Unintentionally and Maddeningly Sexist

Last Sunday, we, like many couples, spent the day watching football. Notice I wrote couples. We still tend to think of sports as something a man watches alone, just him, his pork rinds, his beer, and his favourite recliner, or else with a bunch of buddies and half a dozen pepperoni pizzas. But those days are evaporating. Families do things together now, including watch football, and the NFL is the first to take note. They are actively courting female viewers and female fans because - shock! - that's a huge demographic, isn't it? If you want to keep expanding, you'd better not ignore the woman holding the remote. So they're making jerseys in smaller sizes, and making the players wear pink during breast cancer awareness month, and pretending to be mad when players hit their wives.

Football was never my thing, but it's one of Sean's favourite sports, and Sean is a sport junkie. He has no idea what's going on in the world unless I tell him, but he scours the internet for every written word about games played competitively. We don't watch a lot of TV, but he uses every spare moment to watch highlights on his phone or on his tablet. So I make an effort to watch the big games with him, and to bring him to see some of these games in person, a splurge he never considered before we met. And this year, to further bridge the gap, I joined a football pool.

Which means that last weekend, the conference championships, was a really big weekend for us. If you watched that first nail-biter of a game, Seattle vs Green Bay, well, I don't have to tell you how awful it was to watch. Sean and I both had our money on the Seahawks so of course they were down 16-zip at the half and didn't start playing football until the last 5 minutes of the game when they somehow came back but left too much time on the clock, allowing the Packers to tie it up and force it into overtime. Seattle rallied with a touch down to win the game, but not before wringing out just gallons of sweat from all the viewers at home.

Later that night, after the Patriots had deftly defeated the Colts, we got into bed to check out our standings in the the pool. Since I'd put my bets on all the right horses, I'd had an excellent week, topping off a pretty excellent season. Out of 186,077 players in our league, I somehow have managed to come out in the 99th percentile. 99th percentile, bitches! And I owe it all to Sean, who taught me everything I know about football, and who has struggled to remain somewhere between the 25th and 35th percentile throughout the season himself. Ouch. Why am I so goddamned good at this? I have no idea. I read what I can and I have no allegiance to players or teams. In fact, I drive Sean bonkers with my player assessments. He knows how good a guy is, what his stats are, how he played last year, and the year before that. I know if he's done a spread for GQ or dated Jessica Simpson. And I'm the one in the 99th percentile.

So the next day, Sean goes to work and inevitably ends up discussing the games with a male coworker who also was watching them enthusiastically. Sean was able to regurgitate to him some stats he'd read about the game - that the Packers had had a 96.1% chance of winning with 5:04 left in the fourth quarter (leading 19-7). They discussed the historic, unprecedented game in minute detail, and the season more generally, and the upcoming SuperBowl with glee. In fact, over the course of the conversation, the only thing that curiously did not get a mention was that Sean's very own wife had a super-stellar football pool record.

I've worked hard at that stupid pool, making picks every single week, and I'm proud of my record, which is way too good to be due to just chance, or beginner's luck, so when Sean failed to give me my props, I called him on it. He insisted that he'd just "forgotten" but I know damn well that if it was Sean's brother who had that kind of record, or his father, or his friend, or best of all, himself, he'd be boasting to everyone and might even consider reprinting his business cards. But his wife? She didn't get a mention. In fact, his wife doesn't come up when he discusses football with any other men, period. But forget about me? Forget about that 99th percentile? The guy who remembered that the Seahawks had just a 3.9% chance of winning that game? I don't think so.

But he assured me he didn't forget about me completely. In fact, during that same day of work, while heating up his lunch of leftovers, a female coworker commented on how good it smelled and he proudly told her that I'd made him a very nice meal the night before (during the first half of the Patriots game in fact) and that he was glad to have the remnants for lunch. So he remembers to tell people (or female subordinates, at least) I'm good in the kitchen, just not that I'm also really good at picking winners.

I told him that was a pretty sexist thing to do, and of course he balked. I will be the first tell you that Sean doesn't hate women, or want to keep them down. He's actually a pretty forward-thinking guy and doesn't mind when I out-earn him or out-run him or out-think him. But apparently there's a limit.

He thinks it's not sexist unless it's overt, but that's the worst kind of thinking there is. In fact, the worst kind of sexism is the kind you can't quite put your finger on, but happens all the time, to good people unintentionally keeping women "in their place", and that includes complimenting them on gender-stereotyped things, like cooking, and not on unstereotypical things, like football pools. This is called "benevolent sexism" and is a pretty dangerous thing considering people don't even realize when they're guilty of it.

So I'm calling out my sweet, sensitive, equality-for-all husband. It's not harmless just because it isn't intentional. And maybe individually these things don't mean much, but all of these slights add up culturally to a huge discrepancy that still exists today, in 2015. It's way too easy to reinforce a stereotype, and if Sean is any kind of barometer, it's hard to get someone from the dominant group to confront his own biases. We're all defensive about these things, but as citizens of this time period, and this shrinking earth, I think it's our job to be vigilant and aware.

Does anyone else feel as guilty as I do that our dogs have better lives than 80% of children? That's a pretty shitty thing when you think about it. My dogs are loved and well-fed. They sleep in warm, cozy beds, and have great medical care. They benefit from air conditioning and puffy vests and parks built just for them. We hire people to care for them when we're away, walk them when we're busy, groom them when they're gross. And I wouldn't even say my pets are spoiled! They just live in a North American home with a fenced yard and a mountain of squeaky toys. They're lucky, and so am I because they bring a lot of happiness to my life. But when I think that there are probably millions of children going to bed tonight not only without the luxuries, but without the basic standard of care that we deem necessary for our pets - because in Canada, we have laws not just against cruelty, but against neglect - that kills me.

