God, she's just not that into you.

I hadn't slept. I'd destroyed myself staying up all night as it turned into morning, making out with him, the invoker of butterflies in my stomach. I had gotten to my parents house to look after my mother (inbetween my eighteen naps) and funnelled two massive cups of coffee down my throat. Tidal waves of nausea ensued. My head throbbed, my mood ebbed and flowed between memories of soft words spoken in the spaces of kisses, and all I wanted was to go back in time.

When my father came back from work, I'd somehow managed to look after the two dogs, and feed my mother, and I decided I would treat myself to a cab home. When I got in, I thanked the cabbie for accepting my dog as part of the fare, and made the polite chitchat you should make with your driver.

Not two minutes later, Jesus Christ hitched a ride with us.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" John, the cabbie had asked me. I figured a personal question or two wouldn't hurt, would keep me alert and on my toes.
"Sure, " I said.
"Have you imagined your spiritual death?"

What the...? How's that...? Spiritu...huh?

John launched into a diatribe on God and his son and the happy family of divinity and truth I was doubtless missing out on. I was a sinner, I colluded with sinners, and unless I opened my heart to Jesus, I could consider myself unwelcome in Heaven. I frantically tried to think of some polite way to intercept this forced conversion of my faithlessness, but John, in full preaching mode, spittle and religiosity spraying from his lips, would not be interrupted. Plus, we had somehow ended up on the highway, and I was frightened, I don't like not knowing where I am, and I feared he was kidnapping me to fulfill some daily quota of saved pagan flesh.

So I kept quiet, and interjected "That's a good point" and "Hmm, interesting" into the few pauses John's intakes of breath allowed me. I was sick and tired, and it was evident that God, once again, hadn't been listening to me. We've already had this conversation, again and again, but he simply can't let it go. Now he's even getting his friends to talk to me about it?!?

For the last time!!!

Me: Are you there God? It's me, Mookie"
Him: Yes, my child.
Me: No, no listen, please, I'm not your child. I'm not a follower, a sheep in the flock, a virgin, a sinner. I'm me, a human. I'm a godless human.
Him: I don't think so.
Me: No, really, I appreciate that you take such an interest in even the most ignorant opposition to what I'm sure, if I 'believed', is your Greatness, but please, stop. Stop calling me, stop popping up in every corner of conversation I think is God-free, stop piggybacking my cab rides. I don't need you. I don't want you.
Him: -reverential silence -This isn't over. -Thunder-

Why, in the past two months, have I been confronted repeatedly with my un-religion? In defending my beliefs of randomness with a few religious friends, I've ended up sounding bigoted and righteous. Why is this questioning of religion called a "lack of faith"? I have faith, primarily in tangible things. In people, in actions, in concepts of love and truth and goodness and bravery, concepts proven by people and their actions. I've made my own peace, saved my own self from spiritual disintigration, numerous times, I've cobbled together my own answers on why terrible things happen, and redemption, forgiveness, these are earthly possibilities I've witnessed down here in real life. I didn't need God then, and I sure don't need him now!

Far be it from me to tell another soul how to manifest salvation. May intolerance and fearful hatred of the unknown never know my company. But for Pete's sake! just as sure as I don't pass judgement on your faith, stop assuming the absence of mine! Stop telling me I'm doing it wrong, because the fact remains that I still have innocence in my heart despite my sins of pride and envy and near-adultory and all the other black marks against my name. I still believe in the inherent greatness of ordinary people despite a dearth of evidence to the contrary in the daily news.

I didn't vomit in John's cab. I wish I had. It may have afforded me the silence I had a right to, but was too scared to ask for. Jesus was remarkably silent for the whole ride. I imagine if he did exist, he would have rolled his eyes at the preacher and the sinner, neither one truly being themselves, cracked open the window, and let the sharp air fill his lungs as he looked up at the darkened sky, wanting only to get home.

