Love – Page 9 – Rant and Roll

Pretty good footing

Running Part 1.

I have runner’s feet.

And I am okay with this.

(Most of the time.)

I am fine with my blisters and callouses, my rough skin and my high arches. My second toe on both feet remind me a bit of aliens, which is funny to myself and a source of hilarity to Marc.

I really like painting my nails during the summer months, because I think (but really mostly hope) that the colours take the focus away from all of the above.

Because as much as I’d love to think that everyone is as okay with my feet as I am – I cannot begin to imagine that this is the truth.

Last night I was at a dinner party and wasn’t wearing any socks. Incredibly aware of the now long-suffering (and completely innocuous) blood-blister on my left right toe, I felt as though I needed to head the message off at the pass, and immediately told my hosts:

“THAT’S NOT A WART IT’S A BLOOD BLOSTER FROM RUNNING,” while pointing at my foot.

They were suitably caught off guard, and told me that hadn’t even noticed it.

Which made me feel weird having called attention to it in the first place, and then I spent a large portion of the night simultaneously trying to hide my toe, and wondering if they were now, in fact, checking out the blister.

I also have a ridge of callouses that begins on my right big toe, and then migrates down the length of my in-step. I like to call it the Queensborough Ridge, as I think it sounds both regale and fun, and because I regularly run over the Queensborough Bridge on my very long runs.

(I can be such a silly girl.)

Feet truly are such incredible things.

Mine have taken me to some of the most beautiful places in the world. They fit into ridiculous heels, and float about in my favourite pair of men’s oxfords. They are the reason that I can run like the wind and dance like a mad woman, and they are the reason that my husband screams in agony when I put them up against his back in the middle of the night (because they are freezing and he is warm.)

They are awesome.

And I love them.

Running Part 2.

So I think I may have just watched eight episodes of House of Cards?

I can no longer keep count.

I’m really not into the show, I’ve just invested too much time that I need to find out what happens.

Otherwise, URGH.

The one thing I’ll give Clair Underwood is that she has some absolutely badass running outfits. But other than that, she and Frank are just the worst.

And the writing is absolute bollocks.

Double URGH.

When it comes to shows about US political shows, I’ll take Veep over anything else.

But I do want her running outfits.

Running Part 3.

The other morning I was out running before work and a man who was out walking his dog shouted at me, “GIRL YOU’RE MAKING MY DAY!”

Normally I get a little shirty when random men shout things in my direction, but this actually made my little heart smile.

Which is pretty great.

(But good thing he never saw my feet.)

Mouth those words like you mean it

There are times in my life where I think to myself, “holy hell I was one weird kid.”

This happened a couple of days ago, as I sat in my office regaling one of my co-workers about the time in grade six when I wrote an award-winning speech on the life of Evita Peron. At the time I was unabashedly obsessed with the movie musical starring Madonna and Antonio Bandaras, and my presentation was written from the perspective of one of Evita’s childhood friends (played by me). In my zeal to create a compelling narrative, I fictionalized a series of letters that (I liked to imagine) the two women had sent back and forth between the time she moved to Buenos Aires in 1934 before her death in 1952. I even cried at the end, reminiscing about our lost childhood innocence.

It was pretty nuts.

(The reason that I was telling this tale in the first place was because I felt my work aesthetic that day to be very “Evita-esque” and had asked the same co-worker how she thought the two below photos compared):

“Hair needs less bangs, and more height,” she rightfully critiqued.

Then we laughed like drains.

After we regained our composure, I told her about my speech, and my ever-enduring love for the Evita musical.

She again started laughing, before shaking her head and asking the oft-repeated question: “how did you end up being this way?”

To which I answered, as always, “I have no friggin clue.”

I was just a weird kid who was into weird things.

But not only that – I really, really liked the things that I liked, and even though I desperately wanted to fit in, I could never truly let my desire for social approval and acceptance outweigh my desire to be strange as hell.

Case in point: every year my elementary school held a day totally dedicated to airbands (or lip synchs if you will.)

It was a huge thing. Kids had to audition in front of their class and the king of teachers himself – the formidable Mr. Bell – in order to get on the program.

The best outcome one could hope for was to be cast in the both the morning and afternoon shows, which meant you were out of classes for the entire day and were able to showcase your routine for multiple audiences on different shows.

It was the best.

In grade five I was a new student to the school and, despite loving to be on stage and wanting desperately to perform, I was too nervous to put anything together for the auditions.

