The day was half over before I looked at the calendar and noticed the date ... October 22nd ... Happy Anniversary to Me!
On this day nearly 25 years ago I started dating my first serious boyfriend, my high school sweetheart. I remember the months leading up to that date like they were yesterday ... wondering who that guy was at Herbie's pool hall ... wondering who that guy was at the Exhibition ... finding out who that guy was with my friend at the school dance. I remember what happened before we got together, but I remember nothing of the first date itself. Was the first night the rainy one with him shivering, soaked, in my parents kitchen? I'm not even sure how it came to be. I remember the falling in love part. I remember the falling out of love part. I remember some of the stuff that happened in the middle, but the very first date totally eludes me. I guess it didn't really matter in the scheme of things. For sure it no longer matters in any way shape or form.
Over 20 years ago I started dating my most serious boyfriend, my college sweetheart. Yeah, same day. Kinda weird. A double Happy Anniversary to me! His memory presents itself a little differently. I remember the first date, the second, the third ... I remember the first six weeks, in freakish detail. I could give you a blow by blow accounting. The first break-up can still bring a tear to my eye when I'm feeling particularly nostalgic. It was like something from a movie. And the getting back together is etched in my memory. The second break-up is fuzzy. And I wish I could forget all the stuff after because it was so unpleasant.
It's a little weird. Most days I forget why I've gone into the kitchen by the time I get there. I struggle with people's names and birthdays. I'm not very good at remembering song lyrics or names of bands or lines from movies. I never know what day it is. I couldn't tell you what happened last week ... yet these useless memories stick by me forever.
It's been the coldest day yet in my apartment without heat. At one point I put on gloves. It snowed outside. I've been feeling a little down all day. Hard to say why exactly, perhaps a combination of all these things. I wish I had brandy.
Mood: scattered
Drinking: nothing
Listening To: doors slamming in the hall
Hair: sassy
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Your Time is Gonna Come
Feeling a little agitated today. I know what's got my goat. Trying to get past it, talk myself through. Doesn't always work. Sometimes only musical immersion therapy helps. So I've cranked Zeppelin.
I still remember the first time Kevin played the Houses of the Holy album for me. An actual album, vinyl. It was the late 80s. I was listening to Madonna, Cher, Cyndi Lauper, the Bangles, Fine Young Cannibals, Roxette ... and I was on a country kick because it made me feel a little closer to home to listen to Shenandoah, Clint Black, Rodney Crowell, The Judds, Ricky Scaggs, Kathy Mattea, Holly Dunn, the Desert Rose Band and of course, my mom's favourite, Alabama. I was in no musical frame of mind for Houses of the Holy. Perhaps if I had toked, but that was never my thing.
I remember sitting on the floor as the needle grooved along the record. "I don't like this," I proclaimed shortly. He was astonished, how could anyone not like Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy?! "It scares me," I continued. "It's too dark. I can't listen." He pretty much dismissed my musical tastes as being nothing more than "bubble gum" from that moment on -- we could share a love of Billy Joel, but I'd never "get" The Tragically Hip. I meant that Zeppelin was too emotionally overwhelming for me on that particular day and time, not that it was bad. I just didn't want to be melancholy, to think too deep, to be too happy, to feel too much ... because if I felt too much I would cry, and I most definitely did not want to cry in front of this man who was so perfect and godlike in my eyes.
I never bothered to correct his incorrect perception of me. I let it drop, let him think I didn't like Zeppelin. So I suppose I probably shouldn't have been surprised many years later when he didn't get my irony as I teased that Alanis Morissette's lyrics were nothing but "bubble gum." We had been separated and hadn't seen each other for a few years, but I guess I thought he knew me better. So what was supposed to be a playful personal joke hearkening back to the early days of our love, turned into a "I can't effing believe you and your high horse" lecture from a man I didn't recognize. Again, I didn't correct him. My silence confirmed his perception.
This is something I do. My sense of humour type is ironic/sarcastic. I deliver a line that is directly opposed to my personal belief, which I believe is completely obvious to anyone who knows me, and most times I think is so generally absurd as to be completely obvious to anyone who isn't some sort of religious or right-wing extremist freak.
I do it without thinking, it's an automatic reaction ... but I'll deliver this completely absurd line without flinching, without cracking a smile, as if I honestly believed what I was saying (hence the irony of the joke). And I would stop doing this all together if I could, but out of everything I do this is the thing that is the most natural and unconscious, like breathing, like sneezing ... I don't seem to be able to do anything to stop it because it happens so quick ... I have no freaking idea where it comes from.
And more often than not, although it's probably really only 25% of the time, people take me at face value, like Kevin did with Alanis. And I don't correct them. I just let them think whatever I've just said, which is the direct opposite of what I really think, is what I think. I let people's perceptions of me get skewed. And I'm not just talking strangers, colleagues, general acquaintances, I mean my best friends, my parents, my sisters, the people who are closest to me. When it happens I say nothing, and people take my silence as reinforcement.
Why do I do this? I mean with strangers and general acquaintances, it doesn't really matter one way or the other, and I really shouldn't be expecting them to understand my sense of humour anyway because they don't know me from a hole in the ground, so I get what I deserve if they think I'm arrogant or twisted. But close friends? Family? How come I never speak up and say, "I was kidding." Maybe I do sometimes, but generally, I don't. I just don't. I sit there like a ninny and generally take whatever tongue lashing they're dishing out or listen to their argument for the "other" side ... which is really the side I'm all ready on ... oi! It's complicated, I know.
As I sat quietly listening to Kevin tell me what an unimaginative uncreative non-artistic soul I must be if I couldn't see the poetry in the lyrics of Alanis, I felt like I had been slapped in the face. At one time this was the person I was closest to in the world, and yet here was proof he didn't really know me very well at all. Obviously, he didn't remember how he used to tease me about my "bubble gum" music. He didn't get that Alanis was such an amazing talent that for anyone to say otherwise was absurd and therefore, "Isn't it ironic?" By the time I came around to the point where I could speak without crying because I was so upset, it seemed too late to say, "I was kidding you freaking moron."
It hurt me on a very deep level and I never thought of him in quite the same way again. To be honest, I never really enjoyed Alanis much after that either. I always associate her with the hurt of this memory.
It's funny how such simple little things can have such an impact on our lives. I have an ironic sense of humour. A lot of people don't. A lot of people don't get the irony in my humour, or they only get it some of the time. A lot of the time it doesn't matter if people get me or not, but sometimes it does, when it's my family and close friends. Maybe I can't control the jokes, maybe they'll just spill out unannounced and unpredicted like always, but I should at least be able to speak up and say I was kidding. If I could get past the shock and hurt and "I'm all alone in the world" feelings just a tad bit quicker, I wouldn't be five minutes into a heated argument and saying, "I was kidding," would be a helluva lot easier to do. I can work on that. Maybe all it takes is setting the record straight one time and not letting people walk away with a completely ass-backward skewed view of me.
***
Years ago I was out at a party with a friend and I did it, I made an ironic joke. After an awkward silence, I was just about to fess up (because it's easier to say you're kidding if the other people are not close friends and they are silently standing there passing their judgment rather than trying to bring you around to the right way of thinking) when my friend laughed, "She's just kidding." My silence confirmed his theory, as I turned and looked into his eyes with amazement. "Wow! I think he sees me, he really sees me!"
Somewhere in the world there is a man who thinks he has known me as well as I know myself. We shared our most intimate secrets and loved each other deeply for many years. He has no doubt that I hate Led Zeppelin, The Tragically Hip and of course, Alanis Morissette. Somewhere else there is a man who knows very few of my secrets and has no idea he knew me like nobody else.
Mood: less agitated having written this
Drinking: coffee, black, water, wet
Listening To: eyes without a face, billy idol
Hair: headbanded like an 80s Olivia Newton John
I still remember the first time Kevin played the Houses of the Holy album for me. An actual album, vinyl. It was the late 80s. I was listening to Madonna, Cher, Cyndi Lauper, the Bangles, Fine Young Cannibals, Roxette ... and I was on a country kick because it made me feel a little closer to home to listen to Shenandoah, Clint Black, Rodney Crowell, The Judds, Ricky Scaggs, Kathy Mattea, Holly Dunn, the Desert Rose Band and of course, my mom's favourite, Alabama. I was in no musical frame of mind for Houses of the Holy. Perhaps if I had toked, but that was never my thing.
I remember sitting on the floor as the needle grooved along the record. "I don't like this," I proclaimed shortly. He was astonished, how could anyone not like Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy?! "It scares me," I continued. "It's too dark. I can't listen." He pretty much dismissed my musical tastes as being nothing more than "bubble gum" from that moment on -- we could share a love of Billy Joel, but I'd never "get" The Tragically Hip. I meant that Zeppelin was too emotionally overwhelming for me on that particular day and time, not that it was bad. I just didn't want to be melancholy, to think too deep, to be too happy, to feel too much ... because if I felt too much I would cry, and I most definitely did not want to cry in front of this man who was so perfect and godlike in my eyes.
I never bothered to correct his incorrect perception of me. I let it drop, let him think I didn't like Zeppelin. So I suppose I probably shouldn't have been surprised many years later when he didn't get my irony as I teased that Alanis Morissette's lyrics were nothing but "bubble gum." We had been separated and hadn't seen each other for a few years, but I guess I thought he knew me better. So what was supposed to be a playful personal joke hearkening back to the early days of our love, turned into a "I can't effing believe you and your high horse" lecture from a man I didn't recognize. Again, I didn't correct him. My silence confirmed his perception.
This is something I do. My sense of humour type is ironic/sarcastic. I deliver a line that is directly opposed to my personal belief, which I believe is completely obvious to anyone who knows me, and most times I think is so generally absurd as to be completely obvious to anyone who isn't some sort of religious or right-wing extremist freak.
I do it without thinking, it's an automatic reaction ... but I'll deliver this completely absurd line without flinching, without cracking a smile, as if I honestly believed what I was saying (hence the irony of the joke). And I would stop doing this all together if I could, but out of everything I do this is the thing that is the most natural and unconscious, like breathing, like sneezing ... I don't seem to be able to do anything to stop it because it happens so quick ... I have no freaking idea where it comes from.
And more often than not, although it's probably really only 25% of the time, people take me at face value, like Kevin did with Alanis. And I don't correct them. I just let them think whatever I've just said, which is the direct opposite of what I really think, is what I think. I let people's perceptions of me get skewed. And I'm not just talking strangers, colleagues, general acquaintances, I mean my best friends, my parents, my sisters, the people who are closest to me. When it happens I say nothing, and people take my silence as reinforcement.
Why do I do this? I mean with strangers and general acquaintances, it doesn't really matter one way or the other, and I really shouldn't be expecting them to understand my sense of humour anyway because they don't know me from a hole in the ground, so I get what I deserve if they think I'm arrogant or twisted. But close friends? Family? How come I never speak up and say, "I was kidding." Maybe I do sometimes, but generally, I don't. I just don't. I sit there like a ninny and generally take whatever tongue lashing they're dishing out or listen to their argument for the "other" side ... which is really the side I'm all ready on ... oi! It's complicated, I know.
As I sat quietly listening to Kevin tell me what an unimaginative uncreative non-artistic soul I must be if I couldn't see the poetry in the lyrics of Alanis, I felt like I had been slapped in the face. At one time this was the person I was closest to in the world, and yet here was proof he didn't really know me very well at all. Obviously, he didn't remember how he used to tease me about my "bubble gum" music. He didn't get that Alanis was such an amazing talent that for anyone to say otherwise was absurd and therefore, "Isn't it ironic?" By the time I came around to the point where I could speak without crying because I was so upset, it seemed too late to say, "I was kidding you freaking moron."
It hurt me on a very deep level and I never thought of him in quite the same way again. To be honest, I never really enjoyed Alanis much after that either. I always associate her with the hurt of this memory.
It's funny how such simple little things can have such an impact on our lives. I have an ironic sense of humour. A lot of people don't. A lot of people don't get the irony in my humour, or they only get it some of the time. A lot of the time it doesn't matter if people get me or not, but sometimes it does, when it's my family and close friends. Maybe I can't control the jokes, maybe they'll just spill out unannounced and unpredicted like always, but I should at least be able to speak up and say I was kidding. If I could get past the shock and hurt and "I'm all alone in the world" feelings just a tad bit quicker, I wouldn't be five minutes into a heated argument and saying, "I was kidding," would be a helluva lot easier to do. I can work on that. Maybe all it takes is setting the record straight one time and not letting people walk away with a completely ass-backward skewed view of me.
