Struggling at work
I’m still really struggling at work. I can’t quite figure out where the deeper issue is - whether it’s me or the structure around me. I end up spinning my wheels sometimes because I’m the decision maker and I can’t decide. It’s also just plain hard to be indoors right now.
But I end up feeling a lot like “you suck.” That internal script is strong. Not to get all Oprah-esque about it but sometimes I am my own worst enemy.
~~~
The novel is going slow and the deadline looms. Sometimes I wonder if I really do want to be a writer. Sometimes I think I would do better in a more reactive sort of job - like in medicine, where patients show up and you deal with them, as opposed to where you need to be a self-starter. But at 39, it seems like the wrong time to be asking myself this question.
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And yes I’m so glad David Besmozgis made it to the top 40 authors under 40 list in the New Yorker but I’m also a bit envious. Not that I have written anything like he has. Just sheer silly envy.
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However I was at a gala award thing last night and I have to shallowly admit that these things are a bit more fun (in the short term; this will wear off) while hovering between a size 8-10 as opposed to a solid 14. Mostly because I put a belt on with a skirt and fancy top and the effect was slimming. I wish I’d gotten pics but I was shooting others and forgot to ask anyone to point the camera my way. Next time!
~~~
Today is clean-up day as we are having a visitor from out of town next week of the picky sort, and so there are a few areas to tackle. But I don’t want to.
Deeply happy cyclist
Today was one of those days that you just live for. Until the end.
Rouge-beach
Carl worked yesterday but not today, and we started the day with a 2.5 hour round-trip bike ride. Since getting our bikes not only has Carl biked Noah to school the vast majority of the time, but we’ve been getting out as a family.
And whoa, did we ever pick the right place to live. We go up from our street into a sort of industrial-ish area (deserted on weekends) and then back down to the lake and suddenly we’re on a trail lakeside with amazing views. Take that as far as it goes, go down another quiet street and you end up in a park/conservation area that goes way out east beyond Toronto and into Pickering.
It’s gorgeous. Wind off the lake, nature, beaches, bike paths. Last week we saw a wedge (according to Oxford but I would say a flock) of SWANS. The first ride I saw a hawk.
Today was slated to be hot so we went early and got back about 11:15. Then we all did chores amiably (with a break for lunch) until suppertime and then hit a quasi-local Chinese-Canadian place for dinner so as to not have dinner + dishes barrelling down upon us.
I can’t believe how great it is to bike as a family. It’s exactly what we all needed, I think.
~~~
I may not have mentioned it but I’ve been trying Weight Watchers. I reached my goal weight Thursday - the official one. That means 28 lbs lost since February, and a change from being about a solid size 14 (on a 5′8″ frame) to a 10 most places with the occasional 8. It also puts me under the weight I was at when I got pregnant with Emily.
I’m actually aiming for 5-10 lbs below that point, since it’s been pretty stress-free for the most part and I would like to be in the middle of the BMI healthy range and not closer towards the top.
But I do feel better. I look better. I hate being shallow about all this but - I’m the exact same person, but with a sense that I can affect my physical destiny. It’s made a world of difference for me; or maybe it’s the way I’ve been feeling that’s made it possible. I don’t know but I think it would be fair to say I’m not depressed any more, if I was.
~~~
Nothing, nothing was good about Noah’s appendicitis and God (for lack of a more agnostic term) does not teach lessons by making small kids suffer. (At least not a God I want to spend eternity with.)
However I do think that there has been some positive taken from the experience in that when they wheeled Noah away from me to do the surgery, I honestly thought he would die. I may or may not have described this but I still have the visceral memory of what happened to my body - aided by lack of food, drink, and sleep for sure - which is that we just came to The End. Could not breathe. Had a headache to outdo all headaches. Could barely walk or speak. Basically the end of the world was nigh and we were quite literally on the floor.
And yet, he lived. He is thriving right now. He’s healthy and getting so strong again. Doctors helped him. We all made it. I think this in itself brought the merest sliver of hope back. Although mainly I must say we try to run lean when it comes to a happy future, still.
But today was great.
~~~
Sadly at the end of the day I had a call from some scammer where they said my alarm system was going off. I unfortunately said “we don’t have one,” and since they had my address…I’m a bit worried that we might be in for a robbery. On the plus side, I guess, we have very little worth stealing; even my computer is well over 5 years old. Although PLEASE DO NOT TAKE MY COMPUTER because augh.
