Love harder

Our plea:

Our friend Brandy is a brilliant writer, a wonderful teacher, and a generous friend. And she is in love with a man who has just been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

We are raising money for the Multiple Myeloma Research Fund in his name. For the price of a cinnamon dolce latte, half-caf, hold the whip, you can be part of an effort to cure a disease that affects approximately 750,000 people worldwide.

http://www.loveharder.org

Every dollar brings us a dollar closer to a cure. And every donation brings a sliver of hope to a girl who needs all the hope she can get.

Love Harder,
Princess Pointful


What You Can Do

• Give. Be part of a worldwide effort to cure a disease that affects approximately 750,000 people worldwide. Every dollar helps.
  
  
• Pass it on. Forward this story to five people. Share this blog post. Become our fan on Facebook.
  
  
• Love harder. Life is short, love is unbending, and no one knows what could happen next. Tell someone you love them today.
  

Where Your Money Goes

• The American Institute of Philanthropy recently named The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundationone of the best organizations to give to in terms of their accountability and use of resources.
  
  
• By working closely with researchers, clinicians and partners in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, the MMRF has helped bring multiple myeloma patients four new treatments that are extending lives around the globe.
  
  
• The MMRF has advanced twenty Phase I and Phase II clinical trials. They need your support to advance these clinical research programs and accelerate the development of better, more effective treatments.
  
  
• The MMRF's Multiple Myeloma Genomics Initiative recently became the first to sequence the multiple myeloma whole genome in its entirety.
  
  
• A whopping 98% of your donation to the MMRF will be used immediately to support high-priority multiple myeloma research.
  
  
• With diminishing funding for early stage drug development and the next myeloma treatments not expected to be approved until 2011, the MMRF desperately needs your help.
  

So far, an amazing $2000 has been raised today alone by people like you! Please continue this wonderful trend!

Love to the internetz, the amazing Lilu and Laurie for all their hard work on this project, and the wonderful Brandy (who's story you can also find here).

PS. Brandy and your Hot Awesome Dude... this one's for you. Love, The Internet.

Little sister

My little sister is getting married. True to her, it is happening in cyclone-like fashion. Move in after 2 months, engaged at a year, marrying 6 months after that. If it was anyone but her, I may be out of breath, especially in comparison to what may seem like my slow-and-steady tortoise like pace through similar choices. But, over the past year or so, I've had to come to accept that this is just who she is, how she operates, even if it seems foreign to me.

The main thing is that she is happy-- which she is.

I sometimes think that the differences between my sister and I were somehow created by everyone else's need to dichotomize us, rather than any inherent variability. The more automatic aspects of us are eerily alike- the way we speak, our sense of humour, our mannerisms, our smile, our clumsiness. But at a young age, my tendencies to voraciously read and hers to dress up in pouffy dresses for the most minimal of occasions were somehow magnified. I became the smart one. She became the pretty one.

Somehow everyone became invested in maintaining those categories. Despite the fact that we regularly become mistaken for twins, I was always more insecure, more critical when I looked in the mirror. Despite her almost constant appearance on the honour roll, she never considered going to university. I make practical decisions, she makes spontaneous ones. She spends money, I save. Despite being three years younger than me, she had boyfriends with cars before I did.

It sometimes feels like she got to make the mistakes I was always too scared to make.

We're living pretty different lives these days. After five years in a big city, including a few changes in direction, and a big heartbreak, she decided that a small town is where she wants to be. And so, she's back in our hometown, getting married, living in a big beautiful home, and likely to start a family very soon. I don't know where I'm going to be living by the end this year, let alone the year after that, although I will be in the city. My life may seem a lot more jet-setting, in some ways, with me about to embark on another cross-country zigzagging trip, with a end of the month conference in Las Vegas, but it is also a lot more modest, given that I have yet to move out of one-bedroom apartment territory. I'm with my big love, too, but despite being together for much longer that her and her fiancee, a wedding is still far in the future, with other practicalities getting in the way.

Despite the fork somewhere in our paths, though, there's still a thick rope stretching across that distance that neither of us want to, or could, shake. When she's hurting, her first instinct is still to hop a plane and fly my way. And for me, she'll always have the spirit of that 12 year old who called my 16-year old boyfriend to scold him for treating me badly.

She sometimes hurts me more than she realizes, not because of malice, but rather than she occasionally forgets that she needs to slip her feet into my shoes for an instant, as they do fit a lot differently. She did so recently, and it still feels more raw than I would like to admit. But I still couldn't help but tear up as she twirled around, beaming, clutching a bouquet in what will be her wedding dress outside the dressing room. Hurt goes away, after all-- but she won't.

Taste of salt

Written after my first full day in Cuba.

8pm in Varadero. I'm barefoot on our deck. The sky is the consistency of muddled blackberries and a breeze rustles the palm leaves. It is eerily quiet, with only the melody of cicadas and the resonance of the shower seeping through the silence. Everyone here seems to prefer the company of the noise and crowds in the lobby bar to the still humidity elsewhere.

My skin is sticky with the residue of sweat, sunscreen and sea water. My lips taste faintly of salt. He finds such textures unnerving, and frequently dashes to the shower to rinse them off. I find it almost a little sensual, a reminder that I am in the tropics, the land of thick air. 

