christmas

Down to the wire, we are. My co-workers are dropping into their holidays like flies into sugar water. I'm enjoying the easy small talk that vacation plans afford. I am wholly unenthused about any of it except having next week off.

But I'm ready, nonetheless. After some cursing in an LCBO parking lot, I finished my shopping on Saturday. And seeing as how I neither bake nor decorate for the holidays, I was prepared for that quite a while ago.

I leave for Stouffville in a couple days, flying into Toronto for the first time, ever, instead of driving. My time until then is pretty packed: the annual xmas pedicure, with ST and The Tourist; soup to slurp; a scarf to finish knitting; presents to wrap; White Christmas with J.; the Chandeliers and beer at Babylon; Christmas Eve brunchy eggs and bacon with D.Jack; prezzies with the KGRF.

And then it will take me two hours to get back to a town that is not my home town, but the closest thing I've got going, and that's including the 45 minute drive back east from the airport. My dad got a cell phone special, just so I could call him when I landed.

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.

Oh, oh but it is nice to be back in the bosom. I spent the afternoon puttering, reading at Raw Sugar, soaking in the tub, and the evening knitting and laughing hard and loud to the IT Crowd with Roho and Steve.

It's just so nice to be home. I like my currently very purry cat. I like my stuff. I like my bedroom, I like my bed.

It's a queen sized futon. It's a few years old now, but I rotate it pretty regularly, so the wear has been even. It's firm but not hard. My room is pretty bright from the street lamp outside, but it is devoid of blinking digital technology.

If you're used to that, sleeping at my mom's is a little rough.

Either you're in the office:
- which she doesn't use since she started with the laptop in the kitchen - a room with about 4 sqaure feet not taken up by the giant desk that used to be my father's, the twin bed that used to be my Aunt Dorothy's, the bookcase and beside table from our old old house. There's a TV in there too. And a computer.

The mattress is decades old, kind of lumpy, and slides around on the box spring. The only sheets the has for it are 15 years old - the sheets I used that misguided year spent in residence. They're too small for the mattress, and the elastic is shot. You spend most of the night tossing and turning and trying to flatten out a bottom sheet that won't stay flattenend, and then getting up and moving the mattress back on to the box spring after your turning has shifted it precariously over.

That's after I've draped my clothing over the flickering red and green of the modem, the wireless router, and the digital clock.

Or you're in the storage room:
of course. That involves setting up the air mattress, which takes up all but 12 inches of the available space left in the room - literally, 6 inches on each side of the bed, with 12 inches at the bottom.

You are ringed by her looming storage shelves: four 2x3 industrial plastic 7 foot tall shelves full of bulk cereal and household cleansers bought at costco, at least 35 years worth of yarn in totes, enough wrapping paper to make a present of god, and rows and rows and rows of books that have not been, and will never be, read.

You cannot get the air mattress full enough so that the middle is firm. While the office bed will pitch you over to one side or the other, the air mattress rolls you inevitably back into its suffocating central valley. Sure, you might stick out an arm, drape a leg over one of the side ridges; but you won't be comfortable.

A good night's sleep is on the next map over.

I have driven hundreds of kilometres.

I have spent hours in a small room with people I don't like.

I have opened presents.

I have spent hours in rooms with people I do like, very much.

I have talked too much small talk.

I have watched more movies this week than in the past three seasons combined.

I have held children upside down.

I have finished the newest Inspector Banks novel.

I have driven through the very full parking lot of a suburban mall on boxing day.

I have driven through Sleepy Hollow fog to visit my Gran.

I have bought new sheets.

I have knit until my left hand cramped.

I have eaten turkey, and my weight in fruit.

It has been, in a word, the holidays.

I'm just waiting now for my sister to finish in the bathroom, then I will perform my evening ablutions, start in on the last Inspector Rebus novel, and wait for morning and the long drive home.

I kind of don't like Christmas. I like seeing the family that I like. But I could see them in say, May or September, when I don't have to worry about freezing rain, and it's more realistic to punctuate the 5 hours drive with some roadside stretches when it's at least a few degrees above freezing.

But off we go. As I type, my sister is on her way in from Montreal. We'll head out along the 7, the way we always go. My mom is just about to start cooking the mashed potatoes.

I'm pretty much packed. I'm about to head out to check on Paul's plants, I've got a day's worth of food packed up, I've got a pile of stuff to go to the Back House.

