25 ... 35

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[fyi my birthday is not today or tomorrow, in fact it's a ways from now... but it's close enough it's got me doing the birthday thinking thing]
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i remember when i was turning twenty five.

twenty five was the year that i gave up the knight in shining armour and you know? i thought that might be the hardest thing that i ever had to do. i mean face myself in the mirror and admit that the only person that i could ever count on to take care of me was me?

that if i wanted someone to rescue me from my life that i'd better damm good and do it?

so i did. i also ran off and married someone a year later so i guess i hadn't really given it up. but nonetheless, the summer that i turned twenty five was pretty hard. in fact, until thirty five i would have to say that twenty five was the hardest one ever.

no one was going to save me from my life.

i wasn't going to be the girl in the movie who is walking down the street and gets whisked off by the king of siam.

no one would go to my grave for me...

in fact? i had to take care of myself. that was it.

[this in no way negated the idea of finding a man, but it wasn't going to be a knight and a charging horse, it was going to be a human with flaws and problems and stuff.. you know {shut up, it's a metaphor}]

so that was pretty hard that birthday. harder than thirty for sure.

thirty was a breeze, i don't think i've ever had a happier year than thirty. there is something about that number that confirms in your mind that you are an adult and that you are living your life for YOU and nobody else.

your parents and your friends opinions don't matter except as you allow them to and your decisions are what guides you now. sure you ask for advice but you're free to discard it.

so yeah, thirty rocks.

[of course if you have kids they come first, duh. but i am not one of the lucky ones]

and then comes now.

a couple of years ago i made a deal with myself because the whole 'to have or not to have kids' dilemma was running pretty hard through my heart but i just wasn't in any position to do anything about it. my body was broken and my relationship (i almost said marriage... funny that) was falling apart.

i still think that that was the universe having a cosmic joke at my expense. here you go sass, here's the guy, you know that guy that you don't think is possible? the one whose brain lights you up? that makes you feel like a kid at christmas all the time? look here he is.

and now let's see... we're going to break you and you're going to break him and then together you'll destroy your relationship and shatter your trust and faith in each other.

hee hee. sucker.

anyway i was still thinking and thinking on the whole kids thing and i knew it was impossible then. so i decided that at thirty four i would investigate my fertility and that at thirty five i would decide once and for all if i was having children or not.

AND if i decided yes?

i would start immediately to make that happen.

and in this way i could just drop the whole subject for a couple of years you know? just not worry about it? i was so stressed about whether or not and what to do and it was better to just let it go.

interestingly the answer floated to the surface fairly quickly once i stopped worrying at it.

and i just didn't foresee what's coming to pass. it just never occured to me that i would *want* to have kids but that i wouldn't be able to get the logistics to work out. somehow in my imagination there was a guy or a larger income or savings or whatever.

so now i'm sitting here with the adult version of the knight in shining armor and i'm sort of flummoxed.

it never occured to me for a second that i would be the one who didn't get to be a parent. i never once thought that if *I* wanted to do it that i wouldn't be able to. it was always just whether or not i wanted to and never whether or not i *could*.

and i can't.

and i'm heartbroken.

and the thing that i don't need to hear from anyone ANYMORE or EVER AGAIN is that i have lots of time. because you're wrong.

statistically a lot of very bad things happen when women have their first children after thirty five. and i won't foreseeably have the resources to have a child until i'm forty.

and there are two things i know for sure.

the first is that i will not have the energy to single mother a baby when i'm forty.

the second is that i would not be able to cope by myself if my child were troubled in some way. i've seen how hard that is with a couple and it's unimaginable alone. no trust me it is. and anyone with a special child is nodding their head in agreement EVEN IF they're doing it alone.

i suppose that tomorrow mr. perfect could walk into my life and that within a year of meeting we could decide to get pregnant but i have to say that i don't foresee that happening either. am i open to it?

yes.

expectant? no. not so much.

i've been thinking for a while that i'm not the one who gets to have the babies. i'm the one who gets to live the great life and be the crazy god mother and leave all her cats to charity. and it's not like that's a bad life.

i mean i'll get to do things like safari in africa and run off to costa rica to learn to surf and climb mountains in thailand and visit alaska and adventure trek in new zealand and...

i'll also be alone when i'm seventy. and i never for a second ever imagined that that would happen to me. i was going to have grand children. there was going to be love and laughter and fun in my house.

i was going to be the kool aid mom.

