Three Times #KidsintheHall Helped Me Through Shitty Stuff

1) Hotel LaRut

I was married, once. At 20, I was probably not ready to be married. My erstwhile ex-husband was definitely not ready to be married. All in all, marriage was a mistake.  I got a couple of pretty amazing kids out of the deal, so it ain't all bad, though.

I usually don't like to use identifiers here, because privacy, but this joke may not make a lot of sense if you don't know his name was Tony.

After we split up, whenever I was down and listless and complaining and crying, my best friend would put on a fake French accent and ask "What's wrong, my Michelle?" (Full disclosure: My name is not Michelle.  But you probably already knew that).

At this point I would slowly start to smile, and put on my own fake french accent..

"Oh, Silvee.. I can't help thinking about Tony..."



2) But Do You Love *Me*

I dated a dude once.  A dude, who although he professed to like an awful lot of things about me, always came back to how he just didn't quite feel *that way* about me.  Me, being the sucker I was, let him come back into my life numerous times, only to have the same conversation again, until I finally had to say "Enough!"



I'm not so sure this was one of those times where laughter is the actually the best medicine but those nights of drinking wine straight from the bottle while sobbing "I'm an icky, icky tree!" sure helped me work through some stuff.

"ICKY ICKY TREE"

3) The Cause of Cancer

Shitty things happen in life. Sometimes terrible, horrible things happen to good people.  Or, at the very least, to well-meaning people.

But, I digress.

When horrible things happen, sometimes it is comforting to have some kind of faith that everything happens for a reason.

We call those reasons 'Scapegoats'.

So when I was diagnosed with Stage 1 colon cancer, I had the perfect scapegoat in Bruce McCulloch. It helped that Bruce was always my least favourite Kid, so in a twisted part of my mind, it made sense that in his vengeance, out of spite for being my least favorite, that he would maliciously grow a tumour in my colon.




Dave's right. He doesn't even sound sorry.

Being Okay with Being Single.

This post is a long time coming.  I started writing it in my head over a year ago, after reading one of Chally's final posts at Feministe.

It seems odd, I know, for me to write about being single now that I'm in the longest relationship I've had in years.  At least, longest consecutively-running relationship that can't easily be amended with descriptors like "Off-and-on" or "Dysfunctional" or "Toxic" or "Vaguely Demoralizing".

Like I said, I started this post in my head well over a year ago.  However, it seems relevant today since this is a day many people bitterly lament their single status and the often-frustrating search for Twoo Wuv™.  I was one of those people for many years.  Hell, in solidarity with my formerly single self, I still refuse to give this Hallmark Holiday more than a perfunctory nod, because love - of ALL forms, not just romantic or eroticized love - should be something we celebrate everyday and not necessarily the consumer-driven, materialistic, hetero-normative version that is pushed on the general public by the greeting card and diamond industries.

However, I digress.

I had, at the time, come to the conclusion that I was going to be Okay With Being Single.  Not "I'm okay with being single because I know someday someone is going to love me and I will have my Happily Ever After" but "I may possibly spend the rest of my life as a Single Woman and that is okay."  I was coming to the conclusion that I was done seeking the be-all, end-all, heteronormative ideal.. the relationship.  I vowed to stop thinking of myself as All Alone because, dammit I was NOT alone.  I had my children, my family and many wonderful friends.  I decided that would be good enough.  I may or may not consider having sexual encounters but solely on my own terms.   I was done feeling like a failure, like less-than because I was unattached.  

From Chally:

Singleness is treated as something to be fixed. It’s treated as a state one would surely want to change as quickly as possible. If you’re single, you’re automatically miserable, and everyone’s going to try and figure out what’s wrong with you... What would society look like if little girls weren’t expected to organise their lives around finding a sole and central heteronormative relationship around which everything else in their lives must then revolve?

The words rang true.  So I made my decision to stop searching and just enjoy my life as it was.  And then in true fucking cliche'd fashion, when I stopped looking.. boom.  That was just over a year ago.  And it was good.  And continues to be good.

So that post never got written.

However, that decision never quite went away.  I'm still okay with being single, even if I'm not currently.  Because the future is always uncertain.  Make no mistake, I hope that things between the Well-Travelled One and I continue to be good, for a good long time.  Frankly, I like him a lot.  I know, though, that if things between us were to go south for whatever reason, I will be sad, I will Cry the Ugly Cry and wipe my nose on my sleeves and so on and so forth and miss the hell out of the guy, but ultimately life would go on.

Source

It sounds callous, but not really.  It's actually helpful in quelling (some) of my myriad insecurities.  I'm here because I want to be and if  I didn't, I wouldn't have to be.  I have many years of experience in knowing I'm fully capable of being on my own.   On that same level, I like to think that he's with me because he wants to be and not out of any feeling of obligation.

Cliff Pervocracy wrote about the fear of the The Worst Thing In The World and framed this fear as something that may be a motivator for abuse and emotional manipulation in relationships.  The fear of the Worst Thing In The World (ie, a relationship ending) can provoke an extreme fear response:

I remember when my first "I love you" relationship ended.  I couldn't  abide the thought.  I screamed.  I cried.  I tried to seduce him.  (While still crying. Sexxxay.)  I threatened to harm myself if he didn't come back.  I called him until he stopped taking my calls.   The ridiculous thing is, I didn't even like him that much.  It wasn't about getting the joy of the relationship back.  It was about avoiding [The Worst Thing In The World]... What I did to my ex-boyfriend--threatening myself and refusing to leave him alone--was abuse. Fortunately it didn't go on very long, but it was abusive. And I didn't do it because it felt good to scare and upset him. I did it because I was so deeply afraid of losing him.

Cliff goes on to explain how realizing that this wasn't The Worst Thing In The World helped hir to deal with later breakups in a more dignified and mature manner, because it wasn't a 60-foot cockroach, it was only a 6-foot cockroach (read the full post if you're confused as to where cockroaches play into this).

Similarly, the Worst Thing In The World allows a lot of people to put up with a lot of bullshit.  Some people fear their inability to function without a significant other, that they cannot take care of themselves, support themselves financially and so on.  Some people buy into the idea that pairing up must be a life goal.  I had a friend, single at the time, say to me forlornly "I've never had a relationship last."  I looked at them quizzically and thought "Well, no shit.  If you did, you'd be in one right now."  It struck me funny but I realized afterward that in our society an ended relationship is seen as a failed relationship.  And this fear of failure becomes The Worst Thing In The World.

It's not, you guys.

Being single is not a failure.  It's not The Worst Thing In The World.  There is no moral imperative to get yourself all paired up.  Also, no one owes you a relationship.  Nor do you owe it to anyone else.  Spend time with people whose company you enjoy, without worrying if zie is 'The One'.

