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

Taking advantage of a short breather to write. I am insanely busy for someone who's not supposed to be working. Although I can't afford to pay my brother for daily workouts, I'm still seeing him about once a week and I'm starting to use my new gym membership. Mason & I have developed a passionate dislike of one of the fitness teachers, which always adds interest and excitement. I need that; working out with my brother is not only good for me, it's so much fun. He pushes me like crazy, and he makes me laugh while I'm trying to do one of his insane sets. He brought my plank up to a full minute in a week, which is just ridiculous. And he doesn't smell as much as his room would suggest. I highly recommend his services.

Wednesday was particularly busy. In the morning we joined a fitness class (see above, re: dislike) and in the evening I went to my first troupe practice in months. Since it was just Jessamyn & myself, we did a couple verses, ate dinner & then I took a bunch of pictures of the jewelry she's selling on Saturday. This would have been enough for me on a normal day, but since I've been full of summery ants in my pants, Mason & I decided to go out to see the Zeus show. I took my camera this time, and I have many lovely shots in that buttery Dakota light that makes everything look both cozy & epic at the same time. We had to leave early, which is probably just as well, since I managed to avoid the tinnitus this week.

write this down: z.e.u.s. zeus, bitches.

Yesterday I worked on recovering from the stupid exercise class of Wednesday and assembling my submission package for the Sock Museum. It's a little obsessive; I included 28 pictures, and that's after culling. Amy promised to take them with her to the Summit, so I said I'd meet her at the Purple Purl for what I thought was knit night. Well. Need I say that Mason & I stumbled into a yarn tasting? There were last minute cancellations, so we were able to stay the night. It was Mason's first tasting, and the lucky guy walked away with a skein of handpainted 80/20 baby suri alpaca/silk. I was no less blessed, as I managed to win a skein of new sock yarn that will be perfect for at least one of the baby berets I need to make this summer.

Honestly. I went there so that a knitting teacher could do me a big favour and deliver my socks personally, and I planned to buy the yarn for at least three projects. I walked into a sampling night with complimentary shortbread and a lovely discount for participants, during which I won yarn. Have I mentioned that the socks I delivered were knit from a donated pattern, from top-shelf yarn at a deep discount? My knitting life is so extraordinarily blessed that I can barely believe it. It's so very past time for a karma-balancing donation to KWB.

I spent almost three hours sorting through picture files this morning, and I'm still not anywhere close to completed. Here are some photos of the summer so far:

Labels: health, knit, music, outings, photos

Can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but Mason found a cool little brew pub in the tiny downtown where I live. It used to be a knitting factory, and they have spindles and sock forms up on the walls. This immediately made me hot to organize a local Drunken Knitters. The first one will be Friday, and now I'm just trying to get the wording right for the flyers, so I can post 'em on library billboards, which are notorious bastions of sobriety and hard work. (I'm not even trying the community centres, who need the flyers approved by the Mayor's office a month in advance. I'm not Friendly Rich; I don't have an in with Susan. So I'll just skip that idea.)

If you're a local knitbuddy who wants to come out and you haven't seen the postings, please contact me. The more people, the more validated I'll feel.

I found out about the need for mayoral approval this afternoon, when Mason & I bought new gym memberships. I was trying to give Jessamyn's gym a chance, but when I called to use the "free" 3 day passes, they insisted on administering a fit test and then tried to charge us $35 when we couldn't make it on time. I balked at the fit test to begin with; Nic refers to it as "some energetic asshole like me telling you you're unfit and trying to sell you personal training." I still remember how crushing it was five years ago when they changed my assessment from "healthy" to "unhealthy" with the stroke of a pen.

So we're hooked up with the community gyms, which are good for a number of reasons and attract far fewer asshats ramming around the parking lot in a dangerous cloud of impatience and testosterone. This afternoon we did our first session, which was productive but boring. I have to drop by Bat Masterson sometime soon so I can pick up my Walkman; perhaps listening to tapes made seven or more years ago will take the edge off continuous golf coverage on the monitors. Apparently? Older white men can still accomplish things. Who knew?

