Everybody stay calm.
The inevitable has happened. I’ve hit my winter weather wall.
It was snowing the other morning. It hadn’t snowed in a while. The sight of the fat flakes falling and settling over the hard and crusty slabs of December snow was not welcomed in the least. A huge sigh leaked from my lips, a huff, which worked in conjunction with a massive shoulder slump. You could practically hear the theme from “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.
Leaning on the kitchen counter with my coffee, flipping through Facebook on my phone. There were slew of photographs of beautiful friends in New Zealand and Australia, looking tanned and relaxed, smiling in sun filled rooms and on luscious beaches with blue skies and green seas. They look happy. They look warm. It makes me remember a time when Benjamin and I used to ride our bicycles on deliciously warm nights, cruising along the dolphin filled Swan River under endless palm trees in Perth. There was this sudden ache–like a shot through the heart, and not in a Bon Jovi, ‘you give love a bad name a bad name’ kind of way. Genuine homesickness for the other side of the world. A physical craving, a hunger pang–the same instinct that Dr Richard Kimble from”The Fugitive”, gets when he knows that the cops were right behind him, and the one-armed man is only one step ahead. Time to move on to the next town.
Blame it on Blue Monday; and the rat tail days of January when the snow is no longer magical but a muddy slush speckled with dog feces, litter and the sediment flakes from the decay of time. What’s Blue Monday you asked? Oh you didn’t? Well this is my god-damned blog and you’re going to listen to every word I say. Sorry that I spilled my drink of you, it’s just that I am practically dripping with diamonds. I could literally kill a man with the rock on my hand, so I can barely hold the glass.
Firstly, I’ll let Wikipedia take the reigns with laying down this explanation:
Blue Monday: “where weather=W, debt=d, time since Christmas=T, time since failing our new year’s resolutions=Q, low motivational levels=M and the feeling of a need to take action=Na. ‘D’ is not defined in the release, nor are units”.
![\frac{[W + D-d] T^Q}{M N_a}](https://upload.wikimedia.org/math/0/4/8/0488676cfd763b28dd774e06b7f554b4.png)
In short, that scientifically measurable moment when the Christmas train runs out of steam. When those credit card bills start to roll in, and the true cost of Christmas rears its ugly head. When you combine what you spent, and what your earned often clash together like the Titanic and that darn iceberg. Although most scientists reckon the theory is a real load of bullocks, but there’s got to be something said for it. The famine following the feast. Feeling fat, cold and so very very poor.
Ordinarily Blue Monday is the third Monday of January; this year it was decided that the 6th, the first Monday after the holiday, was the official date. That’s not depression, that’s the last day of summer camp. For me, it came late–Monday 27th, I felt the beginning of a funk in the same way you feel a cold coming on. And then it overstayed for a solid week. Perhaps Blue Monday has expanded to become the depression equivalent of Boxing Week–when one day just isn’t enough. I can’t put my finger on the issue I just felt…bothered. Emotionally itchy. Like my soul was wearing wool sweater with a large tag scratching the back of its neck. I thought that perhaps I need to work out my issues through the majesty of blogging, but once seated in front of the computer I am greeted with a whole lot of nothingness.
I jot a few pages of notes–shorthand scribbles, as if I’m too annoyed to bother with full sentences. After a measly handful of half-written phrases, I abandon the work for Pinterest. I don’t write for the rest of the week…letting the serial killer chicken scratch marinate in my battered journal. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. Truth is I don’t want to open that box inside my heart. I don’t have the energy to break the anxiety down, find its source and record my findings in a humorous and pop-culture laden essay. Obviously, that’s the low-grade depression talking as work usually comes before the reward. It’s a bit like wanting to lose weight by staring in the mirror and wishing you looked different.
You have to sweat a little bit, I suppose, pay your dues, bide your time. Then again, I have been pursing my lips at the whole blogging front. I don’t know if I am quietly blowing minds or if people are just blowing chunks. Elsewhere, someone writes benign pieces about movies, books, or celebrities; or angry tirades about customers, lovers, jobs and children, and readers…and the internet community as a whole are hitting that like button as if it would add years to their life. Someone posts a picture of a snow-covered tree accompanied by a Robert Frost poem, and it gets 38 likes and 52 comments. Nobody likes Robert Frost that much. I mean come on, who do you have to blow to get that kind of response?