It’s made me wary and it’s hard to sleep. Despite the 2 hrs of bike riding (half hour on the beach :)).
Filed from Aruba
This is almost a week late because there were only 6 ppl on the press trip. But hey, if you figure out who I am, just don’t tell, man!
Jessika: Ha, good suggestion, except press trips are totally not child-friendly. “Who’s up for the research on the sex tourism article!” (Not quite that bad. But not far off.)
I made it…I thought long and hard about it and decided it would be relatively safe if not entirely comfortable for Noah to stay with my parents briefly. At about 10 pm Tuesday, that is 5 hrs before I had to leave for the airport for my hellish early flight, Carl was unsequestered, so Noah spent a few hrs at my my parents’ that morning before school and then Carl picked him up. I did leave. If I had not know the cavalry was arriving I’m not sure what would have happened.
Please forgive any misspellings; I haven’t had more than 5 hrs of sleep any night this week and I have been out in the sun all morning, drinking and eating all night, and then catching up on work in the wee hrs.
Aruba…is beautiful and I’ll save most of the words for the actual stories. However here are three things I didn’t know about Aruba:
- it’s actually kind of a desert, especially on the northern side, and this has made it poor but resourceful; with it being sort of part of the Netherlands (although mostly independent since 1986) it’s also sort of - orderly.
- the tourism industry is built based on 85% of visitors coming from ye olde U.S.A. which means it is full of people who have sort of made it their mission in life to understand what Americans want and give it to them, nicely (no Canadian attitude). The best I can describe it is Aruba is “the fun aunt” - they let you get away with murder and supply free booze, but they also make sure you don’t drown from your own idiocy. (Sorry Americans. But today I saw a mother of the bride — so understood as her husband was wearing a shirt that not only said “father of the bride” on the front, but which on the back said “the bank of
- it is perfect for people who want to try an island without freaking about the water, because it is really quite Dutch in some ways (not in others) and everything is very clean, and everyone continually explains to you (or at least to the press) just how clean it is. I have been drinking the water since I landed, since I was accosted with a glass and the discussion. I have eaten salad and fruit. I have barely seen any bugs.
As far as PR trips go this one has been a good one; there’s been more free time than usual. Mind you this is a relative thing. In three days I have driven a Land Rover, visited 5 sites, visited a shopping district, had tours of the resort, gone to the casino, snorkelled in three places, eaten at too many places, gone to the obligatory “bar full of locals” (this one actually did) and had a spa treatment. I am not complaining AT ALL, but it is a totally different world.
On the plus side, I am learning to hold my own in some ways. I’m okay. I have decent clothes. I’m not stupid. I kind of know how to network and smile and the right things to say and when to tip and when to take pictures and to just ASK THE QUESTION because that is the point.
On the negative side, I’ll never be one of the cool kids. No, I was not on the Inca Trail trip and no, I have never had dengue fever. Nor do I have an opinion on [insert area in India/Thailand/Indonesia]. And yes, I’m married. And no, I don’t want a 4th cocktail. Or a 3rd. Actually I sort of wish I hadn’t had the first.
But it’s been a great group and really, really well organized. I will be glad to get home ’cause I miss Noah, but this is a pretty fun fantasy life.
Not so fun…sigh
Carl is sequestered.
I leave for Aruba (or pay for the flights) early Wed morning.
Eeek. Sigh.
Major. Fun.
This is the week! of! fun! apparently.
Let me back up.
Carl and I (but Carl even more so due to his work routine) have been major slugs for oh, 3 years. Adjusting to having to drive to work, two working parents, the changing needs of a tot - frankly, a lot of it has been just sink or swim and not a lot of time for what’s good for us. Well, there would have been time had we prioritized exercise but did we? No, we did not. Not really. Getting outside with Noah, yes.
Anyways, a few weeks ago Noah wanted to spend time at my parents’ and I could not hack being there the whole time so I said to Carl maybe we could hang out and have sort of a date. During that discussion we found out we’d both been thinking about a Trail-a-Bike type thing (the one we got cost $99) (this is the third wheel/second seat that hooks onto a regular bike so that your younger kid can ride tandem with you, with his own pedals and chain).
