I didn't get the job. Spent most of last night in a bitter stew of disappointment and self-recrimination for getting my hopes up. Up way too early, so I got dressed and knit instead of trying to sleep. The worst part was going to be this morning, when I had to tell people the news, and share how I felt about it. I did not want to share.

It was better than that, though. There had been not one job offered this week, but two. When I got in, another teacher who had tried for the other job-and failed-looked at me seriously for a moment, and then knuckled up.

"My eyes are puffy," she complained.

"Me too."

"Why didn't you call in sick today?" asked another teacher.

"Oh, that would've looked great," she said as I simultaneously said, "We thought about it."

"Separately," I added.

But with that out of the way, my day got better. Now I'm hiding from my brother's disappointment as a crummy stomach is keeping me from the gym. Seriously, though. Am I supposed to be made of stone? Tonight's for drinking and vaudeville-style performance art, not health.

Labels: angst, bat masterson

Today was my first day of classes for the year. Well, there are several generalizations in that statement. 1. We had two full days of meetings last week, so "first day" is a little unclear. 2. I spent the entire day, less an hour, working a Grade 9 BBQ with Teija, so I smell like propane, meat & sweat instead of anxiety and shampoo and there was precious little "class." (Is there ever?)

There was still an hour in there where I had to shine, even though I was trying to shine through weariness and grease. On the long-ago advice of Lucretia Nightshade, I have begun every class of my career in identical fashion: with an alphabetic seating plan denoted by nametag index cards on desks. The idea is that I would set up the room for them before the bell and stand at the door to greet them. Every student gets a handshake, a smile and direct eye contact as we introduce ourselves. Then they get a slip of paper, directing them to write certain facts on their name card.

Every year I start this way. In the beginning it was hard to smile because I was so nervous. In my first years I would kick out early birds so that we could do the whole thing in one go. Now that I'm into my 8th year, I'm getting so incredibly confident that I don't even do it at the door anymore; I can wander around the class getting people set up while kids trickle in. For a class like my current crop of 11 Faiths, this is crucial as they do not arrive at once.

I have come such an unbelievably long way.

I'm still trying to take care of myself in a manner befitting a girl who spent a summer getting trained in her backyard. Yesterday my whole family went to the beach for my end-of-summer ritual of not-thinking on Labour Day, and by the time I got Blake to bed I was completely fried. I did not want to do anything but sit on the couch and feel sorry for myself. Somehow I managed to keep a training date with Nic. So while I sweat buckets and the mosquitoes bit again and again, I practiced my jabs until all I could think of was my form. It was better than a sleeping pill.

Today was also Blake's first day of Grade 1, and his first day of all-day school in a long while. My parents are more keyed up about it than Blake; they're obsessing about his lunches and if he can handle staying in with his friends. Personally I would rather go through the stress of packing lunches and give him a chance to see his friends in other classes, than break up his day. I suspect that the trial period of lunches in my kitchen are more for my parents' sake than Blake's, but I suppose that everyone needs to get used to the new year, all the way down the line.

On a considerably more frivolous note, I made Blake ice cream for breakfast. As in, the yarn kind of ice cream, with silly smiles. Pictures soon, plus stories of my Sunday with Owen Pallett and the scary guy who harshed my mellow!

Labels: bat masterson, blake, health, teaching

I'm finding it incredibly hard to focus this week. Good thing all of my real work is done, and I only have to worry about cleaning up and throwing away. I blame the light - when the sun doesn't set until after 9, it's hard to go to bed. Blake hasn't been sleeping well either, and we're all cranky in the morning. I can't wait until I can adjust everyone's wakeup time to "whenever the hell".

Blake graduated from kindergarten yesterday. As a professional cynic and misanthrope, I should be suspicious of such celebrations of non-events...but I have to say, it was awesome. The whole class participated, including the kids who would be staying in the class for another year (kids currently in what we used to call Junior Kindergarten). Blake has been practicing his songs all week, in between singing random Apostle of Hustle hooks. I've decided that it doesn't get any better than little kid performance art, especially when your child is cast as the Doctor in "Five Little Monkeys." I had no idea he was in pre-med!

Pictures to come, as soon as my camera/computer stop ignoring each other. I love my cam, but honestly...the little point and shoot was way less aggro than this little prima donna. I've got a slide show to produce! I've got downloads of "Pomp & Circumstance" to employ! Gimme my damn pictures, technology.

- medium large

The other cool thing about yesterday was that I started a new session of ATS with Valizan. It's still a fuck of a long way away for a dance class, but at least I get to drive in the daylight instead of hurling through the cold & snow & utter darkness of downtown Oakville. Also, Keeral and Jessamyn are taking the course, so I'm already having fun. I knew about Jess, but Keeral was a fun surprise. Soon my troupe will, once again, comprise more than half the class. We are herd.

This is the first proper dance class or, really, exercise session I've done since the Troubles this spring (yoga doesn't count). Hopefully this will do something to combat both my incredible lethargy and my passionate love for high quality cheeses and beer. At the very least, I can feel my shimmy coming back. I'd missed it.

Labels: bat masterson, blake

Another sick day. This has been quite the year for staying at home, wrapping myself in sweaters and seeing how long I can go without combing my hair. I've been feeling crummy since Sunday, but I'd decided to attribute it to allergies. I wasn't sure how that worked exactly, since I wasn't exposed to anything that I know is a trigger, but I'm starting to suspect that I've developed some undiagnosed greenery sensitivities that kick in around spring, so it was easy to ignore. I mean, I was on a heavy schedule of cake-eating and party-hat wearing; I fully expected to feel turned inside out by the end of it. (Taking 3 tabs of 24-hour Claritin probably didn't help, either.)

On Monday, when I couldn't think straight, I was willing to admit that I had a cold. Yesterday, when I couldn't think straight and I had a weak little cough and walking any distance exhausted me and made my head pound, I was willing to admit that I couldn't work through it.

Plus, I promised Teija, the other staff sponsor, that I wouldn't abandon her tomorrow. We have a barbecue, the first school dance in four years and the first ever student election tomorrow. Clearly, I need to be there.

So here I am, snuggled in my new shrug, with lips that could finish woodwork.

Labels: bat masterson, health

In solidarity with the Harlot, I appear to have lost a week. Possible culprits include coming to the end of my last antidepressant prescription, a constant stomach ache that has sapped my energy and robbed me of sleep and simply returning to work after a week of Do As I Please (Sort Of). I remember ditching a dancing outing to go to knit night on Wednesday, and how good that sweet potato burrito went down (although I didn't knit a thing and went home after a mere hour and a half). I remember Parents' Night on Thursday, and how I started a tonne of marking right before (embarrassingly, breaking the seal on my marking procrastination that has been in effect since the start of the semester). That was the night that my stomach pain was at its worst, and I barely slept at all, spending Friday in a state of glassy-eyed exhaustion. I remember waves of deep despair washing over me, sapping my desire to do even the most rudimentary cleaning up after Blake and myself. I remember grimly fighting against those waves, trying to tell myself that they were just the rebound effect of 15 months on a powerful drug that kept me together when I needed it the most. I remember the stomach pain that underlay every moment of hunger, satiety and sleep, a twinge of nausea that kept me away from greasy comfort foods and tight jeans. I remember reading story after story to Blake, and how relieved I was every time his bedtime rolled around as it is the one thing he never fights. I remember Mason's own insomnia, and how hard it was to keep trying to convince him that it was worthwhile getting out of bed in the morning.

I'm pretty sure I wore clothes most, if not all of the time. I know that Blake ate meals on a regular schedule. Other than that, no details are certain.

Today I slept until near noon, then took Blake (who played on his own all morning) for a diner breakfast. This afternoon we have been outdoors, and I have spent a good deal of time on the couch. I can't believe that after 16 hours of sleep, I still feel dizzy when I walk.

Labels: bat masterson, blake, health

I started my marking backlog today. Ugh. I can believe that I used to have the patience to do this stuff for more than 10 hours straight. It took me hours just to mark on set of tests. Of course, I used to be able to spend all day with a novel, and those days aren't coming back any time soon. My laser-like focus is refracted these days.

Blake continues to be the terror of tiny town. He feels the need to fight every transition, no matter how much warning I give. And the need to run off immediately is getting pretty old too. The kid weighs over 40 pounds. I can't haul him over my shoulder like a sack of grain.

It's not a happy thing when our best moments consist of the immediate aftermath of fighting. I don't want to start getting rid of his stuff, but nothing makes him listen faster than the prospect of bidding his toys goodbye forever. Of course, this just fuels his desire to be in the Lego-rich Casa Nova. And where did he get these sets? His daddy made a chart, and gave him set after set when he returned weeks of positive reports (despite his teacher writing that the only thing he cared about was the report, and he has been known to haul off and sock a kid as soon as a positive report is entered in his log. Charming).

Yes, I've tried talking to the Boy about the stunning lack of success we're having with reward-centred behaviour modification. He doesn't seem to listen, or just thinks that ignoring my parenting concerns is another benefit of moving out. I feel like I'm struggling against a rip tide of Blake's misbehaviour, like I can't go a single day without a huge knock-down tantrum over something as simple as getting out of bed in the morning or going into the bath. This is wearing me out, and it's hard not to let grey despair overwhelm me when my co-parent is orbiting the moons of Saturn and my patience is held together with rags and staples. Mason is helping as much as he can, but I still feel like it's my responsibility to deal with this little beast myself. I just hope he grows out of this before I leave him to the squirrels in the back yard.

Labels: bat masterson, blake

My vaague stomach cramps have gone away. Having a wussy illness sucks: you're not well enough to do anything but not sick enough to get any sympathy. I spent a day sleeping and keeping Blake away from my belly (he knows it bugs me, the devil) and a day gingerly trying food. At least we can exorcise the spectre of pregnancy, which would be awkwardly timed at best.