Perhaps there is part tropic in me, for my skin absorbs the tint of the sun almost like a sponge. He tells me I look somehow more appropriate with this hue in my cheeks, as though it makes my features, my dark eyes and olive tinged complexion, look more at home. I also love the freedom my limbs have in the heat. Instead of being restrained by the puddles or frost, they are free to loll around in the softness of a loose sundress, my toes sinking in the sand.

It feels more comfortable here when there are fewer people around. While I had my face pressed to the bus window as we drove through town, I find the people watching in resorts almost infuriatingly stagnant. Sunburned flesh, speedos, fanny packs, drunken self righteousness. We are not entirely cut out for the land of all-inclusive. Today I saw a fat man ash his cigar in the middle of a swimming pool and I wanted to scream.

The employees are deceptive in trying to keep us in the confines of this odd compound. They overact being shocked when we ask for information on the actual city of Varadero, or, worse yet, the "regular" bus to Havana. They feign ignorance, encourage us to go on a tour instead. 

On the bright side, there are pina coladas for free, $2 mickeys of rum, all you can eat ice cream, and towels shaped like swans. There is also sand soft like cotton sheets, and water the lightest and sheerest shade of turquoise I've ever seen. And there is the taste of salt on his lips after he laughs at me when I fail to avoid the breaking of a wave in my face, and I chase him in slow motion through the pulse of the tide. I suppose that makes it worth all the drunk fanny-pack wearers in the world.

What money can't buy

It never occurred to me until recently that my parents didn't have a lot of money.

It wasn't that we were ever poor, per se. We always had food on the table and clothes on our back. My dad always worked full-time, and my mom almost always was working most days of the week. In fact, my parents, in what I come to realize more and more each year is amazing kindness, often were offering support to those friends of our even worse off than us-- like how they bought my best friend her prom dress after her father handed her a $20 bill.

This holiday, the Duke and his brother drove me back to my home town on their way back to see their family, stopping to spend the night at my family home. It is not that I wasn't aware that we grew up differently on the surface, they in a residential suburb of a big city, in a home with a big garage and soft carpets, me in a small town and smaller home filled with random antiques and curiosities. But, still, we'd grown up with the same morals, and the same sense of needing to work for your accomplishments, so the contrast never really stood out to me.

On their continued drive, the Duke's brother remarked to him that he had a newfound respect for me, seeing that I had accomplished so much coming from such a different environment. At first, this seemed a little absurd to me. My parents were always wonderfully supportive of me, always believed in me. How was I at all disadvantaged? But, with a little thought, I realized that, unlike a good chunk of my peers in graduate school, I came from a family in which no one went to graduate school. In fact, no one in my family went to college.

This same revelation hit me again while flipping through the program of the conference I recently attended. In the first section, there were several pages dedicated to the winners of the prestigious diversity awards, an award I had never considered applying to, since, as a Caucasian heterosexual woman of European background, I had never considered myself as fitting into the category of "population typically underrepresented in graduate school". I then noticed that "first generation college student" was also lumped into this category. I think I actually commented to my friend about how I found this odd and incongruent for me, as despite technically fitting into this category, I didn't feel as though I matcged the label of "underrepresented population". She told me that I should give myself more credit.

The thing is, I never thought of myself as having to bear a burden to go to university (well, except for financially, as I have paid for all nine years of university without help from anyone except scholarships, grants, and some student loans). It was just something I always wanted to do, and I did it. Nothing about my parents' lack of university diplomas felt like it slowed me down at all.

The other day, I was reminiscing with the Duke about how, at around the age of 9, I had desperately wanted to go to an autograph session with one of my favourite hockey players in a city an hour away on the weekend. I had been heartbroken when my parents had flat-out refused. The Duke asked me why they had declined, and I told them that this question had perplexed me greatly for years to come, as it seemed so out of character, and I was never really given a point blank answer.

Suddenly, I had a bit of an epiphany-- they didn't have the money to take me there. Then, all the pieces started to fall into place. The truck that was always breaking down when I was little. My mom's telling me that if I wanted Calvin Klein jeans, she couldn't buy me any back to school apparel. The girl who asked if I was poor because of my clothing. My sadness at not being able to participate in the summer theatre programs due to the triple-figured fees required, and the fact that, at the age of 12, I knew better than to ask. My paying rent for living at home in my first two years of college. Having to leave our rental house behind, in part because it was being torn down for subdivisions. My mom coming home, distraught, saying she'd been laid off.

The fact that I only realized this at 27, to me, testifies to me the important aspect of all this, though-- that it didn't matter at all. My parents loved me unconditionally, supported even my most ridiculous phases, and made for a beautifully memorable childhood and adolescence. On top of that, they took in troubled foster kids, and let friends live in our basement or even in a tent in our backyard in tough times. They taught my about morality, kindness, empathy and self-sufficiency. All of these are infinitely more valuable than a college fund or those designer jeans.

365 x 2 +3

There's nothing like the forced reflection brought about by seemingly symbolic days... birthdays, new years, anniversaries, and, of course, blogoversaries!

Yep, 2 years ago (minus, oh, say 3 days... I should start marking this in my day planner), ...and hijinks ensued was born. Apparently, after having just finished the maddest half year in my life, I was overwhelmed by a sudden influx of spare time, and decided to start jotting down my observations about the world in a little more systematic of a fashion.