Well, I guess it's that time again, isn't it?

2011, amirite??

I really don't have whole lot to say about the past year, to be honest. I spent most of it just kind of laying low and enjoying life. There were a few high points, such as my trip to the Dominican with two girlfriends back in January and my trip to quebec with my girls in September. I got to go to a few concerts, including Finger Eleven, A Primitive Evolution and a few more from The Schomberg Fair - two in one week from those guys.

Although, I did date a bit, and had fun while I was at it, I spent 2011 pretty much single. I've spent a lot of time sorting out my issues in the aftermath of most-recent-ex, whom I had made one final attempt at friendship with before deciding it was best for everyone involved if we just cut off all contact. Not easy, but I'm working on it.

My car got written off but it was a situation that ended up working out well for me as it allowed me to get out of my car loan.

Compared to last year, spent most of this year on the periphery of other people's excitement - some good, some bad. For myself, in retrospect, the year was kind of mundane and uneventful.

Maybe that's a good thing.

2012 looks like it could potentially be quite the roller coaster. That is, if we aren't all blinked out of existence by mid-December. However, I'm sure that much like Harold Camping's prophecies of doom this Mayan calendar issue will likely turn out to be just a lot of hooey.

Please feel free to make fun of me for using the word 'hooey'.

As I was saying, the coming year already holds a lot of promise for excitement and/or crippling anxiety... Wheee!

This year's to-do list includes:

• Buy a house. Yup, that's a big 'un
• learn my ukulele
• compete in the Warrior Dash
• find a way to make some money with all this writing
• keep working on staying in shape
• My kickboxing instructor has thrown around the idea of holding some demos, in which case I want in on that. Yeah, I've been doing this for over a year now, and still love it

So I guess that's my year end wrap-up. Time to start getting myself dolled up for this evening's festivities. Cheers, y'all.

Holding myself accountable.. that's what this is about, right?

So, I haven't done an MFP monday (formerly WWWednesday) post in a while.  Mainly because I figured that after a few weeks of "Gained xxx number of lbs." or "Stayed the same.  I don't want to talk about it." would get old after a while.

The progress has been slow going, to say the least.  Although my ticker says I'm down 2lbs, as of two or three days ago, I was pretty much where I started.  I've just not been tracking gains, only losses.  Once I'm down below my recorded weight, I'll start updating again.  It just got so frustrating seeing that 0 on my ticker.

I had a week that I thought I did well, and stayed the same.  Then I had a pretty good week but fell apart on the weekend and ended up gaining two pounds.  Then I kind of went off the rails and said 'fuck it!' for a few days.  As you may guess, this was pretty easy considering it was halloween and I had all sorts of candy and chips at my disposal.  However I think hormones played into my fluctuations because then I was down 4lbs.. then up 2 and so on..

So now I'm thinking of weighing in tomorrow morning but I know I'm going to be frustrated as fuck if there is no happy change in the numbers. How the hell did I deal with all this the first time around?  I had so much more to lose then, but it seemed to come off much easier, then.

Oh well.

In other news, my NaNoWriMo progress is.. well.. stilted I guess.  I'm up to 2600ish words and at this point I think I'm supposed to be somewhere in five digits.  But every time I sit down to write I find I'd rather write here.  The story I'm writing is semi-autobiographical and through it I'm trying to work out a lot of shit in my head, mainly regarding some past relationships.

I'm getting in the mood to be crafty again, even in spite of the sewing machine disaster of this past weekend.  Through Freecycle I was able to procure some old cuckoo clocks and parts which means lots of GEARS and SPRINGS!! I plan to try and play around with some Steampunk type stuff.. frames and such.

The downside of these clocks is that they smell like they've spent the last 20 years in an unventilated room with someone who insisted on chain-smoking and exhaling directly into the box where they were being stored.  I think I'll be sure to avoid offerings from this user in the future.  Should be pretty easy, his emails were covered in crucifix images and Biblical verses.  I won't miss that.

The girls want me to fix one of them up as an actual clock.  I may try it.  There's one that has the yodelling guys that come out and walk around in a circle and then go back into the clock again.

I tried to take some pictures with my phone, but it's a loaner that I got from Rogers while they fix mine and I'm having trouble figuring out how to send pics.  Oh and the kids broke MY camera.  So y'all may have to just use your imagination on this one.

Little freakin' heathens.

The best feminist children's book ever.

The Paper Bag Princess

If you grew up in the 80's, in Canada especially then it's likely you are no stranger to the wonderful stories of Robert Munch.  I had a collection of teeny-tiny pocket versions of his books, which tended towards simple but humorous plots (a dad who sleepwalks, a kid who won't wear his ugly snowsuit, a kid who won't go to the bathroom until the last minute) and cute illustrations generally provided by Michael Martchenko.  As soon as my kids were old enough to focus their eyes on a book, I began collecting anthologies of Munsch's work so that I could share them with my kids.

Somewhere in the time between being a six-or-seven-year-old with a profound love of reading and a thirty-something mother-of-two I happened to learn a bit about the media and about feminist theory and social constructionism and how gender portrayals in the media tend to affect us.  So upon revisiting what is possible Munsch's most well-known work (aside from that unholy tearjerker that everyone sadist likes to give expectant mothers at baby showers, Love You Forever) I was pleasantly surprised to find a strong feminist message in this story about a princess who outsmarts a dragon to save her beloved.

Let's recap, shall we?  Princess Elizabeth is slated to marry Prince Ronald.  Oh, he's cute and all and she's rather smitten.  So it's understandable that when the dragon comes and destroys her (yes.. *her*) kingdom and carries off Prince Ronald, she is eager to get him back.

The book gets its title from how after her kingdom is burned to smithereens all Elizabeth has left to wear is an old dirty paper bag.  This comes into play later in the story.

By way of her intellect, Elizabeth tricks the dragon into exhausting himself by performing various dragonesque stunts until he collapses, leaving Prince Ronald unguarded.  Pretty clever, no?  Not even clever 'for a girl'.  Just clever.

Source

Here's the rub.  Rather than showing some gratitude towards Elizabeth for saving his useless ass, Prince Ronald turns his nose up and tells Elizabeth that she is a mess and should come back when she 'looks more like a princess.'  Rather than fret and be all apologetic for not living up to Ronald's gender and class expectations, Elizabeth firmly but respectfully informs Ronald that he's a narcisisstic asshat (my words, not hers.. this IS a children's book.  Elizabeth, I believe, calls him a 'bum') and lives happily ever after, ON HER OWN (or at the very least, without the company of the insufferable Prince Ronald).  This is the impression we're given anyway, between the line "And she didn't get married, after all" and Martchenko's illustration of Elizabeth walking off into the sunset, clicking her heels with joy.