How to Talk to Your Loved Ones About Your Upcoming Suicide

I am in the business of preventing suicide. I'm a special kind of therapist who intervenes in a "crisis" which is a nice way of saying I talk people out of jumping off a bridge. Ideally. So the fact that I'm also secretly a suicide advocate I keep firmly on lock down.

You've no doubt heard the maxim "suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem" - it's true in a lot of cases. Lots of people who commit or attempt suicide are also depressed, which is a nasty disease that colours our perception of things and distorts our thinking. Still, lots of people struggle with the decision to live or die for weeks, months, and years, because most don't really want to die, they simply want to escape - from an untenable situation, or from recurring thoughts, or both - and can't think of another way out.

I believe in the right to die. I'm not depressed but I do have a chronic condition that makes me not want to live. It's called pain.

If the pain in my body suddenly transferred to yours, you would probably die of the shock. But if you have suffered from chronic pain for years and years, you've built up a tolerance, which doesn't mean you don't feel it, it only means you don't die from it. Your body can keep going but your mind may not want to. There are days when mine does not.

Pain is the first thing I experience when I wake up, the last thing I feel before I fall asleep, if I can fall asleep, and the thing that prevents me from achieving real rest when I am asleep, and real joy when I'm awake. The pain is always first.

I'm in pain first, and at work second. I'm in pain first, and in love second. I'm in pain first, and sometimes I'm in pain second and third too. If I was being chased by a bear, I'd be in pain first, and terrified second. I haven't experienced a moment of pure anything in years. Not pure joy, not pure sorrow. I was in pain on my wedding day. I was in pain at my best friend's funeral. I was in pain the day my nephew was born. I can recall random days by describing the geography of my pain, the quality of my pain, the severity of my pain.

I've just survived the holidays, and holidays are hard. I dread them. There's too much travelling, which exacerbates pain, too little sleep, which exacerbates pain, too much company, which means that I have to cover up my pain and do a lot more pretending, which is draining and yes, painful. There's so much pain around the holidays that I can't even manage to place friends or family or food or fun in second or third or fourth. Pain starts to take over my experiences completely. Holidays are misery.

There is wonderful medication available that eradicates pain, and if you've just been injured or had surgery, this option is a blessing. It allows you to get your body through a difficult time without feeling the true consequences. For me, however, it's not a realistic option. I am not having a difficult time, I am having a difficult life. I have a chronic, incurable disease, which means I will never get better. It also means that if I were to take enough medication to blunt my pain every day, I would never get out of bed. I wouldn't legally be allowed to drive, I couldn't work. I'd be too stoned to really enjoy life, and eventually I'd develop impossible to control tolerance levels, and an addiction, and years of drugs would lead to organ failure and probably new pain. I stay away from medication as much as possible because I'd rather feel pain than stop living my life, which,  believe me, is a daily testament to how much I love life. Every day I choose agony just in case there might also be a little ecstasy. I still believe. But to get me through, I also need to know that when I'm done, when I can't take anymore, I can let go.

I don't know exactly when that will be. How much pain can my body really take, and more importantly, how much can my mind withstand? I already have days when I'd rather have not woken up. I think it about how sweet it would be to just keep sleeping, to not wake up to The Pain. I try to analyze my days: was today 40% pain 60% life? Or 60-40 the other way? I need to know that when the scales tip in a way that I find insupportable, that I can choose to end it. Because otherwise, the 80% days start to feel like 100%. Heck, the 40% days do, because I feel trapped and ignored. I need to know there's a way out.

But discussing this with  my husband Sean has not been easy. It's never been easy for him to live with someone in constant pain. He is not in constant pain, and he can never really understand what it's like. I'm constantly forcing myself to higher and higher levels of pain just so that I don't slow him down too much, and he's constantly slowing himself down so that I don't burn out. So we're both making compromises and we're both getting burned. But he likes me a lot and he doesn't want to lose me, can't really think about me leaving him on purpose. And I get how he'd see that as a betrayal. When we first started talking about my suicide, he felt it as a reproach and thought he wasn't making my life "good" enough. That simply wasn't true. He's made my life so much better than I ever would have thought. He's the reason I still get out of bed in the morning. It's just that, no matter what great thing is in front of me, I can't appreciate it the way he can. I'm always babysitting the pain. Sean knows my life better than anyone. He sees my dark days, he sees the tears, the many doctors, the many surgeries, the many scars. He sees how hard I work just to be a normal person, and he knows that while I'm doing my best to look like a normal person, I'm screaming with pain inside. Every single moment of every single day. He knows my smile is never really genuine. It's 10% fake and masking pain or it's 90% fake and masking pain. He knows. Lots of people in my life know but forget. I do too good a job at pretending and they don't realize how hard I'm working just to stand upright, just to keep my breaths even, just to not pass out. I'm good at hiding, I've been pretending for a decade, but Sean knows. And he's told me lately that he has been lucky to spend any time with me at all, that he'll be grateful for whatever I can give him, and that he'll understand when I cannot. I can only hope that stays true the closer we get to the end.

Meanwhile, we soldier on with our suffering. The end is not today, and I hope not tomorrow. I'm still making short-term plans and still believe that I will be able to honour the commitments I make. I'm still trying. I'm still living.