My health has cleared up just in time for my first knitting-free staff meeting. Having just finished Clarissa Dickson Wright's autobiography with all the AA content, I'm starting to wonder if She Who Must Be Obeyed woulf like me to admit that my knitting is out of control and I need to give myself to a higher power. One that isn't Elizabeth Zimmerman, one assumes.

Labels: bat masterson, books, drunken knitters

Since we're off-site today, I've decided to knit. And, of course, as soon as I decide to buck the system, I run out of knitting. That's the problem with a scarf that's been on the go forever: you stop believing that you'll finish it. Starting to wonder if I have time to go home and get more.

Labels: bat masterson, knit

Took the night off and devoted it to pizza, beer and the second half of My Own Private Idaho. In bed by 8. Still exhausted; sapped by the February blahs.

Today is my first PD day without knitting. It makes it harder that one of the facilitators saw me knitting at Hogsboro and today immediately asked me what I was working on [but much more awkward two weeks from then when the facilitator was the Boy's mother and asked me the same question – far-seeing ed.] Waaah.

I feel a bit like a recovering addict, in that I suddenly need to reframe my entire professional life. Trying to remember how this used to work, this whole not-filling-my-hands-with-yarn. How I used to work. My uncle had to give up coffee to give up smoking for real. Maybe I just need to give up teaching.

I've wondered why I'm bothering to comply. Surely the punk rock part of my personality will kick in at any minute, and I'll be using my dpns to flip the bird.

Part of it may be just a mild Stockholm Syndrome, a desire for my new overlords to praise me (or at least not punish me anymore). But I think it's more likely that my masochistic streak has been uncovered by their drilling. I tend to think of myself as soft, decadent, luxury-loving and generally corrupted by bourgeois comforts. This self-contempt makes me take risks: hike Cape Split, take a bellydance class, join strangers in a downtown bar for a knitting circle, carrying my baby and my groceries home slung about my person, and so forth. Part of me is curious to plumb the depths of my fixation on knitting. I want to find the limits of my desire, if they can be found. Much like a voluntary fast, I'm hoping that the suffering will be instructive.

But I'll still keep a close eye on the job postings. I may know myself to be a bottom, but I also know that eventually I'll need a safe word and my new overlords are unlikely to heed it.

Also, She Who Must Be Obeyed may think that continual writing is less rude than knitting, but I have to assume that when I'm writing during a conversation that clearly doesn't call for note-taking, that I'm giving the impression writing down what people are saying. Yeah. That's not weird or impolite at all.

Labels: angst, bat masterson, knit

Day one of life After Knitting. I'm getting nervous and restless. I'm frustrated more easily. I'm hungry (which could be due to a delayed schedule that's kicked back my lunch forty-five minutes). I'm chewing my nails and fingers. But I'm trying. I need to give this a decent try. Maybe I've never gotten over being an apologist for the regime, and even though la reine est mort, vive la reigne.

Last night Blake asked me, "are you allowed to knit at home?" When I told him I was, he asked if "she could find out." God, I hope not. Because I'm going to need to catch up sometime.

Labels: angst, bat masterson

In the ranking of the schools where I have worked (all two of them) Bat Masterson has officially left the Shangri-la category. Today I was called down to the office after class. As I walked down the steps, I readied my opening line. Look, I don't know what that student told you, but it was consensual.

Heh. No, I kid. Opening with an inappropriate joke about pederasty in a school office is about as inflammatory as joshing about bombs to airport security. It may be funny in my head, but I'm still going to get tackled. So there was no opener, just a look of polite interest.

The problem: me, knitting. The (new world) order: no more knitting in meetings or (gulp) the classroom. Even Goneril, my previous principal, never thought to prohibit knitting in the classroom. And, unless I want another after-school meeting (and I don't), I suppose I should assume that I'm not to knit on my supervisions anymore.

Caf duty with no knitting. Can my irritability be contained? I think someone's gonna get suspended.

The bright side is that I've been told to substitute with writing. This may increase my journaling frequency, but at the cost of all y'all having to read a lot of ill-tempered rants and sniveling pleas for just one more row. That, or I'm going to be hiding in the bathroom with a secret stash more often than I'm seen in public.

Fabulous class last night. Valizan worked us until my arms screamed for mercy, and I had a maniacal grin on my face the whole time. This is the first exercise class in my entire life in which the ending came as a surprise. I'm a classic clock-watcher, and the order to turn in our tassel belts came through as noise at first. What? Aren't we going to dance some more?

I love this. I LOVE this. I LOVE this.

Too bad I can't knit and dance.

Labels: bat masterson, dancing, knit

Today was a pretty rotten day. We started the new semester on Friday, and I can't seem to shake the anxious, horribly unprepared feeling I've had for weeks. Even though report cards are done, even though my semester started with relatively few problems, I can't seem to get over the cornered, trapped feeling. So I've been trying to spend the weekend resting as much as possible, but it's been hard to do. On Friday we all went to my department head's retirement dinner, which was very emotional for me, and another source of heartbreak is that I won't be teaching with him anymore. (More about this later.)

Early Saturday morning, Mason went off to pick up Sage for the weekend, and I tried with little success to root myself out of bed while Blake made repeated sallies into the bedroom to help me get up. I think I'm coming down with something, which means that I haven't really been well for weeks. By the time I got out of bed, I had an hour to shower and clean the house for the troupe. I also have no internet this week, so I had no idea how many people would be arriving come the noon hour, or if I was on the hook to pick up Juuki. I had to resort to that most antiquated of communication devices, the telephone.

After practice, Blake & I drove to my parents, got in their car, and drove to my grandparents' house for dinner with my uncles and their partners. It was a roast beef dinner, and very good as these things go, but it was a melancholy night all the same. I kept turning around, wondering when my grandmother would emerge from some hidden recess to greet us and fuss over Blake. The roast beef as overseen by my uncle's husband, was lovely and rare, though she would have roasted the crap out of it. There were small, neat stacks of papers and things in the corners of rooms, mess she wouldn't have tolerated. I looked at the photo frame I gave her for Christmas, filled with pictures from my summer vacation, that she'd never had a chance to put up. My grandfather complained about the Stephen King book I'd lent him two weeks ago, giving it back with all possible speed. Blake ate too many treats and had to be put in time out twice. I ran out of knitting 20 minutes after dinner. It was not one of our best visits.

Today Blake misbehaved in church, the little toddler I was watching in the Nursery became inconsolable 15 minutes before the end of church, and then my mother called me into another room to tell me some horrible secrets from her childhood that shed some albeit irrational light on why she is so suspicious of Mason. By the time I got downstairs, Blake was bragging about eating four sugary treats although I'd told him that we'd have to go straight home to help take care of Sage. When we finally got home, Sage was in a wretched mood, refusing to sleep and bursting into inconsolable and messy tears at frequent intervals. I started to cry. Then I went to my room, took off my church clothes, and huddled under the covers until I'd cried myself out.

I feel so far from recovered that it's a joke. I feel pounded down, mistreated, smooshed up and reconstituted at half my original dilution. I can't wait to see my new students tomorrow.

Thoughts on the retirement of my department head:

When I left Hogsboro and started at Bat Masterson, everything took a sharp turn for the better. It took me months to realize that my new department head wasn't simply part of the package, but a powerful reason why my days were a dance of joy.

I could go into his office in the morning with any crazy story of my weekend, and he would smile appreciatively and make some comment – wry or kind, depending on the circumstance – and I would always go away feeling better. Information on new book talk on the CBC was greeted as warmly as a rambling anecdote of a weeknight concert where the balloons dropped from the ceiling after midnight. He loved good food, good theatre, good alcohol, good books, and good cities. He went to sophisticated art galleries with his artist wife and he could be counted on to dance wildly to "Lust for Life" if you were lucky enough to get the DJ to play it.

One of the people who spoke at the retirement gathering said that my department head lived the golden rule, treating others as he wanted to be treated. I disagree. He never worked by this kind of justice, meting out kindness as a social contract. He was wildly generous with his time and attention. His enthusiasm was lavished on us all. He treated others as a happy baby might, delighted by novelty and easily comforted by familiarity. He was loyal to a fault, and we all went to him with our problems, no matter how minor or embarrassing. He always had our backs with students, parents and administration. He was a father figure, a wise professor, an epicure and a crazy hockey punk all at once.

I don't feel that I will ever get over the thought of not having him in his classroom, ready to bail me out, prop me up or let me stretch. It hasn't even been a day, and I'm already crushed.

Labels: angst, bat masterson, blake, friends

Waiting for my Flickr photos to upload. My internets have been spotty this week, so while I've been mostly homebound I've been thrown abruptly on my own resources in order to amuse myself. I barely remember what life was like in my home before hot & cold running webpages. It's...much less filled with trivia, for one thing.

Besides living it up like it was 1995, I've been recovering from a mercifully mild cold, babysitting Sage at irregular intervals, finishing up my report cards and generally trying to get on top of the backlog that formed during my grandmother's mourning. I haven't been able to make any troupe practices lately, although my Monday ATS class with Valizan, despite being in Oakville, has been 58 kinds of awesome. Not the least of why is because I'm carpooling with Jessamyn & Juuki, so there's a lot more time for gossip and tea than is usual at troupe practice.

Anyway. Despite the fact that report cards are one long haul away from completion and despite the fact that I lost a job opportunity and an elder on the same day, and despite the fact that exam season always makes me anxious, miserable, unhealthy, feral and desperate to run away to somewhere far from my perpetually snowed-in driveway, I'm cautiously optimistic for the end of the week. I'm not 100% sure what I'm basing that optimism on, but it's there. Maybe I'm just ready for the spring term, with its attendant rocketslide to June. Maybe I'm just glad that I can wear black out of choice, not social necessity.

