the joys of a head cold

One of the only fun things about having a head cold is losing my sense of taste. Suddenly, that no-sugar diet is doable and last night I was amusing myself by downing handfuls of wasabi peas....... what strange and spicy things will I eat today?

Getting up

I'm lying in bed, cozy and warm and the sheets are soft against my skin and I want to burrow in and linger and daydream. Dream about accomplishing my goals, dream about creating wondrous things, dream about loving and being loved and seeing the world and discovering.
But nothing's gonna happen if I don't get up and stop playing with my phone....

stasis

I woke up with Bruce Springstein's "I'm on Fire" playing in my head. Of course in my head it's an acoustic version - just Bruce and a guitar. I don't mind the train-track rhythm of the produced song, but I've always thought that a total lack of adornment would make it perfect - the feel of a man sitting with a guitar pouring something out from his gut. That's how the song plays for me, with his rich, honest voice making you feel every syllable of desire.
So maybe this song will set the tone for the day, maybe I will have my head in the clouds thinking about what and who sets me on fire. Lately there has been so much time to think, time to create, time to waste, time to search; I feel lost. It's as if someone forgot to give instructions, directions, and I'm wandering around in a weird open space picking up random objects, examining them and putting them down and trying to figure out what I'm doing here. Ideas arrive at my door and I spend the day pondering them and adding to them and then pulling them apart and putting them away.

I am no longer able to identify with who I was two months ago, and I have no idea who I am now. Sometimes I feel so free and joyous and excited about the prospect of endless possibilties and sometimes I am so scared that I am paralyzed.

The practical part of me says take anything, but my heart is telling me to do what makes me truly happy. My heart is compelling, but it doesn't have a firm grasp on reality, and when it is distracted with other things my practical side spends its time hinting that I'm a useless moron, tapping its fingers on the table and telling me to get on with it. I know that I cannot ignore it for much longer.
Something is going to have to happen soon. What will it be?

Stayin' Alive

I have a longing tonight for something sweet, simple, and genuine, with a side of smiling eye crinkles and the knowledge that you would do anything to make me smile because you just love my smile that much. Serves me right for listening to The Bee Gees, they make me naively happy. I'm missing you and smiling wherever you are.....and that's no jive talkin'....

Smile and back away slowly....

Having a tough hormonally imbalanced week which is leaving me incapable of coping with even the smallest of dips in the sidewalk at various points during the day. One minute, I'm perfectly normal and the next my brain short circuits and I am overcome with the urge to break into tears for no apparent reason. I'm trying to avoid all meaningful situations until this blows over, but I think that I should be wearing a sign warning people not to poke the bear, or offer her coffee, or try to make her feel better, and definitely don't lick her, oh no no no no no! In fact, unless you are willing to put up with the wrath of said bear, or hold her while she sobs because the oranges escaped all over the floor the minute she opened the fridge (why do they have to be so round????), it might be better to just send love towards her from a safety bunker.
For all of the pretty dresses, cute shoes, and the occasional man who knows enough to hold a door or offer you their coat, the occasional loss of anything resembling sanity really makes you rethink the whole, "being a girl is great" thing.....

being me is exhausting

Just spent nearly half an hour with my arm trapped in a radiator.

If I had a time machine, I'd have a lot to do back then

I am too embarrassed to explain the major fuck-uppery mess I made the night before last. Think about something you did that still makes you cringe and shudder when even the tiniest inkling of the memory appears in the smallest, darkest corner of your mind - and then fill an oil tanker with that episode until it sinks. That would be my night.
The results of my epic debacle have left me questioning my perceptions, my motives, and my feelings. Someone who I thought was self-centred and really didn't give a goddamn was giving me coffee and making me laugh about the foolishness of the night before (which importantly included saying some pretty mean things that have apparently been forgiven and forgotten). Someone who I thought cared and would never hurt me walked away without even looking at me or saying a word.
Just when I think that I have it all figured out, I realise that I don't know anything, about life, about myself, or about the people I care about, or for that matter even who the people I care about really are.

juvenile laugh of the day

Museum display people have a good sense of humour.... these were up on the top shelf by the way.