As a child packing for our horrid family camping trips, my mother would always tell us to "pack more underwear than you'll need."
This seemed like reasonable advice and so I've always heeded it.
Packing for an upcoming trip to Texas, I realized that in fact, I've never once needed an emergency pair of underwear whilst on vacation, and good lord, I hope it stays that way.

Confessions of a Shoe Pervert

I sort of hate the whole "women love shoes" trend that's been foisted upon us. I'm going to blame Sex and the City. It made women feel like they should love shoes, and it made men think that any woman who owned more than 3 pairs was a Carrie.

And the thing is, I have heard many a woman declare "I love shoes" while wearing evidence to the contrary on her feet. In fact, the shoes she was wearing might be evidence of having given up, or of something she found on sale at Giant Tiger after Octo-Mom picked through the bin, of something worn for comfort and bunion-support rather than fashion. But of "love of shoes"? No.

So I kind of hate that I myself feel a definite pull toward shoes. I really wish I didn't, but I always have. Even as a little girl, I'd refuse to play Barbies with my sisters unless my Barbie had shoes. Now, only someone who was once herself a little girl would understand this: every Barbie comes with shoes. Pretty high-heeled shoes, necessarily, because her feet are molded in an upward arch that will only accomodate very high heels. But those shoes are teeny tiny and they get lost about ten seconds after you open the box. So even in our house of 4 girls and probably 200 Barbies (no joke), you'd have to search forever and be lucky to come up with a single pair. So before any Barbie playing could commence, my sisters would oblige my demand and spend probably 30 minutes to find me one pair. One stinkin pair. And every other Barbie went through life barefoot.

Fast forward to high school, which for me, was in the 90s. Ugh. So many regrets. Platform Candies. Cowhide. Those stupid shoes that were like cowboy boots but without the leg. Patent leather MC Hammer shoes. 90210 hightops. Oh yeah. And, embarrassingly, shoes that my friend Kelly once declared were "so ugly they're kinda cool" as if that was the point, although up to that moment I'd seen only the cool and none of the ugly. But with that one comment I could suddenly see them for their brown orthopedic gender-neutral ugliness.

Now I have money and taste (I think. I hope.). And closets full of shoes. Three closets, and still my shoes bleed all over my house. Both my car and Sean's have pairs of my shoes in the trunk, and in the backseat (it's hard to drive in heels!). I have shoes in the garage. Shoes in my gym bag. Shoes at work. I have shoes in various animal prints. Shoes that have equal parts neon and bad-assness. Shoes that are glitter AND gold. Shoes so high that my nose bleeds. Okay, no it doesn't. But I do have tonnes of very tall shoes. I have a very tall husband, and still he has to stoop to kiss me. And I hate myself for the excess, even as I get a little thrill in my down-south parts just to try on a new pair.

And my poor feet. I've been very hard on my feet, which were shoe-resistant from the start. I have horrendously flat feet. I'll never have to go to war, but I also can't do anything without having extreme pain in my poor little tootsies. Like, crazy pain. It's absurd even to me that a lack of arches could cause such profound pain, but it's true. Add to that a terrible fall down a flight of stairs wherein I managed to sprain my foot in 3 different place, and then take off for Vegas just a few days later, leaving my crutches behind at the Bellagio because the casino floors just don't have a lot of room for disabilities (although they got me through airports like nobody's business). So needless to say the foot didn't heal. In fact, after a night of quite literally dragging it behind me as we made our frenzied way up and down the strip, I had to buy a pair of soft near-slippers, because my foot had swollen so much that my ballet flats had cut a ring all the way around my foot, I had this perfect bloody halo that was starting to look infected, and the congealed blood was starting to stick in the wrong places, and give me blisters. But I went back to the hotel that night to ice my foot in order to cram it into sky-high sparkly shoes because we renewed our vows at the Graceland Chapel and a girl cannot get married in flats. It's a sin. So that foot is now misshapen. Small price to pay, right?

And then I had a bike accident that resprained that foot and the truth is, it's now more of a club than a foot. It gets me around, but barely. My foot is somehow hump-backed. So most of the shoes in my closet, all those purchased pre-foot-deformity, don't really fit. So I have to force the bones of my foot to reconfigure in order to jam the shoes on. And then I sweat and swear and send up mental SOS flares all night long, deeply regretting my choices, but never ever making the right one because the outfit looks so much better, not to mention my legs, when I wear the crazy heels.

Yup. I really, really hate this about myself.

How many assholes does it take to review a movie?

Started a movie review blog with some friends:

www.AssholesWatchingMovies.com

Please visit and join us in our sometimes thoughtful, sometimes thoughtless discussion.

Something's in the water.

I sometimes have a love affair with water.
I mean, I always like it, and I definitely always need it.
But sometimes it's just so damn good.
Like, sometimes I can literally feel it nourishing my body as I drink. I can physically feel it plumping up the cells on my cheeks.
Is that just me?
And I've really learned the very pleasurable sensation of ice water post-hot tub. The cooling sensation spreads out in your flushed body and brings you back to life. It's so good.

Can you tell that I gave up Diet Pepsi a while ago?
It wasn't that hard to stop and I don't really crave it, so much as miss it, if that makes sense.
Like, I miss having an option besides water. Because I don't like the taste of regular Pepsi, and wouldn't want to drink that much sugar\calories anyway. And I don't care for juice. So it's water and then of course alcohol, and that's about it. It's given me an even deeper appreciation for water, but also sometimes a dispassion for it. Water just doesn't feel like a treat, whereas a Diet Pepsi I could bring with me to work and wait until the exact moment I needed it most and pop it open and immediately be flooded with relief. It was a pick-me-up, my only source of caffeine since I don't drink coffee or tea.