I'm not going to do a blow-by-blow of the funeral. I was too out of it for much in the way of recording, anyway. I did a eulogy at the funeral, which seemed to be well-received, but it's like a 8-year-old's piano recital. You never know. Who's going to go up to you and say, "hey, that eulogy really blew. Sorry we asked you." I found myself much more comfortable with my grandmother's corpse than I was with her post-stroke state in the hospital, or maybe I just had three weeks of practice without her answering back and that made it easier. Blake has been handling it well, occasionally asking "when is GG coming back?" My glib answer ("when Jesus does, and that's not for a long time") feels shallow.

I didn't cry. I think most of the shock and guilt and panic all went out of me when I read that letter to her a few weeks ago. I started trembling half-way through the eulogy, but it wasn't a sentimental speech – I had to pause part way for the laughter to subside – and it didn't carry me into spasms of weeping. I still hear her voice in my head, and it makes me smile. It made me smile to see my family together, cracking jokes before the visitation. It made me smile to know exactly where we should have dinner before the visitation, because we'd gone there with her 4 years ago before another funeral. It made me smile to re-use my wedding program inserts, and force "And did these feet" on another unsuspecting group of people. I think it was a good funeral. I think she would have approved.

Labels: bat masterson, blake, dancing, death, family

I have just taken my once-yearly tour of all things Blogger and I am very excited about the idea that I can consolodate my knitting blog into this one. What's that? You've never seen my knitting blog? Well...I don't really care. It's not a good blog as these things go. It's a project journal more than anything else, and my last entry is from March Break. Now that Ravelry has come into my life, all of the detailed scrapbooking I felt compelled to do fits neatly into their searchable database. I may even move my projects over, as I'm doing with this. Or, not. So, you won't notice anything much on this end, unless you're seriously into my archives or you're a knitting person who's come here out of desperation and wants to know where the other blog went.

The other thing I want to do is add a Twitter feed, which is a new thing I started to do because of Ravelry (of course). I can be a sheep, but it usually takes me a year or two to pull my head up and figure out where the rest of the herd has wandered off to. And in this case, the sheep wants to tweet.

Heading into my last full week of the first semester. This year has gone the fastest I can remember. St. Stephen used to say something about how time goes faster the older we get because of its relation to our total age. All I know is that it's never been this easy to get through a season. I think that being busy every night of the week helps. Tonight is the first American Tribal Style class - it's expensive and far, but I'm doing it with Jessamyn & Juuki and we're pumped. I expect to be bewildered, sore and exhausted when I get home tonight. Here's hoping.

Also, knitting like mad. I haven't really slowed down since Christmas deadline, and since I'm gearing up for my yearly finish-athon, I'm not trying to slow down. I don't get to start anything in February until I clear out my old projects, so I might as well rip through as many hats as possible in the meantime.

Labels: bat masterson, dancing, knit, on-line diaries

So, I've been putting off marking ever since I returned to work, as I binged on marking in the days leading up to my return. The problem with my self-voted vacation is that I had even more marking to finish that was sidelined by a combination of procrastination and my grandmother's stroke. My classes want mark updates and I have none to give. Today I decided that I had to apply the Pavlovian screws, and deny myself social knitting tonight if I couldn't mark at least one set of essays. Earnestly, I opened my folder. Frustratedly I realized that I had no marking sheets. The relevant file is at home. I can't mark. Darn.

I'm stuck with rifling through Ravelry for a carrier bag for my new SIGG bottle and a suitable present for Hestia's upcoming birthday. I'm thinking that 4 should be the year of GIR.

Speaking of goth geekiness, I suppose I must at some point face the last night of Savage Garden. For some prosaic reason, Pale is closing the club. (I choose to believe that they're trying to hush up a new virulent social disease that somehow mutated in the toilets, or that Pale has to return to England to apprentice to the last Master Cooper before he dies.) I tried to make it out to the last retro night, as I'm not keen on the industrial vs. really industrial playlist in Revolution vs. Machine on Saturday nights. (Or as Zub put it, the really industrial room sucks but in a more pretentious way - a cybersuck.) Unfortunately, that weekend the heavens dumped a tonne of snow between me and Retro Night, and I was forced to curse my luck loudly and often. Stacy, who made it out that night, tells me that Pale finally achieved his dream of the post-apocalyptic nightclub, as the Garden was the only thing open and thus the only thing packed with people in the still, snowy streets.

I met up with Zub & Stacy at their house and had a lovely late dinner before we began primping. I was in my Classic Gothgirl Clothes i.e. the Dress I bought when I turned 21, the Fishnets my grandmother gave me when I was 20 and going to the Rocky Horror for the first time, and the Fluevog 8-holes Mason gave me last Mother's Day. Stacy, in her rush to get out, forgot the first rule of dressing: boots, then corset. Zub worried that he had a spiked pompadour, but I assured him that he just looked like his DNA had been crossed with a pufferfish. Very cyber. As Stacy made herself beautiful, I knit and Zub distracted me with an audio tour of his cracking joints. This pretty much set the tone for the evening.

We got to the club shortly after 10 and were confronted by the First and Last Line Up to the Garden I Have Ever and Will Ever Stand In. Twenty minutes of sub-zero temperatures, speculating on the luck of those who intended to "drop by" later and watching the cyber bikini bints was enough to dampen our spirits, and we slithered up the stairs subdued (if you can call such a motley assemblage of elders "subdued"). Lotwyr, Monstre & Dav were already there, which was good because we saw very few familiar faces until we'd cleared the door. Once inside, I felt like I was in the middle of an old-fashioned anatomy textbook with layers of clear overlays to show the blood, the musculature, the bones. Instead of tissues, I saw all the modifications of the past 11 years jostling uneasily with the doomed reality. The DJ platform was the raised place where Dav, Anne, Sheila & I had eaten candy for hours. And farther back toward the bathrooms was where we'd sat the night Dirk wore his 3-piece seersucker. The cage was tiny, half the size of the place where a variety of amateurs would try their luck in spooky cage dancing. The paintings on the walls were different from the concentration camp silhouettes that seemed to move when it was late and you'd been dancing in the strobes for hours without a break. The front section, in its majestic cybersuckage, was just wrong. No pool tables with players to annoy the hell out of everyone not playing. The autopsy table that replaced our own personal coatcheck in 2001 was the dj booth. The booths where I'd met so many people were full of strangers and off-limits. The view from the front window burned down last summer. Most of my friends have moved on or couldn't get in. The place was too full to navigate and I didn't know enough of the bodies I rubbed against.

It was something less than tragic, something more than portentous. It made me cranky. Dav, too.

And I was weighted with the unacknowledged guilt of my grandmother's stroke, compelled to share, quick to deny feeling and yet anxious about something I couldn't get a grip on. I cried in frustration. I became disconsolate and tried to find a hug. My claustrophobia kicked in (or as I think of it, agoraphobia because agora means market and this was panic in the midst of a meat market). Loftwyr and Josh found me a wall to lean against, and that helped. Josh also helped by starting a conversation about Mason, and if that weren't enough, helped me to jump the girls' bathroom line by using his bouncer skills to wave me into the men's when it was clear. I hadn't realized that a men's bathroom could be that bad without being attached to a gas station. In any case, I was glad for the help, as I always love to feel like I'm part of some secret elite.

Which is, I suppose, what we were all mourning in our imperfect ways that night: we were saying goodbye to membership in a tiny, hidden circle of those in the know. Those who knew how to get Pale to play a request and not laugh in one's face (and those who can take the second in good humour.) Those who know how much to tip the bartenders, and how to get out of Doug's way without being obvious. Those with the manners to greet Pale & Brenda on every visit, if only with a wave, because that's what you do when you visit someone's place.

And despite the lows I felt that night, I'm still happy that they let us come over so many times, for so many years.

Labels: angst, bat masterson, dancing, friends, outfits, outings

I've been reaping the benefits of friendship this week. On the Saturday between Christmas and New Year (a.k.a. during The Good Week of my Holidays) Zub & Stacy held a Media Purge party. Stacy has always been extraordinarily generous with her stuff, and purges her collections regularly for her overall sanity. This time, they held a party with an open invitation to add stuff to the pile and to compete with peers for hot items. I brought Mason and had a brilliant time - I must admit, I enjoyed the competition more than the items - and I scored a tonne of stuff for my classroom.

When I got my first job at Hogsboro High, I would take anything people gave me: travel photography, dusty compendiums of Irish mythology, "Orlando Futuroso." Having seen how well those books connect to my students, I have thrown a lot of ballast overboard in the change from one school to another. Now when I browse the perpetual church booksale, I look for books that someone may actually want to read. This means that I sometimes walk in with "The Fountainhead" and "Shopaholic Takes Manhatten," but both of those books move.

I've been bringing in the Purged books this week, as many as I can comfortably carry at a time. Every day I announce the new arrivals to excited faces. No, really, there are at least two classes who are excited. Yesterday was "The Scarlet Letter" and "Song of Solomon," and the students getting irate about the way Hester was treated. Today is three Sandman collections, two dictionaries, "Sense and Sensibility," two YA fantasy novels and an uncorrected proof of "Castle Waiting." It was a sweet day.

What has fallen by the wayside? The Lawyer's baby, definitely, my grandmother's stroke and the Last Night at Savage Garden. Baby first.