i recognize that i can adopt. but a single woman who is self employed does not adopt easily.

especially not when she's forty. i could adopt a half grown child in desperate need of someone to be nice to them or something and i am not averse to that idea, it's just that i somehow always expected to have one of my own too and even then it's unlikely that i will get approved.

so i'm grieving.

i'm grieving dreams and wishes and expectations and i'm trying to let them go. i know that if i let them go that it will make the hurting stop. i know that if i let them go i will stop wishing for just a couple more years than i have. i know that i'll stop having a haunted look in my eyes when passing fancies catch me unawares.

i would like to stop looking at newborns and feeling a twinge. i would like to not be slightly sad when people talk about how much their kids mean to them. i would like to see a dad playing with his daughter in the park and not feel melancholy if he seems like a great dad.

i just need to let go. and i know how to do it because i've done it before. it's just that this one isn't going to be nearly as easy as writing a letter to 'you'. compared to this that knight thing didn't even blip the radar.

some people have the hard decades, for me it's the creamy center that's bitter.

dear universe:

i return to you my hopes, desires, dreams and plans regarding family and open myself to the possibilities in all things. and while i'm at it? take the resentment and borderline rage combined with frustration that i'm feeling about that other thing too.

thanks!
loveums
-sass

pilates woman!

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i meant to post this last night but i feel asleep mid-sentence practically.
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dear pilates;

i love you do you know that?

i mean first of all i'm not certain that words can express my undying gratitude to you for giving me my body back. and then? you cap that off by handing me a new direction in life.

there i was, completely trashed and hopeless, watching the scale go up and up and up and then blammo. you handed me rr. she inspired me to follow in her footsteps and spend my life making people feel better.

i can't imagine a better direction. i really am happy most every day. now i just need to learn to harness the PMS and how find clients when i start losing them.

someone i wasn't very nice to made these great pics of me as pilates woman:

and i just love them.

in fact i would start a comic with her except that i didn't design her and i'm already too busy. still she rocks.

this is what happens if your exercises aren't done:

there pyrhonik... not quite the cape but... :)
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in other news i went to see the neville brothers tonight with othercat and svdw and her man m. it was a really surreal sort of evening. first of all i decided to wear my new skirt and here is a late night pic that othercat snapped with his camera phone [as usual feel free to try and fix it]:

already i was feeling a bit weird because this showing off four inches of belly thing is very strange for me. but still i did it because the skirt looks shitty if it sits anywhere else.

so then we go down to harbourfront to this beautiful outdoor stage that sits on the water and about a minute before the opening act (roxanne potvin, quite good by the way) this enormous clap of thunder comes out of the lake somewhere and the entire audience jumps a foot.

for serious it was SO loud.

anyway it rains a little and the show goes on and whatev right?

so then the nevilles come out and i head to the back so i can dance my little face off and slowly but surely the rain starts to seep in so i start to sort of move up the aisle and then it's pouring and roxanne (yes the opening act lady) and i sort of look at each other and we decide to go dance at the stage.

she's like "can we"

and i'm like "if we go everyone else will"

so we do. and for one glorious song there's all of three of us up there dancing and i am shaking my ass like a champion. and then the rain REALLY hits and the entire back rows head up to the stage... but the instruments are getting soaked.

so the boys take a couple of minutes, wait for the squall to pass and then aaron comes out and starts to sing in his unbelievable voice... and the audience stays. so instead of your usual boring and staid toronto audience who can go and see buddy guy and SIT through the fucking show?

oh yeah they're dancing in the aisles for the nevilles. i mean that band is SO good i even say some white boys dancing well! (kidding kidding come on)

it was awesome. the rain made for such a better show it was unbelievable.

such a stellar evening.

happy hnt...

y'all got my navel... and my cape ;)

signals

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pile and i went out for dinner tonight and i picked up the cheque. i did this because he's a pov and i'm ever so slightly less pov than he is this week. that was pretty much the whole reason.

i'm not calling myself rich by any stretch of the imagination. i mean i make a decent living but i'll only die rich if i turn myself into a brand name or consider alternate careers. fortunately i only need to die with enough money in the bank to pay for the burial since i don't expect to leave kids behind.

nonetheless, i expect my standard of living to continue to improve.

now last night a lovely young man um... think of a nick... crap i hate thinking up nick names... uh, anyway you know how you end up going for dinner after a gathering sometimes? like climbers leaving the gym will often end up going out together for beer or food.

