Rant and Roll

And the itsy bitsy spider

Dear readers,

It’s May 5^th.

I am sitting on my couch. There is a sleepy cat in my lap, and an even sleepier husband dozing in the sunroom just behind me.

My butt is sore from all of the jump squats I completed yesterday.

Strangely enough, I feel no side-effects from the seventy-fish push-ups.

This must mean I am getting stronger.

(At least arm-wise; not ass-wise.)

In the past two months these things have happened:

Marc and I sold our townhome and bought and moved into a new house. We have a beautiful garden and grassy yard, with a large patio and gas bbq. On days when the weather cooperates, we like to sit under the sun’s strong rays and wax poetic about our little piece of heaven.

Our home was built in 1907.

If there are ghosts, they are friendly.

On April 6 I ran a personal best in the Sunshine Coast half-marathon. Completing the course in 1:31:13, I came 11^th overall for all of the ladies, and 7^th in my age group.

It ended up being a very warm day to run 21.1km. Regret, they name is an Under Armour long-sleeve shirt.

(I need to really remember that start-line gooseflesh is fleeting.)

I’ve been re-reading quite a bit of Robertson Davies. Six months ago it was the Salterton Trilogy, and now I’m halfway through The Depford Trilogy.

Oh! For that man’s way with words.

Marc and I have also made a budget.

Things be serious, folks.

In June I am visiting Chicago for four days. In August, Hawaii for nine.

Tough Mudder is June 21.

I will be the strongest.

(Seriously, I am Linda Hamiltoning this race like a bamf).

The one true fly in the ointment is that I haven’t been sleeping very well for the past month. In fact, there are only two days since perhaps the birth of the New Year that I can remember sleeping soundly through the night.

Sometimes I believe it might never happen again.

Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with work, and life, and thoughts, and fears, and loves, that there is no room left over to live (let alone sleep).

What I want is to live purely and plainly, without early-morning heartaches, without bed sheets soaked through from my rising panic and clammy sweat, without the sensation of a lead weight pressing down on my chest, through my chest, into my heart, through my heart.

Only I’m not sure how.

…

Dear readers,

Today is June 16th.

I recently returned from a five day trip to the land of deep dish, skyscrapers, and wind.

Seriously, Chicago is the best.

(The only thing that isn’t the best is Chicago baseball. But take my word for it when I say that this opinion isn’t a knock on the White Sox themselves per se, but more so on the sport in general. Because good grief is that crap ever boring.)

SORRY NOT SORRY.

I’ve been sleeping much better of late – trying as I might to get my anxiety in check and buckle down on long-term, effective coping mechanisms that will quiet and quell the run-run-running of words throughout my head on a second to second basis.

It’s a work in progress, but my nose is grinding away on that stone like a grinding thing.

Of late I feel like I could run forever.

Of late I like to imagine myself as swift-footed Atalanta, charging past her would-be suitors (and in the act, signing their death warrants), racing free from all worldly constraints. The only difference of course being my penchant from outlet mall spandex and race t-shirts.

One day I will spend a whack load of cash dollars on expensive beautiful running gear.

But until that day, I’m going to keep on keeping on looking like I belong on the cover of a 1979 copy of Runner’s World.

And that’s hot stuff.

…

I’ve never once stopped thinking about all of y’alls.

Thank you for your comments, emails, and words of concern and encouragement.

Tune in next time – same bat time, same bat channel.

(Same batty writer.)

I’m climbing up that spout.

Jazz it up

Okay.

So some of you know that I’m a little into jazz.

And by a little I mean I LOVE IT.

I mean, I could probably listen to Lee Morgan’s Sidewinder for years and never get sick of it.

It’s just that good.

Most of my jazz knowledge comes from two places: my mum, and CBC radio.

My favourite program on the station is “Tonic” hosted by Tim Tamashiro (a jazz musician himself). The show airs every night from 8-10pm on CBC Radio 2, as well as Sundays at 10pm on CBC Radio 1.

For any readers residing in the Great White North, I highly recommend to check it out. All international guests? iTunes that stuff, yo!

