"garby! garby!"

infrequent blog posting!

things have been really lovely. the home front is rich and fulfilling; the queen works on the bus, i do some sewing, the dumpling finds tiny crumbs and fluff on the floor and brings them over to me, proclaiming that she has found "garby", and watches me put them carefully in the garbage can. she in also quite interested in modes of transportation, and can be found pushing cars and trucks around, announcing planes and trains going by, and actually perambulating! staggering into the middle of the road and straight for the windshield cleaning station at the gas station is already taxing my worrisome heart. yes, i am that mom. it's okay, the queen is the dad who lets his daughter play in puddles and with fire, so we balance out quite nicely.

it's finally becoming sweater weather, which cheers me up to no end. i don't know why, but i just don't like august very much. too much socializing? too much heat... not enough sweaters or tea. so now, while i am sad that we have to close the windows at night, i am pleased by cool breezes, harvests, and the notion of needing to warm ourselves.

i suppose there is more to say, but i am not interested in saying it. but take heart in the knowledge that i am feeling pretty okay these days. hopes the same for you.

things that rock hard

- this. and delightful new webcomic discoveries in general.

- the peanut outgrew another set of clothes, and into a size where we have a lot of t-shirts. i guess she'll rock the t-shirt & hoodie with me for a while. also, i think she may have outgrown the peanut size. what next? dumpling? we call her the burgolator sometimes (because she burgolates, clearly).

- this. rocks. i've been looking for size-positive images and ideas to feast my eyes and mind upon and shake up my shiny-body-image magazine upbringing. plus who doesn't just want another intelligent blog to read?

- like this one, at its deepest and most meaningful. that is one of my favourite entries.

- it's autumn! decay! colour! dead bugs! cute sweaters! a fresh sense or organization! starting to think about holidays and lots of eating and gift-giving and stress-building!

- babies. okay, okay, i finally caved to the cuteness of babies. one of my friendquaintances gave birth the other day. cute baby! a good friend of mine is due about now with her second, and it's fascinating to hear about. she's great at describing a situation and getting to its essence. i think we also have really good communication, born from years of practice and a keen sense of how each other are feeling. and of course there are at least five other people i know who are pregnant. epidemic! careful, unfixed heteros!

- the queen is making beer and wine. i am helping, but it's definitely his thing. mostly, as i'm sure you figured out right away, i'm helping enough to justify my future quenching of thirst sans guilt. and of course because i love him and want to support his creativity. beer is way simpler, by the way. way simpler. you could do it. order the kit. the queen has this mini oak cask, and he has stored some of the beer in there. tasty. we have been talking of having a housewarming when it's ready. scandal - loud music! a fire!

the tiniest knuckle hairs

whew. she also boasts the tiniest knuckle sandwich. i think she's teething. is it too early to be teething? hopefully not. eating doesn't help, changing doesn't help, even carrying her around only appeases for a moment. one cannot argue, bargain, plead or reason with an angry, stressed out little grublet. why don't i stop trying and just sing when she cries? because i have empathy, and as a parent, it's a superpower - 'super' implying intensity, not capability.

i gave her a little teething ring, but her tiny mouth is too small - it's sort of fun to watch her try though. i'm going to try the chipped ice in a mesh chew bag-thing someone gave us. i'll try anything, i've no shame (chipped ice in the mesh bag totally worked; she was all "what the? - gimme that shit"). writhing octopus, tribe of hissing cats, bottomless pit. what do these all have in common? they're her new nicknames.

uh, in deeper matters, i'm definitely going through one of the mourning stages for my old life. i took a few days off from small town life to go to "the big city" with the peanut. the queen joined us partway through. the wife did her amazing childcare thing in exchange for some groceries, and the queen and i went to a live jam and got drunk with my sis, who later disappeared into a gross nightclub with lots of young people. it was nice to get some time off from the grublet. the queen and the wife let me sleep a whole ten hours - it was like a holiday, especially in the way that i felt as though i needed another one to recover from this one.