So we have a princess who uses her wit and resources at hand to show concern and come to the aide of those around her, undeserving as they may be.  Her kingdom is describe as her own.  She outsmarts the dragon without doing harm to him, so she is an empathetic character.  She is able to recognize that her own self-worth is of higher importance than marriage to a prince.  Let's also add that this is not the stereotypical 'beautiful' princess.  Elizabeth is pretty in an average, relatable*  sort of way.

I love that the message in this book is not an overtly preachy one, and is one that is universal to anyone of any gender, ethnicity, class etc... Be resourceful, and you are not obligated to people who disrespect you.  The fact that Elizabeth is conceived in such a brilliantly simple manner as a Strong Female Character - that is, strong in character and intellect, not necessarily just a more ass-kicking object for the male gaze - is what makes this an excellent feminist children's book.

*I'll concede that Elizabeth may be more relatable if you're a little white girl.  However, Munch has made a point of incorporating characters of many ethnicities in his stories, generally without resorting to stereotyping

In spite of my best efforts.

Yesterday as the girls and I were making dinner, Reegs told me she didn't ever want to get married.  This is not the first time she's made this declaration.  She once told me that when she grows up she's not going to get married, not going to have kids, not going to have a car, and is going to be a hairdresser.

I can totally envision this, by the way.

An artist's rendering of my youngest daughter in about 10 years. Source

I decided to ask her why she didn't want to ever get married.  Keep in mind, I also don't want her to grow up feeling like she is under any obligation to marry, either.  However, I was curious so I asked.

"I don't want to get married because I don't ever want to have a divorce."

Cue massive parental guilt.

What do you say? Between the ex, the new wife and myself, we've tried to do what we can to make sure the kids aren't negatively affected by our situation.  It's taken a lot of compromise and a lot of putting our (okay, MY) own  hurt feelings aside in order to give the kids as stable an upbringing as that.

Still, it broke my heart to hear her say that and I couldn't help but wonder how much of it was some deep-rooted fear of emotional pain that was subconciously implanted (even within the womb) into her psyche, or if maybe I'm taking too much guilt on myself and that this is a more global fear that she's picked up from television, books and movies.

So what could I do.  I did some fast-on-my-feet parental thinking and told her that not everyone gets divorced and even if it happens, although it genuinely does suck, it's not the end of the world and people move on and get through it.   Had I been quicker I could have pointed out her Grammy and Grandpa who have been happily married for nearly 35 years now.

Still my heart broke a little.  I hope neither of my babies ever have to go through it.  I guess they are lucky enough that they were both too little to remember the really rough post-split aftermath, as Tierney was just a toddler and Reagan was a newborn baby.

*sigh*  I guess we all just do what we can, right?  Right.

Two Rape Apology Tropes that Just Need to Stop Now.

April at Ethecofem posted a great article this week on victim-blaming in society for everything from rape, to poverty, to obesity.

I made a couple of comments that I wanted to expand into a blog post, regarding common tropes used in rape apologism.

Trope #1  - Rape =/= Being hit on.

Being raped or assaulted is not the same as being hit on. I cannot stress this enough. But it seems that every time brings up the topic of victim blaming, especially in regards to someone's manner of dress, some jackass always brings up the "Why do women get all dressed up if they don't want to get hit on?"

I'll say it again.. being raped or assaulted is NOT the same as being hit on.  It's not a compliment.  Don't try to equate them.  Ever.

If I get all gussied up and head out on the town looking like a million bucks, then no, I shouldn't be surprised if someone offers to buy me a drink, or asks me to dance, or asks for my number.

THAT IS CALLED BEING HIT ON.

However, if I go out all tarted up and someone asks to buy me a drink, and then puts drugs in it, or gets belligerent and abusive if I decline a dance, or corners me in the parking lot after I leave, well that is NOT okay. No matter HOW hot/slutty/provocative (because the semantics are objective, you know) I am dressed.

THIS IS ASSAULT.  SEE THE DIFFERENCE?

This was the point that was being made by the Toronto Slut Walk last week.  It wasn't about whether or not it's cool to dress 'slutty' or whether it should be socially acceptable to do so - especially when the definition of what is considered 'slutty' is subjective, as is the perception of what the term actually means.  Personally, I think a lot of women could stand to show a little more class in how they dress.  But I do not ever think that manner of dress should be justification for being assaulted.  And that's why there was such an uproar over the OPP officers comments.

Trope #2 - Rape =/= Having your car Stolen.

Another common argument is the 'if you leave your car unlocked you shouldn't complain when it gets stolen'.  I'm just going to repost my response to the guy who made this comment on April's post:

So if a person leaves his car parked on the street with the keys in the ignition and the windows rolled down and the car gets stolen, would it be victim-blaming to say, "Hey, maybe you shouldn't have made it so easy to steal your car"?

Here is my response.  I don't really feel a need to add anything.

When you leave your car running on the street unlocked with the keys in the ignition, and someone steals it, no one argues whether the car was actually stolen or not. No one denies the validity of the claim of theft, regardless of how easy it was. No one ever says "Well, do you think they really stole the car? The car owner must have wanted them to have the car. I mean, they gave away their last car, so they must have wanted the the so-called car thief to have this one. Now they're just saying it was stolen so they don't look like fools who give their cars away."

And ultimately, yes, it's still victim-blaming, because even being dumb enough to leave a car running with the keys in the ignition doesn't let someone off the hook for saying "Hey, this isn't mine, but I'm taking it anyway."

Oh, there's that whole pesky issue of women's bodies not being the equivalent to personal property or an inanimate object such as a friggin' CAR. But I'm sure you knew that already.

So folks, can we please stop with these two incredibly lame arguments already?

What did Nicholas Cage Ever Do To You?

The following is a piece of short fiction written for the weekly writing challenge at Studio 30 Plus.  This week's writing prompt is "Las Vegas"

******************************************************

The moon is full this evening.  A faint glow shines through the window, lighting the room enough to create a vague silhouette of a man and a woman, laying back in bed.  An ashtray lay balanced on his chest and he smokes a cigarette.  She's nestled in the crook of his arm and curled up against his chest in what is only partly a gesture of affection.  Truthfully, the smell of the smoke bothers her, and she finds she prefers to breathe in his own scent of post-coital sweat and department store body spray.  She never used to be bothered by it, but after quitting herself, she finds it mildly irritating.  She's considered saying something and sometimes wonders why exactly she doesn't.

Meanwhile, as he pulls a drag from his cigarette and blows it towards the cracked open window, he wonders if it bothers her that he still enjoys the occasional smoke.  Feeling mildly guilty, he thinks about stubbing it out, but reconsiders.  If it bothered her, she'd have said something by now.