I always look forward to my drive home from hosting the Storytelling Show on Sundays because I can just sit back and let a bunch of sweet, mellow tunes wash over me. It’s the perfect soundtrack as I crank up my heated seats and cruise out of downtown Vancouver. The whole experience allows me to unwind – not only from the adrenaline rush from hosting my own radio show, but from the insanity of the weekend on the whole.

Also, Tonic is the program that taught me that the trombone used to be called the “sacbut” and that, ladies and gentlemen, is never, EVER not going to be one of the funniest things in the whole world.

SACBUT.

(I am twelve years old, evidently. But also maybe seventy because I really, really love jazz?)

It’s a mystery!

Anyway, the other day, whomever helms Tonic’s twitter account (I really want to believe that it’s Tim, but I cannot be sure) posted the following tweet:

To which I responded:

Truth be told, I was a little nervous that this may have been overkill until I saw this:

Which made my silly little heart so ridiculously happy.

Seriously, the only thing that could have made it better would have been the inclusion of a little Lee Morgan.

Lee Morgan playing the sacbut.

YEAH.

Dance, magic dance

I just spent the last half an hour or so watching highland dancing videos on Youtube.

You should probably do this too because, for lack of a more eloquent descriptor, THEY ARE AWESOME.

I love watching these videos because they totally jazz me up, and I remember the good old (olden) days when I too used to be a highland dancer.

No joke.

From the ages of five to twelve, I flinged, reeled, and jigged with the best of them.

And I loved it, truly.

In so many areas of my life, my passion for dance bled through: Instead of walking places, I just danced. Sitting at the computer, I would curl my feet up into tight points, always trying to strengthen my arches, and I would hum different bagpipe tunes under my breath while I wrote tests.

More than anything, I really wanted to be Canadian champion, and more than that I really, really wanted to get married in my National costume.

A little highland dance background:

National costumes are different from Highland costumes (Highland being the “traditional” outfits that will most likely spring to mind when you think about highland dancing.)

National outfits instead are much softer and, in traditional terms, much more “feminine.”

This makes a lot of sense when you think about how the dances you complete in the Highland outfit are the Fling, Sword Dance, Seann Truibhas, and the Reel, whereas the dances associated with the National costume are the Blue Bonnets, Lilt, and Flora Macdonald.

Not exactly hard core stuff.

I highly doubt any Englishman felt a quake or two in his boots upon espying a bunch of bonny lasses, heel-toeing about to the Blue Bonnets Over the Border.

The Sword Dance on the other hand?

There’s no way in heck you’d want to mess with the crazies jumping about on top of multiple, sharp sabres.

Anywho, highland dancing was my total jam pretty much all through out elementary school. I even spent two weeks away from home after the summer of grade four at a dance camp in Red Deer, Alberta.

I stayed in the college dorms all by myself, ate at the school’s cafeteria (I had a punch card that let me know how much money I had left on my tab!) and signed up for different activities through my dorm mother and dance lead (the oldest girl in my training class.)

Every morning I would put my hair in a bun, put on my tights and leotard, and walk across the campus to class.

I don’t know if to this day I’ve ever felt as grown up, mature, and accomplished as I did at eleven during those two weeks.

The pièce de résistance was when a young piper asked me out the night that we went to the carnival. (What was this, Dawson’s Creek!?)

I mean, the guy couldn’t have been older than thirteen, but this basically exploded my on-the-cusp-pubescent mind.

A BOY LIKES ME AND IS ASKING ME OUT.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT GUYS.

I didn’t think things could get any more epic until the last night of the camp: all the dancers participated in a big gala, and we all performed the group dances we had been practicing over the length of the camp.

(I loved my group’s dance SO much that I practiced it every day for the rest of the summer.)

At the end of the evening, they announced the dancer who had won the scholarship to return following year’s camp, free of charge. The winner would also receive free accommodation, food, and receive a small living allowance over the course of the camp.

And would you believe it?

They announced little old me as the winner!

I was so shocked I didn’t really know what to do, so I kind of just continued sitting there, smiling like the pint-sized loon that I was.

I remember two older girls sitting behind me said something like, “Way to go Vanessa! You totally deserve it!” They then kind of pulled me out of my chair and pushed me towards the stage.