I'm sick. One of my office mates was sick last week and came into work anyway coughing his germs all over the room and Wednesday night I started to feel a tickle in my throat. I thought it might have been because I turned the a/c on in the car for the first time this year, but by Thursday morning I couldn't swallow without the help of tylenol. I soldiered through the day, but Friday I decided not to work, but had to take Naomi to an afternoon appointment and then errands and that evening wasn't restful. Saturday morning Ben was awake before 6 and came in to cuddle with me, which ended in him being restless and me not getting back to sleep. I took them to the townships for the day to celebrate my birthday and father's day with the folks. We got stuck in two hours of traffic just getting off the island. Fever, shakey, stuck in immovable traffic, it was cruel. I've decided I'm not leaving the island again unless absolutely necessary.
But once we finally got there it was nice and my fever went away and the kids had a great time running around.
But back to the sick. I cannot remember the last time I was this sick. Throat, fever, chills, cement headed, coughing, aching - it's like a god-damned nyquil commercial.
Sunday after the kids left, I collapsed on the sofa and watched netflix, but everything was making me cry. Obviously being sick makes people emotional, and I can understand when I cried when I watched the documentary, "God Grew Tired of Us" about the lost boys of Sudan, sure, that's going to break your heart, but I cried during "The Nanny Diaries", what kinda twisted flu is this? After that happened, I turned the tv off...safer than seeing if I was going to cry through Spice World.

Monday I called in sick, but I felt bad about not working, so I tried to log in to work, but the Internet connection didn't cooperate and the room was spinning, so I read with my book all sideways until I fell asleep, then woke up, read some more, then fell asleep again. Then it was dark. I hadn't spoken to a soul.

Today I was able to stand up without falling over, coughing still sounds disgusting, but hack is mostly gone. Still can't smell or taste anything, which means I've been eating anything because it doesn't matter. Managed to get downstairs to do some laundry so the baskets aren't overflowing. Sleep is winning out over guilt by mere exhaustion. And yet, the guilt is making me think I should be up, working, cleaning, baking, instead to curled up in bed like a pathetic, sniffling sicko. Why is it so hard to give yourself permission to be sick? I sat down to write hoping it would cheer me up a bit - hahahaha, oh yes, much better now.

This better be over tomorrow....

p.s.: Just remembered that I did talk to a couple of people yesterday - Ben was picked on again at school, grrrrr....... the claws are out.

when all else fails, make a list

A few tiny thoughts before I fall asleep:

• I have got to stop sitting down to write and then feeling like I have nothing to say, and then when I get up to do something useful suddenly get ideas, but then be too busy doing the useful thing to go and write, and then when I sit down and write forget what the hell I wanted to write and and feel like I have nothing to say.
  That just must stop.
  
• My daughter has not started school yet, but she already has a crush on the floppy-haired young music teacher. Her father is already counting the white hairs. He is cute though...
  
• I have no idea why I can never remember how long it takes to cook a hard-boiled egg. Seriously, why must I look it up on the internet every single time?
  
• There are a few things happening now that I don't think I'm ready for. I shall try to bluff my way through until I am.
  
• Universe, I think I am close on this one, so give me a break and I'll try to be less neurotic so I don't wreck it.
  
• I got a great haircut.
  