On Friday night Mason & I attended our third Arts & Crafts concert of the week: Timber Timbre. (I introduced myself to Stephan the merch guy, figuring that I now see him more frequently than I see my parents.) Timber Timbre is a skinny guy with a dog who plays stripped down gothic folk, or death blues as it is sometimes described. He and his live band – a guitar, a bass drum, a pedal steel, a sax & a violin – put on the scariest show I've ever been to. It took place in a pitch dark Anglican church, lit only by dozens of votive candles and the arc-sodium lights outside shining through the stained glass and turning Christ orange. Mason & I were in the second row of pews, right next to the sound board, and I could barely see my hand in front of my face.

It was an album re-release party, to celebrate a new signing with A&C. They played through the 8 songs with hardly a pause between them. I have to imagine that few people knew the album, as the merch table was mobbed at the end and Mason & I seemed to be the only ones who knew the words. Then again, I couldn’t see anyone so maybe they were all lip-synching along. During the first three songs, there wasn't a single bit of sound from the audience, and I was the first to shatter the reverent silence by whooping applause at the end of the third. People joined in, relieved to be able to make noise, I suppose.

Then again, people may not have been ignorant of the material so much as terrified by it. Again: it was the spookiest show I have ever been to, and I felt at several points that I had died and gone to hell, where my fears were being drawn out of me through purest art. The silences between notes were terrifying, and the melodies themselves almost crushed us with awe. It was a terrible beauty. I was glad that we had gone. But I was a little relieved when it was over, and I could take a break from fear and reverence.

Labels: drunken knitters, health, music, outings

Who would have thought that it would be harder to find writing time during summer vacation than when I was immersed in my job? It's a curious fact about teachers that we save up our tasks for what others consider our abundant leisure, storing jobs to last us through the slack time. Truth is, I've been busier in the last two weeks than I ever am at work. I work all day now, from the time I get up until I drop, exhausted & sore, into bed. I don't take my evenings off like I used with school on. The only difference is that if I want to spend the day in my cut offs, or if I want to spend a scant few minutes on knitting, I can. I'm happier.

I'm also much more sore. I've been struggling with my weight this year, and it got a lot worse this spring. I investigated the summer boot camp classes, figuring I could use the time off to reinvent myself (c. Burn After Reading), but they're all booked. I suppose I'm not the first teacher to have this idea. During our Canada Day bbq of the last entry, I looked at my brother, newly returned from tree planting in BC.

"Hey Nic. You're a personal trainer. Want to do a boot camp with me next week?"

"Sure. Fifty bones an hour."

Eep. There was some bargaining, some mention of the truck I rented on his behalf Easter Monday and the rental fee owed. The family card was played. I got him down to a hundred bucks for the week, and forgiveness of the U-Haul debt. Sweet. I wasn't sure that it would work, and there's something creepy about employing my brother as my trainer, but it's the cheapest option going while I'm between gyms.

I flaked out on Monday's session, as a visit to Palaver in the hospital entailed a 45 minute wait before we could bust him off the floor. (It was a wait both boring and funny: Schereazade, Mason & I played six games of Connect Four, we experimented with a Battleship game that was missing an astounding number of pieces, and we were in the middle of an inept dominoes tourney when Palaver was given permission to leave. Also, Scherezade & I were hit on by another patient. Good times.) Tuesday was my first session at O Brother, Where Art Thou Boot Camp.

It. Hurt.

It hurt to do, and it hurt to recover. My brother believes in old school Russian style exercises that use free weights to purge the decadence. The two things working in my favour are I enjoy spending time in my backyard, and I've been cleaning my house for three days in preparation for tonight* and thus I haven't had time to sit down and seize up. Yesterday hurt less, but it was more extreme and I sweat more. Today I got a reprieve when Nic called in sick. I sort of miss the endorphins.

Blake has been spending the week at the Humber Arboretum, a nature camp both my brother and I attended when we were the age for day camp. It's a pretty fantastic place to go, learn about Nature, sing songs, water fight and get incredibly, spectacularly dirty. Blake is already giving me the guilt trip about not having him in for longer than a week. I'm pretty sure that he likes camp better than school, and I can't say I blame him. It looks so fun from the outside that I'm wondering if I should exploit my Dorian Grey-like appearance of youth and sign up to be a teenaged camp counselor. I'm pretty sure that my cynicism will lead to my unmasking, but it will be a good ride while it lasts.