in this particular case i don't think anyone else was invited.

anyway, off we go for dinner and yapping and then he insists on paying for dinner. and not the kind of insists where the person with an income assists the person without one. the other kind.

which, i decided, gives me license to flirt with him, even if it does make me a cougar. the thing is? my buying dinner for pile is totally meaningless in that context. (first of all pile's gay)

so i got to thinking about things like paying for dinner. initiating hanging out. asking for contact information. conjuring up further meetings and so on. and then i got to thinking about the definition of a date.

there are people who would declare that since i went for dinner and a beer with uh... damm nicknames... him that we were on a date.

there are folks who won't say that but will say that since he paid for dinner... we were on a date.

there are those who will say that since we didn't make out... we weren't on a date.

there are still others who suggest that because our plans were not made in advance we clearly weren't on a date.

and again since we didn't specifically plan a next meeting... not so much.

so you could really go in any direction you wanted here.

i'm in the no kissy = no date-y camp but that's just me. pile is in the plans weren't made in advance camp... but that's just pile.

i also think that such definitions often change when you see how the future unfolds. you never see him again? not a date. he calls you two days later and says "when can i see you again?" duh.

but it really makes you start to understand why "first world" humans are so fucked up when it comes to modern mating. here's kj with some friend who has a guy buying presents for the kids and the lady doesn't know if they're in a relationship or fuck buddies. or it's hypothetical but nonetheless true for someone.

i go out with a guy for about three hours and can't tell you if he's interested or if i'll see him again. i know which way i lean mind you but i have a terrible track record at getting this shit right.

my friend has sex with a man that he's buddies with and then the guy never calls him back... well not quite never but close enough.

someone feeds me food with their fingers and doesn't want to sleep with me.

i mean we're baffled these days. any of those things would have been considered major giveaways a while back. we would have known what the intentions were.

what i don't get is why we can't all have little necklaces that say 'player' or 'sincere' or 'slut' or 'just friends' or whatever on them so you just know. then you don't have to wonder if the pretty words are real or if they're just trying to get you in the sack or if they're even trying that at all!

and here's the thing, the players would know to leave me alone because i don't play that game nor do i understand it. they can chase their own kind and they'll all be perfectly happy.

but we have no known signals anymore. i'm amazed that anyone ever manages to hook up with anyone else. i'm further amazed that anyone manages to get through the first six months of dating and into the part where you're honest with each other.

pile had a point about that too. he told me that since he had met me he had taken to being much more blunt with people and that in some ways it stems from the times when i am most painfully blunt.

like the more uncomfortable what i'm saying makes you? the more you probably need to hear it.

he says that he's started calling people on it if they're social engineering or being drama queens or whatever. instead of just taking it or grumbling about it later he just up and says "but why? why would you say that when you know it's ridiculous?"

and this is because i am apparently rubbing off on him, and through him to his friends.

man dudes, that's fucking awesome.

i am causing other people to tell the truth. wow.

what's funny is how easy it is. like the other day pile came to dinner at othercat's. pile is a vegetarian so he just asked a little request so he wouldn't have to eat meaty veggie burger and it was granted and everyone was happy.

one second of extra work for the cook, that was it.

a year ago he would have just sucked it up and pretended that he didn't care that his burger was cooked on a grill covered in meat grease.

thirty seconds of conversation.

it's called communication and we're scared to do it.

it's just that i've noticed over the years that it's the things i DON'T say that cost me friends, not the things i do.

universally if i bite my tongue again and again i'll start to resent the person that i'm talking with and eventually stop talking with them. but when i suck it up and i say the hard thing?

i've been thanked for it almost every time.

like my wise sister says 'friends are the people who tell you the truth, especially when it's hard' because really, who else will?

and that's where dating is so hard. it's easier to tell someone you love the truth than someone you just met. and tragically it's then, that moment when you first meet where you most need to tell the truth.

ironically it's easiest to tell a stranger on a bus your deepest truths, but that's never a date :)

people remember those moments, the ones where they first meet and if you lie then they never believe a thing you say afterward.

but it's so hard!

and worse yet half the time you don't even know if you're on a date. you've actually met up to do something else or run into each other or randomly gone for beer and suddenly it's hours later and you've just told a whopper of a lie thinking they'll never see you again.

and then.

