Nov. 13th quickie
Published November 13, 2010 | 
Despite the fact that business hours were long over, the Konarak was unlocked when I got back from Starbucks. I had a key to the place but I never had to use it unless Sam was away on a business trip, which only happened once or twice a year anyhow. He stood in the centre of the gallery, looking at the same print I’d pointed out to the Arab guy earlier with the shoelace in the mud, but when I entered he turned to me with a grin. “Welcome back, nightingale.” His voice still bore traces of his homeland, although it was more in the enunciation of words than their pronunciation. It was the only thing subtle about his Indian heritage, because he otherwise could have just stepped out of a Bollywood film, perhaps one where he played the father of the love interest, complete with a thick handlebar mustache and a dark, clean dhoti.
“Hey.” I tossed my purse down on the armchair, and latched the door behind me. “You know anyone named Holden?” I’d spent the entire walk home looking out for bats. Although pretty sure he’d been joking about the vampire thing, I knew better than to put that sort of possibility entirely out of my mind.
“I assume you mean non-fictional? No, I do not. Why?”
“Met a guy by that name at the ‘bux tonight. Had a good conversation, but it was a little weird.” I shrugged, reaching up to pull the elastic from my hair. “And he called me ‘Miss Sunneborne’, but I definitely didn’t introduce myself like that.”
Sam walked over, helping me out of my coat. He always did sweet stuff like that for me, no matter how many times I asked him not to; he said that so long as he was alive and well, chivalry was too. “Perhaps he has seen some of your work at a gallery.”
“I didn’t even mention art. You saying I have an admirer?”
“It would not be beyond consideration, Leah,” he said.
“Yeah, well, I don’t think he was. I dunno.” I bent over to begin unlacing my boots – something I’d never have done here while working, but it would be easier to carry them up to the apartment than take the stairs with these kind of heels. “And then there was the fact that he left his cigarettes on the table, only they turned into goo or some shit after he left.”
Sam paused, my coat half-raised to hang on the rack set in the corner. “What do you mean?”
I glanced over at him. “Goo,” I repeated, not that it made any more sense. “Like a sticky gray mess. Like paper left in water until it dissolves, only that wasn’t what happened.”
He hung the coat up. “You have not taken any … medications, have you?”
“I wasn’t high, Sam.”
Character – Leah
Published November 11, 2010 | First off, I’m expanding the focus of my blog. No longer about just parenting, it’s gonna be about… gasp… me! And what I’m passionate about. A huge part of my life that’s not really explored here is writing fiction. This is the first of many posts where I’ll be sharing my characters, settings, thoughts, etc — and pretty soon, I’ll actually be posting some of my writing itself.
I virtually never write stuff set in modern times. I tend towards your typical low-technology fantasy world stuff, but a friend and I were chatting about a more noir-ish modern setting for an urban fantasy and I started brainstorming a character. The idea here is that magic exists, but it’s very hush-hush. Anything that’s in [square brackets] is very up in the air still and is apt to be altered. This is written in the form of a note to myself basically.
Leah [Sunneborne?]
Naturally platinum blonde hair, crystalline blue eyes, pale skin; tall and slender. Appears to be of Nordic heritage.
Interested in the inner workings of things, particularly in the mind. Her own thoughts tend to be scattered — she’s a multitasker at heart and very empathic — she understands things and feels an innate connection to them. She doesn’t, however, understand herself and has few memories more than three years old, and definitely doesn’t remember anything from more than five years ago. She is a skilled artist who very often ends up drawing things either working really well together (cogs and gears), or completely deconstructed (a body in very precise, surgical pieces) when left to her own devices, but otherwise is very skilled at copying/forgery. Anything that intrigues her, she draws. What she does remember, she has a photographic memory of, and doesn’t need to draw these things in detail); nonetheless she draws because she WANTS to remember, again, sometime in the future.
She battles[?] against a constant desire to destroy things (in small terms, she picks at her nail polish, the rim of her coffee cup, shreds paper, etc). If asked, she probably wouldn’t identify these as destructive tendencies, she’d say it’s “just something I do“. She tends to trash her friendships in a dramatic, spectacular fashion, not out of any maliciousness but a desire to move on to something new. Oddly enough, she knows no one who has known her for many years other than her uncle.