This side of paradise

Oh god. It's happened. When I wasn't looking, somehow, I've "come of age". And it's saddening me, because I've already consumed a large share of first times. First love, first intoxication, first heartbreak, first depression, first trip to Europe. First steps out of my parents' house, first taste of independance. And I'm a bit scared I'll never feel with such intensity and innocence again. Scared I'll never give with as much, and scared my happiness will never again be incumbent on so little. I've exited a poetic and sometimes cruel part of my life, and as with all goodbyes, part of me wants to cling on to its pantleg and beg it to stay as it walks out the door.

I feel like when I started this blog, and its predecessor, Staygoldoutsider, I was still entrenched in the process. I was going through it and making the spectacle available for public consumption. But it's been harder and harder to write. And not because I've not had the urge and need, but because the wellspring of post-teen identity crises is drying up! Too many realizations are being made! Too many issues of the Economist are being read! Too much identifying is occuring with Oprah!

The post-coming of age symptoms are too great to ignore. Wistfulness, accompanied by great, heaving sighs, rubbing of the forehead. Searching looks in the mirror. Almost compulsive gazing out of windows. Gentle crushes on 19 year old actors because they remind me of my first love. A nasty tumble into near-destructive nostalgia, whereby I punish myself with memories of love, sex, travels, angsts, friends and pivotal moments, all viewed through the sentimental lens of adulthood, all neutered of any of the actual torment they inspired.

The fact is, I am no longer a teenager. I am old enough that, had I been sluttier or more careless, I could now be a parent of a teenager. I think that is the earmark of when you can no longer claim allegience to the sufferings of youth.

I'm not saying I'm old. But I am showing signs of a different age box. They come random and fast. The delineation between youth and maturity are just that much clearer to me. It's funny, I remember near-panic attacks during my grunge days, worrying I'd one day wake up and be overtaken by love for country music and take up line-dancing against the iron will of my struggle for coolness. I don't think I'll be honkey-tonking any time soon, but the thing is, I listen to country music now. Not the new stuff but the old greats, like Ray Price and Woody Guthrie and Hank and Patsy and anyone who makes the hairs on my arms stand up. Good music is good music. "Who's your favourite band?" is no longer an applicable question, because the answer no longer defines you.

The other day I was walking my dog, and I had an out-of-body experience, whereby I imagined myself doing this exact thing, walking this dog down this street, wearing this dress. Only it was four or five years later, and I had a husband and kids. "These are my children, Olive and Buck." I mentally introduced my children to an imaginary aquaintance. I've always figured I'd have children, I know I want them. But I've never envisaged them, never given them names and personalities, never associated personal pride with procreation. They are a real-er possibility now. Something I want not just with my mind but with my being.

The biggest change in me has been the realization that I am farther away from teenagehood than from my thirties. I notice things, like wrinkles, which I'm determined to not care about too much, or lower energy. I frequently use the sentence starter "now that I'm getting older...". I'm distressed greatly by the teenagers in my neighbourhood, they seem more rough-and-tumble, less innocent, more wise-ass than I remember teens being. And I am going to be confronted by the fact that I will be a fair decade older than some of my classmates when I enter school in a couple of weeks. And it matters to me. Not that I can elude the capture and assignment of my self to a demographic, but it matters that I adopt a different sense of gravity. That I begin to take my life seriously, because I am no longer allowed the delicious freedom of responsibility and surprise at consequences to stupidity that comes with youth.

It's a melancholy and exciting time, this ripening process. But one thing that remains is the uncertainty of life. That is something shared by young and old, and it's the thing that will keep us caring about one another, because what happens to you can happen to me, and the older you get, the less invinceable you become. We're sorely mistaken in being such a youth obsessed culture, because I honestly don't think we would be able to handle the wonderfulness of a teenage life lived with the wisdom of our retrospect. Our youth would be too intense, too absolute, too short, and our beauty, the nubile bodies and fresh faces, would be too sorely missed. There has to be something to look forward to in crossing over to adulthood

And so I can gently mourn the firsts I've already passed through. Because there are so many more to come. Like my first paycheck from a "real" job, the first article I get published in a newspaper or magazine I respect. The first time I buy a major appliance. The first time I fall in love with a man in an adult way. The first passing of a beloved. And the first birth of one.

The grass, it now seems, is greener on this side.