On Friday we went downtown for a doctor's appointment, meaning that I got to kill time in Lettuce Knit with Blake. (Oh, the hardship!!) There's a new bakery in Kensington Market, and they sell brie sandwiches. This is a big deal for me; I haven't had a good brie sandwich since the Netherlands. So I ate and chatted with Alexis and tried to convince Blake to come in from outside (he was waiting for Mason, who had promised to bring him a smoothie). And I bought expensive yarn and buttons, because with a car in the shop I certainly have extra cash for expensive alpaca. (Needs head examined.) Made a nice hat for Blake, though.

We were almost an hour late to see the new baby, which didn't prove to be a problem. They're in a new family holding pattern, which means a lot of sitting on the couch. Leo (the baby) is smaller than Blake ever was, and I wanted to keep him. I fell hard. There's not much else to say, except that the Lawyer's appreciation for the cardigan I knit Leo more than made up for my dad's churlishness on Christmas. And also, that I'm so happy for all three of them. They're a gorgeous family.

After baby bliss, Mason dropped Blake & I at my grandparents' house so that my dad could drive us to see my Grandmother. In brief: she is/was a heavy smoker who wasn't taking her blood pressure medication. She appears to have had two strokes in short order. She's reasonably responsive and mobile on both sides of her face. She's speaking very rarely. She yawns a lot, and looks a lot like a newborn herself. When I'm there, I help my mom change her diaper which is kind of awful but I'm always glad that I helped when it's done. For the first few days I was subject to guilt-induced panic attacks that included psychosomatic diaper smells (see yesterday's entry), but they seem to have passed. Most of the guilt seems to be over, now that I did the speech. That was one of the hardest things I've ever done. And it didn't get any easier as it went; it got harder. But I'm glad to be facing up to my feelings instead of wallpapering over them.

Labels: bat masterson, books, family, friends, knit, outings

I figured out a way to watch Futurama in class. We're reading "Flowers for Algernon" and I found the episode in which the Professor engineers a superintelligent monkey named Gunther, who finds his increased IQ a social burden. The Bender/Animal House subplot is a bonus.

I finally went with the zombie librarian costume, to the delight of many and to the dismay of Blake, who refused to hug or kiss me when I dropped him off this morning. He kept insisting that should be a vampire, which I find confusing. I refused on the basis of "been there, done that" but I don't get what's less scary about a vampire. Maybe the lad is simply showing an early interest in capes and bats, proving that I was right to take him to the Garden when he was yet unborn.

But the point is, I'm a zombie librarian today, carrying around my new/old copy of "Dame Curtsey's' Book of Novel Entertainments." It's been great fun - I'm getting a tonne of comments, appreciative looks, smiles, and screams of shock. Reprimanding students in the hallway is the most fun it's ever been: they hear a voice, they turn with a sneer, the arrogant look turns to shock, they make some comment. It's wholly awesome. The only thing I don't like about it is the itchiness as the fake blood dries and the even itchier feeling that if they knew how awesome the zombies were on the walk, they wouldn't think twice about my late attempt to be like the cool dead kids.

Mason has decided on ex-con, wearing his "I learned to knit in prison shirt" and sporting a variety of fake tattoos drawn by one of my most intense and furiously artistic students. (Me, seeing this student wandering the hall first period: "Do you want to go downstairs and draw tattoos on Mr. Mintz?" Him: "Do I?!?!" If it were in his vocabulary, he would have been squealing and giggling all the way down.)

As for little Cranberry Juice, he was very unhappy last night when we figured out that the Boy still had Blake's favourite Spiderman costume (Blake has two.) He pitched a fit, clearly feeling that it was my fault that he couldn't be Spiderman in class tomorrow (yes, I did propose wearing the lesser of the two suits, and was tearfully rejected). He has decided to wear his Buzz Lightyear costume, despite the fact that it is too small and sort of dirty from all the times he's worn it around the house. He actually thought it was hilarious when I called him a dirty spaceman, and was happy to clump off in his flood spacepants. (Won't I look foolish when the seasonal rains soak his shoes but his pants stay relatively dry.) He even had a wholesome pumpkin muffin for his snack, which will probably travel to school and back without molestation. That's okay. I love them muffins, and nobody's giving me candy anyway.

Travelling into the past, on Monday I gathered up Dirk and Mason to join Henry Rollins on his Recountdown Tour. I love hearing that man speak. He's one of the few people I know that's getting more interesting (and interested) as they age. I was glad to hear that his friendship with William Shatner is continuing well. Plus, I now know not to hug him if I ever chance across him in an airport, as the temptation to snap necks is apparently quite strong.

I was very pleased to be able to see Dirk that night. Dirk has more or less lost the last two years of his life to depression, and nine times out of ten, we make plans only to break them at the last minute. He had asked me to buy him a ticket for this tour, but that doesn't mean he'll make it, it just means that I might have a third ticket to get rid of. But he came, resplendent in his viking beard and craving his customary half orange juice, half cranberry juice. No, not that Cranberry Juice.

Tonight I'm handing out candy to neighbourhood tots and trying to finish all of my projects in time for tomorrow's wedding. I have a gift to finish and a shawl to crochet (I keep yelling, "be a shawl!" at it, but that isn't helping.) I have warned my students not to go out collecting if they're not willing to dress up; my crusty attitude will probably result in a good egging. We shall see.

Labels: bat masterson, blake, outfits

Still trying to scrounge some space to write. I really should be marking right now, but I have a lot of practice making that particular nagging voice shut up. Last night I stayed home from knit night because Mason was sick and it gave me an excellent reason to hang out in my house for a change. Still didn't get my laundry folded, but what's another day to the scuttly things that burrow into the layers of clean sheets heaped haphazardly in my basement? I could probably hang the sheets outside my house for a cheap Hallowe'en decoration, considering all the leggy little bugs that like to call my basement home and which are probably enjoying my laundry as we speak.

We have a few decorations up, a product of Blake's sporadic desire to "do crafts." He lost interest in the last session when I refused to draw and cut out a skeleton for him, and made him participate by drawing a face on a minimalist skull. There's also a tissue paper ghost hanging from my light that got a lot spookier when it rained and his inky eyes ran down his face. Oooh! Damp.

I'm still trying to figure out what to be tomorrow. I was going to cheese out and be a "witch" or a "vampire" (in other words, I was going to put on my Garden clothes and pretend I put some effort into it), but I'm thinking about being a zombie librarian. I have a houndstooth skirt, glasses and blouses to wear, and I can do the makeup fairly easily as smearing it around plays to my strengths. This time I'm getting some blood, though. I won't have the option of mashing my face up against a bistro window, rubbing some other zombie's bloody handprint into my cheeks. Well, I might have the option, but I sure as hell can't count on it.

I was also thinking about being an ex-con, but Mason might be using those props instead. I'm trying to convince him to be a drone bee, an unshaven male kicked out of the hive as soon as winter comes as he's fulfilled his life's purpose. He thinks that might be a little "high concept." He may be right...but it would definitely be funny. And I have a thing about making everyone dress up as a bee.

Work has been hard lately, as a student began bullying me after I returned some tests. It took me days to fully accept that this wasn't a straightforward case of intimidation or ordinary antisocial behaviour. She isolates me, she refuses to consider logical solutions, she refuses to deal with anyone other than me, she uses anger to intimidate. I hate being in this position, but I'm very glad that I happen to work in a field that makes an active study of bullying and pays at lease lip-service to the idea that it can be dealt with in a way that doesn't re-victimize the target. We'll see.

Labels: bat masterson, blake, house rich, outfits

I knew in advance that this week would be hard. I’ve had tickets for Nick Cave since late summer, and Commencement came unusually early this year, as in the day after. In a 24-hour period I’ve thrashed around to “Dig Lazarus Dig!!!” and walked in procession to “Pomp & Circumstance.” I’m paying the price for two consecutive late nights with a sore throat and a general feeling imminent doom, but I remain proud of myself. It’s like I had to live at least two or three lives this week simultaneously, and the stress of overlap hasn’t killed me. I also feel like it’s been the weekend for three days already, and though you wouldn’t know it from my hours you would know it from my jeans. (And they shall know us by our pants.)

I brought Mason to see the Bad Seeds purely on the hope that he would inevitably enjoy himself. We had an argument going in, a fact only notable because it encouraged us to make up throughout the opening act. The Guvernment is a terrible venue, but I can report with honesty that it’s enormously improved by an extended make-out session.

And from the first moment that Nick stormed out, a balding mustachio’d skeleton in a black suit whanging on a tambourine for all it was worth, to the moment we left mid song because we simply couldn’t stand any longer, it was a glorious night. I knew that as soon as the tambourine went spinning up and then to the stage while he ignored its trajectory and grabbed the mike. I knew that when he made an audience member named Jennifer the keeper of his towel, calling for it between songs. And I knew it when he played two consecutive requests: the Ship Song and the Mercy Seed. I miss the comforting bereted bulk of Blixa Bargeld, but the rest of the Bad Seeds are holding up well.

The next morning wasn’t pretty, but I got through it without crawling under my desk for a nap. By the time Mason & I got to the restaurant for some pre-ceremony dinner, our light-headedness was making everything rather wonderful. The two+ hours positively flew by, thanks to a heady combination of extreme fatigue, drinks with dinner and the proximity of my favourite Art teacher (who made up trivia questions to pass the time, like “which Phys.Ed. award to I find the most amusingly-named?” How could you not enjoy that?) A number of reproving glances were thrown our way by the department heads in our neighbourhood, but I couldn’t stop laughing much of the time. I was even glad to see the returning students, which can be emotionally draining. Best podium party experience ever.

"Love you!!" - Essence, one of my grads

Today also sucked, but today I can at least hope for shepherd's pie and a long long time in bed.