Honestly, I am a little surprised I didn't think to start blogging earlier. My friend's mother, upon meeting me for the first time, said I was an observer, noticing everything around me to a greater degree than people realized. I was always constructing little anecdotes in my head in far too much detail. Once they were constructed, I didn't know what to do with them.

When I was 10, my literary masterpiece, Dognapped, placed in a city-wide children's writing contest. At 13, I wrote novellas about girl detectives and feisty orphans. At 15, I wrote melodramatic poetry. And at 18, I stopped writing for me, and started writing for grades. At 22, my mother and I went across Canada, and I sent out a number of update emails including my silly observations about our travels. These emails were an unexpected hit, with people printing them out to read them to others, and even my boss telling me how much he'd enjoyed them. I felt a burst of pride, knowing that I still had that writer's spark in me, but also a bit of helplessness. Great, I can still write, but what purpose does a talent for witty emails about teaching Brazilians about hockey and my mother's failed attempts to speak French serve?

At 25, I started blogging. A summer earlier, I had met a blue-eyed fellow at a concert, a fellow who helped me see that focusing on one foot in front of the other so you can ignore everything else tumbling down alongside you is not a good way to live. One night, after I'd found out of the death of a friend, he insisted on coming out to the suburbs to take me for gelato. That night, he told me, in perhaps less direct terms, that I didn't need to live under the weight of someone else's beer bottles. He also told me that he had a blog. That night, I found these words of his, and spend hours reading them. He'd even written about me. Although his writing tapered off soon afterwards, he was the one that told me, with all the thoughts bolting through my mind, I may want to think about blogging.

And, on January 12th 2006, I took his advice.

So, here I am, 2 years later. Strangely enough, despite my fears otherwise, my brain has yet to run dry. I still get sudden burst of inspiration in various locales, jot down descriptions on scrap paper or in my phone, run through lines I don't want to forget over and over again in my head. Blogging is almost a seamless part of my life now.

Even more shocking, perhaps, is that I have managed (I seriously did just knock on wood... well, pressboard, really) to write anonymously over all this time. Sure, there have been a few close calls, like friends tapping me on the shoulder unexpectedly (resulting in lightening fast window minimization), blogs popping up in search histories when someone uses my computer, and on the spot lies about people I have met or who are on my Facebook. Still, though, my obsessive site meter usage reveals only one or two other readers from my general vicinity, and despite my occasional fears that it is my boss or an ex, it is actually surprising I don't have more random readers from a city of several million.

Does my anonymity really matter all that much? Probably not. My world wouldn't collapse if the link got sent about. Sure, a few people would probably be stung by my keeping this large part of my life secret. There are a few other people who may smart from particular entries. Most would probably giggle about the idea of documenting one's life over the internet. But, really, it is more about the freedom and having this wonderful little side identity than hiding from one person in particular. I've been invested in keeping these words separate from my day-to-day life for two years now-- it just doesn't feel right to let that go. Even if I do get the occasional yearning to send someone a specific entry (though I have no idea how to explain why I am writing about such things), or I wish I could share some of my piece in a more public forum and truly claim them as my own, not the work of some little avatar with a silly name.

Over the years, what has blogging done for me? It has put me back in touch with myself, after years of unknowingly just going through the motions. It has helped me pay better attention-- to my thoughts, to the beauty around me, to people's motivations. It is amazing how much more you watch when the idea to write about it occurs to you. It has made me feel like a writer again, a feeling I thought I had lost years back with the entrance into real life adulthood. And I actually feel good at it. It has brought some amazing people into my life, people who, whether through emails or even a single sentence in a comment, I sometimes feel may know me better than the people who see real-life me on a regular basis.

So, thank you to all of you for making me feel good at this, like my words may be a little important or meaningful. And thank you, little red blog, for helping me feel like me again.

The amateur epicurean

Sometimes I can understand how my adamantly single friends view coupledom as a little pathetic. However, I do not apologize for finding joy from a Sunday afternoon spent in a fresh food market. Holding hands while choosing grapefruit, getting lost in towers of peaches and splurging on elaborate cheeses can be just as lovely as a candlelit dinner. 

These situations bring out the unapologetic domestic in me. As we speak, I am alternating between trimming the ends off green beans, twisting the lids off spices, crushing garlic. Sure, we are likely to end up with plates on our laps in front of the television. However, in the midst of a swirl of bills, emails, deadlines, invitations, it feels refreshing to focus on something as hedonistic as a good meal.

Now, if you'll excuse me, the chili-garlic green beans are waiting.

Non-beast induced running

The world is an eerily quiet place at 8am on Sunday.

The scene is almost fitting for a Western film, such that I could almost picture a tumbleweed bouncing down a usually busy street in unison with the echoes of my footsteps.

I certainly was nowhere near experiencing the stillness of a weekend morning the day prior. The only movement I was capable of before noon was a stilted dash for the kitchen sink after being awoken by a mouth the consistency of the Gobi. Why everyone decided I should be drinking double rum and cokes was beyond me, but they seemed so convinced that I went along with it. It did certainly make the random transition from two hours of 60s soul a la Temptations to random modern rock a la Metric by the bar DJ seem much more reasonable.

I am highly versatile in my ability to bust a move.

But Sunday I was more prepared. I'd foregone another partying opportunity for a quiet dinner, crawling into bed straight after my Tina Fey fix (I have a serious girl crush, I'm afraid), in order to be prepared for my alarm clock. 

