This is a very true story about a magic worm. His name was Wimmiin.
One day he fell into a toilet and drowned. Being magic, he thought he would be able to swim, unlike most worms.
He was wrong.
He just drowned.
Middle.
I slept in my bed last night.
It was good.
After my conversation with you I went for a long jog along the track. Then I came home and went to my haircut and colour. My hair is now very black.
This could be good or black.
I will wear my hair to the airport when I come to meet you.
What colors of paint did you choose? And did the blueberries go down well with the water, on the sand? I find nothing tastes as good as oranges at half time, so I do not fully appreciate your blueberries. I probably missed the first five minutes of our conversation this morning as my mind was not yet awake, but oh it is so nice to start the day off by having a nice chat with you.
I have also started a story for you:
Once upon a time, a gargoyle found himself made flesh and pale in the rocky world. I will finish it for you when we go away; when we lie in that warm place.
I’ll whisper in the shell of your ear the sussurus of a life – like a river bed, like a whirlwind.
End.
Semi-reclined, this skin sobbing salt water
Arid air agitated and abrasive against
that tallowy tan
Thirsty
For fabulous dusk’s cool silence and,
Her thirty billion twinkling eyes
In a dream you waited to drink.
In that heat you shuddered
(alone and uncovered)
In my dream you rose up, and met me
Waiting, and impatient, at Gobi
I have a question for all of you beautiful people:
Do any of you nutters have kids?
Full disclosure: I am not with child.
I’m just curious that’s all. You see, there is a kid, currently located just outside of my kitchen window, who has been crying and screaming its absolute head off for say, the past fifteen, twenty minutes.
And this is not a baby, we’re talking about here. We are talking a legitimate, walking, talking human being – one who is weeping for all of Canada. He probably has a full set of teeth, takes trips to the loo solo, and can choose his outfits in the morning.
Having listened to him wail on and on for the last little bit, I just want to lean out of my window and holler, “WHAT’S THE PROBLEM KID? THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! THERE. IS. NO. CRYING. IN. BASEBALL!!!11!!
AND GET OFF MY LAWN.
You whipper-snappers!
…
I mean, that’s pretty horrible of me, is it not?
I know.
I am definitely the worst.
And it is reactions of mine – like this one just described – that make me fear for the day (should I be blessed in the properly functioning uterine department) that I become a mother.
I just can’t imagine that scenario working out all too well.
For one, I have zero maternal instinct.
No, minus zero.
I have never, ever, had that “twinge” – when, after having glimpsed some beautiful scene where a glowing mother cuddles here gorgeous offspring – something inside of me says “I want that.”
To be honest, most of the time everything inside my entire being begins screaming, “DO NOT WANT. COMMENCE THROWING UTERUS IN GARBAGE DISPOSAL.”
I mean, sure, there are moments where I concede that it wouldn’t be so bad. In fact, the people I know and love who have kids make it look downright phenomenal. There are tons of great children out there, and seeing how many of the cool cats in my life love their kids is darn cool.
Plus I keep telling myself that I probably wouldn’t feel the same way about my child as I do about many of the random children I come into contact with – that being mostly terror, confusion, and incredulity.
Deep down I know I would definitely love the crap out of them.
But I still worry.
I worry for a number of reasons (above and beyond the fact that I seem to have pawned off my biological clock sometime in the early 90s for two Kitkat bars, some sour keys, and a copy of Kirby’s Dreamland for my Gameboy.)
The first and mayhaps the biggest?
I just don’t get babies.
I made it through about 4 minutes of this movie before turning it off:
Like seriously, people go absolutely bat shit CRAZY over babies. Not only that, but they go bonkers over baby paraphernalia.
WHAT THE HECK PEOPLE?
It makes me think that babies have some magical power to get you stoned. (Just think about it -marijuana gets you high, and potheads LOVE them some weed leaf stickers, Bob Marley posters, and giant decorative bongs – so I’ve come to the conclusion that it must be the same for those crazed baby-lovers.)
And if it isn’t for their ability to get you high, how else could people possibly care about a tiny pair of socks or a facecloth with a frog on it?
WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE KNOW THAT I DON’T?