***
Years ago I was out at a party with a friend and I did it, I made an ironic joke. After an awkward silence, I was just about to fess up (because it's easier to say you're kidding if the other people are not close friends and they are silently standing there passing their judgment rather than trying to bring you around to the right way of thinking) when my friend laughed, "She's just kidding." My silence confirmed his theory, as I turned and looked into his eyes with amazement. "Wow! I think he sees me, he really sees me!"
Somewhere in the world there is a man who thinks he has known me as well as I know myself. We shared our most intimate secrets and loved each other deeply for many years. He has no doubt that I hate Led Zeppelin, The Tragically Hip and of course, Alanis Morissette. Somewhere else there is a man who knows very few of my secrets and has no idea he knew me like nobody else.
Mood: less agitated having written this
Drinking: coffee, black, water, wet
Listening To: eyes without a face, billy idol
Hair: headbanded like an 80s Olivia Newton John
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Good Rockin'
It was tough growing up in rural NB with only two tv channels and no FM radio. Everything I knew about music I learned from Stan the Man on Switchback CBC Sunday morning, the New Music magazine with JD Roberts and Jeanne Beker, Good Rockin' Tonight with Terry David Mulligan and then Stu Jeffries and WNBC out of New York that would come in on the radio in my dad's car late at night when the air was clear. Big old Ford LTD, black, tan/taupe interior, possibly a 1974 or '76, two door. I'd sit out there discretely smoking until I knew my parents had gone to bed and wouldn't catch me, twisting the dial until I heard the call sign -- wNbc! That's how I saw it in my head, all lower case except the N, they always put the emphasis on the N. I'd hope the signal would last until Imus came on in the morning. I loved the promos for his show. But as the night wore into morning the static would pick up until finally the station blinked out like it never existed. God, those were simpler times! I was reminded of this when a friend told me about this 80's Music Festival happening in Saint John.
Mood: nostalgic
Drinking: hot chocolate
Listening To: my jaw snapping as i chew gum
Hair: fluffy
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Closing Time
Chilling in front of the A/C after brunch on a patio at a lovely restaurant. I had the Canadian bacon eggs benny with cajun potatoes, coffee and a mimosa. The eggs benny were not the stuff of legend Stacy and I still cannot speak of without drool puddling in the corners of our mouths, but they were still pretty damn good, and the cajun potatoes were amazing, spicy, but not overpowering, just interesting. I like being on vacation!
The city is hot and sticky. Apparently it hadn't been before I arrived; jacket weather all along they say, but no more. There is still a breeze though. It's not the sweltering "lying naked and still on the floor with fans aimed at my head, my torso, and my feet, sweat trickling down the small of my back, too weak to open my eyes" kind of humidity I remember. That first summer I moved back to New Brunswick my mother and I were at war over windows; whether to leave them open (she) or keep them closed (me). I would lie on the couch in the living room wearing my Ryersonian sweatshirt and black leggings, rolled into a flannel blanket, insisting the wind was cold. She would sit on her rocker by the open window wearing shorts and a t-shirt, her face red with heat as her breasts grew damp. But it wasn't much of a war; her house after all. So I spent that first summer shivering in sweatshirts and jackets while everyone else complained about the humidity. Humidity?! What humidity?
Of course now I've acclimated to NB and I feel the humidity there again. I don't know whether it's grown worse or whether I've just grown less tolerant, but I find it can get pretty bad. As bad as what it is right here, right now.
I cannot get Leonard out of my head. I hear his voice and see his sway. He is sublime.
Mood: cooling
Drinking: nothing at the moment
Listening To: the hum of the a/c
Hair: frizzy from humidity
The city is hot and sticky. Apparently it hadn't been before I arrived; jacket weather all along they say, but no more. There is still a breeze though. It's not the sweltering "lying naked and still on the floor with fans aimed at my head, my torso, and my feet, sweat trickling down the small of my back, too weak to open my eyes" kind of humidity I remember. That first summer I moved back to New Brunswick my mother and I were at war over windows; whether to leave them open (she) or keep them closed (me). I would lie on the couch in the living room wearing my Ryersonian sweatshirt and black leggings, rolled into a flannel blanket, insisting the wind was cold. She would sit on her rocker by the open window wearing shorts and a t-shirt, her face red with heat as her breasts grew damp. But it wasn't much of a war; her house after all. So I spent that first summer shivering in sweatshirts and jackets while everyone else complained about the humidity. Humidity?! What humidity?
Of course now I've acclimated to NB and I feel the humidity there again. I don't know whether it's grown worse or whether I've just grown less tolerant, but I find it can get pretty bad. As bad as what it is right here, right now.
I cannot get Leonard out of my head. I hear his voice and see his sway. He is sublime.
Mood: cooling
Drinking: nothing at the moment
Listening To: the hum of the a/c
Hair: frizzy from humidity
Sunday, April 20, 2008
She's Got the Look
M used to say I had a look about me . . . I looked "fuckable" and for that reason I would do well as a bartender. This was years before I bought a bar. By the time the bar was in hand I had forgotten what he said. Of course, as soon as the deal was sealed, he reminded me, "I always said you'd make a good bartender. You've got that 'fuckable' look." Like he had orchestrated the whole thing. And in retrospect I wonder if he didn't, because hell, I never wanted to own a bar before . . . so what transpired there? I can't remember exactly. It happened so quick and it seemed like it happened when he wasn't even around . . . but who the hell knows what REALLY happened?
M had a point. I did look "fuckable" and it did play well in the bartending scene. I had men and women hitting on me, tipping me. I mean EVERYONE! It was bizarre. It was enough to destroy my faith in the human race altogether. Because nobody was out of bounds. Nobody was out of play. I had my pick. And that was not a good thing. But the tips were good. Yeah, the tips were everything.
I remember one night, I had a group of sports in from the states and one of them was quite young in his early 20s and he was hot, worked out a lot, biceps bulging, and he was flirting with me at the bar and I was flirting back, partly because of the American bills that kept pouring into the till and partly because he was gorgeous and charming and charismatic and just different and new from the usual crowd. We were having a good time. We were having a great time until he indicated that he was willing to pay for an even better time. Pay for me, and my services. And isn't that always where my "fuckability" factor ends? With the promise of money? Everything's cool until you lay $500 on the table, then I'm history. This doesn't make as much sense to me as it seemed to in the moment as I pretended to protect the last shred of my dignity. Meanwhile, M would have easily sold me for that if he'd been there and been even more convinced of my "fuckability." He would've started a marketing campaign at the sports camps, no doubt.
In the movie "Match Point" Scarlett has a line about the way that men always saw her, and she doesn't really seem to understand why, but it is what it is. I relate to that character. I don't know how this will translate into my 40s, but the first 30 years have been a burden of "fuckability."
Mood: confused
Drinking: absenthe
Listening To: disco inferno
Hair: kinda cute
M had a point. I did look "fuckable" and it did play well in the bartending scene. I had men and women hitting on me, tipping me. I mean EVERYONE! It was bizarre. It was enough to destroy my faith in the human race altogether. Because nobody was out of bounds. Nobody was out of play. I had my pick. And that was not a good thing. But the tips were good. Yeah, the tips were everything.
I remember one night, I had a group of sports in from the states and one of them was quite young in his early 20s and he was hot, worked out a lot, biceps bulging, and he was flirting with me at the bar and I was flirting back, partly because of the American bills that kept pouring into the till and partly because he was gorgeous and charming and charismatic and just different and new from the usual crowd. We were having a good time. We were having a great time until he indicated that he was willing to pay for an even better time. Pay for me, and my services. And isn't that always where my "fuckability" factor ends? With the promise of money? Everything's cool until you lay $500 on the table, then I'm history. This doesn't make as much sense to me as it seemed to in the moment as I pretended to protect the last shred of my dignity. Meanwhile, M would have easily sold me for that if he'd been there and been even more convinced of my "fuckability." He would've started a marketing campaign at the sports camps, no doubt.
In the movie "Match Point" Scarlett has a line about the way that men always saw her, and she doesn't really seem to understand why, but it is what it is. I relate to that character. I don't know how this will translate into my 40s, but the first 30 years have been a burden of "fuckability."
Mood: confused
Drinking: absenthe
Listening To: disco inferno
Hair: kinda cute
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Dancing Queen
I'm having an ABBA morning. Why? Because they make me happy. It takes me back to being 11 or 12 years old and going to the rink on Friday nights, skating round and round to Does Your Mother Know. I was just starting to settle in and get comfortable with the idea of being a kid when everything shifted again.
I hated most of elementary school. I was shy. I was fat. I was smart. I wore my cousin's hand-me-down clothes. Not good things when you're a kid. I couldn't wait to grow up. Most of my memories from Grades 1-5 are nasty. Bullied, poked fun at, not fitting in . . . so much hurt . . . I spent a lot of time in my head, in my room alone, outside alone, hating, crying, and most of all wishing I was an adult. Because when I grew up then I'd make the bastards pay for every shitty thing they did to me, for every moment they caused me pain.
I even had a list, a pay-back list I kept in my diary. It was just a list of names, dozens and dozens of names. I didn't need to write down what they had done to me, I could recite the list by heart. I suppose if I were growing up today I'd be the kid who goes postal in the cafeteria. But back then all I could do was make my list and wish to be grown, because then I'd have the power and I could do what I wanted.
By 6th grade things started to shift. I don't know if it was the wonderful teacher we had that year or what. In spring I started playing soccer and football at lunch hour, I'd been going to the rink in the winter and spending hours skating. The only album they had to play over the speakers was ABBA. This was the year I got my first pair of jeans. I settled in. I started to have fun being a kid. But it didn't last long. The best part of my childhood lasted a few months before my girl friends decided playing games in the field was not cool, sports were not cool. The focus shifted to hair, make-up, clothes, and of course, boys.
I resisted at first. I tried to convince them to at least continue playing until summer break. We could all enter 7th grade as proper young women, but couldn't we finish grade 6 as little girls? Nobody was interested. They left the field and went down to stand on the pavement, leaning against the brick wall, where they would gossip and brag and scheme. I remember standing on the hill, looking back the field at the boys running with the soccer ball, watching the backs of my girl friends walk away from me, and I knew it was over, whatever peace and freedom and joy in childhood I had been briefly experiencing had ended and a new chapter was beginning. I took one last look at the boys kicking the soccer ball and followed the girls to the pavement.
I wish I could say my transition into teenager-land went more smoothly, but seventh grade was a bitch of a year. By the end of it I had gone numb to everything. I no longer kept a pay-back list because I figured none of these people mattered anyway. I lived for the day when school would end and real life would begin. Throughout high school I kept my eye on that prize. As far as I was concerned none of what happened during my teens mattered in the slightest, this wasn't real life, that wouldn't begin until I graduated and left. This attitude allowed me to do things that other people were angered or shocked by. Making out with someone else's boyfriend was perfectly acceptable to my way of thinking because we were just kids having fun and it wasn't like anyone was going to stay together and get married and all that crap in our real life after high school. Nothing was out of bounds. Because nothing mattered. It was all one big waste of time, might as well get some thrills out of it, sample a bit of everything.
I remember an incident where a girl came up to me and told me she knew I'd gone out with her boyfriend but it was my lucky day because she was going to let it go. I remember being surprised that there had even been a possibility that she wouldn't let it go. I had been hanging on the fringe of her clique and she had said repeatedly about how she didn't really like this guy anyway, how she was probably going to break up with him. So, as far as I was concerned, he was beyond fair game and I'd actually done her a big favour by giving her a good excuse to dump his cheating ass. So I was surprised to have her confront me in the schoolyard.
I remember how her face blushed all red and she turned and stomped away when I just shrugged and said something like duh, of course not, you got no beef with me. This happened a couple of times in high school, girls coming up to me to tell me I'd done them wrong but they were going to let it go. And I have to wonder why? Why didn't they beat me up? And what must they have thought when they'd get my calm cool logical reaction? They were always big girls, taller than me, and I was pretty tall. I'm sure they expected me to be intimidated, apologetic even. I was quiet too. I never said much in school. Out of school I partied harder and louder than anyone else. Nothing and nobody was off-limits, if I found someone attractive, if I wanted something, I went after it and I didn't take no for an answer. I didn't realize it at the time, that I had no respect for anyone or anything, I just thought I was putting in my time, same as everyone else, just getting through until the first day of the rest of my life. I got away with a lot. I'm not sure why.