Laying in silence, the tiny orange beacon pulses as he finishes his smoke.  Stubbing the tail end in the tiny glass ashtray, he places it on the night table and waves the lingering remains away.  She adjusts her position, and breaks the silence.

"Have you ever seen Leaving Las Vegas?"  She had heard the song playing on the radio earlier that day and  wondered about the connection, if any, between the song and the film.

"Nope, never seen it," he replies sleepily.

"I've heard it's good.  It won awards, you know."
"Ehhh.  I don't really like Nicholas Cage."

Propping herself on her elbows she stares at him, momentarily, as though he's suddenly grown a third head. "What?  Why?"

"Just don't.  He bugs me.  Good night."  With that, he rolls onto his stomach and faces the wall, closing his eyes.

"Hold on a minute!" she exclaims indignantly, flipping on the light.  She's sitting upright now, and he cries out in dismay at the shock of the seemingly blinding light and slams the pillow over his head. "What do you mean, you 'just don't'?  That makes no sense!"

From under the pillow comes his muffled response "I dunno.  Why do I need a reason not to like him?  Can I sleep, please?"

"What about Adaptation?"

He emerges from under the pillow. "What about Adaptation?"

"We watched that.  Didn't you like it?  I thought you said you liked it."
"It was okay, I guess.  I don't remember it much.  Why does it matter to you if I like Nicholas Cage?"
"Well, I just don't get how you can just 'not like' someone.  Do you think he's a bad actor?  Is it because he's not conventionally handsome?"  She's crossing her arms across her chest and looking vaguely annoyed.

Sighing dramatically, he sits up. "I wasn't going to tell you this, but here goes. Once, I was in New York on business.  I was trying to hail a cab.  It was raining that day and all the taxis kept passing me by.  Finally a Yellowcab stopped and I was just about to get in when out of nowhere, Nicholas Cage shoved me aside, into a giant puddle, and took my cab that I had waited 15 minutes in the rain for.  I missed my job interview, and the opportunity of a lifetime.  Ever since then, I have hated Nicholas Cage and everything he stands for."

She pauses and eyes him, eyebrows raised. "Is that true?"

"Not a word of it.  Can we go to sleep now?"

She whacks him with the pillow. "Ass."  Flopping back onto the bed she gives him evil eye.

"You love it," he says, kissing her on the forehead and flipping off the light.  She sighs and rolls over.

A few moments later, she rolls back over.  "By the way, I hate it when you smoke in bed."

No reply.  He's already sleeping.

I have an axe to grind..

.. okay, so it's more of a hatchet.

Started on my yard work today after a miscommunication resulted in my afternoon opening up.  A whack of smaller trees on the back of the property fell down so Reegs and I spent an hour or so dragging the broken limbs over to the fire pit.  Unfortunately, some of the fallen branches are too thick for me to break down into smaller chunks by hand, so I'll need to chop them.  Right now my rusty little hatchet is about as threatening as a Nerf bat.

I also managed to fashion a working leaf rake out of the two leaf rakes that got broken last fall, due to neglect.  So I'm a handy-freakin' woman.  I've also managed to make banana muffins, a big batch of spaghetti sauce and completed a backdrop for Tee's play for school.  They're doing 50 Below Zero, based on the book by Robert Munsch and needed a background for the outdoor scene.  Since I'm pretty sucky on that whole 'volunteer-parent' thing, I thought "Hey, this is somewhere I can contribute!"

I don't mind saying, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

So the moral of the story, I should let the kids have friends over more often, because when they're occupied, I get shit DONE.

I welcomed back clothesline season by doing about six thousand loads of laundry.  Two weeks worth of clothes, plus two loads of sheets and a couple of comforters.  I've even got lunches ready to go for tomorrow.  I have to call the insurance company tomorrow to see what the freakin' deal is with my car, because it's been over two weeks and I'm still driving the rental around.

Unexpected visit from the most recent ex, who was in the area visiting friends.  It was.. pleasant.  I dunno, for the first time since everything really went to shit, I felt like we might actually be able to maintain a friendship.. one that doesn't fuck with me emotionally but rather one where we really are just friends, nothing else.

I've been blogwarded by Bruce at Just Another Day In Paradise

I recently came to the conclusion that my blog suffers a bit of an identity crisis as it does not know whether it wants to be a humour blog, a feminist blog, a mommy blog, a music blog, a creative writing/poetry blog or what.  I'm pretty all over the place.  But if others want to call that 'versatile' well who am I to correct them, right?  So thanks Bruce!

The Rules:

7 randoms about me.  These get harder to come up with.  I've also found this in conversation.. being prevalent on the interwebs means I have no material for face-to-face conversations and small talk.

"Did I tell you I...?"  "Yeah, you blogged/posted on Facebook/tweeted about it last week."

Hoo boy.  Random facts.

1. I think Crocs are great for kids but grown-ups who wear them should be throat-punched.
2. I will use a men's washroom (single-occupancy) if no women's washroom is available, because I refuse to let my bladder be a slave to social condition.
3. About 85% of the women on my mothers side look exactly alike or with variations on the same theme.  You could make a template out of us.
4. My favourite book is Hugh MacLennan's The Watch That Ends the Night.  I read it after seeing an interview with The Tragically Hip where they said that the third verse for the song Courage was basically ripped from that book.
5. I once named a cat Chino Moreno, after the singer for the Deftones

Sorry folks, five is all you get. I'm going to hold off on passing this on too, because I'm tired and I get all worried that A) I'm going to insult someone by leaving them out or B) I may pass this on to someone who is not prepared to take on the awesome responsibility of blog award recipiency.

Taking a page from Lance over at My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog, I'll leave all y'all with a little tune.  This is a live version of Courage, because I can only get the official video through that stupid Vevo thing that tacks a friggin' 40 second commercial at the beginning.  Besides, watching Gord Downie perform live is usually a thing of beauty.

"You look like a wallet in the street.  You look that good."

Half-assed Sunday. No, it really is.

I feel out of sorts today.  I guess it's a combination of cabin fever, a few disconcerting conversations and just.. I don't know... February blahs.  There's something odd in the air I suppose.

Yesterday I made a giant pot of spaghetti sauce and while I was cooking it I was struck with the urge to put out a mass-dinner invite via the Facebook.  Sadly about 80% of my R.S.V.P's were from people who live 12 hours away or further.  I had fun imagining how awesome it would be if they had all showed up.  I think this spring and summer I'm going to make a point to entertain more.  As it was, Kay and her daughter came over for dinner, so that was fun.

After not talking since before Christmas, I contacted the most recent ex just to say hi and see how he's doing.  After a few minutes I kind of regretted it and wished I had left well enough alone.  It wasn't really anything that was said, it was just kind of awkward.  Maybe this means I'm getting over it.  Hrmph.

