Oh, probably nobody reads this except my family. But for the sake of consistency in storytelling, here is the update that I posted to my family forum:

Monday I called the doctor and they made an appointment to fit us in at the end of the day on Tuesday. The doctor and I discussed whether it was possible that Hannah was having seizures. Hannah talked a bunch to a degree that both the doctor and her attending student were wowed by her communications skills. I told them how she’s all about complete sentences and complex concepts. How I didn’t consider potty training my other kids until after two, but when we were waiting in the examining room, Hannah had tugged on my arm and said, “I pee. Baffroom.”

The doctor asked a bunch of developmental questions to see if she thought there might be evidence of a neurological problem that a neurologist should see. But she’s physically coordinated and adventurous. “Does she play pretend?” I was asked. And I told how she drives cars around going “brrrrrm” or how she picked up my purse and put it on her shoulder and then went to the door to wave and blow me a kiss and say “buh-bye.”

Part of the conversation was about other incidents that I thought followed the same pattern of going rigid and not breathing. And because every time there’s been anything like that, Hannah doesn’t seem to suffer any ill after effects and because she is clearly not showing any evidence of neurological problems, we agreed to wait and observe, on the logic that these incidents are more unnerving than potentially harmful and that now that we’ve identified them as a possible pattern we will be better able to observe what really is happening. And we’re going back in six months for her two year check up, when we will revisit the issue.

In other news, we are cleaning up our house thoroughly. This would be easier if we were the kind of people who kept things clean and organized all the time. But we are not, we are creative, complex, messy, busy people who would far rather start new projects than organize old clothes or dust things. Going through my closet, I had to haul out the “box of sewing projects”. Oh my god, it was full of probably twenty (I am not exaggerating) projects in various states of completion. And I have not got to the point of admitting to myself that any of them are not going to be finished. No-sir, they are all just “in progress” and I will get to them when I get to them. But also I have about ten more sewing projects in my head that I want to start soon. Mmm.

Also, I was always bad at cleaning my room because I would find toys I had forgotten or projects I had forgotten and I would have to take a moment to play with them or explore them. Like Tangrams! I found tangrams tonight. And so I sat down on the bed and was like “Ian, come look! Tangrams! Look, I can make a cat.”

In other, other news, I am frustrated with work. I am completely boggled that there are people in the world who, when someone says, “I need you to do this for this project,” think it is fine and appropriate to come back with answers that, though presented politely (no, not really politely. Let’s say ‘jocularly’) boil down to “I don’t want to” or “That sounds like a lot of work for me. Why don’t I just tell you what I would do and then YOU do it for me.” Honestly? I don’t run around delegating shit just so I can feel high on myself. I am rather of the “I will do it myself because then I know it will be done right” school. So if I asked you to do it, it is probably desperate circumstances.

Most of the people I deal with on a daily basis are the “my tribe” people. You know, when you say, “I need X, can you do it?” They give me the attitude of, “absolutely I will see what I can do. I am really busy, so let me know what your timeline and level of desperation is so I can strategize with you how we will get this done. And if I really am too busy, I will make good faith suggestions of who we can bring in to help.”

And, generally, my workplace has had a really good history of hiring really good people with the helpful attitudes. Which is another reason why running into this “no. I don’t want to” attitude has kind of thrown me for a loop.

I can’t wait until this project is done.

I have a headache.
I have a sore back.
I also have a baby who stopped breathing today.

I wasn’t there.

“Hannah gave us a scare,” he told me as I walked in the door.

She was playing around. Rocking back and forth, banging her head on a pillow. Then lost her balance and she fell back onto her bum. But she was okay. I called her over and she came to me, I picked her up and she arched backward, like she sometimes does, and she stopped breathing.

But she wasn’t hurt? No, she was fine after the fall. She walked over, that’s how fine she was. Angry, she must have just been angry.

Ian talked to her first saying, “Hannah. Oh my god. Hannah, enough. Oh my god.” Then he turned her upside down and shook her a little. She was limp, he said and staring into space.

“Ethan was going to call 911,” Rachel chimed in. Yes, Ian told me, “I told him to call 911.”

That bad? Yes, that bad.

Ethan ran for the phone. As he ran back into the livingroom, Hannah gave a little choke and started crying.

Then both the older kids started crying with relief.

“Hey, she’s okay,” Ian told them and Ethan got defensive. “Well of course I’m going to be upset,” and Ian had to vehemently agree. No, no, I am too.

