megan's blog

I'm glad the holidays are officially over.

Not that I'm necessarily happy to go back to work. I like my work, but I like not working even better. But I've had the How were your holidays? conversations with everyone, I've got the next quarter's projects lined up. The next few weeks will bring some pretty big changes to the site I work on, which is exciting.

Also, the new yoga schedule is out, and there are at least two lunch-time classes I can go to, which means at least 30 minutes of day time walking in the winter in addition to the yoga class. Though I should probably be taking vitamin D anyway.

And another thing: there's an open house at a pilates studio on Wednesday, so Shelley and I are actually going to get signed up this week.

Best thing? All my people are home now. Shelley got back from a weekend away a few minutes before I left to pick Paul up at the airport, winging home from a two week vacation. We spent the evening eating leftover chili, watching Kung Fu auditions go wrong, and drinking heavenly scotch. When I wandered back up the street a couple hours later, I was happy to see M-C's truck back in the driveway after three weeks gone. She was already asleep, but we had a good chinwag this afternoon. Even though I haven't seen them yet, the Wren is back, and so is the KGRF.

Everyone is in their right spot, and it gives me a satisfied feeling to have my world in order.

Tonight, I've been catching up on music blogs, listening to This American Life, and knitting beside Freya curled up on her quilt.

I'm suddenly less worried about the coming year.

I put on the tall boots. Eyelet by eyelet, tie myself into this. Scrape my fingernails over the fishnets, tug on the hem of my short satin skirt. All black, you’d know that. The brocade dressing gown skims my ass, accentuating the long line of my thighs. The sight will make you reach a trembling hand towards me. I’ll push you to the bed, where the corset is spread out, waiting for your willing fingers.

Oh sure, we smiled at people who had their regular feet on, but then we mocked them as soon as they passed.

As of last night, 2009 has gathered a sense of foreboding around it for me.

I was feeling great about the new year, all two thousand and FINE!, but a couple of people have posted up horoscopes for 2009 and, while I don't really believe in that, I also don't really like to read about how my career, insofar as it is a career, is going to blow up.

Last night, when we arrived at New France, Jennifer (hon. mem. New Prague) and Michael (emperor dictator, New France) said their happy new years, had their hugs, and Jennifer said "I'm worried about 2009. 2008 was great. I don't know if 2009 can be that good. I'm worried it's going to suck."

I got kind of a tight feeling in my chest when she said that.

2008 was great, for a whole bunch of reasons, but it was slightly tumultuous and stressful for me. I'd be pretty happy if 2009 were clear sailing. I don't want my career to blow up, I don't want my love life to be dramatic.

I can feel that whatever lives in my sternum is starting to chew on that worry, is kneading it into smooth elastic ball it is planning to set aside and let rise.

And that's where Michael's credo came in. He's been calling it a resolution, but it's really more of a mantra for those of us who tend to get worked up over nothing. Be Cool. 2009 might suck. Nothing I can do about that except, Be Cool.

What happens will happen, and no sense worrying about it now, no sense worrying something into existence.

As an aside, last night was perfect fun. I'm hoping Jennifer will post her pictures and tell funny stories about it when she posts later today.

What I will tell you is that there was friendly gossip and rice wraps, there was soup and huge bowls of pad thai. Our dessert had dessert. The conversation was unruly, scattered and intertwined. At one point I was forced to yell "I WEAR PANTS!" and then say, into the silence that followed it, "I can't even believe I had to say that." Then we all roared and ate more chocolate.

Good times.

I've been visiting so much, I think I've used up all my words.

It's been a grand few days, not working, getting to spend time with some of my favourite people, but every time I've sat down to blog, and it's been several times now - don't you worry, I haven't forgotten about you - there's no natural starting point. No easy way in.

And now it's late, an hour later than I thought it was when I left New France, and I'm fucking knackered. All that good food and laughing can really take it out of a girl.

This isn't a blog post so much as a convenient way to remember the deliciousness I made for brunch New Years Day.

8 fairly thick slices spelt/kamut bread from Wild Oat
5 eggs
3/4 c soy milk
1 T vanilla
1/4 t baking powder
3 or 4 bananas
3 bosc pears
brown sugar
allspice
nutmeg
cinnamon

Pre-heat oven to 450 F.

Mix eggs, soy milk, vanilla, bkg pwd. Pour over bread. My suggestion would be to pour the mixture over the bread in one layer, so each piece can soak up as much as possible. Put in the fridge overnight.

In the morning, cut up the fruit. You can use any fruit you want, really. The original recipe callled for frozen strawberries. Mix the fruit with as much sugar as you want, with as much of the spices as you want. Always use only a little bit of the allspice and nutmeg - cinnamon should make up the bulk of your spice mélange.