I'd been meaning to give up Diet Pepsi for a while, because of the whole brain cancer thing. But every time I gave it up for a while, I'd drift back because Diet Pepsi is so pleasingly sweet, and brain cancer is not an imminent threat, I don't think. Easier to ignore, at any rate, than a certain emptiness around 8pm where a frosty can of DP would do me an enormous amount of good.

Then my naturopath asked me to give it up. Asked me to trade it for regular Pepsi, even. Take the sugar, she said, give up the aspartame. And I knew she was right. In my readings about my disease, aspartame was listed as a potential cause of destroying the healthy bacteria in my stomach. So it was time to go. I thought I'd seriously have to detox from it. I thought I'd get the sweats, or visions. And really, I just stopped. So I wasn't as addicted as I feared I might be. I just really liked the stuff. Brain cancer tastes good to me.

So now I'm  on water. Lovely water. Sometimes I try to dress it up. Fancy ice cubes, glittery highball glasses. Bendy straws. Carafes intended for imported wine. And most of the time, water really does get the job done. It's the perfect beverage in many ways.

Until it starts giving me brain cancer too.

I live my life avoiding bedtime. Like, not only do I avoid it, but as it gets darker and Sean's eyelids get droopier, I start with distraction techniques. Like a marathon of the latest must-see, cliffhanger-heavy non-network TV series. All 6 seasons! And sex! And chicken nuggets! And hot tub! More sex!

But not reading. Reading is bad. Reading makes other people fall asleep even quicker. Reading is a sleep aid to a frustrating number of people. Me? I can never have less than 3 books on my nightstand. I never travel with less than 7. When I'm not sleeping, it's not uncommon for me to read a book a night. A whole night of tossing, turning, snapping on the light, picking up the book, reading, feeling a sliver of hope, turning out the light, pretending it's working, hoping it's going to work any minute, and then tearfully admitting defeat, turning on the light to read and repeat. But Sean? Four pages and he's out. OUT.

And it leaves me alone. And there is no lonelier thing than another night of not sleeping. Nights are long, and I dread them. I truly dread them. They make me sad, and every minute that ticks past 8pm makes me sadder, because I know what's coming: abandonment, frustration, anger, sickness.

It's hard not to feel resentment toward the person sleeping peacefully beside you. I know it's wrong. It's not their fault. They're doing what bodies do, and what life and health require. But it sucks, when you are in the depths of sleep failure, to have a perfect, shining example lying beside you, teasing you, accusing you. It's awful.

It's also incomprehensible. Like, why is my body refusing to do the thing it needs to do? And why me? I pay my taxes. I take warm baths, keep a bedtime routine, don't drink caffeine, exercise, keep my bedroom a "sleep shrine", practise yoga and mediation and deep breathing and drink bad sleepy time tea. I do all the right things. All of them. Sometimes for 72 hours straight. It's not fair, and that hurts.

It's almost funny how quickly frustration at sleep in general (or unsleep in general) turns into anger toward myself. Like, real hatred. I beat myself up for not sleeping. I get down on myself. The negative self-talk starts and then escalates, because it's the middle of the night and your thoughts are the only thing keeping you company so of course they go bananas. And it's all your fault for not controlling them! I start punishing myself. I'm not allowed to have a snack, or even water, because I don't deserve it. I can't watch a movie or check Facebook. I keep myself in strict isolation because if the alternative is bad enough, maybe I'll learn to just sleep already. Except I never do.

And I never will. I know that now. I've been a bad sleeper since day one. I couldn't sleep at night as a baby either. My grandfather summersaulted me over his head because flipping the baby would flip my schedule. Except all I did was barf on my grandfather and went back to not sleeping.

School was the worst. It starts so goddamned early and I would be lucky to fall asleep minutes before I needed to get up. Alarms are an extra layer of pressure for an insomniac. They keep exact count of your failures and count down to your misery. The pressure is this awful weight and every minute is full of rage. Setting an alarm will always trigger my insomnia. Always. But 3 days a week, I have to be at work for 7am which means I have to be up in the vicinity of 5am, which means I won't be getting any sleep that night. AT ALL. So for those three days a week, guaranteed I'm a zombie, and every day I get closer to collapse, but I collapse into a nauseated, achy, head-hurting puddle of CONSCIOUSNESS. I never collapse into sleep. Because it doesnt' work like that. Insomnia doesn't cure itself, it only feeds on itself. Eventually I'll need to give myself a blank space of time where it doesn't matter when I sleep or for how long. But that means carving up pieces of my life, or my work. Because I don't get to be productive or sociable when I'm up by myself in the dark hours of the night. I spend my days barely lucid, and in a great deal of physical pain because the wear and tear accumulates and the muscles never get their needed rest and replenishment.

People can't really understand the toll it takes on your body. Doctors always gasp over your blood pressure. I push through crazy stuff. I keep going. Sometimes I hit a wall, randomly, and have to call to be driven home because I just can't anymore. Which doesn't mean I'll sleep. It just means I'm useless. And that's how I feel half the time. Just completely useless. And I can't do anything about it, nobody can. All I can do is lie there and think good thoughts. Maybe it'll be tonight.

A million years ago I read somewhere that a perfect breast should fit into a champagne glass.

 

 

 

Oof, I thought. No way. I mean, not even on my best day, not even if I'm sucking in.

I made my peace with it a long while ago. Some cups runneth over.

But then I came across a champagne coupe and thought - ah.