My brother also has positive memories of the place. We took him with us yesterday to pick up Blake, and the two of them ended up jogging through the woods like a couple of size-mismatched dogs while Mason & I picked our way gingerly through the paths, cursing our impractical/disintegrating footware. Those two dogs have a ridiculous amount of fun together.

And Blake has never been so happy, so tired, or returned to me so filthy, in his life. Yesterday his shirt, a casualty of raspberry snacks, looked eerily like the t-shirt his Uncle Nic wore to the GWAR show in the early nineties. Gross and triumphant, all at the same time.

Speaking of ridiculous amounts of fun, I started my Sock Museum contribution yesterday after picking up the pattern and yarn from Lettuce Knit. Ususally 2x2 ribbing rots my nuts after awhile, but this yarn (Socks that Rock, Treehugger) is so beautiful that I'm kept happy by the colour changes. That, and I don't get a lot of time to sit down with it, so it's always fresh to me. Can I finish two socks in two weeks? Maybe. I choose not to do the math to find out what I have to accomplish each day. Instead, I'm just giving'r. Zimmerman would be proud.

* Tonight I will be billeting high school students from Texas, who are coming to my church to perform Godspell. I figure that with my spare bed and working familiarity with today's modern teenager, I would have been a cad not to volunteer. This is why I've been cleaning the house for days, doing the deep down scrubbing that I've been avoiding since the change of the year. My house is/was messy. And now it's less so.

Labels: blake, church, family, health, house rich, knit

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

I'm all stuffed up today. I had a lot of marking to do this weekend, but when I got tired last night at 7:30, I decided to put it off until this morning. Gah. I am not suited to waking up at 5, no matter what the motivation. I've been sniffly and sneezy all day, which I hope will be cured when I go to bed early tonight. My biggest problem is that I already go to bed at nine; if I want to push my bedtime back, eventually I'm going to have to start taking my pj's to work.

The reason I was so tired was because I planned too much this weekend, which isn't at all typical of me except on days that start with S. During the week I'm as slack as a sack; it's only on weekends that I try to transform into a superachieving hero. This was the first weekend of the Brickworks, so we planned to start the vegetable garden on Saturday with all of our new seedlings. But after the glorious return to the market, a quick trip to the Distillery District, and a few stops on Queen West, we were all burnt out. Instead of planting, we spent Saturday afternoon recovering...which is sort of ironic, when you consider that this set us up for a Sunday of extrabusyness.

It was a good morning, though. There is actual food at the market, which is a wondrous change from a long winter of dwindling root vegetable supplies and various preserves. In addition to a bunch of seedlings, we got lettuce, buns and wild leeks for a glorious burger barbeque. Blake made friends with every dog he saw, and he was overjoyed to see the Cloud 9 soap lady again (we've been counting the baths until he gets to buy his favourite soap.) She was so impressed with his enthusiasm that she gave him a free bath bomb with his honey ginger soap; a lovely transaction and I was proud of him. I didn't really mean for him to spend his treat money on soap when I would have bought it for him, but they were both so pleased with themselves that I thought it churlish to interfere.

Also notable: Blake discovered that he likes empanadas. This was supposed to be a depth of field shot, but while I was taking it he went after the empanada like a land shark.

There was also a book table, which greatly simplified my birthday party shopping for the weekend. (Hey, I'm a nerd. I give nerd gifts so as to propagate my species.) As much as it could be simplified, I mean: our first party was for a girl I didn't know, and when asked, Blake told me she wanted a donkey toy. What? No further sense could be extracted from Blake. Imagine my surprise when the book table included cute wooden animal toys. We got our donkey, Blake got a new kids' cookbook with illustrations by Jay Stephens, and our birthday girls got beautifully illustrated books on seeds. Blake took his book to a table to read, meanwhile, Mason & I spent many happy minutes seriously considering which seedlings to buy. We left loaded up, just as the place started to get uncomfortably crowded.