I remember very clearly the only acts that tried out from our class were two groups of boys who literally performed “air bads” – with guitars, basses and drum sets – to “Lump” by the Presidents of the United States of America and “Basket Case” by Green Day.

I had never seen boys hop around on stage, pretending to play instruments before. It was totally bizarre.

(I had also never heard the latter song and quickly became obsessed. I would sit by my radio with my blank cassette at the ready, poised for the exact moment it would begin to play.)

The next year however, I was primed and ready. I had a solid group of friends – some of whom who had even agreed to act with me!

Together we put on “Hakuna Matata” and “RESPECT.”

Imagine, if you will, the tallest, skinniest, whitest twelve year-old, harnessing everything her bad-ass, budding feminist self has to offer, so that for approximately four minutes, she WAS Aretha Franklin.

It just may have been the finest performance of my life.

I distinctly remember all the teachers absolutely losing their minds.

Hakuna Matata too was a pretty good show. We had an absolute blast, dressed head to toe in tie-dye, pretending to be the animals, and really getting into the spoken word sections.

Nothing like a farting warthog to get us going!

However, because I wasn’t one to ever leave anything well enough alone, I decided that I wanted to do one last airband to round out that year’s revue.

At that time of my life I was also pretty obsessed with the Forrest Gump Soundtrack (being as it was that I was Benjamin Buttons, and reverse aging like a fiend, from eighty to eleven) and I especially like the song “I Don’t Know Why I Love You, But I Do” by Clarence “Frogman” Henry.

(Holy shit.)

I mean, to its credit, it’s a solid, nice song.

But what I could have possible been thinking when I chose THIS tune as my third airband is an enigma wrapped in a mystery folded inside of an ARE YOU EVEN KIDDING ME?

The one thing that sold the entire act was that I committed like crazy. I dressed up in a suit, wore a tie and bowler hat, and carried a cane. The whole thing was so earnest I was basically Charlie Chaplin in an after-school special.

Evidently Mr. Bell really dug the performance, because he cast me in the morning and afternoon shows.

I never for a moment even stopped to think that what I was doing was brave, or nerdy, or subversive, or strange.

I just liked the song and thought people might identify with the lyrics!

The reaction I received left me absolutely stupefied. People were impressed! And not necessarily by my performance, but by my bravery for going through with the performance in the first place.

I’ll never forget Carrie Knoll coming up to me after the morning’s show and just blurting out “That was one of the coolest, cutest things ever. I cannot believe you had the guts to do it.”

I thanked her profusely. Being one of the coolest girls in our grade, her words were more than just a compliment – they were an act of legitimization, of the acceptance that I really truly did crave.

I was just flabbergasted that they were born from (what was perceived to be) such an extremely nerdy public endeavor.

Which just goes to show, you totally can kill two birds with one song.

Especially if it’s from a soundtrack you love.

Oh, my heart. My heart.

I like knowing where others have been.

A woman’s perfume that lingers. The faint trace of a cigar, long-extinguished.

It makes me think about all of the lives I may never know.

All of the hearts I may never touch.

This morning I woke to a stretching sun. A ball of bleached blues and sherbet hues, melting its way across the frozen skyscape.

Before the herald of the first alarm, I silently stole from my scattered dreamspace, and crept into the cool dark of the house.

Nymeria yawned and quietly mewled from her corner of the chesterfield, her eyes squinting in discomfort as I turned on one of the small side lamps.

The soft light illuminated the many discarded tea mugs and half-finished books populating the table space of the room.

(Hallmarks of a busy workweek and my inability to ever finish a drink.)

I drank a demi-cup of sugary, dark coffee, and read from one of the books, marvelling all the while at the stark beauty, ablaze, across the New Westminster waterfront.

I then slipped into my beautiful new running pants, laced up my runners, and set forth to immerse myself in the golden glow of a world, seemingly reborn.

There are times in my life, where I am unable to stop myself from crying. Tears stream easily, unencumbered from the corners of my eyes. They are fat pearls of emotion – of happiness beyond equation.

Beyond compare.

And this morning I cried.

Racing time.

Racing an untameable sun.

I felt as though I could keep moving forever. That I might blend my body to my path, eternal.

Returning home, I caught a fragrance of a women. And for that moment, I breathed a life; a mind, body and soul – now vanished, or perhaps vanquished – within the thrum and hum of a waking day.

And I was hit with a sense of nostalgia so strong, I quaked.

