Musings of a Wench

Hello, Internet. It's been a while.

And oh how things have changed. 2008 was a hell of a year, and I can say with quiet certainty that I am deeply okay with it being over. It wasn't a bad year, exactly. It was just a turbulent one. I don't even know what to say.


Look. In April, I asked, to know what the root of this [anxiety] was. And I can now tell you what it was, beyond any shadow of a doubt. No matter how often I told therapist #1 (and no matter how many times x10 that I told myself) that the fear was from marrying in to John's family, the truth of the matter is that that wasn't it. The reason I said I didn't want to get married yet for the first six years of our relationship was because the back of my brain, my nervous system, my intuition all knew what I couldn't not process in the front of my brain. It was in fact John I couldn't marry, shouldn't marry. Will not be marrying.

I realized I had to end the relationship 2 days before he ended up in a near fatal car crash in the Middle East. Which was awkward timing. The whole thing was awful, and I could have handled it better. So could he, however. The day about a week later I realized that I was right, that this was over for real, was the moment he screamed long distance calling me stupid, calling me lazy fucking housekeeper. He tried to put it back together, but I had to escape. The deal I've had since the beginning was the day that he became his father was the day I walked. Instantly. And it was Vince's voice yelling at me over the phone. (I thought I meant the day he hit me, but the first sign of true Vinceness was always my walking papers - something I'd made clear very early.)

I miss him - I miss him as my best friend. The day before he came home, about a month later, I knew I had to say the words 'it's over' to his face... (he wouldn't let me over the phone), I was on my way to a work function, when suddenly it hit me. I'd made my peace with the relationship ending, I'd stop wearing the ring months earlier. I realized that I was losing my best friend. It was like being gutted.
I did, too. We were friendly for a while, but John decided after about a month that we were not going to be friends, and that was that. It's a loss, and it makes me sad.

It was so the right thing, though. Haven't had a panic attack in months. Have no regrets about my decision. Am happier than I've been in more years than I can remember.


Also, and this was a little complicated, I've fallen in love with someone, and it's been so easy. All of it. The falling, the him, the everything. We're going down to Lethbridge for Boxing Day for a couple of days. I've been promised long games of canasta and lots of rum. And no drama. His *mother* offered to switch Christmas to the next day just to make it easier on Dave. Like it was no big deal. His family is nice and pleasant and fun. I went down for Thanksgiving - after 24 hours it was like I'd known them forever and it was all so comfortable. I like them. Which is great, because I'm rather head over heels with Dave. My parents like him, all my friend like him. My sister wants him to set her up with one of his enumerable cousins - she wants to marry in to his large farm family. She also says that she can't remember the last time I looked so pretty and happy.

I am happy. Happy and relaxed. I swear to god, it's like everything that was clenched has relaxed. And there was a lot that was clenched.

Dave is so different - and yet so similar in some ways. I actually know Dave through John, from University. They're both structural engineers, they're both exceedingly smart and funny. But Dave comes from a huge (relatively functional and happy) family (42 cousins!). He gets along well with his (funny and nice) family. He's deeply loyal. He moved through the world without doubting himself at every turn, or being worried about random strangers judging him. He knows who he is, and owns it. He's a huge sports fan. The apartment I'm sitting here typing this in is decorated as a shrine to Lanny McDonald and Theron Flury. (Flames players from the 80s.) It's what he's interested in - hockey is what he's passionate about. He's not apologetic about it - it's who he is. But it means that he's just as happy that I have my own things. John hated it when I read books - seriously. Dave? As long as I'm nearby, he's happy. We've whiled away a pleasant evening on the couch, him watching the game(s) and me reading and watching occasionally.

Look. Dave is just so easy to be with. So fun. He likes me for me. When I'm with him, I can breathe easily and just not worry. I can have my own interests and opinions and feelings and THAT'S OKAY. It's nice, you know?

He also thinks I'm beautiful, and when I'm with him, I feel like maybe, just maybe, I am. It's so nice to not have an insult slid in to every compliment. It's so nice to feel like me, on my own, as I am right now, is enough. Is more than just enough. It's nice to feel like I'm allowed to be me, as imperfect as that may be. You know?


Let's see. I've had my half the house bought out. I've purchased a brand new shiny blue Toyota Corolla. I'm living in an apartment two stories above Dave, in a decent building full of nothing but young pot smokers and old people. My job is secure for a good while, I think, even in this crashing economy. Dave and I are talking about a 3 week wander around Europe this spring. One way or another, I'm buying property when my lease is up. I just celebrated my 27th birthday, and maybe I'm not where I thought I would be, but you know what? I was living my life according to what I thought I should do, according to the plan in my head. Fuck the plan. This is my life, and I couldn't be happier. I'm going to finish this rum and diet coke, drag that adorable man away from his computer climb in to bed with this wonderful man.

Internet? I think this may be it for this blog. I'm going to finish copying everything in to a word doc (including all those diaryland years), have it professionally printed and call it a day. I read follow all of your writing every day, please know that. I just think that right now? I am happy and don't have much to say. My life is working out, albeit in new and mysterious ways. I'm happier than I've been in longer than I can tell you. I'm 27 years old and you know what? Despite the fact that a year ago, I wouldn't have believed you if you told me that this is where I would be, I couldn't be happier. This is my life, and I love it. Complicated and messy? Sure. Full of laughter and fun and love? You bet your ass.

I win, internet. I win.

Labels: grown ups, identity, life, marriage, the boy, wedding

posted by Morgan @ 11:13 p.m. 5 comments

I would like to feel something else, please.

It is astonishing about now, in the midst of a frantically busy month, at the end of a fabulous and busy weekend, at the end of a day that had4 different events involving more than a dozen different people, days before John arrives for a vacation, that i can be just so SWAMPED by the Sunday weepies, even still.

I stay so busy that I can't function. Fucking vacuuming - I've stalled for like, 6 months and really should before John gets home Wednesday. I have plans and activities, I keep busy. And yet, I'm sitting here, listening to Matt Good sing to me of sorrow and rage, weeping. Again.