The mouse, part one

So there was this mouse.
This past winter I was cleaning stuff off the pantry floor, picked up a discarded cloth grocery bag, and discovered a few cups of catfood inside. I was confused for a moment until I noticed little mouse droppings in a corner. Great. And yes, I'm the worst housekeeper ever. Mr Mouse had been stashing that away for a while I guessed. So I threw out the bag and cleaned up the pantry and washed the floor and the next day found myself staring at the display for vermin traps at the hardware store. The classic wooden Victory ones were there, but so were a variety of humane traps. Live and let live is my motto, and I didn't want the mouse dead, just out of my house, so I bought a couple of non-killing traps and went home. It took a week to talk myself into baiting them and putting them out. I'd like to make one thing clear at this point-I'm not afraid of mice. I do not jump on chairs or scream, they do not bother me in the slightest when they are alive and free and running around places that are not my house. I always wanted gerbils or hamsters (my parents wouldn't let me have them) and I even raised lab rats. My problem is dealing with dead mice or captured, panicked mice. I had visions of the mouse crawling into the trap and getting caught and then squeaking and freaking me out in the middle of the night. What if the kids were here? And what would I do with it? I'd have to drive it somewhere (I was thinking the nicer area of town with the big houses) otherwise it would just get back into my house. I'd have to transfer it to something with air holes, maybe a cage? I didn't have one. Would it chew through a cardboard box? Maybe the kids would like to see it, would they get attached? Blabbyblahblah my brain inventing all these scenarios that had me suddenly incapable of handling a very small rodent. Dumb brain. I overcame, set out the traps, and waited, and waited. And moved the traps, and changed the bait, and waited some more, and tried a few more traps of different types, and waited. Nothing. Yet all the while I was finding new stashes of catfood hidden here and there and droppings. I cleaned and cleaned and moved things out of areas I knew that mouse was hanging around to discourage it when there was nothing to hide behind and tried to close its access points into the house. You may ask where my cat was for all of this, well, she was mostly sleeping on my bed and the living room sofa. She's at least 300 in human years of something, so while she was a fantastic mouser in her prime, those days are over. I think that she has adopted the "I don't see you, you don't see me" policy.
This went on all winter. I finally mentioned it to my landlady and she was shocked and claimed to not have any mice, despite living downstairs. I'm fairly certain that my mouse did not parachute into my house, but nevermind. She came up that afternoon and dropped off a couple of the classic Victory traps. Sigh, she was right. Mr Mouse had to go. I nearly took my finger off setting the traps and placed them in two places where I know he was hanging out, and went about my evening. At 11:30pm I heard one snap. I froze, paralyzed by the inevitable. I texted a friend in a panic and he said to leave it until morning and try to forget it. In the morning I slowly opened the cupboard door and looked inside to see an empty trap, the cheese gone. Damn. I was a bit relieved, but then pissed off - now I'd have to do this again! I set it again, this time with a smaller piece of cheese, and closed the cupboard. In the morning I opened that cupboard to grab a bottle of cleaner because the cat barfed on the floor, and saw trap the had been successful. I actually only saw the tail in the quick glance before I closed the cupboard. Yay and crap. What was I going to do now? I texted my friend again, now Monday morning. The kids were eating breakfast in the dining room, and I figured it would be best not to mention it. Naomi would have stared and poked and Ben might have gotten upset and insisted on a burial. My friend came over and disposed of the corpse seeing as how I couldn't even look at it. It was quick and with minimal clever remarks. I felt like a wimp.
I'm just not cut out for premeditated murder I suppose. Perhaps it gets easier after your first kill?

she's not from here - day 1

Woke up this morning to see a pink sunrise and water rippling and everything was so quiet and lovely. Threw some clothes on, made some coffee and went out to the dock outside the back door to enjoy it.
Sipping hot coffee, world so peaceful, beautiful Fall colours, birds, chill in the air, sound of the water lapping against the dock. Bliss. Noticed one of the metal chairs had fallen into the water. Bent to retrieve it.
Fell in, obviously.....
If I ever warm up again, have a run mapped for today - about 23k as far as I can tell. I will be stopping halfway for a walk around the town.

Lista

My life is full of lists right now: lists for work, lists of documents, lists of tasks, lists of chores, lists of things I need to do before I leave, lists of things to bring, things to drop off, and a special list that got started in my brain one night and is now nearly complete. I'm not sure what to do with this last one, although every rational thought in my body is telling me to write it out and then shred and burn it.
So we'll stick to the other lists for now shall we?

To the woman in the black Hyundai this morning

Do you really think that driving while putting on your makeup is ever a good idea? Not only did you terrorize your fellow drivers with the weaving and sudden braking, but I'm guessing from the wild arms movements that you showed up at work looking like a clown, which I'm also guessing is not your profession because I didn't see a red nose when you cut through two lanes of traffic and back again for no apparent reason.
You will now be known as The Menace with the Mascara Brush.