oh yeah, i was supposed to talk about deeper matters. i've noticed i am good at avoiding this lately. i think, to be honest, that i don't want to admit i am not particularly happy right now. it will make me feel like a failure in choices, since shouldn't i be happy laying in this bed i made? and if i'm not, doesn't that mean i made the wrong choice? i know it's more complicated than that, but the realisation doesn't stop the insecurity. also, if i admit i am not happy, doesn't that make me a horrible mom? these things i would scoff at as a non-parent are harder to discard now. stupid hormones-led-on-by-society-bullshit. i've been faking it, telling people about the deep sense of satisfaction i feel, but quite frankly, sometimes i prefer the previous fleeting quest for happiness to this "i am already content, give me more poopy diapers" attitude of motherhood.

a friend told me not to succumb to the image of motherhood, to remember i am still me with all my non-maternal instincts. i was all "i am SO not at risk of that" and then i thought about it for twelve hours and realised i am. horribly, horribly at risk. isolated, with only my queen (AKA sir mans-a-lot) and the cat to remind me of my previous desires - shit, see that's how it happens - my current desires that are muffled under a thousand bibs wet with spit-up.

she's cute, and i love her, but it ain't everything.

i could live here

i just had the most amazing bath. words cannot do it justice.

we came in overnight on the ferry from cape breton and slept a bit in port aux basques before heading up to gros morne national park (this pic captures what i like best about the park; fog and valleys). we parked by a dock for the night and stepped out to watch the little fishing boats bobbing up and down in the dark (going for crabs or lobster, i think the queen said. not actual fish, anyway. that's morning fishing) and the lighthouse swooping around.

the next day we took a brief hike before heading back onto the trans-canada and east to st john's. given the size of this rock, we made it to clarenville and parked for the night (not finding a decent pub, to the disappointment of the queen). today we got into st john's (pronounced st jahn's, apparently) and nearly went crazy trying to find a b&b. lesson: google and newfoundland are not friends. everything on google has been closed for three years. just park the damn bus and walk around. once we did that, we found this. oh! yeth pleeze.

let me tell you about the bathroom. it is large. very large. spacious is definitely a word you could use. there is a bidet. and a chandelier. and stained glass windows. there is a shower separate from the tub. let me sigh about the tub. long enough to stretch out in with my head underwater and my legs straight. wide enough to sit sideways comfortably, which i did to get the jets to pulsate directly onto the perfect spot in my lower back. the queen kept coming in and giggling at how perfectly happy i looked. then he went out in search of a pub. which he has found, on the street rumoured to have the most pubs per square foot in all of north america. i don't expect him for hours.

so i sit naked in a room with central heating and running water and electricity, all of which i have grown to appreciate recently. not that i am dissing the ever-steady hank. hank rocks. but this is nice too. i'm sure hank understands i have a little romance going on with B&Bs and bathtubs. i feel very lucky to be here, both newfoundland and this gorgeous place. i have wanted to come to this rock for years. and it is gorgeous. desolate, rocky, rugged; this is a place i love very much already. i feel sorrow that we are barely touching it before we leave. it would take a month to rush through. we have four or five days. bittersweet vacation, bring it on.

tiny dribbles...

late august. aaaah.

i realized recently that i haven't been super happy. there's been stress, yes, and i am moving out of my house again. the job got really busy, and people keep quitting, so there is always someone new to train. the vibe at work is nice, but it was smokin busy for two weeks and we're all still recovering. the queen and i, well, i'll get to that. but anyway. stress. and i find that when i am feeling stressed, i tend to just try and plod on until it's over. but there tends to be stress that follows stress, maybe because a stressful situation leads to neglect for the ares of one's life that aren't on fire... which leads to those areas smoldering and then lighting up, then catching the curtains... sorry. anyway. stress, and my plodding through it. not a good thing.

so i am recognizing that i want to aim for a happier demeanour right away, instead of waiting until 'the right time' to feel better and relax. not put off feeling better because i am too tired.

today is my day off, and i have a list of things i want to do this month. i accomplished one task, took steps on two more, and got a fair amount of packing done. but i also did enjoyable things - ate gluten-free pizza with the wife, read most of the memoirs of two airline stewardesses from the sixties (light-hearted and fun, incredibly dated and heterosexist, and apparently kind of fake. perfect) and got some walking in.