I'm out 4-5 nights a week, these days. I barely come home to check the mail, it seems. I stay so busy, and let I'm still here on Sunday night, weeping. I can't stay busy enough - no matter what I try, I still end up here almost every Sunday, waiting for the hours to slip by, waiting for the bright respite of a new week. Someone asked me at the bachelorette on Saturday how I've been coping, seeing it's been 8 months already - they remarked at how well I was doing. At least 3 martinis in, I told the truth, and they seemed shocked. I guess I seem to keep it together. (Then again, this same woman thought that I was Erin's sweet and nice friend - which set of hysterical laughter from those who know me well. I'm not that girl, but I guess you can fool some of the people all the time.) But I'm not fine. I stay busy - so busy. Even in some ways busy in what probably are bad. But I'm out and I'm moving and I can't slow down unti lSunday evening, and here I am. Again and again.

One weekend, after having a panic attack in slow motion for the entire day (I went to the mall for shampoo because you can't lose it in public), I came home and drank an entire bottle of wine with dinner. Sliding myself out of my skull into a puddle on the carpet was the only way I could think of to stop it - it was not in any way healthy but it worked.

Every other day is fine. Every other day is full. Yet, today, as I got in the car after event 4 and pulled on to the highway, I could feel it start.

No matter how much time I spend with people I love, I am so lonely. It's been 8 months, you guys. 6 months to go. When does his absence stop feeling like I've been kicked in the chest?

He's home in 3 sleeps, you guys. 3 sleeps and I still miss him so much it hurts.

That's what it is, in part. (I'm thinking through my fingers here.) It's one thing to have foreign vacations in far away lands - it's another thing to have him home in OUR BED for just two weeks. I've partially got so used to his absence that it's only a phantom limb, most of the time. But this? The sheets will still smell like him - I'll have laundry of his to do when he's gone. I've been doing pretty good at building a pseudo single life here for the last 240ish days. And then he's going to he back, to be here, and then he will leave again, and that's, I guess, the part of this that's killing me. It won't be enough - of course it won't. He'll leave, and there will still be 185 days more to go.

Enough, Morgan. This is not helping. Go do the fucking vacuuming. Enough. enough.

Labels: life, solo year, the boy, twisty, vacation

posted by Morgan @ 8:32 p.m. 4 comments

I am tired and my body is confused. (I am tanned though.)

Travel is so disorienting. I just got back from the Middle East again (and I do love that sentence, so please excuse the pretentiousness that drips off of it) and am feeling deeply dislocated. I walked out of work yesterday at 4 (boss and I both snuck out early) in to nice afternoon sunshine. The day before, at 4 (clock time, because who the hell knows what time the body thinks it is) I was standing in a bookstore in Heathrow buying trashy UK magazines. The day before I was in Muscat, in a museum of Omani history. The day before that, I was snorkeling in the Gulf of Oman, getting stung by microscopic jelly fish. They day before, I was in the backcountry of Oman in an expensive 4x4 landrover, truly in the middle of nowhere.

Today we're having a freak snowstorm. This weekend it's supposed to be +20 in Calgary. Last week in Nizwa our car registered +40. I'm going snowboarding soon. My body spent 9 days with an eleven hour time difference, and I transitioned home a little better than last time, but I'm still so very tired. I was tired the whole time there too - I don't think I made it to midnight more than one night all trip.

(The trip, of course, was fabulous and wonderful and amazing and crazy and expensive.
Full of ocean and mountains and tent camping at the highest peak and being upgrade gratis to a six star resort and a landrover and a yaris and backcountry dust and souqs and goats and seeing grinding poverty and true opulence and pretty much living out a national geographic special in the back country. Really fucking amazing, all told. Pictures to follow, probably. I also do a powerpoint for friends and family - if you have any interest, I can email it to you. I am a nerd.)

Labels: life, the boy, vacation

posted by Morgan @ 9:44 a.m. 0 comments

I may still be hungover

Oops, missed a few days there. Thursday was my mom's birthday, and Friday was my company's Christmas party, which pretty much totally rocked. We didn't get a big name headliner this year, like we have in the past, but there were 4 performers, the food was really tasty and the table we were placed at was so good I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to sleep with whoever made the arrangements to thank them. Like, the CEO was at a table a row behind me, across the aisle. Front row centre, baby!

I drank a fair bit. Nathan, Trisha, Greg and I stayed until 1:50, when the band quit, dancing and chatting the whole time. Lovely evening, I must say. Stranger than words not having John there, but otherwise an excellent corporate party. Yay working for the man!

Labels: holidailies, life

posted by Morgan @ 9:55 p.m. 0 comments

I am Female, Age 26.

I had an interesting experience tonight. I volunteered to be part of a psychology study about depression at the university. It took two hours, and was quiet interesting. More than an hour of questions, 10 minutes of experiment, some more questions, a happifying period, and some more questions.

One of my coworkers treated me, when I told her about this, like I was going to do some fabulous altruistic thing, but that's not true at all. When ever I get depressed, I read about depression. (Actually, that carries through to every single thing in my entire life - I think about x, so I read about x. X, randomly over the years has been: suicide, depression, mental illness, motherhood, marriage, travel locations, sexuality, food, history. I am a book whore, and I'll read anything.) I know it's not that normal - most people, when depressed, don't seem prone to reading, especially about their condition. But that's me all over - always happy to hunt down information. Life without books, in wenchland, would be not worth living. So I did this study, which I did for free except the $5 to cover transit expenses, I did for the greater knowledge good. I mean, other people have volunteered for the studies that made their way into the books I have that (may have) helped me in the past. The least I could do is return the karmic favour.

Plus! An hour to get to talk about my problems for free! Still trying very hard to keep busy so the time without him is less lonely! Bus fare!

Okay, kidding about that last one. Mostly.

Labels: boredom, holidailies, identity, life, twisty

posted by Morgan @ 9:10 p.m. 0 comments

Lookback at the 25 in 25 list

Time for a lookback at my 25 in 25 list. (Ah, corporate lingo.) I did much of it, but let's start with the failures, shall we?

Read a classic novel - I read about 200 book and yet didn't read a single one that counts as a classic to be. That's really, really embarrassing.

Make a crazy fancy dessert, just for fun - Wow. That's also a shame. Sure, I made really crazy fancy dinners regularly, but didn't cook much in the way of desserts, period.

Work out at least once every two weeks at home, one way or another - I am ready to take fully half points for this. Since I posted this list, I've been doing dance classes once a week, yoga at the studio once a week, and joined a gym. So for the first part of the year, I was working out at home more, but for the latter, I had no more time. So - half points.

Contact at least 2 friends I have let drift, and meet up with them (Lunch with Ami, Feb) - Yeah, I'm not a good friend. Sorry.

Do a really, really obscene cross stitch - I started it in early November, and am about a quarter finished. It is so, so awesome. Again, half points.

