tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76021207502729673132024-03-21T13:27:52.318-07:00PhilDaBeetPhildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-71378062398585811212022-06-24T16:23:00.000-07:002022-06-24T16:23:42.081-07:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhlCs3MwBuorvTBD9kp3FBIEyr6zfFRcmQyXOG98oQ73RdHN6MdDwAydslUiMzdXv7JFYQwNYLq9W9-GAY0BfaJwUT4F_vIoqTQpocWEGTYLa1-aY3h1I-gHLkOvsgJEkgr6r8fyWFcRdr1QbrRvkzukATvEi8KS4ikdY37FtD-9kpIB02rfMjMwhn/s312/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-24%20at%207.20.42%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="312" data-original-width="307" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhlCs3MwBuorvTBD9kp3FBIEyr6zfFRcmQyXOG98oQ73RdHN6MdDwAydslUiMzdXv7JFYQwNYLq9W9-GAY0BfaJwUT4F_vIoqTQpocWEGTYLa1-aY3h1I-gHLkOvsgJEkgr6r8fyWFcRdr1QbrRvkzukATvEi8KS4ikdY37FtD-9kpIB02rfMjMwhn/w315-h320/Screen%20Shot%202022-06-24%20at%207.20.42%20PM.png" width="315" /></a></div><br /> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grief stricken, I sit here through blurred and puffy lenses trying to understand what I am feeling. Rage might be a word I would use, but it is not so righteous. It might be deep sadness, empathetic vibrations emanating for all those women sitting on the edges of their lives not knowing where to go. We are still so hated. </span><p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-20f52e21-7fff-5385-8126-44a248e2ec04"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My daughter texts, did you see the news? I had taken a week off from the doom scroll to rest my weary mirror neurons. But I had. I had seen it and I was crying. It was coming from some childhood well of sadness I cannot pinpoint. I am hurting. I am hurting for every woman who is now scared and fully cognizant, she does not matter. It’s unconstitutional. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am hurting for my daughter who is fuming. For my daughter who has to walk out in the world feeling like we are going backwards. I said to her today, I think it is a circle and we are now on the dark side of it. How much more hate till we rebel and move the circle back to light? I can feel stuck on this dark side of the moon. Where women start to retreat and realize that maybe we are not allowed to rise. I have been hiding in my woods staring at the stars trying to pretend.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a rebel arriving. My mothers fought this fight before me and it is time that we will have to fight it again. My daughter texts, “I have and always will be on board with that. Now more than ever.” I love this person, this new woman I have helped raise. It was because of a choice I was permitted to make many years ago that I have her and not another. It was from a choice over my own body that gave me this child. This beautiful girl who feels the same pain as I do. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is time to strike. It is time to make a list of demands. Not a sea of pussy hats and love anymore, but an agenda. One where women are in charge of their bodies. One where we recognize humanity over “god”. The god of greed, the god of old white men, the god of shame and judgment .FUCK THE FUCKING PATRIARCHY is my battle cry. I cannot just sit on the side and weep. There are too many tears already. Our faces are too stained. But I will hold my daughters hand, like my mother did mine and make some movement.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-32891948124007753242022-05-03T13:04:00.003-07:002022-05-03T13:04:27.819-07:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGHH_9OVBkRwjUmxauvCDJeuY32_NKtDf7QKdojGn_D7deXsidYol37vrUV3xc6POXbpkVAl9n0VZip6VLSZ_JvZCP3SVmDXsfpS2Yyw_5k9UoLM22H55AicTxGjWA1Pga3WMQiFx-eLajKHTggB22SDaLKDg1ot__JpkGogD9aFB9aj14-vSHdSdS/s250/dumaurier.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="202" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGHH_9OVBkRwjUmxauvCDJeuY32_NKtDf7QKdojGn_D7deXsidYol37vrUV3xc6POXbpkVAl9n0VZip6VLSZ_JvZCP3SVmDXsfpS2Yyw_5k9UoLM22H55AicTxGjWA1Pga3WMQiFx-eLajKHTggB22SDaLKDg1ot__JpkGogD9aFB9aj14-vSHdSdS/s1600/dumaurier.jpeg" width="202" /></a></div> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blair’s Eulogy</span><p></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-cafe5d88-7fff-43ec-612d-024481644a2c"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You died a long time ago now. You had just been resurrected in my facebook pond of the past. We were getting divorced. Both of us. It was going around at the time and you pinged me from the Ukraine. I wonder if you had not taken that bottle of pills if you would be huddled in some steel factory right now knowing you were the first punches in the next big fight. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was adding music to my library. Inspired by a new rush of feeling. This new guy, he brings up thoughts of you. And I stumbled on Van Morrison and paused.. The first real all day, sweaty sex partner in crime. We were such good friends. I was so young back then. 17? 18? Young to your 25, old man. But we would lie on your torture device of a pullout bed, smoking cigarettes, ashtray on my naked chest listening to Van Morrisson admitting that it was indeed the best album to fuck to. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You had this comforting voice. So low and deep, the Scottish edges still there. So easy to laugh and take things in stride. I knew you were a drunk back then, we all were. It was our job. You were the smartest of all of them, Blair. Such an easy brain you had. Learning Russian fluently to read all those Dostoyevsky tomes. It took you to the wilds of the East and you never came back. Bringing with you your Scottish pride and punk rock super stardom. I miss you. I only realised that this morning. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Somehow you faded. We all did as we dispersed, degrees in hand. You were always so kind. Even when you would come back, tail between legs apologizing for some drunken discretion. I never minded. The best break up as we sat in our haunt, you having again admitted to sleeping with someone you found repulsive and I said, “I just don’t think I can be with you anymore.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I did not feel betrayed, I just never understood how you could want these women you hated and still want me. Maybe I thought I was one of them. That it made me less beautiful. You just nodded and said, “ I would do the same.” And we smiled and had a beer and seamlessly moved into friendship. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That moment decades later when the little friend request poked me. We started chatting and you told me about your life. Your kids , your troubles, your band. You were the same, flirting like the first time. Impressed with me as you always were, making me feel smart. You sounded sad. I think whoever she was, she broke your heart and stole something. You almost came home. You would have lived down the street and your kids would have met mine. The what ifs that were not enough to pull you through. I wish they had been Blair, and I could show you my dog. Though I think it would be my ridiculous cat that would have pleased you the most. He’s kinda like you. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am sorry it was too heavy, but I understand. Just like back then. That draw to the dark places that you could not help. I don’t know why today is the day that I started to mourn. It’s grey outside and I have been feeling romantic again for the first time in almost as long as it was since I heard you had died. Maybe it’s that. My heart is back where it was when we first met as I mentioned you in passing during one of those expose yourself talks that you have when sliding into love. He looked genuinely sad when I said you had taken your life. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I wanted to just write you here. Let you know. I always love you, even in those scotch soaked moments where the Russian tragedy plays out. Goodbye my friend. </span></p><div><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-75817428333413558392019-03-19T13:14:00.000-07:002019-03-19T13:14:58.509-07:00Plants and Animals<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAnUeabQDRcm7cIWEw-OgOWfc1st15UTUcYKbYCAey7a-xAPlo7RWOQx88mfR0dLVTUfb81jO9Aw1Le1fYUyUcHNrlaEZ55sjA_ygQDrr-YEmMAADGfipwDRWhSdgauRy2tAeoLMn1k0E/s1600/amaze-1024x1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAnUeabQDRcm7cIWEw-OgOWfc1st15UTUcYKbYCAey7a-xAPlo7RWOQx88mfR0dLVTUfb81jO9Aw1Le1fYUyUcHNrlaEZ55sjA_ygQDrr-YEmMAADGfipwDRWhSdgauRy2tAeoLMn1k0E/s320/amaze-1024x1024.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I am sitting in the waiting room as some sweet doctor roots around in my child's brain to try and see why things are so hard for her sometimes. It makes me feel strange. I always thought I'd given her enough love and safety that her wires would not have been crossed this way. I did not withhold. I did not repress. I did not helicopter. I set reasonable lines in the sand. But it happened anyway. </div>
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I talk to my clients about children. How to parent. What does it mean? For most, they see their children, unformed lumps of clay, ready to be moulded into productions of success. </div>
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I say to them, you need to see their person. A child is a seed you plant. You can water and fertilize it. Put stakes in to hold it straight , or chicken wire to keep the foxes out. But the plant will grow how it will grow. We cannot determine the size of the leaves or the number of flowers. We have to take steps back and see what the plant wants to be. Let it reach for the sun in the direction it is drawn to, and revel in its own choice of bloom. </div>
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I know I am a good parent. The other day, after sharing something inappropriate, as is my bad habit, I asked her. How do you feel when I don't filter ? Have I crossed a line from parent to friend? Will you end up on a couch wishing that I had put more fences around you? </div>
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She answered,</div>
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" I know you are my mum. I am not confused. I admire you and want to be like you."</div>
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I tried not to cry. Of course I am bad at that. The tiny droplet of water pooling in the corner of my lid, I quietly push it aside, and say,</div>
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"That makes me feel so nice, kiddo."</div>