We stopped by the Distillery so that Mason could give a bartender friend of his some of the beer we'd bought in Watertown. As the Distillery was in the middle of a craft fair, this turned into a longer visit than we'd expected. Blake made friends with a crafter who admired his knit Tick; he then thought it was hilarious to run away and go talk to her while Mason & I fanned out and tried not to panic. I suppose since her business card is pinned on his bulletin board, this counts as his first pick-up.

After this, the day got progressively less fun by degrees. We went to Fresh Collective for a new shrug; while I sorted through the various offerings, Blake (emboldened by his romantic success) dived under the sewing table in the back and flirted shamelessly while Mason tried to keep him from making a mess. Next was a disappointing trip to Rotate This for the new Apostle of Hustle & Years albums, which meant a detour to Soundscapes (buying music has become more complicated since we decided we preferred vinyl.) And then one more stop for yarn to fix the sweater Blake ripped last week, and we were on our way home. Once there, we discovered that the shed key was missing, meaning our plants would be staying in flats for at least a night.

I think we gave up then. Dinner was lovely, but tired. I decided to plant in the morning, before the first of the two parties. It didn't seem likely, but it was worth a shot.

Imagine my surprise when I was up at 7:30 the next morning, and ready to plant by 8. We got all the seedlings in the ground and started a few of the seed packets (there are still about a half dozen packs to be planted). Blake helped as best he could (i.e. when he remembered what he was doing) and my dad was there to drill holes in my stump. I've got this stump in my front yard, and this year I got the crazy idea that I would make it into a rock garden. The only thing was, the wood wasn't co-operating. I had envisioned a rough, pocketed surface, but my dad kept bringing in power tools that weren't very precise, and he kept forgetting that I didn't want the whole centre removed. Tempers frayed. I can't remember whose idea it was to bring rocks from the back and pile them on the stump, but it was brilliant. I added compost and my sad, dried out little rock garden plants. Voila! Instant rock garden. I just wish I'd thought of it before all the chipping and sawing and yelling.

I cleaned up and changed myself and Blake, and we were on our way to party #1. It was a small party, just a half dozen kids and that many adults. I'm pretty shy, so I hadn't expected to talk to anyone but Mason, but I surprised myself by being really outgoing and having a blast. Blake also had a blast, running around, playing with his new car toy (a bingo prize) and telling secrets.

Blake: "Daddy moved out because Mommy was mad at him all the time."
Me: "Hey! You don't have to tell everyone that. Just say that he moved out because he hated birthday parties."

Everything moved along quickly and soon it was time to go to party #2. We thanked our hosts profusely and walked back through to the park on the way home. Our second party was in the city, so after grabbing the second present, we were off to see Gamers, Former Gamers and Gamers v2.0. Sometimes I wish I didn't only see this crowd at birthday parties, but I suppose I should be grateful that I see anyone at all, stuck in the suburbs as I am.

Eaten: two hotdogs, two burgers, three allergy pills, three Diet Cokes, two pieces of birthday cake, various chips and snacks. Will my stomach ever recover? Maybe…but today I have a craving for pink streamers and pointy hats that mere food won't satisfy.

(As always, click through the pictures for more.)

Labels: blake, friends, garden, health, outings

I'm home from work today, as last night I realized that my glands were so swollen that I couldn't blow my nose without feeling them. Scary. (This may or may not have had something to do with the hour of garden time before dinner, in which I pulled enough weeds to choke several horses.) I feel better today, but I'll be going to the doctor's later; if nothing else than to get a legitimizing note. Getting sick the day before the Victoria Day weekend is just a little too convenient to be believed.

"Hey you! Get out of the…uh…mayor's office!"
- Quimby yells at an itinerant steel drum player, who has wandered into the shot.

On the upside, I've finally achieved this week's goal of not working. On Tuesday I wanted to spend the day with my camera. On Wednesday I wanted to spend the day with my copy of This Book is Broken (about which, more later). Yesterday I had no real draw, I just wanted to stay home. And today I'm in the study with a lukewarm Diet Coke and glands that elevate my already-thick-to-begin-with neck to comedy status.