the queen is down at the farm tonight (or off with a brother). we've been hanging out quite a lot lately, and i guess it's good to get some space in. being focused on all the stuff i want to get done is quite helpful. i've felt tired lately, and haven't been able to get as much done on my workdays. still, i've enjoyed time with the queen. he is such a lovely and loveable man. it's amazing how such grace and kindness can co-exist with a rough and tumble farmboy attitude (i think kittens are cute. he remembers drowning them).

i want to talk more about what's going on in my life and what the plans are for the winter, but i am ready to go to sleep. so i'll just set it up and leave you hanging.

the next town over

two words: ness creek.

such a lovely festival. we drove out with a mutual friend, fieldofdreams, who was on incredibly stellar behaviour. such a ray of sunshine fieldofdreams can be. the queen was excited; he and fieldofdreams had gone to the festival last year, and we were all meeting up with a lovely family that the queen counts among his closest friends - they were at north country too. this time their girls were coming.

we got to the site so late, it had closed, something i find amazing for a festival. so we turned around and drove down a long scary road to a lake, and camped there. in the morning, the queen and i got up and went swimming on a quiet beach. the water was fantastic - cool, quiet, tingly, clean.

i love rural environments because they still have dragonflies. i saw two little bluets mating on our tent. i sat and watched them for a while; poised, frozen but for tiny, occasional pulsations. fascinating.

we went back to the festival and found our pals camped in a far back corner near the drum circle. the festival is pretty folk-based and surprisingly chill. although my idea of chill was no doubt coloured by my sleeping through the nights. and napping a lot in the day. there was some great napping.

i heard a hauntingly beautiful accordion during one of my naps. not the kind of hauntingly beautiful that makes you think of unrequited ghostly love. just a bittersweet little ditty from a soul who's seen too much sadness today. every day.

like all things, the festival was a long, epic moment and then it was over and we were packing up the livingroom. on the way back across the border, the fuel pump "went". on some trips i've been on, this would have meant an expensive tow or being stranded until some garage could haul it in, order the part, etcetera. but the queen just sighed, unpacked the gear, opened up the back and fiddled around with some wires and some pliers. then repacked the gear and started the car and we came home. during my sighing and murmurs of manly heroes (wearing barrettes in his hair the whole time, might i add) he confessed it had taken a lot longer to fix the first time, on last summer's trip up to the northwest territories.

we saw foxes and the cutest little skunk. no bears at the festival, though previous years had told tales. and the milky way was milky. i miss this. this outdoor world reminds me of all kinds of wonder. sharing it with the queen brings me happiness.

simply rich.

another day off. i spot a trend.

but today i am enjoying myself more than i did on the last day off. and it's a funny thing, enjoying oneself. at least, it is for me. the experience is one that has been hammered into as one of value. you WANT to be happy; you better be happy. so i am happy. sure i am.

and who the fuck knows, and why am i focused on it, like the next badge in life scouts; a sun with a smiley-face. even those to whom i am accustomed to sharing with honestly have stated they were surprised to learn i have spent more of my time unhappy than happy. but why is that a surprise? it's not so much a pleasing world when you look at the people (and i do). (i can't help it; i live in a city, and the people are what's on display.)

in any case, i actually have felt happy in the last year or so. a friend of mine, known for his reluctant stoicism (he shoulders a burden proudly, might i add, in apparent paradox to the reluctance of his stoicism) checked in on me when i was expressing initial happiness (sometime last winter). he had concern i would topple; manic is followed by a crash, he warned.

yes yes. i grew up with that. truly, i congratulate him, since that's the role i play with many - check-ins where no one else would check in, seeing past the sugar into the cavity. and yes, up is conveniently paired with its less exotic sibling, down. down and i go far enough back that i cannot snub him at parties, and though i probably do (drink another cider!), he'll catch up with me on the way home.

but anyway, this post was ostensibly about the difference between an enjoyed day off; today, and a day off that got moped through; previous entry (all in denial then, of course. you'll have to go back and read between the lines).

today i woke up to the queen, several times. wandering home, i had coffee with a friend of mine who just got onto the heli-tack team, and whose summer job is fly around in choppers and protect a park on the edge of the rockies from uncontrolled fire, pine beetles and other out-of-control destruction. while we drank coffee and ate strawberries, he told me about training camp, and the different structures of teams that forest-fire-fighters have.