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But sitting here waiting in this flourescent lit chair, I doubt. I doubt that I did it right. Or that I didn't push. That she was clay and I was wrong. That firmer hands should have moulded her on the wheel. That I should have fired her in the kiln to keep her strong. </div>
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She is so beautiful, this child of mine. The most right of the choices I ever made. We drove over singing Violent Femmes at the top of our voices sharing angst laughing. I introduced this album to her a couple of days ago. </div>
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"This is your new favourite band but you just don't know it yet,"</div>
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As I cranked up the volume...</div>
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Just last night </div>
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I was reminded of</div>
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Just how bad it had gotten</div>
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And just how sick</div>
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I had become ....</div>
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She wears my old McGill jacket like a blankie. Always on her. Her face is mine, or so everyone says, astonished when they see her. And there we are, head banging and scream singing in the car on our way to the shrink. </div>
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She's growing. I know. Pots chip and break. Plants adapt, not rigid in their construction. I know she is loved and fed and watered. She is not topiary. I cannot snip and trim and control, obsessed with every branch at wrong angle. But there are days. Like this day, sitting listening to noise machines and soft murmers from behind doors, where I wish that I was a better gardener. Where I wish I could make her a hothouse flower and not a wild rose, with perfect symmetry, trimmed and beautiful, thorns removed. </div>
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In truth, I won't though. I love her too much not to see her leaves. Not to see her expand into herself. At the mercy of the elements. I love her too much to protect her from all things. Still...</div>
Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-38650321994633963832018-09-03T15:44:00.001-07:002022-04-25T16:53:56.904-07:00Found it!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIYO3SNIYitPHZpMdU35v21R3VA1mOJ5w905rJN_oFky-RoNjbEotbFj1lWfQOzhLv2T-XqwKflwObTcQsV1GXZst4J8D-dcuu00KkFTnctpWpMtx3EptzaFEa1bAa2BiNmZx_FS6fdKs/s1600/creek.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIYO3SNIYitPHZpMdU35v21R3VA1mOJ5w905rJN_oFky-RoNjbEotbFj1lWfQOzhLv2T-XqwKflwObTcQsV1GXZst4J8D-dcuu00KkFTnctpWpMtx3EptzaFEa1bAa2BiNmZx_FS6fdKs/s320/creek.jpg" width="240" /></a>I have been away. Or at least AFK. I feel a bit like the teenager that used to apologize to her journal for neglecting it. I think every entry I ever made started out with an excuse. An excuse and an a apology for being a terrible friend to my imaginary audience then knowingly confess to the sin of only writing when sad. Well I am not sad. I mean there is crying. But not sadness. This is not that kind of comeback. It's just that I found it.<br />
<br />
I found it in the rental car I was driving listening to Lord Huron on the roads around where it is.<br />
I know it's a white lady thing. The privilege of looking for something. It has always made me feel strange. We look in love, we look in kids, we look in our community. Where is it? Erikson would call me on battling my 7th crisis. Sorry, social worker humour. Look him up. It might be worth it. Just shows you that you are always growing. I find that hopeful.<br />
<br />
So yes, in the car, crying. But a cry I have rarely felt. A cry of happy. A cry of relief. A cry of having resolved a battle I did not know I was waging. Marcel, one of my dearest loves, once said he felt like I was searching for something, and I agreed, but I didn't know what it was. I knew what it might feel like, but I could not imagine where it could be located. I was crying in the drive of The 100 Acres (plus 42) Woods.<br />
<br />
A few months ago, the other dearest love of my life and I were exploring. We were exploring where our future might go. So we went on a hunt for some land. I have always wanted to be in the forest. I have always wanted to live in a tree. When I was a kid, I would go to sleep away camp. It was my perfect place. School was a shark tank of abuse, but camp was like the heaven they tell you they send dogs to. Romping through the woods, getting your hair petted and swimming in lakes chasing after things. Running with your pack.<br />
<br />
I found a listing. The agent seemed to think I was nuts. "That's not what you want," he said, "It's a wild mountain, you can't do anything with it." He didn't even come. Just told us the back door was open and we could check it out. We did.<br />
<br />
I love this land like I love a person. I love it with that kind of crazy, desperate, hopeful love that you only find a couple of times in your life. It makes me calm when I am with it, and anxious about its safety when I am away. I love it like my daughter. Without judgement and with the kind of fear that comes along with the knowledge that the world it lives in is not always out for its best interests. I love it like my lover, it turns me on and makes me want to breathe it in and explore it. And I somehow know it loves me back.<br />
<br />
Walking the land, my friend who is a wonderful builder and dreamer and lover of the wild, showed me where its old logging/ATV road was washing out and how we would need to do maintenance to keep the road from becoming impassable in a few years. I noticed after buying it that I was hamster braining a bit about how to afford fixing and keeping it in order. Last weekend I came up and was walking the trails seeing all the ways the sand and rock were sliding. Marcel who was with me said it's because there are no trees to keep the sand in place.<br />
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Suddenly I knew what I was going to do. I thought, it's just trying to heal itself. The sliding would just return it to its mountain state before we cut its body with motors. I said I want to let it do that. I don't want to fix this mountain, I want to be the one that gives it freedom to heal. We can walk where it wants us to walk. Make trails that it wants to show us.<br />
<br />
There are a 142 acres. My lovely "wife" jokingly said, the 100 Acres Woods. And then Tigger said, plus 42. The meaning of life. We are a funny family. All chosen. And there is a place for all of us. My daughter and her friends summoned ghosts and played asshole and today, her dad saw his sweet and PTSD'd dog leap across the creek and bound into the woods. "She's figured out she's a dog," he said smiling from ear to ear.<br />
<br />
So there I was today, crying in the car after driving through the rolling hills with mist rising through the trees on the way back to the woods. I had found it. The thing I didn't know I was looking for. I can't pay a debt that is incalculable. I cannot repair the critical wounds that we have inflicted.<br />
I can however, put a towel draped welcome sign at the bottom of my hill to greet other kind visitors with a cheerful "DON'T PANIC!" and tend to the woods.<br />
<br />Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-84266111999435584812015-03-15T20:26:00.000-07:002015-03-15T20:49:09.245-07:00This Kind<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQcVgV7dsi2OuAx9KnkIS_GE365mRGmj6xGLsrxxd2cB5OTcMJOl4ewdRTN1MVoHrAY0CosL-43pHUwhsKCfY4JCs9OpodVuNpAd4L_l4zpZoKtj6j8fq0dM7n0gL0ly_hbvVF2k-mdKA/s1600/0068-vector-doodle-valentine-design-elements-244062535.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQcVgV7dsi2OuAx9KnkIS_GE365mRGmj6xGLsrxxd2cB5OTcMJOl4ewdRTN1MVoHrAY0CosL-43pHUwhsKCfY4JCs9OpodVuNpAd4L_l4zpZoKtj6j8fq0dM7n0gL0ly_hbvVF2k-mdKA/s1600/0068-vector-doodle-valentine-design-elements-244062535.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I am giving you hopelessly crushed,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">writing your initials with mine in hearts </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">on my notebooks and back pack kind of love.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Giving you can't concentrate in class,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">staring out the out the window daydreaming,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">kind of love.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Giving you first time ever in love, love</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The un-erasable love,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">written in sharpie on my jeans kind of love. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Little girl love. </span><br />
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Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-23230284933231897422014-02-02T21:47:00.004-08:002022-04-25T17:04:33.085-07:00Mushroom Cake<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /></div>
Dedicated to Philip Seymour Hoffman<br />
<div>
This is not post about that. It's the final instalment of the Hart trilogy and it just seemed right that I should write it today as I texted him the news that Hoffman had OD'd. In case you might have been wondering what happened in my holiday rom-com caper. Was it Hughes or Solondz who won in the end? It's deserving of a post regardless. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As Hart sat across from me in a certain restaurant where in the past, its soup had been so delicious it made me giggle, he said, "This makes me so angry." Grinning from ear to ear he took another bite. </div>
<div>