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone

In a whispered, self-help rhetoric that Dr. Phil would be proud of, my audience, my reflection in our overly-lit bathroom mirror stared back at me, red and teary and mascara blackened around the eyes. She is the stronger one, the better one. She's the me I'm supposed to be, positive and focussed and not falling apart at the seams. She's pissed that I ruined our eye make-up.

I'm a mess.

It amazes me sometimes how well I hide it. To look at me, I honestly don't think you'd know what kind of storm is going on inside me. You wouldn't see the electrical currents of an anger that is misplaced in a relatively gentle soul, sparking and volatile. You might mistake the gleam in my eyes for brightness or a good daydream, but it's the gloss of hours-old tears. I am proud of this front I can put on, proud that I can still function and hold off this saddness and not let it take over me. But in the quiet, when I'm alone, it deafens me, and I don't know how to let it manifest in a "healthy" way.

My mom sits in bed, gauze in her mouth from dental surgery, a multiple tooth extraction procedure. I stroke her hand, bruised from an i.v. insertion. She snores a little. I am still shaking with overly strong palpitations of my heart, my father and I have thrashed each other verbally again, and I feel like he doesn't actually like me. I long for my mother's intervention, that tenuous tightrope walk she used to perform so effortlessly, running interference between two warring factions of the same tribe without ever picking sides.

And I try, once again, to look at pictures of her, scattered around the bedroom, beautiful, like Jean Seburg in "Breathless" beautiful, and remember the sound of her voice, fragments of conversations we used to have. I try to remember her laugh, unguarded and pretty, and the way it would elate my sister and me to make that sound come out of her. I try to remember what she would say to me when I was upset, or jokes we used to have between us. But I'm coming up short. I can't recall that information. I am emotionally impotent, and it scares me. Where did she go? She was supposed to live on as usual inside my head, that was how I was going to deal with her illness, and now, I can't even keep her there!

There are so many important things she will never see. She will probably never meet the man I will fall in love with. Nor will she meet her grandkids, not at the rate I'm going at falling in love. She won't see the house I one day will own from the money I secure being a successful journalist. She won't see me, the product of all her hard work and her labour of love, and how I turned out. She won't have that moment where she can breathe sweet relief, because she will know I can take care of myself, that I'm okay.

I have no one to really talk to about this. A lifetime of shrinks, and I trust no one to tell me what I don't know about myself. I have no pills this time to anaesthetize myself. I have only a bit of common sense, the kind that tells me I'll get through this, and that I cannot use it as an excuse to fall apart. It's funny, tragically so, that things like this are supposed to bring your family closer together. And yet I feel like the three of us, myself, my sister, and my father, are all finding quiet corners of different rooms to make our own kind of peace with this, and I don't know how we'll find our way back together.

I just hope that one day, the shock of this slow, steady decline will wear off, and I will be flooded with memories, like confetti thrown in front of a fan. I won't feel so alone anymore, because I'll remember her as she was. And that glorious rememberance will be the very antidote to this devastating loss.

And life will go on.

War of the Words

I have a love-hate relationship with fighting. A once self-described peacekeeper, I have since tasted the sweet nectar of verbal victory, and it has spoiled me forever in keeping my mouth shut.

We've all experienced that glorious, thrilling, intoxicating moment of being "right". But for some of us, it has an addictive quality. Heated debate can become a form of seduction, leading up to the climax of conversational checkmate. When ideas come to an impasse, and your opponent walks away...it's hard not to let the moral superiority that slips in go to your head and stay there. But don't you feel alive? Can't you feel the blood slowly draining from your flushed cheeks, still hot with the passion of well-articulated arguments? Is your heart still thumping, has it recovered from that crescendo of information exchange? Don't you just love yourself?

But those are arguments in the abstract sense, over politics or history or current events, things that can be won with a well turned phrase and a liberal dose of fact. Rarely is there any serious fallout from these coffeehouse skirmishes. There is another kind of argument, equally addictive and dangerous in high quantities, and those are the fights you have with people you love, over personal matters. This is the 'hate' part of my relationship with confrontation.

