And I will wake up tomorrow, webbed and gilled, a green-skinned lily-pad.
My eyes slick sliver, like salmon skin.
I sit here, watching the skies melt, with a kitten wrapped around herself. She is unaware of this other wet world; this place without food, without fires; warm beds, and sleepy heads.
Myself, well, I am drawn to the grey.
The strange semi-stillness of a night drawing near.
Mischief realized.
Heartbreak thwarted.
Coming home with a grocery bag filled with potential.
Potential?
Or adventure?
Mugs of piping chai, thick woolen blankets, and the tap, tapping of a lost-lover’s knock on my window panes.
I slept right through the night until my alarm went off at six forty the next morning.
I think my body might be telling me something.
Now folks – I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, yammering on and on about how tired I am ALL THE TIME, and how I feel like a recommended serving of peanut butter spread much too thin across the English Muffin of life.
BUT I AM.
On Sunday night my husband turned to me and asked, “How many nights this week do you have nothing planned? And by nothing, I mean, no comedy, no volunteering, no training, no writing, and no hangouts.”
I sat there, struck dumb like a statue, my mouth hanging slightly ajar, like a broken garage door.
“Ummmm….” I said.
“One? If one at all?” He questioned me, exasperated.
(Said exasperation stemming from his concern for the current state of both my mental and physical health.)
Now, technically the answer was none (as I am in fact taking part in things every day this week) but I managed to fudge the numbers just enough so that I could somewhat confidently state:
“One. I have one night this week where I don’t have anything planned.”
“Oh yeah?” He asked. “Which night is that?”
“Friday,” I answered.
“Friday doesn’t count! It’s basically the weekend!”
Alas, I could not argue with this logic.
You see, I have this weird duality to me – part of me NEEDS to be constantly busy, to the point where I have activities and obligations pouring out of my ears.
I mean, I absolutely love every project and organization that I am involved with.
Too much time on my hands really does make me go all squirrely.
But on the other hand, I get to points in my life where I feel so utterly burned out that I start to feel as though I am operating on auto-pilot – flying through my days at light speed.
And if I don’t find a place to make an emergency landing I’ll run out of gas.
So now I turn to you my darling readers.
Do any of you have any tips or tricks for instilling balance in your life? Or do you too careen about at full speed, too enamoured with your passions to be able to operate at a more leisurely pace?
Do let me know.
Any advice you have will be truly appreciated.
And in the interim, I’ll be over here, cooling my jets. Before I go out in about, two hours.
I learned to drive at the relatively regular age of seventeen.
By this point in my life, my parents had split up, and both of them drove manual transmission cars. This meant that I either learned how to drive a stick shift, or, well, take the bus for the remainder of my days.
Now, driving may come naturally to many a-folk, but for me, the double whammy of being a new driver, and having to learn how to (properly) use a clutch, was a little overwhelming. I was the kind of kid that forgot which pedal was the brake, and which was the gas, much to the chagrin of every person who sat shotgun for the first couple of months of my driving career.
So throw in a third, very finicky, but very integral mechanism within close reach of these already confusing foot-operated instruments, and you had a pretty excellent recipe for disaster.
Recognizing the need for extra assistance, my mother signed me up for classes with the craziest driving teaching ever to grace the face of the planet.
First, the name guy’s was named Shaf.
SHAF!
Like, Shaft, but without the T.
Oh, and he didn’t have a last name.
(Also like Shaft.)
During our hour long sojourns about the city, I would sing in my head “SHAF! He’s one bad motherfu….”
(You can imagine just how concentrated I was on my education.)
Anyways, the problem with Shaf was that, without telling me as much, he was doing the majority of the shifting/gear changing during our time together.
This ended up giving me a crazy over-inflated sense of my own driving skills, so by the end of my third lesson, I thought that I had pretty much mastered every gear shift – not to mention the always trickiest thing to learn: getting the car going again WITHOUT STALLING after coming to a complete stop.
With my giant ego in full effect, I told my mother that I was ready to start taking out our car for real-life practice runs.
Luckily, she was still a little weary of just how far I could have progressed in a mere three hours, so she told me that I could take the car, but I could only drive around the parking lot up at UBC, and then the (maybe) five minute drive home, from the campus to our driveway.
Also, I would be accompanied by my older sister, so she could both supervise, and give me pointers and tips as needed.
Now, it should be mentioned here and now that Kate, though a terrific teacher, had recently undergone major surgery to repair a torn ACL, which made her competently incapable of taking over in case of an emergency.
Thinking back, I’m pretty sure my mother’s thinking was something along these lines:
Well, if Vanessa doesn’t know how to drive when I drop her off at the parking lot, she certainly will by the time she leaves.
SMART THINKING THERE MUM.
Anyways, the afternoon ended up being a complete gong show and a half.
I right away realized that I really still had absolutely no idea what I was doing behind the wheel, and Kate, desperate and completely uncomfortable sitting in the passenger seat as I stalled six thousand times, just kept yelling out, “YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE!”
Wiser words were never spoken.
The drive home was harrowing and a half – I tried everything in my power to never actually stop, for fear that I would never get the car going again, and then somehow ended up parallel parking the car in our driveway.