"Fucking mushroom cake, I mean c'mon."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I got it. Fucking mushroom cake. How can I write to describe a taste so wonderful it makes you angry? I can only write of the feeling it gave us. The knowledge that all of a sudden all other food that had been put on our lips in our lifetime was simply mediocre in comparison to what possibility had just been shown to us. The inescapable fact, that as you swallowed, you were one bite closer to never tasting it again. Yet you are forced to keep taking bites because it is so extraordinary. Realizing that one of the most sensual moments of your life will only be a memory in a matter of minutes. Angry Joy. Simultaneous emotion. Wonder and loss. Painful in its fleeting. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It was a week of angry joy really. I knew the risk. That seeing this overly romanticized ghost from my past was playing with matches. My worst case scenario, I imagined, was if he were a bore. Or an asshole. Or just plain irritating, and I would be forced into politeness when all the while counting the minutes till he left. I never imagined angry joy. Who imagines that? Who imagines a feeling of complete comfort and familiarity, like you remember it from some distant dream coupled with that kind of lust you only feel the first time you touch somebody? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"I haven't slept as well since I was a 7 year old, " he said and I agreed. Feeling weird. Knowing as I slipped my hand across his chest and around his ribs to nestle on his shoulder blade, curled inside an armpit, head on chest, listening to his voice, that I was living déja vu. Knowing too, that this was in a bubble. 3 more days. Trying to imprint smell and feel,</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I could write about the week in detail. I would like to keep every little part written down somewhere so that I can go grab one when I wanted one. Already the week is fuzzy and unreal, with only snapshots of moments sticking out anymore. I feel too oddly protective of them though, to write them here. It's not that they are secret, it is just they wouldn't feel the same to you. I will sum it up. Bed, joints, music, skin, words and food. Focus. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
On New Year's Eve, his last night in town, we stare at each other annoyed and dumbfounded that Jim Henson was the only famous person we both ever cried for. Like mushroom cake, words don't describe the meaning of coming to realize this perfect bite is about to be the last bite. Perfect connection at the moment of loss.</div>
<div>
"Fuck you.. " he smiles at me</div>
<div>
"Jim Henson. You asshole, " I shoot back at him.</div>
<div>
"Of course it's Jim Henson. Fucking Jim Henson."<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
He went at 5 in the morning, An early plane back to the other coast. We are rooted in our distance by kids and work. It is our reality so we chat and text and he is my friend. I sent him a mixed tape of angry love songs, my tribute to Hughes. It felt like Hughes while it was happening, but it ended like Solondz. The irony of having perfect fit taunt you from an impossible place. Funny and dark and sad. No real start or end, just an excerpt. Out of context. But so well written and directed.</div>
Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-26556967194253562122013-11-30T17:59:00.000-08:002013-11-30T23:30:49.383-08:00SolondzedHappiness is probably my favourite movie. Well it's up there at least, cause who am I to choose favourites? I prefer a grouping to a singularity. Regardless, for those of you who have not seen Happiness, you might well be thinking, sounds like a charming movie. Nothing wrong with happiness. For those of you who have seen the movie, you might well be thinking, what the fuck is wrong with her? And for the tiny few of you who get it. Get why Happiness is such a fantastic movie, this post is for you.<br />
<br />
Over a year ago I posted about the breaker of my young heart. Astoundingly named Hart, which is why I mentioned it before. And his actual name is really that, and I wish I could change that I used it. I used it back when he was mostly imagined. He was constructed out of memories drugged with young person passion, so he was not so much a real thing as he was the perfect story. And I had to use his name, because it was such a perfect name.<br />
<br />
I was sitting playing nerdy boardgames with my ex and kid. We have family board night in a kinda cool little cafe that has some superior coffee. I was distractedly looking at my phone while my kid was off playing with a friend. I saw an email came in. It was from Hart. The real one, not the imagined one. I was surprised as my heart actually skipped a beat. But I left it. To be read later, when kids are in bed and ex husbands are home.<br />
<br />
He was feeling nostalgic. It made me smile that I was a source of this for him. When I wrote the post <a href="http://phildabeet.blogspot.ca/2012/08/superheros.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Superheros,</span></a> I was in those feelings too. What I want to say here is not the details, but the feeling, the very strange sensation of walking slowing into your memories with a person you have not seen since those memories were made. I sent him to this blog, but to the front page, knowing Superheros was in there, buried and dripping with young girl angst. I thought, if he reads down far enough he will find it. I woke up the next morning with a message. He had.<br />
<br />
We started going over memories and trading one liners and I caught myself flirting. With Solondz -esque compulsion I could not keep myself from talking to him. Here I was chatting with a memory.<br />
Though bit by wit we started to catch glimpses of the older versions of ourselves. And with what I can only describe as discomfort, I began to yearn just slightly for the lost possibility. He did too, and upon his discovery of my love of the afore-mentioned movie, it came into sharp focus what he had lost. A girl who could see the humour in the pain.<br />
<br />
I got him on okc. To get him laid, I guess. Who knows, he seemed to be in need of connection, and for me it's always been a good place for that. He lives a million miles away, so compulsive need to seduce aside, it was impractical. Plus it's funny. It's Happiness funny. It's bittersweet, sarcastic and darkly human funny. The kind of funny that not so much makes you laugh out loud, but rather makes you shake your head and shut your eyes. He showed me who his first date will be with, and she looks perfect. I don't mean, sparkly teeth, shiny hair and nails perfect, but smart and sassy and able to hold her own, perfect. She looked like a good fit.<br />
<br />
When Hart first wrote to me, he wrote of compersion. It's the word poly people give to the feeling of happiness you feel when your partner is happy with someone else. You are happy for their happiness. It's a Solondz kind of happiness. One that hurts to feel. Happiness and irony and pain all in one. Hart later wrote that what we we doing felt like the opening of a movie, and maybe it is. Perhaps more in the middle or the end. But it has the elements.<br />
<br />
It's not a Huges', boy meets girl/ boy loses girl/boy gets girl... it is more, boy meets girl/ girl loses boy/boy finds girl/girl gets boy to go online to find another girl/girl ends up back where she started. In there somewhere, the boy keeps losing the girl too. But it's whimsical and funny and smart and filled with nostalgia. It shows the reality of trajectories. How sometimes you just jump in at an opening and jump out again at another. I love Solondz Happiness, its hard to watch, but if you do, there is stuff in there that is beautiful.<br />
<br />Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-89856339953232107352013-08-26T22:39:00.001-07:002013-08-27T07:54:44.920-07:00Rub me the right way<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I feel like I am coming out from under a rock. The Masters is done and now I have been unleashed into to world "qualified." It's strange, our identities. We wear them like clothing. My last fashion statement was a hit at parties. "Oh a massage therapist? How interesting I have this clicking noise in my shoulder...."<br />
<br />
My new counselling therapist incarnation brings out some the same kind of thing, albeit a very wormy can indeed. "Oh that's amazing. You know my uncle is a pedophile..."<br />
People have always offerend me their skeletons though. I seem to invite the TMI. Truth be told I like it. I am interested. As you regular readers know, I love a good story. I don't get invested in the moral, I more just enjoy the journey. My story today kinda bridges that gap, the massage therapist meets emotional pain gap. I am not sure it has a moral, it was just a day I spent and I thought I would write it down.<br />
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Last month I had a vacation planned. A small one. Superman and I had rented a beautiful cottage and I was about to head off for 5 days of peace, quiet and dirty dirty sex. I havent really had a vacation in a long time and it was truly well deserved. As is our destiny, best laid plans and all, became unravelled. He had to fly off and rescue family and I ended up taking my other favorite boy instead. He was about to leave to move to another coast and was a lovely substitute cuddle, but I was still a little sad that my time away had been upended. Massages were in order at a local spa I decided, and my friend and I set off, happily high to cook ourselves in hot tubs and get rubbed by people trained to do so.<br />
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I had called the spa and asked for an experienced therapist, because truth be told, I am not easy to massage. Let's just say I have lots of stuff, and I really don't like being petted. I need an elbow or two and some strong hands and I love gettting massaged. This particular day I was ready for it. I just wanted to lie down, close my eyes and let some hands take away some of the crap that had decided to crawl under my shoulder blade and hide.<br />
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So there I sat..patiently waiting, and time kept ticking by. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen. I could feel the anxiety rising. Where was he? I went to a staff member and said, "I had an appointment 15 minutes ago and no one came to get me." I felt like a kid whose parents were late picking them up at school. Panicked, sad and worried that they would never show. They called and looked for him and assured me he was coming. I didn't believe them and my eyes started to sting with tears of disappointment. Finally this very frazzled looking middle aged man showed up. He looked a bit like a younger Nelson Mandela, strangely enough. Not whom I would have pictured, but my experience has told me, that the most unlikely looking massage therapists were often the best. He was profusely apologetic. He told me he had made a mistake and had given the previous client 90 minutes instead of 60. He said, don't worry, I still have 90 for you. I was so relieved that he was there that I didn't mind. I just told him I understood. I was a massage therapist too and I knew how things happened. He was there now and that was all that mattered<br />
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We walked to the little hut. He was still so filled with apology, and I did my best to assure him. It was Ok. As we entered into the cabin he looked at me and said, "I have had my mind all over the place today. I don't usually make that kind of mistake. You see, I just found out this morning that my wife has a brain tumour."<br />