She looks something like an ‘emo girl’ but is not generally introverted, over-emotional, or angsty. She is very outgoing, active, and lively; [she thrives off social interaction and doesn't hesitate to approach anyone?]
When she gets really upset, she goes ‘over the edge’ to the point where it’s somewhat frightening; she’ll often laugh it off afterwards and refuse to talk about it, saying something like “Haha, Viking blood!” (in reference to her heritage) and not wanting to address it further.
Leah tends to eat a vegetarian diet although she isn’t actually one. She very much enjoys alcohol/drugs/etc but tends not to want to imbibe them because she doesn’t like to be out of control of herself. She has a sweet tooth. [She loves to dance and the wilder the music is (the more primal?), the more she loves it.]
She is a night owl by nature. She exists on the bare minimum necessary, lives in a small studio apartment above the museum where she works, the Konarak (named after the ‘black pagoda’ in India) – a museum owned by an older man she calls her ‘uncle’ although, given that he’s East Indian, it’s unlikely there’s any actual blood relationship between them.
If asked why she moved to New York, she won’t say she doesn’t remember … she’ll say it’s [for the art? for her uncle?]
Insofar as magic goes, she’s an empathic type, but she would more accurately be described as a fleshcrafter. Her fascination with how things work – mechanical or biological – paired with her artistic eye and photographic memory results in her being able to manipulate and displace muscle, bone, and nerves. It’s almost like she ‘paints’ or ‘erases’ these bits from people – for example, she could sever someone’s spine, paralyzing them, and then redraw it so they can move again. The limitation here is that she needs to be physically close to a person to have any sort of impact on them, and she could, of course, make a grievous error.
Leah is quite a lot older than she appears. She maintains a sort of agelessness due to her innate nature – something of a demi-goddess/spirit/etc – but she doesn’t realize it. If pressed, she’ll give her age as being somewhere in her mid 20s because she thinks that’s how old she looks. (The memory loss is self-inflicted, but what does she want to forget?)
Her uncle is more of a guardian than anything else; he knows her innate secrets and he, too, is a creature of magic, sworn to her. Their relationship is that of a devotee to a deity, although with her current guise and her constant memory loss [a fairly recent thing, in the past 20 years?] the role of ‘uncle’ has been more apt for him, as he provides for her without the significance of a ‘parent’ title. She does not remember her parents, but says they live overseas.
Insofar as goals, right now she doesn’t particularly have any broad ones. She enjoys her work and her art, and although she has an ever-changing circle of friends she’s not really interested in romance or establishing any sort of long-term relationship, and certainly not a family. (She NEEDS some kinda goal/vision for herself.)
GTT: Collections
Published November 11, 2010 | 
So hey, did you know we’re still doing Girl Talk Thursday? Yeah, even though I’m the lamest person possible and have basically never remembered I’m hosting a GTT in my life. Fortunately, I’m not this week’s hostess — Colleen is! — and we’re talking about collections.
I’m not huge on collecting stuff. My mom tried to start a thimble collection for me once upon a time, but so far that hasn’t stuck. I’d love to collect purses, but I’m a little bit too broke for that. Right now I’m pretty sure I collect small sharp wooden blocks for stepping on, since NOT A DAY GOES BY when I don’t.
But realistically? Okay.
Baby name books.
This is an obsession that’s been mine for well over a decade now. I started buying them for inspiration for character names in my fiction writing. You know those dinky little $3 baby name books at the grocery store counter? Yep. Or the huge “50,000… and 1!” tomes at the bookstore? Yep. I don’t discriminate.
I think this can be credited to the fact that I’m deeply interested in language, and names are the perfect, simple way to watch the evolution of language via different cultural influences on a region. Variations on Biblical names like Matthew and Mary are wildly popular in the world. I love seeing when masculine names are made feminine by simple virtue of tossing an “a” on the end, but then how those names often take on a life of their own.