Labels: bat masterson, music

Second day in. Classes are working well. At some point I should remember to check out all the material kindly prepared for my lessons, so I can know WTF I’m doing Monday. Actually, I know exactly what I’ll be doing Monday: flipping burgers at an outdoor ed centre for a bunch of sniffly Grade 9’s. Student Council supervision is suspiciously like the Mafia: I thought I’d done my time at Hogsboro, but they keep sucking me back in.

I don’t actually mind. It’s a very well-run club, and I’m not the go-to staff advisor anyway. I’m very much the beta-puppy in the room, and the alpha dog is someone I like very much. In fact, Oonaugh is my second-favourite staff member this year. She’s cute and little and blonde, she’s got an unusual name, she has a puppy and a squeaky voice and a big diamond ring, she’s calm and funny and organized to all hell. She’s the perfect mix of cuddly and competence, and yes, I am a bit smitten with her. I thought I’d made that obvious.

Blake’s first day of kindergarten seems to have gone well. He’s being close-mouthed about the whole affair, preferring to state only that he had a good day and did everything the teacher said. (“What kind of things did you do?” I prod. He thinks for a second. “Everything the teacher told me,” he replies, taciturn as a captured soldier.) Of course, it took 8 months of JK last year for him to begin volunteering anything at all about his day, even if that consisted primarily of snitching on a wide variety of playground infractions and punishments.

My mom seems vastly more comfortable with this year’s school than last year. I think she’s comforted by the familiarity of the public system; she never really got into the Montessori ways as practiced by Blake’s JK. She seems particularly enamored of the free backpack (provided by Costco) and the more relaxed attitude toward police checks for volunteers. She’s readying for her role of SuperGrandmother, even talking about volunteering for the breakfast program. It’s good to see her so satisfied.

Labels: bat masterson, blake

I am closing in on the end days of my sixth year as the World's Worst Teacher. This has not been one of my better years. I am profoundly disappointed in my time management, and my deep, deep procrastination reflex has never been exercised quite as much as it has this year. Of course, I have an automatic: this is the year the marriage sprung a leak, foundered and sunk. Still, I'm going to need to rise above it sometime, and that's going to have to be next year, I suppose. Next year I will have to learn how to balance the single mum thing, the teacher thing, the crafty thing and the dancer thing with the venerable closet intellectual/weekend goth thing. I think I'm going to have to get one of those books on how to sleep less at night.

And yet, I haven't done too badly this year. I had grave doubts about my ability to deliver term marks before exams were written (because marking term work and exams together is hot, crispy death), but it happened. All I had to give up was lunch yesterday, and while I am not one of those people who can skip meals without noticing, it all came right in the end. I was able to go to my exam supervision with a clear conscience, and once the whanging headache subsided, I had an awesome evening that included two dinners. Sweet.

Last night was a costuming session for my troupe, and I was all ready to skip it on the grounds of not enough good health and too much the Blake (who was not misbehaving, but who is not a kid you can safely park in a corner while you do something else). As Blake and I left the house to run an errand, a tiny bell clanged in the back of my mind. Hadn't I promised...something? To Juuki? About giving her a ride tonight, oh crap. So I went to her house, drove her to the meeting and was prepared to turn around again when Blake asked if we could go in.

"Just to say hi," I said, thinking he'd lose interest quickly. After all, he hadn't eaten dinner and we were on borrowed time. I hadn't counted on the amazing attraction of a new male friend, all to himself, in the person of Jessamyn's husband. The two of them played video games in the basement while the troupe ate freely of the potluck feast (to which I hadn't contributed, of course, not that it stopped me from eating away) and worked on our costumes. Blake was awesome for two hours, and the only reason we went home is because it was my bedtime. By this point, Blake had tried on my skirt and demanded his own so that he could dance with us.

He definitely has moments when his cuteness threatens to overwhelm existence and snuff out life as we know it.

Labels: angst, bat masterson, dancing

Things I Should Be Doing this Weekend:

1. marking the work that was handed in three weeks ago
2. cleaning the frying pan. I made those eggs on Thursday.
3. marking the crummy Catcher in the Rye essays that have been trickling in all week
4. putting away all of the yarn that has migrated to the main floor
5. folding and putting away the laundry that's been lying in the basement hallway since...God, I don't know.
6. going to see Pixie & Kelpie at the bike courier races, so I can give her her birthday present
7. cleaning my toilets. Because the frying pan isn't gross enough
8. marking! Goddamn, exams start on Monday!

Things I Did Instead:

1. ordered a pizza and ate it in the backyard with Blake and without the benefits of plates or napkins
2. took Blake to visit the twins up the street for a playdate/bbq. No bbq, so we played in the back yard until Blake got into it with another kid and I dragged him away.
3. bundled my reprobate into the car seat and went downtown to Lettuce Knit for the Yarn Harlot's birthday a.k.a. Worldwide Knit in Public Day a.k.a. the Toronto branch of the 1000 Knitters Shoot. Even arriving hungry and wondering what I would do with Blake during the party couldn't dent my happy anticipation. Whee! Blake, however, was disappointed when his favourite kid Obi left with his family to go "to Space Island." "Better wear your helmet," I cautioned. Space is rough that way.
4. went to KOS for brunch and a bellini; found Jendricks, Fenner, Tapeheads and Zoe. All the mamas had booze. Blake was happy with his baconface.
5. came back to LK in time to hear Mason's Amazing True Stories of How He Learned About Lapdances to the Detriment of Sage's University Fund. Was totally charmed by his tales of drunken ineptitude, especially as he was unshaven and wearing a new snappy hat, like a character out of Small Change. Blake takes advantage of my distraction to start shovelling sweets into his mouth. Everyone thinks he is the cutest thing ever. They're right, but wait until the sugar crash, friends. It gets real ugly real fast.
6. got my photo taken by Franklin. He is awesome and I just wish I'd had more time to hang out after the shoot when he wasn't working his butt off.
7. left at around 4 o'clock: Blake sticky, Mason hungover, myself sad that I couldn't celebrate WWKiP day with more than a few seconds' knitting. I did start a new project, but I didn't even finish the cast on that day.
8. arrived at Juuki's house for the double-header birthday: her husband and the cat. As the first guests, we had the run of the place, and the adults were able to go up to the balcony while Blake and Paisley splashed around in the inflatable pool. Tranquility interrupted with the news of a missing child.
9. spent the next hour walking around with Blake (who was wearing his underwear and a pair of shoes) and looking for the lost boy. Not as much fun as I'd anticipated. Came home to find that everything was resolved. Ate a slice of meat cake (the frosting is mashed potatoes!) and drove Mason home.
10. fell asleep almost as soon as we got back to our house.
11. went to church. Dragged Blake off the refreshment table after 3 brownies too many and hauled his protesting self home.
12. drove to Mo & Brand's condo for a house-cooling party. Watched Blake run with the herd for 2 1/2 hours before scooping him up and taking him home.
13. watched Blake dump orange juice on the floor in a temper, carried him to the bath and got him to bed without further incident. He was clearly suffering from Too Many Parties.

There is no completed marking, or housework, or crafting to report. I am going into tomorrow the least prepared I have been in years. And yet, the weekend was fantastic. Wouldn't have traded it for anything. Even those sugar-fuelled temper tantrums and the anxious hour of child-searching were a decent price to pay for pizza in the backyard, bellinis with knitmommies and photos with some of my favourite craftistas.

Labels: bat masterson, festivals, friends, knit, outings

I am finally on the downward slope of an on-again-off-again cold that’s been sapping my will to live something awful. This was the first morning I felt something close to alright, and I credit the decision to climb into a hole and fester as soon as Blake was off with his babydaddy last night. People would call and ask if I needed anything, and my only answer was a rather pathetic ‘no.’ Sure, the house was nearly stripped of groceries and my supper last night was Kraft Dinner that my dad had originally made Blake for lunch, and then left on the stove all afternoon. Sure, my recovery plan consisted of an extended tour of every couch and bed in my house. I was still okay with it.

All it took was a night of festering plus a long snooze to the sweet sounds of Metro Morning. I am back, baby! And just in time to deal with the dishes and the mound of clean, unfolded laundry that threatens to overwhelm my basement. Plus all the end-of-term marking. Uh. Maybe I’m still sick after all.

I was actually doing okay this week until I threw everything to the winds and left town. Preacher’s mom died last weekend, and although I didn’t quite have enough lead time to make it to the funeral, I was able to arrange things on short notice so that Blake would be cared for overnight and I could leave my silly students for the day. On Monday I rushed through my duties, planned frantically for Tuesday, and even wrote a short puff piece for the school newsletter (I am the Queen of the Desperate Department Puff Piece!). As soon as I got home that afternoon, I had just enough time to throw my stuff in the car and go. I had my credit card in case I needed to check into a motel. I had my sleeping bag in case I needed to sleep on my uncle’s grave. I was set.

And although I enjoyed seeing Preacher and Martha and even Palaver (who rented a car to make the funeral ahead of me), and although we had a good night of stories and sips and smoking, it was shot through with melancholy. I’m in for the long haul with these people, and the wonderful thing is that even at these moments of bereavement and loss, there’s still the joy in each other. There’s joy in the witty comeback and the half-remembered anecdote and the unspoken glow of just being there for each other.

But it was all a little much for a delicate flower like myself, and the combination of a late night with moderate (I have witnesses) amounts of alcohol and several serious coughing spells left me in bad shape. The next day, when I went with Martha to start the house clean out, I was in the worst shape I’ve been since the day after Poet’s wedding. Martha first asked if I were pregnant, and then if she should take me to the doctor. Then she asked if I was sure I wasn’t pregnant. (I think people are taking the Casual Darts Tour a little more seriously than I am.) I still worked, though. There’s one thing you can count on about me; I will work through crippling hangovers and fierce chest colds. All in all, I’m pretty sure that I still had the best day of the four of us.