Then, “I’m glad mama isn’t here,” Ethan said. “Cause she’d be crying too. And I hate seeing mama cry.”

But I wasn’t there.

I am a master of denial. In a little way, I think it was bad that I wasn’t there. I can hear the story through a filter of absence. I can not quite believe it.

“My mind was split in two,” Ian told me. “I kept thinking. This isn’t happening. This is nothing. She’s just having a tantrum. It’s nothing. But every ‘oh my god Hannah’ was more frantic.”

I know that mind. When Ethan had an abscess in his lymph node, I waited a very long time before taking him to the doctor. In fact, his dad had to bring it up. I believed it was just swollen, it would go down. It was simply not possible for anything to be wrong with my baby.

Could it have been a seizure? I asked him.

Maybe my absence spared me from the mental extremes. While I don’t have the residual panic, I don’t have the desperate need for denial to save me from it.

Maybe I’m being overly analytical.

He feeds her some banana before bed, and his finger comes away red. Is that pasta sauce in your mouth? I corner her and prod a finger at her gums. It comes away clearly bloody. It enrages her, but then we both have to corner her. He lifts her up, tilting her head back and I hold her mouth open. It is coming from her top front teeth. We give her cold water to drink and check to see that it’s stopped.

It’s hot in our house. We’ve had the air conditioning on all day - and it’s still 76F. I turn it off and then on again - and it sits there blinking mutely at me.

Breathe.

It continues to blink.

At bedtime, Hannah takes her bottle without fussing over it like she has for the last few days. She is snuggled sweetly under my chin. And when she pushes it away, not quite empty, and I ask her if she’s done, she gives a long, solemn nod.

Are you ready to lie down? Nod.

You’re a good baby.

The blankie is pulled up to her chin and her eyes are closed before I’m done kissing her goodnight.

Downstairs Ian is looking up teething and finds that particularly when molars come in (as four of them are now doing most horrifically), pockets of blood can form and then when they burst from the tooth pressure, the blood leaks out wherever it can.

The air conditioner is still not working. The thermostat still blinking. I am packing up the remains of the supper that so heated the house. Outside, the air conditioning unit itself is not even running. Inside, the fan won’t even turn on. Nor can we get the furnace to heat. “I’m going to go check the fan,” he says, heading downstairs. And he finds the furnace’s emergency switch has been turned off. We are too tired to even lecture the children.

He finds me standing at the back window. As if in thought. But I am not really, only paused to tend a nosebleed.

There are too many things that need diagnosing.

The air conditioner is working now.  If only Hannah had an emergency furnace switch that we could find.

“That was a stupid metaphor.”

“No but I know what you mean.”

My dear friend’s, dear fiancée has newly discovered allergies to wheat, milk, soy, chicken and eggs. And probably more things that I don’t remember. At the grocery store, I am reading the labels on everything I buy (at the same time as my daughter is terrifying her dad). On impulse I buy rice chips, corn pasta, consider learning to make gnocci with rice flour (they’re mostly potato anyway).

It’s not the fiancée (though I would like to cook for her some day, when she moves here) - but a rising tide of family and acquaintances with real reasons to pay careful attention to what they eat. And I worry about my own digestive health, envision inflammation caused by my macho insistence on eating whatever I please (and damn however bad it makes me feel).

On Friday I stood next to a cubicle wall, staring at it, trying to calculate what my oldest aunt’s age would be if she were still alive.

Why do I always measure my life against hers? (Eighteen more years.)

(Shut up. Shut. Up.)

I can take her to the doctor next week, I tell him. “No, no I overreacted. I’m sure it was nothing but a tantrum.” There are too many things that need diagnosing.

I got a little over four hours of sleep last night. Now my kids are in bed and I should really go to bed. Not sure why I’m not.

I’ve been pretty burnt out since returning from Drumheller. Too much time not-alone. I long ago theorized that whenever I feel slightly insane, I just need more time to myself. Then I got married and had children. Time alone is not the same when you get it only with someone else’s indulgence. And then there is that I go out to dance twice a week, for three or four hours. I feel I should spend the remaining nights with my family. You can only have so many priorities, ya know? Sometimes sanity isn’t one of them.

Speaking of priorities, I have been really clearly not writing a novel lately. I have been, rather, ignoring that novel like it’s a temperamental child sulking in the corner. No, well, I suppose that, realistically, a writer cannot consider herself to only be productive when actually stringing words together. I have been planning my novel. I actually, really have. I have given up on self-indulgent introspective journalling in favour of novel-related journalling. And I have been doing a little research. I have not abandoned my novel to the streets. I am only, as I said, refusing to indulge it in its sulks.