For reasons unknown, a completely random post that I wrote back in September, has been getting a number of hits today.. according to the rather vague analytics that Blogger gives us, they seem to be coming from Facebook.  14 hits today, which is a lot in one day, when you look in proportion to the traffic this little blog generally gets, and when you consider that as far as posts go, it was a bit of a non-entity.  Just a few random thoughts that were in my head that day.

We had a spell of warm weather this week but now the snow and wind seems to be back with a vengeance.  Blargh.  This weekend has been all down-time, just organizing my closet, doing a ton of laundry and yeah.  It's nice but I'm kind of bored now.

Well, I'm off to check the dryer, which has been taking a stupidly long time to, you know, dry things even though I've cleaned the lint thing. 

I think one of my stitches from my wisdom teeth is coming out.  That's lovely.

This has been a

Go visit the Simple Dude.  What do you have to lose?

Poetic Interlude

An Arms Length

An arm's length is where you keep me
An arm's length could be a mile
Unyielding you hold me, with elbows locked
The space between us constant
Still you hold on without letting go
An arm's length is where you keep me
An arm's length could be a mile
Try to get close but those elbows stay locked
But hold me close, as close as you desire
I broke free from your grip
But what I wouldn't give
to fall into your trap again
floating free I can't feel
the ground below me
Hold tightly but don't hold me
at arm's length.

Copyright Andrea Lyn Cole 2011

On 'Schrodinger's Rapist' and the Culture of Fear.

This is not going to be a fun-filled post, so if you're looking for something fun and fluffy today, well, there's some nice menu's that will direct you to some of my other posts.

I was talking to a friend of mine about the video I posted in my New Year's post about 'How to Be Alone'.  I'm sure many of you have seen this one, it was pretty popular this year.  Anyway, we were discussing the difficulties of being a male by yourself in public versus being female by yourself in public.. namely the difficulty of being perceived as the 'creepy would-be rapist' versus the difficulty of having to be on the lookout for the 'creepy would-be rapist'.

So it struck me funny that I would come across this article on Schrodinger's Rapist (aka'd as 'A Guy's Guide to Approaching Women without getting maced') via April's year end round-up at Ethecofem.  Well, I kind of found it through the year-end round up via April's critique of the original article, which I'll get to.  Anyway, it struck me funny, because it nicely explained my argument of the risk women run being in public alone.

Although I also recommend reading the article in full, I'll give you the gist of it.  Big Bang Theory fans will know this from season one, but anyway, the concept is based after the Schrodinger's Cat experiment.  Long story short, scientist puts cat in a box with a vial of poison that will break open at any given time.  While in the box, the cat can be considered both alive and dead, since we don't know which it is.  However once the box is open, it can only be one or the other.  Starling's article applies this to the perception of a stranger in a public place (or a party or anywhere really) as a way to explain to guys who, for the most part are probably well-intentioned and only interested in striking up conversation.  However, the article points out, we as women out alone in public do not know what your intentions are, and until they become clear, you can be considered Schrodingers Rapist - that is to say, you both are a potential non-rapist and a potential rapist. 

I'll point out here that the fallacy in this metaphor is that in Schrodingers original experiment, once the box is opened the cat is obviously alive or dead.  However, in this application, taking into consideration that most rape and assault is committed by someone close to the victim, our metaphorical box is only opened once the person in question has been exposed as a rapist.  As long as they haven't raped or assaulted anyone they're still metaphorically 'in the box'  which is pretty fucking depressing, for men and women alike.  No really, it is. 

Now, I don't believe that Starling's article was meant to imply that this is how all women think when they are out in public.  At least, I sure hope not, because I know I don't... well, all the time.   I think it's offered as more of an explanation as to why some women may not be comfortable or impressed with what may be a guy's totally innocent compliment or attempt at conversation.  And although you may be a nice guy with good intentions, we don't know that.   Simple as that.  As Starling states, some people's risk threshold are higher than others.. Me, I'm one of those girls with a low risk factor.  This is probably due to the fact that *knock wood* I haven't found myself violated after being in a high-risk situation.  Some women have experienced assault, and as such, they have a no-risk threshold. 

Now, one may counter this with 'Well, I don't know if a girl's had a traumatic past...' and I'd be inclined to agree, that no, it's not up to you to know if someone has had past trauma.  But it is up to you to read cues (as mentioned in Starling's article) and know when to back-off.  Because I agree, when you ignore the 'please leave me alone' cues and continue to press for attention, you cross that line from well-intentioned friendly dude to pain-in-the-ass-douchebag to potential threat.

The downside of this article, as April argues, is that it does tend to paint this picture that all men are potential rapists, when that is simply not the case.  Let's take into consideration the rather dire stat given that 1 in 60 men will have committed sexual assault in some form in their lifetime.  Pretty fucking depressing, isn't it?  If you have trouble wrapping your head around that statistic, keep in mind that this isn't limited to the stranger-in-a-dark-alley trope... this includes date rape, coercion, having sex with someone who has limited capacity to consent (so drugs, alchohol.. even 'Hey, my girlfriend is sleeping.. now's a good time') .. basically, any sexual activity without explicit consent.

Here's the good news:  That mean's that for every potential threat, there's roughly 59 well intentioned friendly dudes' out there.  Hooray for the good guys!! 

Here's more bad news:  Sometimes it's pretty fucking hard to tell the difference, until it's too late.  And if someone has been a victim of assault before, sure as shit, they're going to have their guard up in certain situations. 

Myself, as a girl who has walked home alone late at night many a time, walked through the brush with my headphones on, occasionally forgotten to lock my door at night, flirted with guys at bars, met people I had only talked to online and *gasp* even consumed alcohol in the presence of (only) the opposite sex, all without incident, well admittedly, my risk threshold is pretty high. But every so often my spidey sense gets a tingling and I know I've stepped into a potentially volatile situation.

I once chatted online for a period of time with a guy I had met on a dating site.  One day we were talking about meeting, and I mentioned that I would like to meet for coffee because I wasn't comfortable meeting someone for the first time in my own home.  Like, shit man, I have kids to think about.   This guy got his panties in a bunch which both pissed me off, and freaked me out.  It worried me, because it seemed like such a little thing to get so agitated over, and it pissed me off because it was like "Sorry man, your hurt feelings DO NOT trump my personal safety."  I made the decision then and there not to meet with the guy and it took a few more conversations consisting of how unfair I was being and how unreasonable and how I had led him on etc before I said enough I just stopped answering the phone.   Because in my mind, at that point, he became a threat to me, the threat having been communicated through a sheer lack of regard for my personal boundaries.