I came back to work on Wednesday, sick as a dog but utterly unable to come up with a lesson plan for a second missed day. “Where were you?” bellowed my rude students. So I told them. “Miss, you ruined my day!!” Yeah. Imagine how I felt.

That night I begged off everything so that I could crawl into a hole and sniffle to myself. Mason tried to help me out, but I was adamant that I needed nothing more than a burrow for myself. But since I clearly wasn't thinking well enough to organize a lunch, I asked him to make me a salad. It was a beautiful salad, so much so that people at work invited themselves to the bowl. They kept apologizing, which made me wonder: how much salad does it look like I can eat? Don't answer that.

Labels: bat masterson, friends, health

Yesterday my mom gave me some clippings from her lilac bushes, which have predictably exploded into bloom. When I got to work, you'd've thought that no one had noticed spring before that moment. People would say hi to me and suddenly veer in my direction when the smell hit. I think I was the most popular I've ever been in that school. Mason appropriated them in second period, and I had to field phone call after phone call regarding the whereabouts of the flowers. By fourth period, my students had even seen them travelling the halls.

They were pretty awesome, though. Totally deserving of such an uproar. I drove home that day with my thighs clamped around a cascade of spring blossoms; Persephone in a PT Cruiser.

Going to JimZ's birthday tonight. This will be the first time I've seen the Zübhaus when I wasn't a) too drunk to drive home or b) in nominal charge of a wild child. I'm looking forward to it.

Labels: bat masterson, outings

Last night I got on a bus with 13 other teachers, various snacks and a tonne of booze. Destination: Niagara Falls. Purpose of visit: Ladies Night. It was completely unlike me; I was way out of my comfort zone, not to mention wearing a low-cut grey dress and a push-up bra. And yet I had a brilliant time.

Poppy came over to my house early, and we chatted while I did some last-minute tidying that I hadn't done because I was busy recovering from Drunken Knitting. Poppy is such a great friend that she immediately joined in, and between the two of us we had the place sparkling within a half-hour. So completely awesome. Then it was time to put on my owl dress…which wasn't zipping properly…and led to the last minute substitution of the grey dress. So instead of being quirky and childlike, I was busting out of this slinky grey thing. Shit happens, I suppose.

Trixie came to the door when I was in my underwear, so I rushed down to let her in with a dress held over my front. Good thing we take yoga together, and the sight of my granny panties is a familiar one. We quickly primped and prepped and the three of us stepped out the door with our potluck goodies, taking my wedding boa for good luck.

Our cocktail hour was kind of rapacious, as none of us had eaten supper and we fell on the dips and snacks like wolves on the fold. There's nothing quite like a room full of beautiful, ravenous women set loose on a buffet. It's humbling. We also started the night's drinking in earnest, me with Orangina and rum and the others with more grown up drinks. What can I say; Preacher has ruined me for more sophisticated mixed drinks.

By the time the party bus pulled up, we were more than ready to be let loose. The ride to the falls was marked by laughing, dancing & drinking. We made good use of the pole, let me tell you. This was my first real surprise of the night, that I would have so much fun lurching down the highway, dancing and giggling and getting down in a 3" wide aisle. Reminded me of the C*8 improvised punk dance floor, in the best possible way. When you gots to dance, you gots to dance.

Trixie wouldn't let me take my knitting into the casino, so spent a profoundly bored 45 minutes staring at people who looked like they just came from Arby's for a brief stop at the slots. It ain't no fun to be wearing a tight evening dress when you're in a crowd that could be at the mall. Things picked up when we got into the nightclub, which was packed tighter than a rubber brick. I can't even imagine what it would have been like back when they let us smoke indoors; we were asses to elbows (thanks, b-girl!) and I grew desensitised to strangers brushing up on me at all times. In 2 ½ hours of dancing, I didn't recognize a single song, and was tremendously amused to be the only one in the crowd not singing along. I made this comment to a stranger, and he was incredulous. "How can you not know this song?" Because I live under a rock, buddy. Or, more accurately, because I live under a shifting yarn stash. It muffles the sound of your popular music.

I spent a goodly chunk of the night talking to some tall guy in a sweater who kept telling me how innocent I looked. I liked hanging out with him, but I was absolutely blunt. "I'm a single mom. I'm a cynical goth. I'm on a bus with 13 other women. I'm not getting picked up tonight. I like talking to you, but if you want to go find some other girl, I won't be upset." He stuck around for awhile, his arm around my waist, and we yelled minimal conversation in each other's ear. At one point he said that he wanted to kiss me, so I let him. Why? Because he was sweet, and because it wasn't going anywhere, and because I didn't really want to know his name or for him to know mine, and because it was Ladies Night. There was no making out, just a few random kisses, and then he went away.

I heard about it on the way back. "Who were you making out with?" "Nobody," I said, and kept eating chips. That's just as true as anything else I could say.

oh, what a night!

Considering that I saw Blake for a grand total of 4 hours today, it was a pretty damn fine Mother's Day. When the Boy dropped him off for church, Blake held out a five dollar bill. "Happy Mother's Day!" he beamed.

I looked at the Boy and smirked. "You are a class act."

"It's for the spring concert ticket!" he protested, but the damage was done. Highly amusing.

Pixie and Scout dropped him off for supper, waking me from a long nap of doom in the late afternoon. I didn't know that they were coming over, and I was really glad to see them. The Boy has been stiff and uncomfortable this past week, so I'm just as happy to see two friendly faces, especially since I haven't seen Pixie since last summer and I haven't seen Scout since she came by to move over a load of the Boy's stuff.

I'm glad to know that I still have sisters, even if I may not have a husband.

Labels: bat masterson, blake, dancing, family, outfits, outings, the boy

Spider Update: I killed two more before going to bed last night, and six more this morning (including two that tried kamakazes run on Blake in the bath and ended up floating in the water). I did battle with a further three while Blake was in the bath, but they proved wily adversaries and all three escaped. When Blake got out of the tub and flushed the spiders in the toilet, I saw three there, which is one more than I remember. So I'm going to say that my new total score is 20, with a possible but unconfirmed 21st kill. The war continues.

Apparently today was my day for being asked personal questions. Every time I tried to draw an analogy to a common experience, one kid would ask me if that happened to me. The first example was date rape, and the second was retail therapy. Gah. Like I need to experience something to know about it...although I must say that I have done a full course of retail therapy in my time. Anyone remember last spring's TTC knitalong? My credit card company sure does.

Conversation last night:

Blake: Nic has a conference.
Me: What?
B: Nic has a conference.
Me: Honey, I have no idea what you're talking about.
B: Nic has a conference. Like Daddy has a B---- Conference.*
M: Um. I think you mean girlfriend. Nic has a girlfriend.
B: Conference!
M: If you say so.
B: (jumping up and down on the couch) B---- Conference! B---- Conference!

* According to Blake, a "B---- Conference" happens on the computer, so it's either a video phone call or B---- is an AI. I'm not sure which I'd prefer.

Labels: bat masterson, house rich, knit, separation

Today my peace accord with the spiders came to an abrupt end. I walked into the bathroom this morning and felt a filament brush my face. It's my hair, I thought frantically, but it wasn't my hair. That's it, sisters. It is on.

I kept count: I squished 12 in my bathroom alone. I left the ones in the hall alone, because I can't reach them and they don't bother me as much. I figure the one spider left in the bathroom can stretch out and enjoy herself. I'm pretty sure they don't dig competition.

Today after school I picked up my mom and went to a boutique to get fitted for the church fashion show. This is the first time I have been volunteered as a model, and my mother is discovering how much she wanted to be a beauty pageant mum. (Actually, she's just helping me with the zippers and picking outfits. Not Gypsy at all.)

I tried on clothes for two hours. Two hours of elegant pants, clingy tops, and brightly-patterned blazers. By the end of it I was longing for my Owl Dress…but at least we found some good clothes, and when I walk down the catwalk I won't look like a little girl let loose in her grandmother's closet. And no, you can't come see me. That is a promise.

This weekend I was supposed to finish my report cards, so being me, I was entirely domestic on Saturday as I recovered from my cold and entirely social on Sunday as I celebrated Sandi Purl's upcoming baby. The report cards were finished after 8 p.m. on Sunday, and I had to cheat to get the last class done. Fixed it this morning, and no one was the wiser. (Except Mason, who I was compelled to warn before I went to sleep. 'If I drop dead,' I wrote, 'all of the comments on one class are exactly the same. Pass it off as a glitch. Wait, I'll be dead. Who cares?')

Tomorrow: the power of Sandi's dandy shower, plus pictures that will make you want to eat Fenner with a spoon. And no more rhyming. That's another promise.

Labels: bat masterson, church, house rich, outfits, outings

Spring has sprung, and with it comes the arrival of Mean Girl politics. Mason's co-workers don't like the fact that he was the lucky man to volunteer for a chunk of my marking, so they have complained to him and to his department head. See, Mean Girls don't want any other girls taking advantage of their Nice Boy, because then he might not be free to do favours for them. They want him to stop being a sucker, as long as he shows the proper amount of gratitude to them by continuing to be their sucker. I'm torn between the desire to burn them to the ground and salt the earth, and the urge to sit as close to them as possible, sweetly and obliviously intruding on all of their conversations as if I had suddenly decided to be their BFF. I would love for them to lose patience, snap and show their hand to me instead of behind my back. I would love it.

Because even if I were to trade sexual favours for marking (which I'm not, but bear with me), it's none of their goddamn business. Bitches.

Speaking of sex, yesterday's yarn tasting quickly devolved into one of those all-female nights in which smuttiness becomes the conversation. As soon as I noticed the new Handmaiden, Amy warned me not to have an immediate orgasm. Yeah. It was good yarn, but.