after he took off i took care of odd household tasks, then sewed a matching bikini top and skirt out of an old sundress whose fit had gone all funny. i am quite pleased with the result and wore it in the backyard, sunning and doing lazy situps (nothing like a bikini top to get me in the mood for situps; i have not been very devoted. clearly, this is a lack of bikini tops). this prompted a long-needed fit of body-care and culminated in a gorgeous blue dress and cowboy boots (my pride and joy, given to me by my dad when i was fifteen) and a trip out for mushrooms and cider. now i am making dinner (spicy tomato rice dish) for the queen and i, and later, we'll go to see the tallest man on earth.

what's the difference between today and that other day? even if i knew, i couldn't order any, so why bother?

general effusiveness

such busy, busy days. for me (translation: am not sitting at home in front of the computer).

quick story: pigeon got into bookstore's furnace ventilation system through panel left off furnace on roof.* pigeon ended up at the other end of the furnace system, pecking through ceiling grate on the first floor, shitting all over the carpet and worrying an animal-rights-inspired customer browsing. of course, we couldn't get the grate to open, only to bend. eventually, i called the queen, who came riding down in his white steed and accomplished the pigeon rescue by opening the ceiling panel next to the grate and propping the furnace vent itself open by cramming bad romantic suspense books between its bits. for his trouble, he got some free vinyl and the knowledge of one more pigeon out there, free (as a bird?).

now, it has been another day since i started this post. interruptions; queen and i went to pick up stuff we successfully bid on at the book release/punk? show/silent auction for humanitarian efforts in iraq we went to on friday night (after my two meetings; that does not count for a day off). the show was great, and the band we went to see excellent. the show on saturday night was also great; several bands at a local drinking hole. i enjoyed plainclothes and touchitandyouwillsayow.

on sunday, we jammed with our lovely friend, a little bird who lives on the edge of town. he comes in rarely, so it was a special treat for all the gnomes. the occasion also marked the first time the queen and i jammed since we fell in love. i felt sort of euphoric. another friend of the queen and little bird's came by, who likes to play a lot of metal and is amazing on classical guitar. he jammed with us a bit and then "had to thrash" so did so. i went out to the fire in the backyard. there may have been scotch.

the queen and i are moving into different kinds of learning with each other. hesitancy is coming up, viewpoints we differ in are being discovered. i feel very lucky to be with someone who is passionate and intelligent, who is patient and sometimes makes mistakes. who makes me breakfast in bed and then teases me mercilessly about the silly things i am sensitive about, including my inability to tell when i'm being teased (which has led me to plaintively question "is this banter?" whenever he says something i hope isn't true). who loves me and receives my love. i just end up feeling cheesy when i try and talk about it. spout spout. effuse effuse.

i have been invited to continue living with the lovely woman i am housesitting for. this means she gets a nickname. i have known her for years, she has a lovely black cat and this old beautiful home. she works on poverty issues (among others) and strives for a balanced and emotionally authentic life. she plays the fiddle, drinks wine around the fire and has a deceptively innocent face. i will call her the good witch.

emotion: amazingly lucky to live three houses up from the queen and the wife. and to know all the people in between. brewing contentment.

yesterday evening around the fire, the queen and i were conversing about different kinds of scotch and their growing and distillation processes. little bird laughed (i love it when shy people laugh) and said he could see us discussing important things together when we are both ninety.

people keep saying these things. it reminds me to take it one day at a time, even as i want to skydive a message across the sky proclaiming eternal wonder at this amazing connection.

oh the perspective; thanks science, thanks music.

an interesting blurb about relationships here. there's a bit about online dating, but the part that really touched me, at the end, is about people who suffer from depressive episodes and how it affects their relationships. oh mister mcferrin, can you say it again?

it really is neat though, how simply it divides relational uncertainty. if you are in a relationship (and everyone is in one kind or another) ask yourself the three questions:

• how certain am i about how i view this relationship?
• how certain am i about where the other person wants this to go?
• how certain am i about the future of this relationship?

i am more certain of the last two than the first one. i think i still have trouble trusting myself on relationships. i only just realized they aren't about fixing. so i think i love this person for who he is but what if, in some subconscious way, i am still trying to cut a deal with the universe, with my fate, with my past?

oh well, i resolutely say to myself. we deal with strange bugs under rocks when we find them; no need to unearth the whole field right away.