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The information hit me like a punch. But trained as I am, I didn't show it. I told him with as much empathy as I felt that that was terrible news. I was sorry to hear that. I said to him, "I understand. Just massage me. No need to talk or think." For those of you who are not massage therapists, you may not quite get it. There is something about going into someone else's body where you can leave yourself at the door and just enter into the moment of exchange. It is a very beautiful place we go sometimes when we work. Hokey as it sounds, it's healing to massage. It's hard to explain in words, but he knew what I meant and he gave me a very grateful smile. He said, "It won't affect the massage." I said, "I know."<br />
<br />
For the next 90 minutes I received one of the best massages I have ever had.<br />
How do I really explain how absolutely beautiful that afternoon really was? I think I will just leave it at that.<br />
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<br />Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-22186423066862387822013-05-12T11:14:00.000-07:002018-06-30T16:48:29.991-07:00Strong<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have started seeing clients. My course work is done and I am now unleashed and allowed to scamper through the minds of those who are willing to let me. I had my very first client last week and all self deprecating snide comments aside, it was a truly moving experience. She was my kind of client. She is dying. Or at least she is in all probability dying. She was certainly coming to terms with this as a possibility. She is a cancer sufferer, or at least that is what she is now. What she was before was an entrepreneur, matriarch, socialite and the centre point of strength for her family. Now she is someone new. Someone everyone is uncomfortable with.<br />
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Her daughter called me. She knew I had met her mother in a coping skills seminar I had given several months ago. I facilitate these events at a local cancer centre where skills and support are given to patients to help them cope with the multiple levels of stress and emotions that go along with being branded with the big "C" (or hushed, whispered little "c".) I had left an impression on her mother, she said, so would I see her. Every second word out of the daughter's mouth was related to strength. She is not strong enough, she is not fighting like she should, I am worried I am not strong enough, she was always so strong and now she isn't anymore, can we find some way to give her the strength? I felt for this daughter, whose love and respect for her mother was so apparent. You could see she was reaching out, not knowing how to make her mother back into the woman she used to be.<br />
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Strength is such a loaded idea. What is it to be strong? We always think of it as a great character trait. Strength of mind, strength of body, strength to bear pain, strength to hide your feelings. You hear stories in eulogies of how wonderfully strong the dead were. No one says they were vulnerable and hurt and needing support. Instead we champion the stoic. Go into the night with your head held high. Why is this so laudable? Why not go into the night kicking and screaming and holding out your hand clinging to love and looking to be buffered from the fear? Because it hurts the ones around you. It burdens those who love you. It is scary to show your pain. It is even scarier for those who love you to see it. Both sides end up feigning strength. Shoring up their walls to hide their terror. It contains it supposedly.<br />
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I saw this woman. And after about half an hour she was able to cry. She said to me, "oh, that feels so good. I have not cried in years and all I really wanted to do is cry." I told her that I had a very positive attitude towards crying, and I thanked her for being able to feel safe enough to do that in front of me. I wanted to talk to her about what it meant to be strong, since this was the word that was pervasive. I said, what is the strongest tree? In your mind is it a redwood? An Oak? Giant and immovable? Or stop and think for a minute about a palm tree, slim and flexible. Delicate almost in appearance. When hurricane force winds blow who is left standing? It is not the old giant tree with its rigid trunk and unyielding branches. It is the palm tree, bending over to impossible angles, washed over by the force of the attack, accepting of the onslaught, that will survive. These are trees that were born to withstand trauma.<br />
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To me strength is feeling. Strength is reaching out and admitting that that you are hurting and being able to accept help. Strength is being able to see your loved ones in pain and allowing them let go and bend with the wind, while understanding that it will not break them. Strength is not about building an impenetrable wall over which nothing gets in or out. Strength is about resilience and showing your pain and knowing that it will flow over you like a hurricane. It's true, some storms are too strong and we can become uprooted, but if our very design is to bend and flow with the wind, most of our storms will pass over us making us stronger and ready for the next one.<br />
<br />
So I dedicate this blog to the sufferers. I get angry sometimes with the rhetoric of fighting and strength that comes with cancer. It puts this onus on the ill. It makes them feel like they are failures when they look at their fear and their sadness. It makes them feel responsible when they have no energy to get up and fight. I say to them that your strength is in your reaching out your hand and saying, I am scared, I am lonely, I need your help. Your strength is in bending, and coming close to the ground where we can touch you.Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-77611217439392831962013-02-17T23:31:00.000-08:002013-02-17T23:31:33.175-08:00Fucking loveIt's become frustrating all this cake eating. Having it. Eating it. Then came the couples counselling course. So now I have the privilege of self analysis. I love this class. I think it is my destiny but the class is dangerous. It's all about attachment.<br />
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Attachment styles are the next big thing. Are you securely attached? Insecurely anxious? Insecurely avoidant? Have your neurons been healthily formed to make your limbic system fire in a good way? Did you get enough attention as a child so can you safely roam trusting that your home base is steadily waiting in the wings to greet you with love and support? One can't help but to look at themselves and ask, what are my patterns?<br />
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The last couple of weeks I have been steadily self diagnosing. We all want to think we are securely attached. That we are both connected and independent. That we are capable of giving love that is open and trusting and that someone will do the same for us. When I peel back my layers I wonder. I wonder why there are times I feel so lonely.<br />
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It's not for lack of relationships. I have those. My daughter, my family, some beautiful souls that I can share my bed with. A big hairy dog who takes up too much space and demands love and affection in an unconditional and terminally endearing kind of way. There are just moments when there is an emptiness, a feeling of reaching out for something intangible with a longing so deep and poignant that your heart literally aches. The most deeply rooted fear in us all. Abandonment. Was it because someone didn't pick me up when I cried?<br />
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Thank fuck for plasticity. Our brain's unstoppable ability to change and grow and learn. Turns out, if you can find someone to pick your crying ass up in the present, you can change your destiny and feel safe all by yourself. Or so they say. The trick is to trust that you are not too heavy. Maybe I should eat less cake.Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-87506433331748411232013-01-20T23:18:00.001-08:002013-09-16T12:19:08.614-07:00Fantastical<br />
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I remember watching a British
documentary once, years ago. It was about sex. They were interviewing
men and women about their fantasies. They edited all the men together
and one after one, they said the same thing: two women at one time.
Threesome. No description or detail. Just the simple repetition. Two
women at once. It was as if for them, just multiplying tits and ass
by two was the ultimate turn on. More is better. Crass and direct.
Boring.<br />
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The women however were dirty. Really
really dirty. Dirty and specific. Dirty and creative. Dirty and
downright kinky. One fantasized about apparatus, machines, and
equipment and ways to be restrained. Another thought about animals,
dogs and ponies. Another wanted to take control, having a man kneel
before her and paint her toenails. And then there were the aliens...</div>
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<br />
I was talking about this with some
friends, and we began to describe our own fantasy lives. We all
agreed we had worlds. Not flashes or images, but narratives, details
and repeated scenes that we would go over and over again until
perfected. Personally, I have an island. I visit that island and
replay scenarios. Chase scenes, auctions, and public displays. It's
my world.
<br />
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My favourite story is from a lesbian
friend of mine. She had this fantasy that involved a power station.
In her fantasy it is her orgasms that fuel the electricity. She would
be in the station and people would have to make her come over and
over again so that the energy would be generated. She said it made
her feel so powerful. I loved the image. A city illuminated by her
come.<br />
<br /></div>
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I have had partners ask me what my
fantasies are. I think in hope that they can fulfill them in some
way. It is rare that I reveal the details. For one, they could never
do to me the things I imagine. I think that is the point of the
imagination. To go to the impossible. It is so limitless. I am not
ashamed of my dirty world, it just belongs to me. I am in it's
centre, the most desired, the most insatiable, the most irresistible.