Then there was the casual darts conversation. On Friday night, when Juuki expressed an interest in accompanying NotAnArtist and myself on the Unemployed Girls' Newfoundland Road Trip this July, Artist needed to make sure that the trip wouldn't involve babies now that two moms were going. "No," I said, "but do you mind if I get knocked up while we're in Newfoundland?" And of course she had no objection. How could she object?

Elizabeth was there on Friday, and she mentioned the pregnancy plan again last night at the yarn tasting. Since our entire plan for the road trip can be broken down into

1. go to Newfoundland
2. buy yarn
3. get tattoos,

And thus, casual sex immediately morphed into casual darts. Artist shared the fact that she used to be a professional casual dart player for many years, prompting me to remark that she was a Private Dart Player. "And any old dartboard will do," I added, as we all started spraying the table with laughter.

Labels: bat masterson, knit, outings

It occurs to me that I'm being a trifle hard on myself. Tonight, as I spent my first well evening cleaning up my house while my dad vacuumed, while rsvp'ing for a fundraising event and changing into work out clothes for my dance class tonight, I realized: dude, I got a lot on my plate. These days I am enjoying my life (mostly), which makes me feel guilty when I don't write down all of my adventures. Why, oh why, I think, can't I balance intellectually demanding work, single-motherhood, an obsessive hobby (knitting), a time-consuming new passion (belly dance), a thriving social life and my journalling duties? Maybe because I still sleep 8-9 hours a night. Clearly I need to start stacking up the Red Bull.

This week I have to get ready for a reporting cycle, and I'm a good 2 weeks behind in my marking. I had planned to knock it off last weekend, but you saw what happened. Between episodes of PDF (Public Display of Femininity), chaperoning the drunken knittas and hyperbolic crocheting, this sister spent all of her down time trying to get over what she strongly suspects is a mild case of strep throat. I'm still a little woozy. I think it's time to bring in a pinch-marker, a trick I've employed with great success in the past. I'll let you know who the lucky ringer will be. (Hint: it could be you! Get ready for a tear-soaked FedEx package arriving tomorrow!)

Speaking of knitting (and I always am, so roll with it), I utterly failed to make note of two momentous knit-victories this month. The first will stand for the ages, as I got name checked in the Yarn Harlot's new book, Things I Learned About Knitting (whether I wanted to or not). That's me on page 145, "teach[ing] high school English." Rachel H. gave me the tip-off at the Foxes Den following the April Fool's Scavenger Hunt. At that point, I was way too tired to squee as the news deserved.

Dude. I wasn't 100% sure that she even knew my name.

My second knit-victory was all thanks to my peeps. Thanks to your votes (and the Boy's good-sportsmanship), I squeaked into 3rd place in the My Ex is Full of Knit Contest. Two hundred dollars of yarn, loves. That's good news right now, as I just paid off my March Break credit card bill and fear that I will have to choose between yarn and food for the next month. (Who let me loose in H&M in the first place? Oh yeah, it was me.)

we are the champions…of the world!

Labels: bat masterson, knit, victory

My weeks just keep getting busier. On Wednesday I was thinking about staying home from Knit Night because - get this - I had too much knitting to do. But I went anyway. "I have to haul ass on this hedgehog," I announced grimly. "That's not a sentence you get to say every day," the ladies observed. It's about as often as I consider avoiding craft night because my crafting schedule has become too intense to allow for the commute.

I went home early, as the next day was Parent-Teacher Night, a.k.a. the day I spend 13 hours in the school. In fancy clothes, no less. I was slightly consoled by the fact that we had a huge standardized test scheduled for the morning, during which I hauled ass on the aforementioned hedgehog. Mason & I went out for dinner to get a break from the building, and we managed to squeeze in a few wee adventures simply by strolling the plaza. I tried to get my engagement ring appraised at Cash Converters, but the line up was too long, so we ended up buying female sword and sorcery complilations from the 1980's. A grand total of 2 interviews in 2 hours rounded out my night. At least I got tonnes of time to play with yarn. And Blake, the poor little guy, wet the bed and had to come in with me at 4. Good times.

By Friday morning I was exhausted. Blake was sick and I wasn't doing too well in that department myself. I staggered though my day, teaching the worst, most inept lesson to my 12's I have ever perpetrated upon them, supervised a test for another two periods, and got home in time to watch Blake fall asleep on the couch 15 minutes before his father's arrival. Nice. Once Blake was carried, protesting, off to spend his weekend with my babydaddy, I quickly devolved into a state of inertia: reading blogs, drinking beer and unwinding a tangled skein of sock yarn.

My Saturday was spent in similar idleness. I don't actually enjoy prolonged periods of sloth and social isolation; but after my last two weekends I really needed to re-introduce my bum to my couch and let the two of them catch up. I also have tonnes and tonnes of knitting deadlines this week and I needed some quiet time to get them in line. In a stroke of brilliant serendipity, the DNTO program was focussed on idleness as a creative act, as a political protest, and as a lifestyle. Beautiful. It reminded me of what I already knew: when I spend an afternoon knitting or crocheting or whatever and I'm not using a teevee to keep my eyes occupied, my brain starts to fire off new and creative ideas through simple relaxation. I got to the point where I needed to keep a notebook on the arm of the sofa to record my inspirations.

I did some laundry and the dishes, but because I wanted to, so it didn't really make a dent in my contemplation. At dinner time my parents came by to pick me up and take me to a church dinner to fund raise for land mine removal. I {heart} church dinners, I really do. My love affair with the church affair began in Wolfvegas and I've never truly lost my desire for the simple potluck.

They dropped me off 20 minutes into Earth Hour, so I found my candelabra by touch, loaded it with new candles, and set up for an even more peaceful hour of candlelit embroidery. (Thanks, Nadia: I haven't had a housewarming gift come in so handy since Sophie's yarn became my fabulous winter hat.)

Sunday was napping, church and more embroidery, punctuated by the making of chicken soup and the joyous arrival of my the Blake. "Mommy, can I have a beautiful cookie?" he beamed. Man, he's happy to be back. Me too.

Today was another slog, as Blake wet the bed at 1 a.m. (he's 2 for 2, considering that he was away for the weekend). Tomorrow is the Harlot's latest book launch, and I don't expect to get near a computer until well into Wednesday. To tide you over, here is the severed head I finished yesterday:

(Yes, it is based on the Boy. He was pretty cool to let me take this picture after he dropped off the separation papers. I gave him a slightly-expired yoghurt for his trouble.)

Labels: bat masterson, blake, knit

Today was the first day of the new semester, and the less said about that, the better. The brightest spot of my day was the return of Mason, who is now doing behavioural stuff all day (or, as he likes to call it, 5 periods of prep). Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of time for knitting & chatting, but there's always the rest of the semester. And speaking of segues, here's Sage, the cutest baby of 2007:

sage-in-a-pot

sage models a tart hat

sage gets ready for cake!

Tonight after my dance class, my instructor asked me to stay after. Uh oh, I thought. I think I'm cut. Maybe she was going to refund my money as long as I promised never to take another bellydancing class. Instead, she asked me to join a student troupe she's forming. It's not based on ability (which is obvious, considering that she picked me) but personalities. I suppose there's something about the sight of me playing the finger cymbals with my eyes closed, weaving backwards and forwards through the otherwise-orderly rotation of dancers that caught her eye. Or maybe she likes that I knit my own dance socklets. Either way, I'm thrilled. This could be the start of something shimmery.

Labels: bat masterson, dancing

My work day has been immeasurably improved ever since I downloaded the TMBG clock radio. I listen on headphones, of course, which only makes it weirder when I start giggling to something no one else can hear. I was driven to this wonder by my officemates' liking of light pop radio, which has the opposite effect on me. I am the girl who can work to anonymous grinding industrial, but give me 'The Girl Can't Help It' and I'll start chewing my cheeks in irritation.

Some lovely things happened last night at my belly dancing class. First of all, I was the knitting avenger, avenging all situations in which knitwear is required. Which I suppose is a grandiose way of saying that I finished my 2 day dance socklets in time for class, and I lent out my wristwarmers to a girl with chronically cold hands. The socklets are for a little bit of slippage to aid my turns. They are my answer to buying a dance half-shoe or cutting up a pair of whole socks; when I can just knit a tube of any length with materials laying around my house why should I take scissors to an innocent pair of machine socks? And the wristwarmers were just sitting in my pocket, but I certainly felt like a hero when her hands were warm and sweaty at the end of class thanks to my knitting. Plus, I was wearing my provocatively worded knit t-shirt, so I had a uniform and everything.

Besides the yarny stuff (or perhaps because of it), I made a breakthrough. I've been grumpy for three weeks, a classic Type A response to my clumsy dancing. This week I started to nail the chest lifts and it felt like someone else was moving my body. I don't think I've ever stared at my rack with so much admiration. I'm so happy. With a small victory, I can keep hopeful that one day I'll be able to bust out to The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove and no one will laugh. (Not that people usually laugh during a goth dance-a-thon, but it could always be the first time. Wouldn't that be a terrible claim to fame? I was the girl who broke through everyone's studied facade - with hilarity.)

and now for something completely different: my new hat!

Labels: bat masterson, dancing, knit

Yesterday was hard. Today has been hard. I can't imagine that Monday or Tuesday are going to be anything but hard. Still, I haven't been in the depths of despair since Wednesday night (our last visit with the marriage counsellor), so I believe I'm doing what they call "hanging in there." My worst problem is finding reasons to stay out of bed; although my activity level has been pretty normal, I'm having more trouble than usual in keeping myself busy. The urge to give up is strong.