 

I'm still not cramming myself into that thing, it might just sit upon me like a little yarmulke for my tits, but I can at least get over the Madonna-like proportions of the last one, and I can stop smirking every time I pour myself some bubbles.

I've always enjoyed the elegance and sense of occasion inherent in the flutes, but the coupe just seems to wink at me and lately I'm winking back.

Sean is full of shit.
All good husbands are, so I don't really hold this against him.
My suspicions are raised every time he insists I have a good voice.
This is patently untrue. And a "good voice" isn't really all that subjective. It's not just that I could never make a career out of it, it's that I probably shouldn't open my mouth, ever. Oh, I'm sure it's not the worst voice in the world, but it's definitely bottom third. And I know it. I can't stand to hear my own voice (and my laugh is so much worse), so if you ask me to sing, I will flat-out refuse.  However, if that same song were to come on the radio mere moments later, you'll probably catch me singing along. And I do apologize. I wish my voice were better. Or that I could resist a good sing along. But it's not and I can't, and them's the breaks. There are worse afflictions to be saddled with and I can't say I mourn this one all too often.
Just don't tell me it's nice. Why do guys do that? Sean is not the first man to insist, not just that my voice is fine, because maybe fine I could understand, in the rose-coloured glasses sort of way, where you overlook certain flaws in your loved ones because you must in order to remain sane.
But nice? No, sir, it is not.

Similarly, I was recently contemplating selling my guitar. Yes, this is tragic. I mean, not starving children tragic, or even selling a guitar you love and use tragic. I bought my guitar with good intentions, and I even took lessons, but I'm not good at persevering at something I'm not immediately good at. And I'm immediately good at most things, which only reinforces my pathetic inclination to quit things that are hard. What am I, eight? Anyway, it just kind of sits there, taunting me, reminding me of that thing I can't seem to learn. I mean, I got the chords straight. I practiced enough to get some baby calluses. I worked on strumming patterns. I even put strung some notes together enough to make out bits of songs. But I sucked and got frustrated and quit. Which Sean rosily remembers as me "having a good sound."
I mean, can you believe this guy?
He has to compliment me and encourage me on EVERYTHING and it's exhausting. Especially the stuff I feel are blatant lies. I know he's into me, but after enough years of marriage to have stopped counting, I think we get the point, Sean. But can we agree that I have enough actually great qualities that we don't need to make any up? I actually told him the other day that when he gives me false compliments, parts of my brain melt.

But it's the butt compliments that really convince me that Sean has Stockholm Syndrome. I mean, yes, if my radio is to be believed, butts are really big right now. Literally and figuratively, I guess. But no matter how many lyrics are devoted to this body part, I'm afraid I'm not getting any more bootylicious. And that's fine. I think I make up for it in other departments. But if that's what you're into, then move along. There's no junk in this trunk.
But Sean is forever engineering ways in which to walk behind me, and appreciate the view. He tells me I have a nice ass just like he tells me I look beautiful when in fact I've made no effort, or that I smell good when I'm not even particularly clean.
I think I would appreciate the compliment more if it was based in fact. Tell me I have great taste in music, that my legs are startlingly soft, that I have the most disturbing sense of humour, that I'm the best you've ever had. That, I'll believe.
But this ass? This ass is whack.

So there was this repugnant Katy Perry song on the radio yesterday (I realize that may not narrow it down very much) during which she dedicated it to everyone going to bed with a 10 and waking up with a 2 - caveat! - not her, though.

Because the truth that is not contained within her dazzling lyrics is that she goes straight to bed with the 2s. I mean, John Mayer? Russel Brand? Girl wouldn't know a 10 if he fell in her lap and sucked her cock.

Pants on Fire

Sean and I were in the car for no more than 6 or 7 minutes - long enough for me to have fiddled with my hair and my sunglasss, checked my phone, found the right song. And then the itch. I fought it. Fought it. Resisted. Nonononono. But who am I kidding? It's a miracle I've lasted this long, and most of my "triumph" is due to poor memory. So I blurt out to Sean - has he noticed any weird clanking noises coming from my car? Is it driving weird? Because I accidentally backed over a pilon a couple of days ago and dragged it a bit of a distance.


I hadn't really meant or wanted to confess this. In fact, at the time of the little incident, I told myself quite firmly that this would stay between me and Ruby (my car). But secrets have always chafed. As soon as it was out in the open, Sean assured me that my car was fine and that it would take so much more than a little nob of orange plastic to upset Ruby, and that I needn't have confessed. But he knows better. He knows that it wasn't about the car. I'm just pathologically incapable of holding things back, which is weird considering I have no problem whatsoever abiding my vows of confidentiality at work. But in my own life? I'm not a secret keeper. I tell Sean EVERYTHING. Everything. Poor kid. He knows my worst thoughts and doubts, he knows the things I dislike most about myself, he's well-acquainted with my demons. And I wish it was just that, but I can't keep anything from this kid. I might take weeks to find the perfect gift, wrap it lovingly, hide it expertly, but about 10 seconds later, even if it's still days or weeks or months before the occasion, I'll send him to retrieve and open the present just to ease the tension. Because for those 10 seconds, the secret was KILLING ME. And it's not even a bad secret! Even things that aren't lies or secrets get spilled. I don't omit, either. It might be harmless and witness-less, but if it happened, then I'm owning it. All the clumsy, stupid shit that I wish no one knew or even guessed - but then, if I truly wished that, then couldn't I find a way to keep it to myself? Or is Sean such an extension of my own self that I don't even distinguish the boundary between he and I?