(Okay,time out. I won’t actually blow anyone for better ratings, but I would make a fine cup of tea and allow access to my fine record collection. I hope you like Barbra.)
You know, I wore something very similar to work the other day…and it was not well received. Yet Babs shows up at a fashion shoot and lets the photographer snap one picture (as long as her nails and pinkie ring got to photo-bomb the shot). Ah Barbra, now there’s a lady who does what she wants, when she wants, and could claw your fucking eyes out if necessary.
For me, there are few “likes”, and the only comments I get are from “use Rocket Spanish” who writes
“I think the admin of this web site is genuinely working hard for his web page, for the reason that here every stuff is quality based stuff”.
Now there’s a sentence that makes sense. Regardless, I’m glad that someone appreciates that the admin of this web site is genuinely working hard. So good for me. Thanks spam! I shake it off, I think to myself, that it’s just ego–that wanting to be liked that interferes with artistic honesty. But–if there is no response at all–it’s like…well, sure why not? Let’s go there–blowing someone…if they make absolutely no noise, you’d think you were doing a bad job. Maybe you’ve taken him to pleasure town and he’s left his own body and is floating above himself admiring the work of a great genius…or maybe he’s kind of bored and lost interest half way through. To borrow a line from a Kevin Smith film: (which admittedly I thought came from “Mallrats, but was actually from “Chasing Amy”–who knew?)
“Chicks never help you out. They never tell you what to do…. Most of them sit there frozen like a deer in headlights. When a chick goes down on me, I let her know where to go- and what the status is. You gotta handle it like CNN and The Weather Channel–constant updates.”
Blogging and blow jobs…it’s an awful lot of work and you’re really doing it for the other person. Feedback is also essential. So it’s pretty much the same thing. How’s that for a math equation? That’s why they call me the songbird of my generation. When it all comes down to it, I like what I write. I like that each blog goes where it wants…I never know where I’ll end up. Did I think I was going to mention blowjobs when I started this piece a week ago? No. Did I have any idea what I would find when I searched Google Images for “Blow Job, vintage”? Did I think long and hard…(he he, long and hard) about posting one or two of them? Yes. That’s the journey, and I’m happy to follow the thread where it leads. But the occasional spoonful of validation never hurt anyone. A sip of water on the long road to the slimmest shred of creative success. I’m bratty like that…like Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka’s factory, wanting everything right away. Not trusting that everything will fall into place as things ordinarily tend to do.
Let’s be honest. Veruca Salt was a dick, and I’m pretty sure she dies in this movie. Her impatience was her fatal flaw, and I share that with the late Ms Salt. I’m trying to do as the bumper sticker tells me and just “let go and let god”, which I do, for increments not longer than it takes to finish a Tic-Tac. I’m of two very distinct minds: more than anything, I want to pay off my student loan debt. It’s a sum that collected over eight years of schooling. I suppose I’ve always been aware of it in the same way that one imagines their own demise–it’s too far down the track to imagine the inevitable day when the Grim Reaper…or in my case the Government of Canada, arrives and says “pay up sucker”. On the other hand, I am giving hungry eyes to every map I see. I want to walk on foreign soil, I want to zig-zag cross the globe, I want to see so many places. And yet, it all seems impossibly out of reach. There’s only so much money to go around, and the persistent adult living inside of me is saying that now is the time to scrimp and save. I’m 32…and it feels like that sand is burning it’s way through my hourglass. I am reliable at work, pay my bills on time, obey road rules. I am a functioning member of society…but my soul is a gypsy wanderer that sometimes wants to disappear into a crowd.
Benjamin is working overtime to lift my spirits. Like a tap-dancing bear, rattling off the many blessings in our life while I sob and snivel in the shower. He’s right of course. He’s a permanent resident. We’ve finally settled. We both have excellent jobs, a nice home, solid marriage. While I love my career, my home, my husband…there’s still an extremely large part of me that wants to be in-transit, heading towards the next destination. And I’m at war with myself about it. The idea of properly settling down makes me want to hang on pretty tight to the door frame of adolescence and only pass through only if pushed. When we look at our future, where anything is possible, there is a blight on the plan. My student loan debt is the genital herpes of my finances. I fear I will have carry that around forever; that it will be the obstacle to my most cherished plans. The way I am feeling right now is the very reason Peter Pan refused to grow up.