Lightly grease a pan big enough to lay the bread out flat. Spread the fruit out on the bottom of the pan. Lay the bread over top of the fruit. If there's any extra egg mixture, pour it over top of the bread. Sprinkle with more cinnamon, or cinnamon sugar if you're feeling decadent.

Bake for 20 or 25 minutes. Or for 40 if you, perhaps, turn the oven off by mistake mid-way through.

At 11 o'clock last night, I was dolled up in my slinky dress and ready to go to bed. And not in the euphemistic sense. We'd ended up dillydallying at home a bit, and I was tired and not in the New Year's swing of things. I would have been quite happy to sit on Shelley and Steve's couch, have a glass of wine, toast midnight and scoot up the driveway to my cozy clean house and my brand new sheets.

At 12:30, I'd finished off a flask of straight gin, tossed back a few small glasses of bubbly wine and was starting to black out. I remember lots of the rest of the night, especially the very fun parts that left me with a bite mark on my shoulder, but it's with tunnel vision. The edges of the night are greyed out pretty close to the centre, and beyond that it's murky muddly swirly.

I've done that a few times this year - gotten black out drunk by accident, where I've started the night thinking, oh, I'll just have a drink or two and go home. Each time, I've misjudged just how drunk I am and then, of course, how much more I can handle. Last night was weird, since I can generally handle a flask full of whiskey with aplomb. Maybe I metabolise gin differently? Maybe it was the small supper several hours before? Maybe it was the bubbles.

No matter, really, because I don't like it and it's not okay. It makes my rosacea flare up for a day or two, it means the next day is pretty much a write off. It means that I wake up thinking what in god's name did I say that for and really? I fell down again? fucking christ. It makes me squeeze my eyes shut and roll over.

But I did have a wicked time at the party. And I remembered that I love celery.

True to form, today has been pretty much a write off. Though I did make delicious overnight french toast and roasted potatoes for Shelley and Steve this morning. After that, though, I read a mystery novel in the tub for an hour and some and then dozed on the couch for another hour and some. Now I'm blogging, about to get ready to go eat lobster.

With a nice bottle of wine from which I will not be drinking.

All in all, 2008 has been a pretty damn good year.

An unexpected year.

On December 31st 2007, I wouldn't have guessed that I'd be sitting in my own house with Shelley and Steve right behind me. I wouldn't have guessed that I'd have a roommate and really like it. I wouldn't have guessed I could do a headstand.

I would have guessed that I'd be single.

But I wouldn't have guessed that I'd have had the chance to not only date three very lovely people but also to keep them in my life as good friends.

I would have guessed that I'd have exactly one whack of excellent friends.

Today's going to be a busy one. I want to wake up tomorrow to a clean, orderly house, with the all the niggling chores I've been putting off all done. Seems like a good way to start a new year. My house isn't a crazy disaster, but it is a slightly perturbed one.

To do:
- clean bathrooms
- change sheets
- wash floors
- put up blinds in bedroom
- tape up paint chips in bathroom
- hooks in closet
- clean fish tank
- take compost to garden
- get new bead for ceiling fan chain
- patch & paint holes where old curtains used to be
- fix splotch on dark blue
- vacuum couch and chair
- buy KC for lobster dinner
- get a door shelf for fridge
- grocery shop for new year's brunch
- do brunch prep

That's a lot. I'd better get going.

But before I do, thank you, everyone, for sticking with me, through my ups and downs, my endless piled-up clauses, my internal confusion, its occasional outward manifestations; the mess, sadness and joy that makes up the day to day of my life. Of a life, anyone's life.

Happy 2009!

It's normal to hate yourself every once in a while, isn't it? Everyone does, don't they?

Anyway, I think it's normal.

Maybe that's because I spent enough years hating myself so fiercely and pervasively that a few hours every now and again, feels, well, awful and sad, but also eminently manageable.

It's no surprise, either, that the self-hatred gets played out through my body. It's no secret that when women become enraged, ashamed, worried, guilty, they often don't push those emotions out into the world, but focus all that swirling insane metaphysical mess on the physical mess our culture tells us our bodies already are. The ant under the magnifying glass.

Because hating my body yesterday has little, maybe nothing, to do with how I look. A couple of weeks ago, I was pretty happy with my body. Perhaps not loving that a pair of pants I've had for four or five years - my baggy jeans - are now pretty tight, but okay with the general state of things.

Then the holidays.