And in terms of the baby itself – I too need this explained. Babies are small, foreign, angry old men or women, hell bent on breaking your ear drums, defecating mustard gas, and peeing all over every square inch of your life.
This is terrifying!
Seriously, their catchphrase could be – “BABIES: POOP GRENADES ONLY NOW WITH MORE POOP.”
And yet people think they are the bees knees.
And don’t tell me it’s because of their new baby smell.
I’ve smelled me some babies in my life and I know for a FACT that it’s not all cake and roses.
I worry that I’ll have a baby, and the baby will all be “I’m a baby SCREAM POOP PEE EAT SLEEP HAHAHAH JUST JOKING I’M NEVER GOING TO SLEEP SCREEEEAAAAAMMMMMM” to which I’ll just be like, “You, sir, are an arsehole, BUH BYE.”
I worry that I’ll have the baby, and the baby will all be, “BABY” and I’ll be like, “That’s all you got? Where the frick is the rest!? I JUST SPENT NINE MONTHS MAKING YOU – ENTERTAIN ME SPAWN!!!”
I worry that I will be the worst mother ever.
The first baby I ever held. I was sweating like crazy I was so nervous.
So what I guess I’m saying is that I worry.
I worry that I’ll give my kid the eating disorder that I struggled with for years; that I’ll give them the anxiety that I deal with on a daily basis; that I’ll make them think they need make-up to be beautiful because I too like to wear make-up; that I’ll drop them on their head the second I get home.
I worry about the unknown – what about my job? What about my relationship?
What about my body?
I worry about worrying about my body.
But throughout it all, I have one ace in the hole that makes all of these questions seem not quite so daunting.
That one person who makes me worry just a little less.
And that, of course, is Mr. M.
My freaking knight in shining armour.
Because somehow (and I have no idea how) he doesn’t have any of these doubts. He just knows. He has confidence in not only himself, but in me, and it is through him that I have started to believe, little by little, that one day, if this happens, it will be just grand.
And while I’m not necessarily at the same level of belief that he cooly-as-a-cucumber maintains, I have the belief that I will get there, eventually.
Because when I see him with children? That’s when I feel something flicker.
I imagine him and I giving piggybacks, and leaping through sprinklers; teaching small, wild haired munchkins about tidal pools and earthworms, making mud pies, and reading storybooks by flashlight.
And it gives me pause.
But who knows – maybe one day all of what I currently feel about myself, and my relationship with my yet-to-be-born babies will change. I will wake up, flick on the internet and order the newest poo grenade and pay extra for the express shipping.
But until that day, my questions remain.
As does my love.
Unlike, thank goodness, the echoes of the crying child, outside of my window.
M and I have just arrived home from four days spent out and about, bopping along the BC coast.
Here are some snaps from our travels:
Sunflowers.
Woods.
Ferry.
Docks.
Sunset.
Pond.
JUMP.
So there you have it kidlets, a brief look at the last four days spent running, hiking, boating, cooking, and building (woodsheds!).
I got some pretty serious sun on my face (M told me that I should probably stop wearing those sunglasses for the next while because it’s starting to look like I have a wicked goggle tan!), watched the meteor shower – so amazingly beautiful, and learned that a cow has six teats and that the UN General Secretary during the Cuban Missile Crisis was was U Thant (oh Trivial Pursuit…)
Now we’re watching Star Wars and eating blizzards after a simple, delicious dinner of garden grown beans, squash, and local Island gruyere cheese.
Sublime.
What did you cats get up to for the weekend? I want to hear all about it.
Today M and I are off to the Sunshine Coast with my vater, Sir R-J esquire, the IV.
(Or if you’re into the whole brevity thing – my Dad.)
We’ll be meeting up with M’s parents at the cabin for a day, and then it’s off to Hardy Island where we’ll hike, maybe swim, and (hopefully) see lots and lots of deer (and their babies!)
But in the interim, it’s time for the latest edition of the Friday Fry-up.
So let’s heat up that skillet and get cookin.
Do I have something on my face?
Full disclosure: sometimes I am a HOT MESS. It’s like I have zero control over this fact, and no matter what effort I put in to combat this problem, the worse it just seems to get.
Do I have something on my face?
For instance, it’s almost impossible for me to eat pastries (particularly if they are chocolate pastries) and not get half of the thing all over my face.