(why i never say things i don't mean lesson one)

then you've a lied and it's months later and you're in love. fucking sucks doesn't it? now you have to TELL this person you love that you lied for no reason the day you met.

and now you're a liar.

and it almost isn't even your fault. you didn't even know you were on a date and it was easier than explaining...

love

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there have been some very nasty comments coming through some blogs lately and they caused me to make the following responses on emma's blog[which i will, of course, elaborate on afterward] (the post which inspired the hate comments and this response is here):

i think maybe that's the kind of person where you just delete their comments. it's hate mail pure and simple.

i wish blogger had a flag this profile option.

i know they're just trying to get a rise out of us. and i know that letting them means they win. so i'm not going to swear and yell but i will say this.

"let he who is without sin cast the first stone"


the more that i think about it the less i think it is appropriate to actually delete hatemongering comments. if you do that they just get even more self righteous and holier than thou than they already were.

sort of like those christian fundamentalists who show up at the gay pride parade simply to spread intolerance and bigotry. i mean it's an easy target right? show up in a large group of people who have been disenfranchised from the mainstream and hate them. it's not like any of the authorities will care.

at worst you will accomplish nothing and at best you will find others who share your hate or worse yet some poor lost child who will be susceptible to your particular line of bull.

the thing is, the people who don't agree with you and who think you are in fact working for evil can take cracks at you and make fun of you. the problem being, of course, that that will simply convince you of your rightness.

would that i could think of a loving way to enfold such people in the spirit of peace and sharing.

in fact i saw a lovely sign yesterday that said
"what would jesus do? ask yourself?
love or hate?
inclusion or persecution?"

and that sign was RIGHT. god damm it jesus made friends of the whores and the lepers because no one else was honest or loving. love each other and stay out of each other's bedrooms and the world would improve drastically.

which brings me to:
according to the buddhists it doesn't matter what your intentions are but only what your deeds are. thus they don't care whose name you do things in it's the actual deed they consider.

i like this because then when people hatemonger and claim that it's in the name of the lord the truth is clear. although you claim to work in god's name you are nonetheless evil. the same way that a satanist who goes around rescuing lost puppies and abused children is good.

whoever this is has such a small and sad life that they have to come around to popular blogs and make fun of people's weaknesses. this is extra funny because they don't even have the courage to put their own weaknesses out there in exchange.

can you imagine how unhappy that kind of person must be inside? i've never yet met anyone who was having a happy and fulfilled life (and the people who are happy and fulfilled also tend to live love and gratitude) who was also judgemental and cruel.

just doesn't go together you know.

kind of like how the homophobe is almost always gay...


that comment basically stands for itself but i will say this. if you are going to go around and make horrid comments on other people's web offerings you are no better than the trolls and the spammers who killed usenet.

what's extra tragic about this is that none of us trolled you.

none of us went looking for you.

none of us went by your blog and said nasty things [not that we could because you don't have the balls to post one] and i'm pretty sure that none of us went by any of your friends blogs and trolled them. on that last one i say this because like attracts like and none of my group are hatemongers.

none of us imposed our lifestyle choices on you.

you came looking for us for NO other reason than to make us feel shitty about ourselves and you did it in the most evil and low way possible. you came in through the back door and wished one of my friends DEAD!

and you are probably sitting self righteous and happy in your ivory tower and thinking about how you showed those sinners.

yeah you certainly showed them.

you showed them that once again more evil has been perpetuated in the name of GOD than any other word in the WORLD.

in the world.

you showed that intolerance and hate are alive in america today.

you taught us with your deeds how such nastiness as the klu klux klan can gain a foothold in the 'land of the free' and you definetely demonstrated what really is worth hating in our society.

i am truly beginning to believe that those who spread intolerance and bigotry and hate should be sterilised and rendered incapable of raising children. then at least you wouldn't be able to raise another generation of people who hate.

but you will.

in fact you're the kind of person that believes birth control is a tool of the devil so not only will you raise hateful little hooligans who think that bombing their fellow man is an excellent way to force them to agree with you? and who think that they really are entitled to their suv's? and who think global warming is an artsy fartsy liberal fantasy to get more votes? and who think science is a tool of the devil [unless you're making bombs]?

you're going to raise fourteen of them.

it's no wonder the good guys can't win. we practice RESTRAINT. for every one we make you make fourteen more.

frankly margaret cho sums up this entire post in one sentence:
"any kind of love is fine, it's your hate you gotta watch"

next time you're tempted to say something hateful? put yourself in someone else's shoes instead.

or do the tougher thing and try understanding their side of things and learning from each other. oh if only we could all learn to HEAR each other. what a world it would be.