My poor husband is hovering along the outer perimeter of the house. Walking along the walls, giving his wife plenty of breathing room. He’s sensed for sometime that I am a panther ready to strike…or a wounded orangutan who would swap at you weakly…(it’s been a real low energy week). I’m crying, and I feel like I can’t stop, he rubs my back and says: “You’re crying for no reason…this confuses me”. Poor bugger. Finally, he drops the gauntlet…”Alicia, do you think maybe this is PMS?”.
The Bear gets a multitude of bonus points for the endless love and support. The glass half full, cheer-leading approach is truly uplifting. But everyone knows that suggesting being ‘tired’, ‘hungry’ or ‘premenstrual’ to a depressed and slightly irrational woman is like putting a loaded gun in your carry-on at the airport. The end result is not going to be in your favor.
It very well could be PMS, it’s usually hard to tell because of my IUD, I really only experience symptoms every four months. Whenever I dip into an existential funk, I can often console myself that it is simply hormones making a fool of me.
Meanwhile, my sandpaper sentiment rages on. I can’t write it out, and so it brews inside of me like a toxic tea. Why can’t I see the positive? Why does everything feel like the worst case scenario? When Ben was listing our lengthy tally of blessings–I could appreciate every one. We do have a good life. Maybe it’s my own scientific quota: debt/dreams x age ÷ fleeting years of fertility. This hit the nail on the head when I’m crying in the shower; Benjamin said that there were no ‘deadlines’, that there was room in our life for everything, that there was ‘lots of time’. The thought of a pre-baby time crunch made me cry even harder. Fuuuuuck, where is the time going? Why does 32 feel so old?
As I finish the blog, I’ve come a little closer to accepting that I am right where I need to be. That everywhere I’ve been was where I was meant to go. I haven’t reached all my goals because I’m just not there yet. It’s not my time, I guess. I’ll just keep walking this path, keep writing, and not hate on Robert Frost so much. (He actually suffered immensely in his life, lost a lot of love, and wrote the line– “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world” which was later engraved on his tombstone. Now I feel kind of annoyed with him all over again. I feel the same way about life and wish I had written it first). But that’s just my ego talking. A new season will come around. Moods will lift, PMS will pass; the days longer, the sun shinier. The snow has to melt sometime.
Images Courtesy of Google
Then in the ‘very special Spanish Flu” episode, it really hit a nerve with us. Even though we can’t research our own medical concerns, there are no rules about researching diseases from yore.
Images Courtesy of Google
I used that list as a guideline, what I loved before I loved you. What was the most important thing to me? Travel. Seeing the world was all I ever wanted. Come to think of it, I actually wrote that list five years ago now. I crossed quite a few things off that list. I moved to New Zealand, where I met my husband. We moved to Australia, and saw Sydney, and the entire west coast of the continent. We went to Indonesia for our wedding anniversary (which satisfies my Asia requirement if necessary). When we came to Canada we started in Ontario with my best friend Evelyn and her husband and we drove to Prince Edward Island, stopping in every province along the way. Really all that remains is grad school, Europe and a baby.
Naturally, when one has been married over three years, is over the age of thirty and looking at a five-year life plan, it’s not unreasonable to question where procreation comes into the equation.
I respond by shuffling the papers and muttering under my breath. Where do babies land on this list…in five years I’ll be (gulp) 37. And from what I’ve gathered, the fallopian factory gets a bit more semen selective after the age of 35.
Lucky bastards. Back in the day when men wore suits, women wore hats, houses were cheap and smoking was good for you. “It’s your goal. Write it down” Benjamin says. But how does one afford that? Get a second job waiting tables three nights a week and save all of the tips for a holiday? Not bad. Get discovered by some media mogul who pays me to travel and make witty observations? Better. Wherever you are, generous benefactor, now would be a good time to show your face and dollah bills.
Firstly…as a rather petite woman with a nearly seven-foot tall husband, I do fear the size of the offspring. My mother has on more than one occasion confessed a similar fear…on my behalf. Which is unnerving, seeing as she gave birth three times without so much as an aspirin, because “cave-women didn’t have painkillers and they did just fine without them”. Therefore she could paint a rather clear portrait on the realities of childbirth, therefore I’d like to go the opposite route as cave-women didn’t have painkillers…but “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, is what I always say.