Before I got sick, though, there was Knit Night. Mason & I continued our bizarrely blessed knitting life by wandering into a book launch (free cupcakes!!) and were encouraged to start drinking before we had a chance to eat supper. This may have been why my credit card got a workout: I bought teal yarn for a February Lady (the It sweater of the moment), Mason bought supplies for a fair isle baby sweater, and together we bought a copy of Vintage Baby Knits, the book launched that night. It probably wasn't the beer, though. Spring makes me manic, and when confronted with a book of vintage baby patterns (and the teeny samples hung everywhere) I am likely to go a little nutty.

As you can see by the above, we also got a chance to play with the new camera, which saved Mason from concentrating on the fact that, until his finger heals, he won't be knitting his new yarn. How did he hurt his finger? Chasing a gorgeous shot, he tripped up the stairs and went down protecting the camera. This is the second time this year he's broken a digit protecting something precious while on a staircase, which is two times too many if you ask me. Still, the camera must be protected. Always.

Last night Mason made dinner while I whined piteously about my throat and tried to do soothing things. My vow to leave my new yarn alone until I'd finished my other projects went out the window, and I cast on for the F-Lady while reading Berman's opus.

(For those who don't know my real name, you should know that the guy who wrote the book on Broken Social Scene was my Arts editor at the Varsity in 97-98. My strongest memory of him is from the day that Lady Godiva wanted to seduce him and we ended up feeding cheesecake to a random writer whom I later married. Archives? There we go.)

I've been looking forward to this book, and much of it is the kind of late-night party reminisces of the Old Days that I craved. No punches are pulled about who was fucking whom, which is something they've been coy about putting on the record before, and this makes it an impossibly intimate book. I loved that. I loved all the details about the making of the records, and how terribly screwed up the last record was to make.

But, there are a few bones to pick.

1. Remedios gets way too much space to talk about how awesome his record label is, which is an important topic but not as important as he seems to believe.
2. Most of the narrative weight is on the band's formation and early days, which, to be fair, is what Stuart is most versed on having been there the whole ride. I wanted much more about the successful period, but other than "everything sucked, everybody was breaking up" there wasn't much. To be fair, this perception may be because I read the first few chapters over a couple of days, whenever I could get a minute, and the last half all at once while sick, knitting all the while. This may have artificially speeded up the timeline for me.
3. Dave Bookman needs to stop making snide remarks about 90's alternative fans, who have been allowing him to avoid real work for over ten years. It's not the fault of 15-year-old Nirvana fans (circa 1991) that CFNY sold out to corporate obnoxious crap.

My biggest issue isn't so much a complaint as a plaintive wail. This book makes you nostalgic for Torontopia, a time when I was too far away in Nova Gothic or consumed with staying alive in my stupid job to care about music. I missed it, as most of us did, and that's the problem with rock in general: you're always made to feel false nostalgia about a golden age, a perfect show or a watershed moment that you could never have known about. Knowing Stuart makes it worse; why was he allowed to live this cool life while I put aside my university days and went on with the next (boring) part of my life? I feel like I was just close enough to have really and truly missed out, and I don't know if that is the rock n' roll trope or my own sense of frustration.

Or, as Ophelia once said after a night of watching her boyfriend reminisce with a friend from home as they lit match after match…

"There is nothing more deadly than listening to stories about the Old Days when you weren't there." – march 17, 1997.

But how can you argue with a book that closes with a photo of Ohad's kid reaching out to Charles' while the parents look on proudly?

Labels: angst, books, health, music

Hey, look at me: not dead. I've felt sick even unto death for a good long while, which put a serious crimp into my extracurricular activities, but I'm better now. My getting-better started with a long doctor's appointment on the 20th, and the very next day everything was at least 300% better (despite struggling to get my reports in a day late, with all the stress that implies. Stupid double-damned report cards, from the fires of hell I stab at thee.)

The next week was devoted to the nature problem in my house, which started with the fact that I haven't felt well enough to do chores since February. Everything took a sharp turn for the worse when I discovered mouse leavings in my kitchen cupboards at the beginning of April but was too nauseous to deal with it until after the 20th. I still haven't cleaned out all of my cupboards and my cutlery is on the counter, but I'm pleased to report we caught a big fat mouse in the crawlspace and that may be the end of the problem.

