Ask me when is the last day that I didn’t go into work. December 27th, that’s when. I took the weekend after Christmas off. I have been in every other day. Yes, even New Year’s Day. I thought we were going to slow down this week. No, well, we have slowed down. I only went in after hours one evening this week. And I was only in for four hours today. Mm-hmm. Instead of a 60 hr week, I think this will be less than 50. So good then.

Aw, I try not to whine too hard on the internet. But I am so, so, goddamn burnt out.

I’d tell you cute kid stories, but, you know, I haven’t really seen my kids a lot lately.

I’d tell you cogent thoughts I’ve been thinking, but I haven’t had time to think anything lately.

Oh, here’s something.

‘Kay, you know when you have an occasion in your life, about which you might have some expectations. And then that occasion comes around, something about it disappoints you. And it seems pretty minor, and there will be more of that occasion. So you brush it off and move on. You figure it’ll be better next time, and there’s lots of next times, so it’s not a big deal. But then, you know, a couple more of these occasions pass, and they just seem to disappoint more often than not. And with each time it happens, the issue becomes worse. It’s the fault of the damned optimism. Because if you weren’t so busy being optimistic that next time will make up for it, you’d have said something to people or taken steps to make sure it was going to be a good experience. At some point the optimism has faded and the disappointment has solidified into an expectation, and since it’s an expectation you finally figure you should take responsibility for nipping this trend in the bud, then that disappointment wells up inside you so that you don’t even know how you could go about making your feelings known without it being a mess of pouting. And pouting certainly won’t make you enjoy the next occasion. You can’t really disentangle how much of the disappointment is because that’s just what you expect and so it takes so very little for you to say, “Oh, well, you see? That’s how it goes” and how much of it is because with each disappointment, your hopes for a better next one get a little more inflated until they’re not really realistic.

Okay, well, that’s what my birthday has become. I’ve had some really good birthdays, because some years I have been lucky enough to be a part of a group of friends who were really good about taking care of each other. And some years, it was totally just dumb luck that everyone I wanted to see could make it out. And I’m lucky enough to have a family who cares and one really good friend who has been there for me on every birthday for as long as I’ve known her. But many years the dumb luck goes the other way and I end up having very low key birthdays and pretending that that is what I wanted - which, actually, is easier, because mostly I am very, very, depressed around my birthdays, so even if someone (for example) spends the entire day making me a triple-chocolate-mousse cake, I am moping because that is the only person out of ten who even showed up, even though a number of people RSVPed that they were coming and even though I spent the last two days doing stupid things like making party favours (because I’m ridiculous like that).

So anyhow, that’s why this is going to be the last year that I celebrate it. From now on, I only celebrate rebirthday - which takes place June 15th, and where I am allowed to make a big fuss because in addition to celebrating me, I will be also celebrating all my friends’ rebirthdays (even if they don’t know about rebirthday). It will be like mini-Christmas-in-June and it will be fabulous.

And I guess I’m kind of clinging to the thought of how great rebirthday is going to be, because I am just realizing how down I do get about this and because I’m probably going to be a serious bear until this stupid birthday is over.

I think it’s going to be a really nice spring. I can’t really list all the nice things that seem to be going on and coming together, but I feel like I’m surrounded by good people, good work, and lovely plans for the future. I feel like things are coming together and the world is oozing with delicious promise - no wait, that’s just the melted snow from all the warm weather.

The warm weather is probably most to blame for my optimism right now. I walked to work the last couple of days, just because it was so nice out. I had to hustle, to get to work on time, and after work I had to hustle to get to the school to pick up the kids, but it was so nice to have fresh air, and exercise and sunlight. omg.

Yesterday afternoon, I took my kids over to my friend Acacia’s house so our kids could play together. And we sat and drank tea and visited. We’ve had a couple visits lately, but before that, it’s been fifteen or sixteen years since we hung out. And yet our visits have been so easy. We talk about child-rearing philosophies, about mental illness, family structures, childhood reminiscences. “I didn’t think it would be this easy to converse with you,” she said, “because I assumed you’d have changed a lot, because god knows I’ve changed a lot. So I didn’t expect us to still be similar.” And, “I don’t know if we are similar,” I said. “But I think we never stopped being the kind of people who think a lot about what’s going on around us.” And by that, I just mean that we both have a lot to say and we’re both interested in listening to other people who have a lot of opinions.