Standing in the walk-in closet, attempting to pack for our last minute trip to Vancouver. I catch an unflattering glimpse of myself. Well..not like seeing an unflattering glimpse of myself is the equivalent of aurora borealis. It’s not rare to catch a glimpse in the mirror and feel varying degrees of dissatisfaction. I’m not Victoria’s Secret, I’m not even her dirty little secret. I’m not really their market audience. I’ve got itty-bitties up top and then all the action is down below. As I always say, my thighs are Godzilla and my calves Tokyo. I lean into the mirror. Oh crap. Has my face gotten fat? Am I looking a little puffy?
I implore my husband for some consolation. “Aww…” he says,chuckling a little and pinching my cheeks: “My chunky-goat-wife”. I took this remark like an absolute champ.
‘Chunky goat wife?’ Scientists couldn’t extract adorability from it and a public relations expert couldn’t spin it into a frothy confection. At least ‘chunky bear’ sounded a bit like a yummy pastry. “I’ll have an non fat cappuccino and two chunky bears please”; at best ‘chunky goat wife’ could be a poorly translated name for a questionable looking hot dish served in the Mongolian mountains. He really ran with that bit, which is fair I suppose, I did start it. But doesn’t he realize? It’s only funny when I am the one dishing it out. I’d like to keep my plate clean of comebacks thank you. Needless to say, I spent the next hour pouting, glaring and poking my chin contemptuously. Then ole Chunky Bear had the nerve to complain that I wasn’t being more helpful with the packing. Uh, well here’s a tip, if you want your wife’s help, best check yourself before you wreck yourself with the pet names.
I don’t want to be one of those wives that you have to lie to…but I wouldn’t mind being the kind of wife you bend the truth for. Nod and smile and back away slowly. That’s how you get it done. I don’t want to be one of those women who are weight-obsessed. I am who I am, and my body is shaped as it is. If it were fifty years ago, my perception of my physical circumstances would be a different story.
Of course, I’d be a fool to say I didn’t wish that I had legs that went on forever. Truth is, I was curvy even as a little kid. In my late elementary school days, someone started calling me “Chunky Soup“, saying that like the famous soup line, I too could be eaten with a fork or a spoon. I didn’t know what that meant…but I was certain it was a nickname Audrey Hepburn never got pegged with.
Chubby knees, stubby legs and dimply thighs are super cute when you’re a naked toddler running around the backyard. As one gets older, and possibly more modest, such is best kept under leggings, trousers, pantyhose and A-frame skirts.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Lena Dunham is awfully brave. In her television series “Girls”, she is fearless when it comes to being vulnerable. Sure, it’s her character Hannah being portrayed in those uncomfortable sex scenes and unflattering rompers, but Dunham is writing herself into these situations. She is deliberately exposing to the cast, crew, professional partners, advertisers and the audience.
It’s brave, bold, revolutionary, but I wouldn’t participate. If I was director, writer, star and producer of my popular HBO program, I would have an iron clad nudity and romper policy. The show would still be brilliant; it would be the new “Girls” which was the new “Sex and the City“.
The main theme on my show would focus on a love triangle between myself, Ryan Gosling and George Clooney; Clooney being a wealthy suitor, and Gosling a young man from the wrong side of the tracks. They fight for my love and affection, (this will go on for years) and as we slip into old age, the winner gets to repeat the story to me over and over about how I dicked everyone around until I got dementia. It’s a completely original idea, and it’s going to blow minds. And never in the years of the beloved series ‘Love Sandwich’ would you see me scantily clad. I would dress like Katherine Hepburn and in all my love scenes I’ll wear a scuba suit.
Sometimes I think to myself…”I could stand to lose a few pounds”. And I visualize a montage of myself doing sit ups, and jogging in the streets, and punching large slabs of meat. I would be so fit.
My problem is…I love bread. I love cheese, red wine and creamy lattes . And bread. I love bread so much that if I was on death row my last meal would just be various types of bread with things to spread, dip and place on top of it.
I used to go to this amazing restaurant when I lived in Victoria where they offered an all you could eat soup deal with the greatest bread ever. Hot, buttery and pelted with chunks of rock salt. I could have ordered the special and sent the soup back in the same way my friend Robin does with a wings and beer feature at the local pub. She wants the cheap wings, but tells the waitress to give the beer to someone else cause she doesn’t want that cheap piss anywhere near her face.