And all of this has nothing to do with ABBA, except that for a few brief moments in childhood I felt free and ABBA was there with me. This explains everything, right?
Mood: nostalgic
Drinking: cold coffee
Listening To: thunderstruck, ac/dc
Hair: needing some colour
I hated most of elementary school. I was shy. I was fat. I was smart. I wore my cousin's hand-me-down clothes. Not good things when you're a kid. I couldn't wait to grow up. Most of my memories from Grades 1-5 are nasty. Bullied, poked fun at, not fitting in . . . so much hurt . . . I spent a lot of time in my head, in my room alone, outside alone, hating, crying, and most of all wishing I was an adult. Because when I grew up then I'd make the bastards pay for every shitty thing they did to me, for every moment they caused me pain.
I even had a list, a pay-back list I kept in my diary. It was just a list of names, dozens and dozens of names. I didn't need to write down what they had done to me, I could recite the list by heart. I suppose if I were growing up today I'd be the kid who goes postal in the cafeteria. But back then all I could do was make my list and wish to be grown, because then I'd have the power and I could do what I wanted.
By 6th grade things started to shift. I don't know if it was the wonderful teacher we had that year or what. In spring I started playing soccer and football at lunch hour, I'd been going to the rink in the winter and spending hours skating. The only album they had to play over the speakers was ABBA. This was the year I got my first pair of jeans. I settled in. I started to have fun being a kid. But it didn't last long. The best part of my childhood lasted a few months before my girl friends decided playing games in the field was not cool, sports were not cool. The focus shifted to hair, make-up, clothes, and of course, boys.
I resisted at first. I tried to convince them to at least continue playing until summer break. We could all enter 7th grade as proper young women, but couldn't we finish grade 6 as little girls? Nobody was interested. They left the field and went down to stand on the pavement, leaning against the brick wall, where they would gossip and brag and scheme. I remember standing on the hill, looking back the field at the boys running with the soccer ball, watching the backs of my girl friends walk away from me, and I knew it was over, whatever peace and freedom and joy in childhood I had been briefly experiencing had ended and a new chapter was beginning. I took one last look at the boys kicking the soccer ball and followed the girls to the pavement.
I wish I could say my transition into teenager-land went more smoothly, but seventh grade was a bitch of a year. By the end of it I had gone numb to everything. I no longer kept a pay-back list because I figured none of these people mattered anyway. I lived for the day when school would end and real life would begin. Throughout high school I kept my eye on that prize. As far as I was concerned none of what happened during my teens mattered in the slightest, this wasn't real life, that wouldn't begin until I graduated and left. This attitude allowed me to do things that other people were angered or shocked by. Making out with someone else's boyfriend was perfectly acceptable to my way of thinking because we were just kids having fun and it wasn't like anyone was going to stay together and get married and all that crap in our real life after high school. Nothing was out of bounds. Because nothing mattered. It was all one big waste of time, might as well get some thrills out of it, sample a bit of everything.
I remember an incident where a girl came up to me and told me she knew I'd gone out with her boyfriend but it was my lucky day because she was going to let it go. I remember being surprised that there had even been a possibility that she wouldn't let it go. I had been hanging on the fringe of her clique and she had said repeatedly about how she didn't really like this guy anyway, how she was probably going to break up with him. So, as far as I was concerned, he was beyond fair game and I'd actually done her a big favour by giving her a good excuse to dump his cheating ass. So I was surprised to have her confront me in the schoolyard.
I remember how her face blushed all red and she turned and stomped away when I just shrugged and said something like duh, of course not, you got no beef with me. This happened a couple of times in high school, girls coming up to me to tell me I'd done them wrong but they were going to let it go. And I have to wonder why? Why didn't they beat me up? And what must they have thought when they'd get my calm cool logical reaction? They were always big girls, taller than me, and I was pretty tall. I'm sure they expected me to be intimidated, apologetic even. I was quiet too. I never said much in school. Out of school I partied harder and louder than anyone else. Nothing and nobody was off-limits, if I found someone attractive, if I wanted something, I went after it and I didn't take no for an answer. I didn't realize it at the time, that I had no respect for anyone or anything, I just thought I was putting in my time, same as everyone else, just getting through until the first day of the rest of my life. I got away with a lot. I'm not sure why.
And all of this has nothing to do with ABBA, except that for a few brief moments in childhood I felt free and ABBA was there with me. This explains everything, right?
Mood: nostalgic
Drinking: cold coffee
Listening To: thunderstruck, ac/dc
Hair: needing some colour
Monday, March 31, 2008
Best Days of My Life
There's something about listening to Bryan Adams Reckless album that puts the butterflies into my belly. In particular the songs "Summer of '69," "One Night Love Affair" and "She's Only Happy When She's Dancing." That was the album to get for Christmas in 1984. I was 15 years old.
Was that the Christmas I had chicken pox? No, I think that was the first year R and I went together. Was that the Christmas I got my ghetto blaster? Maybe. It's quite possible. Was that the Christmas I had a party with my friends in the basement, and we played twister, and wrote and drew pictures on a big mural, and drank too much beer, and ate pizza, and someone puked on the cement floor? Yes, yes, I think it was.
I remember being upstairs in the kitchen, putting something in the garbage can under the sink and just slowly tipping over, slumping to the floor and being unable to stop laughing, just sitting there and laughing with the tears streaming down my face, Mom trying to help me up, but me laughing too hard, and Mom getting angry because I was apparently plastered drunk (though it wasn't that, I was stoned obviously).
I remember Mom growling R for letting me get that way, and him throwing up his hands, like he ever could've stopped me or got me to slow down . . . or got me to do anything, for that matter. That was the first clue that I couldn't and shouldn't smoke dope, though I didn't know it at the time.
Listening to Bryan Adams takes me back to the beginning, when everything was still brand new, being 14 and 15 and experiencing everything for the first time. Every day held some new adventure or excitement. Life was so unpredictable and random. I never knew from one moment to the next where I would be or what would happen. I was the girl who was up for anything . . . once. I blew whichever way the wind blew, changed my mind every second. If you looked up reckless in the dictionary you should find a picture of me. And I stayed that way for a really long time. Though in your 20s, unpredictable random adventures equal drama, and drama grows tiresome in an adult world.
I guess I'm still that girl, but I don't need those Bryan Adams reckless kinda butterflies anymore. Now, I have new and improved butterflies. I get them in springtime when a new season is born with endless possibility and opportunity. I love this time of year. I get them when I meet new fabulous people that I know will be in my life for a long time and probably forever. I get them when I count my blessings and feel so lucky and grateful for every second of my life, my family, my friends. I still feel like everyday is an adventure, like anything could happen, everything is possible, and situations change in an instant. These are my butterflies now. I'm excited about my life, everyday. And yes, I'm still the girl that can wake-up with one plan and find herself in a completely different place by the end of the day, but when you're excited about your life and focused on opportunities and being true to yourself, and not mindlessly following every whim, the universe delivers something more uplifting.
Mood: excited
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: yellow submarine, the beatles
Hair: ch-ch-chan-changes coming
Was that the Christmas I had chicken pox? No, I think that was the first year R and I went together. Was that the Christmas I got my ghetto blaster? Maybe. It's quite possible. Was that the Christmas I had a party with my friends in the basement, and we played twister, and wrote and drew pictures on a big mural, and drank too much beer, and ate pizza, and someone puked on the cement floor? Yes, yes, I think it was.
I remember being upstairs in the kitchen, putting something in the garbage can under the sink and just slowly tipping over, slumping to the floor and being unable to stop laughing, just sitting there and laughing with the tears streaming down my face, Mom trying to help me up, but me laughing too hard, and Mom getting angry because I was apparently plastered drunk (though it wasn't that, I was stoned obviously).
I remember Mom growling R for letting me get that way, and him throwing up his hands, like he ever could've stopped me or got me to slow down . . . or got me to do anything, for that matter. That was the first clue that I couldn't and shouldn't smoke dope, though I didn't know it at the time.
Listening to Bryan Adams takes me back to the beginning, when everything was still brand new, being 14 and 15 and experiencing everything for the first time. Every day held some new adventure or excitement. Life was so unpredictable and random. I never knew from one moment to the next where I would be or what would happen. I was the girl who was up for anything . . . once. I blew whichever way the wind blew, changed my mind every second. If you looked up reckless in the dictionary you should find a picture of me. And I stayed that way for a really long time. Though in your 20s, unpredictable random adventures equal drama, and drama grows tiresome in an adult world.
I guess I'm still that girl, but I don't need those Bryan Adams reckless kinda butterflies anymore. Now, I have new and improved butterflies. I get them in springtime when a new season is born with endless possibility and opportunity. I love this time of year. I get them when I meet new fabulous people that I know will be in my life for a long time and probably forever. I get them when I count my blessings and feel so lucky and grateful for every second of my life, my family, my friends. I still feel like everyday is an adventure, like anything could happen, everything is possible, and situations change in an instant. These are my butterflies now. I'm excited about my life, everyday. And yes, I'm still the girl that can wake-up with one plan and find herself in a completely different place by the end of the day, but when you're excited about your life and focused on opportunities and being true to yourself, and not mindlessly following every whim, the universe delivers something more uplifting.
Mood: excited
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: yellow submarine, the beatles
Hair: ch-ch-chan-changes coming
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Yesterday
Saw a deer on the road, somewhere around McNamee. He came over the bank and looked like he was about to cross. Judy tooted the horn to scare him off in the face of oncoming traffic.
In springtime at the club I would look out the window and not be able to count all the deer in the field. Mornings I would sit on the step and smoke and watch for hours. So peaceful.
When people find out about those years spent in the club and the wild way I lived, they will often say about all the stories I must have accumulated, fodder for fiction. And I'll smile and say yes that's for sure. I saw a lot. I heard a lot. I did a lot. But the truth is I don't seem to have very many stories from then. At least not many I'm ready to tell. When I think back on that time in my life, all I can remember and feel is my overwhelming sadness.
I understand now that I was running. I know why and what from, but understanding hasn't made it any easier to revisit that time in my memory. My sadness is still too much. More distance is needed.
You don't see a lot of good in people when you're behind a bar. People tend to reveal their very worst self. It can shake your whole faith in the human race. My faith was beyond shaken, but trampled into the ground. I doubted whether I would ever get it back. But I have. It's taken time. It's taken surrounding myself with the very best people on the planet. But I have faith again. Good people exist. I spent time with several of them yesterday.
Mood: undecided
Drinking: coffee, instant, with skim
Listening To: just me, reading aloud and yawning
Hair: seriously getting on my nerves
In springtime at the club I would look out the window and not be able to count all the deer in the field. Mornings I would sit on the step and smoke and watch for hours. So peaceful.
When people find out about those years spent in the club and the wild way I lived, they will often say about all the stories I must have accumulated, fodder for fiction. And I'll smile and say yes that's for sure. I saw a lot. I heard a lot. I did a lot. But the truth is I don't seem to have very many stories from then. At least not many I'm ready to tell. When I think back on that time in my life, all I can remember and feel is my overwhelming sadness.
I understand now that I was running. I know why and what from, but understanding hasn't made it any easier to revisit that time in my memory. My sadness is still too much. More distance is needed.
You don't see a lot of good in people when you're behind a bar. People tend to reveal their very worst self. It can shake your whole faith in the human race. My faith was beyond shaken, but trampled into the ground. I doubted whether I would ever get it back. But I have. It's taken time. It's taken surrounding myself with the very best people on the planet. But I have faith again. Good people exist. I spent time with several of them yesterday.
Mood: undecided
Drinking: coffee, instant, with skim
Listening To: just me, reading aloud and yawning
Hair: seriously getting on my nerves
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Ordinary
Every once in awhile I remember that morning. I'm not sure why. Maybe the memory is triggered by a smell or a light, a temperature or a sound. Maybe it only happens when I'm hungry or sleepy or both. All I know is that every now and again that morning pops into the top slot of my brain and I find myself back there not understanding why I've been summoned. It wasn't an unusual morning. Nothing particularly exciting happened. It was just an ordinary day, like so many other ordinary days that never demand my memory's attention. A day like hundreds of others. Yet for some reason I remember it.