It feels like home, however, where calm sleep follows.</div>
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<br />
So two women you say? Imagination
please. What are they wearing? How do they smell? What do they say to
me as they take control? I need details please. I need
impossibilities. It is a fantasy after all and that is the point. </div>
Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-40497188399759145882012-11-18T22:01:00.001-08:002012-11-18T22:11:09.090-08:00Fucking School<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Fucking School. It's its fault. I have nothing to say as the following words have shut down my creative process:<br />
socio-economic location, system, discourse, the Global South, social capital, retrenchment, the welfare state, reflexion, self care, APA 6, abstract, qualify, quantify, reify, marxism, neo-liberalism, Global North, intersectionality, dialectic, deontological, relative, subjective, bias, critical, ethical, social justice, community, societal, accreditation, Harper, meso, macro, micro, minutiae, syllabus, reference list, 118707715, ISP, field, field notes, codified, residential schools, oppression, repression, obsession, suicide, story telling, Kubler Ross, Foucault, feminist, hetero-normative, life course, phenomenological, relative, inconsequentially, (Klein, 2012), grounded theory, statistically, outlier, mean, functional, structural, subconscious, Jungian, urban, rural, healthcare, eldercare, care, trach, deadline....<br />
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I will write again when my means to and end has come to an end.<br />
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<br />Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-41625146827683479532012-08-22T19:46:00.002-07:002012-08-22T20:00:13.520-07:00Sick<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I never get sick. Well "never" is a stupid word. I rarely get sick. I did this week though. My kid brought it in the house. She is the port of entry for all germs. Usually I use a magical combination of placebo to ward off any bugs, but this time the virus outsmarted my brain and my immune system went into overdrive, stuffing up my nose, congesting my chest and aching my bones.<br />
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There is a question on OK Cupid, how do you feel when you do nothing all day? Good or bad are the choices. I chose bad. Nothing all day bores the shit outta me. I don't consider reading a book for 8 hours in a row nothing, or writing a blog, or even flirt chatting with random strangers. I consider lying on a couch forced to watch reruns of The Big Bang Theory and What Not to Wear as "nothing". More so, the nothing is characterized by my self imposed quarantine. Not wanting to inflict the plague on loved ones, I cancelled a much anticipated poker night with pregnant friends and multiple lovers. It was going to be my kind of fun. Instead I stayed alone, feeling quite pathetically sorry for myself as I blew my nose and drank copious amounts of tea I could not taste.<br />
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My mother told me when I was a kid that I was very rarely sick. If I was, I would come home, say I was going to bed and then sleep it off till I was better. She never really plied me with chicken soup and head rubs. If I injured myself she would get mad at me. I understand now, she was just worried and it came out mean, but as a kid I always wondered why she would yell at me when I came in bleeding. Maybe that is why I would retreat, so as not to get my mum pissed off. Let me be clear, my mother was not abusive or uncaring, she just had an old school attitude to sickness and injury. That it was kind of your fault and that you should suck it up and deal with it. Grin and bear it has been her mantra. She had a lot to grin and bear, and I quite honestly respect her for her strength. Perhaps she thought if she paid me too much attention, I would get sick more. There might be something to that logic. I have occasionally applied it to my daughter on "itchy bum" nights. Those of you with kids may know what I am talking about. When your child works themselves into a frenzy because something is itching them. I hear my mother's voice come out of my mouth sometimes, "well it's just an itchy bum, it's not going to kill you, so you better just relax and go to sleep because there is nothing I can do for you."<br />
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One of my fondest memories is when I was about 8 and I had the flu. I can count on one hand the amount of fevers I have had in my life, and this was the first that I recall. One of my other mothers that lived in the collective, who had a kinder, gentler attitude towards illness, put me in her bed and played in my hair till I fell asleep. To this day, petting my head sends me drifting off to my happy place. I struggle between both. Wanting to be left alone, and wanting to be coddled. I like to think I am stoic, stiff upper lipping it like a British WWII propaganda poster, when there is a lot of me that craves being tucked into the big bed and gently caressed to sleep. Hmm, any connection here with last weeks blog??<br />
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I blame this meandering installment on the mucus in my brain, but I have been thinking about it a lot recently. What it means to care for and be cared for. I hope with my daughter I make her feel better. Although the other day's crying accusation of "you are not sorry for me!" as I told her to suck it up after she whacked herself with a rebound door nob after a frustrated door slam, hints that I am trending towards my mum's school of thought. Truth be told though, I caught this fucking cold by letting her in my bed the night she was sickest so that I could cuddle her to sleep.Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-52269615603440957972012-08-13T17:57:00.002-07:002012-08-13T19:13:38.287-07:00Superheros <br />
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I have only had my heart broken once. It was a very long time ago. His name was Hart. A perfect name really. I was in university and very young. He was a Jewish rugby player with dark black curls that a friend of mine dubbed the "hair of the future." When I first met him, I was not all that interested. I had just split up up with another rugby player, this one of Scottish descent and I was really just looking for distraction. We ended up talking all night and going back to his place. We stayed up till the morning. I remember watching Sesame Street with him. Our sides ached as tears of laughter rolled down our faces watching Bert do the pigeon shuffle. Bert's legs are pretty much the most comical thing you can experience on no sleep, a few to many beers and a joint or two.<br />
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We started dating. He took me to a Marx Bros festival and showed up looking stiff and uncomfortable. It was because he had hid a flower tucked into the back of his pants under his jean jacket. It was simply romantic and I remember it perfectly. He liked me more than I liked him. He told me he loved me on the phone soon after, and I did not love him back. I think I just said, "oh, oh ok.." He kept wooing me and we would smoke pot and give each other artificial respiration on the couch. He could fireman carry me. One day I was touching his abdomen, he had a very strong body, and I said, "I like these, " referring to his washboard like stomach. A few weeks later he pointed out that they were more defined. He said, "I made these for you, cause you like them."<br />
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One night, and this dates me of course, we went to see Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I started feeling woozy about halfway into the movie. I made it till the end but I was getting sicker and sicker. We took a cab to his apartment and I rushed to the bathroom. I have never been so ill since, as I sequestered myself in his bathroom, projectile vomited into his spaghetti pot, evacuating from both ends simultaneously. When there was nothing left in inside of me, I said, "Ok I will grab a cab and go home." He would not let me. I said, "You will get sick..." He said, "No I won't, I am the Wolverine." I was not a comic nerd back then. I read Dickens and the Brontes; a whole other level of Masterpiece Theatre nerd, so I asked, "The Wolverine?"<br />
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My fever was high and painful and I felt like I was dying. He said the Wolverine was indestructible. The Wolverine did not get sick or die. He told me the complete story of the Marvel Universe to distract me until dawn and I finally fell asleep. When I woke up, I was irretrievably in love. It was a love I had never felt before. He had taken care of me. I had let him. This was new.<br />
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The semester came to an end and he went off to Israel to play rugby in the Jew Olympics. He wrote me one very strange letter, and that was all I heard from him. I imagine he met some heptathlete with matching abs and better genetics. I was destroyed. I did not know why he did not love me anymore. There is no happy ending really, just a summer of ice cream and pathetic videos in bed, crying jags and hermitude. School started again and I never really found out why he went off me the way he did. I remember looking for closure years later and writing him a letter, but there was no response. I still google stalk him in fits of nostalgia.<br />
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So where are these memories coming from? They have all been safely tucked away in a wistful space in my brain. It is my whippet man. He reminds me. He has wooed me, and he has taken care of me. I didn't want him at first, but he just kept persisting. When I look at him sometimes I feel the same. He won me. A different love. I have been panicking recently. A new witch doctor I see has unleashed some emotions and tells me that I need to stop fighting all the time. He keeps asking me what I am seeing as tears roll down my face in his office. I am seeing me letting go. Maybe they are tears of relief. I have been pretending since I was a child, that I was ok all by myself. I don't feel sad. I am just on a precipice. Panicking before I jump.<br />
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I call the whippet guy Superman. He looks like a cross between Clark Kent and Woody Allen. Good thing he can fly and catch me when I leap.<br />
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<br />Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-65976533193001819072012-07-11T19:36:00.000-07:002012-07-11T19:36:41.193-07:00Whippets<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Whippets are one of my favorite cookies, beaten out only narrowly by oreos. What makes them so special? It is a complicated convergence of a hard chocolate outer crust, which needs to be cracked and peeled to reveal a soft fluffy marshmallow centre sitting atop a not too sweet, but satisfyingly firm and crunchy graham cracker foundation. I was shown recently the "proper technique" for cracking the outer layer, through a surprise attack whack on the forehead of your unsuspecting whippet eating companion. <div>
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The forehead whacking guy is a new lover who likes to tell me how refreshingly normal I am. I think he means, not crazy, or not overly dramatic. I think he means resilient and balanced and independent. I think he means rational. How normal these traits are, I don't know, but I know he means it as a compliment. I keep warning him that he has just not seen my crazy yet. I am only half joking. People rarely see my crazy, unless they bump into it on day 22 of my cycle. I tend to hide it under a hard sweet layer of chocolate exposing it only semi anonymously in under- read blogs.</div>
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I do have a squishy marshmallow centre though. I noticed it today when I had to wrap a broken winged pigeon in a tea towel in front of my daughter and next door neighbors. They looked at me in awe a bit, as I calmly called for a shoe box and held the bird gently and firmly in the palms of my hands. They were relieved I was doing something, releasing them from obligation.</div>