As some of you may remember, I am not the biggest fan of running. There are a few occasions when I find it appropriate-- namely, whilst pursued by rabid beasts of the devouring type, or when for a good cause. Thankfully, my shoes were laced up for the latter, as a group of us participated in the Run for the Cure on the behalf of a friend's mother recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

(And a special shout out to Surfergrrl and Dan Mega for being kind enough to donate!! Believe it or not, I was my team's #1 fundraiser! Probably because people would pay big money for the sheer humour of seeing me run...)

Having not participated in a big city fundraiser (my HomeTown fundraisers usually involved me volunteering at a snack bar at the Legion for a local cover band), this was certainly a new experience. There were literally thousands of people, ranging from toddlers to the elderly, serious runners to casual strollers, clad in wigs and wings, even men in pink dresses. Even more overwhelming, though, was the positivity. Everyone was smiling, cheering, and there were rows of people with loud yellow "Free hugs!" signs, doling out enthusiastic embraces. One couldn't help but feel heart pangs at times, seeing too many names written under "Who I'm running for", too many "my mom, my best friend, my sister", along with photos of beautiful smiling women pinned to their shirt. But, still, amongst all the tragedy, there was an air of optimism and hope that flowed along with the pounding music.

And, yes, I ran-- nearly the whole five kilometres, when I wasn't too clustered within the crowd. Though sometimes it felt as though my breath was stabbing at my throat, and I still didn't experience this mythical runner's high, as I came down the last stretch, sloping towards the finish line with people cheering from the sidelines, I could imagine why people would find the experience a little invigorating.

(Though I'm a little convinced I pulled my groin.)

Two years ago

Two years ago, I met you at a train station.

I'd had noble intentions when I got off the train. Despite the weight of unsaid words, of prolonged looks, of leaden decisions, I told myself I could resist for a while longer. I could let things simmer.

These intentions fled from me the instant I saw you, and vanished from my memory the moment you grabbed my hand with unflinching confidence. I recall nothing of the movie flickering before my face. I only recall the touch of your fingers on my wrist, the prickling of goosebumps, and the sand I dumped from my shoes when I returned home late that night.

One year ago, I turned to cross the street, and you said "I love you " with absolute clarity. I was so shocked, and already overtaken by the flow of crosswalk people, I just turned back to you with my eyes wide. You were out of view by the time I crossed the street. I breathlessly grabbed my cell phone to dial you back, to reassure myself that I had not imagined that fleeting, unexpected moment.

I hadn't.

Today, my skin still damp from the shower, I slipped back into the covers. The sun was peeking through the blinds, drawing patterns on your back, and you grabbed me tightly. 

Happy anniversary, mister.

The one in which I give Skeelo a run for his money

This weekend was just flat out wonderful.

One reason?
I spent it here:


Another reason?

I spent it with some of the most fantastic people I have ever had the fortune of knowing.

(which one do you think is me?)

And, most importantly, I witnessed an amazing friend make the most beautiful bride, and I saw in her groom's eyes that he recognized it, too.

Lest you think I am just some concentrated form of sap, I am not one of those generic "I-wuv-weddings" type of girl. In fact, after the last wedding we attended, I found myself wondering if I had perhaps became a little jaded, for outside of some more detached appreciations of certain moments, I wasn't having the typical warm and fuzzy emotional pangs. However, even the stoic Duke himself noted that this was a particularly lovely wedding. And he was one of the only dry eyes in the house during the speeches.

Other highlights and lowlights of the weekend?

The weekend kicked off with eight of us poured into one mini-van. While some would have sulked at the prospect of being forced to wait for a ferry in such close quarters, we celebrated by drinking red wine out of to-go coffee cups while in line.

Most of the tiny island was taken over by visitors for the wedding. Not only did we have every hotel room booked, but we also took over the local bar the night before the wedding, where someone plugged in their musical disgrace of an iPod, leaving us to dance the night away to hip-hop AC/DC remixes and Whigfield's Saturday Night. My guy, however, was impressed by my lyrical knowledge of Welcome to the Jungle.

Songs officially banned from my wedding? The Chicken Dance, the Macarena and the Hokey Pokey.

The lyrics to "I Wish I Was a Little Bit Taller" and "Shoop" are pretty much permanently imprinted in my brain. However, even better is the interpretive dances that accompany them when I have drunk multiple glasses of wine.

Sometimes gender contrasts are way too stereotypical. Exemplary of this fact is the 40-something woman who literally dove and collided with other people's ankles to frantically grab the bouquet, while the men had to be herded onto the floor to catch the garter.

Asshat of the wedding award clearly went to the fellow who was actually doing a running commentary of shit-talking during the wedding. Not only did he let out overexasperated sighs during certain portions of the ceremony, when my friend stood up to do a reading, he snarkily whispered "How much do you want to bet it's from Corinthian?" I also learned due to forced eavesdropping that he came down the aisle for his own wedding to "Eye of the Tiger". Seriously.

Warm and fuzzy part of the weekend? When the bride gave me and our close friends special engraved wooden boxes, and told us that they contained the key to a box we would get for our own wedding, which included a special garter that we were all to wear on our special day.

Quote of the weekend? 

The scene: Three of us discussing the incarnations of bacon in different countries.

J: Bacon strips taste different in the US than they do in Canada.

The Duke: That's because bacon from Canada is made from children's dreams.

Me: Mmm, I taste unicorns!