And this is where I think Starling is coming from... If you ignore the 'Please leave me alone' cues, you become 'that guy'.  The guy who thinks that his desire to interact trumps a stranger's desire to be left alone.  I will however, agree with April that its unrealistic to say never approach a woman unless she's for sure open to being approached.  Some of us would like to be approached.  I know I would, once in a while.  But if you approach a girl, and she's giving off the 'please go away' vibe, then take the hint.. or you become 'that guy'.  Because let's face it.. it's 'those guys' that fuck up dating and trying to meet people or trying at all to negotiate any type of friendly/professional/romantic relationship with the opposite sex.  They fuck it up for women, who have to be on their guard and they fuck it up for other men, because now women see well intentioned friendly dudes as potential threats.  Way to go, That Guy.

2010, you were not boring, that's for sure.

One of my quirks is the ability to relate pretty much any occasion to some kind song lyric.  Hell, there are periods of my life that I could compile an entire soundtrack for.  I'm kind of at a loss right now though.  Yes, it's New Years Eve and I'm being all retrospective.  I'm not sure how I feel about the past year.

Without going into too much detail, I have mentioned previously my messed up relationship with New Years Eve.  It was a New Years Eve that the ex-hub told me he was unhappy and thinking of leaving.  That night we talked in tears for hours and I literally, on the floor on my hands and knees, begged him not to leave.  I had never ever lowered myself to that point before and later I swore I never would again.  My world crumbled before my eyes.  In spite of agreeing to try and work things out, two weeks later he was gone.  It's so bizarre years later that I had felt so strongly about someone who now, is just an aspect of my life that I deal with.  We share children but at this point in time he's little better than a stranger or an acquaintance to me.  That I had felt so destroyed at that time seems almost laughable now.  So weird how time changes things.

It was also a New Years Eve that I, after an unfortunate combination of vanilla liquer, Sauvignon Blanc and alcoholic Jello that I very tearfully proclaimed less-than-platonic feelings to a friend of many years, but they were not reciprocated.  It was not the classiest of scenes but fortunately there were few witnesses.  Mainly he, I and the two friends tasked with the unfortunate job of trying to haul my blubbering drunk ass to the cab.  Again, time is a funny funny thing, as a mere two years later I can safely say that we've made our way back to some semblance of our pre-breakdown normalcy.  It was rough for a while, for me anyway

There have been some very good years too.  Last year was probably the best one I can remember.  The live show my friend K and I were supposed to go to was cancelled, so we decided to crash the wedding of a couple we knew who were getting married that night.   We showed up after dinner, into the dance portion of the reception, and the bride and groom were very gracious and insisted if we were going to stay, we were to eat lots of food as they weren't taking ANYTHING home.  It ended up being a fantastic night of dancing with some of my oldest and dearest friends.  So they're not ALL bad.

2010.  Oh, what to say about you, 2010.

You've been interesting, that's for sure. 

2010 was the year I found out there is such a thing as love at first sight.  And although things didn't work out, this was the year I discovered that I was able to really open up and be true with my feelings to someone, even if they didn't entirely share those feelings.  And although things are crappy now, there were a lot of good times I will always remember fondly, whether you continue to be part of my life as a friend or not.

2010 was the year I lost my best friend to time, age and changes in personality, values and general outlook.  It was probably the hardest thing I went through this year.  It was like getting divorced all over again.  It's still hard to know that I can't just call her and see how she's doing, it's hard to know that she wants nothing to do with me now for various reasons.  It's hard to not just apologize in hopes that I can have my friend back, but any wrong I committed, I've already apologized for.  I hope one day we can talk again, but at this point, it's no longer my call.  It's not just her, I miss the rest of the family as well, including my (former?  how do these things work?) godchildren.

On the other hand, 2010 I forged new friendships with people who I hope to have in my life for a long time, and revisited some old friendships that I had neglected and enjoyed ongoing friendships.  I was going to mention a few people, but I really don't want to leave anyone out.  When I hit my milestone 30th birthday I was floored by the number of people in my life who came to wish me well.

2010 was the year I reclaimed my name and my status as a totally, officially and legally single woman.

2010 was the year I started doing more music wise, playing at local open mike nights, getting to know the other people who frequented these nights, and even got up the nerve to sign up for the Penetang museum summer concert series.  A whole two hours playing by myself.  Twas pretty awesome.

2010 brought with it some pretty cool shows I got to see, like Big Sugar, Spoon, and the Schomberg Fair

So yeah, there was good and bad I suppose.  There's so much more that happened, but this post is a bit of a novel as it is, and there's no end in sight.  Maybe I'm just apprehensive because I really don't know what what to expect with the coming year.  I'm bummed out because I'm on my own again this year.  I know it's not the be-all end-all, but it sure as shit would be nice to not be by myself when the big ball drops.  Yes, I snickered when I said that.

Now we all know that all things cliched and having to do with the New Year include both a retrospective and a resolution for the year to come.  Here's a few things that are on my resolution list:

Be Bold (thanks to Cayley T for this one)

Learn to love Loneliness


Risk more, apologize less.  In the words of one of my dearest friends - "Laugh till you cry. Dance to your own beat. Eat dessert first. Sing loud.. REALLY loud. And Smile"

Has it come to this?

I hate this time of year. 

Way too many bad memories associated with it, and I find it one of the loneliest times of year.. the Christmas letdown, New Years Eve, which is a big fuck-off ball of wrist-slitting fun, hell right up until Valentines day.  In the past, I've been subject to fits of depression around this time of year, and rightly so, when you consider what some of my past New Years' have been like.   The last two years haven't been too bad, last year because around that time period I had met the most recent ex, and the year before that I was embroiled in a bit of drama which although mildly stressful, kept things interesting.  My dark moods tend to come with boredom and loneliness.

In an act of desperation/morbid curiosity/boredom/blind optimism I reopened my Plenty of Fish profile.  Jesus H. Christ.  What a sad place that is.  Honestly, I'm not sure how long I'll be able to leave it up.  First, it took all of a half an hour to discover-most-recent ex on there, and that was fairly traumatizing, and second, I also discovered a dude that I had been talking about a year and a bit ago who turned out to be a bit of a whackjob is lurking around too.. and POF's security settings don't allow you to block someone until they've messaged you.  LOVELY.

So many damaged, jaded people.  So many 'nice guys' (find out more about my issue with 'nice guys' here).  So many people with laundry lists of what specifically they are looking for in a woman.  One guy even referred to 'Attributes'.  Fellow co-workers will understand why this terminology makes me laugh.  Compare these brands and models.  Oi.  So many cheesy topless pics.  Seriously guys?  So much about what they want, and what they desire, and what they REQUIRE, but so little about who they are.