She is, actually, quite different from me. But I watched her deal with a fight amongst the kids yesterday (while I clutched the counter, white-knuckled to stop myself jumping in so I could see how she would deal with it) and it was so laissez-faire and low-key and I was like, “huh. I should spend more time over here, observing how that works with my kids.”

And it’s funny that she says she’s changed so much because I don’t feel like she’s changed at all, except to become more truly herself. She’s shed that conflict of feeling like who you are isn’t good enough, and I know that internally, that feels like a huge transformation. But when I watch her dealing with her kids (and my kids) and with minor household calamities with supreme equanimity, I think, “ah, that’s so her.” Not that it was natural for her child-self to deal with calamity well, but that now she has those skills, she wields them exactly as I could have said she would.

Last night I told her a story about a time when she, uncharacteristically, stood up to me. And it confused not only me, but all our friends too. It’s a difficult thing to try to adequately describe your child-self both with honesty and compassion. But basically, I was kind of arrogant, though it was in a gentle way that mostly worked for me. I certainly rubbed people the wrong way plenty, but no one ever stood up to me and I was never ostracized for it and mostly I just ended up getting my own way a lot. But this one time, I said something snotty to her, and she cut me off and wouldn’t hear it. To my credit, I didn’t pull any attitude about how you don’t do that to me; I wasn’t ever deliberately full of myself. I just didn’t understand what had gone wrong. Didn’t even really know that my tone had been so insufferable (and that it was nearly always insufferable). But every time I went to try to explain that I hadn’t meant to offend her, she cut me off and wouldn’t hear me out. We had been friend for 3 or 4 years by then, so if she was tired of my attitude, it was probably about time.

Meanwhile, our other friends were full of anxiety and telling me, “go make it better. Go apologize and stop this fight.” And I was bewildered that I couldn’t.

And then she said how funny the idea of standing up to me was because she recalled a conversation with a mutual friends once saying to her, “Ugh. Megan thinks she’s so much better than everyone else.” And Acacia replied, “Well,… yeeeeah… but she kind of is.”

I wanted to share this recollection with my blog, but now I’m having trouble putting my finger on why. I mean, it is funny. And if you have to hear about a “behind-your-back” conversation about your flaws, it’s pretty much the nicest kind. But, also, there is something in that story that reflects a lot of my own warmth of feeling about my childhood friendships. About what a flawed person I was, and how it was still okay. How I know I irritated people, and yet I also know that some people (even the people who were sometimes the most irritated with me) also loved me enough to defend my quirks. There is a warmth too, in looking at Acacia’s telling of that story and thinking, “ah, it’s so ‘you’, the way you did that. And still, it’s so ‘you’ the way you told that story, the whole time twinkling your eyes at Ian, as if you were sharing a joke with him about what it is to be a part of my life.” Which, I suppose, she was.

I haven’t blogged, lately have I? I’ve been busy having a beautiful Christmas (evidence above).

Feel like there’s so much I should say. Probably also, so much I shouldn’t say.

I have here an old draft of a post I started to write after my belly dance group’s Christmas party. I’m going to preserve it, even though it’s outdated because my instructor said something really nice about my dancing.

Ian came and brought Hannah. Rachel performed with her group for a house of other (adult) dance students and parents of her classmates. I performed with my group. And even Hannah showed off her shimmy skills.

Amy’s mom came by to say hi and meet my daughters and said of Hannah, “I remember when you were in a carseat. Heck I remember when you were in your mom’s tummy. You were pretty much born dancing, weren’t you?” And I asked her when her daughter is coming back (I miss you Amy! There’s an empty cubicle right next to me, you can have it!)