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I knew he would die. I took him to the vet . I asked them to pretend they were going to save it in front of my kid, all the while aware that they were just going to euthanize him. Only once my daughter was safely plugged into some commercial free kid animation did I go out back, curl up fetally in my hammock, and become intensely sad. I had had a client today, she had had some past trauma which was unspeakable, and she kept sitting bolt upright on my table with the same look in her eye that the pigeon had. She wouldn't speak either, except to say over and over again that she was sorry. I felt quite helpless, and the bird brought it all flooding in. </div>
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The thing is there was a moment when I saw the bird plummet from the balcony upstairs, that I paused. I thought should I do something? Do I leave it to my cats to finish the job? Do I go into the house and close the door and pretend that this insignificant creature was not writhing in pain under my neighbor's porch? I really wanted to pretend it wasn't there. My solid, semi sweet graham cracker foundation would not allow me to walk away. It shored up the marshmallow and forced me into action. My client is coming back at the end of the week to try again. On the inside I am dreading it, wanting to refer her elsewhere. I keep seeing the bird. </div>
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Ok so next blog will be a raunchy account of a threesome with two African Americans as illustrated through a racist oreo metaphor .. it will be so much more entertaining. (just joking, it will actually be about pirate cookies)</div>
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<br /></div>Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-51887127538743844432012-06-25T20:28:00.001-07:002012-06-26T15:12:40.012-07:00Evil<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I just spent the last eight months of my life rehearsing a play about super villains in grad school. We did our 6 night run last week. It's all done and I feel like I should write about it. Not sure that I really want to write about it, which is ironically mirroring my feelings about the play.<br />
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I don't want to be an actor when I grow up. I have decided. I always had a sneaking suspicion that I might, but it turns out I was wrong. Don't misunderstand me, I liked the people, I liked the script and I loved my costume. I just didn't like the INTENSE self doubt. I don't generally doubt myself. At least not with any real conviction, anyways. I would almost say it was a flaw, my inherent lack of self doubt. Perhaps I should have more of it. Luckily I got a healthy dose last week. I have taught classes, given speeches and pranced around on a stage in skin tight shiny silver pants, but memorizing lines I did not write was somehow different.<br />
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I think it is because I don't play well with others. I am the "i" in team. The wrong vowel. I got too wrapped up in when was MY next line, did I say it right, would the other actor be able to say theirs? Will I look like an idiot cause my fuck up, fucks up someone else. I like to take full responsibility for my fuck ups. If someone else's is riding on it, it makes me nervous. I personally, can accept failure, but being the weakest link in a group, freaks me the hell out.<br />
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Plus I knew the universe was mocking me again when my handy menstrual cycle app predicted a frowny faced PMS emoticon on opening night and little red period triangles on the rest of the run. One of my final lines in the play was, "That doesn't make any sense. Are you trying to say that when chicks get their periods they can't do shit?" To which my fellow actor responds, "Precisely!" My role was that of an Uber-feminist with super strong hands, overblown intelligence and a complex about her lower class henchman family heritage. Really, I couldn't make up better irony, as I downed iron pills and belly breathed my way through hormonally inspired waves of nausea and back pain.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">This is not to say that I </span><span style="background-color: white;">embarrassed</span><span style="background-color: white;"> myself. I mean, obviously I did... a little. Some nights more than others, and some nights not at all. I held my own most of the time. I even had a couple of really enjoyable performances. I liked the camaraderie, or whatever the fuck you call it when 12 people decide to jump on the same crazy bandwagon. But in truth, I am happy it is over. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">I wrote a joke in the play though. It got a laugh most nights. Strangely enough I never forgot those particular lines. </span>I want my girl guide badge for acting now. Sew it on my sash and move on to the next challenge. Do they have a badge in Standup? What the hell is wrong with me? (mmm self doubt)<br />
<br />Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-63343352088958111982012-06-13T19:11:00.002-07:002012-06-13T19:19:21.157-07:00Show me Your Teeth<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So i have decided to leave the soul searching neurosis this time to just go on a silly rant about the dentist. This year my teeth decided to stop putting up with my night clenching and shoddy flossing habits. They opted to fall apart..en mass. Six fillings, two root canals and several deep cleanings later I have formed a special relationship with my dentist.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">My dentist is lovely. I would totally marry her. She is blond and sweet and she charges me way less then she should. She hates making me cry. And I do cry. Mostly because I have to deal with the bills and student dental insurance is.. well.. meager. Though you would be surprised how much pain can be had for 60% of $1500.00.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I feel for my dentist. People hate coming, she makes it as nice as she can. She has a lovely wall sized photo of a Costa Rican rope bridge to a lush island in front of the chair so you can pretend you are not there. They give you sunglasses. I am not sure if that is more for her than for me. They hide the tears. <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);"><span style="color: #222222;">Still, I end up wearing a bright blue paper bib listening to soft jazz muzak waiting to be injected in the palate They couldn't design better humiliation and torture in a Chinese political prison, and no pair of sunglasses or escapist photographic scenery can change that fact. And you get to pay through the nose for the privilege.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);"><span style="color: #222222;">I caught myself lying to my daughter today. She has to get a tooth pulled this weekend. She has shark teeth, baby ones who refuse to leave and big ones growing in behind. I told her , it's cool, the novocaine. It doesn't hurt and it makes you drool. I told her the story about how once I had work done on both sides of my mouth, so I was completely frozen. I could barely speak, like Dudley More in "10". I was walking home when I saw an elderly woman collapse in front of me. There was a traffic cop, right in the middle of the road and I yelled, "officer" but it came out drooly and slurred.. "othflicfluer, </span></span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);"><span style="color: #222222;">othflicfluer," I spat out like a stroke victim, gesticulating wildly at the sidewalk where the woman had fallen. The policeman ignored me, thinking I was some mentally challenged or ill person he just did not want to deal with. Fortunately some upstanding non, post op citizen got the cop's attention. It would be a funnier story if the cop hadn't been such an obvious dink.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">How do I conclude this? By going to the bathroom and flossing, I guess. Then to bed with my sexy mouth guard so I can rest at ease knowing if I take a punch to the face while sleeping, I won't get a concussion.</span></span>Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-69425779900683299602012-05-18T20:29:00.000-07:002012-05-18T20:36:38.855-07:00Metaphorical Dust Bunnies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My kid was not invited to a party last week and I emotionally imploded. It turns out I am still 8 years old. In grade school. And miserable. Ok demons.. let's confront you.<br />
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When I was kid I was very smart and pudgy. I wasn't type II diabetes American obesity epidemic fat, I was 70s, boobies too early and chubby cheeked fat. I had a pair of jeans called Husky. I hate the word husky. There was this girl. She was a mean girl. I was her target for two years. I used to hide in the back of the library with Judy Blume so that I wouldn't have to deal with it, but she usually found me somewhere everyday and made my cry. I read a lot.<br />
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Years later I was working at my local pool and this girl, now an adult, showed up to swim. She recognized me instantly and her whole face transformed. She looked upset and remorseful and began to apologize. She told me it had haunted her, the way she treated me. Her parents were going through a nasty divorce and both her and her brother were assholes at the time. I told her it was all fine. I was fine. I had survived and it had honed my razor sharp wit and deep love of teenage novels. It did not kill me or scar me. At least not as badly as it seemed to scar her. That's what I thought at the time.<br />
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My daughter is in grade 2. She asked me if we could invite a friend swimming, so I called her mother. The mother said, oh. she is going to a birthday party. My kid overheard and her face crumpled. Everyone is going to x's party but me. X is one of my kid's closest friends. My heart stopped. What? Why weren't you invited? I felt tears burning, heart pounding, and I was instantly transported. I called this girl's mother. I couldn't stop myself. Why isn't she invited? The answer is simple. Because they are 8 year old girls and they use birthday parties as weapons...in the end she was invited and had a great time. This is not the point of my story.<br />
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The point of my story happened in my head as I tossed and turned in my bed that night. I imagined the next two years of my daughters life, feeling rejected and humiliated. I put my childhood on her and it broke my heart harder than I felt when it happened to me. I realized she was going to have to go through shit. Not exactly the same shit, but shit none the less. There was nothing I could do about it. There was nothing I should do about it. It is an inevitable right of passage.<br />
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I could go off an a rant here about today's parenting and their hamster-ball like over protection of their future anxiety disordered children, but I wont. Mostly because I fell prey, prey to trying to smooth my daughter's road. Of trying to screw with the hurdles she should have to leap. Of using terrible metaphors. The thing is, my childhood made me who I am, resilient, funny, adaptable and a reader and writer. Would I wish it on her? There are scars that make you beautiful. Not all do though.<br />
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<br />Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-3230380809161351492012-05-01T00:21:00.002-07:002012-05-01T00:29:42.917-07:00Food for Thought<br />
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I don't know if is is the kinda cold dismal spring we have been having or some iron deficiency inspired by my peri menopausal hemorrhaging, but the last month or so I have been feeling quite uninspired. Spring is in the air though and I went trolling for stories.<br />