It was such an unbelievably happy moment for me walking up there to receive my certificate. I had just spent two weeks doing something I loved more than anything in the world, with a new group of friends, in a setting where I felt incredibly grown up.

Over the years I have definitely enjoyed other similar moments – different iterations of that pure joy and incredulity – but this one was definitely my first.

And watching these amazing videos is a great reminder of the brilliance of that feeling.

I hope so much that you too have a similar memory.

And if you do, take a moment and just sit back.

And press play.

No post on Sundays!!

On this Oscar Sunday, to celebrate all things cinematic, I made this:

It’s not over!

IT’S NEVER GONNA BE OVER!

…

(Man I never even watched this movie, yet this exchange has been making Marc and I laugh like loons for years! At the time of its release, he was working as a projectionist at one of our local theatres and according to him, he’s seen the film as many times as Ryan Gosling, “wrote those goddamn letters.”)

I DIE.

Happy Sunday all!

These things you do to me

Alright nerds, let’s get to it.

(Nerd, being of course, the highest honour I could ever bestow, so please don’t take it as an insult.)

Today I ate the most delicious of lunches – the grilled cheese sandwich and salad combination from Burgoo – only to have it pretty much destroy me for the rest of the afternoon.

(Goodness knows that we humans were not built for that much melted dairy. Thank sweet mother of pearl that my meal did in fact come with a green salad, as a good deal of roughage is more than necessary when eating en entire wheel of Gruyere.)

Anywho, I arrived back home feeling pretty wretched: my pants felt like they were glued to my legs, my sweater was itching the back of my neck, and overall I just felt uncomfortable. Uncomfortable and hot.

(And not in the sense that I am used to, what with my incredible good looks and overall nubile-ness. Nubile-ity?)

Either way, I figured the best thing to do to try and flush the excess cheese from my system was to get back outside and go for a run.

And this, folks, was hard.

Because all I really wanted to do wasjust take off my pants and lie down on the couch for the remainder of my days.

Yet somehow I did manage to muster up enough energy to schlep myself upstairs, and slither into my running gear.

Once I took off all I could really think about was how much I was already looking forward to the run being over.

Nothing felt like it should – my legs felt heavy and my shirt too tight. Even my sweet new running playlist couldn’t break through my mental melancholy.

I figured I would run 5k and just be done with it. I had completed a very fast 7k yesterday, and an even faster 6k the day before, so today would just be a wash and I could start anew tomorrow.

However,once I got to the turnaround at 4k I decided at the last minute that I would do one more half loop and stop at the ‘work out area’ of the park and do a few resistance supersets (jump squats and chin-ups and the like.)

As soon as I arrived at the monkey bars I chastised myself for not just heading home. I absolutely hate strength training if I’m not giving it 100 per cent, and I had a pretty strong inkling that this time I would just be phoning it in.

However, I did give it a go, starting with the bars (Tough Mudder training!) before moving on to the next exercise. As I finished my first round of push-ups, an elderly gentleman approached and told me in his broken English how impressed he was with my efforts.

I was a little taken aback, what with how focused I was on the actual workout, that I never really formulated a coherent response to his words.

He continued on with his stretching and I continued with my circuit.

After my last set of chin-ups he approached again and asked me (while gesturing at the bar) “10? You 10?”

“8,” I replied breathless.

“8! Wow!” he exclaimed. “Very, very good!”

My heart nearly melted out of my chest.

With those five simple words, this man just completely turned my day around and I felt like my smile would force my face to crack in two.

“Thank you!” I exclaimed.

He smiled back.

As I finished up, he moved on to the balance beam, and I watched him stand for as long as he could on one foot, before switching to the other.

I made sure to wait until he turned around, so at the very least I could wave goodbye before I left.

For the last kilometer home I ran with a renewed gusto. I smiled at everyone I passed – runners, walkers, dogs, kids – everyone was gifted with my goofy, grinning face.

So I would like to thank that man.

For reminding me that we have the capacity to do so much good, even at the most simple and basic level.

And the next time I eat a grilled cheese sandwich I will think of him.

Which might be a little cheesey.

But that’s okay.

Especially if it comes with a salad.