It was delicate on my end because - I hadn’t ridden a bike much since I broke my wrist on one in…1995. Yeah. But Carl had been prescribed biking as a part of his torn ACL rehab and last year we invested in a pretty nice bike for him. And Noah’s daycare is a ten minute drive/20-30 minute bike ride away; granted there is some traffic in between but it’s not (mostly) too bad. But you know, it’s sort of icky to say to your spouse “hey, you should do this.”
But…Carl LOVES getting places in the open air. He used to rollerblade 45 km round trip to work and back.
The risks did occur to me before I brought it up (Carl brought it up simultaneously; it’s Marriage Brain!) God knows it’s scary sending your kid off on a bike. But there are risks in not biking too, and walking an hour round trip is not really in the cards.
Anyways, long story short, we bought the trail bike attachment and except for when he’s been on jury duty, Carl’s been taking Noah to daycare on it and occasionally picking him up that way too. It gives Carl a big round trip and Noah loves it. He LOVES IT. And yuppie me, I love that he is learning that you can get to school on a bike.
He loves it so much…that I bought a bike for myself this weekend too. I went to Toys R Us and got a Skelanimals women’s bike, so shoot me. (It’s 7 speed and a cruiser. It has fenders and a chain guard. It is in no way a serious bike. The system LOVES IT. It is the bike we were not allowed to buy in our youth.)
Anyways that was yesterday and it turned out my helmet cracked when I broke my wrist, or perhaps in the MORE THAN A DECADE in between, so today I got a helmet. And we went for our first family bike ride. We live near many trails…many hills too, but seriously, we go the right way and we can get to a lakeshore trail that goes way out; go the other way and walk down a huge trail and you can go the other way into the city, almost (not quite).
Today we just tooled about the neighbourhood but it was SO MUCH FUN. I thought I would be panicked the whole time watching Carl and Noah on their bike. But no, it was ok.
But wait!
Wednesday early early early I fly to Aruba for a 4 day press trip and get back laaaaaaate Saturday night in time for - Mother’s Day.
So this is like, a banner week.
I really feel like I’m finding myself again. Being active is so much a part of that. Still not really hitting the gym but I have been using resistance bands and a 5 lb weight ball at home.
Spring has sprung
It’s spring so I am insanely busy, as I am every spring. It’s partly the house - grass to mow, weeds to hoe and all that - and partly me, in that I always feel like if I’m not outside in a park or something then I’m wasting daylight. Then evenings are filled with doing the indoor stuff I’ve neglected.
This year you add a YA novel into the mix, with a deadline of Sept 15. No it’s not agented but I have someone to read it then. It’s going okay although not fast enough.
I feel more myself and better lately, but I am still struggling at work some. It’s been almost two years since we launched the site and I’m starting to wonder a bit about how stressful the job is. However, I’m also actually enjoying it more, so I think I will stick it out some more. In this economy and in media it’s not like there are other jobs and it’s not like I have a fully formulated Plan B.
One of the perks of my job is the occasional press trip, which has me heading off to Aruba in May, divine forces willing. I plan to write LIKE MAD on the flights and perhaps at night. If you think a trip to Aruba sounds relaxing you have never been on a press trip; they herd you from activity to activity like a school trip on acid. But it will be a break, sorely needed. And I’ve never been to Aruba. If you have, share!
About the weight loss - I do feel remarkably better, all the time. Whether it’s psychological, that I’ve cut almost all the crap out of my diet, that I’m not carrying that weight around, or whatever, I’m grateful for it. So far I’ve dropped 17 lbs and two sizes and I have another 8 to go to my official goal; 10 to go to my personal goal.
Easter 2010: Fabulous, different
We had such a great Easter weekend out here in the real world. The weather was stunning; up to 23 celsius and sunny for the most part.
I always have lists for 3-day weekends that would take a week to complete, but our little family found a pretty good balance: first some cookie making or snuggling and reading time, then I cleaned/sorted/etc. in the morning while Noah and Carl either did some yard work, played, or watched videos, and then after lunch we hit 1 of 2 local beaches for some serious sandcastle building and rock throwing time. We had dinner at home one night, and dinner out inexpensively Saturday night.