Oh, and a determined skunk has been ripping up my lawn all spring in search of grubs. One night I watched the skunk fight off a raccoon and another skunk - apparently I have quite the delicious lawn grubs. Dealing with this has involved lots of cayenne pepper, but not a lot of results. So I'm mad at my house right now.

I'm continuing to surf the ups and downs of medication withdrawal. I'm discovered the rather unpleasant fact that all of the work I thought I'd done on myself and my dead marriage was apparently contingent on chemicals. Now that I'm on the other side, I'm angry, sad & anxious once more. Clearly I need to revisit this, but I'm not going back to my counselor. It's not his fault that the marriage counseling didn't take - I know that - but as a solo counselor he didn't inspire much confidence either. The problem is that, unless I get a prescription from an MD, I have to go through my employee program, and I've already burned through two out of their three pet docs. I'm not all that certain that the third will be any more useful than the first two.

Yesterday, while I was home from work, I ran a few long-overdue errands, including paying off both of my lawyers. Now I'm wondering if my separation lawyer can give me a counseling referral; she did, after all, like the black linen scarf I made her, and she must know a few counselors in her line of work. I can't be the only separated chick who needs her head shrunk.

Labels: angst, health, house

It's Sunday afternoon, and I'm bemused to report that I've spent nearly all the weekend lying down. Again. I'm of the fidgety sort, the kind who can't choose to spend the day in bed. Even if I'm sick, I still shift around, move rooms, etc. So when I have the chance to stay in bed, and I seem to want to sleep an inordinate amount, I trust that natural restlessness to get me out sooner or later. This backfired (?) yesterday, when I went to bed at 9 on Friday and got out of bed at 2:30 on Saturday. And of course, this surfeit of sleep didn't refresh me so much as set the tone for a day of lying down. It was pretty much a full day of feeling weak, nauseous & bored, although there were bright spots. Mason spent part of the day cleaning the basement, a task I've admitted as hopeless for months. Also, he traveled a great distance for burritos and cupcakes for our supper. I just wish I'd felt better, or even recovering. Stacy prefers the term "cocooning" to "hiding," as the implication is of renewal or regeneration. I'm still waiting for my wings to unfurl.

It seems unfair that my lax publishing schedule should leave everyone with the impression that Blake has been an unrelenting torment for weeks (unlike my stomach, which truly has). His return from his March Break visit to Casa Nova was rocky, but his anger has smoothed out. I'd like to believe that the root of this improvement is because I'm going out of my way in the mornings to snuggle with him, going to him because he's too knackered to come to me (and this from the boy who saved me from setting an alarm clock for the first two years of my return to the working world, a kid we had to bargain with if we wanted to sleep past 5 a.m.). But I'm afraid that the real reason may be that my dad has begun to supply Blake with the Lego sets he misses from his father. (If my dad wants to compete, he's going to lose. Not only does the Boy have a head start, but his parents have started to get in on the act, while I refuse to participate.)

(On a bitter little tangent…I feel a little ripped off that Blake comes home from weekends away with story after story of museum, play centre, fast food restaurant and family visits; not because I begrudge Blake an afternoon of doing something other than playing outside while his mother reclines weakly on the couch (cough*cough), but because the last few years of life with the Boy were an endless wave of resentment whenever he was asked to leave the house on weekends. I had to plan everything if we were to do anything; the fact that he is suddenly able to initiate and follow through on something other than sitting at a computer screen makes me feel a little ripped off. But my bitterness, as with many other things, is more about me than the Blake.)

The point, as was lost somewhere, is that Blake is doing better than he was, and therefore I am doing better than I was. Except that I can't get off the couch, I'm pleased.

Labels: blake, 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

Rough day today, my first full day back with Blake. I'm trying to tail off the medication I've been taking for more than a year, and the kid just will not stop talking about how much he'd rather be at his dad's place. Without another adult around, his little voice just bounces off my insecurities and the echoes are monstrous. I tried to explain to him that he was hurting my feelings, but he doesn't seem able to stop. I haven't been this ambivalent about mothering since the days he use to smile and gouge big nail tracks down my face, apropos of nothing.