A few of us stayed at the club after closing. We listened to music, played pool, bullshitted and drank until morning. Late spring/early summer, maybe May or June. The sun was fierce slicing through layers of dust and cigarette smoke drifting round the rafters. We laughed so hard our cheeks hurt, each word out of our mouths adding to the running joke. We drank everything I had and were waiting for the liquor store to open. It opened early, 7 or 8 a.m. I drove the truck out the road, four in the cab, because I appeared to be the most sober. Me, the girl with no license, always the soberest of the drunken drivers. It was me also who would go into the store and buy the liquor. Because I was the most sober. Because I had money. Because I was the one who shopped for liquor on a daily basis, filling big orders to stock the bar. Because he wouldn't feel right about it, if I didn't do it myself.
I remember walking into the Metro. It was quiet. We'd missed the early work crowd, arrived before the nine-to-fivers. One girl behind the counter. One customer playing the machines. It was cool in the store, the sun hadn't come around to the big windows yet, the lights weren't turned on. In the liquor store part the lights burned bright and the gush of the cooler seemed deafening. The girl behind the counter followed me round while I grabbed a case of beer, some rye and Coke. "How are you, Kel?" Meaningless chit-chat about last night's non-existent customers, weekend plans, the weather, idle gossip. Always the same thing. Only I thought it was odd for me to be doing this kind of shopping on a weekday morning, and I did it all the time.
Boots clacking along the pavement, I remember exactly what I was wearing as I carried the provisions and loaded them on the back of the truck. Blue jeans faded nearly white, black cowboy boots, black belt, shirt tucked in, sleeves rolled up to my elbows, jean jacket over top of everything because of dampness in the morning air. One of the guys bailed while I was in the store, walked home. The owner of the truck decided he's sober enough now to drive. I squeeze in between the two burly men and straddle the hump in the middle, while he drives to the other guys house where we'll drink the rest of the liquor.
The house is just off the beaten path a bit. No visible neighbors. No view to speak of, back off the road, not close to the river. The sun higher and hotter in the sky. He has a pool table downstairs and we try to get a game going but nobody's into it. We sit outside on the deck listening to the birds and the bees and Led Zeppelin streaming out the patio doors from the stereo inside. I shed my jacket as it's too hot. Conversation lulls. They smoke a joint. I have many vices, but smoking joints is not one of them. First one and then the other excuses himself to the bathroom and doesn't return. Their snores soon mingle with the music. One guy crashed in his own bed upstairs. The other downstairs on the leather couch beside the pool table. I'm welcome to sleep too, I'll be safe here, but I can't. I take so many drugs to stay awake that sleep seldom comes. My heart races in my chest. My mouth goes dry. My ears ring. My hair stands on end. My hands and legs fidget. My eyes turn glossy. My pupils dilate. But my lids rarely close.
There's something unnatural about seeing day when you haven't slept, when you've been drinking for a long time, but you're not drunk. The world is brighter, brassier, louder. You notice tiny cracks in things that normally you would pass by without a glance. You wonder about blades of grass and dragonflies. You ponder dandelions and swallows. I sit on the deck all by myself, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, growing increasingly more hot as the sun comes around and late morning turns to afternoon. After a couple of hours I decide I can't stay there, my skin is too fair, and like the vampire that I am I retreat into the dark coolness of the basement. He's still asleep on the leather sofa. In the bathroom I spend 15 minutes studying the red blotches on my face and wondering whether I've really sunburned or if it's just the wrong side of the day for me. I wander around the basement poking through musty old boxes, flipping pages in photo albums, reading random passages in books, playing records, smoking and drinking beer.
Late in the afternoon his eyes open and he asks what time it is, how long he's been out. It's after 4, I tell him. About time for me to make a decision. Will I go home to shower and change before I open the club at 7. Will I go to his house, shower, put on some of my same clothes, borrow some of his, and go without make-up or hair. Will we wake buddy up, see if he wants to come with us. Will I call home and see if somebody else can open for me tonight. Will I just say screw it and not open at all.
We decide together. We'll let him sleep. We'll both go home. We'll see each other later after I open.
I arrive home right at supper time. I don't eat but have a cup of tea and smoke while I catch up with my mom about who was around last night, where I've been all day. I lay down for 20 minutes. It feels like a lifetime. Then I shower, do my hair and make-up. I have more tea while I sit in my house coat, looking in the mirror at myself as I get ready. Another pair of jeans, another top tucked in with the same black belt, the same black cowboy boots. I sling my jean jacket over my shoulder, grab my money bag and I'm off.
The sun is setting as we arrive at the club. I unlock the door. Raise the bar window. Put the cash in the register. Load the coolers with the liquor order we picked up along the way. I feed loonies to the jukebox and select my favourite songs. I grab a beer, twist the top and wash down two more pills as I settle onto my stool for another work night. I sit there for an hour before the door opens and someone comes in to save me from my loneliness. I serve. We chat. He tips.
Much later, after I turn off most of the lights and flip the sign to closed, a few of us will linger, drinking and bullshitting until dawn.
Mood: nostalgic
Drinking: chocolate chai tea
Listening To: refrigerator grumble
Hair: out of sight, out of mine
A few of us stayed at the club after closing. We listened to music, played pool, bullshitted and drank until morning. Late spring/early summer, maybe May or June. The sun was fierce slicing through layers of dust and cigarette smoke drifting round the rafters. We laughed so hard our cheeks hurt, each word out of our mouths adding to the running joke. We drank everything I had and were waiting for the liquor store to open. It opened early, 7 or 8 a.m. I drove the truck out the road, four in the cab, because I appeared to be the most sober. Me, the girl with no license, always the soberest of the drunken drivers. It was me also who would go into the store and buy the liquor. Because I was the most sober. Because I had money. Because I was the one who shopped for liquor on a daily basis, filling big orders to stock the bar. Because he wouldn't feel right about it, if I didn't do it myself.
I remember walking into the Metro. It was quiet. We'd missed the early work crowd, arrived before the nine-to-fivers. One girl behind the counter. One customer playing the machines. It was cool in the store, the sun hadn't come around to the big windows yet, the lights weren't turned on. In the liquor store part the lights burned bright and the gush of the cooler seemed deafening. The girl behind the counter followed me round while I grabbed a case of beer, some rye and Coke. "How are you, Kel?" Meaningless chit-chat about last night's non-existent customers, weekend plans, the weather, idle gossip. Always the same thing. Only I thought it was odd for me to be doing this kind of shopping on a weekday morning, and I did it all the time.
Boots clacking along the pavement, I remember exactly what I was wearing as I carried the provisions and loaded them on the back of the truck. Blue jeans faded nearly white, black cowboy boots, black belt, shirt tucked in, sleeves rolled up to my elbows, jean jacket over top of everything because of dampness in the morning air. One of the guys bailed while I was in the store, walked home. The owner of the truck decided he's sober enough now to drive. I squeeze in between the two burly men and straddle the hump in the middle, while he drives to the other guys house where we'll drink the rest of the liquor.
The house is just off the beaten path a bit. No visible neighbors. No view to speak of, back off the road, not close to the river. The sun higher and hotter in the sky. He has a pool table downstairs and we try to get a game going but nobody's into it. We sit outside on the deck listening to the birds and the bees and Led Zeppelin streaming out the patio doors from the stereo inside. I shed my jacket as it's too hot. Conversation lulls. They smoke a joint. I have many vices, but smoking joints is not one of them. First one and then the other excuses himself to the bathroom and doesn't return. Their snores soon mingle with the music. One guy crashed in his own bed upstairs. The other downstairs on the leather couch beside the pool table. I'm welcome to sleep too, I'll be safe here, but I can't. I take so many drugs to stay awake that sleep seldom comes. My heart races in my chest. My mouth goes dry. My ears ring. My hair stands on end. My hands and legs fidget. My eyes turn glossy. My pupils dilate. But my lids rarely close.
There's something unnatural about seeing day when you haven't slept, when you've been drinking for a long time, but you're not drunk. The world is brighter, brassier, louder. You notice tiny cracks in things that normally you would pass by without a glance. You wonder about blades of grass and dragonflies. You ponder dandelions and swallows. I sit on the deck all by myself, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, growing increasingly more hot as the sun comes around and late morning turns to afternoon. After a couple of hours I decide I can't stay there, my skin is too fair, and like the vampire that I am I retreat into the dark coolness of the basement. He's still asleep on the leather sofa. In the bathroom I spend 15 minutes studying the red blotches on my face and wondering whether I've really sunburned or if it's just the wrong side of the day for me. I wander around the basement poking through musty old boxes, flipping pages in photo albums, reading random passages in books, playing records, smoking and drinking beer.
Late in the afternoon his eyes open and he asks what time it is, how long he's been out. It's after 4, I tell him. About time for me to make a decision. Will I go home to shower and change before I open the club at 7. Will I go to his house, shower, put on some of my same clothes, borrow some of his, and go without make-up or hair. Will we wake buddy up, see if he wants to come with us. Will I call home and see if somebody else can open for me tonight. Will I just say screw it and not open at all.
We decide together. We'll let him sleep. We'll both go home. We'll see each other later after I open.
I arrive home right at supper time. I don't eat but have a cup of tea and smoke while I catch up with my mom about who was around last night, where I've been all day. I lay down for 20 minutes. It feels like a lifetime. Then I shower, do my hair and make-up. I have more tea while I sit in my house coat, looking in the mirror at myself as I get ready. Another pair of jeans, another top tucked in with the same black belt, the same black cowboy boots. I sling my jean jacket over my shoulder, grab my money bag and I'm off.
The sun is setting as we arrive at the club. I unlock the door. Raise the bar window. Put the cash in the register. Load the coolers with the liquor order we picked up along the way. I feed loonies to the jukebox and select my favourite songs. I grab a beer, twist the top and wash down two more pills as I settle onto my stool for another work night. I sit there for an hour before the door opens and someone comes in to save me from my loneliness. I serve. We chat. He tips.
Much later, after I turn off most of the lights and flip the sign to closed, a few of us will linger, drinking and bullshitting until dawn.
Mood: nostalgic
Drinking: chocolate chai tea
Listening To: refrigerator grumble
Hair: out of sight, out of mine
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Here We Go Again
And though time goes by I will always be in a club with you in 1973 . . . it's more like 1988 or 1993 or 1997 in my case, but I get the sentiment. James Blunt gets me with this song, makes me melancholy. It's unusual for me to get so sentimental. But seriously I tear up every time I hear 1973. It takes me different places with different people. People who are no longer part of my life, who I will likely never see again, and who I'll certainly never be close to again. And yeah, there are lots of people who I'm ecstatic to never have another conversation with for as long as I live, and there are many moments with many people that I'd just as soon forget . . . but there were some good times too. Some really great times.
When I was younger I didn't appreciate these moments. In the way of most young people I just thought things would go on forever. Moments came and went and I didn't savour them, I didn't pause to enjoy being in them, they were just blips on my way to somewhere else. Always moving. Ok, that was great, but what's next? I never once thought this might be the last time I see this person or this might be the last kiss or this might be the last time we make love. If I knew it was the last, surely I would've cared more. I would have committed the moment to memory in greater detail. Wouldn't have I?
Live and learn.
I'm so in the moment now, it's difficult to plan ahead. I'm just so conscious. I have been. Years now. When things are happening, I know all I have is right now. I close my eyes and let the feelings wash over me. The way his arm brushes mine as we stand close. The cool breeze on my face, bringing the fresh scent of the season. The way my hair falls into my eyes. That nervous giggle. The way the light shimmers on our hair. The way the music makes me sway just a little. In a second my mind imprints everything to memory and I grin. No matter what happens tomorrow or next week or even in the next five minutes, this moment is perfect and I'm happy and I'll never forget.
These aren't the moments I get melancholy and sentimental about. I only get sad about the ones that passed without me being fully in them. Some people say you should take pictures so you'll never forget. Yes, pictures are nice too. But I have those and they don't help. Even in the photos I'm not fully present. My strongest memories, the ones that bring a smile to my lips, that can take me back and allow me to once again feel the joy and happiness of that time, are the ones where I consciously looked around and said to myself, "This is my happiness and I will treasure it always." There are no photos to remind me, no videotapes or sound recordings. Just me, being there and understanding the significance.