Including Freya and all her gear.

Though not this beautiful quilt that Jennifer made for me. I did not for one second suspect that I was getting a JW Quilt, even when I was squeezing its softness through the gift bag. It's got my dad's pyjamas in it. There's a story behind all the other fabric too. I teared up when I spread it across my lap. Freya loves it too.

My brother and sister and I stopped giving each other presents years ago. We were all students, none of us had much money. We could only afford to give each other small things, things that we didn't need as much as we needed the money we would have spent on the small things to give each other.

This year, I tried something similar on my Mom. It's not that I don't have the money now. But I'm trying to buy less stuff overall. And though my family is lovely, I'm not that close to most of them. So I often get stuff that I don't want and that goes directly to the Value Village. I give stuff that probably meets the same fate.

Wasteful.

My suggestion - stolen from Jennifer - was that we ask each other to watch a movie/read a book/listen to a CD we thought they would enjoy or should know about, the caveat being that it had to be available from the local library. That way, we could spend Christmas talking about all the stuff we'd watched, listened and read. Having interesting conversations, you know.

It didn't go over very well. We aren't ready for that yet, apparently.

My friend Sam emailed me yesterday to ask me if I'd post the video below. The organization she works for, Inter Pares, does a lot of great work around the world. Like any other non-profit, they rely heavily on donations.

I don't know why I didn't think of suggesting this to all my family - it's still buying stuff and giving something, so it satisfies that component of Christmas, but you get more more more good instead of more more more stuff.

The morning did not start well. When you've rolled out of bed around 10 am for 4 of the past 5 days, 6:30 is way fucking early. I didn't recognize myself when I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, due to, 6 of one/half dozen the other, either my disarray or my inability to focus my eyeballs.

But I finished my bits of packing, including getting all of my christmas presents into my two wee bags. Shelley and Steve gave me all sorts of lovely and delicious things made in Halifax, including a top which is a brighter colour than I normally wear, but makes my tits look almost shockingly large. And then these slippers, which I fucking love. Maybe I'll wear them with the merino socks my uncle gave me. Apparently, word on the cold feet has gotten out.

My cab was supposed to come at 7:20 or 7:25. I booked it yesterday, talking to a slow-talking and kinda confused sounding man. It worried me. My choice for the Share-A-Cab was to get there for 7 am - 1 hour early - or 8 am - 10 minutes late. I generally don't like to cut it too close, but the difference between 7 and 8 feels like more than an hour.

At 7:24 my nerves had nerved up and I thought "Okay, they've got till 7:40 and then I'm calling." At 7:37, I thought fuck it and dialed them. The slow-talking man came on the line.

"Hi, I'm Megan Butcher. I booked a cab to show up at Number Number This Street at 7:20 this morning."

"Oh. Huh. What's your name?"

"Megan. Butcher."

He's flipping madly through what sound like scraps of paper.

"Oh. Huh. When did you make the reservation?"

"Yesterday. With you." I was not my nicest self.

"Well. Well! It's just gone! I don't have your name anywhere. Huh!"

Silence.

I break.

"Oooohkay. My flight is at 8:50. Can you get me a cab?"

"Oh. Huh. Well. Unh, I can maaaaybe get someone to you by 8:20 or 8:30."

It takes around a half hour to get to the airport.

"No. Thank you. I will call someone else."

The first cab company I picked at random from the yellow pages had someone already in the North End and at the house in 5 minutes. I got to the airport with time to spare, but paid more than twice the price for the privilege. On the way there, I was thankful that I am now in a financial situation where that is an inconvenience and not an impossibility.

While I was waiting for the first cab, I flipped through the cookbook I gave Shelley: a copy of my go-to cookbook, The Vegetarian Express Lane Cookbook. It is getting damn hard to come by these days, and that is a damn shame for lazy cooks everywhere. 10 items or less! A limited but tasty palette of herbs and spices! Crazy that's it's out of print. After she opened it, I used bingo dabbers to mark the recipes I particularly liked. Last night, I made the White Beans and Sage, and we ate it at the beautiful table that Steve made, with a nice Pinot Grigio and candlelight. Like a date without the incipient heartbreak.