We left halfway through because the girls were exhausted. But as I was running downstairs to pack up my stuff, my instructor stopped to chat and she said I was fantastic. Fantastic! She used that word. She elaborated something, I don’t know, I hardly absorbed it because I was like, “are you effing kidding me? I was so shaky.” But she said how we all, at the beginning, when we get up and solo, come from a place of nervousness and rushing through the moves and quite obviously struggling with the question of “what next?” and overthinking things. And she said that night, no, I just got up and I danced. And I was in my own self, and dancing to the music that was there and right in the move and the audience could feel it… like ‘Hhhhhhaaaaaah’ [she used that word].”

Anyhow, it was so nice. Like the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me about dance. Also, I do know what she meant. I was shaky up there. But I wasn’t thinking, “okay. what next?” And I wasn’t looking at the audience like they meant me harm. It was more like, “…let’s see, what have I got here for you. Oh, I know, check this one out.”

You know what, though? It helped that my two-year-old was right in the front row. So when I stood there and shimmied, I didn’t have to think, “I don’t know what to do. Oh god, I guess I’ll just shimmy. Don’t judge me for using the fall-back shimmy. GOD, DON’T JUDGE ME!” Instead, I was beaming at her, “look Hannah! You know this one. What do you think?”

So I suppose Hannah just has to come sit in the front row of every performance then.

Other than that, I’ve been working a lot of overtime, neglecting my family, Christmas-ing it up and crafting whenever I have a moment. That picture above should have also had a picture of the bag I’m crocheting and the pretty new Christmas decorations I purchased after Christmas for next Christmas (oh my god, I can hardly wait). But I haven’t taken any pictures of them yet.

But what is there, clockwise from top-left, is mini-photo-album Christmas crafts that the kids and Ian and I made for all the kids’ Christmas presents. Vintage Christmas balls that my Aunt Apple got, sitting on the floragold tray that I got my cousin for Christmas, my bed, singing the nap song - which it does every afternoon that the sun hits it at that angle, but I haven’t been around much to hear it lately, and, finally, gluten-free ginger-chocolate cookies that I made just tonight and they were fantastic.

Anyhow, I promised my family I’d share the gluten-free ginger-chocolate cookies recipe, but I thought it could go here instead of on my family’s super-secret family-forum.

Gluten-Free Chocolate-Ginger Cookies

3/4 cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Baking Mix
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 and 1/2 tsp ground ginger (I felt like it could use more ginger)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
7 and 1/2 ounces semi-sweet baker’s chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger
confectioners sugar

Mix baking mix, cocoa, salt, ginger and cinnamon in medium bowl.

Combine butter and 3 ounces of the chocolate in a double boiler and stir occasionally until chocolate and butter are melted and smooth. Remove top saucepan and set aside for ten minutes.

Stir the granulated and brown sugars into the melted chocolate mixture. Drop in the eggs, one at a time and mix briskly until smooth. Stir in the vanilla extraxt and gradually add the dry mixture. Fold in remaining chocolate and the crystallized ginger. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and set in refrigerator for min 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

Shape chilled dough into balls of rounded half tablespoons, dropping into a bowl of confectioners sugar. Roll to cover and place them on the baking sheet about 2 inches apart. If the dough becomes too soft, return it to the refrigerator until chilled. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Place cookie sheet on wire rack and cool for 2 minutes before removing them to racks to cool completely. (No, actually, we did not let them cool completely. We ate them pretty immediately.)

It has been brought to my attention that I exaggerated in yesterday’s post. I did actually work a 60 hour workweek and I did actually accomplish all those things and my back was actually spasming. But Hannah doesn’t quite weigh 50lbs, unless you suppose that her grouchiness weighs about 15lbs, which it probably does.

We don’t really do tv in our household. Instead we just watch dvds on the computer when we’re inclined to have some screen time. So whenever you’re at the computer, there’s a chance it will remind Hannah that she wants to watch a video. Which is what just happened to me as I was typing that first sentence.