Anyhow, during the course of writing this brief and pointless piece I have downloaded an Oum Kalthoum tribute album, calmed a wakeful, crying, sick baby, updated myself on what the internet has to say re: patriarchy, class politics and food and now I have run out of steam and am going to go to bed.

With much relief we finish birthday season. Glad to be done with late night crafts and panics about how early invitations have to go out. Still, richer in the little memories.

If my life is a mosaic, these are the shiniest stones. More trouble to place, just so! But, you know… gleaming.

I struggle to make birthdays special without surrendering to gendering. But children soak up their conditioning and they know their place. The girls can’t feel special until categorized as something the boys would sneer at.

I dig in my heels and try to redirect, not to be a dam in the river, but a stone. I can’t stop the currents, would not want to be the force that tried. But I can stir it up.

Meanwhile at work I retell vibrator jokes that were once told at my expense.

I’m trying to illustrate points about sexual harassment, but my audience doesn’t get it. In fact, because I have framed the discussion as addressing sexual harassment, they think they should be shocked on my behalf, when, in fact, my point is that the joke is funny. My point is a lesson about valuing banter, and the finer points of knowing when you’re bantering and when you’re harassing.

But maybe a workplace of 50+ people cannot be expected to conform to policies with finer points.

In my workplace review, I bring up workplace sexism, and first it is suggested to me that the women have to be more assertive about drawing the line and letting people know when joking crosses the line.

I do not make the “blaming victims” point. I mildly lament that, already doing this, I suppose myself to have been branded as the office-angry-feminist. Then, (this is the BEST part,) THEN, they go over the feedback about me and an anonymous feedbacker helpfully informs us that I may be perceived as a party-pooper.

I can guarantee the only party I’ve ever intentionally pooped was a misogynist one.

With another comment from (presumably a different person) that I can be condescending and overly critical, I left feeling very raw. I spent a long time analyzing every interaction, looking for where I am unnecessarily critical without seeing it. So difficult because my job requires me to correct things; how do I do that without making anyone feel criticized, given that some people are so hard on themselves there is no way to deliver a correction that won’t sting a little. And I am SO careful with people when I’m correcting them. Which doesn’t mean I’ve never been misunderstood or had wrinkles to smooth out. But I’ve requested a lot of process changes to change the tone of my involvement from “oversight” to “collaboration”. And I try to sit down with someone who’s been asked to do Quality Assurance tasks for me so I can explain to them that, although the process looks inflexible and exacting, if there are extenuating circumstances, they should tell me because I’ll take their side over the process.

In retrospect, I decide the feedback about my being critical is ironic because whenever I have been asked to provide feedback for others’ reviews I have not given any negative feedback. I once went so far as to reply to the “negative” questions on one of them with a passionate answer (then email followup, then conversation followup) about how inappropriate a venue a review was for casual observers to dredge up one’s character flaws.

So I trust whoever felt I was unnecessarily critical feels suitably revenged. I am, as they probably are, very hard on myself. And I spent a lot of time picking everything about me apart and wondering what I could have done to avoid getting any critical feedback.

But I’m done now. As a generalization, they missed the mark. I am not a critical person, I do not come into work thinking I need to tear someone down to prove my intellect. In specific situations, I probably miss areas where I can improve - but I can’t know how to address them from anonymous generalizations.

A friend in the office makes it all better with this feedback: “It is good to know what your coworkers think of you. Not because it says something about you, but because it says something about them.” And I take satisfaction in reflecting on my own moments of compassion for others being reviewed. So until I know specific ways that I can take better care of my coworkers, I dismiss the anonymous feedbacker’s comments on the grounds that it was never intended to be constructive.

“Really? Not ANY worse? Here I’ve been envisioning that the whole garage door could have fallen off its tracks on top of you, breaking your neck with its 200 lbs of weight.”

“Yes, or it could have twisted parts of itself off its tracks, losing wheels and tying itself in knots and then forced us to spend an hour and a half wrestling just to get it closed. Which was PRETTY BAD!”

* * *

“I’m going inside to pour a glass of vodka and coke.”

“I love you.” * “I love you.”

“JINX! you owe me a soda. …And it better have vodka in it!”

***

So you will have gathered that we had a garage door mishap this evening. It was pretty bad - though nothing fell on top of anyone. There was a point where Ian was holding up a corner of it with his head because so much of it was slipping off the tracks and those things are fucking heavy and we didn’t want it twisting itself out of shape. But no one got crushed or injured.

