my knees if I let go. I eventually made it home, pants crooked, clumps of hair in my mouth, and a distinct limp to my gait.

Story Three
Before I headed to bed this evening (where I am currently typing to you), I went outside for my end-of-day breather and there were Northern Lights in the sky! I haven't seen the Northern Lights in a very long time.

Family matters of the heart

2007-10-15T22:41:00.000-05:00

Uncle Steve. Uncle. Unc. I've called him all three names throughout my life. He is my mother's only brother and my only uncle-not-by-marriage, though at times he's seemed more like an older brother to me. Here are some scattered facts and memories:

He is nine years younger than my mom and twelve years older than I am.
We were both born in the Year of the Rabbit.
The day I was born there was a large lumber yard fire in Winnipeg. My dad and Uncle Steve were on their way to the hospital to see me but they stopped instead to watch the fire. Their defenses?
- Dad: I had already seen you.
- Uncle: Well...I was 12 and it was a big fire!
My grandma has a tape that consists of three-or-four-year-old Nat trying to sing various nursery rhymes. I say trying because every time I would get going on one, "Unc" would be right there, bugging me and making me mess up.
Around the same time, my grandma, grandpa, uncle, and I all took a road trip from Winnipeg to Hecla Island. Apparently I tried (there's that word again) to sing Baa, Baa Black Sheep the entire two-and-a-half hours. Uncle Steve would always interject with the wrong lyrics, forcing me to start over. My grandma recalls this trip with a laugh and the smallest of shudders.
I quite clearly remember when he still lived with my grandma and grandpa. He was a typical teen with Rolling Stones pictures hung in his room and loud music eminating from his speakers. He has introduced me to some fun music, such as R.E.M., Modest Mouse, and Badly Drawn Boy (sound warning).
My grandpa rigged a buzzer from the main floor kitchen to Uncle Steve's room in the basement to save my grandparents the trip downstairs if he was needed. I delighted in pressing the buzzer repeatedly at 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning. He quickly disconnected it.
My sister and my uncle have been playing an ongoing, rambunctious, and often annoying game of in-house tag since approximately 1989. I am a casualty of this game, which consists of them simply chasing and whacking each other. My sister tagged my uncle and ran down the stairs at my grandparents house. Uncle Steve quickly followed. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he spied the closed bathroom door and figured my sister was hiding inside. With a flourish and a loud "A-HA!" he flung open the door to reveal an extremely naked and shocked Nat, who had just gotten out of the shower. He maintains all he saw was a flash of flesh and a whirl of towel. I suspect he's lying.
Once, at a extended family function (someone's 50th wedding anniversary, I think), Uncle stuck a chicken bone up each nostril. I thought this was hilarious. Still do, in fact.
Uncle Steve is a great gift-giver. I can usually count on music, books, or kitchen things from him. However, my favourite Unc gift ever was a knee joint keychain. See, I called him Unc, so he called me Nee (as in niece). Man, I loved that keychain!
Each and every time my family plays Bid Whist, my uncle loudly complains about one of the rules. The way it works is that the number of bids that we all give cannot total the number of cards that have been dealt. It is the dealer that gets screwed with this rule, as he or she bids last. When Uncle's the dealer, he tries to make the bids equal the cards and then acts all shocked when the rest of us sigh, roll our eyes, and lambast him for his blatant attempt at cheating. I know this point will make no sense to you non-card-players out there. So it goes.
This morning, someone was literally holding Uncle Steve's heart in his hands. He was hooked up to machines, given an anaesthetic, and opened up so that the doctors could fix his faulty heart. He is 44 and needed open-heart surgery. That doesn't seem right. Tonight I spoke to my grandma and she has reported that he is doing fine, which is an immense relief. I don't know what I'd do without him to amuse me at the next family gathering. Heal quickly, Unc. Love you.

Monster in my house

2007-10-14T02:10:00.000-05:00

As I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door, I heard an unearthly sound eminate from the back room. I crept down the hall and through the kitchen. The sound got louder. Something was back there. I pulled back the curtain and I saw...

THE DEADLY TWO-HEADED, MULTI-COLOURED CATBEAST!