Hannah came up to me and she said, “Y’know what? I wanna watch Up.” That “yknow what” always charms us. So I opened the dvd tray and found Horton Hears a Who in it. “Hm,” said I, “how about Horton?” “How about I wanta watch Up,” she reaffirmed for me. I was still kind of distractedly trying to humour her. She has really only just recently reached the stage of being steadfast in her whims. So generally you can distract her with some equally appealing, but more handy solution. Casting around, I still didn’t see Up, but Finding Nemo was right in front of me. “How about Nemo?” I said. And Hannah looked at me very seriously and said, “How About No Nemo. How about I’m gonna watch Up.”

Naturally I got off my ass and went and found her Up.

It’s the better movie anyhow.

If you count Sunday in with the last week, I just finished a 60hr work week. The upcoming week won’t be so bad, mainly because I have other commitments preventing me from working late so much. So, while I won’t be at work as much, I will be just as busy.

On the other hand, I do feel like  rocked this weekend. I finished programming the module that had me working so much, I’ve begun entering data into it and it’s working smoothly. I managed to finish writing the press release that I foolishly volunteered to a friend that I would do for his company. And I did it a day earlier than I thought I would. And I did two productive Christmas shopping runs and I managed to get groceries and homemake some soup for our lunches. I did not, however, see much of Ian and the kids. Also, my back threatens spasms every time I sit down because all week if I wasn’t in bed I was sitting in front of a computer or I was carrying around 50lbs of Christmas shopping/groceries/grouchy-Hannah.

Regardless of having rocked the weekend, I am not ready to start a new week all over again tomorrow. Boo.

I’m also a little sad that I’m going to be stressed about this project over Christmas and probably have to take as little time off as possible. Every time my family’s in town I can never get away to do any of the fun things they all end up doing. Maybe next year I’ll wise up and seriously book some time off. Oh, also, maybe I’ll be smart enough to not get roped into giant-over-Christmas-projects. Mm-hm.

I am exceptionally good at motion. Since I had Ethan, a decade ago, I feel like I have pretty much not slowed down. If I wasn’t having another baby, I was changing my career or buying a bigger house or leaving my husband or something.

Year to year, I feel like my life at any given point in time bears little resemblance to what it was a year before or what it becomes a year later. I recall that when I celebrated my 29th Birthday, I said to myself, “I should celebrate my 30th Birthday this year. I’ve done and changed SO MUCH in the last year that I can celebrate my 30th Birthday feeling really accomplished.” I had just quit my job at Wonderland and was planning on starting my own business. Ian and I were newly living together and he had just started working at his exciting new job. We were settling in to my little character house and had done some a bunch of fixing it up.

But by the time I turned 30, I had, instead of starting a business, taken a job at the Menagerie, I was starting my maternity leave with a brand new baby and I was living in a big new house in the suburbs and had sold my little house for enough money to pay off all our debts. BAM! I didn’t expect any of that.

Those were bigger years for change than many of the other years. But it remains that I am good at setting goals, and I am consistently making plans for the improvement of our situation - whether what we need is to put the kids in swim lessons so they’ll be less rammy or what we need is to rearrange our livingroom for better space or what we need is to sell everything and move to Greece (okay, not this year, but one of these years). But basically, I have developed a habit of paying attention whenever I catch myself in dissatisfaction with my life, and turning that dissatisfaction into a goal. I’ve probably set hundreds upon hundreds of goals over the last decade. And I’ve probably only accomplished a fraction of them, because many of them were outlandish or revised or discarded as circumstances changed. But every dissatisfaction has been answered. I might have set five different goals to deal with a problem and then only achieved one, but I did achieve something to fix it.

This year’s big change was moving to our new neighbourhood. We spent two years in the house in the suburbs and I kinda hated it. I tried making plans to improve it, and I tried walking around our street appreciating all the nods to victorian architecture in the rows of pastel two-story houses. But then we had Hannah and Ethan had to move into the basement to make room for her and it was so frustrating to be so far away from everything. We began talking about how we inevitably did want to move back closer to the core. We began deferring household projects because we weren’t sure we’d recoup the cost if we sold. I think the ultimate catalyst was visiting Meredith in Toronto. Her neighbourhood was so lovely and eclectic and close to everything you could ever need. I blogged about how nearly her lifestyle matched the lifestyle I’d once envisioned for my young-bachelor self. And so, within a couple months of coming back, I said to Ian, “I know the market’s bad and so maybe we couldn’t even sell it or get a good price for it but let’s just fix up the house and see if it sells and then if it did, because the market’s bad, we should pretty much be able to have our pick of houses.” Well, anyhow, that pretty much is what happened. And furthermore, we lucked into the house that seemed out of our reach because it was too perfect for us (and that made it also too expensive for us). And, although we were looking at three neighbourhoods, we ended up in the neighbourhood that I’ve pictured myself in since I was about 8 and my mom’s friend lived around here.