I dunno. I FEEL PRETTY GEEKY TELLING EVERYONE THIS.
But baby name books. Yep.
The Nature of Beauty
Published November 10, 2010 | I struggle with how little I post.
I want to document everything.
I don’t want her to look at this one day and wonder why did she stop posting so often? did she love me less?
Because we adore her. I’m just struggling.
And you, my darling papaya, help keep me afloat.
Naked
Published November 8, 2010 | I’ve been quiet lately. In fact, I’ve been quiet for about a year now.
Maia is nearly 21 months old. That’s almost two years and I feel as if I’m not half the mother I should be. I know, I know we all struggle with this, but I feel like somehow I’m not doing enough for her, I’m not loving her enough, I’m not teaching her enough. I feel like I’m failing her.
My marriage is over seven years old, and there’s no question that I’m a disaster of a wife. I’ve not held a full-time job outside of a stint bartending, I’ve not gone to school other than a semester when I first moved up here, and I’ve not done a damned thing to advance myself as a human being. And it’s wearying on both of us for me to be this way. These things, at least, are easy to remedy, if I’d put the effort into them.
And there’s the rub: making an effort.
Being motivated.
NOT procrastinating.
These are other things I fail at. I know I can change them — I have the greatest motivator in the world, if only I could look her in the eyes and feel like I’m worth giving her everything I can. And it’s not just her I owe this to: it’s Chris. It’s my family. My friends.
Myself.
The truth is that after I had Maia, I fell into a deep depression. I never admitted it, because I didn’t think I had PPD — who wants to? And how could I? I mean, sure, I have a history of clinical depression, but all the books say you only have PPD if you want to hurt yourself or your child, and I never did. I never wanted to hurt anyone, I never wanted to run away, I never wanted to change my circumstances — so I couldn’t have had PPD.
I just lost myself.
I lost my voice.
Last January, I published my story on Violence Unsilenced. I thought it would help me, but it hasn’t. I’ve thought about that part of my life more in the months since then than I had in the years since I’d left. I’m not happy that part of myself is out there. I don’t feel empowered. I feel like somehow, I’ve betrayed and violated myself. I feel fucking horrified that part of my life is out there for anyone to see, and judge, and they can come right here to my blog.
Maybe this is all because I just loathe myself right now.
Or more accurately, I loathe what I’m not:
A good mother.
A good wife.
A good friend.
I need to get my head on straight.
Month Nineteen
Published September 13, 2010 | Dear Maia,
Today you turn nineteen months old and we have been SO BUSY together. We started the month off with a photo shoot using Mommy’s new camera.
You’ve been so snuggly. It’s awesome. You wake up with daddy every morning when he works, and he brings you into the bedroom to wake me up. You pass books to me, then you snuggle under the blankets and wait for me to read, all while babbling wildly. I am NOT a morning person, Maia, but I’m pretty sure you are.
Your grandma visited — briefly, only for a day — this month. So you snuggled her, too.
You love to read and be read to. You also have decided that you might not totally hate water on your feet and sand between your toes at a beach, which is a pretty big deal. You still can’t stand having dirty hands though, and when something — mud, fur, grass, yogurt — gets on them, you simply hold your palms out to me and wait (im)patiently for me to remedy this problem.
We have discovered that you LOVE trucks. This happened because we drove your daddy into work one day, and he works at a trucking company so the yard was full of big 18 wheelers. You stood at the windows, pointing and screaming with delight at all of them.
You are a pro at eating edamame out of the shell, and it’s still your favourite food. You are huge on anything that would normally be a condiment — honey, French dressing, ketchup — and will gladly eat it by itself. You like to suck the seeds out of tomatoes and then discard the rest (we call you the tomato vampire). You still try to get into my coffee every single morning, and whenever we’re out together and mommy gets a coffee? I have to get something for you, too, to distract you so you don’t try to STEAL mine from me.
(and just for clarity’s sake? no, she didn’t drink all of that, we shared it.)