Sunday we substituted beach time for family Easter dinner including my parents (served dreadfully early).
As a result some of the post-holiday, post-hospital, post-growth spurt detrius has been cleared and spring wardrobes are in place and cobwebs are no longer accents, at least on the first floor. So I feel virtuous and relaxed at the same time. That’s my ideal day really: Work ass off until 2 pm; goof off thereafter.
Noah continues to gain weight and energy and is starting to behave more like a young lad and less like Beth in Little Women. Mostly it’s all up side, but a certain amount of damage to toys and furniture was resulting until Carl and I figured it out and started providing more rigorous opportunities to run around outdoors like a banshee.
I am working from home today due to pink eye, but it is a minor blight at this point.
~~~
I have a goal and a deadline for MY (LATEST) BOOK. I seriously have to do this now or die trying. So I am booked through Sept 15.
~~~
Did I mention I had high blood pressure? For someone who’s spent her whole life with people asking if she’s normally alive at her regular blood pressure, it was a surprise. It was one reading, at work and I haven’t been able to repeat it since.
But (and here is the real point) it led to my work paying for me to attend the lunchtime Weight Watchers group. I know I am about to lose all my healthy eating and feminist credentials in one go, but since it was free I signed up. Also, my dad’s heart event spooked me into it.
I had gained about 10 lbs last year because I would come home, eat a healthy dinner, put Noah to bed, and then sit and eat junk food. This placed me up at the weight I was at when I got pregnant with Noah and definitely into the overweight category.
I figured out All On My Own that this was a stress/misery thing and to stop, but of course I didn’t.
However since signing up for this damn WW thing, I actually have lost 12 lbs and I feel better and I am exercising more. Statistically, this won’t last. But I think it was what I needed to do. The rhetoric and points-counting are not quite as bad as anticipated, but still a bit funny. I have about another 12-ish pounds to go before I am where I’d kind of like to be. We’ll see how it goes - WW will expire before I get there.
I did read something somewhere that addictive personalities do well on diets like WW for a while, until they get bored. But until then, adhering to the diet becomes its own little addiction. I have to admit I recognize myself in this description. I’m still glad. I feel better. I look better. I’ve stopped automatically stocking up on chips and dip for after dinner.
~~~
Underneath, Lynn had an unusual Easter. Some of the trappings were the same - testing of people’s wills and all that - but the results were unusually compassionate. Oddly enough, she also attended the family dinner and made a few inappropriate remarks to my parents. (’It’s always nice to get together on the occasion of a good crucifixion’ and the like. Noah was not at the table for those - phew.)
During the cleaning she also took out her guitar, which has been locked in a closet since Noah could crawl, and set it up on its stand in the living room. She showed Noah how to play it and talked to him about respecting the instrument. I think it will be ok, mostly because it’s not in any direct path for anything, and also we could replace it if the unthinkable happened. But it was quite the statement of both trust and moving in. She played and sang a bit. Noah doesn’t really like it when we sing, dance, or play an instrument, but Lynn does not have my scruples and told him tough. He said ok and hung out.
I think they share tastes in music. I have caught him replacing the latest book on CD with Evanescence a few times now. I live in fear of his adolescence.
I don’t really want to get into thinking Noah knows this or that other thing, but since the hospital when Lynn was quite calm and awed at his courage, it seems like they’ve bonded - and it seems to go in both directions. I mean Lynn has been a parent, but this is more direct. I’m not sure what I’m saying except, it’s nice. It’s holistic.
5 years after moving, I think the system is moving in. What can I say?
Progress
About an hour ago I just lost it. I was supposed to be a workshop to do with work (just covering it for the blog) but I feel 20 fathoms underwater in terms of chores, workload at work and with life, etc.
So I wisely (I think; maybe not since it was yoga-based) cancelled it and I came in and expressed to Carl that I feel COMPLETELY OVERWHELMED with chores and organization and stuff.
During that discussion, he pointed to the (homemade, simmered*) marinara sauce that I had turned off last night and left on the stove and said that it needs to go in the fridge before the tomatoes go bad. This is not as bad as it sounds; I had finished my talk and he had been trying to express that I should like, take a break sometime today, and he was mentally making a list of Things That MUST Be Done and splitting it up. But of course, it hit completely wrong. So I said “I know! It’s one of my 100 things I need to do!” and picked up a ladle and a tupperware container…
… and he dug himself further into the hole and continued to explain what happens to tomatoes that are left out.