Basically, the cables on both sides slipped off the pulleys and so then they were wound around the torsioning bar and therefore we had different tensions on each side. And that caused a lot of pressure on one track while wheels slid off the other track (nearly collapsing on Ian’s head). And then we couldn’t get it closed because the cable was completely slack on one side leaving all the strength of the torsion spring on holding open the other side. And we couldn’t get at the damn torsion spring to release its … um, torsion because the damn door was open. So Ian basically used two vise grips on the side that was fighting to stay open to turn the bar in the direction of letting the door closed. Meanwhile I stood under the other side (where the torsion spring wasn’t doing a thing to keep the door open and it was sagging and pulling at the tracks) and tried to keep the whole thing level. I will hurt for that tomorrow.

Ian felt responsible. I could not see how he could possible be responsible. He said how if he didn’t have this DIY habit, it wouldn’t have happened. Oh, ah, sure. Only, his DIY habit has been very profitable in many other circumstances. And it’s one of the things I love about him. And it would be completely unreasonable of me to expect that nothing will ever go wrong with DIY stuff - because then he’d just be a professional at EVERYTHING (which would be nice, but not reasonable of me to expect). But I was not entirely nice because while he was fighting with that spring using two vise grips, I was braced under the door and talking away, “I’m just saying  you should tell me before you start moving anything. You people who usually work alone - I think you tend to just jump in and start moving things and forget that if someone’s working with you, they’re not just another tool holding things in place for you, they’re liable to get hurt if they don’t know which direction you’re pulling on things.” Because he had forgotten I was standing under the door and had just starting REEFING on it to try to get it down and I felt like we needed the home improvement therapy session right then, apparently.

Then later I made fun of the situation by parodying him with the whiny Meredith voice. (best comedy ever.)

The garage door issues meant that I did not get to put a second coat of paint on my shelves tonight. Also meant that I did not get to finish the invitations for Rachel’s birthday party. Which is too bad because it’s monday already and she should really hand them out tomorrow if we expect anyone to be able to come… argh.

It also meant that I did not get to go to dance class tonight, but I didn’t even remember that there was a dance class until it was 8:00 and I was standing braced under 100lbs of door. So whatever, then.

But, I did get my tomato plants potted. And I did get the primer and the first coat of paint on the shelves. And we got the kitchen pretty clean. And we also survived a pretty knock-down-drag-out family fight at around 3:00 when we realized that no one had eaten lunch and we were all about to claw each others’ eyes out. But after feeding the kids they were super-sweet and well-behaved, even.

So, I will summarize it as, “what a goddamn day,” but also, “we survived it and we kept the kids alive and mostly happy and we got a bunch of stuff done including contending with that fucking door and throughout all of that we behaved like a team and while I’m tired I don’t actually feel like I’ve taken a shit-kicking (which I once would have after this day) because really I’m just very, very lucky to have the family that I have.

I bought new rims for my Swift yesterday. Ian and I ordered them some time ago. And Ian wanted me to get bigger wheels because he’s a car guy and he knows from cool. And I didn’t care, I just didn’t want to sacrifice too much ride quality but I did want chrome. Ian and I picked out some wheels together and then spent some time debating tire size because No-I-do-not-want-my-car-lowered-thank-you-because-I-will-still-want-to-drive-it-in-the-winter-on-its-puny-winter-wheels. Having done that debating, I let Ian phone the tire store and do the ordering because if they were like, “Oh no, you don’t want that tire with these wheels. You want this.” Then I would be like, “what? Um? do I?” and would have to get off the phone and discuss it with him anyway. So when he called and told them what I wanted, and he got to saying chrome finish, and the guy said, “Oh! nice.”

And then, later, when he called on another day to confirm something about the order, and began by describing the car and his order, the guy was like, “Oh the chrome wheels!”

So after dropping off and then picking up my car yesterday, Ian said to me, “did they mention that they were chrome? They had to mention it to me every time.” And I was like, “No. They probably figured that I don’t care and it was entirely your influence that we got chrome.” Ian laughed, “They were probably trying to figure out how to say ‘Your husband sure picked out some nice wheels for you ma’am.’ And then you’d giggle and say, ‘He spoils me!’”

That’s pretty much exactly how it would have gone down.