lastly, if you are curious or concerned about your mental health, read this and check here.

books and tea, books and tea

been reading a lot. alias grace, by margaret atwood. it's good to have an atwood or a munro on the go, i find. but i've been meaning to actually dig deeper into canadian. the genre exists. but i like those two authors specifically because they're smart and they don't try to be pretty. the bleakness earns my trust.

as well, an exploration into early sci-fi (and by early, they mean second century early), a series of cheap mysteries set in japan and jeanette winterson's art objects. it's interesting to explore visual art with someone who identifies so strongly with words. i feel relieved.

i guess time has passed, i don't feel much a part of it. i noticed today that the plants were all limp and the flowers looked drowsy. so i watered everyone. it helps. i guess i should do the things happy people enjoy doing. it occurred to me the other day that happiness is quite likely something one practices. i think i secretly have a vague concept revolving around smiles and sunshine and general agreeableness. so i've been practicing that: doing things in a way that gives me a happy feeling. it's hard. i often forget three minutes later and return to general survival numbness. but those three minutes are sunshine, not the light of the fire on the cave wall.

the happy feeling is part feeling cared for by myself, part wind on the face and part something indescribably wild, but calm at the moment.

what kind of faery tale is this?

Special Friend and i were talking the other day about how amazing it is we even found each other. we had a few people in common that only one of us might see anything close to regularly. if we hadn't each cruised the internet looking for good times, we might never have met. more importantly i think, because we met through a dating site, we were checking each other out romantically from the initial meeting: we both knew why we were there.

and i was so new to the whole thing. i had one date with one person before i met SF. and i have not made an e-date since our first. my jaw would have dropped years ago if i were told i'd hook up with someone through a dating site. i have so many sexy, smart and stunning friends, surely i'd have no trouble hooking up? and i don't. but no one does me like SF does me. knows me better than most, and pays more attention to the bits that matter. knows which bits matter. i'm getting all vague here, but that's part of the value in the skill i'm discussing; it's difficult to even describe the arena in which SF operates as he practices his soothing magic upon me.

the cuddles and space when i need it are great (and the space SF takes as needed, and how often our need for space coincides). that either of us found what we were looking for: wow. both in our thirties, pretty sure we'd be alone because we were just too weird, we wanted soemthing too specific; a healthy person that knows how to take care of themselves and does so consciously while still having fun, who wants to explore their whole lives while resting plenty, who likes the subtleties of people-watching (though it was amusing to throw the hipster label around the festival this weekend), who works at being the best selves we feel like being, and at the end of the day, writes it all down. both of us resigned to others not wanting or getting the same out of life. i mean, we weren't hugely isolated or upset about it. we both have friends and love them, but. we were alone.

and then...

that dangerous fire, hope

i've fallen in with a new comrade. new people can feel intoxicating; all the stories can be retold, which seems such a comfort. also, somewhat paradoxically, there is the chance to be someone 'new and different'. comfort and mystery. no wonder we fail so wonderfully at sexual monogamy (as a species; some individuals still seem able). the garden will always have something to offer, as siddhartha found out in hesse's version of the story.

elise lebeau suggests the "i only feel my own emotions" exercise for those in coupledom. i like that one, and have been practicing it occasionally anyway. but i am also going to be away from said fresh new blood for a long weekend, which will give me an opportunity to sort through my internal world and make sure all of the emotions there are, in fact, mine. if emotions can be 'in fact'. which sounds silly. perhaps 'in authenticity' would be a more accurate choice.

it's exhilarating to meet someone who embodies qualities i had pretty much given up on finding. and it's not just the adjectives, it's how they play together: smart AND kind. funny AND quiet. tender WHILE passionate.

of course, there's all the usual fears floating by. loss, tragedy, heart-crushing. bitterness, slow suffocation, love gone sour or stale ... i read through the catalogue, but decided not to order any self-fulfilling prophecies yet. there's always later.

in the meantime, succumb slowly, gracefully to the here and now, to love. succumbing is an excellent dance move.

tools of the trade

i am having a good day, where the songs in my head are robust and frolicky. walked across the high level bridge today, and the sun was blinding. shared dinner with the gnomes; a household affair plus a friend from next door. continuing to love the way i relate with my roommates. i finally understand how effortlessness works. we're very close. i think two very key parts are that we are all relatively healthy, and willing to do what is required.