When I wasn't completely losing my stuff and crying bitter tears, I was throwing myself into rehabilitating my upstairs bathroom. I don't usually do a full clean when I wash the bathrooms; I clean the high traffic area and call it good. Yesterday, as I was getting ready to host my troupe, I realized that the bathroom had slid beyond disreputable to wholly degraded. The shower curtain sheltered mildew and hung unevenly from a half-dozen surviving rings. The ring around the bathtub had established squatter's rights and occasionally ordered in a pizza. There was some weird reddish stuff on the tub. The windowsill was caked with soap and what I hoped was dirt from the other side of the screen. Sometime in the last few weeks, I managed to knock toilet paper dispenser right off the wall, and it hung around on the back of the toilet. There was some sticky orange stuff gunked onto the green bathmat. The sink stopper did its job too well and refused to drain. Everything was dank.

And, except for the sink stopper, I've fixed everything. The whole shower area is clean, including the shower curtain, which has been spruced up with new rings. The windowsill has been cleared of shampoo and soap, which is in a newfangled shower caddy. Toilet paper proceeds orderly from its old perch on the wall, and there's even a new storage thingee under it to hold new rolls. Everything is clean. I just need to pry up the sink plug before the accumulating toothpaste scum spoils my feeling of accomplishment.

Labels: blake, health, house

I'm starting to feel as if my spirit is rooted to the ground. I had a sick day yesterday (stomach cramps) and here I am, back on duty but completely unwilling to do anything. Yesterday I fell asleep at 1, got up at 5 to greet Blake and see him into bed, and was back in bed by 8. I am glutted with sleep, and all I can think of is lying down again. There's a part of me that regrets missing last night's dance class (only two more!) but that part is easily drowned out by waves of lethargy.

Labels: health

Slowly recovering my mojo after a week of what my doctor calls a chest infection and what I call the consumption. Thanks to antibiotics, I find myself in little need of laudanum and the complete works of Keats...well, in as little need as I am normally, which is considerably higher than none. I even spent two consecutive days off work this week, extending my regular not-fun weekend into a 4 day not-fun weekend. The coughing - oh, the coughing. I'm lucky I have any lungs left, and that my throat didn't secede in the bargain. But I've been dancing, and I've been mothering, and I keep reminding myself that I was considerably worse off last year at this time despite relative good health. If I managed to stay awake past 6:30 last year it was a major victory.

Blake is improving in class, although we continue to get notes about his progress. I'm starting to dislike his teacher, although I do my best not to show it in front of Blake. Teachers are the worst parents to have - we know all the system flaws and we judge other teachers more harsly than anyone else would dare. Trying not to let my bile choke me. Trying hard.

Labels: blake, health

I'm home with a migraine today, my second week in a row home sick on Monday (although last week I outdid myself with jabbing pains in my neck and guts stretching into Tuesday). I can't remember a migraine ever lasting this long – it's been going on since early in the morning, when I woke up around 4 a.m. with a headache too bad to sleep. Last night I was finishing my marking for the midterms like a good girl, despite what was then only a bad headache (albeit one that laughed in the face of extra macho Tylenol). I was all set to go in today and finish my report cards well in advance of tomorrow's deadline. Now, despite a grim determination to finish regardless of said migraine, I find myself the victim of network troubles. Oh well. I'll have to stand in abasement like a bad teacher, but I know that they make the deadlines in a logical way so that there's room for a little bit of lateness.

This entry, of course, is another in my trend of entries written when I have unexpected time off, my schedule being so damned tight otherwise. Must look into that.

Quickly then, before I have to go lie down again (but off my suddenly-sore hip). This weekend I experienced one of those truly zen-like rambles through the fall, the exact feeling I was hunting last year at the Humber Arboretum but missed due to my sleeping and ambivalent companions (guess which was which!). Mason is a devoted patron of the Don Valley Brickworks Saturday morning market, and this one was the last until Spring. Since we very rarely get the chance to take Blake due to the busy schedule of a kindergartener, we were hyped about including Blake in the fun. He made me proud, loving the kid's garden, gawping at babies and dogs like his elders, and tearing through the brush in the adjoining park land. The only sour note was the loss of the black keyhole scarf I knit for my dad three years ago that has only recently found use as a Blake-muffler. I don't know what I was more upset about: losing the first and only present I've ever knit my dad, losing a scarf that has just come into its prime after years hanging around the backseat of the car, or the way Blake 'consoled' me by assuring me that I should just knit a new one.