Anyhow, I underestimated the power of awesome in having nice wheels. I took the car to the dealership today for a service and some warranty work. When I walked in to pick it up, dude-in-charge asked if he could help me and I said, “Oh I’m just here to pick up my car,” and gestured to where it was parked out front. And he was like, “Oh that’s yours! That’s a nice little car. Nice wheels.” And we discussed them for a moment (like, what do you say about them really? Yep, they sure do… um turn… and… I mean, yeah, they’re pretty aren’t they?)

Then he summoned some younger-shop-dude working there saying how he’d take care of me. The younger dude said, “Sure, but I don’t know how to take payments.” So the in-charge-dude summoned an older dude. But the younger-shop-dude didn’t go away, he just hung around the counter… leaning on it around the corner from me. And after the older-dude went over the invoice with me and was taking my card, the younger-shop-dude said casually to him, “So uh, you should go look at her wheels.” And the older dude said distractedly, “Oh yeah, I did,” and then, “Wait! That’s yours?”

Aw. You know why it’s awesome? Because I fall in love with tiny little rice-rockets and I’m like OMG-I-LOVE-MY-CAR-SO-MUCH-LIKE-ITS-SRSLY-TEH-AWEZOMEZ! And then the guys are like, “Um. Sure.” But evidently, if I trick it out, then they take me more seriously. Next step: GIANT CHROME TAILPIPES (YES! MULTIPLE!) AND A HUGE SPOILER!

So kidding.

Okay. Quick list of some of the so many other reasons why life is so awesome right now.

Family! My little cousin is in town and my family is so effing-funny. And they make great food. And my aunt will be in town this weekend. And then we’ll do family things like celebrate birthdays and such.

Rain! It rained today. Only a little bit, just a little grey cold drizzle. But I stood out in it and the wind whipped it around and I wasn’t that cold and later I got to go for a walk in it.

Ian! I can’t even quantify. I was trying to explain to him how his presence in my life has changed my perspective from “larger families have more opportunities for one person’s bad mood to ruin everyone’s day” to “larger families have more opportunities to help each other out and share in more joys.”

Work. Sometimes lately the work I do feels very like a treadmill. But today I feel like I made a difference. Caught a glitch, worked with the right people until we had a solution and didn’t close any doors in the process. Days like that feel so good.

Coworkers. Oh my god, how did I end up surrounded by so many wonderful people? A lot of weeks I lament that it’s been so long since I’ve connected with this or that person. But those spells aren’t devoid of connection, it’s just an ebbing and flowing of individuals. I have some favourite people who just know my habits and do occasional things to go out of their way for me. And some favourite people who, when I offer help with something, are exactly gracious and grateful. And some favourite people who are always good for a really good philosophical, introspective conversation. And some people who are just effing funny. And people who are brilliant and conscientious. I have so many favourites. And each week I seem to move in a slightly different circle, but it’s always an overall good circle.

Babies. Well, my babies in particular. Who are not really babies. But the smallest one was most particularly sweet today. Talking, talking, talking. I had the Explorer and all 3 kids with me when I went to pick up my Swift. Ethan and Rachel sat together (!) in the last row and played sweetly together. And Hannah sat behind me babbling and lighting up at me every time I looked back at her. I’m sure I risked a number of accidents with all the glancing back and talking to her I did. And at the dealership, I took her in, and they offered her a balloon and when she made strange with them they were like, “maybe she’s too young to appreciate a balloon.” But I was like, “No, I bet she’d like it.” And I went and got it for her. And when I put it in her hand, the look on her face was just heartbreakingly awesome. She was so, SO delighted, but in her tiny, restrained way. She just gave me this little, english, so pleased with herself grin but I could tell she was really, really happy with it. And she clung to it out to the car - it was so giant it was almost as big as her. And it bumped around in the car while we drove, bumping into me, bumping into her head. She loved it, and the older kids loved her loving it and I loved the whole thing.

Ah dudes, I miss blogging so much.

I miss feeling like I had time to blog. Even my novel writing is kind of on hiatus. And I haven’t even got around to letting my subscribers know if I have a plan for when the hiatus is over (I don’t).

But overall life is going so well. Ethan is SO much happier now that he’s out of daycare. The difference is like night and day. People in my family have commented on it, we’ve noticed at home. This is not to say that he doesn’t get into fights bunches still, and occasionally overreacts (stomping off, door slamming and swearing because Ian wouldn’t give him a second tuck-in an hour after bedtime), but he’s less likely to have outbursts and when he does they’re shorter lived and he’s better able to calm himself down.