You are either an ABSOLUTE TERROR to take out in public or the most wonderful, sweet child I could ask for. It’s so frustrating. You are very independent and therefore you don’t want to sit in a high chair or a booster seat, you want to sit like mommy and daddy — but you’re too small to reach the table so therefore you stand on the bench or chair and this stresses me out because you almost ALWAYS end up falling at one point or another and then next thing you know I have whatever food was on your hands all over my clothing because, of course, you catch yourself on me when I catch you.
For example, when we went to Ribfest.
You see that jacket? It is one you insisted on us purchasing for you at the Ex. And then you decided that you didn’t want it to be zipped. And then you decided you didn’t want to wear a bib. And then you decided you didn’t want the sleeves rolled up. You are also standing in a chair and leaning against the table, because this was what you wanted.
Now, I know I should probably be more of a disciplinarian. But let me explain to you what Ribfest was like: COLD AND WINDY AND RAINY AND WET and I was not going to deal with a screaming, tantruming child throwing herself into the cold grass and wet mud. So, screw it. You got your way. And I still haven’t washed the barbeque sauce off those cuffs.
But it doesn’t matter in the long run. All that matters is your happiness.
The world is your oyster, baby girl. We love you.
Love,
Mama & Dada
Weekly Winners, August 22-28th
Published August 29, 2010 | 
This is my first time participating in Lotus’ Weekly Winners meme & I am totally excited. I attended her photography session at BlogHer 2010 and I still remember a lot of the things she and the other panellists said, and I’m always trying to put them into action. I bring my camera with me EVERYWHERE these days and take pictures of anything that attracts my eye. These are some of my favourite pictures from this past week.
Let’s go to the Ex!
Published August 27, 2010 |
We took the train into Toronto on Wednesday afternoon.
We went to the Canadian National Exhibition (the CNE), better known simply as “The Ex”, where we met an assortment of characters, not the least of which was Sparky the Firedog. Because OF COURSE we went over to where all the firemen were, I’m not crazy enough to miss out on that.
Maia had the time of her life. As we walked around the kids area, she just laughed and laughed, staring at every ride and every person, as excited as she’s ever been. And then we found the petting zoo, which made her even happier. I have about seventeen thousand different pictures of her running around with the animals, but this is one of my favourites, because the way she’s looking off to the side and you KNOW she’s looking at the next animal she’s going to try to make BFFs with.
After the petting zoo, Maia sat down to determine where we would be going next.
But as we all know, running around a faire all day is exhausting. So we eventually wrestled (and I do mean WRESTLED) Maia into her stroller and within two minutes she was asleep. I didn’t get a picture of her sitting straight up with her head flopped back and fighting off sleep, but I did get this which is pretty damned adorable.
Do you know about the “Three Wolf Moon” t-shirt? It’s pretty famous. AND I AM BY PROXY FAMOUS FOR BEING WITH IT. Chris and I giggled like schoolgirls while doing this.
When Maia woke up, we went to go find some entertainment, and stumbled across this in the International area. There are two men up there on stage among the girls, and I didn’t notice this for awhile until Chris pointed it out. By the way, if you go to the Ex? Stop at the “from Columbia” booth to the right of the stage (basically behind where I took this picture from) — the Cafe Latte is AMAZING.
Maia loves coffee too. She kept trying to grab my cup, and when it was empty I finally let her get ahold of it.
When we got on the train, the skies opened up and rain came pouring down. Perfect timing! Because of the time — 6pm — the train was packed with businesspeople commuting out of the city, so we had to stand in the aisles. Maia didn’t seem to mind too much.
I’m really looking forward to going back again, every year, and seeing how she enjoys everything else there as she continues to grow. This year, she couldn’t ride on anything (no matter how excited to ride on a kids rollercoaster she seemed…) and next year she’ll possibly be tall enough to. I can’t wait!
The doctor who made my heart stop beating (and the one who started it again)
Published August 19, 2010 | At some point during this hazy, undocumented second summer of Maia’s life, she went in for a routine check-up and round of immunizations. During this, our family doctor decided that Maia had “breast buds” and needed to go for an ultrasound to determine whether or not they were made of normal breast tissue or if there was some underlying cause to their existence that we needed to be worried about.