Anyhow, I’m going somewhere with this. Last weekend, I used Facebook to get in touch with a childhood friend. She has a story that would be interesting to disseminate on a number of levels, but I’m reluctant to, since it is her story and not mine and since, even though I use nicknames, I’m aware that my internet anonymity is a comfortable construct, not a reality. At some point I do intend to come back and disseminate my thoughts on her stay-at-home-motherhood - but that is a topic for later. The point is that she has ended up with a life which, when put down to facts looks quite enviable. The husband is in one of those professions which society considers desirable in a husband. Their house is on one of the original streets of the city that I have spent many a trip purposely walking or driving in order to admire the grand houses. And when I went to visit her, I found that in person her life looked even more enviable. There was a lot of charm in the family and the visit - but those elements are about the stay-at-home-motherhood that I want to discuss another time. The house itself was all kinds of charming, from the yard to the decor to the neighbourhood.

That night, after supper, I went out for a walk and I strolled down her street. It’s not as creepy as it sounds. Her street is a five minute walk from me and I didn’t go as far as her house. I just wanted to look at the neighbourhood again and sort out my thoughts.

See it is a beautiful neighbourhood. And it’s another neighbourhood that I’ve fantasized about living in. And I walked along admiring all the houses and a part of me recognized that envy and said, “well look, this is attainable, you know.”

Every house on that street has so many elements that Ian and I agree are really lovely in a house. Big driveways, brick, mature yards, vines, second floor balconies and decks. I turned down the street to the river and headed there to follow the river back home admiring the view. And when I was back near Broadway and thinking about everything near there, I realized that I don’t care if something grander is attainable. I just want to stay still for a while.

You know, I’m intensely grateful for how far I’ve come in the last ten years. But when I finally set a goal that I didn’t want to achieve, I realized how much of it has been really compulsive. That little voice that started out encouraging me to believe a grand house was attainable, is now disgusted with me for being too self-satisfied to reach for new heights. “Oh really? You’ve worked hard enough? Done enough? Come far enough? You think you’re good enough without this?” I realized how much all this change has been a way of running. If I never stay still, I never have to confront that none of my accomplishments have materially affected my sense of self worth. Some of them have made me happier; some tremendously happier. But none of them, no matter how hard-won, have made me feel that I deserved them.

The angry internal voice asking me how dare I think I might be good enough to stop is missing that I still have a hundred goals in every other direction. I am still wildly driven by goals for my kids, home improvement, my creative expression, my career. But I guess the difference is that now I’ve said no. I might still have a hundred goals - but if I’ve said no to one, then I’m not running anymore. I’m picking my own pace.

Ian: Hey Hannah. How old are you going to be tomor–

Hannah: (interrupting and dancing with joy) MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!! … TWO!!!!!!!

This might be her best birthday ever.

Ah-ha-ha-ha, Feminism!

I just lectured Ian at length about his privilege. And he said jokingly how he didn’t mean to take advantage of his privilege, but, like, there it is, you know? And I said understandingly how it is hard not to because every day we stew in little stories about how the people who have privilege have it because they deserve it and the people who don’t have it, don’t deserve it. Like, you know, when we learn about a study that finds women don’t get raises because they don’t negotiate as aggressively for them as men do. Then we can say, “see? If women want to be considered equal in business, they should learn to act like business-people.” And Ian said, “I don’t believe that.” And I said, “yes, you do. A part of you does, or you wouldn’t be taking advantage of your privilege. It wouldn’t feel acceptable to have your own say even when it means interrupting women, because you would be noticing that everyone else is talking through them and over them through really no fault of their own. You wouldn’t find them so ignorable because you wouldn’t have bought into the belief that their opinions are less important.”