Sent at least one postcard or real letter every month (Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Jun, July, Oct) - Okay, I didn't make it. I got a fair number of letters and cards sent, but not one a month for sure. I did right 14 in October for John, but that doesn't totally count.


And then there is all the shit I did manage to do!

Can or preserve something (two types of pickled beets, a jar of rhubarb chutney and a couple of jars of home made tomato sauce) - I've almost never eaten pickled beets before I made them. (I made them for my boss for Christmas.) They are GOOD! The rhubarb is because John was making cordial, and I stole some of the 20 pounds he had collected (which was in addition to the 15 pounds that went in to making wine earlier in the season. It's only the first full year since the plants were transported. Uh, anyone want some rhubarb next year?). The tomato sauce was after getting some tired romas from a grocery store, and made sauce on a whim. Canning is easy!

Donate money to charity (I am my company's Heart and Stoke Big Bike Coordinator, so I had to donate money. Aug 30; Food Bank via Corporate Challenge. Oct 25; donation for Corporate Matching, Oct 15) - Yeah, I totally did this one.

Do a whole routine for John without talking, forgetting or stopping (Feb 3, baby!) - He giggled the whole time.

Flip upside down on the pole (April 4) - now it's easy.

Stay in shoulderstand for 5 minutes (April 12) - This will never be easy, I don't think.

Stay in headstand comfortably for 5 minutes (April 12, for a relative value of comfort) - Relative is so the right word.

Read an interesting non-fiction, non-biography book (Ghost in the House: Motherhood, Raising Children, and Struggling with Depression by Tracy Thompson; Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies & the Truth about Reality by Brad Warner; The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order edited by Marcelle Karp and Debbie Stoller; The End of Food: How the Food Industry is Destroying our Food Supply - and What You Can Do About It by Thomas F. Pawlick) - There were a few more after this point, but I stopped being bothered to record them here. So clearly - love fiction, can happily read biographies and memories and essays, and will read the right non-fiction. Just doesn't like Classic Novels with Value. Sigh.

Take a non-fitness class (maybe bookbinding?) (Collapse! Sept - Dec 07) - A fascinating university course. It's all the fun of university learning with none of the hard work!

Make at least three new journals (Jan 2, one book bound, Apr 30, one chocolate log book made, Christmas list book, Nov 15) - Not my best work, perhaps, but done none the less.

Finish writing and get my cookbook printed through Lulu (before Christmas!!) (Dec 7, but won't get it in time for Christmas. Oh well, close enough.) - Amusingly, in November coordinated a cookbook for a family friend, doing pretty much the exact same thing. And it was late too! Not my fault though.

Do the rude Chinese cross stitch (1st one done April, 2nd one done October.) - Now, to frame it.

Pay off Cathy and Vince (May 27, and thank GOD!) - Best thing ever.

Take my parents out for dinner (Dec 8, after Handel’s Messiah, August - Chinese restaurant before the fireworks) - Not really nice dinners, but dinner and entertainment none the less.

Try a new craft (beading?) (Embroidery - I'm doing cute sushi napkins) - I put it down to go back to cross stitching, which I like better. Will finish them eventually.

Suck it up and have Polish Grandmother over for dinner (Mar 29, September 29) - I AM a good person.

Grow a garden - and actually water it this year (Peas and tomatoes and carrots and lettuce and potatoes and strawberries all good things.) - It did... lousy. It wasn't a great summer - too hot in July, too wet in August. I did get fabulous tomatoes though, and the late carrots weren't bad. The potatoes in the pots worked better than in the ground. The wild strawberries in the spring were fabulous. The peas were a weather induced write-off, ditto the beets and Swiss chard. The herbs did well though - especially the 4 foot tall lemon tarragon bush. Next year? I'm thinking tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries and beets again. Plus more tomatoes.

Paint another room of the house (the laundry room, July 07) - With John "about to leave" every week for months, I didn't get any other renos done.

Go to plays, beyond our Theatre Junction subscription (Chicago, Jan 25 FRC company; Famous Puppet Death Scenes, Feb 2, Theatre Junction; The Retreat from Moscow, Feb 7 ATP; Solo: The Doubt within Me, Feb 23 Theatre Junction; Show No. 2, Mar 16 Theatre Junction; Nunsence, Apr 13 Stage West; Unbound, Apr 14 Theatre Junction; The Movement Cabaret, Apr 20 Theatre Junction (outside of subscription); The Underpants, May 16, Workshop Theatre; Twelfth Night, July 17 The Shakespeare Company; Dads, XX, Storybook Theatre; The Full Monty, October 5 Theatre Junction; Cocktales, Nov 9) - I LOVE like theatre.

Have someone over (for dinner?) every month (Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, July, Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov) - Look! I'm practically overcoming my social phobias!


I totally did not manage 4 things, I half managed 1, and I started another. Still, I accomplished 19, and with the half points I just decided to give myself, that's 20 out of 25. And of the 4 I missed, I half did 2 of them. So all in all, I think I did pretty good. I'm really glad I wrote this list - it's really made me feel much more accomplished. Now, of course, I have to think of the 26 in 26 list...

Labels: 25 in 25, family, food, garden, holidailies, life, solo year

posted by Morgan @ 10:46 a.m. 3 comments

Wouldn't want to rush in to something with like, planning

I am so predictable.

It's October 30. NaNoWriMo starts in two days. I thought of the genre weeks ago (trashy vampire chick lit) and then stopped thinking about it. I got the vaguest hint of character last night, during a bout of insomnia.

And... that's about as much story development as I plan to do. Thus setting myself up for another year of cracktastic novel writing. (Last year's was a hot mess of aliens, a road trip from hell, Vegas, food porn, and by the end some poolside lesbian scenes - because at that point, I was killing time and words until the end, because I was well aware how cracktastic is was. But fun! In a way that never, ever involves rereading it or showing it to anyone...)

So we'll see. I was debating doing the Serious Book, that deals with my Darryl issues and all that heavy stuff, but then John reminded me that he's not around to pick up the pieces when that sends me into a bad place. So fun, mildly trashy, vampire chick lit it is!

Of course, it's not like I've even figured out the mythology of my vampires, but hey, I probably have a few days before I need that. Plus, it's not like I'm trying to get this published. This is just to prove that I have the discipline and if I reach far enough I can find some creativity. No plans on giving up my day job!