Steve's present wasn't necessarily the most thoughtful gift I've ever given him, insofar as it was originally a present for someone else. But these mittens are the most beautiful things I have ever knit, so I hope that fact and warm fingers makes up for the lack of thoughtfulness. I also gave him a scarf to match, though it came with the needles still in. The bazillion episodes we watched of The I.T. Crowd ("Hello? Hel-LO! Hel-lo, Computor!") helped me get through nearly another ball-unit of yarn. There's gonna have to be a lot more TV before the S's get here in a couple of weeks if'n I'm gonna get it finished.

If I'd been smart, I wouldn't have written much over the past few days, cause now I got these pictures, but I'm all storied out. Enh, it's late, so no story, just two of my favourite creatures on a spit of land at Cow Bay.

I am mostly glad to be home. I love my apartment, my city, my stuff, my routine. Not sleeping on an air mattress last night was lovely. Being by myself is lovely.

Break up wise, it's harder to be here than in another town and so overwhelmed by contact with other people that I was kind of numb. Went for a walk late this morning and it felt like every corner either had a memory to tell or his ghost walking towards me.

I'm still flipping between being righteously angry, bloody confused, and sad.

I miss him. No fancy words for it. Just this bruise I can't stop pressing. I would say it's on my heart but it actually feels like it's at the base of my throat, just above my right collarbone.

I was going to write that I wish it were two weeks ago, but I don't even. I knew this was coming two weeks ago. I wish it were a week before the time things started to go awry, not that I could pinpoint that moment, but I want someone to find it and hit rewind, our legs jerking backwards, mouths moving out of sync; freeze frame; splice; forward, a little to the left, the right way down the right path, limbs and minds working smoothly together, smiles and entwined fingers.

Time is running out for the crafting of presents, and somehow I went from 19 stitches to 18 and had to rip out a couple hours work. How the bookmark unravels, I suppose.

As I've mentioned, this week and next are all about the making and baking. I'm not going to divulge all of what I have my hands on and in* because some of the people who are getting that stuff are also reading these words.

I'm really enjoying it, I have to say, though there is some stress involved. Mostly deadline related. I'm not sure I'm going to be ready for Espig Xmas this weekend. It may involve a very late night on Saturday or a very early Sunday morning.

In other news, I concur with Jennifer and cannot wait for my holidays. I've got 10 or 11 days off and it cannot come fast enough.

It's no secret I've had a difficult fall. Problem is, it just seems to be getting worse. I talked to Shelley tonight and she said "Sweetie, you just sound beat down." At least my outside matches my inside, I suppose.

I always think of my ups and downs in terms of light, which is stupidly hokey to write, but feels true. When I'm happy and everything is going well, it feels like I emit streaks of bright light, somewhere on the yellow spectrum. When I'm normal, there's a little glow around me. Right now, I would say that there's a candle in there somewhere, sheltered under a perforated box.

People respond in kind, interestingly. When I'm at my brightest, people smile at me on the street. Probably because I'm smiling at then. When I'm at about where I am now, it's like I'm invisible. People bump into me more, notice me less.

I've read the women's rag self-help blah blah, and know that I should just paste a smile on my face and then my currently fragile ego will be boosted by the goodness that comes back.

But you know, there's not much creepier than a death's head smile backlit by a dull flicker.

Last weekend, I took care of business. I got winter boots, and bought most of my Christmas presents. I hit the Market and Hintonburg. I didn't have a diagram like Jennifer, but I did have a list of stores with the people I was looking for at each store.

I have not shopped on Etsy. People seem to love that site, and my sister even facebooked me to tell me about it (sorry I never replied, Aim!). I went on it once and it was like the worst shopping nightmare. Too many choices all compartmentalized by seller. Great for the seller, not so great for me if I want to find a scarf for my gran.

Maybe I got freaked out and frustrated before I could find that function though. And Andrea told me that the thing to do is find a seller or two you like, and keep watching them.

All in all, I'd rather just haul my ass to Workshop or Collected Works and wander around the store, knowing that soandso likes this kind of stuff, and waiting for the right thing to pop out at me.

Then I hit the Herb and Spice, and now I bake. Or I try to. Why can I not toast nuts?* I put the pecans in the oven and thought, "I always burn them, I need to pay close attention." and then forgot about them until I smelled them burning. No more nut toasting for me.

These next couple of weeks are going to be a frenzy of baking and making. More food, that will hopefully not get burned. Gift bags, I hope, if I can make it to Value Village for some fabric to make them. Eric's present, which I'm pretty sure will be done for Christmas, but not if I don't go and knit right now.

*Ha.