(Psst... ummnowwhat.com. Do it.)

Home

I'm home.

It is funny how certain I am in that statement.

This is especially true when, though silent mathematics, I realize that in a few more years, I'll have lived away for longer than I resided in this house. 

Still, despite making the same observation each time I inch into city limits-- that it feels like time has slowed and that nary a day has passed since my last visit, even though it has nearly a year-- it never fails to astound me.

I know people define hometowns in different ways. Some label it the place where they were born, others the place they resided the longest, and others eschew the notion of hometowns altogether. For me, it is puberty that makes all the difference in the world. 

We only moved here when I was ten, and while I have fond memories of tree houses, picking raspberries, and sloshing in pig pens, life prior to moving is more a series of idyllic snapshots than a genuine connection. I re-visited that city years later, and found little to be familiar outside of the numbers on the mailbox.

But here, everything is soaked in memories.

And nothing stands out more than firsts-- which are what adolescence is all about.

My first french kiss was in the foyer of the civic centre. 

My first date was also in the arena at the same location, where the junior hockey team still plays.

My first drink was down a precarious hill, in a secluded wooded lot, the entrance of which I pass every time I walk downtown.

My first time drunk was at the youth centre, where skateboards still echo today.

My first time skinny dipping was late at night, where you can see the lake narrow as you pass on the highway.

My first real job was at the only mall in town.

My first time smoking pot was underneath the bridge we drive over on our entrance to town.

The first I love you I really believed at the time was on a rock overlooking the water where we still picnic, whereas the first I love you that I still believe was real was spoken across the room from where I now sit.

My feet are touching the same place my feet touched when I lost my virginity.

These memories flood me as my eyes catch another detail or my feet turn a corner, though only a few make it past my lips. I fear that if I started, really started, the words would be like a waterfall, an unstoppable stream of consciousness, and might drown those around me. 

And, so, I let a few leak, like raindrops, while the rest swirl about in my head, until I step on the plane and they drain into the background, seeping away to make room for the other details of life.

The saddest (but sweetest) story ever

Dying eight-year-old 'marries' his school sweetheart
An eight-year-old boy who had set his heart on 'marrying' his school sweetheart achieved his final wish the day before he died of leukaemia.

By Laura Clout

Given only weeks to live, Reece Fleming proposed to his 'special friend' Elleanor Purgslove at a laser tag party.

After she accepted, their parents arranged a make-believe wedding at Reece's home in Mackworth, Derby. He died the next day with his family.

Reece's mother Lorraine Fleming said he told her, "I can go now" after his wish had been granted.

The 28-year-old said: ""He was so proud of her, and we were proud of them both."

Reece was diagnosed with leukaemia in July 2004, when he was aged just four.

He fought the disease for four years until May when doctors told him he had just weeks to live.

Ms Fleming, said she and his stepfather Mick Thompson had tried to help him achieve as much as possible before his death, including marrying his sweetheart.

"When we found out that we only had a few weeks with him we tried to do absolutely everything with him that we could.

"Him and Ellie had been 'special friends' for a couple of years but then they broke up.

"We said we'd have a pirate party, and Ellie came. She went to visit Reece a few times in hospital as well.

She added: "We also had a football and laser quest party, apparently that's when he proposed to her."

The pair went out to dinner in the mayor's limousine and the families organised a 'wedding', complete with rings, a stand-in vicar and a certificate.

The ceremony was carried out on July 4 and the following day Reece died at home with his family and a Macmillan nurse.

At his funeral, mourners followed a horse-drawn hearse on foot.

Ms Fleming added: "Even on the Saturday that he died, he got out of bed and walked to the sofa.

"He always tried walking, right to the end, so we thought if he walked for us then we would walk for him."

Counting freckles

When my eyes fluttered open this morning, I was facing his shoulder, and I got the sudden urge to count the freckles scattered about his arm. It felt like the number was something I should know.

It is an odd thing, how you come to know a lover's body. It is not a cold process of memorization. Even if I had a smudge of artistic talent, I couldn't simply sketch every curve from memory. It is more a process of intuition. 

My hands just know what feels right. They sense where it is supposed to be soft or firm, smooth or rough, where my palm is supposed to curve. My fingertips rise in anticipation of the edge of a scar, and linger where something has changed, like the bump on an ankle, before I have even processed its presence.

The stifling effects of contentment

I am beginning to see some truth to the adage that distress, to some extent, is at the heart of creativity.

Because I am just plain content.

And I feels like this leaves me with little to say.

Sure, things aren't perfect. There's always more work, and more work after that. Similarly, there is always a full collection of ludicrous anecdotes at my expense sitting in my back pocket. 

Such as? Well, today, as I was attempting to walk home with arms full of cleaning surprise and a mop in hand (yes, awkward enough as is, especially for a member of the uncoordinated such as myself), the back of my well-loved shoes decided to burst along the seam. This means I was not only on the side of a busy road weighed down by loads of Lysol and a mop, but that I had to motor around by hopping on one foot while precariously pointing my other toe upwards.

However, other than such ridiculum, life just feels, well, nice. I'm enjoying this whole domestic thing. I like waking up to him. 

And it feels like to say anything more than that would border on excessive.

Little goodbyes

So the big moving day is tomorrow.

Boxes are packed, friends have been recruited, addresses have been changed.

If tomorrow is about new beginnings, then tonight is about little goodbyes.