So many times I have put off doing things, or decided to wait for better timing. Nearly always these things end up being my regrets. I don't have many regrets, I tend to be of the school of thought that everything that has happened has shaped me to the person I am today and without those experiences I might be someone else I don't like nearly as well. I have never regretted any of the things I've done, no matter how terrible, traumatic or stupid those decisions might have been. My only regrets are things I didn't do. I look back and think if only I'd known that was my only opportunity or that I'd never see that person again, I would have gone for it. I would have squashed any of my fears that held me back and I just would have went for it. So I try to do better. I don't like having regrets. I try to stay in the moment. Yes, I get off-track sometimes. It's always easier to allow your fear to win. It's never easy to feel very afraid and vulnerable but push on anyway. It's hard! But that's when the good stuff happens.
Sometimes I need to remind myself of this.
Mood: philosophical
Drinking: coffee (i'm too lazy to grind the good stuff . . .)
Listening To: the city destroyed me, nathan wiley
Hair: damp, long and loose
When I was younger I didn't appreciate these moments. In the way of most young people I just thought things would go on forever. Moments came and went and I didn't savour them, I didn't pause to enjoy being in them, they were just blips on my way to somewhere else. Always moving. Ok, that was great, but what's next? I never once thought this might be the last time I see this person or this might be the last kiss or this might be the last time we make love. If I knew it was the last, surely I would've cared more. I would have committed the moment to memory in greater detail. Wouldn't have I?
Live and learn.
I'm so in the moment now, it's difficult to plan ahead. I'm just so conscious. I have been. Years now. When things are happening, I know all I have is right now. I close my eyes and let the feelings wash over me. The way his arm brushes mine as we stand close. The cool breeze on my face, bringing the fresh scent of the season. The way my hair falls into my eyes. That nervous giggle. The way the light shimmers on our hair. The way the music makes me sway just a little. In a second my mind imprints everything to memory and I grin. No matter what happens tomorrow or next week or even in the next five minutes, this moment is perfect and I'm happy and I'll never forget.
These aren't the moments I get melancholy and sentimental about. I only get sad about the ones that passed without me being fully in them. Some people say you should take pictures so you'll never forget. Yes, pictures are nice too. But I have those and they don't help. Even in the photos I'm not fully present. My strongest memories, the ones that bring a smile to my lips, that can take me back and allow me to once again feel the joy and happiness of that time, are the ones where I consciously looked around and said to myself, "This is my happiness and I will treasure it always." There are no photos to remind me, no videotapes or sound recordings. Just me, being there and understanding the significance.
So many times I have put off doing things, or decided to wait for better timing. Nearly always these things end up being my regrets. I don't have many regrets, I tend to be of the school of thought that everything that has happened has shaped me to the person I am today and without those experiences I might be someone else I don't like nearly as well. I have never regretted any of the things I've done, no matter how terrible, traumatic or stupid those decisions might have been. My only regrets are things I didn't do. I look back and think if only I'd known that was my only opportunity or that I'd never see that person again, I would have gone for it. I would have squashed any of my fears that held me back and I just would have went for it. So I try to do better. I don't like having regrets. I try to stay in the moment. Yes, I get off-track sometimes. It's always easier to allow your fear to win. It's never easy to feel very afraid and vulnerable but push on anyway. It's hard! But that's when the good stuff happens.
Sometimes I need to remind myself of this.
Mood: philosophical
Drinking: coffee (i'm too lazy to grind the good stuff . . .)
Listening To: the city destroyed me, nathan wiley
Hair: damp, long and loose
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Have I Been Sleeping For All These Years?
Maybe I'm not drinking enough water. Or maybe I've got some sinus/allergy thing going on. I have this nagging hint of a headache that I can't seem to shake. I slept WAY too late today. Can't seem to catch up. I was supposed to go to the movies tonight, but I'm not now, so maybe if I use my evening time wisely I can get on top of things. Tomorrow is going to be a purely insane day. I need to figure out logistics, costume changes, cash needed on hand for such a big run-around day. Friday is only slightly less hectic, but at least it all happens on my side of the river so there'll be no crossing the bridge multiple times via taxi. It's $12.50 to cross the bridge. Maybe $15 to go one place I need to be. That's like pocket change in comparison to my past life. I used to spend $50 a day in taxi fares when I lived in TO. I'm talking 5 or 6 days a week. Honestly! Can you imagine?! $200-$300 in taxis every week! And that was a long time ago, lord knows what it'd cost today. The times they be a changing. When I think back on my lifestyle then, it's no wonder everything fell apart, I cracked and dropped out. Drinks every night after work. Sleeping 2-3 hours only per night. All meals eaten out. 100 hours on the job per week. I mean $250 on average just for frigging taxis. I was a crazy person. Facing a day like tomorrow takes me back there and makes me cringe a little, but then I remember it's only one day and no matter what it's still the Maritime version of hectic, which is never as fast paced as the Toronto version. Never. No need to ever move that fast again. Whew! What a relief?
In other news . . . people are pulling over to give me a boost. And when my gut clenches and I turn to flee, jump back in, roll up the windows and lock the doors, I'm making myself stand strong and face those booster cables head on. One coffee Sunday coming up!
Mood: well
Drinking: coffee, water
Listening To: 1979, smashing pumpkins
Hair: ponied
In other news . . . people are pulling over to give me a boost. And when my gut clenches and I turn to flee, jump back in, roll up the windows and lock the doors, I'm making myself stand strong and face those booster cables head on. One coffee Sunday coming up!
Mood: well
Drinking: coffee, water
Listening To: 1979, smashing pumpkins
Hair: ponied
Thursday, August 30, 2007
We Get On
I'm having difficult sleeping. Getting to sleep. Staying asleep. Getting any rest with all the dreams swirling in my brain. Yes, there was a moon this week, not to mention a lunar eclipse, which we all know I'm highly influenced by. Still that's not all that's going on. I seem to be bothered.
A few years ago I looked up a woman who had made a big difference in my life when I was young. She influenced me, helped shaped me, I admired her, studied her, emulated her behaviour. I knew her during that awkward transition between teenager and adulthood. I was putty, becoming a woman, soaking up everything in the world around me and she was really the only strong woman I had in my life at that time. She taught me a lot about accepting responsibility for your own actions, about standing up for yourself and not letting people walk over you. I would be a completely different person today if I hadn't known her. Her impact on my life was huge. She left a permanent mark.
She was quite a bit older than me, closer to my mother's age than mine, and as I reached the age she had been when we met I felt the need as an adult woman to reach out and tell her exactly how much I appreciated all that she had done for me and to let her know she had been a major influence in my life, that she'd made a difference. She wasn't easily found, but hey, I've got a journalism degree! I was taught how to find people :-) So I found her and sent an email pouring out all my gratitude and thanks.
I don't know what I expected. Perhaps some new sage advice to help point me in the right direction in my current life. Maybe a funny exchange of email reminiscing about those crazy times. I don't know. But I expected something. I mean for over 15 years this woman was at the front of my mind, whispering guidance in my ear as I confronted and dealt with all kinds of unusual and mostly difficult situations. What would she do? was the constant question and I acted upon the answer. In some ways it was like our acquaintance never ended, but continued in my head all those years. So when I contacted this woman and she responded I expected something from her, something to validate all those years in my head. But what I got was nothing like expected. She barely remembered who I was. I had left very little lasting impression on her. There was no inspiring reconnection. There was no funny reminiscing. I was just a kid she worked with one time that she hadn't thought about in years. End of story.
This shocked me at first. How can someone be so important in your life and yet you don't even register in theirs? It was hurtful at first. I wished I hadn't reached out that I had just let my mind continue with its fantasies, gone to my grave wondering what ever happened to . . . I felt like my experience or at least my memory of the experience was a lie somehow, like it hadn't been what I thought it was. I felt foolish and stupid. It took a long time to get to a place where I understood where she was coming from. I mean I had been an 18 year old kid, what did I know? How could I possibly have taught her anything? And over the years how many young people have I worked closely with, perhaps impacted in some way without realizing? What would I do if one of them suddenly contacted me and I didn't remember them or just had some vague sort of recollection? Yeah, okay, I get it. And even this was a lesson from her. The last bit of mentoring. I realized I may have modeled my behaviour on her but sometime over the years I had become my own woman. I didn't need her whispering advice in my head anymore, because I could make my own decisions. Yes, I still think of her occasionally, but she's no longer taking up permanent residence in my frontal lobes, she's been relegated to the back rooms.
So, this week I can't sleep and some of it is due to the moon but some of it is due to my being bothered because it's happened again. I reconnected briefly with someone from the past. And everything I believed turned out to be a lie. I was forever changed, permanently scarred if you will, over something that wasn't even true, was in fact the polar opposite of the truth. And I can't stop thinking about it. And if that wasn't true, what other false things do I believe? Who else lied to me?
Mood: puzzled
Drinking: java juice
Listening To: Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
via FoxyTunes
Hair: soon gonna take the scissors to it
A few years ago I looked up a woman who had made a big difference in my life when I was young. She influenced me, helped shaped me, I admired her, studied her, emulated her behaviour. I knew her during that awkward transition between teenager and adulthood. I was putty, becoming a woman, soaking up everything in the world around me and she was really the only strong woman I had in my life at that time. She taught me a lot about accepting responsibility for your own actions, about standing up for yourself and not letting people walk over you. I would be a completely different person today if I hadn't known her. Her impact on my life was huge. She left a permanent mark.
She was quite a bit older than me, closer to my mother's age than mine, and as I reached the age she had been when we met I felt the need as an adult woman to reach out and tell her exactly how much I appreciated all that she had done for me and to let her know she had been a major influence in my life, that she'd made a difference. She wasn't easily found, but hey, I've got a journalism degree! I was taught how to find people :-) So I found her and sent an email pouring out all my gratitude and thanks.
I don't know what I expected. Perhaps some new sage advice to help point me in the right direction in my current life. Maybe a funny exchange of email reminiscing about those crazy times. I don't know. But I expected something. I mean for over 15 years this woman was at the front of my mind, whispering guidance in my ear as I confronted and dealt with all kinds of unusual and mostly difficult situations. What would she do? was the constant question and I acted upon the answer. In some ways it was like our acquaintance never ended, but continued in my head all those years. So when I contacted this woman and she responded I expected something from her, something to validate all those years in my head. But what I got was nothing like expected. She barely remembered who I was. I had left very little lasting impression on her. There was no inspiring reconnection. There was no funny reminiscing. I was just a kid she worked with one time that she hadn't thought about in years. End of story.
This shocked me at first. How can someone be so important in your life and yet you don't even register in theirs? It was hurtful at first. I wished I hadn't reached out that I had just let my mind continue with its fantasies, gone to my grave wondering what ever happened to . . . I felt like my experience or at least my memory of the experience was a lie somehow, like it hadn't been what I thought it was. I felt foolish and stupid. It took a long time to get to a place where I understood where she was coming from. I mean I had been an 18 year old kid, what did I know? How could I possibly have taught her anything? And over the years how many young people have I worked closely with, perhaps impacted in some way without realizing? What would I do if one of them suddenly contacted me and I didn't remember them or just had some vague sort of recollection? Yeah, okay, I get it. And even this was a lesson from her. The last bit of mentoring. I realized I may have modeled my behaviour on her but sometime over the years I had become my own woman. I didn't need her whispering advice in my head anymore, because I could make my own decisions. Yes, I still think of her occasionally, but she's no longer taking up permanent residence in my frontal lobes, she's been relegated to the back rooms.
So, this week I can't sleep and some of it is due to the moon but some of it is due to my being bothered because it's happened again. I reconnected briefly with someone from the past. And everything I believed turned out to be a lie. I was forever changed, permanently scarred if you will, over something that wasn't even true, was in fact the polar opposite of the truth. And I can't stop thinking about it. And if that wasn't true, what other false things do I believe? Who else lied to me?
Mood: puzzled
Drinking: java juice
Listening To: Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
via FoxyTunes
Hair: soon gonna take the scissors to it
Thursday, August 23, 2007
One Time . . .