Yesterday I found out that the Boy has been using my car to make runs over to his new apartment while telling me that he's grocery or Christmas shopping. When confronted, he mumbled something about not wanting to upset me. When that didn't work, he tried telling me that we had a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that I've been unaware of. Refusing to admit that there was anything wrong with what he's been doing, he told me that he'd just load his stereo into the grocery cart and walk it over. Fine, I said. While he was loading up, I sat in the kitchen, eating oranges with Blake.

"Blake, should we drop off your Daddy at his new apartment, or should we let him walk over with his stereo?"

Blake considered. "Let him walk."

I have to say that the Boy's reaction to that judgement was almost worth the argument that preceded it. It actually made me feel sorry for him, and so we loaded up the car and set off to see the new flat. (We'll call it the Casa Nova, after the singles complex Kirk Van Houten moves into where he sleeps in a racecar.) The Casa Nova is about 10 minutes away from the house on foot. It's an ageing building, kind of crummy. The Boy has moved into the 22nd floor, and when I tired of waiting for the elevator, I started walking down the stairs. One landing was entirely full of garbage: half-eaten hotdog, pizza boxes, a bread bag with slices in it. I'm really looking forward to Blake spending his formative weekends in this smelly, stained rattletrap.

On the other hand, I couldn't have picked a better place to contrast a life apart with a life shared with me.

Anyway, the evasiveness continues, unpleasantly. I keep stumbling over things he's done, or getting surprise requests. I have to ask him directly, often repeatedly, when things will be moved out, or where he's going with Blake. It's like living with a war censor, or a particularly mulish teenager. The best part is that when I ask for full details, he starts telling me that he doesn't need to submit itineraries to me for approval. This is such a helpful attitude when coupled with a sudden request to take Blake out for hours, I can't even tell you.

Other than that, Christmas continues, my friends and family are supportive, and Blake is still Blake. Last night I went to a party thrown by NotAnArtist and wallowed in both sympathy and shortbread. Today I learned that Mason has a baby. I'm going to let him pick the pseudonym, but I can say that everything looks a-ok: fingers, toes, and that put-out expression particular to newborns. This year my Christmas present will be snuggling him.

Labels: angst, bat masterson, blake, friends, the boy

One of the things you may not know about me: I'm thirsty. When I started this journal I pretty much stuck to the Diet Coke at all times, not realizing that I was further dehydrating myself. When I started teaching, I switched to gigantic bottles of water, often carrying two 1L bottles on either side of my backpack like a mule. Now that I've been teaching more than 5 years, I find that I'm still not smart enough to drink water on the weekends – and switching from 1 – 2 litres a day to nothing is hard on the body (no wonder I'm so cranky). The problem is that I come home from work thirsty, and having drank water all day I search for something that I can drink that won't keep me up all night. I've been plugging this hole with beer, but I'm afraid that's not going to cut it now that I'm going to be the only parent around at night.

I guess it's time to start fooling around with those fruity teas. Sigh.

Sorry for the boring; it's just this or a pointless lament on the effect of seeing all those Phillip K. Dick books gone. I always kind of thought that he loved them more than me. It's tough to have that confirmed.

Or I could talk about the talent show. Today was the last day of school, which means that it was time for the Bat Masterson Non-Denominational Concert. This year distinguished itself from last year in two major respects: 1) the audience was not filled with drunk, surly misfits, and 2) some of the staff did a number -- that was all dancing. I felt remarkably similar to how I once felt as a camp counsellor: impossibly proud to be a part of these people, and sad that I hadn’t the guts to participate. Next year for sure.

Labels: angst, bat masterson, dancing, health

So, yeah. It's been a long time. It's been hard to find things I can write about, preoccupied as I am with the dual battle of keeping my marriage and my dangerously depressed friend afloat. The few other things have been brief in nature: Blake reading and counting independently, my dad and uncle tiling the laundry room so that little bits of concrete no longer stick to my feet when I bring in the wash, the latest Strongbad cartoon (yes, I'm a bit shallow at times). I suppose that I could have gone on at great length about Blake's literacy and numeracy, but like most momentous things it seems utterly prosaic. One day we were sitting in the kitchen and I realized that he was sounding out words. This morning he was sitting on the bedroom floor as I got dressed, using his fingers to add up single-digit numbers. Last week he tried to help us to remember to visit the comic book store by writing it on our list pad (he laboriously printed "KAH" before losing interest). God help us all, there is another real human in this house, and he can decode the basic language of our culture. Be afraid.

What finally made me break the long silence, though, was something entirely old school: this weekend I found myself partying like it was 1997, and what better place to recount it than here?

Friday was a weird day. First, a field trip to a bloody-sexy version of Macbeth, complete with half-naked cast, seducing witches and a whole new understanding of the line "look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it" that is granted when Lady M is grinding on top of her husband). When I got back, I grabbed Mason and we did errands for awhile before going to Commencement. I have to say, there's nothing about "Pomp & Circumstance" that gets better the seventh time around. We spent the time knitting, of course. And then there was the staff holiday party, where I got to stand around and be melancholy with people who were laid off last year and who took with them the life of the building. I probably had a bit too much to drink in compensation.

Saturday was sunny & busy. I cleaned, tidied, knit, laundered and in other ways made myself useful. Then the Rocketfamily went to the local Santa Claus parade. I have to say, I find parades kind of boring at the best of times; when accompanied by freezing temperatures they become excruciating. Still, Blake & the Boy had an awesome time, and there were many shiny things to distract me from my growing misery. I was tempted to pack it in afterwards, but I had a chance to see some Toronto people and I was determined to get out of my rut for at least a few hours.

This worked perhaps too well; not only did I have an excellent time palling around with the old Larp crowd, I managed to unburden myself repeatedly and achieve a catharsis of sorts. It's much much better trying to bear the stresses of my life this week than it was before I made all those nice people listen to my problems. (And a special thanks goes out to Acidic Jew, who listened to all of my problems, let me drink half of his pint, and refused to give me anything but the unvarnished truth in return.) Of course, with relief came a lowered alertness, and I drank waaaaay too much for a girl who had to drive herself home. Somehow during the evening I managed to get JimZed to keep an eye on me, and when he and Jesse concurred that 3 pints of water didn't counteract 2 1/2 pints of beer, JimZed made the call to keep me in Toronto for the night. Thus, I was driven to the Zübhaus, the first official out of town guest, and made welcome.

It follows that on Sunday morning before church, I was ushered out of the Zübhaus and, with the aching eyes of one who has worn contacts all night, began the Drive of Shame. Hungover? Check. Exhausted after fewer than 5 hours asleep? You bet. Full of enthusiasm for my slightly scandalous experience? Oh Yeah.

Especially when, 4 hours later, I drove back into the city with Blake for Mason's baby shower, about which there is only scattered moments available to my over-tired memory: giving architecture lectures to my oblivious son who insisted that he used to live here, too; taking Blake & baby Olivia to Hart House library to drowse in the sunshine; Blake recognizing Mason in the room and lighting up like a firecracker; Blake stealing cupcakes; and Blake losing control almost the moment we left and forcing me to search all through campus for a bathroom in which to scrub him down. (Aside: if I never again have to take Blake to the basement of Sid Smith on a Sunday so that I may strip him naked and scrub him while he stands in a sink…well, it will be too damn soon. This is not fun stuff for Hangover Girl.)

Yes, a damn good time. Now if I could only shake the opportunistic throat infection that has negated my recovery.

Labels: bat masterson, blake, family, friends, outings

I'm so tired I can barely see straight. In honour of the season, my 12 Wesleys have turned into thesis vampires, sucking every bit of analytical power out of my poor skull. Tomorrow their essay is due, so I'm looking forward to a long spell of rejuvenation. There's only so many times you can rush away from the lunch table saying, "I gotta see a kid about a thesis," before it stops being quite so funny.

Also, Hallowe'en with a little kid? Exhausting. Not only did the Boy & I have to co-ordinate costumes for ourselves and for Blake to wear at school, but there was the trick or treating after dark. Blake finally wore his Monkey costume to go out, as he'd thoughtlessly left his Buzz Lightyear gear at school. (Score!!) Seeing him in a suit that I clumsily sewed into being made this the best Hallowe'en I can remember.

He did amazingly well, not pushing for candy and saving his freakout until he was clearly overtired and we tried to answer the door without him. (At least half-a-dozen kids were treated to the sight of Blake having a complete meltdown in his pj's while the Boy encouraged them to take candy from our bowl.) We did about as well, and while there was no tantrum, there was a lot of pain due to stupidly scheduling our new bed delivery for today. Last night we took the mattresses down, wrapped them in plastic, assembled the new frame, swept the floor, and finally went to sleep in separate rooms – wherever there was a comfortable place to sleep. Then Blake woke up at 4:30 to use the washroom, and couldn't sleep.

But I guess a lot of that is just My Life, and not the Hallowe'en aspect of it.

pictures tomorrow

Labels: bat masterson, blake

My co-worker Maeve has two lovely boys, but she always wanted a girl. So she was delighted to find out that this latest pregnancy held a girl. And I, though I avoid gender stereotyping as much as I can, felt duty-bound to knit this little girl the pinkest laciest sweater ever pinked. Er, knit.

The pattern is the Jasmine Lace-edged Cardigan from Natural Knits for Moms and Babies. I used Butterfly mercerized cotton, which was smooth and shiny & soft. It was quick to knit (except for the long lace panel, which dragged on through all of 'Ray' and the special features) and although it took a rather long time to seam up, the seams were so short that I could always move on to something new before my brain entirely rotted away.

thanks to the photogenic logs at the humber arboretum!

Plus, the buttons are just Too Much Fun.

Extra Knitting Fun!

Here's a picture of my Punk Lolitas on Pixie:

the things you can find on flickr

Labels: baby, bat masterson, fo