SO many people desperate to reach out and be a half of a whole.  There but for the grace of God go I and other such blather.  Oh, wait...

I give it a week.

In the meantime, a well-suited musical interlude (have I sunk to a brand new low?):

There's only one of us now..

Mrs. H's that is.  I took the step today and went into the MTO office (or Service Canada as it's called now) and officially had my Licence and Health Card changed back to my maiden name.  In honesty I should have done this years ago.   For a few different reasons I didn't:

• I wanted to have the same last name as my children.  I got over that.
• I thought you had to be officially divorced to revert to your maiden name. You don't.
• It seemed like a lot of hassle to change two letters.  That's right, there are TWO letters difference between my maiden name and my married name.  Yeah, I got over that too.

Did you know that assuming your spouses name isn't the same as a legal name change?  I honestly didn't know this.  As a result it's a hell of a lot easier to change back if you have your birth certificate kicking around.  I think the main issue is remembering all the stuff that your name goes on, and making sure you don't run into issues (I.E. if the lady at the MTO hadn't mentioned it I would have TOTALLY forgot to get my ownership changed - now I have to call my insurance company to change THAT etc etc)

The reasons I finally decided to change back were based on a few factors:

• The ex-hubster got re-married.  With he and I, and the girls stepmom actively involved in their schooling, two Mrs. (or Ms.) H's is just confusing.
• Since getting married and subsequently divorced, and learning quite a bit about the practice of spouse-name-assumption and how it ties in with past ideas about wives as the property of their husbands, I'm not particularly in agreement with it.  Should I marry again (which is not out of the realm of possibility.. I'm not sour to the idea) I might not want to assume their name.  Which would be a lot easier to argue if I'm not still using the former boy's name.
• That person, that's just not me anymore.  

I still worry about how the girls feel about it, but I've explained my feelings to them about it.  I'm not trying to distance myself from THEM, at all.  Mainly I used the "there can't be two of us" explanation, though.  It seems to be the one that seems most logical to them.

And Now, another Musical Interlude

The Friendship Divorce

Ending a long-term friendship of 18 years is like going through a divorce.

The finger-pointing and claims of who has sacrificed what for who, and who has wronged who.

Looking at pictures and feeling both sad and angry at the same time.

Other mutual friends don't quite know how to act.  If you even tell them at all.

Questioning what happened to the person you once knew, and loathing this new person they have become.  Wondering when you started to notice the change.  Thinking maybe you never knew them at all.

Questioning yourself. Maybe every hurtful thing they say is true.

What of the children?  They lose, too.

The kicker is, I didn't even get to wear a pretty dress for a day.  Eff this.

Because with chicks.. it's cool, ya know?

Read an interesting article in the Toronto Star today regarding a study on Late-Blooming Lesbians - that is to say, women who for most of their lives identified as either straight or mostly-straight, who later in life, enter into relationships with other women, sometimes leaving family behind. The study suggests that women's sexuality may be fluid rather than a static state of being. It suggest that women who 'come out' late in life may not have been repressing their sexual tendencies as many might assume, but that a woman's sexual preference can actually change over time.

This is not to say that it's a choice, but to put it simplistically - like, utterly, ridiculously simply - have you ever had a food that for years you had an aversion to, then one day you decide to try it and you like it? Tastes change.

This idea doesn't surprise me in the least. My own sporadic research into the subject, along with human anectdote has left me open to the idea of fluid sexuality for some time.

What surprised me about the article and the study is the seeming assumption that it is women that have this fluid sexuality and that men remain static.

Richard Lippa, a professor of psychology at California State University who has done a series of studies on sexual orientation, says most men are strongly attracted to one sex or the other —they have a preferred sex and an unpreferred sex.

But “there are more shades of grey to women’s attraction,” he says. Women, he says, tend to have a preferred sex and less preferred sex. Women are much more likely than men to report some degree of same-sex attraction.

I'd have to wonder how much of this binary is related to societal perception and acceptance of homoerotic behaviour in men as opposed to that in women. It seems a common occurence that over the last decade or two a women can engage in homosexual behaviour, call it 'experimentation' and still identify as straight.

However, on the flipside of that coin, the opinion expressed that any homosexual behaviour in men and societially speaking, they're gay, gay, ever so gay. Even in some cases of unconsensual (ie. jailhouse) sex, this is considered to be true. Men who 'come out' late in life are generally assumed to have been repressing their 'true' sexuality.

Taking a social constructionist view on things, I'd be interested to know if these researchers have considered prevailing social roles and conditioning as a factor in the perceived difference between the 'fluid' female spectrum of sexuality and the 'static' binary of male sexuality. Could it be that males report a distinct 'preferred' and 'unpreferred' gender because from the youngest of age, society discourages any sort of admission of homoerotic leanings, unless of course one is ready to 'go big or go home' and fully live up to the typical all-out gay stereo type? That, where women for the last couple decades at least have been allowed to express to certain extent at least a passing fascination with our sisters? Women have been allowed a middle-ground, where in males, this possibility of a middle-ground has all but been stomped to shit.

Something to ponder, anyway. Thoughts?

Dancing on the grave of my 20's

I am blessed.

This past weekend I celebrated my 30th birthday, saying good riddance to a decade of turbulence. I feel like I have changed so much over this time with all I have been through.. marriage, motherhood, divorce, singlehood, education, employment,etc. I don't even recognize the scared little girl I was 10 years ago. I was reminded over this weekend of how full of love my life is right now. Due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, I had my ladies with me this weekend. Feeling bad about disrupting my birthday plans, their stepmom graciously offered to watch them at my place while I went out to celebrate. I give her a lot of credit for this, since that must have been a more than a little weird for her. It was weird for me, but appreciated nonetheless.

No matter, I enjoyed having the girls there, as it was a great reminder that above all else, they are the two most important people in my world and I am so lucky that they are growing into such nice, smart, funny and loving young ladies. I woke up to a birthday breakfast of coffee and eggs and toast (quite well-done too, if you ask me. Yum!)

Afterwards my mom and I headed down to Barrie to pick up a washer-dryer that her co-worker was giving to me as they had gotten a new set. I've always liked car rides with my mom. When I was a teenager our monthly (or was it bi-weekly) trips to Orillia to get my braces adjusted was the time that we had our best 'talks', and it's something that continues to this day.

A couple of my good friends came down with a truck to help move these babies, and refused payment for their help, despite my protests.

