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Showing posts from June, 2015

This Is Forty Or, Why I Love My Friends So Much

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From: Janet To: Allison, Matt, Margot, Michael, Collette, Mark, Gerry Subject: Dave Hi guys,   Dave had a bike accident on Saturday morning. He had his foot locked into his bike pedal and couldn’t get it unhooked quickly enough and fell over onto his shoulder.  Luckily, a nice Samaritan stopped and called an ambulance and even brought Dave’s bike back to our place.  Dave should be going in for surgery today and will have his arm in a sling for the next 6-8 weeks.  Hopefully he’s up to doing wings this Tuesday and can tell you all about it himself.   cheers, Janet *********** From: Allison To: Collette Subject: At Hospital With Matt. Possible kidney stone. Guard your husband. Bad week for men in our group. Allison **************** From: Collette To: Janet, Dave, Margot, Michael, Mark, Gerry Subject: Matt So…Matthew in in the Queensway Carleton now.   Rushed there by ambulance. They suspect kidney stones.   I’m sensing a

Forty-Five

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Sometimes I think, wouldn't it be nice to invite a bunch of people I really love over to my house. Maybe once the garden is in... ...and the osteopermums have had a chance to recover from Lucy biting their heads off... ...and the lone remaining bellflower had just bloomed. Collette would come over early and help me juice a hundred lemons and limes and we would play music and sing along. Maybe I would mix some awesome newer friends in with the awesome older friends, and not worry at all that they wouldn't mix well, because everyone knows that awesome goes with awesome awesomely well. And even though it rained all the rain there ever was the day before and I really had doubts about whether the promised sunshine would show up, it would show up... ...but the temperature would be cool enough for me, and warm enough so that I wasn't sitting in my back yard alone. And maybe there would be a cute little baby-type person who would toddle

Philanthropy Dilemma

A few years ago when Angus was having three boys sleep over for his birthday, one of the moms called me and said her son was nervous about bringing a stuffed animal that he needed to sleep with. She said "I just told him 'Angus's mom is super nice and she won't let the other boys make fun of you'". That was nice to hear, but in general I think of myself as 'pretty nice' as opposed to 'super nice'. There's a significant degree of self-interest there - I just tend to feel better about making people feel good than about making them feel bad (when I was young I sort of thought that was a no-brainer, everyone-feels-that-way kind of deal - turns out, not so much), and if I can help someone by going slightly out of my way (let's not get all crazy here), I'm in. I give people a solid chance when I meet them, I try to make shy people feel welcome, and I'm willing to give people a second chance, but I also hold years-long grudges on ri

What's Happening

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Things have let up in general the past couple of weeks - easier course, no big appointments, no big volunteer commitments. This should mean that I write MORE, not less, but it keeps not working out that way. I really need to put myself on a schedule. I really don't know why I keep not doing this (the words "self-defeating personality disorder" do spring to mind). I'm even worse with the blog I'm supposed to be doing with Hannah and Nicole, and you'd think I'd snap fucking TO for that one because I love them and I'd really like to not be the whiny little suckhole who has to be rescued or talked down from the ledge every time my turn comes up (which is EVERY THREE WEEKS, it's not like I'm ever on a tight deadline). I had a dream last night that we discovered that there was a low-grade carbon monoxide leak in our house - not enough to kill us, just enough to explain why I've been so irretrievably dim lately. Like trying to buy tickets to Hai

Mondays on the Margins: In Which My Mind Remains Stubbornly Closed

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I went to the gym. I was going to literally just do that - step over the threshold just to see if I still could. I was in a good routine up until Christmas. Then I skipped January because I never go to the gym in January - all the new people plus the mid-winter blahs just make it a completely untenable situation. Then, due to various injuries and concomitant mood flattening, and getting the puppy, January just stretched out... and out.... and out... So today I got up, got dressed, then told myself as long as I got INTO the gym, I could turn around and leave and get groceries and go home, if I wanted to. Since I didn't burst into flame or become magically surrounded by a pointing-and-mocking mob the instant I stepped in the door, I thought I'd do a few arm weights. It's a start. Sometimes it feels like all I'm ever doing is starting over and over, but I guess that's marginally better than just stopping and never starting again. A woman approached me in the change