Labels: life, NaNoWriMo, writing

posted by Morgan @ 3:51 p.m. 4 comments

Clearly not there yet

At what point does exercise become an addiction problem? Seriously? Today was fall renewal for my at work fitness classes. MWF is fitness combo - a variety of cardio and weight classes. T is ashtanga yoga/pilates class. Monday night is level 4.5 pole dancing class. Thursday night is intermediate (critical alignment) Iyengar yoga.

And I'm in the process of joining a gym.

Okay, sure, it's spalady, and it's less that $18/month including tax, but still.

And all this exercise, and I still weigh the same, and still measure the same. I could kick your head off, sure, but still.

Sigh.

Labels: body, identity, life

posted by Morgan @ 2:52 p.m. 1 comments

Sure, I've always been a little dark and twisty

This has been a hard year, emotionally. I spend most of the winter moored down in a nasty bout of depression, made worse by the fact I was sick pretty much every single week, always with something new. I know depression and illness go hand in hand, and in my case the season hurts too - going through old records makes a clear case for my depression being worse in the winter than in the summer.

But things were better. Winter ended and the sunlight returned. I started to feel more like a human. After a half dozen doctors appointment and hours of online hypochondriacing, I was sent to an allergist, who very quickly diagnosed that I had outgrown almost all of my multitude of childhood allergies - all but one: cats. And it was a doozie. My inlaw's cat was more or less destroying my health - it had got so bad my heart had started to have this scary irregularity. Not to mention the infections, the illnesses, the missed work, the inability to get my heart rate up while exercising, the lung xrays and the bottom tiredness that goes with an endless illness. I last went to their house a few days before the allergist day, and I haven't been back since - 2 months and counting, and I haven't felt this physically healthy in years. It's glorious. (I am very allergic - from the single pin prick, I had a loonie sized swell in 15 minutes. It was the size of my palm by the end of the hour. My entire arm was red and puffy by that afternoon. And I spent the next three days with a violent allergy attack, complete with watery eyes, sneezes and sinus issues. From a single drop in my blood stream!)

So things have been better, and I am going to have to stay conscious and be diligent that they don't get worse. I am not trying to tell myself that I'm not allowed to be sad or anything stupid like that. I've just got to be careful I don't slide too far down that slope...

Labels: life, solo year, twisty

posted by Morgan @ 3:55 p.m. 0 comments

I had my first panic attack about this last night

I'm trying to wrap my brain around my soon to be quasi single status. I feel, sadly, underprepared.

We've been dating for 5 years, 8 months and 16 days by this point. We've been living together since August 2004, and moved into the house in June 2005. That's more than 20% of my life we've been together. We both moved straight from our parents houses in together after we graduated university. That's like, my entire adult life.

(And yes, of course there have always been a few reservation with the whole fall-in-love-and-mate-for-life-plan we've got going here. All theoretical, however. I would be hard pressed to imagine a better match for me. My only changes would be to render his family far distant, and make him read more. The second is something I can easily live with and the first is probably a life time work in progress. It could be worse. Always.)

In essence, I've never lived by myself. It's not that I think I am irresponsible - I may the bills, keep the house moderately clean, manage to get to work on time every day and have a full life. It's more that... It's a big house, and they require upkeep. John, I swear to god, instinctively knows things about the house. Like: what a soffit is and how to replace them. Or: what to do about a leaky basement. Or: how to replace a kitchen tap without even thinking about it. Or: how to kill bugs without screaming like a girl first. Or: how to rip a second story deck down to the joists and built a newer, far better one, without help. You know, those kind of things.

Not to say he's perfect either - we'd been noticing a bit of a smell in the house, and after scrubbing down the whole kitchen and emptying all the garbages and checking all the mouse traps and plants and such, we were stumped. My mother walked in and said, "when the hell did you last replace your furnace filters??" We looked at each other in puzzlement, then dawning comprehension - the answers was something like, "uh, it didn't occur to us...". There were even some left behind by the previous owners - problem solved, and now we'll never make that mistake again. But, you know, there are all sorts of things.

And then there is the silence. The loneliness. The girl rattling around an empty house. The learning to cook for 1. The responsibility. All while he is 11,250 km and 9 time zones away.

Labels: house, identity, life, solo year, the boy

posted by Morgan @ 9:58 a.m. 1 comments

Collapse!

One of the things on my 25 in 25 list was to take a non-fitness class, and I just signed up for a class at the UofC. It's so unbelievably dorky, and so, so me. It's called Collapse, and he's the description:

Labels: 25 in 25, boredom, life, solo year, the boy

posted by Morgan @ 3:52 p.m. 0 comments

So. Saudi Arabia, eh?

So I guess it's official now - time to start mentally dealing with it. Baring a failed medical, John's off to Saudi Arabia for 6-12 months. For work. With a maximum of three weeks leave time. Starting probably in September. So yeah. I'm staying as calm as possible. It's not easy, but what else, really, is there to do?

Logically, this is the best possible time. He will need to have spent at least a 8 months in the field to be promoted past a certain point. This is a good time - we've got the house and no move in sight (or, well, ever). We're not in the middle of planning a wedding. We're not pregnant. We don't have small children. This experience should pretty much guarantee that getting his stamp will be easy. The pay increase is decent. I'll probably fly out to visit him once, instead of him coming home, and let's face it - a week in Dubai is a little more exciting that driving through central Idaho. (I am not allowed to accompany him, and am strongly encouraged not to even try to enter the Kingdom, to meet elsewhere. So you know, travel. It's a great opportunity for him, especially at his age. I mean. Saudi Arabia! Beats the crap out of being sent back to Fort McMurray any day. (Even though he would be able to come home at least once a month...)

SO. I'm remaining calm and happy for him and calm. Did I mention I've chosen not to become upset the way I did all those years ago when he was sent to Ft Mac for the summer? Because I am. Calm.

(Actually, currently I am FAR MORE UPSET about having to go to Creston with his entire family, including Other Grandma and Mildly Gropey Grandpa than anything. I wonder if that's a 2 bottle of gin or 3 bottle of gin weekend?)

Labels: family, life, the boy, vacation

posted by Morgan @ 4:20 p.m. 4 comments

Would a rose by any other name...

Names are a strange thing. So much power, and yet...

John, for example, has some pretty severe name problems. Maybe disassociation is the word? His legal name is John. To his Polish family, it's Jan, but they call him by his diminutive name, Jaś, said 'Yash'. His English speaking family, to a person, calls him Pumpkin. In school in French immersion, he was often called Jean. On the internet, he normally uses Johnny. I call him by a random assortment of pet names, and only sometimes by his first name. To no one's great surprise, he has trouble with names, both realizing when someone is talking to him, as well as remembering other people's names.