Jobs I have known

2007-10-09T22:59:00.000-05:00

Happy belated Thanksgiving! Did you all eat an inhuman amount of food, too? Here is a breakdown of what I gorged myself on, as prepared by my wonderful mother (with very limited help from my sister, my stepdad, and me): goat cheese crisps with mushroom ragout, turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, turnip fluff, coleslaw, beet salad, holuptsi (cabbage rolls, for you non-Ukrainians), glazed carrots, cranberry sauce, dill pickles, dinner rolls, pumpkin pie with a gingersnap crust, and whipped cream. Each and every item on the list was entirely homemade, up to and including the dill pickles, and it was all absolutely delicious. Scrumptious, even.

In addition to stuffing my face, I got to play a goodly amount of crib (I won exactly 50% of the games - not really a stellar record), did some good-natured family-bashing, washed a whack of dishes, and watched a few episodes of season one of The Office (the American version). It was a delightful long weekend that allowed me to forget how dissatisfied I am with my work situation. However, as I rolled myself out of bed and into the shower this morning (sadly, almost literally), all of that work crap came flooding back. The intense boredom. The isolation and loneliness. The unknown and possibly scary changes a-comin'.

In an effort to show myself that it could always be worse, I present to you Crappy Jobs I Have Known:

1. Cleaner
I was about 12 years old and this was my very first job. My then-step-dad paid me to go into his store on Sundays (after he dragged me to church) and clean. He sold bedroom furniture and closet organizers and things like that, so it was mostly like doing housework. It actually was kind of fun - I got to listen to the radio the whole time because the store was closed, and there's something really satisfying about housecleaning. There are defined tasks to complete, there are small victories (yes! the vacuuming is done! on to the dusting...), and there's always an end in sight. Plus I got paid to do this! Mom never paid me to clean at home! So why was this job crappy (besides the fact that I was a kid and what kid wants to work)? Firstly, I had to spend the entire day with my then-step-dad. Not fun. There was a reason my mom chose to raise two children on her own rather than stay with him. And secondly, I was paid $5 a week! Even for a 12-year-old in 1987, that wasn't much. Interesting side note: I think this job got me used to being paid to clean. No one's giving me a dime to clean my apartment? Not gonna do it then. So there.

2. Private flute lesson teacher
As mentioned previously, I used to play the flute in a community band. There were four differnt bands you could be in, and as the years went by you would audition to move up a level. Once you reached the highest level you earned the right to provide private lessons to kids in the lower bands. When I was 14, I graduated into the highest level band and was super excited to teach flute lessons. I sure didn't know what I was in for. I had visions of young pupils staring up at me, all awestruck and admiring. They would write down my words of wisdom word for word and practice feverishly all week just so they could impress me with their progress the following weekend. Apparently I failed to remember back to when I was a pupil and would scrawl down cryptic notes in my lesson book, forget to look at anything again until an hour before my next lesson, and practice madly right before I had to leave because I thought that would fool my teacher. (Hmm...looking back, I see that not much has changed.) Anyway, my students were awful. They didn't want to be there, the didn't respect me, and they never practiced. Oh, also? One of my students was my little sister! Talk about impossible! She never listened to me or believed that what I said was true in non-lesson life. Why would she listen to me as her tutor? Well, the answer to that was she didn't. Mom quickly saw that this arrangement would only lead to disaster and quickly found another teacher for her.

3. Canvasser
I was so super stoked for this job when I started it the summer after grade 12. Why on earth would anyone be excited to go door to door, begging for money? Because it was for Greenpeace! And I was a treehugger! What could be more perfect? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Let me tell you what could have been more perfect: ANYTHING! Their, ahem, office was a tiny, possibly-condemned downtown bachelor apartment. "They" were a bunch of miserable, anemic-looking, chain-smoking twenty-something-year-old hipocrites. My training consisted of a pamphlet thrust at me the second I entered the room. I was quickly introduced to the other canvassers and assigned a buddy. Lexie was friendly enough but when we received our assigned section of the city, she told me the best way to learn is to plunge right in. She made me do the first house we went to by myself. I struggled and stammered through a half-hearted pitch only to have the man laugh and tell me he wouldn't give money to Greenpeace even if the planet was on its last legs. As I walked dejectedly back down the driveway Lexie popped out from behind a tree, laughing her ass off at me. She pointed out all the things I had done wrong and offered no pointers on how to improve. After five more hours of this, I had enough. I worked for Greenpeace for one day.