found a great set of shields to image, on the occasions where the sheer number of people or feelings i pick up are not very fun. i am learning these empath ways starting to actually take care of myself (which is currently defined as more than the least one can get away with, much to my chagrin). i was resistant and slapdash about self-care not because i was lazy, or even out of low self-esteem (though it is there, it's always present). i neglected myself because i wasn't in crisis, and other people were, so i had best tend to them. or else, i had to be in crisis.

it has taken a while, but i think i can be happy in a world where not everyone is happy. though even typing the phrase brings on an ill feeling in my gut. is it revulsion over the pain or shame for not being completely selfless? does it matter? i've probably already wandered away from the point. anyway. even basic logic comes around eventually: how would my unhappiness help? i don't need to be unhappy in order to motivate myself to help others. rather the reverse.

not to mention (and this one is tougher to swallow for my desperately helpful self) that it's possibly not really necessarily for me to make them happy or even help them be happy. seriously. that road to hell saying ain't just a saying. codependency, anyone? no thanks!

so i sit with my own happiness and enjoy it while it's here. butterflies tend to be fleeting.

she's okay.

green grass and long days are not outside, but they are more coming than leaving now. some day in the next six weeks, it will still be light out when i get home from work.

people have all gone home again. the lovers are in love. the cat has a cold. and me? i venture forth from the upstairs occasionally. i groom myself. i show up at work. i pay my rent. this is winter, and this is enough. and while this time of year; dark, cold, broke, can often depress me, i am calling on softness within to remember that inside my head is an okay place to be.

a friend of mine has this krishnamurti quote up on his wall: "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." right. thanks. sometimes i forget that the distress i feel isn't necessarily mine. ahh, empathy. found this great blog about empaths. it's nice when i don't roll my eyes within the first paragraph. no, i don't need to "take the quiz" nor do i need to "come to terms" or "awaken my sleeping empath", thanks. i remember when a friend passed on the attributes of an empath to me. "oh," i said. i've never been so well described by someone who has not met me as in that list of seven or so characteristics. was speaking with yet another friend (i really don't get out much, honest) about how to set up semi-permeable membranes for my emotional state. because i don't want to set up a barrier. i don't want to be blind. i actually LIKE feeling a room full of people's emotions. i just want to continue feeling like me during that process. i guess it's a matter of grounding and strengthening my own sense of self, then. get back on the be-train.

darkness and co.

new news, more news, old news.

our lovely household is facing a shuffle in roommates. while we currently have the most amazing coalition of folks, one of our fold is leaving for a 'house in the country'. the garden and the solitude will feed his peaceful soul. meanwhile, a yogic healer with nerdy tendencies is moving in to the orange room. i have lived with this character before. consciousness is brought to the most insignificant actions. i look forward to it.

i have also begun a job this week, after a month of unemployment. i'm enjoying the pace, and have been able to work from home for a few days this week. the job has scored well on three of my job standards (money, geography and people), and neutral on the fourth (the change i want to see in the world). it's hard for a web development company to really echo my values, although i suppose they could be a little closer. but then they wouldn't necessarily be the same people, and i like these people.

this seems like a boring entry, but winter has hit, and i dutifully record the occurrence. today it's freezing rain. yesterday i was out for five minutes and my hands were painfully numb. i'm not sure how they can be both numb and in pain, but it is possible. the increasing darkness is also afoot. ah well, two or three months and then i can breathe freely again. meanwhile, huddle under the full-spectrum bulb. last week i was doing so well with the approaching winter. plans to go snowshoeing, deep breaths into the cold... now i'm all "man the hot chocolate machine!" and grumpy bunny slippers. ah well.

been reading philosophy or poetry in the mornings (though this morning i forgot and read about heinous crimes and terrorism in the guardian while i drank coffee). trying to let that part of my brain breathe. mostly it's been a zen book, though occasionally some rilke. it's nice. i read about some guy in the atlantic monthly or maybe the walrus who maintains this practice and attributes his happiness in part to that. i don't know about that; it seems to be the rule that people don't really know why we're happy, and don't even continue to identify with what makes us happy from one moment to the next. i find that amusing, who knows why.