When I was little, I was so terribly sensitive to familial conflict. My sister was something of a firecracker in her younger days, and had, what they called back then, "a mouth on her". And I would imagine the hurt in my parents, as I'd surely felt it myself, and I would be compelled to make it right, to erase the conflict with being good. I was discouraged from following my sister's example, and so I learned the delicate art of appeasement. A necessary skill, but one that, if not balanced with the know-how of assertiveness, can paralyze your sense of self. (How can you know who you are if you don't know how to respond to injustice?)

Beyond the induction into teenagehood and the hormonal obnoxiousness that went hand in hand with it, I only really learned how to fight when I fell in love for the first and only time. My ex, however lovely and well intentioned at heart, had a knack for rubbing people the wrong way with offensive, self-righteous social commentary. I was often included with said group of the offended, and when I learned to identify that burning feeling in my stomach as the need to speak out, he was at the receiving end of it. And because he loved me, he often listened to me. And conceded defeat.

And so, I figured I was good at fighting. I could change peoples' minds. And I think I started to believe that because my intentions were pure, I was pretty much always right. If I could batter down the most oppressively negative, angry man I'd ever met with my optimistic insights, then I could win over anyone, right?

Except there are people in this world whom you will never change. They are called your family. This includes spouses, lovers, best friends, anyone who is in the inner circle. People you don't put your best face on for, because they are privy to all the ugliness and awkwardness you disguise for strangers, as a bestowal of trust. With these people, the only way someone wins is when someone gets hurt and walks away. There is no victory in that, no delicious righteousness, only the heavy heart that now carries the guilt of injury, and that awful moment of quiet that accompanies it.

I just don't know when to fight, and when to walk away. I let things fester and boil up till I become irrational. The rules of combat are suspended, I arm myself with every broken bottle, brass knuckle and pocket knife of cheap words, and I rumble till there's no one left standing. It's the strangest thing, but a fight with family reduces me to my inner thirteen year old. Mature enough to put a voice to grievances, but not sophisticated enough to take the sting out of it.

I realized this morning, as my eyes were filling with tears, and I indulged every last ounce of burning in my gut toward my father, that the only moment in a fight worth having is one filled with mercy, and devoid of pride.

I wish that moment had been mine.

Free the bees

Anyone who knows me knows I am terrified of bees. Bumblebees, wasps, hornets, anything bee-like, I'd rather it kept away from me. I've even had a bee fly into my ear. It stayed there for a good ten minutes while I wondered what, exactly, one is supposed to do in this situation. Stay calm, good. Sticking finger in ear, bad. I've even gone to the extreme lengths of getting bees tattooed on my arm, figuring that if I could get multiple needles piercing my flesh for two hours, what harm could a little bee sting do?

But I'm still terrified. Bees are angry. Bees have wrath, and bees exert their vengeful wrath at the slightest provocation. They are completely irrational, and I fear irrational beings.

Yesterday, I was taking a good, honest look at myself. I'm an attractive girl(I cannot bring myself to call myself a "lady" yet) But something was amiss. It was my hair, or rather, the tumbleweed atop my head where my hair used to be. How did I fail to notice how ratty it'd become? I was so excited by the length-anyone who's had short hair foisted on them from childhood will understand the fulfillment of Crystal Gayle-length hair daydreams-so much so, that I didn't care what condition it was in. So, in the spirit of frugality and self-sufficiency, I got out the scissors, as I have many times before, and started cutting my hair.

I feel the need to explain my fear of hairstylists. When I was small and my mother used to take me and my sister to TopCuts in Yorkdale, I was always given the short bowl cut my mother found so adorable on me. And once, as we were leaving, one of the "stylists", I use the term loosely, mistook me for a boy. It's been seared into my memory. From then on, I wanted long hair. And every time I grew my hair out and went for a trim, they would not listen to me "please, I'd like to keep as much length as possible", and I would leave with short hair and feel like a boy. So as soon as I could, I started taking haircare into my own hands. I'm actually not bad at it.