I was five and cuddled up next to my mother as she read aloud to me on my bed; I was ten and exploring my grandparent’s basement bookshelves, as the dust swirls sparkled in the amber light; I was nineteen and working late closing shifts, experimenting with eye contact and fake names; twenty-four and riding my bike down Hagley Road under the muggy, Brummy sun; twenty-nine and dancing my heart out, my hair stuck to my back, and my calves like two hot rocks; thirty-five and forty-four, and sixty-seven; I was past, present, and yet-to-be present.

Who are we all?

Why are we here?

From where are we going?

Infinitesimal sums of beauty and strength, of wonder and light, of magic and marvel, of love, of love, of love.

So just keep breathing.

And let in the light.

In it for the long run.

Oh hey y’all!

Long time, no write.

And I must express my sincere contrition.

Now, I know I sound like a broken record every time I return after a long wordless sojourn, full of the same old platitudes – “Life is so crazy!” “Time seems to be slipping away all the quicker every day!” “Why can’t I ever keep track of where I leave my hairdryer!?” – but, in my defence, these inanities are sincere.

TO WHERE THE DICKENS IS TIMING SLIPPING AWAY!?

And it’s not as though I don’t want to be engaged with the blogosphere. I am always very aware that I want to be writing, and get frustrated when I am not.

I miss feeling my fingers fly across my laptop’s keyboard, tap-tap-tapping out a tale or two about the banality of hair removal, or the injustice of fast fashion (and my inability to restrain myself from consuming, and therefore sustaining this industry) or the life-altering qualities of a really good lipstick..

I miss interacting with other writers, and kind commentators, and thinking about my next scheme, or post, or story.

Last night Marc and I cooked up a pasta feast and enjoyed a candlelit dinner, taking turns reading to each other from Catullus’ complete works of poetry.

In between my laughter, I continually croaked, “THIS – THIS IS NOT A POEM!”

Bawdy stuff there folks.

BAWDY AS HECK.

Afterwards, we watched a pretty mediocre movie on the 4 Deserts Ultra-Running Race Series (racers run through the Atacama, Gobi, Sahara, and Antarctic Deserts) which we thought would be awesome, but left us feeling pretty lukewarm at best.

(Unlike the weather conditions in any of those places.)

However, despite the film’s shortfalls, I was completely jazzed just watching each of the runners take on such insane distances (250 kilometers) in downright torturous conditions (unrelenting heat, windstorms, sharp drops in temperatures, freezing rain.)

And I wanted to something similar.

I wanted to push my body to do something it had never done before.

Even if I couldn’t wake up this morning and race across the Gobi Desert, I wanted to do something, anything so to feel a connection with these amazing, fearless racers.

So when I did wake up, I decided to run from my house in New Westminster, to the Broadway/Commercial Skytrain station in Vancouver.

Now, technically speaking, this run would take me across two cities and past eight skytrain stations -which seems like a really long way to run!

But in reality, it only clocks in at sixteen kilometers.

Which seems incredibly short!

(Yet such is truth, spoken by the infallible gospel of Google Map My Run.)

However, in the end, it was a pretty bonkers route, with almost 350 meters of elevation gain, a battery of rogue crosswalks and the odd sketch individual or two, where the only thing rushing through my mind was “don’t want to know what’s being decided upon in THAT interaction!” as I motored on past.

Also, before I left, Marc told me that it very cold outside (due to the amount of fog that was blanketing our house and its environs) so I made the tragic mistake of wearing a tight, long-sleeve fleece, over my wicked (also long-sleeved) running shirt.

Marc’s note: “It WAS cold! I went out running an hour and half before you!”

Thank goodness I forwent the toque.

By kilometer four I thought my head was going to blow right off of my body, leaving the remains of my cranium looking like modern day Vesuvius.

I feverishly tore the fleece from my body and immediately felt the cool relief of the morning’s breeze make its way across my steaming torso.

Then I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to run the remaining twelve kilometers with my shirt tied about my waist.

Now, I’m not sure exactly what it is that bothers me so much about clothing tied about my midsection, but since childhood it has driven me to distraction, and I especially hate it when exercising.

I guess I have always (erroneously) equated (or conflated it) with non-serious runners, and prided myself on knowing how much clothing to wear at any given time, on any given run.

However, this silly theory of mine was completely obliterated on my run today, as I went on to spend the majority of my time, waist cinched, simply flying through Burnaby and into East Vancouver.

So, I’ll be the first to say it – I’m still learning.