Really, it’s not about having him under control. He is still Ethan. But these days he’s just… Happier. He converses more with us, when he’s playing video games he seems less sunk into a daze. And while the amount of time spent on video games will probably always be an issue around here, when he’s not playing, he’s more likely to play with Rachel, more likely to get along with her, and more likely to be playing at something that uses his imagination. He seems like he’s more interested in life and has more coping resources.

These days, when I listen to him spinning these elaborate stories to entertain himself and Rachel, he reminds me of me when I was about his age and always playing with kids two to six years younger than me. Because they were enthralled with my stories and would let me push them around through my intricate plots.

Other than that, work has been kind of slow, but overall I’m feeling good. I don’t have a lot of projects on my plate, and maybe I kind of prefer a busier plate. But I’m making good headway on the projects I have.

We’ve started spring rehearsals for the summer belly dance performance. That is both exciting and nerve-wracking. Oh man I will never be a natural performer. And last year I could practice every day because I was at home. But this year I’m working full time and somehow that takes a whole lot more than just eight hours out of my day.

And I bought a costume while I was in Toronto. I don’t know if I’ll get to wear this costume because we still don’t know what piece we’ll be doing and what costume will be required, but it’s beautiful, and there will be opportunities to wear it pretty much any time I’m performing where there’s a freedance.

I have a lot to say on the topic of belly dance costume buying - but for now I will sum up by saying that this purchase, being authentically egyptianly hand-sewn, is a bit of a project. It needs a little reshaping to perfectly fit my body. And there are a couple of stones missing (just completed a week-long internet search for the right size and colour and shape of vintage swarovski crystals and am now waiting on the mail to bring them), and some of the beadwork is coming loose or has come unpicked. So now I need to source matching beads. Which, you will not believe this, are not available at any craft or bead store in Saskatoon.

But it’s so beautiful and so worth it. When I get it to the point where I can wear it, I will maybe take some pictures.

Possibly one of the reasons I haven’t written is because, although stressed and busy, I feel like life is pretty nice right now. So I’m going to close with this list of things that have been so delicious for me lately.

Elliott Brood
Birthday Party Planning
Swarovski Crystals and anything else sparkly-sparkly
Tegan and Sara
Sundress and flip-flops weather
BARGAINS! COMPLETE AWESOME OUTFITS FOR LESS THAN $15!!!
Ian asking me why I have to yell every time I get a bargain.
Babies. My own and other people’s very beautiful and really sweet and not yet born ones.
Dancing and Drumming and Costuming
Sweet Chili Heat Doritos
Chewy Ginger Candies
Rain that will someday be here like OMG so soon it will rain and then it will be really summer!

I spend the day thinking of things I want to tell you. Then I sit down to the computer and draw a blank.

Today Ian and I had a fight that culminated in my demanding, “Just admit that I was wrong and you were right.” And he replied, “You’re too demanding. Stop being so hard on yourself.”

Ian and I are both people with a low tolerance for confrontation. Looking back on our early years together we used to have some right, terrible fights. But with a little distance, I now see that our fights were all meta-communication. That is, we were struggling to communicate to eachother what the ideal way to communicate with eachother might be.

When we started to know the other person’s style, and we had learned what the other person needed and had also acquired confidence in ourselves to provide it, our fights kind of leveled off. I hadn’t realized it until recently. I started thinking about our fights and realized that a discussion where, at the end we will heave a deep sigh and go, “woah, that was a big fight,” other people would be like, “what? There was a fight?”

We do have a low tolerance for confrontation. We are both sensitive people, I guess. And Lord knows, sometimes I watch how many times we’re shushing the kids and begging them to negotiate their fights more quietly or to “please just let it go” and I wonder how badly we’re going to impact their ability to get along in a rougher world.

I was in a department meeting some weeks ago, and my director and another department manager and I were dividing up tasks. And my director said something to me about one task, acknowledging what he knew my preferences were. And he was being just so careful of me and my feelings. It reminded me of how Ian and I are with each other and it made me smile and think how I’m in the best department ever. You know, programmers are often non-confrontational types. And sometimes people in other departments talk circles around us. I wonder if maybe sometimes they look at our careful conversations and wonder how we ever get anything done without standing up to each other and pushing each other around a little. But I really like being surrounded by people who are careful of the people around them. We should be careful of each other, try to know each others’ styles and how to give other people things they need. Yes, even coworkers. Yes, especially your family.

When I watch not-careful people negotiating, it seems like they’re scared they’re giving something away if they act sympathetic to others’ concerns. As soon as they see that someone else wants them to be impressed, sympathetic, grateful or sorry, that’s the last thing they are going to be.