"any kind of love is fine..."

pre pride post - second annual

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look an anniversary!

tomorrow is pride day and i'm strangely not in the mood. i mean i've made plans and i've arranged things and there's going to be drinking and EATING and partying and hot naked men who aren't remotely attracted to me.

i did kiss a bear the other night on my way home.

for those of you who don't know what a bear looks like? imagine a reasonably large guy sitting around in jeans or leather pants and a leather vest or a flannel shirt.

add some facial hair, generally a bit fanciful and the possibility of a leather cap.

we were yapping for a bit and wished each other a happy pride and kissed each other on the mouth and went our seperate ways.

for some reason this delighted me.

on my way to kissing a bear i passed by a needy [and quite probably hammered] woman running a spin the bottle game [and enthusiastically kissing the probably gay boys] and a man drawing the pride logo at the intersection of maitland and church. sitting there in the middle of the street with his paint and his chalk and a look or rapt concentration.

he did this while throngs of people wandered by to take in the sights and the patios raged with people.

the mood is so lovely during pride and this is in fact my favourite weekend of the year for that very reason. er sorry, favourite IN TOWN weekend of the year. this year it happens to coincide with mom's birthday so i'm at the farm for saturday.

and relieved let me tell you. i haven't slept in days. days.

i've been wandering around like a stupid since wednesday because all there is this week is people partying outside my window. they seem to be getting ruder every year. or i'm getting more sensitive.

or both.

last night i was woken up at 4am by people making out next to my window and then again at this morning by the scottish marching band marching down the road. what the fuck was a marching band doing on saturday morning at 9:30?

i mean they all party, don't they at least want to sleep in the morning?

it was all right though, rr was on her first day of food since her fourteen day fast and rl and i are the regulars so we giggled for the whole class, it was kind of awesome.

then i went and visited a total hottie and drove the long way which is now the short way [no towns and lights so still a 60kph zone is faster] to the farm. the farm.

*sigh of contentment*

it was perfectly hot and sunny with nary a cloud in the sky and the day got remarkably amusing when my mother pulled out her birthday present.

the air rifle.

for serious. that's what she wanted for her birthday. my mom is so cool.

my dad had made her a target with an easel and a can of peas and there she is giving my sister instructions on operating this little gun!!

so lividviv and our mom and viv's man jh and i sat around and shot at cans on a target while my dad cooked and the sun beat down on us. and then i had my moment of divine inspiration.

i went and got my bathing suit.

lividviv wore her panties and my workout shirt from this morning and off we went to the pond. the pond. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

so we basically stood there and dared each other and eventually we dove in at the same time and came up shouting with glee. the water was perfect.

perfect.

my first outdoor swim of the year in the warm silk of a freshwater spring fed pond.

my hair is delighted, my skin is feeling full of liquid and my driver's side sunburn isn't even particularly angry with me. it is sort of a thorn in my plan to wear a bikini tomorrow...

regardless, i went for a swim. an actual in the pond with refreshing water swim. more than that i got to play with my sister while we splashed each other and laughed like little children.

and then we got fed divine food and lovely company and now i get to go to bed and sleep for about nine hours before driving home to the city.

and do you know what happens then?

i walk down church street and watch them do last minute preparations for the biggest party of the year and then i arrive at othercat's house.

there i will find othercat and pj and princess valium and orange juice and champagne and brunch. and then we will wander back UP church street to party in the village all day.

i'm not even mentioning the parade of half naked people and naked people and really unnattractive people and painted gold people and covered in feathers people there will be tomorrow.

or the good mood everyone will wear like clothing... for some as their only clothing.

or the margaritas on whatever patio and pj MAYBE getting his annual drunk. oh i hope so!

for someone who isn't in the mood i'm sure strangely excited!

night kids :)

sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy

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i had the strangest experience today, i went into a pub to watch the italian pool games at ten o'clock in the morning and was soundly ignored by the staff until i walked out at NOON after watching the italy match to completion.

i'm delighted, italy and ghana make it out of the pool, how lovely. so good for those racists who think africans are inferior. (tragically this is quite true in europe)
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i'm too tired to post for real tonight... so here are some quotes i love:


You need the cholesterol, it will add structure to your veins.
-- tommer

Space is a hard thing to negotiate
-- lividviv

I'm flexible, of course I'm flexible, as long as everything is exactly the way I want it I'm very flexible.
-- Lorelei Gilmore

Women don't eat, we just look at food and jump on the treadmill.
-- Lorelei Gilmore

I'm not a science major, I just like good bongs.
-- sassinak

I once thought I had mono for an entire year. Turns out I was just really bored.
-- Ferris Bueller

You have new mail.

