Tripping The Light Fantastic

Hurry up and wait

I know life is like this sometimes, but I don't like it . telling me it gets better doesn't help - I am impatient. I want it now. I want to know. I need some reassurance. This living dangerously, flying by the seat of my pants thing is not for me. I need to land, I need somewhere to lay my head, and I need to know what I'm doing when I get up in the morning. OK, I've had a charmed, secure, predictable existence for most of my life - actually for all of my life. I am one of those freaks who moved seamlessly from home to university to grad school to full time employment and I have stayed there. Even when I changed jobs, it was slowly, cautiously in 4 , 10 and now 8 year spurts - hardly a roller coaster of intrigue and exploration. I am the turtle - slow and steady wins the race. ( Am I a tortoise? is there a difference?)

I admire those who live a little closer to the edge, who sake it up, who mess with the fates, and take the odd dive into the deep end, big splash, big finish, and big shit eating grins on their faces. Can I even put on my bathing suit? Dare I skinny dip? Does this bathing cap make my head look too fat? Do you suppose that water is cold? What if I have  a heart attack as I'm jumping?

I'm not always this stuck, this hesitant, this wracked with doubts. But this is where I am now, some of the times, not all of  the time. On good days, I do want to be that adventurer, and I have a lot of support from my partner who's travelling with me, and friends and family. I used the word skiving yesterday, and someone misheard it as skydiving(!) - that skydiving was remotely possible was hysterical to me - Welcome the daredevil!

Snug gonads

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I'm increasingly ambivalent about what has happened to the joy of Scrabble since it became Scrabulous.  I rarely win at either, and yet I feel compelled to play because dear ones invite me to games, and procede to whup my butt. What I never experience in the online version is the drunken hysteria associated with the face to face game, played in sundry cottages and on midnight summer decks, falling asleep in winterlude hotel rooms, in the candle light and amid a haze of cocktails or too much food. I like arguing about rules, brandishing my ancient Oxford Concise dictionary, and having a good ol' fashioned yelling contest. And when gonads are snug, you know you're in a tight spot, you might never win, but you have your opponents disarmed by silliness, which I thought was the purpose of wordsmithing.

Hopping along just fine

Well, this is a myth. You actually can't hop or lurch when you're in crutches without maiming or straining some other body part other than the one that put you in the crutches in the first place. Once you've mastered the aluminum crutches, and learned to walk in an upright rather than perpendicular posture, aerodynamics improve rapidly. The single most significant revelation is that the weight is supported by your hands, which are cleverly designed to do the job, unlike your tender armpits. So rapidly do you improve in fact that you are under the illusion that you no longer need crutches with your walking cast, but can actually use the cast to walk ( a misnomer if there ever was one). Enter the cane. The cane is much more aesthetically pleasing and easy to coordinate your wardrobe with, it is sleek, black, virtually invisible, and most serendipitously, it matches your walking cast ( and evening gown).

The cane, it should be noted, is not a crutch. It is thinner, less able to bear one's weight, and flimsy to manouevre as it is not wedged in your armpit. It really only is effective when employed on the side of the body where the initial injury is lodged, that is to say, no amount of carrying or poking the crutch held in your left hand will in any way aid or abet the pain and discomfort you have in your right broken ankle. Whatsoever. It also not wise to carry a full cup of hot coffee while wielding a cane that you actually need to use; this is also not wise with crutches for obvious reasons.

Lurching while in a walking cast threatens to displace other body parts, like hips which are just so flexible, backs and necks from lying prone trying to relax,and also the uninjured foot. The uninjured foot is the workhorse, bearing your weight, providing balance, working overtime to ensure that you stay upright, holding your pantleg while you gingerly try to dress your gammy foot, and anchoring you to the world. You do not want to mess with your left foot when your right foot is broken. If for any reason you feel a twitch, twinge or strain in your good foot, sit down immediately. Invoke all manner of favors and refrain from everything, especially from walking, lurching or hobbling. Your uneven gait is the cause of your new injury, and must be waited out.

It is at this stage that you survey your stack of unread fiction, and immerse yourself in the " I always wanted to read"s of the last decade. This is your only task, your duty and your calling - and yes, at the end of it all there will be test. You will walk again.

I'm in the doghouse now

I'm in it, I've been away for too long, and fear I've lost it, will vox ever forgive my truancy? Will I forgive myself for not meeting personal performance standards? If a blog falls in cyberspace....? well Christie Blatchford answered that one for us this weekend...I like to read rants against blogs, against facebook, against new technology in general. I feel like a bona fide Luddite myself most of the time and its comforting not be alone. For a brief moment in time, I thought I would immerse myself in things palmlike, blue tooth and blue ray, but it turns out I am not the suave and debonaire. I didn't perfect any hand-eye coordination on video gaming in my youth to make me a thumbing genius today. I suck at it, I suck at typing, but I do it to survive. I am slow moving, nothing is ever going to keep up with my speed skating brain.