I do understand where it comes from. We are all kind of scared that we will never get our own sympathy or recognition. But the truth is that giving away these things actually costs you nothing. It takes a moment of discomfort, of being present in the moment. There will be some squirming as you struggle with your conditioning.

I really didn’t expect to go here. But since I’m talking about it, here is my suggestion. When you find yourself in one of those emotional tug-of-wars with someone who clearly wants a certain emotional reaction from you and you feel very clearly that you don’t want to give it - ask yourself whether, apart from your own negative feelings about the individual, the reaction they want might actually be the most appropriate reaction.

Usually, when we’re withholding sympathy or recognition or apology or whatever, we are telling ourselves some story about how that person doesn’t deserve it because they’re going about this wrong, or they’ve always been full of themselves or this will just be their excuse to milk the situation. But if you could ignore those personal feelings and just look at the situation… Maybe what they did really is impressive or generous. Maybe what happened to them really is just terrible or maybe, even though you didn’t mean to, you really did do something that somehow wronged them. So maybe it would be appropriate to say, “that was really impressive,” or “Thank you,” or “You poor thing,” or “I’m so sorry.” Maybe the problem isn’t them. Maybe it’s your conditioning. And maybe you’re ready to be a better person than the person your circumstances conditioned you to be?

I had sushi with my best friend from high school (elementary school too, actually) this morning. It was pretty lovely. I’m not at all sure what I should nickname her, since I’m still trying to protect the innocent around here.

Sigh.

Anyhow, her yoga-teacher-brain-scientist-developmental-psychologist boyfriend (I know, right?) said something about how I should come out to Toronto more than once every five years. And we were like, actually, right now, it’s once in a lifetime. Once every thirty one years? I guess I’ll be back when I’m sixty-two.

“That really doesn’t seem so far away,” I said. “It doesn’t seem like a lifetime. I feel closer to sixty-two than I do to, say, twenty.”

And my friend said, “Well, since you’re not ever going to be twenty again, you really are closer to sixty-two than to twenty. If we’re talking about probability, you’re way closer to sixty-two.”

She’s so funny.

I think what I really mean is that twenty seems like an age when you worry about what you look like and worry about whether you’re feminine enough, mature enough, appealing enough and you read shit like Cosmo and you pretend to be fine with how mysogynist the world is because you’re too hip to get angry about it, right?

Sixty-two seems like an age where I will completely not give a shit whether I’m appealing enough because I will be so busy with all my great creative projects and intellectual pursuits and scads of really interesting friends. And if someone should happen to flirt with me or something, it will be kind of a nice surprise, but then I can go back to being this intellectual, fulfilled person with the internal assumption that the world sees me as asexually as I see myself. I don’t think I mean asexual - I think I mean non-attractive. But not as in ugly, just as in completely neutral. I see myself as neither attracting nor repulsing. You know, like how men get to feel every day without having to articulate it. I feel like myself, with lots of interests that supersede “are my legs soft and smooth enough” in importance.

So anyhow, where I’m going with this is that then I had two men hit on me on the street (separate occasions and different locales). And it wasn’t remotely like, “Oh what a pleasant surprise that someone finds me attractive.” I discovered that I quite, quite prefer this concept of being neutral. Of never being found attractive by anyone other than Ian ever again.

And it was ridiculous hitting on. When I told one of them that I must unfortunately decline his offer of a drink because I’m happily married (pretty much married, though very much happy) with three kids. He replied first with a little gasp and then, “How DARE you be so cute.”

I walked away without saying anything more.

Funny, ’cause he was way more overtly creepy but didn’t actually creep me out. The other man made a great deal of innocuous conversation until he had wriggled the conversation around to an offer to show me some Toronto sites. But in addition to his being TOO casual, I had recognized him as having passed me going the other way about a block ago. And the conversation had only started because I had decided I was going the wrong way and, on turning around, was startled to find myself passing him again. And then he stopped me to make casual conversation about my camera.

Yeah. My future-step-dad had some tweet about wishing he’d had that talk with his new daughter about the dangers of the big city. I assume he was being facetious. But it had me chuckling to myself all day. Why do men always kind of secretly or not so secretly assume they know more about keeping women safe than women do - is it because they feel like they know the male attitude enough to know the dangers?

From my point of view, any woman who hasn’t been brainwashed into believing herself helpless is a living expert on her own security, and has probably not lacked opportunities to demonstrate her expertise.