Don’t even get my started on gooey foodstuffs. Those are just a recipe a and half for disaster.
The worst of it?
I don’t even realize it when these crumbs are stuck and strewn about my skin – like the little evil edible freckles that they are.
Imagine this: the other day at work J was like, “Oh my goodness, what happened to your face?” and I was all “what do you mean?”
So then she motioned toward my face (with an exceptionally pained look on her face), which worried me so I quickly touched my cheek – only to realize that my affliction was nothing more than the remnants of my breakfast: a piece of the sweet, flaky goodness from the Danish I had eaten earlier.
I’m not too sure which emotion won out in the end – relief or embarrassment. (Actually, definitely relief, because goodness knows I don’t embarrass as easily as I probably should, especially when you look at the high level of madness I operate on every single day of my life.)
Good grief.
Last night M and I were at London Drugs picking up some supplies for our trip. At the check-out the cashier asked us, “Do you need any tissues or Tictacs tonight?” and my immediate reaction was, “Why? Do we look like we need tissues and Tictacs?”
I mean, why else would she ask that?
M kindly assured me that she was obviously trying to either up-sell or just get rid of the umpteen million tins of Tictacs and single pack Kleenex that littered her till like some strange toiletry-inspired collage.
This is probably true, but nevertheless I remained suspicious.
This whole part of my life was only further hit home two nights ago.
We were out at the Commodore Ballroom to take in Franz Ferdinand (MY FAV BAND EVVVEEERRR) and it came to my attention pretty early into their set that I had made some pretty poor decisions outfit-wise.
Concert wise though – top notch.
1.) I should have worn my hair up (or at the very least braided it down my back) because at it’s present length (v. v. long) it kept getting stuck in my armspits as I danced.
Urg.
It was pretty difficult to stop this from happening, because a.) I was having a mad dance party b.) was sweating and c.) was wearing a tank top. It was like a perfect storm of head-hair in armpit entrapment.
Not fun.
2.) I kept dancing out of my shoes. The flats that I had chosen to wear had already been beat to crap so I figured I wouldn’t care in they got ruined in the jigging-for-your-life melee. Unfortunately, because the shoes were operating at such a low capacity at the concert’s outset, it was all downhill from there – and quickly at that. I had to be careful, because with all the other bonkers dancers out there I didn’t want my toes to get turned into carpaccio, nor did I want to step on that slick, sticky beer soaked floor. Because, well, ewwwwww.
3.) I didn’t realize that the skirt I was wearing had so much swing and elasticity to it. Seriously, I spent the entire time worrying about dancing too hard, lest I continue to flash my undies to all the other folks on the dance floor. It was a very real fear that if I jumped too high I’d end up hoola-hooping my skirt around my neck.
Yikes-a-rooney.
Next time – I’ll stick to simple cotton. Because if I’m going to be part of the show, I better-well be getting paid for my part.
Onwards!
Do you, do you wanna, wanna go?
Okay, I definitely want to continue riffing on the Franz Ferdinand theme for a bit.
Seriously dudes, I love this band.
And they are absolutely AMAZING live. They put on incredibly tight shows, and are always entertaining as all get out.
I saw them for the first time in September 2009 at Malkin Bowl – a great outdoor concert venue in Vancouver – and boy did it ever pour with rain all throughout their set.
And it didn’t matter one bit – it was still the most fun I have ever had at a concert.
I have this amazing memory of just dancing my face off (I had picked well in terms of my dance-related garb that night! Plus no chocolate on my face to speak of – BONUS) completely soaked, watching the rain just come down in sheets, lit up by the brilliance of the many stage lights.
This time there was no rain, but it was the same outrageous energy, the same quirky and strange Scottish blokes rocking about the stage, singing songs that no matter how often I listen to them on loop (over and over again) I don’t ever tire of them.
In fact, they are one of those bands (for me) that the more I listen to their tunes, the more I love them.
They are like the Big Lebowski of music – the more I listen/watch them/it, the more I discover new things to love.
And then when you get the chance to go see it live, well, holy Toledo – it just reinforces all of that magic, ten-fold.
I definitely recommend them to every single one of you. Take a listen:
Rant and Roll 