4. Professional grease-squisher-outer
Unlike most people, I was in university (rather than high school) when I got the ubiquitous fast food job. Apparently, those few years make a huge difference because a lot of people I know who worked there in high school rather enjoyed their time there. I hated it. First of all, I really wanted to be out front serving customers but but they stuck me in the kitchen. I can do things well or I can do them quickly. I cannot do both. As you may guess, that didn't go over well during the suppertime rush. I apologize to anyone who, back in the summer of 1994, received cold hamburgers topped with ketchup, onions, and syrup. Also, most of the people there were a lot younger than I was and had been working there for a number of years. This odd mix of immaturity and seniority resulted in rude jokes and pranks at my expense and a feeling of me against all of them. AND one of my tasks was to squish grease out of the hamburger patties as they came through the grilling machine. Really!

5. ~~Hostile~~ Hostel worker
Nostalgia allows me to turn this job I had in my early twenties into the Best! Job! Ever! But when I look at those five years with cold reason, I admit it had it share of awfulness, too. The Good: I got to meet really interesting people from all over the world. Most of my co-workers were fun, young people who loved to travel. One of my co-workers eventually became my girlfriend of 6 years. I was rarely bored - when there was no one to deal with at the front desk, I could clean; when the cleaning was done, I could do yardwork; when everything was done, I would visit with the guests. I liked the mix of physical work (the cleaning, the yardwork) and office work. The Bad: I had to work split shifs: 7 a.m. to 10 a.m and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. My sleep schedule was completely wonky. I always stayed up far too late and ended up napping for most of my time off in between shifts. I only received one raise the entire five years I was there, and that was because minimum wage went up. I had zero benefits. I had to work bingos. I received a month of vacation every year when the hostel was closed...in JANUARY! Who wants time off in fucking January? The Ugly: The manager was awful. She hated travelling and didn't like young people. The guy she got to live in the small apartment in the back so that someone was there at all times in case of emergency was awful. He was an alcoholic who was friendly enough on sober days and super icky every other day. Even though he was supposed to stay in his apartment, when he was drunk he was always lurking around the hostel. He was in his seventies but hit on all the young female guests. He wore a loosely fastened, threadbare bathrobe all hours of the day. Most of the time he forgot to put in his teeth. He got weepy and depressed. He invited prostitutes into his tiny apartment. Some of the guests were awful, too. There was the former businessman who had been sent to jail for embezzlement who always said your name and asked permission for everything. "Hey Nat. I'm going to go to the bathroom, okay Nat? And then, Nat, I'm going to go to church, k?" There was the weirdo who was supposedly biking across Canada but stayed with us for over a month and ate Burger King every day. There was the woman who kept placing packages of raw meat addressed to various Canadian celebrities into the coin lockers in the basement. I spent my last day at the hostel out on the deck, sipping tequila from a coffee cup, and visiting with two awesome guests from the U.S.

So you see? It could always be worse! Things can only get better! A job is what you make of it! Yadda, yadda, yadda. Tell me, what are the awful jobs that you've had to endure over the years? The crappier, the better.

(As if to prove how lucky I am, the universe offered up this guy on my way to work this morning. Perhaps my little city can't afford those big, expensive street sweeping machines and have hired him to do the job. Good luck, buddy!)

Happy reasons why

2007-10-03T18:55:00.000-05:00

8 reasons why I love my mom
• She's awesome
• She taught me to love reading
• She makes delicious and adventurous food which has resulted in me being not picky at all
• She's kind and loving and lovely
• She pushes me when she knows I need pushing
• She didn't let me quit music
• She's encouraged me to travel as much as possible
• She was such a good sport about that stagette my sister and I threw for her

7 reasons why I don't drive
• I don't have a license
• It's better for the environment
• I buy less stuff because I go on fewer shopping trips and only get what I can carry
• I get to enjoy different aspects of my city you don't get to interact with in a car
• I support smaller local businesses that are near to where I live, rather than the big box stores on the outskirts of the city
• I'm not convinced humans are meant to hurtle themselves around at 50 or 100 kilometres an hour
• It makes me feel better