Much sorrow may be avoided by acknowledging that, as gloomy as being alone makes you feel, it is rollicking heaven compared with being among most other people.
-- R. Rosenblatt

Another reason to be wary of ice-sheet outhouses: Seals occasionally use the opening in the ice as a blowhole. While there's nothing inherently dangerous about a suppositorial blast of hot seal breath, it is, in the words of one shaken veteran, "a disquieting way to start your day."
-- Mary Roach, "Blinded by the White"

Never wear anything that panics the cat.
-- P.J. O'Rourke

And you can go right ahead and get pissed off at me or take potshots or whatever makes your life worth living. I'm non-stick.
-- Anna Melnikoff

That your arrogant pedagoguery has articulated even the most dubious of facts, is as foolish a fantasy as the one in which your rhetorical effluvium passes for thoughtful discourse.
-- batz

Are you trying to indirectly praise your own introduced term prior to defining it? If so you flatter yourself sir, but it's no compliment.
-- madmagic

linux is for people who hate microsoft, bsd is for people who love unix (yaiba - 6 Oct 2000)
-- mdmx

We could learn a lot from crayons:
some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names and all are different colors....but they all exist very nicely in the same box.
-- unknown

Answering the phone for a living will beat the nice right out of you.
-- sassinak

What garlic is to food, insanity is to art.
-- unknown

Life is a learning process, not a pulpit.
-- lsd

Leap and the net will appear
-- aida

When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always.
-- Gandhi

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming---WOW!!! What A Ride!
-- Anonymous

i'm always attracted to younger guys and it sucks cause i've made men outta boys so many times.
-- dana - big brother

2 moves are as good as a fire!
-- CrtxReavr's grandmother

Have you ever seen the United States take the blame for anything?
-- Mel Lastman on the hydro outage

Mitsato: you never change do you?
Kaji: of course i change, the act of living is an act of change
-- Evangelion - the series

Sit on my face I'll guess your weight.
-- anon

Deliver your future into the hands of your friends.
-- Pete Townsend as quoted by othercat

love is friendship set on fire
-- anon

i get really upset when i see young girls getting liposuction and breast implants, i'm like how is that any different than foot binding?
-- margaret cho

the hardest thing to do in this world is to live in it
-- buffy summers

any kind of love is fine, it's your hate you gotta watch
-- margaret cho

if i told you you had a nice body would you hold it against me?
-- othercat

artists are supposed to comment on culture, that's the function of art
-- margaret cho

sometimes people play hard to get because they need to know that the other person's feelings are real
-- Brooke Davis - 'One Tree Hill'

pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever.
-- shane falco - 'the replacements'


:)
happy friday!

shine

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so, since i wrote that letter on monday/yesterday (started monday, finished tuesday... what? some of us DO sleep you know) i've been thinking about how i ended it.

'love always'

and i realised later how true it was. just not in the way you might expect.

i look back at all of my previous men whether i ever dated them or not and i still have a soft spot in my heart for all of them. some spots are softer than others of course.

i certainly can't think of too many of them that i would want back in my life although there are a few. some even as lovers. no, i'm not telling you who falls into what category but i will tell you it isn't so much category as... shine.

like i look at this little row of crystal bubbles with pictures inside them and some of them are all shiny and bright and others are tarnished around the edges and some of them are pretty dark and dim and a couple of them are smoking holes where crystals once sat [although even they still own a soft landing] but all of them are somehow treasured in my memory.

now that i think about it? i don't think there are any smoking holes left. i think they've all healed.

i wouldn't be me without them after all ... and maybe they wouldn't be them.

and the shine isn't determined by length of relationship or style of breakup or anything. there are men with shine that i dated for a long time and men that i knew for a day [ahhh PL]. but all of them touched me in a positive way and left me a better person or at least more myself.

there are men with lots of tarnish and men with very little. again that isn't really determined by a timeline but it is somewhat coloured by their treatment of me. the men that i wrote about yesterday are so full of tarnish and dirt that i can hardly see them through it but they're there too.