Only, this time, I was not so good at it. When you have a bad haircut, you feel so vulnerable, so exposed. Who among us doesn't have a Sampson complex to some extent- 'my hair is integral to whatever hotness I may possess'- and how many of us are jaw-droppingly beautiful or confident enough to laugh off a bad coif? My heart was racing, because I didn't trust myself to go on and try to fix it. So I picked up the phone and called the salon I go to whenever I screw up my hair, which is now averaging about once a year. And today, I ignored the clammy hands, the upset stomach, the shortness of breath, I sat back, and I trusted. I trusted that my stylist would listen to me, would leave me with some hair.

It was not easy. I was forced to engage in "chitchat", which I'm not really great at under pressure. I was subjected to styling products, which are always used with rather too much creative license. And I found the hairdryer nozzle a tad invasive. I emerged from the salon an hour later, a little poorer, a little unsure, but with the satisfaction that I'd faced a pretty stupid fear. I'm walking a little taller today, I don't know if it's that I like my haircut, or that, more and more, I'm starting to just not give a damn what strangers think of me and my hair. Slowly and surely, I'm letting go of the scaredy-cat who lives in my belly.

Look out bees. There's a new gal in town.

musings from the sickbed

Saturday night, too many drinks. Some first-year university student is firmly attatched to my backside as I dance, but I'm drunk and happy, so I let him. I'm with friends, I'm having a "Saturday night" with no inhabitions, and as I trip home at two in the morning, I feel at one with all the other revellers lining up for hot dogs or pizza, anything to soak up the excesses starting to rear their consequences on health and decision making.

And at approximately five in the morning, I wake up. With a migraine.

I've suffered from migraines all my life. I used to get them a lot as a kid, brought on by hypersensivity, and tension. I would spend hours, vomiting and writhing in agony, my family standing by in case there was anything they could do to ease my pain. But these are migraines, ain't nothing you can do but pray for the end.

The funny thing is, when I get sick with such a concentrated bout of suffering, my life does flash before my eyes. I count the seconds till the naseau subsides, for moments of normality I'd previously enjoyed unnoticed. I wonder if this is what death feels like, or if this compares to the pain of childbirth. I would sign just about any document or commit to any type of illegal activity just to make the hurt go away. And my heart swells so full of love for the poor family members that stand by me and offer words of support and advice as I stare pathetically up at them from the bathroom floor.

This time, I called my sister. It was the first time I've had a migraine away from home, and I haven't called my parents. I called her. "Let me finish stuffing this bagel down my gob, I'll be right over". She was at her boyfriend's house, I was undoubtably disturbing their cozy Sunday morning, but sure enough, within half an hour, she was there, rubbing my back and bringing me ice packs, staying on hold with TeleHealth Ontario to find out if I needed to see a doctor. She cancelled her plans with her boyfriend to stay with me. It was exactly what I needed, it's something no pill or promise of better health could do. Make me feel safe and loved, amidst the physical manifestations of all the insecurity and heartsickness I've been feeling of late.

Something sweet came of all this. I was reminded of my childhood, and the way my mother would look after me when I was struck with migraines. There would always be her soft hand smoothing my forehead. A glass of apple juice on the night table. A popsicle melting in a bowl. Cool sheets on my bed. And when relief and sleep would overcome me, she'd turn out the lights, close my door just enough so that some light from the hallway would keep me company, and I'd hear her and my father talking and making dinner downstairs. There is no greater thing you can give a child but that. That sense of being cared for. It's the gold of parenthood.

Those days are gone now, but I was brought back to them by my sister, who is the closest I have to a mom now. I know she will move out one day, and live with her boyfriend, and I will have to learn how to save myself, but for now, I will let myself indulge in those tenderest of moments when I can forget just how much life has changed.

Born yesterday

I'm 28 years old. I've had enough experiences with men to have at least some insight into the male mind. And yet, when it comes right down to it, I haven't the foggiest clue.

In the past two weeks, I've amazed myself, both with lack of clarity when sober, and astuteness when drunk.