6 reasons why I did a political science degree
• I was the right age for discovering that there was a world around me
• The classes made me feel all passionate and powerful and caring
• Most of the profs were old lefty hippies
• Classes rarely started before eleven o'clock in the morning
• Debating and arguing are both incredibly FUN
• I love people and studying how they act when they live together in societies is fascinating

5 reasons why travelling alone isn't all that bad
• You can go where you want
• You're more likely to interact with other travellers and locals
• You can spend as much or as little as you want on food and lodging
• You become stronger when you only have yourself to rely on
• You can sleep as much or as little as you want, and the hours that you want

4 reasons why I'm glad I was a band geek
• I got to travel around Canada, the U.S., and Europe
• I learned how to read music early enough that now it's super easy
• I adore music
• I've experienced what it's like to make music with 120 other people who are all trying their best to create one beautiful moment

3 reasons why I live in an apartment
• I can't afford a house
• I'm not into home improvement
• I enjoy feeling like I could take off at any moment, even though I probably won't

2 reasons why autumn is my favourite season
• Cool, crisp evening walks through crunchy leaves
• My wool sweater

1 reason I like you (yes, you!)
• You're AWESOME!

Scents and sense (of self)

2007-10-01T18:30:00.000-05:00

I smell really good today. I love it when I use a shampoo that I haven't used in a long time and the scent is super-noticeable all day. I'll be sitting there thinking, "Mmm...something sure smells good," and then I realize that it's ME! It sure makes me feel good.

Scents don't always ake me feel good. I buy fragrance-free deodorant, laundry soap, regular soap, and hairspray. The smell of other people's perfume or cologne makes me nauseous and usually gives me a headache. Throughout the years I have had to abandon many beloved personal grooming products because they would literally make me sick. However, I have found that not only can I tolerate the spicy, sandalwoody, pachouli-ish family of smells, I LOVE them. I love their warm, earthiness and their association with folk festivals and incense and exotic countries. And thanks to this wonderful shampoo that my friend Cake bought me, that's exactly what I smell like today.

I think I love these smells because I don't get much of a chance to express who I am through my appearance. I hear so many women complain about the lack of shopping opportunities in my city but let me tell you this: until you've tried to buy clothes here as a fat female, you have NO IDEA how crappy it is. I basically have 3 or 4 stores to choose from. Period. And none of these stores carry clothes that I think are me, so I end up dressing for comfort rather than how something looks. Don't get me wrong - I don't go to my office job in sweats and a pair of thongs (the foot kind, not the underwear kind). However, I do come to work in baggy, stretchy, and/or elastic-filled clothes. I figure if I'm going to look hideous to varying degrees, I might as well be comfortable, too.

I buy shoes the same way. Skinny people may not realize this but when you're fat, everything's fat, including your feet. I need wide shoes and those are a rarity in our trendy shoe stores we have in my city. I also walk A LOT, so whatever I buy must be comfortable. As a result, when I'm shoe shopping I have to pass on all those adorable, funky, cool sheos and go for the "sensible" variety. This means that I end up looking like an old lady or a butchy lesbian. (As a bi chick, there are worse things than looking like a lez but face it, they're not known for being uber-fashionable.)

This frumpy exterior is also one of the reasons I like to talk about myself. Our society puts a lot of stock in first impressions (this site says it takes THREE SECONDS for someone to make up their mind about a person). I'm not sure I like the conclusions that are likely drawn after seconds of seeing me. Boring. Schlubby. Uninteresting. Unexciting. Not words I want associated with me. So I talk and talk and talk about myself. "I've travelled! I'm passionate about politics! I'm a treehugger! I'm musically-inclined! I love art and photography! I read! I cook! I have 3 degrees! I'm not boring, I swear!" I want everyone to know everything about me right away so that I can overrule that awful first impression. Mysterious and private I am not.

So here I am in my ghastly tapered pants with an elastic waist, my stretchy cotton t-shirt, and my loafers, writing all about myself. But boy-oh-boy, I sure smell good!