It wasn't until lunch at the Mill Street Brew Pub that my spirits were restored, partly by an unspectacular cottage pie and partly because Mason's in-house connections as a regular allowed us to skip a long line. Are we VIP's or does my sweetie have a drinking problem? Why does it have to be just one?

Labels: blake, health, mason

Some pictures, peeps. I made a Cthulhu toy for the cool home ec teacher/game store owner who got a new job for September. It was half farewell and half payment for getting me started re-lining my favourite spring coat (translation: she traced, cut and sewed it together; now I get to sew it in. I'm cool with that.)

For those who worry, I am seeing a counsellor about once a month. I'm also reading some good books about CBT and one called Rebuilding After Your Relationship Ends which sort of makes me mad but has some good stuff buried among the patronizing points. Last night, when all I felt like doing was crying, Mason came over and made us supper. Good, healthy, fresh food does wonders for my mood. I even had the energy to clean up the kitchen before he arrived, which was an insurmountable horror when I was weeping into the tissue Blake so kindly provided. My parents are worried that I'll scar Blake with the tears, but the truth is that I cry very infrequently around him. Yesterday was a big exception. I worry more about the time I disengage, although I don't suppose it's any worse than what the Boy was doing this fall. I'm hoping to use the next two weeks to recharge and find my joy wherever it's hiding.

Labels: angst, crafty, health

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

Battling a low-grade spring cold and a heavy conviction that I won't manage to finish out the teaching year in good form. Two weeks to finish Catcher in the Rye and all I want to do is lie down. With a book that isn't Catcher.

In my last entry I think the emphasis came through in the wrong place. I wasn't so much complaining about my impossible child as I was coming to the realization that I need to make things a lot less tough on myself. It's my stubbornness that makes things so damn hard for both me and Blake. It's this feeling that I'm doing him a disservice if we bring a wagon, or if I buy him an ice cream in the afternoon. I need to stop taking such a hard line about everything and try to be happier, lighter and more present. I need to stop worrying about the future Blake (the soft, spoiled kid I'm afraid of creating) and start enjoying the weird, energetic, sweet boy I have now.

Last night I participated in one of the most fun ideas ever conceived: a blend of Rocky Horror and Pee Wee's Big Adventure called "Pee Wee Herman Picture Show" at the Bloor Theatre. Nic, Mason, Pixie, Pixie's husband and a few hundred others came with me and were transported. Unlike the Rocky Horror Experience, in which you are encouraged to hate the characters on screen, we all love Pee Wee. I know the movie well from my younger days, and I think I scared Mason a little with the depth of recall I could command once the Danny Elfman score started to unspool. By the time we staggered from the theatre, I was voiceless from two hours of laughing, singing, and cheering along. Mason, Nic and I all agreed: if we hadn't had to work today, we'd have turned around and bought a ticket for the second show. I hummed the theme all the way home. Oh, and that this was Pixie's very first time seeing the movie. I couldn't have picked a better way to show her.

And there was something about being in a theatre full of happy people that made it better than Rocky Horror in which you throw contempt along with your toilet paper. Everybody was there for Pee Wee, and a number of them brought their kids to share in the fun. It still makes me grin, just thinking about the screams during the Large Marge scene.

"You have to watch it! You're 30!!" - nic attempts to be sensitive to my anxiety

I had promised Nic Ethiopian food that night, and after listening to his hissy fit when we went to Chippy's before the show, I decided to take him out for some fermented fun after the show. Unfortunately, Nic was a little too sick to enjoy himself, so Mason & I sipped drinks and tried to resuscitate our voices while my brother morosely shoveled food in his pie hole. I went to bed far too late for a school night, but so very happy that I had made it down.

Labels: blake, family, friends, health, outings

There are scavenger hunt photos here. I should not be allowed access to the web and my wallet on sick days, as I have impulse-purchased a Flickr Pro account upgrade today. I don't think I'm going to regret it, but I can't help but think it sets a bad precedent.

The 10 free Moo mini cards were just icing on my impulsive cupcake.

Labels: friends, health, knit