My name is Morgan, for which there are no easy nicknames. There's not even a French equivalent, so in school it was just 'Morgan' with a French accent. There were, however, a random assortment of pet names from my parents. Nothing fixed like Pumpkin though - when we first were dating, I'd be talking to his mother and say something about John and she'd have no idea who I was talking about - for them it's not a nickname, it's his name. His Full, Real Name. (And yes, it creeps me out. I mean, he's 24. Names that are cute for a toddler are a lot less cute for a grown man.)

But for all I'm pretty comfortable with my first name as being Me, I don't tend to hear it much. John doesn't use names if he can possibly help it. (I think we'd been dating for 3 years before he called my parents by name.) My parents tend to use pet names. Most people, especially in the business world, tend to avoid names, at least that I've seen. Even in person with friends, it's more, 'hey!' than 'hello Morgan'.

The result is that every time anyone calls me by name, I flinch a little. Maybe flinch is the wrong word. Twitch? Start? Am surprised, at any rate. Even in the body of an email it has the power to surprise me.

Am I the freak here or is this an example of how casual our society has become, that first names are so little used? Or is this merely my experience, painted clearer because of John's obvious name confusion? How does identity fit in to all this?

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, and I really wish I had Ginny's knowledge of theory and ability with words. I'm fumbling around my point here - it's not really clear in my own head. Today my friend Tina sent me an email about the inlaws that started with, "Oh Morgan. They’re going to h8 you no matter what you do, aren’t they?" The sight of my name was a short - almost a highlighting of what she was trying to say. Same thing when my boss uses it in conversation.

Sigh. I don't have an ending for this as I barely have a beginning. I'm thinking a lot recently, about things, and I swear to god, the more I think, the more tangled I get. Off to ice the best god damn cake my inlaws have ever eaten.

Labels: identity, life, the boy, writing

posted by Morgan @ 9:01 a.m. 3 comments

Weeks later and I'm still affronted.

So a few weeks ago we had the Other Grandmother and mildly gropey grandfather over for dinner, along with John's parents. It was only the second time the grandparents have seen the house, the first been the month we moved in, so we had to give them the house tour, of course. Now, I'll admit it's a large house, and the 'tour' often gets derailed by games of foosball, because dude, that's way more fun than checking out the scary unused bathroom in the basement. At any rate, it may be a large house, at least by the standard of say, yuppies our age in this city. But even still, it's no mansion - it's a late 60s suburban house. Well. The tour managed to take an entire HOUR AND A HALF to go through, in part because we had to stop and explain the origin or every single bit of John's wall collections (which include sticks and similar shaped objects from his travels and another corner with coral and fish skeletons from his travel). Every. Single. Piece. Every single goddamn rock had to have it's origin explained. I kid you not. Oh, sure, they didn't ask about the dozen oil paintings my grandfather did hanging around the house, but had to be told the origin and collection history of each small shiny rock. God. SO BORING.

But fine, we eventually get to the storage room in the basement. Technically, it's an illegal basement (the window's too small) but we use it as a storage room. Other Grandma, who for the record complained about every single thing served that night - the water was from the tap, she didn't want to drink the bottled water, the cabbage salad was too spicy, there were potatoes roasted with the veggies, the chicken had skin, the meringues were much sugar, there was something wrong with the strawberries I put on top, you get the idea. Other Grandma takes one look at our storage room, a room I take a fair amount of pride in (check out the canning!) and snipes, "you cook from cans all time!" in the most rude, judgemental voice possible. (On an evening I served homemade bread, hummus made with beans from a can, cabbage carrot salad with homemade dressing, two roast chicken with roasted potatoes, celery root, and carrots, and meringue nests with strawberry mixed with sugar to form their own syrup. All this on a weeknight. Not exactly processed canned food.)





Now, look at those pictures, keeping in mind that this is the basement storage room, a repository for Costco runs of tomatoes, and giant bags of rice. Now, sure, there are a lot of canned tomatoes. Tomatoes are very bad and very expensive in February in the white north, and I am happy to use canned at those times in pasta sauce. I mean, of course! I used canned beans on weekdays for quick meals. I also have lots of dried beans for times when I have more time and energy. Again, I feel no shame in using canned beans to cook meals with. I mean, they're beans. In liquid. Not exactly Evil Processed Food, you know? There are still dozens of jars of jam we made, pickles I made, two types of relish I made, garlic jelly I made... There are multiple types of flour, and rice, and pasta. Sure, there are also some boxes of cereal (mainly used for nuts and bolts) and a fair amount of pop, but that stuff is for parties - we buy when it's on sale.

I am a good cook and I pride myself on cooking stuff from scratch. Yeah, sure, I know I don't grind my own flour or make my own vinegar, but come on. This is NOT the storage room of a packaged food eater. Hell, do those people even have giant food storage rooms? Sure, I have a weakness for those Asian noodle soup bowls, and I use canned tomatoes and I only make my own coriander chutney sometimes. The fact that I have more than one option for coriander chutney, however, is a sign that I am not what she implied of me, that old bitch. John didn't get the slur, didn't see the hostility. But trust me, it was there.

At any rate, check out my storage room. The pictures are simply covered in notes - I love that feature. As a bonus, check out the bar photo - can you guess what else John collects? *grin*

Labels: family, food, life, the boy

posted by Morgan @ 3:12 p.m. 1 comments

25 updates

As you may notice below this post is an update of my 25 in 25 list. I think, give it's 5 month tomorrow, that I'm progressing rather well. A lookback, shall we?