And I hope to heck that I never stop.

Just like those ultrarunners.

So hang tight. I’ve got but two hundred and thirty-four kilometers to go.

I’m just a girl in the world

Of late, I’ve been listening to a lot of Taylor Swift.

Well, only one song really, but let’s not mince words. Blank Space is a bloody pop masterpiece of the highest order, and no one will ever be able to convince me otherwise.

Don’t even try it, ya jerks!

Because you all might as well resign yourself to the fact that, inevitably, we all must bow down to T. Swift, bubble gum goddess that she is.

So get your shin pads out.

The future is here.

I’m not sure about any of you, but I just listen to this stuff and immediately I am once again eighteen years old, filled to the brim with cusp-of-adulthood angst, heart-wrenching love, and mind-boggling lust.

The compulsion to jump in a car and just drive as far and as fast as I can is almost too difficult to control. So mostly I dance about the house in the most ridiculous and flamboyant of fashions, with Marc and Nymeria taking up the rear.

They’re good partners in my insanity.

I’ll tell you, another thing that makes me feel like a confused, silly teenager is having the brilliant luck of finding my diary from grade 10, 11, 12, and my first year of undergrad.

Holy hell was I one heck of a kid.

I spent about an hour yesterday reading excerpts aloud to Marc and just generally laughing my face off.

Marc too got a huge kick out of my daily captures of what it mean to be Vanessa Woznow, seventeen years of age.

Choice entries include:

June 2002

Holy shit Friday is just never going to come. I seriously am going to go completely insane (I am already halfway there, I can feel it!) Soon I will be sitting outside in a lawnchair and throwing spoons at all of the people who pass by, cursing them for their new fangled ways. EDADS. I talk like Mr. Lodge in the Archie comics. Call the medics I tell you!!! I miss Mark [ed. note: high school boyfriend], and I just want to get my damn vacation started with. [Redacted] gave me a ride to my socials exam. Made me feel bad about never phoning him. I really hate that. I got 90% on my math final, so I ended up with 88% in the course, which isn’t too bad. My socials final was so funny, some of the questions really killed me. I laughed really hard and was so tempted to put down that sexism was one of the causes of WWI.

There were some questions on the test that I was just like WHAT THE FUCK!? How are we supposed to know THAT? I even asked Ms. [Redacted] whether or not she had taught that subject in the class and she just looked at me said “No.” before smiling and walking away. That killed me too. That’s classy as hell. I am really going to miss having [Redacted] as an English teacher. She’s really hilarious! I think I might buy her Chicken Soup for the Teacher soul. I think she might like it.

I’ve realized that sometimes my writing really reflects that of Holden’s in Catcher in the Rye. LOVE that book. Old Holden gets my goat, he is just damn hilarious.

JUST DECIDED. Going into writing when I graduate!!!

p.s. What to do for six month anniversary??

I also used the journal quite a bit as a scrapbook, for all of the ticket stubs and play bills of either the shows I went to, or acted in myself.

There is also a lot of BAD poetry.

(I can’t actually bring myself to publish a large photo of this gut-busting rubbish.)

However, I did kind of dig this little ode:

I actually remember writing this ditty in my grade 12 math class. For a laugh, I used to always write poems for one of my best friends. Rosy was (and still is, to this day) one of the most beautiful, caring souls I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, and I always wanted to either make her laugh, or make her smile, and as such, was compelled to write her stuff like this.

A large portion of the book is dedicated to my falling in love with Marc, and the early days of our courtship:

I can tell you, I absolutely loved that sweater. I actually get the goofiest smile just thinking about it, and I swear that my heart is beating just the littlest bit faster.

Unfortunately, there is also a large (VERY large in fact) portion of the book dedicated to chronically my eating disorder. In no uncertain terms do I take any pains to disguise this reality. Many pages are just lists of what I ate, how much I exercised, and how much of what I ate ended up in the bottom of a toilet bowl.

Scintillating reading it may be not, but still, it serves as a salient reminder of what it meant to live with this illness, and how far removed my present-day life is from these very real, and very hard struggles.

My heart too beats a little faster seeing these pages, for of course, incredibly different reasons.

Still, it’s all one. This is the girl who I was.

If she hadn’t existed, I wouldn’t be the person (girl, woman, epic pop-loving running champion of life) that I am today.

And I wouldn’t trade this for the world.

And if I had to put a wager on it, I bet Taylor would feel exactly the same way.