To the man with all his arms and legs who got on the elevator with me and pressed "2"

Take the feckin' stairs you lazy ass!!!!

Twas the day before the day before Christmas

Project Christmas My Way is so far pretty smooth. I just finished some baking this morning so that I could put together the daycare Christmas goodie packages for all the ladies. They look forward to my baking all year, bless their hearts. All the bags are done - phew!
Ben is with me today, so we played for a bit this morning and then ran out to do groceries, mail Christmas cards, and buy some coffee. Anthony at the coffeeshop made Ben a special vanilla drink when he offered Ben hot chocolate and Ben told him he only liked vanilla. Is there anything dreamier than a man who can make the perfect coffee AND concocts the perfect drink for your son? I have a little crush now ;-)
The only thing not ready is the house, it is a disorganized mess. The kitchen especially looks like I emptied all the cupboards on the counters and then sprinkled the lot with flour. Tomorrow the morning will be spent trying to tidy up so that my new sofa can be delivered without incident and my folks aren't tripping over transformers, shoes, and Disney princesses.
Last night I wrapped presents and started watching True Blood, a vampire series that Steve loaned me. I really like it so far, it's quirky, it's funny, it's oddly acted.
Ok, so the car. It's bad, several thousand dollars bad. I was coming up to an intersection, the light turned yellow, the guy in front of me didn't slow, so I thought he was going for it, then he changed his mind. I slammed on my brakes when he stopped fairly suddenly, but slid into him at a pretty fast clip. The front of the car crumpled, emergency vehicles arrived, luckily I was alone and the guy was alone and neither of us was hurt in any way that required the ambulance. My car was not drivable, so was towed to my bodyshop and I have a loaner until they can repair it. I'm still a bit sore and feeling dumb. Honestly, what was my hurry? The universe is telling me to slow down, I have to try to learn this lesson. I have all the time in the world.

I'm losing my mind! I can't get the bleepety bleeping Optimus Prime back into a bleeping truck! Bleep! Obviously missing Transformer gene!!!
How can toys be so complicated? I'm looking at the instructions and I still can't get it to work! Arggghhhhhh!

Enough

There comes a time when you cannot apologize anymore and you just have to keep going and know that you did the right thing and that eventually all will be right in the universe again. It's gonna be not-so-fun, it's gonna be fun, it's gonna suck again sometimes, and then we're all going to laugh about it and that's just the way it always is.
Dumbass move of the day: Wore the wrong shoes, the wrong sweater, looked a bit like a hobo from up close, but think I managed to hide it with the trench coat. God I love that coat!

Dear Universe,

Alright universe, it's just you and me now, and I'm pretty riled up about the whole stunt you pulled on me recently, so you better start being a little nicer. I'm willing to negotiate, but here is my list of top demands:

I want a balance back between my work and my life, they are not the same thing. If you could do something about the management as well I'd be grateful. I in return will find a way to take some time off and get better about being realistic of my limits.

I want to be more graceful and forgiving of myself and the world. If you could remind me of this before I run off half-cocked I wouldn't complain.

You know how impulsive I am. Let me be more patient, stop grabbing frantically at everything, let things go and see what returns. In light of my impatience, maybe just distract me long enough to stop chasing things and just keep moving forward on my own path.

Throw a man on my path. A man who wants to be with me and who pursues me with determination. A man who is passionate and romantic and makes me laugh and thinks I'm beautiful and isn't a smart ass. A man I can talk to for hours, be silent with for hours, and doesn't have to be with me all the time to know I love him. A man who feels me in his guts. I need a man like that.

Continue giving me friends who make me laugh at all the dumb things I do and the many ways in which I completely fail to be cool about my life. Give them long enough memories to warn me off the bad stuff, but short enough memories to not say "I told you so". And let me be that kind of friend right back.

Give me adventure. Give me brilliance. Give me the ability to stand still, breathe, and remember that my life is pretty damn awesome for the most part.

I wouldn't say no to writing a best seller or winning the lottery, but let's start with the above first, ok?
Sincerely,
Dina