But I'm here - HELLO - I'm here in voxland because I want to connect.That does seem to be the crux of it, n'est-ce pas? Belonging. Mattering. Connectedness. Community. It's different for each of us, but we want to be linked somehow to someone else, or many people. We want people to get us, to help us figure out where we fit in, and to create something when we don't quite fit. There is no gaping chasm of self esteem, no unsatisfied social scene, no personal deficiency, it is profoundly human, this desire to be with others.

The Looky loos who read blogs and don't write or comment, the facebook lurkers who search out friends but never set up a profile ( or set up a profile but never a picture) - we know these people, they are the wallflowers from the junior high school dance. They are not different from us, they are us. Their curiosity is poignant and their desire palpable; it aches in honesty but is masked by false bravado and rationale, justifications for not taking the plunge, or at least dipping their toes into the icy cool pond. They are flirting with us, watching us, holding our stare for a few seconds, and then walking briskly away to kill time in the nearest bathroom. But they know we're here, they know to come back and see if we've been back to the same spot. And so the dance goes. And we come back to do this thing, that we don't fully understand either. But there is this odd demand, request, expectation  that we'll be here, and we can't abide their disappointment.

I'm giving my doghouse a makeover if I have to be in it - some citron and lime accent pillows, a fresh new texture for the walls, and a new attitude. I'm not making empty promises I won't keep. I'll ask you to dance the last waltz Stairway to Heaven tonight, but I don't kid myself that there aren't plenty of other blogs where this one came from. Just promise me when I meet you on the street, you won't pretend we don't know each other.

One giant step forward

When you think of the long weekend, you probably think of making some plans, a little travel, change of venue, some entertainment, and some festive comestibles. You think ahead, you make a reservation, you call some people to join you, you book a flight or gas up  the car, and you go.

Generally speaking, you don't while away the long weekend purchasing a new home in another region, but it appears that that is exactly what we have done. We have just bought a new home many many miles away from where we live now, and we did it rather effortlessly. Yes, there were repeated phonecalls to agents both familial and corporate in the new land, there were discussions about when, how and now, and there was an expedited flight across multiple time zones in short order to see the place up close and personal, and there was a lot of squealing with excitement as the deal closed.

There was no hemming or hawing, no wingeing or whining about whether or not we'd done the right thing. There was a  calm.. not even an eerie calm. This seems like the most normal and sane thing we could have done to achieve the relocation of the near future. The near future is now WHAM! right in our faces, and it seems that in a matter of months it will be realized. This is what happens when you put your mind to things, when you set that first foot down on that path. It's not the slow moving escalator that inches towards the dream, it is the express Concorde trip - you have no sooner named the idea than you have arrived. Voila. Mission accomplished ( well, most of it). Wheels are in motion big time, and I'm not sure they plan on stopping. A cascading series of events is bound to follow ( job hunting, packing, giving notices, and extracting ourselves from one life to build another in a new place - and all the joy and grief that goes with that transition.

I am thankful for the support to be able to do  this, especially from my partner, without whom this would be impossible. I am amazed by the support of friends, who despite being left behind, are happy for us, and the energetic support of family members, whose arms (and neighborhoods) we are racing into. This has such momentum on its own, and feels a bit like a carnival ride,  not in the barfy,stop -I -want -to get-off kind of way, but in the dizzying and dazzling wuhoo kind of omigod -it's really happening kind of way. I can't believe we did it, and then again, it feels really normal and solid, and kind of like coming home.

I'll fly away

Yesterday I was rushing to walk the 15 minutes it takes to get from my uber-downtown apartment to the campus where I work. Rushing, despite the fact that I'd been up since 5 am - puttering, coffee, breakfast, shower, dressed, etc. How is this possible? There's no time to think about it, so I just grab the thing resembling my bag/purse, mp3 player ( aka faux ipod) and run for the elevator. I see the battery is on low, and think, this is not good - I will need some motivational tunes to get me into the mindset of obnoxious urban pedestrian. I don't live for music, but on a morning like this, it helps. Music thingy comes to life with its last trickle of juice as I am leaping out onto the streets ( image of gazelle, minus the lithe form), and I hear  some guitar/banjo pickin'. Uh oh. Then I remember I recently ripped O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and that I am immersed in "I'll Fly Away.... when I die, hallelujah by and by..." etc. Which reminds me of music for my future wake/funeral - this is a file I have actually created and discuss regularly with loved ones ( they need to be prepared after all...) There is nothing wrong with writing your own obituary, planning your own service, having a will and selecting the tunes - proper planning prevents poor performance. I also think there is room in my world for a karaoke funeral, or something where individuals instead of giving testimony/eulogies, they come up and sing (or lyp synch) a song. Now that's a variety show I could get into...