1. Read a classic novel [This, for all I read constantly, is hard for me. I did buy the Morte D'Arthur yesterday at a book sale, so hopefully I'll get this one done soon.]
2. Can or preserve something [That's a summer thing, so it's not surprising I've not done it yet.]
3. Make a crazy fancy dessert, just for fun
4. Donate money to charity [I tend to do this in October when I can get company matching.]
5. Work out at least once every two weeks at home, one way or another [I'm pretty close to this, if I'm allowed to count cross country skiing and snowboarding. It's not perfect exact, but I don't feel I'm failing too badly.]
6. Do a whole routine for John without talking, forgetting or stopping [He giggled like a school girl the whole time - not at me, more like he couldn't believe it was actually happening.]
7. Flip upside down on the pole [I still need help up, and help sliding down, but I'm up and working on it!]
8. Stay in shoulderstand for 5 minutes [God, I hate shoulderstand. I spend the whole time choking on my own breasts. But I did it. And then did it again the next week.]
9. Stay in headstand comfortably for 5 minutes [Seriously, for a relative value of comfort, I did it. I mean, okay, I popped a couple of capillaries in my eyelids, but still. I went up, I breathed through the whole thing and did it. I think I actually stayed up for 7 minutes, so I'm calling this a success.
10. Read an interesting non-fiction, non-biography book [Okay! It looks like I read a lot more non-fiction than I thought I did. Yay. Notice any themes though?]
11. Take a non-fitness class [Not yet...]
12. Make at least three new journals [When I finish this one...]
13. Finish writing and get my cookbook printed through Lulu (before Christmas!!) [And it looked good!]
14. Contact at least 2 friends I have let drift, and meet up with them [One down, one to go.]
15. Do the rude Chinese cross stitch [I am just about finished the first of two pieces.]
16. Pay off Cathy and Vince [2 k off, baby! We'll be paying them as soon as John's sister, who is flying in for a week, goes back to England. Don't want to compete for attention or whatever.]
17. Take my parents out for dinner [Lower class restaurant than expected, but oh well.]
18. Try a new craft (beading?)
19. Do a really, really obscene cross stitch [Or possibly latch hook rug...]
20. Suck it up and have Other Grandmother over for dinner [Done. And the bitch complained about everything from the water to the salad to the veggies with the roast chickens to the dessert. She did, however, like the house. You know, because that part's 'John's responsibility' or whatever.]
21. Grow a garden - and actually water it this year [Can't plant yet! I am mapping it out in my head as we speak though.]
22. Paint another room of the house [Summer project - I'm thinking guest bedroom.]
23. Go to plays, beyond our Theatre Junction subscription [Done! Lots of plays, with many more to come - yay!]
24. Have someone over (for dinner?) every month [We've done really well with this, sometimes having people over more than once a month. It's a good thing, I guess. I mean, I like to cook, it gives us an excuse to clean the house, see our friends, relieve our guilt obligations, etc.]
25. Sent at least one postcard or real letter every month [I keep buying pretty stationary to make me even more excited to send letters. If you ever want me to mail you a letter using some of my pretty, pretty stationary, which includes hula girls, tony the tiger, stripes and spots, and some nostalgic dead gold fish (it's cute, I swear!) email me your address and I will send you something. Because I have lots of extra lilac stamps, you see.]

Over all, I think I'm doing pretty good with this thing. It's pushed me to do a few new thins, and hopefully in the next 7 months I'll get around to the rest of them.

Labels: 25 in 25, life

posted by Morgan @ 8:33 a.m. 2 comments

God. I'm talking about sports.

I went to a hockey game last night - my first NHL playoff game ever.

I have to confess, so you understand where I'm coming from, that I'm not a huge sports fan. My father has almost zero interest in sports - he only read up who's doing what the few days before his monthly poker game so that he can be part of the conversation if it comes up. John has interest in doing sports, but not watching. Well, except for Olympic ski stuff and a little bit of playoff Calgary hockey. At least once every two months I thank John for not being interested in sports. It's not that there's anything wrong with it. It just seems, for many people, to suck hours of their lives away in front of the tv. John's father, for example. The man in crazy about European football (soccer). He wanted to miss his daughter's graduation from university because the first preliminary game of the world cup was set to go at the same time. Seriously. I will admit to watching the Olympics a lot - actually, only the winter ones, I'm not too interested in the summer events except the water sports - but that's about it. So you understand that the whole Sports Phenomena is a little alien to me. (Now, the act of participating in sports is a totally different issue...)

So I had tickets through work and they're good seats. (Good enough I spent most of the time deciding that Rhett Warrener, who was all scruffy with facial hair, looked like a sportsgoers Patrick Dempsey. I was sad when he took a puck to the face and had to go have a little lie down. And probably stitches.) So they're good seats, lower bowl, and the place is PACKED. My guess is full house, which is around 20,000 people. 95% who were wearing red - there's a whole 'C of Red' thing going on. Everyone is going nuts - after all, first playoff home game of the season.

And the only thing running through my head was bread and circuses. (okay, fine, it's not cheap, but still.) It was cultish. And I've gone to more than my share of regular season and Hitmen (WHL) games, so I'm pretty used to the whole sports fan thing. But this was unbelievable. It was a cult, a mob mentality. And the yelling! Everyone around me yelling at the refs, at the players, giving advice, heckling, screaming... It was insane. I felt that I could use a good set of psychology, anthropology and sociology texts to explain what I was seeing. I mean, intellectually I get it, but to see it? To hear it? I mean, at one point the crowd was measured at 115 decibels, which is the same as an air raid siren! To know, given the hostility that came from a few crappy ref calls, that the whole place could riot? Yeah. It was pretty intense.

Thank god they won, though. 3-2. The last few minutes were pretty intense - enough so that I even got into it. (Did I mention when they score, or at the end if they've won, you can actually feel the heat from the natural gas flares they set off? It's pretty nifty.) I still don't get the whole Sports Thing, but even I agree that actually being at the game can be pretty exciting.

Now to see if I can score some Hitmen round 3 playoff tickets... They're actually doing well.

Labels: life, sports

posted by Morgan @ 9:38 a.m. 2 comments

Talk about a random entry

Things are better, I guess. Spring is coming and I can see daylight. I'm trying hard to keep active (all those endorphins) and it helps. I just don't want to talk about it - not even in my paper journal. I did the depressed teenage online diary, and it was boring then and it would be worse now. So enough of that.

I do have a small rant. (If depression is anger without the enthusiasm, I seem to be getting my enthusiasm back.) Shopping. I've never been a big shopper, not really. Honestly, I'm too cheap. I mean, it's clothes. An eighth of my wardrobe is still, at age 25, handmedowns. Now, if we're talking grocery shopping? I'm a spender. If we're talking plays and concerts and the like? I am more than happy to pull out my credit card. But clothes? Eh.

I was in the mall today (I work downtown, over one of the many interconnected malls) buying a Flames tshirt (John made me) and was walking back to my building, going, "well, I could shop. I guess. It looks like there are some sales on." And I just couldn't do it.