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One great story came from a client whose family is Greek. It's not really a story, it is more a description. She was talking about her childhood, her dad and animals. They were poor immigrants and lived in a tiny apartment. There were always all kinds of animals in her house, most of which ended up in a pot of some kind. We talked about eating lambs heads and eyeballs and how she came home to snapping crabs in her tub. Once her brother came in with a live chicken he found, this is in urban montreal in the 80s, not some rural village, and how her mum killed and cooked it.<br />
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She said she liked eating everything, everything except quail. I asked her why not quail? She said because it reminded her of pigeons. Especially her pet pigeon. Which her mum cooked and fed to her one day after it had croaked.<br />
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Strangely enough, this was a funny story, a touching story. Both us us were tearing up laughing when she told me about it. It was a story about how her dad was a macho Greek man and her mum was a superwoman who watched over neighborhood kids to make ends meet and fed her family on nothing. It was a story of living without much money but with life all around you. And it was a fucked up story about being made to eat your pet. She was so poor she had to eat her pet. Seriously funny.<br />
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I have been bitching and stressing about poverty this winter. It has stolen my sense of humour and quite possibly a portion of my sex drive. Spending an hour with this woman and having this conversation put things into focus for me. It sparked me back up. I do often wonder how I will make rent, but I got to see my kid ride her bike with total confidence and no training wheels today, then she read me a book. On Saturday I get to dress up like a unicorn and perform an awesome number on stage with girls dressed as dudes. I am in a play where I am a super-villain graduate student with fists of steel and I am currently pinned under a shit eating dog and two cats. I get to walk on the mountain on Thursday mornings and I do actually love my job.<br />
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Oh..and I am getting a tax return, so I will not yet have to feed my daughter her dog.<br />
Life is all around me too.Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-54442320310390072282012-04-06T19:37:00.003-07:002012-05-01T00:34:18.454-07:00Stone Cold Fox<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioVTa_tHD9Eyv5Hm58vKxm_1_iIIbf2jRCEGmYIbv6JGC48d-c5K4zenLd5PenY7XC2Y1qilUUYCeM2PQT2gwwmCIfHqxHZxEIiJysQDwdoLVrrm04WelnbN9yAi8w6VGKXvH0XJa7ufA/s1600/Stone_Fox_by_Lobo_the_Wolf.png"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729170279739638274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioVTa_tHD9Eyv5Hm58vKxm_1_iIIbf2jRCEGmYIbv6JGC48d-c5K4zenLd5PenY7XC2Y1qilUUYCeM2PQT2gwwmCIfHqxHZxEIiJysQDwdoLVrrm04WelnbN9yAi8w6VGKXvH0XJa7ufA/s320/Stone_Fox_by_Lobo_the_Wolf.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 240px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
I seem to be reverting back to death. I am surrounded by it. Most people would say that is dark, and sad and scary, but I choose to have it all around me. I work with the group of grievers. Every Thursday morning we go for a walk on the mountain. It is a support group of sorts, the people come to be with each other and spend some time in one of the most lovely urban parks I have ever been in. A forest at the top of a mountain with the view of the city island. A big red fox lives there. He visits us sometimes, making us point and grin and notice a real live moment. He appears like Aslan's sarcastic brother, giving us a knowing and amused look. Life still exists it says, don't forget about magic.<br />
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I love this group. They are mostly men, which if you know anything about support groups you will understand how weird that is. There is a gentle giant ex pro football player, who is trying to recover from a broken heart at the death of his mum. There are some widows and widowers and a lovely urban hermit who has opted to come out into the world after loosing both parents in the space of two weeks. And there is one widow in particular, who I tend to mention, whose grace and humour and intelligence make me want to behave more accordingly.<br />
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Sometimes we talk about the weather, or a movie or a crying jag. We have coffee and the football player likes to bring sweet stuff treats, continually sliding pieces in front of me. Eat he says. Death has an effect. It makes people sad. It makes them ache. It makes them cry because it is irreversible. It takes time to learn to live with the absence. They come to us quite broken, and over the weeks we see them brighten, bit by bit. For some the group is the thing that lightens them, the new friendships, strangely enough, the laughter, the leaves, the trees, my shit eating dog. He comes with us and the men like to take his leash. Though they all get smiles when I let him run free as he dolphins thorough the snow.<br />
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I have a new love in my life and he has also been surrounded by death. But not by morbid choice like me. He is sweet. He thinks of things like what flowers he should grow in his garden for his mother who was recently diagnosed with cancer. Purple is a the colour of recovery he tells me. His thought to plant lambs ears so she could have something soft to touch melted my heart. He has a grandmother who is entering palliative care this week, and a dead father, and nephew, and the list goes on. He is American and we woo electronically. I want him to walk with us. I want somehow to show him the fox. There is still magic and beauty. A space is left when someone you love dies, it feels cavernous at first, but then it fills. It fills with people you would never have met otherwise. If you let it.Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-20237660834592412582012-03-09T18:59:00.005-08:002012-03-09T19:55:48.532-08:00Good GirlI signed the last of my divorce papers the other day. Now all I have to do is wait and see if a judge who looks at them in my absence agrees that its ok for me to be officially single again. The lawyer's assistant at legal aide says that they will and on April 8th I will be legally divorced.<br /><br /> It was a bizarre encounter, my last trip to legal aide. They are very nice, and they divorced me for free, so it seems there are advantages to being poor. The time before the last time, I sat in in the windowless meeting room staring at the 4 page document that outlined our irreconcilability, our ownership of nothing and our 50/50 split on everything including our daughter . It was very short, very concise and rather unimpressive for a piece of paper that was borne of years of angst and struggle and hurt feelings. I didn't really feel anything. Until. Until the sweet, well meaning Romanian legal secretary looked at me with such empathy and asked me if I was alright. I was. Then I wasn't. Eyes burning, I okayed the document and thanked her and left. As I got to the elevator I started to cry. No thoughts really, just an unstoppable cry. I got a text from a boy at that instant asking me how I was, so I texted back, that I was fine, but sad because of where I had just been.. in his cute French/English he returns, good, so you now are marriable. It made me laugh. <br /><br />A week later I get a call from the lawyer. She is the third that has been assigned to me because they don't last long at legal aide, and here you have to wait a year for the divorce to come through. She told me the court date was set for the 14th, but that we should not go. We just had to sign some papers and the court would make the decision without us since everything was agreed to in the 4 page summary encasing the end of my marriage. So you mean I DON'T have to go get divorced on Valentine's Day? I asked. Because there is nothing I would rather do than witness the death of my relationship on such holiest of holidays. We both started to laugh.. and she commiserated that the choice of date was less than ideal. Personally I thought it was perfect. I applaud the universes endless capacity to sarcastically poke fun at my failed relationships.<br /><br />So there I was, two weeks after signing the agreed upon paper back in that same windowless room. So that's it? I asked the Romanian sweet girl. Yes, she smiled. Unless the court decides to say something, but they won't. And this is where I felt it get bizarre. The girl thanked me and said, you were such a great couple to work with, so easy and polite. Your ex too, she said, he asked good questions, was polite and nice, you two were great to divorce. So amicable, she remarked. I wish more clients were like you two. I found myself accepting the compliment, on behalf of myself and my ex, quizzically smiling. How do I feel about being great at getting divorced? A heretofore undiscovered talent of amicable pretense. Well, I said, you need to be a grown up right?<br /><br />So it is done, and I did it well I guess. So did he so I give him that. Am I now marriable? I don't fucking think so.Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-41805896856729255332012-02-17T19:14:00.000-08:002012-02-17T20:17:39.336-08:00The Gospel of the all mighty dollarPoverty blows. How do i write a rant on capitalism without coming off as some disgruntled overeducated, up my own ass whiny white privileged pot head. Oh wait.. I am all of the above, so I guess it is impossible. The pot head part is perhaps on hiatus, but it will return no doubt once the creeping anxiety ends. The anxiety will stop once the poverty ends. Ah endless circles of catch 22s.<br /><br />I met a girl once at a party I threw. She was a standup comedian and I instantly crushed on her. I love a girl in a tie and caustic wit. We escaped outside to flirt and banter. We talked about a lot of things, but mostly we talked about feeling anxious and depressed and sex and open relationships. It was very hard not to kiss her. I remember one thing though.. when presented with the question "WHY?" As in why were we so fucked up as a culture, why were our relationships so difficult, why were we so depressed and anxious. I blurted out one word... Capitalism. <br /><br />I used to make some money, not tons, but enough to own a car, take a vacation, buy stupid new electronics for my husband and order in Thai food when I was feeling lazy. I was not happy back then. I would go to my desk, answer my email, hawk the souls of my artists to advertising agencies and then go home tired and deflated to watch the television sell me stuff. I came to the conclusion that none of it made sense. They way we have turned money into god. Money buys you freedom, money buys you time, money buys you health, money buys you. <br /><br />It is no wonder so many people are unhappy and anxious. Disembodied. We work to make money so that we can afford to buy time where we don't have to work to make money. The concept of saving for retirement is in itself soul destroying. Here, sacrifice your present so that one day when you are too old and tired to keep doing this thing that you hate you might be able to take a cruise to Alaska and play bridge with your pals. If you don't make this money now and save it in make-believe investments, then beware of your inevitable fate of spam eating and elder abuse. <br /><br />I know I sound harsh, but I blame it on the likes of Stephen Harper and the rest of his criminal neo con gang. They have embittered me in this domain with their slashing of communities. I opted out. I decided to stop selling art and start massaging bodies. One person at a time, with my full concentration. I decided to work for pleasure, and helping and present moments, rather than pipe dreams of Nike commercials. So now I am poor and being poor is hard, because I cannot afford to buy time.<br /><br />So what does crushing on a cute comedienne have to do with capitalism? Nothing really. She was on my mind tonight and it was the last time capitalism really made me laugh. Truth be told, I am not quite so bitter or downtrodden. I think of my clients as the travel I cannot afford. Their stories take me places. My financial advisor told me once that I would have to save 30k a year if I wanted to retire, so I opted out of worrying about it. I learned to do a lot with Spam when I was in Australia. I have instead opted into living in the present, shopping only for my basic needs, trading in buying new clothing and gadgets, for conversations and hugs. Sometimes my gas bill scares me, like right now in the middle of February, but I am happier. I am happier being an atheist who does not buy in to the gospel that money sets you free. Nothing is free in capitalism.Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-22804450817486923132012-01-30T16:29:00.000-08:002013-03-29T18:57:20.098-07:00daddy issues<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg3CSX_-m_PrQoCe2S1JHfhdi1OI0eQYsszHoeEc8gnNr0K3eBJ2y4UFs09P0zYiM04SZmqLGPMN8BBC6B3TGu0ZUvxdy6MZahLs0Nc_vfCj3P-BGFz7rp8FpW9gEDvlE3svFcEfhgE4k/s1600/Phil081s.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5706165518503488722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg3CSX_-m_PrQoCe2S1JHfhdi1OI0eQYsszHoeEc8gnNr0K3eBJ2y4UFs09P0zYiM04SZmqLGPMN8BBC6B3TGu0ZUvxdy6MZahLs0Nc_vfCj3P-BGFz7rp8FpW9gEDvlE3svFcEfhgE4k/s320/Phil081s.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 212px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