Anyway, back to my commute. The zippy little pickin' gets me going, and I am all but dancing across intersections, singing along ( in my head only, I desperately hope) with Alison Krauss  and Gillian Welch, trying to decipher which part of the harmony I really want to sing. This leads me to think that I am really an alto at heart, but I cannot resist often striving to sing soprano, with very mixed results. My partner is a bona fide soprano ( who I met singing in a choir) and it would be best for all concerned if I stayed in my alto box. I flip back and forth  (high, low) and before I know it, I am smiling to myself, and deciding I am going to have a great day - I am not tired, discouraged, nor inundated by work - I am ready to give what I've got, and calm about the prospects. I am invinscible in this brief moment, and I arrive at the door of my of my workplace at 8:59 am. I am a personal stickler for time, being raised a military brat, I simply cannot shake this obsession. Just before entering the building I am ambushed by a colleague just back from vacation, who regales me with his travels and anecdotes for 15 minutes in the blazing sunshine. And I think, hey it's summer, I've worked hard, this is not going to mess up my day. I listen politely, ask questions, offers comments, resisting the temptation to look at my watch. Punctuality is shot to hell, but the banjo strummin's still going on in my cortex, and I do finally fly away to my office, late for once in my life.

Funny thing too.... the world did not come to an end.

QotD: How I Ended Up Here

Why do you live where you live?
Submitted by memtony.

As cities go, this is the one I love; I met my partner here, we both have great jobs, but are starting to get itchy feet - so we are looking for a change in the coming year. I could do with a smaller city or town, I'm ready to slow it down a little, smell the flowers I want to grow in a bigger garden, and ease up on the hustle, noise and crowds. I'm a simple homebody at heart, love connecting with friends and family, and need to be closer to an ocean (salt water preferred but I'll take any) to be in real peace. I came here twenty plus years ago because there was a great full time job and some good friends, and I was ready to take it on. Now I am ready to slip out the side door into something quieter, simplify and start doing more of what I want with the people I want, including a big beautiful family I miss terribly. This has been the hometown I never grew up with and it will always have a tender place in my heart.

Stinky and moaning

It's stinky hot - the hot that makes you look for a corner of shade at every crosswalk while waiting for the light to change. The hot that makes you stand back an extra pace or two so you're not inhaling the soup of baked pavement, body odor and rotting garbage in toxic concentrations. The hot that says don't carry a purse or anything else unless absolutely necessary. There is no energy for hustling across to make the light, walking faster to get anywhere sooner, no window shopping, browsing or other wise wandering aimlessly. This is the season of absolute necessity - we are not having fun, or passing the time of day. We are - alternately - dying, gasping, dripping, leaking, freaking out, parched, fried, sizzled, grilled to perfection - we are more than done. We do not think straight nor do we make any sense. We can't be expected to perform the simplest of tasks with any certainty, finesse or competence; we are exasperated, flustered , dehydrated ( and in denial about our dehydration) exhausted, tied and , oh yeah, just plain hot. We are swearing to accentuate how  we are so much hotter than you are. And we will talk this way most of the coming days and weeks and months, because it is what we do - we  moan. And we love to moan on and on about the goddamned weather. We like to personalize it ( because my experience of it is so much more intense than yours could ever possibly be). What's even weirder is that we actively listen to the mutual moaning, invite it, we want all the perspiring details, we want to hear all about your pain and suffering... tell me, do we really have so little going on in our lives that heat needs to take up so much space? Do we even have a clue about what real suffering is? Are we not blind to the privileges of fresh running hot and cold water, air conditioning, pools, public spaces etc, that we have completely lost sight of the bigger picture? Let's make this the summer of love - embrace the smouldering aromatic piles of market fresh refuse, diesel exhaust from the buses, tar goo, and anything that takes on a new hue or hum in the summer months, and not succumb to the moaning masses. Get a squirt gun, run through someone's sprinkler, have a shower, drink some tap water, and play with the heat til you're silly and giggling - that's summer.

Everyone loves a parade

You can watch the pride parade for twenty years and never tire of the fantastic energy and vibrant colour it brings to the city - a curbside vantage point was particularly effective as we watched the woman in the wheel strap herself in for several revolutions - for a minute I wondered if she actually would, and then thought "has she been rolling this way since Bloor Street?" - now that's a commitment. My favorite is always PFLAG (I want to jump the barriers and hug them; they usually have a hugging booth) but the Gay Pilots were a hoot this year. For a change I watched the parade from start to finish - and I'm convinced it's still something we need to do, both the women's dyke march on Sat and the big one on Sun. We may have come a long way, but there are still injustices, still people terrified to come out to  themselves, to  their friends,  in their families, schools and workplaces, and so we've all got a long way to go yet all over the world. I missed not marching myself, but was just as proud to be hooting and roaring from the sidelines for the sheer joy and pride of it all. 

QotD: What I Love About Summer

What do you enjoy most about summer?
Submitted by Alex.

Barefootin' ......and not caring too much about productivity. There is an order of the day, every day, and that is reading the paper cover to cover, unhurried, preferably outside on the patio. If I manage to do that, my chakras and karma are all good, and I can face anything else the world has to offer. It's a contemplative practice, I often go through the motions - it's not so much about what I absorb as it is what I am exposed to. I'm a visual learner and reading is my best thing.