Whereupon I reacted with total wisdom and threw the tupperware container on the floor, stamped my feet, went down the hall and threw the ladle on the bed.
But that’s not all.
I had a little cry (Noah was downstairs for all this, but Carl went down to make sure he was okay). And then I went down and was sulky as I switched laundry around. And then I sat on the floor and breathed for a few minutes.
And that’s not all.
Then I went BACK downstairs and apologized to Carl. And you know what he said? “I think you needed to lose it. And you can’t lose it at (long list of people) but you can lose it at me from time to time.”
10 years ago pretty much to the day (because lo, we always freak out about cleaning at…Easter! Which is next week!) I contemplated divorce, in all seriousness, because I felt I was locked in an unwinnable, all-consuming, terrible struggle about cat litter and chores and stuff.
I cannot say we have it ‘together’ about chores. And indeed, I sort of laugh now because err, with kids chores have this whole other dimension in the way that an iceberg has another dimension underwater.
But I can say that there’s room to be human about it, and pick up, and move on. It’s really lovely.
~~~
On that note, this blog has been really depressing of late. I have not been writing all the good stuff and I’ll try to get doing that. This week’s highlight was: One day it was really sunny and pretty warm and Noah and I went for a walk before dinner. We bumped into one of his school chums, who lives behind us actually. She asked if she could come along and her parents gave the ok, so I walked behind the two of them and we went to the local park and it was just so - neighbourhoody and nice.
Convo:
Noah: See there’s a CREEK! Down there!
L: MY daddy says I can play down there when I am TEN but NOT BEFORE.
Noah: That’s what my daddy says too!!! [and actually, it is] When we are ten we can play there together!
L: Yes! And go over TO THE OTHER SIDE!
Noah: Yes!
Bonus convo:
Noah: You are my best friend, L.
L: Well… you are not my BEST friend Noah. But you are one-of-my-very-good-friends
Noah: That’s good too!
Ah, four.
~~~
My dad is doing ok. So is Noah.
* I know, this contributes to my to-do list and jarred sauce is just fine. But that was something I wanted to do, mostly because I saw someone do it on YouTube.
Burnt.
Spent yesterday afternoon in hospital again - on a cardiac ward with my dad. He’s going to be fine once they figure out what’s wrong with him. (They actually did an angioplasty, but it’s “not the plumbing, might be the electric.”) I rushed down from work in the afternoon. It was very stressful. Hence I had to get up to work at 4 this am. Just to prove that I Care. Also so I can leave later today.
If I never have to be in a hospital again, it will be too soon. If I strangely receive eleventy billion dollars I am setting up a fund for people to get time off AFTER the crisis is over.
Today is Emily’s 6th birthday, except of course, she’s dead.
The news yesterday was ALL ABOUT Isaiah’s parents making the same decision. Every time I walked past a television (in the HOSPITAL) this story was on. WTF universe?
We’re supposed to be leaving for the Briars which I DESPERATELY NEED but this thing with my dad…at least the Briars is only about an hr out of town. It was originally chosen for its proximity to my obstetrician of the time, so. I think we are leaving. In a few hours.
My assistant at work quit (for greener pastures) and in the traditional of the Common Media Era we’re in, no replacement is forecast. Which means work hell. I should be grateful to have a job, esp. one which permits the odd trip to the Briars, and generally I am. But this wrinkle is going to be a hard one and going away in the middle of it, when she was going to handle stuff, is not happymaking.
Noah is the best thing ever. First, he is recovering. Hurrah for children who survive! Second, he is just a great age (well…every age is great). Yesterday he was planning his activities for the Briars and planning to say “goodbye!!!!” to his friends. We explained we are not moving there, just going for 5 days. And that then he has a bit of time off for March break. But then he goes back to school. His response?
“Harsh! [proper teen tone in that one] That sucks! - Right mummy?”
Hee.
Bonus convo (and now we are…4.5)
Noah [re: snag in his plan for playing]: Bummer!
Me: Hey, we said bummer was just fine as a hospital word. But we’re not in the hospital any more. Maybe there’s a different word? Disappointing?
Noah: This SUCKS!
…