Happy birthday

2007-09-29T20:54:00.000-05:00

I'm here to report to you that I am not a very good daughter. Today is my dad's birthday and I waited to call him until I was pretty sure he wouldn't be home, just so that I could leave a message and I wouldn't have to talk to him. My awful plan didn't work though, and he ended up being home when I phoned. The joy in his voice when he heard it was me was palpable. It struck me right in the gut.

In order to understand why I was hoping he wasn't home, I guess I should explain some background. My mom and dad met when they were teenagers. I don't know a lot about their early years together but I do know he was something of a bad boy. Today, a rebel is the last kind of guy I imagine my mom would be attracted to, but back then I guess she was. He played drums in a band. He bought, did, and sold drugs. The police would drive him to the outskirts of the city and drop him off. I don't know if he was a thief, but I'm sure he could hook you up with whatever you would need. When they got married he tried to turn respectable. I'm not sure if it was because he wanted to or because my mom wanted him to. He got a job at his father's bakery and worked the awful hours of a night baker. He hated it but he figured it was only temporary.

After I was born his situation became less temporary, as he was now responsible for two lives. Even though my father loved me very much, I imagine he was deeply unhappy. He was the kind of guy who wanted to go drinking and tear up the town with his buddies. The details are fuzzy here - he may or may not have had an affair when I was about three - but I do know that he and my mom fought with each other more and more. They tried to keep me away from the tension, but I remember laying in my bed at night, silently crying because I could hear them yelling. I adored my dad and didn't want anything bad to happen. In the mornings when he would get off work, I would wait at the window for his big blue van to appear in the driveway. I would run to the door and greet him with squeals and hugs and giggles. Even though I was only 4 years old, the day my dad told me that I would be moving away with my mom and not him is etched in my memory as one of the saddest days of my life.

He tried the best he could to be a good weekend dad but Ward Cleaver he was not. He had no idea how to care for a young child so instead he spoiled me. When it was a Dad Weekend, I knew I could look forward to mountains of delicious junk food, television until my eyes dried out, and so many Atari games that I would dream about Pac-Man and Space Invaders. All of these forbidden pleasures distracted me from his almost constant drinking and his many and sundry "lady friends" that would spend the night. We'd go on outings to the neighbourhood beer parlour. (Is this a common term? I have no idea, but it's what he's always called the dank, dark pubs where he drinks.) He would order a triple rye and Coke, pour a drop or two of the cola ("just for colour") into his rye and give me the rest to drink. I would sit there, sick to my stomach with fear and discomfort, and sip my drink as my dad bought round after round for his scary drinking buddies.

Our relationship became more strained and distant after I moved to a city 500 kilometres away. I only saw him during holidays and over the summer, and it seemed like every time I'd talk to him on the phone he'd be drunk. Eventually, he married a pretty awesome woman with whom I had a good relationship. He straightened himself out for her, just as he had done with my mom all those years ago. He seemed happier and more content with his life. Sadly, this didn't last. Around the same time that the love of my life was dumping me, my stepmom left my dad. It destroyed him. He started calling me, crying, at three or four in the morning when he was done his shift at the bakery. At first I answered these calls because I thought there might be an emergency but after a while I just ignored them. I woke up to long, rambling, sobbing messages from him about how he still loves my mother and how my ex-stepmother is such a bitch and how I never visit him anymore. Through the wonders of caller i.d., I hardly ever had to talk to my dad. I also knew when he'd be at work, and that's when I'd return his calls. I'd leave message like, "Aw, too bad. I figured you'd be at work but thought I'd take a shot anyway. How're you doing?..."

Two years have passed since that tumultuous time. When my stepmom was around, my dad would drink one day a week instead of the seven days he does now. They would do things like go for dinner or see a movie. Without her around, all my dad does is drink and smoke and work and pick up women at the beer parlour. I don't enjoy talking to him on the phone and I try to limit my visits with him and all this makes me a terrible daughter and an awful human being. He loves me so much that the sound of my voice has the power to make his day brighter.