Part of it is good old fashioned self loathing - always made worse from seeing yourself naked in a small room with lousy lighting. The rest of it is the way clothes fit. Listen. I work out. A lot. I have killer legs - to the point where sometimes during fitness classes I find myself admiring my own legs in the mirror. Sure, they may still be too big for boots, but they are cut, with muscles showing distinctly against each other. I am strong, and shapely. I love them. I like my ass - again, all the working out and the cross country skiing and stuff. However. I'm a size 10 on the bottom. And on top? Well, I'll be conservative and say at least a 14. I'm a 36E. (My little sister, at 17 and a national level water polo player, was a 34G when she had her reduction. It runs in the family.) This makes it impossible to buy work shirts, because if I can do it up, it's cut way too big on the bottom, so I look fat. I feel fat, but I don't need clothes that make me look it. I can wear tshirts, but between the dress code in my office and the fact that in tshirts, all people can see of my is BREASTS, that's out. As for pants? See the pockets? On the side like that? They look awful on me. I'm pouchy in the stomach and it causes them to flare really unattractively. And for the last year, pretty much every single pair of pants I've tried on has that type of pockets. I cannot wait for it to warm up enough for skirt weather.

All this boils down to the fact that every time I try and buy clothes, I end up feeling despair. I mean, you kind of expect that with bra shopping. 36E. Think about it. That shit's often so ugly it makes one contemplate suicide, but I've found by spending around $150 per bra, I can find stuff that fits, looks good and doesn't want to make me consider amazonian procedures. So once or twice a year, I grit my teeth, go to a high quality boutique with very helpful staff, and buy.

Bathing suits? Fine. I mean, it's spandex. It may not look great, but if the boobs are all out in front, shall we say, I'm okay. Again, no one can really see past them, and if I go the separate tankini way, I can always make sure both parts fit. Plus, I spent 10 years competitive swimming, so the whole swim suit thing isn't a big deal for me.

Unlike pants. 6 months ago, I spend a week of lunch hours, plus an after work, trying on pretty much every pair of pants downtown. (Well, okay, only within the Core buildings, and not Holt Renfrew.) And I couldn't find a single pair that looked good and didn't require dry cleaning.

Shirts are a crap shoot - I have found some that work, but it's rare. I even tried shopping in the plus size stores, but no luck - I'm too skinning for them. My breasts aren't, but my body is, and they just hang on me. It's like, I can't shop plus size, and I can't find much in the way of normal. It's aggravating. To the extreme. To the point where now, even the thought of going clothes shopping makes my breath catch in my throat.

And this is why I kind of look like a frump.

Labels: body, consumerism, life

posted by Morgan @ 3:32 p.m. 2 comments

A nice year for a white wedding...

So I'm freaking out here, some what irrationally, I know. I mean, we've been out of high school for almost 8 years now. Most of us have been free from post secondary for at least a while. Some of them are established in careers. A few of us even have mortgages. So we've grown up, more or less. I guess.

So why does it freak me right out that everyone is getting engaged? J & ? got engaged on Valentine's Day. (We haven't met him yet, and I forget his name. Bad Morgan.) M & O got engaged over the New Year. E & D got engaged in December. That's like, all but one of my friends who's in a serious relationship. [I wrote most of this last week, and since then? That friend has got engaged. Seriously.]

A few weeks ago, I ran in to a school friend, who has a grade ahead of me, so he's 26 or 27. He was with his very pregnant 20 year old wife, who seemed really nice. I think. I was pretty busy mentally hyperventilating about M.C. having a human child. Eek. Just saying that freaks me out a little. Part of the problem is that I still feel about 15 most of the time. The pretty severe depression I've been trying to swim out of really doesn't help the maturity thing. 15 year olds aren't ready for marriage!

Listen, it's not commitment phobia. Not exactly. I've been with John for more than 5 years. We've lived together for more than 2 and a half. Heck, we bought a house about this time of year two years ago. I have no real doubts about our future together - a future I want. The marriage and the kids and the growing old and nerdy together. All that. Just... not quite yet. We're too young! I don't know. Maybe it's just the depression that's screwing up my perspective. Most of these people will turn 25 or 26 this year - not exactly children by global standards. Maybe it's that at least a third of the books and stuff that I read seems to be set in New York, where "everyone" seems to get married in their late 30s. "Most" people in Calgary seem to have kids between their late 20s and early 30s, so this is more or less on target for the average, sweeping generalization that I just made, which is mainly based on the middle class corporate people I work with and know. So normal for my demographic, I guess.

[insert time passing, as I really am having trouble with how to verbalize all this] I know some people will jump to the conclusion that it's because i have doubts about John. That's not it, I can assure you. I could see if he had doubts about me (depression is currently coupled with self loathing and bitchy behaviour), but I don't think that's it. I am pretty sure it's some rather ridiculous denial about growing up.

Also, at this point? We totally can't do it. I mean, there will already be 4 weddings next year. As John said in an email yesterday, "part of me wants to join the boat so we're not _that_ couple, but part of me is like 'shut up you sheep, where's the spotlight if you're the pre-reserved wedding for the month of july in between d's june and l's august or whatever.' i'm still a bit of an attention whore and i don't want to get on this train quite yet." Plus, we're close but not quite done paying off his parents the money they loaned up for the house. Refuse to do anything until that's done. Hard to be saving/paying for a wedding at the same time we pay $1000/month to them. So that's my reasons. I'm a little calmer now then when I started this. As in, I think I'll be okay when the eventual time comes, and that I am okay with the time not being now. So what if the other couples have only been together for 4 months through less than 2 years, and we've been together for 5? It works for us, and we're both happy, so that's enough. That's more than enough.

Labels: grown ups, life, marriage, the boy

posted by Morgan @ 11:55 a.m. 4 comments

One thing you can never say is that I don't try

I am not a graceful, coordinated woman. At all. By any stretch. Even if you use your imagination. And god knows, it's not from lack of trying. Before I explain my latest, let me give you a list of all the sports and fitness things and such that I have done, so you have an idea about what I'm actually like. (Ie, interested but sadly hopeless.)