Goodbye to my quirky little apartment. The first apartment that has ever been mine, from start to finish. Goodbye to the slanted floors that pull spilled liquid towards the kitchen. Goodbye to the yellow living room, which almost seemed to glow a little when the sunshine hit it just right. Goodbye to the sideways sink in my cozy kitchen, which made turning the faucet an exercise in caution, as it would inevitably knock up against a precarious pile of plates. Goodbye to the clawfoot bathtub, so deep that it felt I could almost comfortably drown. 

And goodbye to my neighbourhood, with the looming heritage homes, bedecked in bright, sometimes inappropriate colours. Goodbye to the corner gardens, adding some sparkle to the dullness of the concrete. Goodbye to the overhanging trees, encasing the street like a tent. Goodbye to my random wanderings down, turning haphazardly down another street, camera perched and ready for whatever image may greet me.

Even though it's only been a year, this area represents a lot to me. It's a representation of a profound transition in my life. Although I technically made the biggest and riskiest change over a half year prior to moving here, my residence here represents finally leaving all those ties behind for good, and starting out fresh. It represents me finally learning how to be deservedly a little selfish.

Sometimes you need to leave things behind before they get too run-of-the-mill and everyday, to best balance comfort and excitement. As such, I'm happily anticipating the changes that tomorrow will bring, and the stories that will come to be linked to the quirks of my new apartment, even though I feel a twinge of sadness saying goodbye to the giant tree on the corner.

But tonight is about these little goodbyes. I got take-out from my favourite Thai place around the corner and rented a few movies. Even though it is Saturday night, I am turning off my phone and the internet, and curling up on my couch. It's just me and my apartment tonight.

***

As an aside, we're not getting the Internet connected for a few days, so I may remain MIA for a little while longer.

Harnessing the power of rainbow socks

I'm never quite prepared for the full-force of the jolt when my feet hit reality again.

I realize that the responsible thing to do would have been to forgo the romantic getaway weekend, the one that was planned before the Albuquerque flu wrecked havoc on my body and concentration abilities.
But I've done the responsible thing too many times.

Him and I have too frequently as of late been in the same room but not, separated by walls of papers and obligations.
Such is the nature of graduate student romance.
It has come to the point where I stop in the middle of reading a sentence, stricken by the need to tell him that I miss him despite being ostensibly sitting right beside him.

Never underestimate the power of holding hands to ground you in the moment.

So, I did the irresponsible thing, and took a ferry with him, jumped on a hotel bed, scaled seaweed slippery rocks, kissed him with nothing but a museum exhibit as a witness, and even read productively as he dozed beside me and entered in words describing intricate brain regions into powerpoint as a bright sunset shone through the window.

But now my feet are firmly back on the cold, hard ground of reality, and I realize how truly behind this illness has left me. I search for 15 minute gaps in my schedule, which I fill in with tasks. I pack my clipboard full of articles, rank ordered in terms of sheer desperation. I wince when I open my feed reader, silently cursing myself for letting blogging degenerate into another chore, rather than the solace it is supposed to be.

And, as I fish through my sock drawer this morning, cursing myself and my need to do laundry, I deliberately choose my rainbow socks. The ones that my client once busted me wearing.
Because, this way, even if I only get a glimpse at the sunshine as I dash between appointments, at least I can peek below, and see a smattering of colour on my feet.

Sometimes you have to grasp onto colour in any way you can get it.

Albu to the Querque

My half asleep guy, wrapped in covers, is nearly enough to make me forgo all pretenses of productivity and hop back into bed to play fort all day long.

Particularly so when the rain is insistently pitter-pattering at my roof.

That tangled mass of blankets, skin, and tousled hair, tied together with one of those lazy but genuine grins crossing his face as he opens his eyes when I kiss his forehead goodbye is pretty much destined to be my downfall.

But I manage to pull myself away from the bed's siren song, and prepare myself for the deluge outside.

My pretty boots tends to absorb water, rather than repel it, so I strap on the hideous, incredibly solid and toasty black boots that I have resorted to after one too many puddle mishaps. I transfer my clipboard, agenda and books from my cute tote to a juvenile looking (but rain-resistant) knapsack that appears to have me near toppling state once it is tethered to my back. I slip a hood over my head, completely ruining any semblance of peripheral vision, and clutch a beat-up, sagging, tines-exposed umbrella above my head-- for it is the curse of the constant pedestrian to have each one of their many umbrellas display some sort of terminal defect upon the return of the rain after a sunny week. And, thus, I hop out the door, preparing for splash-dodging and sodden pants cuffs.

I buy an indigo-coloured umbrella from the dollar store in an attempt to distinguish myself as a little colourful and feminine, despite my wind whipped hair.

Even worse, campus is doused in slush, which is infinitely worse than rain in its ability to sneak into clothing crevices before it melts into a watery pool.

My bed is approximately a million times better than slush.

But bright and early I am leaving that bed behind for a cheap hotel room shared double bed.... in exciting Albuquerque, New Mexico!

*cue Price is Right prize music*


Which, today, ironically, is colder than my Canadian city of residence.

Yep, it's conferencing time again. So I've got my bags packed for plenty of schmoozing and learning and so forth.

Okay, and maybe a little drinking (because it is my reunion with all the folks I met in Austin this summer).

And hot-air ballooning!

A few of us decided to take advantage of Albuquerque's famed pastime bright and early one morning-- excitement!