So I have come to Toronto. Primarily to go to the Freshbooks Building a Web App Workshop. Woot. But then also, Meredith is here. So I flew out a couple days early. And then also, Nick Rose was performing on the Friday, so clearly I needed to make it here on Friday early enough to go to that.

I’m pretty tired right now. Acshully.

I got up at 5:30 on Friday morning in order to make my flight. Which seemed like it shouldn’t be a big deal because I get up at 5:30 every morning to go to work these days. But for some reason, when your rise’n’shine time is 5:30, each successive rising is less shining, not more. Also, I had been to belly dance classes all Thursday night, coming home at 9:30 and then staying up until 11:30 to finish packing.

I thought I would sleep on the plane. But naturally I did not. My first leg was to Calgary (which seems so counterproductive, flying West just to fly back east) and that was too short a leg for naps. And my second leg, from Calgary to Toronto was 3.5 hours, which would have been long enough for naps for certainly. But my back hurt and I couldn’t find a comfortable position that didn’t make all my entire lower back feel cramped and impacted and siezed up. So I squirmed into one position or another for the last two and a half hours of the flight.

I had a little boy of about 9 or 10 sitting next to me on the plane and I thought “well this is going to suck.” But he was, overall, pretty well-behaved.

His dad sat in the aisle seat and noted immediately that his television screen wasn’t working. It would flickr on periodically, but did not function. The kid said, “well you can use mine. I’m going to just read my book.”

Only then it turned out that while the kids’s tv’s screen worked, the channel controls on his armrest did not work. So for the first half hour of the flight, the dad would periodically reach over his son, to the armrest that was between me and the kid and viciously punch at the channel buttons, trying to make them do something. And he alternated that behaviour with adjusting the tilt of the little television screen trying to get whatever loose wire to connect, so pushing it, and violently tapping it, disturbing the man in the seat ahead of him who was reclining in the pose of someone who wants to sleep.

Finally, he summoned a flight attendant who consulted the head flight attendant and said, “there isn’t a lot we can do. Just make a note for maintenance when we land.” But she divulged that there was a box under the seats that controlled the televisions and sometimes a little tap will get things working again.

So then the dad and the son sat doing little testing kicking at the seats in front of us every thirty seconds until she came back and pointed out where the box actually was (only under the middle seat), so then the boy spent some time kicking that box (attached to the seats) in earnest. And I thought, “I don’t have the worst seat on the plane. Those dudes ahead of us do.”

But then halfway through the flight, the boy took a notion to try kicking the box underneath OUR seat, just in case that was the correct one. And I found that very jarring to my back.

Anyhow, I was very happy to reach Toronto. And Meredith met me at the airport and guided me through three stages of public transit (a bus, a subway then finally a streetcar) to get us back to her apartment. Her apartment is very little and adorable and just exactly the kind of space that I used to imagine getting for myself when I would move away from home and have a place of my own.

I never did that. Instead I moved directly in with Del. And we lived together for about a year and then we got married. And then a year and a half later, we had Ethan. And I would occasionally say how I had a vision of this sweet little bohemian apartment I was going to keep for myself with plants and shelves of books and creative clutter and regular neighbourhood walks and eating farmers’ market foods and I was very sad that I hadn’t had that before settling down. So, I said, I will get my own place as soon as the kids move out.

Del didn’t think this was a very good idea nor did he think it was a nice thing to say to your spouse.

A couple years ago I explained to Ian about how I never got my cute little bohemian apartment and I was going to do that when we were older and richer. And he said, “that’s cool. As long as I don’t come over to find you employ a shirtless gardener with flowing hair.”

But then a couple weeks ago, I was lying in bed and thinking about the future. And I realized that all the things Ian and I have talked about doing in the future have come to replace my longing for this little alone-space that I wanted desperately to have some day. Instead of picturing this solitary space with room for all my creative clutter I picture this lovely old character house filled with all our projects where we can come together on projects and then move apart for our own projects. Where things won’t always be where I left them, but sometimes they will be better than I left them, so it’s all right.

Anyhow, that was a sweet segue to talk about how my so-happy relationship has cured me of my years of longing for some bachelor living. But what I was really getting at with all that history was just to explain how easily Meredith’s apartment feels like home. It is exactly the kind of little space I would keep and I quite love it.

I also quite love her neighbourhood.

And I think I have walked six hours today.

Which might explain why I was so hungry for calories that I ate an entire package of fudge in addition to my supper quesadilla.