After getting all dolled up I headed to K.s who had attempted to plan some kind of surprise for me, but it seems I continually thwarted these efforts with my insistence on doing my own birthday planning. I don't know.. I've just always worried it was egotistical to assume that other people would want to plan something for me, so I usually take these things into my own hands. I got there and we had entirely too many jello shots, and an incredibly rich and tasty 'dirt and worms' cake and I got to open some gifts. I enjoyed the gifts I got, they were pretty creative and thoughtful:

• Bed sheets


• The Tick complete series - Obviously a good pick, since I own it.. so I must like it lol


• A 'This is your life' type photo book from my parents


• Too Sexy to be 30 coffee mug


• Hand-crocheted Hat and fingerless gloves


• an 'old lady' bath kit.. you know, moisturizer for my wrinkles, toothpaste for my old-lady teeth etc etc
• two bottles of wine with glass
• LCBO gift card
• (authors note: I suck and I knew I was going to forget stuff) kilted man egg-cup/shot glass and friendship coaster and a beautiful birthstone necklace


• two cds from an artist my friend Nic, thought I would enjoy. So far he's right.

When we headed out to the bar I was overwhelmed with the number of people who showed up to wish me a happy birthday. I really didn't expect much more than the half-dozen or so people who had confirmed already, so to see such support was truly moving.

I can honestly say that I'm looking forward to the next 10 years if it as full of love and friendship and happiness as I felt this Saturday passed.

I do have one grievance though. The Dj at bleachers was incredibly disappointing. I have mentioned in previous blogs that I am not a fan of club music in general, but in an effort to have at least one birthday song dedicated to me, I made at least three attempts to request songs (not obscure ones either.. these are ones I have heard played at clubs numerous times in the past) only to be told they didn't have them because they were 'too obscure' (Sorry, Danger High Voltage was a #2 hit in the UK, thanks.) or that they didn't have any 'older stuff'. I call shenanigans on that one, since BLeachers hosts a 'Wayback Friday' so what.. are they going back six months? Jebus.

So, sorry Bleachers DJ guy, you suck. Expand your horizons a little, please.

Where did my weekend go? - Saturday

Saturday was kind of a bummer, honestly, but an expected one. I walked into it knowing it'd be rough, emotionally. In fact I predicted it earlier this week.

After the late night in the Tdot, I got up at 9am to a message from the most-recent-ex saying that he'd be back in town around 1pm after picking up the moving truck. Being up and about, I decided to take my new bike, purchased the previous day with an expected-but-forgotten work bonus, for a ride over to my parents place for coffee since I had neither milk nor the motivation to go and purchase milk. As well some family friends were up so I wanted to say hello, and to show off my sweet ride. yeaaaaah.

The day was dreary and rainy and upon arriving to the beach I parked and wandered until he got there with the truck. Moving is moving and it generally sucked but I was glad to be able to help and glad for the extra one-on-one time, even if it was spent in one of the most soul-suckingly awful activities known to man.. packing ones life into a 17-square-foot moving van.

I learned a few important things.

1) women are not well built for lifting and carrying large objects. we have short arms and boobs that present a significant obstacle.
2) apparently one should not make attempts at humour while moving pianos. This is a big one, up there with 'Always wear clean underwear in case you get in a bad accident' and 'the first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about fight club.'

At any rate, he was quite appreciative of the help. I stayed in pretty good spirits, but saying goodbye was difficult and although I tried to keep a brave face on, let's face it, I wear my emotions on my sleeve like a neon beacon. It was a sad scene.

After he left, I met up with a friend at the park and we commiserated over the difficulties of dating as single parents and the obstacles that crop up. Ironically, as we were sitting in the park I looked over and saw, from a distance, some little girls and a couple of women in wedding finery and realised these were actually my children and their stepmom, as I had momentarily forgotten that saturday was the day the ex and his now-wife were to be married. As much as I wanted to go see my girls, I was not in a good place to be reminded of this at all.

I'd done some thinking and my issue only seems to come down to the question of why? Why is it difficult for me.. when I never asked for any of this? It's not that I dont' want them to be happy.. but why does he get to be, and I don't? It's petty, oh hell yes. But the blank irony is that while HE was getting married to the woman he loves (and no, I don't begrudge either of them that) I was saying goodbye indefinitely to someone I had grown to care quite a bit about, for reasons beyond either of our control.

That's pretty effed up if you ask me.

Despite feeling horribly about avoiding my own children, we bade a retreat from the park and headed downtown for a drink on a local patio. We found a small bandstand set up downtown and a free concert going on. The performers were a local hip-hop group by the name of Grand Analog. They put on a decent show, and really engaged the audience. And I'll be totally honest.. anyone that can make playing a kazoo seem cool is all right in my books.

Back to the patio, we were invited to join a group of out-of-town boaters, a decent group of gentlemen. Had some food, had some laughs. However due to the unseasonably chilly evening, I had to call it a night fairly early.

Sometimes a song says it all...

Although I'm looking forward to camping this weekend, I'm feeling a little blah today. I guess it's weirdness about the coming long weekend and the events therein. Let's face it, no matter how 'okay' you may be with life circumstances, having a the most recent ex-boyfriend move away the same weekend as the a not-so-recent ex-husband gets married is a little bit of emotional tag-teaming, right there. In total honesty it's the former rather than the latter that is on my mind more. The second bit is just well.. weird. It's been a long time coming, and I guess my fear is possibly discovering I'm not as okay with it as I thought.

Hrm. Anyway. I've had this song running through my head today and it's oddly fitting. It's a duet but I'm thinking of adapting it to a solo for the museum show, even though it'd be wicked cool to have someone learn it and sing it with me.

The pink is the female part and the blue is the male part. Red, they sing together. click on the Title if you wanna hear it. It's a good tune.

Duet for Emmylou and the Grievous Angel: by Rah Rah

I don’t miss you now but I will when you’re gone
And this is the reason I keep holding on
Because you are lovely and because you are old
And these are the most desirable traits to be found in a woman I am told

It is fashionable
To be single
In big cities
But not in small towns
In Regina
Saskatchewan
I fell in love
With her frown

I won’t miss you now but I will once we’re done
Sometimes I strain myself trying to recall the last time we had fun
‘Cause you’re soft as smoke and you got no fear
And these are the most desirable traits to be found in a man I hear

It is fashionable
To be single
In big cities
But not in small towns
In Regina
Saskatchewan
I fell in love
With her frown

I won’t kiss you now but I will once you’re gone
I won’t miss you now I won’t miss you at all
I won’t kiss you now too afraid that you’ll cry
I won’t miss you now and I won’t give a shit if you die



Apart from the Regina part, having never been there, I'm totally feeling this song right now. The girl's part really conveys that 'I care but I'm not showing it' type emotion. Being strong, and unemotional and hell even a little spiteful.

Ehhh.. I think I'm going to make it a point to go somewhere for the long weekend, far from home. It could be rough, otherwise. Then again, it could be okay. *shrug* One never knows.