Unfortunately, the exciting airplane diaries (and Skymall updates) may be a little restricted, as I have a travel companion for the prolonged trip (bus to the US, 3 hour airport wait, 2 flights) both there and back. Actually, any attempts at blogging with have to be particularly covert, especially with my roommate's noted tendency to read my emails over my shoulders. I'll be back with tales of any worthwhile hijinks with associated photo evidence!

The unknowing optimist

My sadness is not for public consumption.

It is for the eyes of the backs of my closed blinds.

The hot downpour of my shower.

The note of the song that steals my breath.

For everyone else, my eyes will tremble under the effort of keeping that tear in.

It can be a little delicious to wallow in it when no one's looking. Like when you watch a tragic movie and the tears feel so good, so cleansing, you almost don't want them to stop.

But the second my sadness is witnessed? I panic.

When I was younger, it was like I couldn't have an emotion without a witness. I would wear black on my sad days, call my friends to sob, and still find the expression to write over indulgent poetry plum full of bad metaphors for what I saw as complicated sadness.

Sometimes you need to ricochet. 

So I have bounced in the opposite direction. I hold my sadness close, like a necklace cold against my chest beneath several layers of clothing.

But it still sneaks out sometimes (like, say, when overwhelmed by circumstantial bad luck). 

And if someone catches me, it is then that I start to pathologize my tears. 

Which, of course, in true cyclical fashion, makes them fall a little harder. 

I worry that my emotions will overwhelm people, that they think me petty, that I am deceiving the false image of competence I try to project.

I especially feel as though I have betrayed him. As though he fell for me with bare feet and a smile under the glowing July sun, and now I'm giving him gloomy Januaries. 

Like somehow these tears have broken a promise and proven me for a liar.

We sat in the bathtub last night for nearly two hours, pondering premonitions and camera angles for the movies of our life. As I dripped water from my fingers to the back of my hands, I told him how exhilarating it was when he told me it had lately occurred to him that he could only be happy with me because am I little saner than others, for this made me feel that becoming a little overwhelmed with life did not make me a failure in his eyes. I told him how funny it was that people actually found my writing uplifting. I recounted a comment that really hit a cord with me: "I like reading your blog because you bring an optimism to your life that is sadly lacking in my own and it gives me hope that one day I can feel the same way."* And how I thought that maybe I was more of an optimist than I give myself credit for in those moments of weakness.

He told me that I should use this bath as an opportunity for a shift. Before could be the days of shame over succumbing to those universal dips in life. After could be the realization that, most days, I do radiate and sparkle at least a little.

***

*Thank you, Rexy. This really touched me. I hope you can find an outlet as good as this one has been to me to help you find your way.

Scatterings

#1- I just spent nearly an evening appeasing my Google Reader. How on earth is it in the triple digits again? I will be catching up soon, pinky swear!

#2- Thank you times a million for all your wonderful comments on my Bus Stop post. It's nice to feel like someone enjoys your observations, because sometimes stories don't seem to fly so well when they are thrown out in the middle of "real life" conversations.

As you all know, I'm recovering from my epic bad luck spell, and it feels like it may be taking a little of a toll on me. The other day, I actually said "Lately, it feels like writing may be the only thing I'm good at." So thanks for making me feel good at something.

#3- Part 2 of "Enquiring Minds Want to Know" is in the works. The answers to all your burning questions are soon to be revealed!

#4- And now I'm blushing...

Some amazing people from 20-something bloggers nominated me for a few (more than one?!) awards-- best title, best mid-sized blog, and most encouraging/uplifting.

I am seriously so flattered. It is a funny thing to walk down the street, anonymous as can be, and to know that someone a half a world over knows you better than the person beside you, and better yet, likes learning about you.

Plus, my competition? Is FIERCE (with a capital everything!). It includes some of my most favourite bloggers. So it is an honour and a half to be considered in the same league as them.

Thanks, again, for making me feel like this little evening habit of mind is something that really does matter.

(I know... I'm gushy)

#5- I was tagged by another of my most favourites, the fantastic Miriam D.

The rules for this particular meme?

Link to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
Share six (6) non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
Tag at least 3 people at the end of your post and link to their blogs.
Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I'm going to cheat a little, and add this to the slowly developing collection of 100 royal factoids about me...

#46- I've already shared my love of all things pickled here.

Given my pickle cravings, whenever I buy a new jar, I will promptly devour most of it within a few days.

But that last pickle? 

It remains in brine limbo for sometimes a few weeks, because I can't bear the notion of being officially out of pickles-- as such, it can only be consumed under the most supreme of pickle cravings.

#47- I have the writing of a 14-year old ditzy girl.

We're talking dramatic loops, frantic underlining, and the largest circle i dots ever.

It provides a pretty big contrast to the actual content of what I am writing (e.g., therapy notes).

Once, on an exam, my prof took the time to draw an arrow directed at my "i" in the margins of my response booklet, accompanied by the phrase "biggest lollipop i ever!". My adolescent handwriting was that compelling.

#48- To further ditzify your impressions of me... 

I use the descriptive term "over-the-top" at such a frequency that my boyfriend once suggested I should abbreviate it to "O.T.T."

As a joke, I began to use it in my speech with him.

But then it began seeping into my regular speech. 

I'm just waiting for my supervisor's response when I describe a client's behaviour as "so O.T.T."

