I went to an author interview for work last night, although I have to say it was also a pleasure to hit the Toronto literary scene again. It was Patricia Pearson talking about her book A Brief History of Anxiety (Yours and Mine) and it was a lot of fun.
It was a bit of a head trip because it was held at Hart House, which is where my senior formal (that’s “prom” to you Americans) took place, and in the library which is both very Harry Potter like and smells like my old university-affiliated high school smelled. (You know: dust of the ages, books.) So I was enjoying the walk down memory lane, the familliar faces of us Toronto folks that trot out to support our own at readings and such, a bit of atmosphere, and my professional capacity all at once.
I like living in Toronto.
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Noah hated that I was not home for dinner or bedtime and I sorely paid for it this morning when he held onto me and told me quite firmly that I was to be home for dinner tonight. It’s a tough balancing act. And the truth is that at 6 pm when I was about to leave my office to drive downtown (it made no sense to come home in between) it was hard not to just drive home instead.
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It is very complicated to be a mother and a person.
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Talking about anxiety made me anxious. And that wasn’t even the point of going! But maybe in part because I have at times suffered anxiety, and in part because it was such an overwhelmingly integrated evening in terms of past, present, and future, that I felt like I might also have writing on my head declaring all kinds of things about me. I realize that I compartmentalize a lot still.
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Speaking of which, multiplicity has not appeared a lot in this blog lately and I think I might have to talk about that a little more. But meanwhile I give you a link to a better interview with Herschel Walker than the fragments of the Nightline ones I have seen. I still haven’t bothered to read up on embedding video, so sorry.
I find it fascinating that the last three big books on multiplicity have been male-authored about male systems, while women with DID/MPD/whatever are pretty much passe in the publishing world (as well as the therapy world). (The other two being Cameron West’s First Person Plural (best title!) and A Fractured Mind by Robert B. Oxnam which has the best line on sex ever.)