I know not everyone has this problem of oversharing, but what I really want to know is, am I the only one? And the great thing about asking is knowing that if you're like me at all, you'll have to speak up. To hide it would be impossible.

Medical Tourism

We "wasted" our summer vacation on a painful surgical procedure in Cleveland, but we're not bitter :)

Destination: Cleveland, Ohio.  The kind of city that makes border agents raise their little eyebrows and ask "Why?" and then red flag you anyway for your return trip. Because they know what we now know: there is no good reason for going to Cleveland. It's a gritty city, mostly forgotten by time and progress, abandoned in places that should be built up, untended by its elderly population who still fly tattered flags and display sun-bleached, cat-scratched lawn gnomes, but where youth have fled, no grasses are mown, no cracks repaired, no cars purchased this century. It's the kind of place where, if you deign to use a public restroom, you make sure your travel companion stays firmly within "screaming distance" and then you don't sit, you hover, and hope you're up to date on your shots. It's the kind of place where hotel staff don't feel pressured to conform to normal hygiene standards, or use the proper contraction for "is not."

Ohio is a drunk-uncle state. Not particularly wanted or respected or remotely useful, but for reasons no one can now remember, part of the family, and kind of hard to eject. Everyone else is rightfully embarrassed that Ohio keeps showing up to Christmas dinner, as it were, and asking for handouts while they're there. You see, Ohio has no shame. Its major exports are begging and pleading, with imports of all the pity it can muster. "Please let us build the Pro Football Hall of Fame," it will whine, "no one visits us unless they're forced to!" And so America the great occasionally throws Ohio a bone - the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, a booming Olive Garden franchise, and a couple of world-class medical facilities just to round out the experience. They've crunched the numbers, and it turns out people who are suicidal with back pain are more likely than healthy people to be willing to come to Cleveland, and now they've built an industry to support it. There are private clinics springing up between boarded up pawn shops, and dirty "extended stay" motels and neighbourhood Applebees to go along with them, because patients usually bring a caretaker, and so a beautiful thing called "medical tourism" is born, and Ohio is all over it like a tramp on chips.

There's Nothing Wrong With Ohio.

When travelling, it is of utmost importance to obey the laws of the land upon which you enter. In Qatar you can't expose your knees or shoulders. In Thailand you must wear undies at all times. In Blythe, California, you are forbidden from wearing cowboy boots unless you actually own at least  2 cows. Use of or even just possession of confetti is illegal in Mobile, Alabama, and in Los Angeles, silly string can earn you a fine of $1000 and\or up to SIX MONTHS IN JAIL. You can be fined in Australia for swearing. You can do hard time in Arizona for shooting a cactus. I don't know why you'd shoot a cactus, or even wish it harm, and I certainly don't want to find out what happens when you tell your hulking cellmate that you got 25 years for cacti-related offenses. At the very least, your prison nickname is going to be pretty lame.

So in a way, Ohio is doing the courteous thing by providing helpful poems to help tourists obey the laws of their land. "Drive sober or get pulled over" being a popular one quoted over and over along highway billboards. Getting pulled over actually seems like the best-case-scenario when driving non-sober, so it's a funny consequence to emphasize, but it gives you an idea that they don't really approve. And in fairness, it's hard to find something that rhymes with "a steering column through your solar plexus!" (drive sober in your lexus? praise god you're not in texas?)

Another favourite was the ubiquitous "Click it or ticket" buckle-up campaign, although it's hard for me to imagine that we still live in a world where stating this is necessary. You may as well have declared "murder is frowned upon here" because honestly, in 2014, who the hell is driving without a seatbelt? Anyone? Actually, I think I personally would get more use out of the murder-is-bad reminder because I don't think there's any event in the world that would cause me to drive unbuckled. You get in the car, and without even thinking about it, you're just buckled, it's that automatic, happens in less than 3 seconds. Even if there was a dire emergency, it would take longer to think "Will I save time by  not buckling up?" than to just do it already and get on with it.  Even if you had a large piece of scrap metal protruding from your chest, making the seat belt strap less than comfortable, you gotta think: a) why didn't I call an ambulance? b) I'm already in pretty serious condition, so let's make double sure we don't add a steering column to the problem! c) I'm already bleeding out, so I suppose a little seat belt chaffing isn't the end of the world d) it would be really silly to get pulled over for this while doing 178km\hr to the hospital. So I think it's safe to say that we're all buckling up, and if there truly is some moron out there who isn't, I'm guessing a snappy poem isn't going to enlighten him (and neither will a ticket). But murder? Well, I consider myself basically a lamb and only sometimes a lion, and rarely ever a homicidal bitch. But I suppose I can imagine a scenario in which case I am feeling like someone needs to die. I've been angry. I've been chip-deprived on day 3 of a heavy flow. I've made pie crusts by hand. So yes, the feeling is not unknown to me. I don't think I'll ever act on it, but every now and then, a gentle reminder wouldn't hurt.

Love and Dirty Bandages.

I was in the shower, but not under the spray, howling like a crazed, feral animal caught in a trap. Big, gasping moans, guttural screams, panicked sobs. I was fresh from an agonizing and mutilating surgery and was paralyzed in pain. My husband, Sean, stood holding my towel, unable to help. My body, overwhelmed with hurt, was shutting down.

We should have been in Paris. We planned to arrive in time to imbibe champagne for my birthday, and then to walk along the Seine in summer,  eating buttery food  by day and watching the city twinkle around us at night.