I should be nicer, more understanding. My dad has the kindest heart of anyone I know. He'll lend money he doesn't have to friends in need. He is constantly taking on renters who can't afford to pay him rent. I know that he drinks because he's unhappy. I accept that. I also know that he hooks up with so many skeevy women because he's lonely. I guess I accept that, too. In fact, now that I'm older, I can see a shockingly large amount of him in me. How is it that someone I lived with for 4 years - an mere eighth of my life - has had so much impact on who I am today? We posses the same lack of ambition, the same woefully inadequate grasp of all things related to money, the same revulsion to housework and attraction to food with zero nutrition, and the same tendency to be less than truthful at times. We also have the same need to be loved and accepted and the same loneliness in our hearts. Why couldn't I have inherited his skinny genes or his amazing woodworking talent? Why did I get the bad stuff? Maybe it's all of our similarities that scares me and makes me avoid my father.

Whatever it is, I'm going to try to be a better person. I'm sorry I didn't want to talk to you, Dad. I'm sorry I don't know who you are and you don't know who I am. I'm glad that you were home when I called and that you're having a good day. I hope your date tonight with your newest girlfriend goes well and that you have a truly happy birthday. I really do love you.

Thirty-seven things

2007-09-26T19:04:00.000-05:00

Things are happening at my work that are making me very unhappy. Change is always stressful but when I can't even come up with a bright side of any part of it, it's even worse. But change is a-happenin', whether I like it or not, so instead of dwelling on things, I'm going to make a list of things that make me happy. Here is the list (in no particular order):

1. Kind people
2. Funny people
3. Intelligent people
4. My family
5. Singing at the top of my lungs
6. Dancing like an idiot
7. Noodling around (badly) on the piano
8. Cooking
9. Dinner parties
10. Getting to really know someone
11. Friends you can watch the sunrise with
12. Reconnecting with old friends
13. CBC Radio 1
14. The National Research Council's official time signal where the beginning of the long dash following 10 seconds of silence indicates exactly twelve o'clock noon (or sometimes, because we don't change our clocks in this province, eleven o'clock)
15. Accents
16. Outdoor music festivals
17. Camping
18. Coffee houses
19. Pubs
20. Red wine
21. Wheat beer
22. Lively debates
23. Plane trips
24. Road trips
25. People who let me control the music on road trips
26. Cats
27. Rick Mercer
28. Rain
29. Trees
30. Staying up all night reading because the book's so good you can't put it down
31. Sundays
32. Fridays
33. Board games
34. Bed
35. Waking up when the sun is about to rise and going for a walk around the lake before work
36. Spring
37. Autumn

A really long post all about me

2007-09-25T01:34:00.000-05:00

Something wonderful happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Three people, all independant of each other, mentioned how creative I am. This caught me completely by surprise because I had forgotten that, at one time, I was a bit of an artsy-fartsy type.

Before I go on, I must digress and tell you about the two equal but opposite forces that have dictated the course of events for my life.

Force #1 - I like people

I have a cat named Cazzy. She is not a cat that likes to be held or who likes to curl up in my lap, however she always likes to be close to people. If I'm cooking, she's sleeping on the kitchen windowsill. If I'm watching TV, she's curled up near my feet.

I am like Cazzy. When I was little I was quite happy amusing myself but I liked to be near people. The quiet hum of daily activity comforted me. Silence was creepy. This carried on as I grew up. Most people I know loved to retreat to their rooms when they were angst-filled teens. Sure, sometimes I did that, but for the most part I liked being in the kitchen or the living room and close to the other members of my family. I absolutely adored Christmas at our house when we would have 5 or 6 or 10 extra people staying over and there was madness in every corner.

I have never dreamed about moving out and getting a place of my own. Instead, I wished I had a pack of crazy friends with whom I could rent a house. It would be pure bohemian chaos and I imagined I would love every minute of it. Sadly, I never had the required group of friends. I lived at home until riduculously late in life (25) and only moved out because I had 2 people to go live with. I was sad when they were away, comforted when they were home, and delighted when others came to visit us as well. The more, the merrier, I said.

It's not that I was scared to be by myself. I wasn't worried that I wouldn't be able to handle it or anything. I just prefer to be not alone. I am utterly and completely a people person. I love nothing more than to meet someone interesting and proceed to get to know them bit by bit over beer or coffee or e-mail. I love the easy banter that goes along with working with a close-knit group of people. I love friends of every type: best friends, drinking friends, movie friends, friends who live away but who visit during the holidays, work friends, and yes, even casual elevator friends. Every person I meet and somehow click with is a potential friend. Which takes us to...