I really can’t remember “Brokeback Mountain”…though I did wind up seeing it twice at the cinema. But I do remember just sobbing my little heart out. I meant to re-watch it recently, but got distracted on Netflix and watched “Bring it On” instead. It was just too sad to watch again. Maybe that’s how I can justify comparing the film to carbohydrates and plump thighs. It was devastating to me that you could just miss your whole life by not being true to yourself; and for Ennis that was Jack Twist, for me it’s twist bread.
Okay, I’m sorry for you situation with the forbidden love and all, but this is my blog and I can say what I want. I’m comparing your love to my love of bread–deal with it. In reality, I’m perfectly average. Not Karen Carpenter, not Mama Cass, just somewhere in the middle. When I look at old photos of myself I balk at how young and slender I looked. Of course, when that picture was being taken, I had that same voice in my head that compared and criticized. In a year’s time, I could look at a picture of myself today and think I looked perfectly lovely. With this in mind, I try to do my future self a favor and look at myself in the present as she would do in hindsight.
Images Courtesy of Google
He’s since come home…and wondering where that delicious stir fry I promised I’d make, while I was commending his decision to go out for a pint. When I was fresh from the grocery store and feeling like a productive wife. Before the red wine and drunk blogging. And now it’s nearly 8:00pm and I should have been to bed hours ago. Damn you Ryan Gosling, you did this to me damn you! I know I said I would stay here forever, but I’ve got a pressing stir-fry. But thanks for the dreamy eyes and positive affirmations. They need to put these on the ceiling at the dentist and gynecologist offices. Because sometimes, your spirits just need a lift.
Images Courtesy of Google
Images Courtesy of Google
Maybe that’s the band “A Taste of Honey” meant in their seminal track “Boogie Oogie Oogie“, that when you can’t boogie oogie no more, it means that you die…or pass out, or sit down cause you’re tired from all the strenuous dancing in platform shoes.
Images Courtesy of Google
I stood behind him, in my pastel pajama pants, wringing my hands apologetically.
Images Courtesy of Google
She has beautiful vintage furniture, and a bizarre taxidermy obsession. She turned multiple bedrooms into spectacular closets filled with costumes, shoes, lingerie, and there’s a whole room dedicated to hats (which to me, is really a reason to never have children). “Sure, someone could carry on the lineage…but then again, I wouldn’t get my hat room”
I’m assuming this was at a costume party, but that is a seriously disturbing looking fellow. I have always wondered what the attraction was, if she would gaze at him from across a crowded room and think–”Lucky me, I get to go home with that“.
I came of age in the advent of this particular chapter of goth-culture… circa 1996 with Antichrist Superstar. Marilyn Manson burst creepily onto the scene, and just bled all over the place. Parents were concerned about his presence, his influence. He was being banned and censored, which made the fans love him even more. Rumors flew about him killing animals onstage, and removing his ribs so he could perform fellatio on himself. Which makes no sense to me, why would you want to suck your own dick? If you have the money to have elective rib removal surgery, couldn’t you just hire someone who likes going down on freaky dudes…(and possibly be into doing a little laundry and light dusting)? In high school Marilyn Manson was such a revelation and there was a definite social pocket of teenagers that jumped on that bandwagon. Personally, he scared the hell out of me. But then again, if Manson was an 11 on the hard rock scale, I was a 1.5. I was listening to ABBA, Mamas & the Papas and the Bee Gees non-ironically. I had pictures of Audrey Hepburn in my bedroom. I was not in his demographic. Simply put, going to a Marilyn Manson concert would be my version of hell on earth, I would rather be swarmed by a pack of flying monkeys from “The Wizard of Oz”, than listen “Beautiful People” in a packed stadium of Satanic looking freaky-deeks. And you just know that they would do weird things with strobe lights…no thank you. The fine folks behind the film “Burlesque” actually snuck a sample of that song into the soundtrack; even in a different incarnation I can not bare it. You’re just never going to find me at a fan club meeting, and that’s all there is to it.
All Images Courtesy of Google
As a couple, my husband and I are polar opposites. He is a strong silent type, and I just won’t shut the fuck up. I want to be onstage, and he’d prefer to be behind the scenes. I’m a social butterfly, and he’s a solitary bear. He’s a sturdy structure, and I’m a twister swirling all around. Our unifying quality is that we are both stubborn as hell, and we often lock horns. Our marital three legged race can be a challenge, I want to go one way, he the other. But we don’t want to break up, fall apart, get divorced. Is it possible to remove that tie and change the game?
All Images Courtesy of Google