A few doors down from my house, there's been ongoing construction, and as with most construction, there've been construction workers. I get up rather early these days to take the dog for her morning walk, and on these early morning, dewdrops-on-your-sneaker-tips kind of mornings, I've walked by the site. There was a rather attractive fellow working there, and he and I would exchange hellos, gradually lengthening the scope of our conversations to "how are you's", and "bad weather we're having". Not exactly sparkling, but a start, anyway. One day, as I walked by and went up my front steps, he ran after me, and introduced himself properly. He suggested we exchange phone numbers and maybe go out sometime. His phone, he said, wasn't working, but it was getting fixed that day. I, admittedly turned on by his rather well-muscled physique and lovely blue eyes, said yes. I mean, not everything has to mean something, right? A date or meeting with someone new doesn't immediately have to send me into apoplectic fits worrying how I'll break up with him if it doesn't work out. Emboldened by my new disregard for my usual over-thought, I sauntered that day. I felt filled with a certain brand of freedom, both sexual and from my own nature. I felt hot.

Later that night, my best friend called me up, and we made spontaneous plans. Wow, I thought, this is a new me. I never make spontaneous plans, I don't even know if I'm spelling spontaneous correctly! We met at a bar near both of us, and had a few beers, and a great time chatting and watching the cute waiters. Confidence is infectious, and both of us were feeling a bit more !!! that night. Sitting next to us was a fellow who came and joined us after his female companion left. I'd noticed him earlier as he walked back from the bathroom, we'd made prolonged eye contact, and I was again amazed at how un-self conscious I was being.

He talked a lot about the ridiculously interesting life he'd been leading, his fantastic job, which put him in league with the upper eschelons of Canadian music gods, his philosophies on life and choices. Both me and my friend found him entertaining, and not too arrogant, for one so well-connected and travelled. I noticed he was pretty much ignoring me, and for some reason, I knew it was because he was trying to be aloof. Usually, I'd think he just didn't notice me, but the construction worker's interest in me had bolstered my ego a bit, and so, without the headache of lowish self-esteem, everything was standing before me, remarkably clear, even as I got progressively drunker. When my friend excused herself to the bathroom, my suspicions were confirmed, and he started in on how he'd fancied me from the moment he saw me, he wanted to know me, and that he'd been playing it aloof so I'd think he was cool. I was tickled, and at the end of the night, under the initial intention of walking my dog, we went back to my place.

I don't know when exactly I cottoned on to the fact that he was completely coked out, that there was a very strong possibility he was actually something of a liar, and a rather grand one, at that. But after a rather unmemorable encounter, and some pathetic excuses as to why he wouldn't be able to join me for breakfast,(I didn't invite him!) I saw him, in my drunken stupor, for what he was. It wasn't that far off from who I thought he was at the bar, someone used to partying and saying what sounded good. And amazingly, there was no shame or self-criticism involved, post-revalation. It was what it was. A one-off. Not without a lesson or two.

Fast forward to not one, not two, but three sweet phone messages from the construction worker. After the second call, I had decided I wasn't going to call him. I know, it sounds despicably classist of me, but I just couldn't see it, couldn't fathom what we'd have in common. A week went past when the third call came, and with it, a sharp reminder that I can be a bit too judgemental and introverted with people I don't know, and so I fished out his phone number and gave him a call.

A woman answered. I asked to speak to "Bob". 'Who is this?' she asked, suspiciously. I told her my name, and when he got on the phone, the jig was up. He was cold, aloof, positively reluctant to talk to me. A colonoscopy might have been more comfortable for him. There was that clarity, just a bit on the tardy side. His phone was broken? Asking me about the construction site that he was no longer working on? Oh, you silly, naive simpleton, you daft, not-tuned-in-to-your-first-instincts girl. I'd been so worried I was being a bitch and not giving him a fair shot, that I ignored whatever the heck it was in me that initially said "don't call". He tried to get out the words "I'll call you later", but I cut him off and hung up.

I was embarrassed. My ass was a bit sore from falling off my chair in disbelief, both at my ignorance, and his idiocy. But I reminded myself that I've fallen off several turnip trucks before, and I'm still able to laugh about it, even with that purpley-red emotional bruising.

They're out there, my future bad dates, blissful and short lived love affairs, and perhaps, if I'm lucky, one or two more deep, enduring ones. I'll try not to shy away from musicians and hard hats out of past experiences. I'll just have to go by my guts.