In the early 90s when I lived in Toronto I was desperate to find work. There didn't seem to be many jobs at that time, seems like the economy was in a recession or something, but maybe not. And maybe I wasn't out of work all that long, maybe it just seemed really long in that early 20's everything takes so long kinda way. My lack of employment was causing a strain in my relationship though, so it was a big fat hairy deal. My hon couldn't take care of himself, let alone me, and though I didn't realize it at the time he counted on me to take care of him. God help him! Anyway, finding a job became my full-time job. I applied for everything I was remotely qualified. I registered and tested with every temp agency. I trekked all over the damn place for interviews from Markham to Scarborough out to Oakville and Burlington. If I could get there, no matter how long it took, I went. I was interviewing at three and four places a day, blindly groping around for anything. I suppose it only lasted a couple of months at the most before I got something good, because I remember I had EI from my job at the radio station in NB and by the time I got that all transferred and straightened out so I might actually receive a cheque I was employed full-time, so the good ole Ontario government didn't have to give me any money, which I'm sure pleased them immensely because they weren't too keen on people coming from the East Coast to collect UI.
Anyway, I remember this one interview I went to was way the hell north in . . . I wanna say Newmarket, but surely to God I did not take public transportation all the way to Newmarket! That's crazy. Must've been Markham. It took 3 buses and the subway to get as close as I could and then I had to walk for about 20 minutes from the bus stop way the hell into an industrial park type area to get to their building. It was probably a 2 and a half hour journey one way, which I would have had to do everyday twice if I'd got the job. But really there wasn't much chance of that.
This was an actual editorial position for some non-profit Jewish organization doing their newsletter and other publications. All the jobs I was interviewing for were administrative so I was pretty excited to get into a door in my field. I was ready to convert if they'd have me! I think they were willing to hire a lapsed protestant, but only if she had a general understanding of all things Jewish, which I didn't. And there went my one and only chance of meeting a nice Jewish boy and settling down for good :-(
So the interview was going really well and I was loving the people I'd be working with, the job I'd be doing. It was one of those rare times when I felt completely at ease immediately. The woman was upfront with me that I'd be a hard sell to her board because I didn't know the first thing about being Jewish, but she seemed like she really liked me and might go to bat for me if nobody better showed up. The interview ended I stood up, shook her hand, smiled and said good bye. Turned to leave and promptly fell in a heap on the floor. Damn weak ankles! She shrieked and came running from around her desk. I was so embarrassed, sitting there on the floor, putting on a brave smile and assuring her I was ok, just went over on my ankle, happens all the time (and it did then, sprained my ankle once a year it seemed). It was a really bad sprain that day. One of the worst I'd had in years. It instantly started to swell and turn purple as I made a hasty retreat from the nice lady's office, assuring her I would be okay, and yes I'd see a doctor.
Then I had to walk 20 minutes to the bus stop, in two and a half inched pumps, with a sprained ankle. And it was rush hour, so there were no seats on the bus. I had to stand most of the way home. For two and a half hours, in two and a half inched pumps, with a sprained ankle.
I've been on dozens and dozens of job interviews, but whenever I'm reminded of them, this is the one that always springs to mind. Seriously, how friggin Bridget Jones am I?
Mood: up in the air
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: just me, typing
Hair: uncertain of itself
Anyway, I remember this one interview I went to was way the hell north in . . . I wanna say Newmarket, but surely to God I did not take public transportation all the way to Newmarket! That's crazy. Must've been Markham. It took 3 buses and the subway to get as close as I could and then I had to walk for about 20 minutes from the bus stop way the hell into an industrial park type area to get to their building. It was probably a 2 and a half hour journey one way, which I would have had to do everyday twice if I'd got the job. But really there wasn't much chance of that.
This was an actual editorial position for some non-profit Jewish organization doing their newsletter and other publications. All the jobs I was interviewing for were administrative so I was pretty excited to get into a door in my field. I was ready to convert if they'd have me! I think they were willing to hire a lapsed protestant, but only if she had a general understanding of all things Jewish, which I didn't. And there went my one and only chance of meeting a nice Jewish boy and settling down for good :-(
So the interview was going really well and I was loving the people I'd be working with, the job I'd be doing. It was one of those rare times when I felt completely at ease immediately. The woman was upfront with me that I'd be a hard sell to her board because I didn't know the first thing about being Jewish, but she seemed like she really liked me and might go to bat for me if nobody better showed up. The interview ended I stood up, shook her hand, smiled and said good bye. Turned to leave and promptly fell in a heap on the floor. Damn weak ankles! She shrieked and came running from around her desk. I was so embarrassed, sitting there on the floor, putting on a brave smile and assuring her I was ok, just went over on my ankle, happens all the time (and it did then, sprained my ankle once a year it seemed). It was a really bad sprain that day. One of the worst I'd had in years. It instantly started to swell and turn purple as I made a hasty retreat from the nice lady's office, assuring her I would be okay, and yes I'd see a doctor.
Then I had to walk 20 minutes to the bus stop, in two and a half inched pumps, with a sprained ankle. And it was rush hour, so there were no seats on the bus. I had to stand most of the way home. For two and a half hours, in two and a half inched pumps, with a sprained ankle.
I've been on dozens and dozens of job interviews, but whenever I'm reminded of them, this is the one that always springs to mind. Seriously, how friggin Bridget Jones am I?
Mood: up in the air
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: just me, typing
Hair: uncertain of itself
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Faking It
"Fake it until you make it." This phrase has been hitting me over the head today. This morning I have read this or some version of it about six times. I've only been up four hours! That's a lot of times! Just last week I reaffirmed this advice to my sister who had consciously corrected a self-defeating behaviour even though inside the old feelings very much existed and were fighting to take over. Faking it works. This is one of those things I know for sure. Whenever I think of this concept I'm taken back to Toronto in the early 90s, terribly shy little me in a new job with an exciting young company. I wasn't very outgoing. I didn't warm up to people automatically. I needed to get to know people. I had discovered earlier that it took me about six weeks in a new job to get comfortable and be myself. The only problem was I was in a position in the hub of this company, I had contact with everyone that came through the door or telephoned. I couldn't be mousy. The company needed a positive energetic force of nature in its centre. That was so not me, and when I was called into my superior's office to chat about my attitude and my future with the company, it didn't seem like I was going to be given the six weeks I needed in order to warm up to the place. I needed to change! And I needed to do it immediately! To show my commitment to the company I volunteered to take assertiveness training. She was impressed and agreed to set that up, but warned me that I also needed to try harder in the meantime.
Woe was me! I remember going home and sobbing on my boyfriend's shoulder. Wailing about how this was the best place I'd ever worked and I loved it there, it was exciting, and they were going to fire me before I even had a chance to do anything. Ever logical the boy could only see two options: a) if you don't want to be the person they need you to be, quit and find a job where you can just be who you are now OR b) if you're sure this is the place for you, then just do it! Be that person they need you to be!
And that's what I did. I went into the office the next morning with a smile plastered on my face and I greeted everyone warmly with enthusiasm, asking questions about their lives, flirting and/or teasing a little if appropriate, cracking jokes, and generally making it my business to put a smile on the face of everyone I came in contact with. I studied the behaviour of the other girl I worked with who was more naturally upbeat and outgoing. I studied her and I modeled her behaviour. And it was tough! I felt so phony. I didn't feel genuine. I didn't feel like me. I felt like my work life was a big play that I was acting in. But I loved that job and I was determined to make it work.
As the days and weeks went by, pretending got a little easier. I didn't get fired. I reached my six week point and truly started to settle in and feel comfortable. I had probably been there for about 3 or 4 months when the assertiveness training course came up. I was excited about taking it. Finally I'd be able to learn what I needed to learn in order to be the person I wanted to be! But then an odd thing happened. I went to the course and I participated in the exercises and did all the work and at the end of the day all the other participants, the instructor, and even myself were left scratching our heads at why such an outgoing and assertive person had been sent on this course. I saw shadows of my former self in the other participants, but I was no longer like them. And I wasn't pretending. Somewhere in all the acting, I had become the person I wanted to be.
Fake it until you make it. This theory continues to help me to evolve. I have a very clear vision of the person I want to become and I'm just gonna keep on faking it until I make it to the finish line.
Mood: starving! cuz i can smell pork loin roasting in my oven! yummy!
Drinking: coffee, black, and water, of course
Listening To: sirens, lots of them around this morning
Hair: in the blue headband that does not match the green/blue on my sweater
Woe was me! I remember going home and sobbing on my boyfriend's shoulder. Wailing about how this was the best place I'd ever worked and I loved it there, it was exciting, and they were going to fire me before I even had a chance to do anything. Ever logical the boy could only see two options: a) if you don't want to be the person they need you to be, quit and find a job where you can just be who you are now OR b) if you're sure this is the place for you, then just do it! Be that person they need you to be!
And that's what I did. I went into the office the next morning with a smile plastered on my face and I greeted everyone warmly with enthusiasm, asking questions about their lives, flirting and/or teasing a little if appropriate, cracking jokes, and generally making it my business to put a smile on the face of everyone I came in contact with. I studied the behaviour of the other girl I worked with who was more naturally upbeat and outgoing. I studied her and I modeled her behaviour. And it was tough! I felt so phony. I didn't feel genuine. I didn't feel like me. I felt like my work life was a big play that I was acting in. But I loved that job and I was determined to make it work.
As the days and weeks went by, pretending got a little easier. I didn't get fired. I reached my six week point and truly started to settle in and feel comfortable. I had probably been there for about 3 or 4 months when the assertiveness training course came up. I was excited about taking it. Finally I'd be able to learn what I needed to learn in order to be the person I wanted to be! But then an odd thing happened. I went to the course and I participated in the exercises and did all the work and at the end of the day all the other participants, the instructor, and even myself were left scratching our heads at why such an outgoing and assertive person had been sent on this course. I saw shadows of my former self in the other participants, but I was no longer like them. And I wasn't pretending. Somewhere in all the acting, I had become the person I wanted to be.
Fake it until you make it. This theory continues to help me to evolve. I have a very clear vision of the person I want to become and I'm just gonna keep on faking it until I make it to the finish line.
Mood: starving! cuz i can smell pork loin roasting in my oven! yummy!
Drinking: coffee, black, and water, of course
Listening To: sirens, lots of them around this morning
Hair: in the blue headband that does not match the green/blue on my sweater
Sunday, May 27, 2007
1000 Actions Challenge
An interesting thing happened this evening. I decided to sign up to take a 1000 Actions Challenge on a Message Board I'm part of. The concept is that procrastination is a result of inaction, therefore there can be no procrastination in action only inaction. To reach big goals it's less overwhelming if you break the process down into smaller action steps to get there. So, anyway, there's this challenge to do a thousand actions and I wanted to join. So I went to look for a notebook that I could keep track of my actions, posting them at the end of every day on the message board. Like today for example will look something like:
1. Joined the challenge.
2. Drank 10 glasses of water.
3. Ate breakfast.
4. Did my dishes.
5. Ate supper at the table.
6. Read for pleasure for 30 minutes.
And anything else I've done today that is an action step toward me becoming the balanced person I want to be. Ok, so I went looking for a notebook to track this thing in. The chances of finding a brand new one would be slim, but I thought I could find one that wasn't too full of insanity. Into the spare room and into some boxes I dove, discovering many notebooks with lists, and schedules, and interview notes, and story ideas, and plot outlines, and tarot readings, and journal entries, and drafts of letters, and doodlings, and much more . . . I spied a small yellow spiral notebook and flipped it open to find lots and lots of my neat printing, the kind I do when I'm taking serious notes I want to be able to decipher forever or even pass on to someone else to read, pages and pages and pages of the trying super hard to be neat blue ink. This was unusual for a couple of reasons. First it was the only thing in the book. There was no other scribbling or doodling or messy in the heat of the moment passionate notes to myself. And second, it went on for about half the notebook, or 100 pages! That's a long time for me to be focused and neat. What could I possibly have been so fixated on? And when did this happen?
I started reading. Stuff about stopping the guilt, loving yourself, writing letters to the universe, candle rituals, prayers for your health and healing, visualization techniques, cutting negative people out of your life, and many different daily affirmations and prayers. It ends with instructions on how to do a candle prayer-- "For nine nights, at precisely 9:00, light a candle and repeat: I am a blessed child of God. I am well. I am happy. Great abundance is on its way because, as God's child, I am empowered to create miracles."