Instead we went to Ohio, "medical tourism" we're calling it, to see a specialist who carved me up, and left me looking like a Walking Dead victim. In bleak moments I wonder where those hunks of flesh have gone. Burned up, I suppose. Meanwhile, I am a half-eaten burn victim, screaming with every step, trying hard not to let anything touch any of my exposed parts, trying to stop the angry blood vessels from spilling, trying to soothe the regenerating nerves, trying not to catch glimpses of myself in the mirror. Instead of the Eiffel tower, I have my own bloodied sheets and not much else.

Except. Except I have discovered this new side to my husband. Sean has always been a very sweet and patient man, but the truth is, when it comes to love, we don't speak the same language. Sean is a man of few words and no emotion. Strike that. Seemingly no emotion, we'll say, because I know if he were here, he'd protest that he does feel. I just don't see it.  It seems that he is not moved by anything, not particularly passionate. He never cries, but he's also never overcome by joy. I am his opposite in every way. So though I never doubt that he loves me, we sometimes struggle to really express it to each other in ways that the other will recognize. Sean loves me by filling my car with gas and giving me the good parking spot and emptying the dishwasher. I love him by planning elaborate, romantic trips. And when I spring them on him, practically panting with excitement, he can often muster an "Oh, neat" but it always falls short of what I'm expecting. Which is just my way of saying: I do the things that I'd want, and he does the things that he'd want. It has taken time, but we are learning each other's language. We're becoming bilingual.  He's not much for sentiment. He's a doer, but those things that he does are translatable: I love you, Jay.

Now I have been reduced to being his dependent, and his patient, and a terrible patient at that. Sean has become my nurse, one more gentle and delicate than I ever would have guessed. We could easily have a nurse visit the house to take care of my wounds. The bandaging is a never-ending battle, but Sean insists on doing it all himself. He winces when I wince. He soothes me when I'm hyperventilating. He waits me out when I can't take anymore. He never flinches. The sight unnerves me, makes me horrified and sick, but he looks in my eyes and tells me I am beautiful. The smell, he assures me, is the bandages, not me. I worry that I haven't shaved, or plucked my eyebrows, and he tells me that I am natural and lovely. And I believe he believes it. He hasn't lost his temper with me, not when I've lashed out, taken the pain out on him. He calls me brave and strong.

He's gone back to work - a lawyer you don't hear about in jokes, the kind that does true and honourable work - and he worries over me constantly. It is I who must reassure him. I am managing with the apples and the drinks and the pills that he has left. I lie very still, pray for sleep, and count the hours til he is home. I assume that work is a reprieve for him, a small breath of fresh air, but he's still coming home, happy as ever to see me, to spend time with me, even if it means browsing Netflix again, and watching as I fall asleep halfway through a 22 minute episode of god knows what.  He brings me gifts, big and small, so I know that he has  been thinking of me. Recently I unwrapped a piece of costume jewelry from a store he knows I love. It is a pendant that I already own. I laugh. Maybe someone else would be annoyed that their husband hasn't noticed this piece hanging on her wall (if not her neck), but I know the truth: he saw it and knew instinctively that it was me. Perhaps subliminally he remembered it, but at the very least, he knew I would like it, and clearly I have. Twice.

We have this thing, he and I, a mutual distaste for schmaltz. We can never be too mushy. If he says I love you (which is rare unless post-orgasm), I typically respond with "You better." Now I hear myself saying "You must."

So it's not France. But it turns out to be kind of romantic, if you look at it a little cock-eyed. We have discovered new ways to love and be loved. And there will always be Paris.

Best Couple Ever

A little while ago I asked that you spare us a minute and vote for us in a contest my husband was inspired to enter for "Best Couple Ever."

Very sweet of him, and very sweet of you to oblige us.

I've found myself reflecting on this notion of the "best couple", a silly notion, and a title impossible to bestow because although voting is anonymous, some of our generous friends and family have let us know we have their support despite being from very fine couples themselves.

Love is not a contest.
Marriage, as you may know, turns out to be this incredible, complex little thing, each one so unique that you can never truly know what it's like if you're on the outside looking in, and even the two people in question can spend a lifetime trying to figure it out . Even as insiders we sometimes struggle to uphold the very values and goals that we ourselves aspired to in the rose-coloured vows that we took. Married or not, any long-term relationship takes some work.

Love and marriage do not exist in a vacuum. Ours exists within a framework of all the successful relationships around us, and even the ones that have come to pass. In fact, I think I've probably learned more from the "failed" relationships, my own included, because these have all started out in the success column and slowly (or explosively!) made their way into the black. Is it luck? Experience? Willingness to look the other way? Settling? Grit? Fate?

I am probably too old and too married to still not really know what love is. I only know how it feels: like I'll take the bad times because of the good. Like I'll do whatever work is necessary to keep that fluttery feeling. Like I belong curled up in his arms. Like my life is terrific without him, but way better with.

Are we the best couple ever? Probably safe to say we are not. But we are getting better, because every day I hold his hand, and every day we still choose yes.

I am the world's worst patient and Sean turns out to be a gentle and patient nurse. Ladies and gentlemen, I do not deserve him.

Namaste And All That Shit.