Force #2 - People do not always like me

Despite my love of people, I have always had difficulty with friends - I have a tough time making them and an even tougher time keeping them. It's not for lack of trying on my part. I think that maybe people just don't get me. But in grade one, glorious grade one, not only did I have a friend but I had a BEST friend. We did everything together. We climbed the monkey bars together, we sat beside each other, we, uh, did whatever else 6-year-olds do for fun together. Then one day as I was in the bathroom I saw her shoes walk up to the other side of the stall door and stop.

"Nat." she said.

"Yeah." I replied.

"I kinda don't want to be friends anymore, k?"

"What? No!" I cried. But it was too late. Those shiny brown shoes were gone like a flash, taking my ex-best friend with them.

Shortly after that I moved and started the whole cycle again. Ever since I can remember having friends, I can also remember said friends dumping me. It happened in elementary school, high school, the community group I was a member of for 9 years, and a few times in university. I would be part of a fantastic group of people and then one day I would show up and no one would talk to me. Or it would happen more slowly, being excluded from more and more get-togethers until one day the invitations would stop.

The result of all of this is a terrible lack of self-confidence. To this day I have a tough time with friends. I come on too strong, reeking of desperation and full of neediness. At other times I'll push people away and isolate myself, believing there's no possible way these people could actually like me.

I can hear you asking: But Nat, what does all this have to do with creativity? Yes, I'm getting there.

When I left university, my difficulty with friends wasn't an issue. I immediately met a wonderful person, fell madly in love, and moved in with her. For six years, other people came and went but she was always there for me. However, a year and a half ago we broke up and I found myself in the unwanted position of living by myself. There I was, utterly alone. Yes, I had friends, but we only got together 2 or 3 times a month. Outside of work, I was forced to spend the vast majority of my time with only my cats for company. Then a year ago, something happened that made things even worse: I got a promotion at work. At first this seemed like a great thing. It meant more money, more freedom, less stress. But it also meant MUCH less interaction with people. Not only was there no one around during my evenings, but I would hardly see anyone during the day either. Sometimes my phone would ring at three o'clock in the afternoon and when I would answer it, my voice would come out as a croak because I hadn't spoken to anyone since the previous afternoon. For someone who loves people as much as I do, this was torture. I would sit in my cubicle and listen to my colleagues talk to each other about their spouses, their children, their home rennovations, and I would silently plead for someone to just say hi to me or to ask me how my weekend was. Returning home for the day would offer no relief from the crushing loneliness I felt.

But then around six months ago something strange happened. Instead of coming home and watching TV until I fell asleep on the couch, I started noodling around on my piano and my flute more. I took more aimless walks. I started writing letters. I bought myself a digital camera and discovered that I absolutely LOVED taking pictures. I re-learned how to knit. I started a blog.

Now for the first time in my entire life, I am okay being by myself. In fact, I'm better than okay. I am far more alive and creative than I have been in a long time. The isolation I experience at work is still there but once I arrive home, I feel better. A whole range of activities that make me feel good are right there at my fingertips. This brings us back full circle to the beginning: people have begun to notice that I am doing more these days and they have expressed their appreciation for what I've created. In turn, this makes me feel better and better about myself and more like to do even more. It's a wonderful cycle. I never thought I would find solitude so enjoyable but I'm going to go with it and see where it takes me.

The secret lives of dentists everybody

2007-09-18T23:13:00.000-05:00

You know the old question. "If you could have one superpower, what would it be?" Most people I know have answered that they want to fly. Not me. I always reasoned that cars and airplanes make me sick enough - I can't imagine what actually flying would do.

No, I always thought it would be neat to be able to jump inside other people's minds. Not literally, of course, but rather to be able to see the world through someone else's eyes, to know what he or she is thinking and feeling and experiencing. Other people have always fascinated me and to know their stories would be an amazing gift.

We are all so wrapped up in our own play. Unconsciously, I imagine all the people that come and go from my life as extras. When I don't interact with them, they go and wait patiently in the wings for their next entrance. Is it any wonder we tend, as a species, to be so self-involved? It's easy to forget that there are six billion of us, each one lugging around an 800,000-page script of our own life.