And then I have my notes from the nights I did this prayer Feb 9-17, 2000. The notes are very specific, who I included in my prayers and what I was praying for them. Some excerpts:
Wed Feb 9/00 -- my brother, shield from negativity
Feb 10/00 -- Dad, to find his spirit; Me, patience
Feb 11/00 -- Me, patience, patience, patience, shield from negativity
Feb 12/00 -- my uncle, to pass to the other side
Feb 13/00 -- my ex-boyfriend to find acceptance & happiness
Feb 14/00 -- relief for all the people suffering on this earth
Feb 15/00 -- Me, get on the path, do better
Feb 16/00 -- Me, strength to fight the negative forces around me, patience, courage to live my life with joy and harmony and peace
Feb 17/00 -- Me, patience
I prayed for a lot of people. I prayed for friends and enemies and people I hadn't seen or heard tell of in many, many years. The lists are really long, and I didn't want to put it all out here. I remember this time in my life really well. This is when I first started to change my life. This is when I looked at how I was living and said I didn't want to continue the old patterns anymore and that I would break out of the mold and make changes. This is when I made the pact to myself that I would not move right into another relationship like I'd always done, but instead I'd take some time to be alone (which I'd never been since I was 14) and work on myself and my issues. Seven years ago!! And I haven't had a relationship since. Dates, but no boyfriend. Wow!
It's interesting now to read my prayers and to realize how very far I've come. I have patience now! Seven years worth! LOL! I have joy in my life like I'd never known at that time. I enjoy spending time with myself and understand that nobody else can complete me, I'm complete in myself. I know that I cannot control other people's actions only my reaction to them, and that people reveal themselves in the things they do, not by what they say. I have come such a very long way from the mixed up chaos and madness of that time.
So today I'm starting the 1000 Actions Challenge to help me with wellness and balance in my life. And I'm using my best handwriting and continuing right after those prayers from seven years ago. Because this is the right notebook for this journey.
Mood: inspired
Drinking: red wine
Listening To: trains, planes and automobiles
Hair: still unwashed
1. Joined the challenge.
2. Drank 10 glasses of water.
3. Ate breakfast.
4. Did my dishes.
5. Ate supper at the table.
6. Read for pleasure for 30 minutes.
And anything else I've done today that is an action step toward me becoming the balanced person I want to be. Ok, so I went looking for a notebook to track this thing in. The chances of finding a brand new one would be slim, but I thought I could find one that wasn't too full of insanity. Into the spare room and into some boxes I dove, discovering many notebooks with lists, and schedules, and interview notes, and story ideas, and plot outlines, and tarot readings, and journal entries, and drafts of letters, and doodlings, and much more . . . I spied a small yellow spiral notebook and flipped it open to find lots and lots of my neat printing, the kind I do when I'm taking serious notes I want to be able to decipher forever or even pass on to someone else to read, pages and pages and pages of the trying super hard to be neat blue ink. This was unusual for a couple of reasons. First it was the only thing in the book. There was no other scribbling or doodling or messy in the heat of the moment passionate notes to myself. And second, it went on for about half the notebook, or 100 pages! That's a long time for me to be focused and neat. What could I possibly have been so fixated on? And when did this happen?
I started reading. Stuff about stopping the guilt, loving yourself, writing letters to the universe, candle rituals, prayers for your health and healing, visualization techniques, cutting negative people out of your life, and many different daily affirmations and prayers. It ends with instructions on how to do a candle prayer-- "For nine nights, at precisely 9:00, light a candle and repeat: I am a blessed child of God. I am well. I am happy. Great abundance is on its way because, as God's child, I am empowered to create miracles."
And then I have my notes from the nights I did this prayer Feb 9-17, 2000. The notes are very specific, who I included in my prayers and what I was praying for them. Some excerpts:
Wed Feb 9/00 -- my brother, shield from negativity
Feb 10/00 -- Dad, to find his spirit; Me, patience
Feb 11/00 -- Me, patience, patience, patience, shield from negativity
Feb 12/00 -- my uncle, to pass to the other side
Feb 13/00 -- my ex-boyfriend to find acceptance & happiness
Feb 14/00 -- relief for all the people suffering on this earth
Feb 15/00 -- Me, get on the path, do better
Feb 16/00 -- Me, strength to fight the negative forces around me, patience, courage to live my life with joy and harmony and peace
Feb 17/00 -- Me, patience
I prayed for a lot of people. I prayed for friends and enemies and people I hadn't seen or heard tell of in many, many years. The lists are really long, and I didn't want to put it all out here. I remember this time in my life really well. This is when I first started to change my life. This is when I looked at how I was living and said I didn't want to continue the old patterns anymore and that I would break out of the mold and make changes. This is when I made the pact to myself that I would not move right into another relationship like I'd always done, but instead I'd take some time to be alone (which I'd never been since I was 14) and work on myself and my issues. Seven years ago!! And I haven't had a relationship since. Dates, but no boyfriend. Wow!
It's interesting now to read my prayers and to realize how very far I've come. I have patience now! Seven years worth! LOL! I have joy in my life like I'd never known at that time. I enjoy spending time with myself and understand that nobody else can complete me, I'm complete in myself. I know that I cannot control other people's actions only my reaction to them, and that people reveal themselves in the things they do, not by what they say. I have come such a very long way from the mixed up chaos and madness of that time.
So today I'm starting the 1000 Actions Challenge to help me with wellness and balance in my life. And I'm using my best handwriting and continuing right after those prayers from seven years ago. Because this is the right notebook for this journey.
Mood: inspired
Drinking: red wine
Listening To: trains, planes and automobiles
Hair: still unwashed
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Real Jerk
I made jerk chicken tacos/nachos for dinner (because I thought I had three taco shells, but I only had two) and they were superb! I tried a new jerk sauce I found at the SuperValu in the International section. A little dab will do ya! This is hot stuff! Just the way I like it.
Every time I eat anything jerked I think about the Real Jerk Restaurant in Toronto. When I was working in the tele-personal/phone sex industry (pre-internet dating) one year for my birthday a couple of my co-workers took me to this restaurant for a celebratory lunch. It sticks out because it was a 4-hour 6-drink type of lunch that the bosses paid for (I loved those guys!) and one of the gifts I got was a plant that supposedly could not be killed, which died within a couple of weeks. Anyway, I can't believe it's still there! On Queen Street! That's pretty crazy, because this was many a year ago now. This was back in the day when I didn't do spicy (ask S about the Taco Bell mild salsa debacle sometime) and I didn't know anything about other culture's food. I remember going to the restaurant and not having a clue what to order. I ordered some chicken, skewered if I recall, with the mildest of the mild jerk. It was hot, but I ate it, and didn't totally hate it. I remember thinking I wanted to go back there and try other things sometime, but I never did. I believe I moved back to NB within 7-8 months. Shortly after Christmas sometime. Or maybe not. It's all a blur, can't remember how long I worked at that place. I know it was the longest job I kept before working for myself. It was a good place to work. I hear it still is.
Anyway, I kind of forgot about jerk after that. I mean it's not a big thing on any NB menu I frequent, so it kinda slipped out of sight, out of mind, while my tastes grew increasingly toward the very hot and very spicy (which totally happened AFTER I quit smoking and could really taste food for the first time.) I may or may not have run into the jerk once or twice since then but then me and S returned to the city of the crime for the Bon Jovi concert and on our hotel's menu discovered jerk chicken nachos. Can you say yummy?! While in Toronto we also visited the Market where I purchased a big-assed bottle of jerk sauce, the hot stuff, no mild for me, which I pretty much devoured on a daily basis upon returning to Sackville until the jar was empty. I couldn't find any more in the stores in Sackville. Not in their International sections, not in the health food store, not anywhere . . . no more jerk :-( Grocery shopping in Sackville was difficult because of their limited selections, but no more! I'm discovering all kinds of goodies here. The regular access to hot peppers alone is enough to keep me happy but the jerk is pretty darn awesome.
And so easy. Take one chicken breast, cut it up into strips with your meat scissors, rub a tsp of sauce all over and refrigerate for at least an hour. Chop some tomatoes, onions, and black olives up. Stir-fry the chicken for five minutes or until it's not pink. Top nachos with jerk chicken and chopped veggies. Grate a bit of cheese on top if you like. And voila! There you have a very tasty dinner on its own or served with a side salad. It's really good. Go mild if you don't do spicy well, but try it!
Mood: nostalgic, but not teary-eyed, tho perhaps a little drunk (2 glasses)
Drinking: just water at the moment
Listening To: me, sneezing
Hair: beyond redemption again
Every time I eat anything jerked I think about the Real Jerk Restaurant in Toronto. When I was working in the tele-personal/phone sex industry (pre-internet dating) one year for my birthday a couple of my co-workers took me to this restaurant for a celebratory lunch. It sticks out because it was a 4-hour 6-drink type of lunch that the bosses paid for (I loved those guys!) and one of the gifts I got was a plant that supposedly could not be killed, which died within a couple of weeks. Anyway, I can't believe it's still there! On Queen Street! That's pretty crazy, because this was many a year ago now. This was back in the day when I didn't do spicy (ask S about the Taco Bell mild salsa debacle sometime) and I didn't know anything about other culture's food. I remember going to the restaurant and not having a clue what to order. I ordered some chicken, skewered if I recall, with the mildest of the mild jerk. It was hot, but I ate it, and didn't totally hate it. I remember thinking I wanted to go back there and try other things sometime, but I never did. I believe I moved back to NB within 7-8 months. Shortly after Christmas sometime. Or maybe not. It's all a blur, can't remember how long I worked at that place. I know it was the longest job I kept before working for myself. It was a good place to work. I hear it still is.
Anyway, I kind of forgot about jerk after that. I mean it's not a big thing on any NB menu I frequent, so it kinda slipped out of sight, out of mind, while my tastes grew increasingly toward the very hot and very spicy (which totally happened AFTER I quit smoking and could really taste food for the first time.) I may or may not have run into the jerk once or twice since then but then me and S returned to the city of the crime for the Bon Jovi concert and on our hotel's menu discovered jerk chicken nachos. Can you say yummy?! While in Toronto we also visited the Market where I purchased a big-assed bottle of jerk sauce, the hot stuff, no mild for me, which I pretty much devoured on a daily basis upon returning to Sackville until the jar was empty. I couldn't find any more in the stores in Sackville. Not in their International sections, not in the health food store, not anywhere . . . no more jerk :-( Grocery shopping in Sackville was difficult because of their limited selections, but no more! I'm discovering all kinds of goodies here. The regular access to hot peppers alone is enough to keep me happy but the jerk is pretty darn awesome.
And so easy. Take one chicken breast, cut it up into strips with your meat scissors, rub a tsp of sauce all over and refrigerate for at least an hour. Chop some tomatoes, onions, and black olives up. Stir-fry the chicken for five minutes or until it's not pink. Top nachos with jerk chicken and chopped veggies. Grate a bit of cheese on top if you like. And voila! There you have a very tasty dinner on its own or served with a side salad. It's really good. Go mild if you don't do spicy well, but try it!
Mood: nostalgic, but not teary-eyed, tho perhaps a little drunk (2 glasses)
Drinking: just water at the moment
Listening To: me, sneezing
Hair: beyond redemption again
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Second Wind
Exhausted only moments ago. I laid down for 15 minutes. Just laid, eyes open, stretched out flat. Then I got up and ate leftovers from yesterday's not so great pork supper. Drank a bunch of diet Big 8 cola. And then spent a few minutes on the phone remembering my childhood. The camp. Well, well, well, three holes in the ground. Frig, I love wieners! Man oh man, would you look at that cloud? I remember my cousin doing Bob & Doug McKenzie round the campfire at night. Oh no, the magic bunny! Simpler then. Being a kid is good sometimes.
I think my two nieces will come have a sleepover this weekend. First one on my own in the new place. It'll be fine. We'll have a good time. I need to make more effort with the kids. Before they slip away and grow up on me. Opportunity. I need to seize them all. I want to be able to have sleepovers with the other kids too. I need to practice counting carbs and giving needles. I seem like I see them less since I moved than I did when I lived away. That's kind of weird. I haven't been going upriver much. Only once since the move really. Only Oscar weekend. When are the Junos? This weekend? Next? I should go.