I went to see Hugo today with my kid. She is recovering from the flu and we needed to escape from the excavation of our basement. Maybe there are bodies down there, I wouldn't be surprised. Why do they kill parents? They love to kill parents. It seems that a kid can't be a hero unless they are orphaned.<br />
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I met a guy recently. He likes to take photographs. I dislike having my picture taken. It is like my face is trying to escape the scrutiny. He had lights on me and was obscured behind a lens. Then he started to ask me things. He asked me about my dad and I found myself at a loss. I wanted to tell him something. He seemed like the right person to tell things to, but I was blocked, I was thinking, all girls have daddy issues. <br />
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My father was a photographer. He was also unhinged. He had been a brilliant PHD student, destined for academic stardom, but he got sidetracked. Sidetracked by a Leica and a collective of New Mexican hippies, acid, Buddhism and a wanderlust. My mother and he had a very different relationship, I think, although it is all conjecture. She doesn't talk about it. She would if I asked, but I seem to know not to. He would wander and she would sometimes follow and sometimes not.I know he must have had girlfriends, I can see it in the eyes of one of his photo subjects. <br />
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Eventually she moved to Montreal from New York City and had me. My sister was already 3. We lived in Outremont, next door to a houseful of kids called the Rings. My father came to visit sometimes, until he had a psychotic break and was carted off to the local crazy house after leaping on my mum. My sister, 5 or 6 at the time, ran to the Rings for help. After that he went back to NYC where he continued to take photos of crumbling garbage heaps and dilapidated signage. I don't have any memories of him. The only one I can recall is looking out the window at the rain spattered glass while my mum told us that he had died. He fell out of a window she said. I was 4 and she says I cried. I don't remember. I just recall the view, obscured by those plastic decals of triangles and squares and circles that you could stick and remove and make houses out of. <br />
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New York's finest were thieves back then, and they stole his cameras. They left the prints though, and I have them. They are my only evidence. I can see his humor, his intelligence and his complicated view. There was interest a couple years back and a gallery contacted me so they could mount a show. They did and through that I got in contact with a woman who was one of his closest friends. She sent me the story of his death, because she had been there. By now I knew he did not fall. The story was heart wrenching. He did not die right away. She found him, three stories down on the ground, and in the ambulance he was telling her it was alright, he was going where he wanted. She thought he was going to survive. <br />
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I thought about the pain this must have caused her. She knew something was wrong some days before, but hippies like to let people be. They don't question the weird. Strangely enough, I don't either. Sometimes I feel that I should feel more. Some kind of loss, some kind of deep pain. That I should be broken somehow, as orphans often are. I am not. I had family and love and I was young. I don't miss him. There is no hole.<br />
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I like this photographer, and I also have a weakness for academics, it seems. My daddy issues must be there somewhere, like it is for most girls. I come to the end of this post feeling much the same way i did when I was questioned under the lights. Thinking that I am trying to say something, but not sure what it is.Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-59276372168345088972012-01-25T21:08:00.000-08:002012-01-25T22:41:32.987-08:00PetsFirst off I want to say thank you to those of you who wrote me such kind words of encouragement. It is not that I forget that I have an audience, after all, I am writing with you in mind. It is more that I am continually surprised that you stay and listen decide to come back. It moves me that this blog gives you something. <br /><br />I was torn about what to write about this time. I wanted to write about my shit eating dog and then I also wanted to write about love. I wonder if there is a way to put them together? Let us start with the dog.<br /><br />I have a dog. He is perfect in every way. Except one. One very very imperfect way. He likes to eat shit. More specifically, his own shit. Well he will eat the shit of other dogs too, but what he loves most is his own fresh shit. This dog is beautiful, sweet, loving, obedient and silly. I would let a two year old walk him. I want to train him to be a therapy dog because he is so perfect. I think I love him. <br /><br />I got this dog because my ex husband was depressed. I have always had cats. I still have them. My ex had a dog when he was a kid, and somehow I thought a dog would help him. Maybe get him to walk outside and have a buddy. Someone on his side that he could just get support from in a way only a big furry mop of a dog can do. So I found this big black muppet of a dog and he had a fatal flaw. The kind of flaw that makes you hate him. The kind of flaw that makes you consider getting rid of one for. How can you love a dog who just ate his own shit?<br /><br />I fell in love with my husband at first sight. That has never happened before to me or since. I remember walking into the bar where I was supposed to meet him and sitting down across from him and looking into his face and knowing instantly that the game was over. That this person across from me was who I was going to be with. I even knew he felt exactly the same thing at the same time. We were together every day from that point onwards. We were repulsively affectionate and sex was in a place I had not been before. We fit. I remember the second time I saw him. He came over and we sat on my porch swing surrounded by the branches of the tree that was planted below and we held hands. We stood up in the kitchen and we kissed. All I wanted to do was lift my shirt so that the skin of my belly would touch the skin of his. I did. And when our stomachs touched it radiated a warmth that melted me.<br /><br />Later in our marriage he wanted fish. I hate fish. I said to him, they are your fish. I am never taking care of them. He wanted them anyways so we had fish. When he moved out he left them. I saw it as a passive aggressive fuck you and at the time I was mad at him still. Mad at him for not being happy I suppose. I was stuck with the shit eating dog and the stupid fucking fish. I am not proud of what I did next, but I did it anyways. I could not bring myself to flush the fish, and i certainly did not want to be vacuuming up fish poo and cleaning filters and dealing with all the horror that it is to maintain a tiny glass box filled with imprisoned fish forced to live in a world of plastic plants and weirdly coloured rocks. I was always told that fish were delicate, that if the water got cold or the filter was broken that that would die instantly. Well it turns out that is not true. it turns out that guppies and neon tetras can live for a couple of months.. in stasis.. with no food, no filter no water change in a green sludge of algae. I would go in each day, hoping that they would be dead, but they weren't. I was horrified at my cruelty, yet I could not bring myself to either flush them or feed them. I just sat there and watched them slowly die. They did finally. There is guilt there .<br /><br />I still have the dog though. Over the years I have learned how to curtail his shit eating ways. He gets some sometimes, but it is not often enough for me to hate him. My yard is spotless and I diligently ensure that I can still love him. My ex takes the dog on the weekends with our kid. I think the dog makes him happy now, they wrestle and hang out. The fish tank is long gone. Thank fucking christ.Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7602120750272967313.post-15120076448943682012012-01-20T20:46:00.000-08:002012-01-21T08:02:31.835-08:00Not UnicornsIt has been a long time since I have written. I could blame it on the holidays, but I wont. A friend of mine who reads this blog told me he thought that I wrote it one step removed. That I wrote other people's stories and ones from my past and that these were at safe distances. I think he is right. I want to write about unicorns. Metaphorical ones. But I can't because it is about me and sex and love and I am not up to exposing that yet, mostly because of the story I am about to tell you. It is a story about me. In the present. And I am writing it because I was angry.<br /><br />I am trusting when online, I chat with people with brutal honesty. If they ask me something I like to tell them the truth back. As I mentioned before, I am online dating. I have met some friends, and even some unicorns, but I have also met ones with whom I was not well matched. Blame the robot, his matchmaking statistics are sometimes way off base. (This is a shout out to my OKC clan.) Well I must have pissed someone off. <br /><br />I was chatting to a guy who decided to google me. You know, you have done it. We all google ourselves. If you are unlucky enough to be in the entertainment biz, IMDB will tell you your rank and how many points you lost this week. If you are a doctor or a teacher, go to rate-my-whatever-profession-people-want-to-bitch-about and see what the gossip is. If you are someone: wikipedia will know you or, if you are a just a plebeian, you can just see what comes up in the google search. <br /><br />Well this dude turned up me, giving hand jobs, being "fucked by bull dykes" and other such lovely descriptors. It seems someone was mad at me. They posted impersonating me on all kinds of comment boards and then linking them back to my work site. Conversely they posted on gay and lesbian sites having me make homophobic and right wing christian statements. Which belies a certain sense of humour I suppose, the irony not lost.<br /><br />It was the ultimate bathroom wall stunt. I can't lie, it shook me. It frightened me and it made me feel like I was back in grade school being bullied in the hallway. It served its purpose, it made me stop writing things that were personal. It made me feel exposed and vulnerable and criticized. It made me feel shame. As I have written before, I am not a big fan of shame. It highlighted to me that there is<br /> so much hate and homophobia and repressed sexuality still in the world. <br /><br />The thing is, I am not a pudgy smart kid in grade four anymore. So I say this.. fuck you and your shame. It is not mine. At least not anymore. I will write about unicorns, and kinky sex and queers and love and death and more. I promise.<br /><br /> Next time. After I have finished washing off the bathroom wall.Phildabeethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06761299677711971468noreply@blogger.com1