But like all things in life, I eventually learned.
Up until recently, my long-serving and much loved steed.
I passed my learner’s test of my first try (the fact that I did it on a standard is this silly little gold star in my life that will never, not make me smile), and then passed my graduated licensing test, also on my first attempt.
(Here in B.C. you are required to pass two tests.)
I even taught M how to drive stick shift in the early nascence of our courtship.
(I figure that’s a pretty good test of whether or not the relationship is made for the long haul.)
Now, I absolutely love driving, and can’t imagine myself ever commandeering anything but a manual car.
And sometimes when I’m behind the steering wheel, I still catch myself singing, “SHAF! You’re one bad mother…”
A little while ago the lovely Runningwithoutsocks made me all shirty and blushy by letting me know that she dug my blog.
And what do you know? The feeling is completely mutual.
Her blog is terrifically awesome sauce, and I really encourage you to go and check out her stuff.
She was also fab enough to pass along some questions that I was encouraged to answer if I should wish.
And I do. I do so wish.
So as my knackered little bones sink down into the recesses of our big comfy couch, I present to you, dear readers, my answers:
If you could have any super power, what would it be and why?
Oof. This questions has (and will continue to) plague me for years. Because on one hand, it HAS to be the ability to fly, doesn’t it? I mean, I’ve been having flight dreams since as far back as I can remember, and it has always been soul-crushing to wake up and realize that I don’t have this ability in real life.
But on the other hand, invisibility would be AMAZING. As would the ability to read minds.
AND SHAPESHIFT.
Urg.
You see? This is why I totally suck at this game.
Can I just wish for more wishes?
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
This is another hard one. It’s hard to paint a concrete picture, because in all honesty, I have no idea what the next six months, let alone five years has in store.
So I will say this: I will be with the love of my life, and we will most likely have produced a little human being. I will be a world-famous stand-up comedian, and M will be an internationally renowned curriculum developer.
It’s either that or shacked up in an chalet somewhere high up in the Pennine Alps, raising large families of St. Bernards and eating a crap ton of Gruyere cheese.
Chocolate or vanilla?
I once ate a Mars bar covered in ants.
I was two years old at the time, but I’d like to think that little girl still lives somewhere inside of me.
So…NEXT!
Favorite movie?
Ooer. Also a hard one. I have many favourites: A Fish Called Wanda, Love Actually, The Bourne Trilogy, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Three Colours (though White is my favourite), Amelie, Never Let Me Go, La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element…
I COULD GO ON.
But, if I was told that I was going to be sent to a deserted island and I could only bring one movie with me, then no question, it would be The Big Lebowski.
I love this movie more than I can properly communicate. Nothing will ever be more brilliant, or as funny as this film.
EVER.
Summer or winter?
Summer. No contest.
Sundresses, hiking, biking, patios, cold drinks, warm nights, barbeques, beach days, sunglasses, the smell of sunscreen and sand, running in the early morning…
GET HERE NOW DAMN YOU!
What’s your fondest childhood memory?
Yowza. This is a toughie.
I have a million and a half memories that all could easily qualify for top billing.
I’ll share just one: driving around with my two sisters in our old brown van, singing out hearts out to The Beatles’ “Drive My Car.” It’s nearing the end of the school years, so the weather is warm and sunny. I’m in grade six, Jess is in grade four, and Kate is in grade eleven. Kate has just bought us slurpees and my cheeks hurt from smiling.
Remembering everything about this scene just feels like pure happiness.
Favorite band?
Ack! Also too many. Franz Ferdinand, Hot Chip, Kaiser Chiefs, Queen, Pink Floyd, Simon and Garfunkel, Peter, Bjorn, and John, Matt Anderson, The Rolling Stones.
This question is impossible!
But to pull out the desert island reference again, I’ll have to go with The Beatles.
Because THE BEATLES.
If you could live in any city in the world, which one would you choose and why?
Probably Edinburgh. I loved living in the UK and this was my favourite city that we visited. I would go back in a heartbeat.
What do you dream about?
My dreams are CRACKED. I don’t want to scare anyone off so I’m pleading the fifth on this one.
Your most distinguished trait (could be physical or character trait – or both!)
Distinguished, eh?
I feel like I should leave this one up to the judgement of someone else.
Character trait(s) – my passion, dedication, and drive.
Psysical – my long hair and even longer legs (which allow me to tower over people.)
Why did you start blogging?
Because of said passion. And because if I didn’t find a way of communicating all the thoughts running around my head on a daily basis I would have run off to the woods never to be seen from again.
(Until, that is, Werner Herzog decided to make a documentary about my life.)
…
So there you have it you fab chaps!
In lieu of the regular Friday Fry-Up, a little insight into my mad self.
We’ll be back to our regular scheduled program next week.
In the meantime, drop me a line highlighting your answers.
Last night I competed in a stand-up comedy competition, AND I WON!!!
Meep.
Which means not only did I win $100 (COLD HARD CASH DOLLARS!) but I also get entered into the next round of the tournament, which may just end with me winning $500.
FIVE HUNDRED BONES!
(Or clams, or whatever the cool kids are calling it these days.)
You might not be able to see it, but I am doing a bit of a dance.
Rant and Roll 