Talks of a murder mystery night in the air, perhaps I'll go then. I'll be the gypsy and predict the killer.
Mood: whipped
Drinking: tar
Listening To: running to the rain, peter gabriel
Hair: off my face at least
I think my two nieces will come have a sleepover this weekend. First one on my own in the new place. It'll be fine. We'll have a good time. I need to make more effort with the kids. Before they slip away and grow up on me. Opportunity. I need to seize them all. I want to be able to have sleepovers with the other kids too. I need to practice counting carbs and giving needles. I seem like I see them less since I moved than I did when I lived away. That's kind of weird. I haven't been going upriver much. Only once since the move really. Only Oscar weekend. When are the Junos? This weekend? Next? I should go.
Talks of a murder mystery night in the air, perhaps I'll go then. I'll be the gypsy and predict the killer.
Mood: whipped
Drinking: tar
Listening To: running to the rain, peter gabriel
Hair: off my face at least
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
In Which She Learns Four Quarters Equal One Loonie
Slept in this morning. Until almost 8:30!! Well okay, I wasn't really asleep all that time. I was wide awake at the increasingly predictable 4:30. Again around 6. And pretty much a constant from about 7:15 on, but I didn't get up. I was sleeping in the living room, on the futon, to get off the floor because the wind chill dipped pretty low in the night. (I so need a boxspring to go with Mom's old bed frame, and get me off the floor in the bedroom.) The sky was amazing this morning. It was so cold in the room. And the sky so pretty. Shades of red, purple, mauve, orange, cotton candy pink, and dark denim blue. I just laid there, watching the changes in light and thinking. It used to be that getting up anytime before 10 was early. My normal biological time for waking happened at 10:30. I don't see this quiet time as a waste. I think it's important.
Many dreams happening. Lots of Asian culture for some unknown reason. Last night a boy, I think Korean, quite handsome. A friend of my Calgary cousin's who visited Grandad's with him when we were kids. (Never happened really . . . though one summer, wasn't there a blonde-headed boy? A friend?) Anyway, returned now, adults. We were all at my Uncle's next to Grandad's. Summer night. Very dark. That smell of horses. The three of us sent into the field to look for rope to tie something. A bit tipsy, me and Stace. Lots of shushing as we tried to laugh less, be quiet, not wake the kids sleeping in tents out there. Me tripping, falling into every hole out there. Then it dawns on me. Grandad's would have rope in a store or shed out back, lit up with fluorescent tubes. Instead of cutting through the field and walking over, there is this elaborate stealing of my parents' car, Korean boy the sober driver, a rolling down the hill, not starting the engine until we hit the pavement, so nobody would know. Driving two feet and then up the hill again to Grandad's. We get out of the car, and scatter. Nobody seems to remember what it is we've been sent to get or where we need to look for it.
And then there he is. Grandad. Standing in the shadows by the side of the house. Looking just as I remember him. Vest, trucker's ball cap, work pants. He's healthy, a big man, before he faded away. That gruff voice, "What are you doing?" And I'm glad to see him, relieved, though part of me understands he's already gone. Stace and I can't speak. It is the Korean boy who explains about the rope. It is the Korean boy he puts his arm around and leads back the field toward what looks like a Co-Op store. And Stace and I exchange knowing looks, shrug and then run to catch up.
Was it my imagination, or did the smell of horses linger in my blankets when I woke up?
Then I laid there and watched the sky. Could you blame me?
So yesterday I tried to do laundry. Couldn't get the coin-operated machine to work. Ended up sending a load of pants to Barnettville. But here's the thing. I went armed with quarters. The last time I used coin-operated laundry . . . it was all about the quarters. Costs a buck and a quarter, the sign says. Two coin slots. Hmm. Maybe it's only 50 cents? Frigged with it for a good 10 minutes before I gave up. Then this morning in the red sky at dawn, it suddenly dawns on me -- a loonie is four quarters! Two slots! A buck and a quarter! Duh! I don't have any loonies though. Need to go out.
Mood: pretty good
Drinking: coffee with cream
Listening To: let's get it started, black eyed peas
Hair: limp
Many dreams happening. Lots of Asian culture for some unknown reason. Last night a boy, I think Korean, quite handsome. A friend of my Calgary cousin's who visited Grandad's with him when we were kids. (Never happened really . . . though one summer, wasn't there a blonde-headed boy? A friend?) Anyway, returned now, adults. We were all at my Uncle's next to Grandad's. Summer night. Very dark. That smell of horses. The three of us sent into the field to look for rope to tie something. A bit tipsy, me and Stace. Lots of shushing as we tried to laugh less, be quiet, not wake the kids sleeping in tents out there. Me tripping, falling into every hole out there. Then it dawns on me. Grandad's would have rope in a store or shed out back, lit up with fluorescent tubes. Instead of cutting through the field and walking over, there is this elaborate stealing of my parents' car, Korean boy the sober driver, a rolling down the hill, not starting the engine until we hit the pavement, so nobody would know. Driving two feet and then up the hill again to Grandad's. We get out of the car, and scatter. Nobody seems to remember what it is we've been sent to get or where we need to look for it.
And then there he is. Grandad. Standing in the shadows by the side of the house. Looking just as I remember him. Vest, trucker's ball cap, work pants. He's healthy, a big man, before he faded away. That gruff voice, "What are you doing?" And I'm glad to see him, relieved, though part of me understands he's already gone. Stace and I can't speak. It is the Korean boy who explains about the rope. It is the Korean boy he puts his arm around and leads back the field toward what looks like a Co-Op store. And Stace and I exchange knowing looks, shrug and then run to catch up.
Was it my imagination, or did the smell of horses linger in my blankets when I woke up?
Then I laid there and watched the sky. Could you blame me?
So yesterday I tried to do laundry. Couldn't get the coin-operated machine to work. Ended up sending a load of pants to Barnettville. But here's the thing. I went armed with quarters. The last time I used coin-operated laundry . . . it was all about the quarters. Costs a buck and a quarter, the sign says. Two coin slots. Hmm. Maybe it's only 50 cents? Frigged with it for a good 10 minutes before I gave up. Then this morning in the red sky at dawn, it suddenly dawns on me -- a loonie is four quarters! Two slots! A buck and a quarter! Duh! I don't have any loonies though. Need to go out.
Mood: pretty good
Drinking: coffee with cream
Listening To: let's get it started, black eyed peas
Hair: limp
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Dawn
"Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high. Look it squarely in the eye, and say, "I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me." --Ann Landers
Seems outdated. Not the way to do it anymore. Now, we're being told to expect the best, visualize it, thank the universe for it before it happens, and it will all work out as you believed it would. Power of positive thinking. The secret. If we're listening, this is the message that is out there in the world today. Some people are picking it up, evolving.
I knew this when I was a kid. From the time I was very young right into my teenage years I thought I had a secret power. I knew if I could see the desired result in my head, if I never wavered from that vision, then it would work out just as I thought it would. If I couldn't see it, it wouldn't happen. I constantly surprised myself. Seemingly impossible things would be meditated on and then come true. Like winning the writing contest in grade four against 5th & 6th graders. Many an evening was spent imagining what the announcement would look like, where I would be sitting when I heard my name called. But even then, I didn't totally believe. I was speechless when it happened. I wrote about my secret power in childhood diaries I'm sure, I may have talked about it with my mom. Certainly I spoke of it in reverse enough. I said many times that if I didn't see it, it wouldn't happen, when it came to questions about marriage and children and all sorts of other things. I hadn't put it together that I could make myself visualize it, because it was always things that I didn't really care about anyway. If a split second search of the old noggin didn't zone in on a crystal clear picture, I said I couldn't see it, wouldn't happen. I didn't get that just because I wasn't visualizing it, didn't mean it couldn't happen.
So I didn't understand what I was dealing with, I had only a half-assed appreciation for the power of visualization. No concept of positive thinking on a regular basis. And as I got older and more hormonal in the teen years, it was difficult to be brooding, dark and mysterious and still be positive and spiritual. Things started to go haywire. Then journalism school, which if you're not already skeptical, is certainly the quickest way to become a cynic. And by the time I was 23 all I had was a fleeting memory that it seemed like I used to be able to make things happen, but it must have all been a fluke, I must've used up all my luck.
My re-awakening started the year I turned 30 and continues through today. I literally spent a solid year in my parents house, where I didn't really go anywhere or do anything. I spent most of my days and nights in a bedroom pounding out stories on an old word processor/typewriter. Just me and myself. Facing yourself is hard. Being honest with yourself is really hard. Exploring your motivations, recognizing your weaknesses, admitting your mistakes--it's damn hard. I did this everyday, 12-18 hours, for a whole year. It was spiritual. It was cleansing. It was therapeutic. It was one of the hardest things emotionally and mentally that I've ever done. When my unemployment ran out, I went to work, better and stronger than ever before. I likely could not have survived had I not taken this time alone, so beaten and broken down was I when I went into seclusion.
And last night another proof that my secret power is back. My brother's girlfriend stepped out of my mind and into my living room, exactly as I pictured her, exactly as I willed her to be. Such a nice girl! She's lovely. This is good. We had a really good dinner and conversation and I totally see this girl in our family.
Mood: happy
Drinking: coffee, lots of cream
Listening To: why is it that i never put the music on early anymore?
Hair: stringy because i put some greasy balm in it last night, which wasn't really good
Seems outdated. Not the way to do it anymore. Now, we're being told to expect the best, visualize it, thank the universe for it before it happens, and it will all work out as you believed it would. Power of positive thinking. The secret. If we're listening, this is the message that is out there in the world today. Some people are picking it up, evolving.
I knew this when I was a kid. From the time I was very young right into my teenage years I thought I had a secret power. I knew if I could see the desired result in my head, if I never wavered from that vision, then it would work out just as I thought it would. If I couldn't see it, it wouldn't happen. I constantly surprised myself. Seemingly impossible things would be meditated on and then come true. Like winning the writing contest in grade four against 5th & 6th graders. Many an evening was spent imagining what the announcement would look like, where I would be sitting when I heard my name called. But even then, I didn't totally believe. I was speechless when it happened. I wrote about my secret power in childhood diaries I'm sure, I may have talked about it with my mom. Certainly I spoke of it in reverse enough. I said many times that if I didn't see it, it wouldn't happen, when it came to questions about marriage and children and all sorts of other things. I hadn't put it together that I could make myself visualize it, because it was always things that I didn't really care about anyway. If a split second search of the old noggin didn't zone in on a crystal clear picture, I said I couldn't see it, wouldn't happen. I didn't get that just because I wasn't visualizing it, didn't mean it couldn't happen.
So I didn't understand what I was dealing with, I had only a half-assed appreciation for the power of visualization. No concept of positive thinking on a regular basis. And as I got older and more hormonal in the teen years, it was difficult to be brooding, dark and mysterious and still be positive and spiritual. Things started to go haywire. Then journalism school, which if you're not already skeptical, is certainly the quickest way to become a cynic. And by the time I was 23 all I had was a fleeting memory that it seemed like I used to be able to make things happen, but it must have all been a fluke, I must've used up all my luck.
My re-awakening started the year I turned 30 and continues through today. I literally spent a solid year in my parents house, where I didn't really go anywhere or do anything. I spent most of my days and nights in a bedroom pounding out stories on an old word processor/typewriter. Just me and myself. Facing yourself is hard. Being honest with yourself is really hard. Exploring your motivations, recognizing your weaknesses, admitting your mistakes--it's damn hard. I did this everyday, 12-18 hours, for a whole year. It was spiritual. It was cleansing. It was therapeutic. It was one of the hardest things emotionally and mentally that I've ever done. When my unemployment ran out, I went to work, better and stronger than ever before. I likely could not have survived had I not taken this time alone, so beaten and broken down was I when I went into seclusion.
And last night another proof that my secret power is back. My brother's girlfriend stepped out of my mind and into my living room, exactly as I pictured her, exactly as I willed her to be. Such a nice girl! She's lovely. This is good. We had a really good dinner and conversation and I totally see this girl in our family.
Mood: happy
Drinking: coffee, lots of cream
Listening To: why is it that i never put the music on early anymore?
Hair: stringy because i put some greasy balm in it last night, which wasn't really good
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