#49- I hate socks. My toes feel too damn constrained in them. As such, as soon as the weather gets a little less rainy, I banish them to the depths of my dresser, and traipse around my apartment with my bare toes. 

As a side note, I always leave footprints on the passenger side windows of friend's cars.

#50- I am a very fidgety person. If given something with a label on it, I will peel it off in long strands. I will use my nails to inscribe random doodle in styrofoam coffee cups. I will shred napkins, and chew on stir sticks. I crunch ice cubes. All of this while completely enveloped in serious conversations.

#51- Rather than changing into a set of pajamas, I will often try to integrate part of my current outfit into sleep wear, usually whatever t-shirt or tank-top I am wearing, no matter how inappropriate for slumber. As long as it is reasonably comfy, it seems to me worth saving laundry space for.

Lastly, for tagging, I'm gonna pick a few of my newest reads who I would like to find out a little more about:

Deutlich

Autobiography of my feet

ttcmb

Tree tales

The wrinkled wrapping paper is piled on top of beer cans and flyers in the recycling bin.

My sister has piled her gifts into the trunk of her car, and hauled them over icy mountain passes, to return to the world of payrolls and grocery shopping.

The dishes that used to be full of tarts and cheeses are now reduced to carrying crumbs.

My head has already turned to more pragmatic matters such as scheduling.

But, to the right of me still stands the Christmas tree, draped with lights and childhood crafts made out of glue guns and pine cones. It reminds me that even though the 25th may have come and gone, I don't need to take my head out of the clouds just yet. There is plenty of time for worries and practicalities in the new year. 

***

Obtaining our Christmas tree often proves to be a bit of an adventure. The tradition since we moved to HomeTown has been to procure a license from the city to cut down a tree on Crown Land that falls beneath the power lines. This provides a nice compromise for my environmentally conscious family, who are against both the chemicals in fake trees and the unnecessary chopping down of real ones, as it means we are merely cutting down a tree that is soon to be cut by the city anyways.

This year was good for a few giggles, in that the area had been doused with a particularly heavy bout of wetter than usual snow.

This means that the godforsaken winter boots that were forced upon us in childhood, which my parents are quick to fish out of the enormous trunk of plaid scarves and single mittens, are pulled onto our feet, with our pants tucked into them.

Residents of the more snow-familiar areas also know that wet snow and cold nights mean the forming of a crust on top of the snow. While this crust may keep your feet from sinking too far into the white depths as you scamper down a snowbank to scope the perfect tree, it certainly will not as you attempt to haul said tree out of the snow bank. Each step led to several rounds of sinking, eventually to snow-levels nearing my hips, which is great fun when tenuously grasping a douglas fir. Even the mighty Sorel couldn't stop snow from gathering in every possible crevice.

However, in years past, my father and I have managed to narrowly escape more trouble than quicksand-like snow.

Recently, due to reduced time, both in terms of daylight and days until Christmas, Dad had the bright idea to raid the edge of local forested park, which was decorated by trees with outstretched branches nearly intermingling with electricity-infused wires.

While he saw it as a practical and responsible option, we realized that the average person may not necessarily see raiding trees from the park in the same way.

As such, we cut down our Christmas tree ninja style.

For those who aren't familiar with the ancient ninja art of tree cutting, it involves one person serving as the eyes of the operation, and the other as the sawer. It also involves skulking behind trees, parking a minivan in wooded areas, and propping up a chopped down tree to make it appear to still be standing tall if there is a little too much action on the road below.

However, nothing beats the year prior. Again, Dad and I had been delegated the tree chopping task, and decided to investigate a different route. We found a particularly lush area beneath the power lines, pulled over on a side road, and selected a suitable tree. As we had just finished chopping it down, and were in the process of strapping it to the van's roof with an array of bungee cords, a car appeared coming in our direction down the side road, and an angry looking man jumped out.

Turns out what we'd assumed was Crown Land was in fact his land.

Turns out Dad had never actually gotten a permit from the city this year, as we'd never been asked to provide one in the many years prior, and he had to apply both powerful bluffing and mediating skills to calm the man down.

However, after we extracted ourselves from the situation unscathed, we decided to make the most of the awkwardness. As such, we greeted my occasionally gullible mother not only with a freshly cut tree, but with tales of an angry farmer who took a swing at the van with his shovel, and of an ensuing car chase. Her reaction was nearly worth the conflict in the first place.

So Christmas trees mean a lot to me. They symbolize family rituals and hijinks, as well as childhood memories. And, in times where the real world threatens even my bubble in the mountains, it reminds me that it is okay for me to stay in my pajamas a little longer.

Merry Christmas photo style (or the one in which I shameless exploit people's love of costumed animals)

I have many a tale of the past few days to tell (including further details relevant to the last post's revelation, Christmas tree excursions, and good ol' credit card fraud), but it is but a few minutes before Christmas officially hits, and my silly anecdotes don't quite seem right as I sit by the fireplace.

Instead, I'm going to leave you with some images of the past few days...










I'm the sunshine and my sister is the heart.


These reindeer may well eat your souls if given the chance...


This is my sister's pup, showing you all some Christmas love in the best way she knows, by curling up to my nice warm laptop.



She is also wishing you all a very Merry Christmas (doesn't she look pleased with her hat?)

I wish you all the brightest Christmas morning and warmest Christmas evenings with your loved ones tomorrow!