• Gymnastics, first three badges. Quit because I couldn't manage a headstand, ever.
• T-ball, one summer.
• Soccer, 2-3 years. being 10 and growing breasts and being expected to bounce the ball off my chest was kind of a deal breaker. That, and I even sucked at defense.
• Figure skating, 12 years. That includes Can-Skate, figure skating, and precision skating, which was my favourite. I was awful. I can't jump, my spins were wobbly, and my hamstrings were too tight for a good spiral. You notice that I tried for a long, long time though. I did once get a leadership award because I would play with the kids instead of practicing because it was way more fun, and I was all about the fun.
• Dance, 1 session. They didn't give my parents the brochure for the next session and my parents took the hint. I was maybe 5.
• Swimming, 10 years. 5 day a week, 4 months a year, meets every Saturday. I was bad. Bottom 5 aggregate placing every time for all those years. Thankfully, I stuck in it until I was 18 and finally got a gold medal at the Hanna meet because I was the only one who swam 4 events that day. I didn't care - I had that medal on my light for ages. Plus, of course, full swim lessons. Heck, I got my life guard certification.
• Fencing, 2 years. Killer shinsplints did me in. Too bad, because it was a ton of fun. Also, I was naturally slightly less hopeless at that than at other things.
• Diving, 2 years. I cannot do a fucking somersault if my life depended on it. So fucking embarrassing, as your Olympian coach tries to help you through it, and there is just no way. I could even manage inwards on occasion, but a simple flip? Sigh. That's why I quit, in the end. Sheer embarrassment and humiliation. Sure did love doing fall-ins off the 3 meter though.
• Fitness classes, mainly at work. Cardio classes and weightlifting classes. Plus 6 weeks of weightlifting in high school, from one of the swim moms working on certification. I don't have any particularly strong feeling about these - I do them because they are good for me and I don't have to think about them too much. I do hate step, though. Fucking step.
• Skiing. 5 days in grades 4, 5 and 6. One day in grade 7. One day last winter. Yesterday night. I have to say, I'm pleased I did so well, even occasionally managing parallel turns at COP last night. (COP is the in city ski hill for beginners, but my company rented it, so we went, and I tried skiing. It was okay.)
• Snowboarding, 4 years and counting. It sure is harder to learn (see learning how to fall without bouncing painfully, how to stand, how to turn backwards, how to flail down a black mogul run), but I like it better. Also, we get some wicked snow on some great mountains out here. But man, did I suck trying to learn this.
• Cross country. 1 day in grade 7, one day this winter. I may have cried the whole way down my first down hill stretch. Those skis! Are so long! And hard to maneuver! And really hard to stop! Plus, those confounding poles! Yeah, learning curve. Got much better, though.
• Pilates classes, occasionally. 2 months here, 3 months there. I'm strong, so enjoy them. I may be overweight, but I have killer core strength.
• Yoga, 7 years and counting. Hatha, Ashtanga, Bikram, Iyengar. Iyengar is my favourite. Bikram, done at insanely high temperatures and with endless repetition of the same asanas in the same order was not the thing for me. Ashtanga is too much like aerobics. I like aerobics. I like yoga. I just don't want them to be the same. Hatha is what I took in university. Iyengar is what I to now, and I adore it. It's the one that is based on perfecting the poses, and uses lots of props, and every single class is different. Currently, I'm taking critical alignment classes, which really focus on the spine, and all the tiny muscles that run along it. Challenging work, but I love the class and Kate's a great instructor. Plus, headstands. Still hate shouldstands, though. It took my three years to touch my toes. Now I can wrap my hands under my feet while I stand. Slow progress, but I'm getting there. Well, getting better, at any rate. There really isn't a destination.

So know that you've skimmed that long list, we can all agree that despite my total lack of grace and physical ease, at least it doesn't come from lack of trying. Heck, currently, I do pilates at lunch on Monday, cardio on Tuesday lunch and dance at night, cardio on Thursday at lunch and yoga at night, and Diva to the Core on the Fridays that we work. Plus all the skiing/boarding John can convince me to do. So I am physically active. (Which makes the fact that I cannot lose weight all the more annoying.)

On Tuesday nights, I do pole dancing. Yes. Brass pole, Marvin Gaye in the background, the whole bit. And I love it. I leave in such a good mood, with such a buzz. I'm surrounded, it feels, by all these 100 pound women who figure things out effortlessly. Which isn't true, exactly, but it feels that way. Any way, we were learning a new move last week, the ballerina. Which involves a push-pull hand grip; one hand pull you up from the top, the other hand as far down as you can reach, pushing you away from the pole. It's hard, and awkward, as you're pretty much holding your whole body with the top hand. Did I mention the pole? Is smooth? And my hand? Becomes slick every other spin because I sweat when I'm nervous? (And I have had wrist problems in the past, and am still getting my strength back.) And then you spin. No, and then they spin. I fall. On my knees. Over and over and over again. It's a charming shade of purple, know with green and black shades, about the size of my fist. Plus, I somehow cut my leg, and bruised the other foot. I refuse to let this thing beat me. I've been practicing, and have pulled it off a few times at home, but not consistently. But I will manage. Somehow. (I have to! In level three, you use just the top hand and hold the ankle with the lower one.) Just not, you know, gracefully.

Labels: body, life

posted by Morgan @ 9:51 a.m. 1 comments

A little self indulgent whining

Yeah, I totally didn't make it to Kicking Horse. I'm still sick, and let me just say that after 3+ weeks, I'm really fucking tired of it. The chest x-ray came back clean, so yay. However, since then I've had two bouts of head colds, an endlessly mutating cough and still wake up in the middle of the night, every night, to cough. At least now I don't have to stand up to do it. Also, I haven't made any one else sick, so I'm happy. Also glad I work for a company where pretty much everyone has their own office - I would probably be a lot less popular in an open plan concept work space.

Being sick for this long really has messed up all my plans for pretty much everything. Missed Kicking Horse, had to blow off cross country plans, missed some great snow at Sunshine, been to sick to want to go to High Performance Rodeo (also, hard to go to live theatre when you can't stop coughing), missed out on various John secret plans...

This week at the doctor's I had about 13 blood tests (thankfully only 6 vials), a urine test and an EKG done. Waiting to hear if any of that turns up what's wrong, what's been wrong for months. This cold's been brutal, but I've been sick pretty steadily since November and I haven't really been healthy in at least twice that long. Hopefully they can figure out why, because it's been interfering rather substantially in to my life. And in my relationship.

Okay, yes, I am full of self pity. I'm working on it. I also have worked out exactly once since January 1 and have slid in to a bit of a funk. (Understatement.) But I did manage to go to pole dancing yesterday, and it as fun. But my goodness I'm sore. My arms, mostly. I have no desire to lift them, if I can possibly help it. But at least it's a start, and suggests that I'm coming through this cold. Any day now. I hope.

Labels: life

posted by Morgan @ 8:22 p.m. 3 comments