Fucking School

Fucking School. It's its fault. I have nothing to say as the following words have shut down my creative process:
 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....

I will write again when my means to and end has come to an end.

Sick

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.

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.

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."

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??

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.

Superheros

 

  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.

     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."

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?"

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.

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.

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.

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.

Whippets

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.  

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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)

Evil

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.

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.

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.

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.

 This is not to say that I embarrassed 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. 

I wrote a joke in the play though. It got a laugh most nights. Strangely enough I never forgot those particular lines. 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)

Show me Your Teeth

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.


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.


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. 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.


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, 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.


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.

Metaphorical Dust Bunnies

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.