maybe i needed k to come along and be all inexplicable because that made letting go of someone else just a little easier. or maybe i needed to fall for someone else to help me find out what i do and do not need. and interestingly k's tarnish has faded... but he has no shine really.

maybe i needed my ex husband just so i could remember that someone once wanted to marry me. actually three people but only two of them asked. the third and i did the biggest number on each other of all... but since i had dinner with him his shine is back. he was the biggest smoking crater but still? still the crystal grew back up.

maybe a little more realistic than before and with some rough edges but it's there. it's actually prettier now. probably because it's closer to reality than the original. it makes one wonder what it would be like to have dinner with all of one's exes.

i wonder how many of them i would have nothing to say to at all.

this post is taking a long time to write because i keep getting lost in reveries. i've thought about the way i met my ex husband (yes, we met 'cute') and the day tr implied that we would get married and the way k looked that magical night and the way my ex fiance showed me my first shooting star.

i've thought about re that i dated twice when i was a teenager and dumped badly both times. and bg to whom i did that as well. both men i cared for so much i couldn't hurt them so i ran away from them. funny how that works. i called bg once a few years later and his mother asked me not to find him.

what's funny is that she asked with the utmost respect and with utter liking of me in her voice.

"he loves you like the movies sass but he's living with someone and i think they're happy." and i *miss* my friend bruins but she was right.

*sigh* she was right. i hurt him enough. (wow, who knew this post would bring stinging eyes)

the thing is? i'm someone else's brooding guy in the corner with the cheekbones. but i was much younger then and not nearly so wise. hrm, i don't consider myself wise at all... and yet i'm clearly wiser than i was then although i know less.

i thought about pg and how much i want to see him [pause to google *sigh* still nothing] and about g's cocaine habit and about how g is the one that showed me what it is to wait for sex while sharing intimacy.

thanks g.

and i thought about Ke and the crush i had on him in uni and about P and the crush i had on him in high school and about rc and the crush i had on him a couple of years ago and b who showed me the difference between having sex and making love...

i love all of them. even the ones that hurt me. even the ones i never dated. all of them.

there are some, like tr, who could call me up and say "hey sass i need aftercare from surgery, can you help?" and i would. i would have BEFORE we had dinner. i think that he would have too. some people are in your heart forever no matter what happened with them.

some people, even if you never speak to them again, have still earned that kind of place in your heart ... and some haven't. there are people i know who would never see their exes again, not even to spit on their graves.

it's just so strange to realise that i wouldn't refuse to see any of them. that i actually care deeply about them all. i don't need to see them but i would like to know that they're okay.

inexplicably by setting myself free from that guy i wrote about yesterday i freed myself to realise that i will have a slowly shrinking soft spot for him forever.

and that that's okay.

because it is. i loved him. he wasn't my friend. these statements are true but SEPERATE. and maybe i had to realise that i could love someone that deeply that didn't care about me. me who always said 'i don't think you can love people who don't love you back, i don't think it's possible.'

so it's okay to hold a little space beside all the other little spaces and fill it with the happy moments while letting the tarnish heal itself. and that doesn't mean i've got him on the back burner or that i'm hoping he'll come back somehow or anything.

in fact it means just the opposite.

the crystal bubbles in that lineup all have one key thing in common. they're complete. i've done with them. sure some of them are slowly letting the tarnish heal itself but they're things that i've done with.

over now.

even if i got back with one of them there would be a new crystal not a revisit to the old one.

and don't think that wasn't a huge realisation too.

kathi asked me in my comments yesterday what i wanted from that letter (okay that's not exactly what she said but whatev) and since i couldn't sleep i let my mind play the free association game and it went from never seeing him again... which it was okay with.

to running into him somewhere and being utterly indifferent

to consciously choosing to hang with him at a party or dim sum or whatever

to having him show up at my door and declare his undying love and adoration for me and i realised that there was one thing all this had in common. i didn't care.

and i don't. i don't care what happens with him... at all. in fact? i was *in* all of those scenarios except the one where he shows up at my door, in that one i was a spectator. i was not *in* it.

it worked y'all. i'm free.

compost heap

.
dear you

yes you with the brooding and the pretty cheekbones.

you know you, the guy in the corner studying the room intently. watching me from a distance. watching me watch you. knowing we're both doing it.