During the ultrasound, we had two barbarian technicians who snapped at me as Maia screamed and squirmed and shrieked in my arms. ”Just hold her still,” they growled, and I, with frustration enough to put theirs to shame, told them to get away for long enough for me to try and calm our beautiful daughter down. It was an exercise in patience for us all, and when we left, I don’t know if any of us thought anything had actually been accomplished other than pissing Maia right off.
A week passed without word on ultrasound results. Everyone told me don’t worry, no news is good news. And I, being scared, not wanting to do anything to jeopardize the fragile certainty of if there were something wrong, they’d call me immediately, didn’t call to follow up either.
Time passed. I forgot about it. Until one Friday afternoon in mid-July when a simple envelope from our family doctor’s practice arrived in the mail, holding a single-sided business card. It listed the name and address of some other doctor at some other practice we’d never heard of, followed by an appointment time and date — Dr C, August 19 @ 2:30pm.
I freaked out. Chris tried to keep me calm. We called the doctor listed to see what this was all about, but they knew nothing other than that our family doctor had made a referral after some ultrasound results came in. We called our family doctor, desperate for information, but she doesn’t work on Fridays and all the secretary could tell us was “If anything were wrong, you wouldn’t be waiting until the middle of August to find out.”
I lost my shit.
I.
Lost.
My.
Shit.
I screamed and cried and hugged Maia until she started screaming and crying and shoving me away. Chris tried to calm me down, and we ended up in a massive fight over the fact that he wouldn’t validate my fury, my fear, my overwhelming how-could-i-be-such-a-bad-mother guilt. We waited out the weekend in terse silence and anger, and first thing Monday morning I was on the phone to my family doctor, demanding answers.
The only answer she could give, via her secretary? ”It’s about ultrasound results. We can’t discuss them. If there were anything seriously wrong, we would have told you right away.”
Fuck.
More time passed. BlogHer passed. Nagging at the back of my mind was the knowledge that we were in limbo with our daughter’s health and well-being. I let it slip away; sometimes, I forgot. Maia’s perfect and healthy and active, breast buds are normal, and nothing will happen to my child, things only happen to other people’s kids, but everyone thinks that until it comes for them, children act normal until their very last days when a sickness suddenly and dramatically leaves them an empty shell of who they were, when the monster that’s been lurking within them suddenly takes control of that perfect little person and steals them away and all we can do is scream why isn’t it me suffering, why does this happen, why her, why why why why…
And then last night, before Chris went to bed, he reminded me: Maia has her appointment tomorrow.
I slept like shit.
I woke up sick.
I drank two cups of coffee, too thick and too sweet and too syrupy with too much of my favourite hazelnut creamer.
I forced myself to eat a quarter of a bagel, then gave the rest to Maia.
I looked up the bus route to the pediatrician, reminding myself the entire time that Maia simply had to be fine. If she weren’t, we would know. My friends reassured me. My mother reassured me. Chris reassured me. DMs started arriving on Twitter with suggestions for dealing with my anxiety.
The fear we feel for our children is a suffocating force. I’ve been scared in my life, but before Maia I’ve never felt such abject terror, never had a pit in my stomach so deep I could spend decades tumbling down it head-over-heels and still not reach the bottom, yet expect that bone-crushing, life-ending impact to come each and every second.
We arrived at the pediatrician’s office ten minutes late. Dr C saw us almost immediately. ”You’re here because you’re worried about your daughter’s breast buds?” she asked.
Words began spilling from my mouth: “No, our family doctor, Dr S, was, I wasn’t worried until she told me I should be, I thought it was normal for a baby to have breast buds. I mean, a breastfed baby. I had them when I was little, and I’m fine, and everything I read said that Maia should be fine too, but Dr S wanted us to take her in for an ultrasound just in case.”
“Well, there’s certainly nothing wrong with you developmentally,” Dr C cooed at Maia, who smiled like she’d just found her soulmate. ”You’re perfect! Look at you!” Dr C swept my daughter up in her arms, and although Maia’s certainty wavered for a moment, I smiled at them both. Dr C looked at me seriously. ”Your doctor sent Maia in for an ultrasound?”