Sean has started doing yoga with me.
I am awed and mystified that he would agree to this.
We do yoga on Sundays - not only on Sundays, but always on Sundays.
Our Sunday rule is : we don't drink until after yoga.
Sometimes we have to do yoga before breakfast not to break the rule, but it works for us.
Sometimes the yoga itself doesn't quite work for us, but that's okay. I try to fail with panache if fail I must.
I am returning to yoga after a long absence due to my disability. I have not recently become abled again, just a little more brave, a little curious, a little more willing to try. Sean is a complete newbie, so we are finding our footing together. He's got his body type going for him, long and lean like the tall glass of water he is. I'm a little round teapot beside him, but it takes all kinds, right? Refreshing in our own ways.
He has always been an athlete: swimming, volleyball, basketball, rugby. My high school sports were more along the lines of smoking pot and reading liner notes, but who's counting?
At any rate he's quickly discovering that yoga is a very different animal, and a surprisingly good workout. He's also realized how old he's getting, and how cocky he was in his youth. All those early morning practises where he skipped the warm up and cool down stretches? They're killing him now. His legs have paid the price. He isn't as flexible there as he should be. My legs, however, are my strength. My arms, of course, don't do their part. There's a point in our instruction where the yoga teacher wants you to bend over, hands on your mat, and hop a little so that all your weight's on your hands. I haven't made it through a single class yet without cursing her over that. There is almost always a point where I feel nauseous, sometimes from overexertion, sometimes from expressions like "smile through your collarbones" or "flower your buttocks", but there's also always a point where I feel a sense of accomplishment. And stupidity. You can't roll around the floor like a happy baby without feeling just a little stupid. And just try pointing your belly button at your heart. Feeling stupid now?
After challenging ourselves with the plank, Sean will start to feel his abs just a few hours later. For me it tends to take another day before I'm feeling it. We call them "yoga abs" and I'm pretty sure mine take longer to make themselves known because the pain has to travel through so much belly fat first. Sean tells me this is "biologically impossible", but he's always trying to use logic on me, which, I assure you, is the real biological impossibility.
But before yoga abs comes yoga penis, which is a glorious thing to behold, and a very good reason (maybe even the only reason) to put off post-yoga drinking for another, say, 5-6 minutes.
We're so fucking zen.

For All the Fathers, Young and Old

I made and sent 4 father's day cards this year.
None were for my father.
Most days, if you were to ask me, I would not own up to having such a thing. A father.
In fact there was a man who fathered me. He was a bad man and most likely still is, but I pushed him out of my life and haven't looked back.
This post isn't about those kinds of fathers.
I have maybe been a little sensitive to the whole dad thing over the years. I feel melty just seeing a dad turn up for his kid. It gives me pause every single time I see a dad throwing a ball to his son, playing soccer with his daughter. There was a time I thought that was just a thing in movies, but I have since known many men, an inspiring and heartening number of men, who are those kinds of fathers.
It thrills me to see my brother-in-law softly kiss his son on the cheek.
To see my dear friend play princess with his daughter.
To see my father-in-law on the floor, building trains and playing superhero with his grand kids.
To hear my grandfather boasting about his great grandsons, of which he now has three.
And to see my mother's new husband, not trying to be our father, but being a strong, loving figure all the same. Willing to call us his family. Doting on grandkids who aren't his by blood but who couldn't love him more even if he was.
It's a blessing, a blessing a thousand times over, to have such wonderful men in my life.
Happy father's day to them all, to you all, and to my mother, who was all the dad and twice the mom I ever needed.
xo

Zoom Zoom

My father was a truck driver, and so each summer his left arm (the hanging out the open window arm) was always much more tanned than the right.

I am not in the family business, but I do drive a convertible, which has tanning problems all of its own. In fact right now I have to admit I've got a convertible burn, which is not great, but also not terrible, because this is not my first convertible, and so I've learned a few tricks of the trade.

1. Seat belts leave tan lines. However, they also save lives, so I can't discount them entirely. I do put the chest strap behind me and depend solely on the lap part. I usually wear clothes in and around my lap anyway. Sunscreen in the glove compartment.

2. Sunglasses are an absolute must. Not only do they keep bugs out of your eyes, they also keep the front part of your hair in check if you wear them just right. I don't much bother to tame my hair. I actually love the feeling of it blowing back behind me, but I do attempt to keep the front strands out of my eyes, and perhaps more importantly, out of my lip gloss.

3.  You learn to sing like a ventriloquist. Now, like most people, I have never willingly been to a ventriloquist show, so how do I know how they sing? Well, I have been on a cruise. And it's nearly a guarantee that if you're on a boat, you're trapped at sea with at least one ventriloquist. Only cruise directors think they're appropriate entertainment. It's how any ventriloquist makes a living. So yes. You learn to sing like one. Mostly you just learn to enjoy your music in your head, and keep your head nodding\car dancing to a minimum. But if your jam comes on and it simply cannot be helped, then you mouth the words, and keep the actual singing repressed. Because no one needs to hear that. No one wants to hear that.

I absolutely adore my little convertible and I could never go back. It's changed my whole attitude to driving, because it changes the drive. I slow down. I keep my car neat. I take the longer route that goes down by the water (to feel a cooler breeze on my skin, maybe even a little mist in the air). I can smell the lilacs and feel the warmth of the day and hear little kids ring the little bells on their bikes. A red light becomes pleasurable when you tilt your head back to soak up some sun. It's not just a commute anymore. My 40+ minute drive to work is a new way to be connected to the environment. There are no blind spots. I see things I would normally have missed. Some men whistle, but most people are friendly. Pedestrians chat at intersections. They ask questions. Another convertible driver will give a jaunty over-the-windshield wave.

In the fall, when the weather's a little cooler, you'll find me top down, windows up, heat on. It's a luxury. The salesman told me it would be just like sitting in a hot tub. It's not. Either he doesn't own a convertible, or he doesn't have a hot tub. But there is an indulgent bite to it. And maybe that's the whole point of a convertible: just a small touch of indulgence gets added to an otherwise ordinary day.