Now and then I get little reminders of these billions of other plays being enacted. Tonight I was out on my balcony. I live in a fantastic old apartment by one of my city's hospitals. The neighbourhood is full of interesting characters and I enjoy going out there to see what's happening before I head off to bed. Usually all I see are doctors or nurses whose shifts have ended and who are walking to their vehicles, or homeless people picking through the garbage bins and salvaging the still-usable stuff we homed (homeful?) people have thrown out. This time I saw a minivan park on the street and a man and and woman got out. They starting doing that half-jog, half-walk thing as soon as their feet hit the pavement. As they passed beneath me, I heard him say to her, "Don't worry," and then he grabbed her hand as they rushed towards the hospital entrance.

What horrible scene awaited them there? I could try and trick myself into thinking that it was actually their daughter they were rushing to see, and she was in the middle of having her first child and they were merely concerned for her safety. But no - I could hear it in his voice. I could see it in their cluched hands. Tonight's portion of their play is surely going to be a tragedy.

Trees have leaves?

2007-09-17T11:03:00.000-05:00

It was English class. Mrs. Green. She was writing notes on the board and I was writing notes to a friend because I was bored. (See what I did there? Clever, no?) I was probably asking dreadfully important questions, such as, "Do you think that maybe Greg likes me?" or "Have you ever taken Mr. Hottie McHotHot's math class?" or maybe even "What do you wanna do after school? I don't wanna go home cause MOM's gonna to be there." (Don't worry - I've grown to absolutely adore my mother.)

Actually, I was writing notes to a friend for an entirely different, much more secret reason. And I was so wrapped up in my teenage angst that I didn't notice Mrs. Green had finished writing on the chalkboard and was walking up and down the aisles. She got to my desk, noticed I wasn't writing down her thought-provoking questions about Animal Farm ("The farmyard represents human society. Discuss."), and raised a bushy, black eyebrow. In a quiet voice, she asked, "Nat, why aren't you writing down today's notes?"

Now, despite the odd transgression (like getting out of gym class by saying I had to go help the music teacher with a project and then just going and hanging out in the music room) (I was a bit of a music/drama geek, if you couldn't guess), I was a pretty good student. My marks were mostly in the 80s and 90s. I didn't cut class. I did my homework. I didn't like getting in trouble. So when faced with this question from Mrs. Green, my instinct was to tell the truth.

"I, um, can't see the board from back here. I usually just copy Lynn's notes after class."

"Oh. Okay."

And then she walked away. I thought that was the end of that, but the next day I got called down to the nurses office for an impromptu and amateur eye exam. When I could barely read any of the letters on any of the lines, the nurse called my mom and advised her that I desperately needed to go to the optometrist. Soon I was whisked away to the eye doctor who promptly and ominously declared, "Young lady. You. Need. Glasses." He told me that I may not have to wear them all the time but that I could use them for school when I needed to see the board.

I didn't want glasses. Geeks wore glasses. Grandmas wore glasses. Young women fumbling their way through high school hell, just trying to get by unnoticed, did NOT wear glasses if they knew what was best for them. Nevertheless, I went with my mom to pick out some frames and week or so later, we went and picked up my brand new specs.

I can't even describe the joy I felt when I put on that first pair of glasses, even if they were hideously large and ugly. I remember looking around and thinking, "Trees have leaves!" I walked around the neighbourhood that day just looking at everything, revelling in all the details. Cracks in wood fences, bark on tree trunks, the texture of bricks - I could see it all and it was beautiful.

I never went without glasses again. I didn't choose to only wear them at school, like Dr. Needham suggested. Seeing was too wonderful to dispose of. I get that same feeling of joy whenever I get my prescription renewed. Slowly but surely, my eyes degenerate over the course of months and years and then I give in, get my eyes checked, and get new lenses. And the first thing I notice each and every time is that, once again, trees have leaves.

Sorry for the slightly tedious subject matter of today's post but - can't you tell? - I just got new lenses! Here's a before and after picture for you.

(Sorry about the weird white space. I can't seem to get rid of it. But you can click on the picture to enlarge it and get the full, delicious effect.)