Yeah.
“Does Maia have hair in her armpits?”
No.
“Down there?”
No.
“Vaginal bleeding?”
No.
“Lots of acne?”
No. Probably will when she’s a teenager, judging by her parents’ skin, hahaha ohmigod why did I ever pass on these genes…
“If she’s not showing any of those symptoms, I don’t understand why Dr S would refer her for an ultrasound. I don’t even have any ultrasound results.”
The words that had come so easily earlier were hard to find now. I helped the Dr undress Maia so she could have a look for herself. Maia decided they were no longer friends with one another, but I was rapidly falling in love with the woman myself. I didn’t stay quiet, I just wasn’t sure how to put words to my anger. As Maia screamed and squirmed and shrieked, and we both tried to soothe her with words and playful touches and distractions, I managed explained the whole situation — ultrasound, silence, mysterious business card, lack of answers — to Dr C. She was aghast. ”I always call the patient when I get test results. Even when it’s good. That’s your child. I always — we always, everyone here — call. We don’t want you to be worried.” Finally, she pulled away from us. ”She looks fine. I’m going to call Dr S’s office right now and get them to fax over the ultrasound results. But you shouldn’t be worried, because I’m not worried.”
I smiled. I wasn’t worried, and I felt that calm because she genuinely wasn’t worried either.
Two minutes later, she peeked into the office. ”They’re faxing over the results right now. Do you want to wait here or in the lobby?”
“We’ll wait here,” I said.
Fifteen minutes later, she peeked in again. ”They have an odd idea of ‘right now’,” she said. “Do you want to keep waiting?”
“Yeah, might as well,” I said.
Fifteen minutes after that, she walked into the office. “Well,” she growled, “apparently they have a very different idea of what ‘right now’ means than I do. If you two want to go home, I’ll call you as soon as the results are here and we’ll talk about them then.”
I could have asked her to marry me (hey, it’s perfectly legal in Ontario). Instead I said: “Sounds good. Um, are you or anyone else here accepting new patients? Even just a pediatrician, for Maia.”
Dr C told me she only handles referrals and doesn’t do primary care for families, but, she’d find someone in the office to take us on. So as I got Maia ready to leave, she left. A moment later, she ducked back into the office with a piece of paper in hand. ”Normal breast tissue,” she read. ”See, everything’s fine! Oh, and Dr D is accepting new patients. She’s a family doctor.”
When we walked out into the lobby, Dr D introduced herself to Maia and I both.
I’m so in love.
Who knew parked cars were so cool?!
Published August 17, 2010 | Maia and I took the dogs for a walk together the other afternoon. It was beautiful outside, the sort of warm summer day cooled by incoming autumn breezes that make this such an amazing time of the year.
She took one dog’s leash and I took the other, and I just let her wander wherever she wanted. She ended up leading us down the sidewalk, and every car that passed did so slowly — as the driver grinned at us. Maia encouraged the situation by deciding to blow kisses to every patch of flowers and every parked car, then pointing and waving at every car that drove by. It was a very slow walk.
But it was wonderful. She takes such joy in the world, in the things I hardly think about anymore. She stopped and pointed at yellow flowers, then white flowers, then a manhole cover, babbling excitedly about each. We listened to a dog barking at us from inside its house, then she pointed at the window and cried, “DAAH! DAAH!” with a huge smile on her face. She laughed and laughed as a pair of squirrels chased each other across the grass and then up a tree.
When we got to the park, she promptly ran towards the big wood and metal jungle gym. There was one thing stopping her from reaching it, though: SAND. DREADED, HORRIBLE SAND. She circled that sandbox three times, then sat down on the edge and started crying, because while there was no way she was gonna let that icky terrible stuff get into her sandals, she reaaaaally wanted to get across it. So I, of course, picked her up and carried her to the jungle gym, where she stomped back and forth across it with joyful abandon.
Then we walked home, blowing kisses to cars and flowers all the way. I know everything is a phase, but this phase? IS AWESOME.