Then Ian said, “wow. You really do make me a better person.” And I said, “What? No I don’t. Look how full of privilege you are.”

I was in a bad mood.

Of course, he’d just spent supper time full out interrupting me. And interrupting me to ramble. And not even taking the hint when, after his rambling came to a pause, I looked him in the eye and said, “did you have something really important that you interrupted me for but hadn’t got to saying just yet?” Instead he distractedly took that as an invitation for him to continue with his v. important man-talk. And then when I called him on it and called it privilege, he told me “but no” it’s really that he’s worried the kids will interrupt at any moment, that’s why he’s always trying to hustle conversations along. And then I called bullshit - like, reeeeeally? You’re interrupting me because you’re scared the kids will interrupt me first? So then I had to make a bigger stink about the privilege of choosing to write yourself benign excuses that have nothing to do with privilege so that you can back down without having to question your privilege or ponder giving up any of it.

Whew. It’s a good thing he seems to think “you make me a better person” is a good thing. Because, hoo-boy, I have had relationships with dudes who got pretty stinkin’ mad at me for trying to make them better people.

Why is it so hard? Why do things have to get so vicious and personal before he will just talk to me? He tells me that he is suicidally depressed - but he can’t say so before first picking a giant fight with his sister, villainizing me for failing to see and prevent whatever must have caused the depression, making death threats, initiating some close calls with physical violence and delivering a lecture about all the ways in which every one of us has let him down.

When they are being really monstrous to me, I think about how I spend my days getting up and going to work an hour early, so I can leave an hour early, so I can spend two hours weathering the vitriol until Ian comes home. The after-school program at their school has openings, and I think about how much it would cost and whether I could find room in our budget. But then things are monstrous monstrous, like they were today, and I remember that my handling their after-school time isn’t about the money. It’s because daycares, teachers and after-school programs can’t be trusted to deal with my son when he’s this depressed. Because, before he makes it apparent that he’s in need, first he will blame and punish the world for allowing him to get that depressed. and then the world will blame and punish him back.

At ten (hell, at thirty) it’s impossible to believe that something that feels that awful could be causeless. Something, someone must be at fault, right? And the question is, how do I introduce to him the idea that it might not be our fault, without seeming to invalidate his feelings of having been wronged?

Oh well, if I have an imaginary child-care budget, then surely I must have a counseling budget.

Rachel: “GO AWAY!”

Ethan: “I’m busy putting my lego away.”

Rachel: “GO AWAY!”

Ethan: “Busy putting my lego away.”

Rachel: “GO AW-”

Hannah: “uh…Scuse me? you don’t fight. ‘Kay.”

* * *

Took Hannah to the doctor today. Doctor said how ridiculously verbal she was, even though Hannah was being very shy and refusing to speak much. But when the doctor offered her a sticker, she jumped up, ran across the room and said, “I want a Diego sticker.” Which was what she got when she saw the doctor three months ago. Good memory.

And there was no Diego sticker, so she looked through them and was like, “that one! I want the spiderman one.”

And earlier, when we were walking into the Doctor’s office, she said to me, “what’s gonna happen in there?”

And when we came out she said, “no, no. Don’t put me in the car. I wanna climb in by myself.” And then she got halfway in the car and stopped. And when I said, “come on Hannah. We need to go get Ethan and Rachel.” Then she looked at me and said, “I’m so sorry I didn’t get in the carseat.” “It’s okay, just let’s get going,” I told her. “I’m so sorry, I can’t get in the carseat.” “Okay, I’m going to help you,” I said. But she said more firmly, “I’m so sorry, I can’t get in the carseat.” And then she fought me tooth and nail while I tried to make her get in the carseat.

Willful.

* * *

I feel like I need some nice mittens. Nice thrummed, knit mittens. Mittens, mittens, mittens. I would put them on a string and hang them around my house. But that wouldn’t keep my fingers very warm.

I misplaced my gloves today. For the third time this fall. Guh. If I do get some nice mittens, I damn better put them on a string.