Three days of shrinking myself smaller and smaller inside my skin, three days of sitting to make my joints and muscles stiff, a new year to point out how much I haven't gotten done, as well as frustration that I just can't buckle down; that I am seemingly unable write more than one non-blog related piece a year; of realizing that you know what, fuck, I don't want to be single, but fucking fuck, I become miserably clingy and needy when I'm coupled and so yes, I am just going to have to damn well get used to this uncomfortable internal in between push-pull frustration that means. I don't know. Probably something very meaningful. And single.

Then winter making it hard for me to push myself outside and into exercise. I worry a bit about it, the exercise, that my push is sometimes too hard. The amount I exercise could easily turn into yet another way to punish myself.

I watch that pretty closely, used to be careful to take at least a day or two off a week.

But over the past month, the day or two has turned into two or three, has turned into three or four. Has turned into nothing, last week. I haven't been out for another snowshoe, I haven't been out for a run.

It's brutal for me, missing that time outside, the moments of exhilaration. The black branches limned by an orange sunset down the icy runnel of Gilmour; the cove made by the evergreen branches on Queen Elizabeth, its snow cover sparkling down behind me when I tap the branches just above my head; or, when I'm lucky, the water, the water, and the thick wind off it.

Jokingly, a few weeks ago, I said to someone (Jennifer? Shelley? Paul?) that running was my medicine. Except I wasn't really joking. Going from 4 or 5 days of exercise a week to none gives me a panicky off-my-meds feeling.

Not too surprising, since it's pretty well known that exercise helps your brain as well as your body. They don't know how, exactly, but I don't really care exactly, so long as I don't look down at my stomach and feel like clawing four red streaks across it.

But blah blah blah.

I'm feeling better. Mostly. I still wish my old jeans fit.

But I had a good yoga class this morning, followed by a delicious lunch with Shelley, who then helped me buy a scandalously slinky dress to wear tomorrow night. Then a fast cold invigorating walk home, a low waning moon cupping the darkening sky, some bright planet, unblinking, to its left and up. That cleared out a lot of the cobwebs. Then pad thai and beer with Jennifer and Shy Dog.

Now home, in my lovely home, my cold feet tucked under me, half way through a pot of tea. Joie de vivre, indeed.

Amy and I had the best drives we've ever had in the winter. Four and a half hours, each way. A few flakes on the way there, some rain yesterday. No ice, no driving snow, no crawling along the seven. Pretty much clear sailing.

Even my hips, which don't so much like sitting in one spot for extended periods of time, and by extended, I generally mean a half hour, aren't hurting so much. I can barely touch my toes any more, mind you, and certainly not without groaning, but a week back at yoga and some extra-curricular piriformis stretching will right that soon enough.

Today has been my first full day back. It's been an uncomfortable one. I'm feeling strangely ill-at-ease and at loose ends. Dissatisfied with my life: with what I've done, with what I'm doing, with my style, my wardrobe, my body, my lack of discipline, of focus, my inability to, well, to do or not do whatever's annoying me about myself at that moment. Most of it, of course, is being channelled into some pretty severe body hatred.

What I need is my normal diet back, a diet that does not consist mainly of turkey and fruit. What I need is some exercise. Since Christmas day, most of my time has been spent sitting - in cars, in living rooms, in church basements, in front of movies or the computer. I've barely been outside, even today.

I think we can safely say that such behaviour is bad for me. I'll go out on a limb and say that it's bad for People. Very bad for people to spend all their time sitting indoors and eating copious amounts of frozen lasagne.

Sorry. Boxing Day flashback.

It's the time of year that can break you. Over the fall, I got into a pretty good swing, getting outside, moving, doing. But now it's so dark and I'm fucking tired. I don't want to walk to the yoga studio. I don't want to go for a run. I don't want to snowshoe. I don't want to walk to Centretown for groceries. Fuck, I barely want to walk to the back house to watch TV.

All I want to do is eat muffins and go to bed.

I know, though, that giving in to that desire is categorically a Bad Idea. It will make me sad. It will make me start hating, myself most of all. That way madness lies.

So as much as I do not want to, as much as I want to make some hot chocolate, sit on the couch, stare out the window, and think about all the things I hate about myself, I will not. I will make myself to go to yoga, tonight and tomorrow. I will walk the 20 minutes there and back. I am going to stretch and get sweaty. I am going to breathe.

Wednesday, I am going to make myself (and Shelley! Yay!) sign up for pilates classes, because I am hating my lack of core strength, of all places, I would really like, and need, some strength at my core, and there is something I can do about that lack. I could do it on my own, but I am not, and I will not. So I will pay somebody else to make me do something about it.

Also, I am going to stop thinking of how desperately sad for humanity frozen lasagne makes me.