yeah, *you*

i saw a picture of you the other day, i didn't mean to, i had a perfectly good reason for being where i was, really i did. i've since eliminated that avenue. but now there's a new photo stuck in my brain... another one that says 'hey look at me, see how deep and pretty i am?' and i still do.

i don't really understand why i still do. i suspect it has to do with my 'what the fuck' pile.

you know, where all the things i don't grok get tossed while my brain figures them out. it's just that *some* of the things that get tossed in there don't come back out. they never actually get explained.

it's like the bermuda triangle of 'what the fuck' and that my friends? that is not at all a healthy place to be, and most of the time it's avoidable but sometimes? sometimes the conscious mind gets sucked into that black hole.

you're like that guy k. the guy that dumped me and 'couldn't tell me why' and then went off and disappeared never to be heard from again until i heard through the grapevine that he was getting married. i guess i'm supposed to wish him well right? think happy thoughts?

well i don't. except then i think about her and the kids they'll have and i hope to god that he's exactly the awesome guy i didn't get to date... instead of the mealy mouthed ass who won't tell a girl why she's getting dumped.

so instead of just knowing and getting over it i get to sit around and fucking wonder about it. agonize about him. try to figure out what the FUCK just happened and then try to move on. it's like the toilet seat falling off the space station and splatting me into the pavement of my 'what the fuck' pile. the record scratch to end all record scratches.

and then? then he actually turns into an old mountain. something the new stuff barely gets stuck on on it's way by. and you? yeah back to the broody guy in the corner... you are my new chief obstruction in the happy swiriling that is the washing mashine in the back of my brain.

it's like mental intestines and you're stuck in my appendix. a big old ugly safety pin i swallowed by accident that's just stuck... not being digested or moved along or shat out. stuck.

i know it's a lesson in letting go i really do. that just doesn't make it any easier to learn.

if only you were the kind of person who made the hard choices, who admitted the things that were hurtful. if only you had character instead of eyelashes. one day you may realise that the hard way is really the easy way in disguise and you will cut through the gordian knot that is your self rationalisation and you will come out the other side a wonderful human.

i don't hope that i'm there to see it anymore.

but i still hope that it happens.

*scratch* goes the record.

how can you be both wonderful and so hellish all at once. how can that even be possible? if i could let go of that impossible conundrum i'm sure i could let go of all of it. catharsis... i seek catharsis.

long slow deep breaths.

maybe if i can just find one of the ends of the string. you know like that old puzzle where you have this crazy complicated knot and if you pull on *just* the right piece it falls to the floor utterly unraveled?

it's just i know for sure that you own one end of that string, what i have to find is *my* end of that same string. the piece of me that is still attached to you. the piece that in spite of all your crap, all your bullshit and that lovely elephant marauding my heart took from you?

that piece that still loves you.

i don't know why it's there and not letting go. i don't know how to find the root of it and allow it to remove itself from my soul. i know that cutting down the tree won't work because i tried that.

i know that pulling it out by the roots won't work because i tried that. you're like the dandelion, miss even a millimetre of that fucking root and back comes the plant stronger than ever.

and like the dandelion the only way to really excise you is to soften the earth around the root and get it a little moist before ever so gently easing you out and tossing you onto the compost heap of my life.

the place all of the people i don't give a shit about end up.

the place the people that hurt me and have been excised end up.

the place the people i've grown out of end up.

compost. mother nature's recycle bin. it's lovely stuff really, you take your trash and your discarded organic detritus and you throw it in a heap... and once in a while you turn the heap and you find beautiful fresh healthy dirt.

the kind of dirt that your hands just *itch* to play in.

the kind that your hands just die to plant seeds in.

fresh dirt, ready for sowing.

but you, you're stuck in the bermuda triangle with your roots firmly planted in my soul and you aren't letting go. would that you had simply had the balls to tell me the truth, then i would have known it so much sooner and the knot would have fallen to the floor as a length of string. free and ready to be woven again.

but no.

you had to be a liar and thus i build yet another wall in front of the part of me that trusts easily and well. it was already so hard for me to let go and to trust and to allow men inside my defences.

believing that anyone would care for me and about me and put my needs ahead of or at least equal to their own is so much harder than it ever was. you couldn't have picked a *worse* time in the life cycle of my heart to trample it. it was so fragile and bruised already and you just hauled off and stomped on it. which was, i'm sure, the lesson for me. the universe wills after all.

and still you wonder why your dating karma is so bad.

you reap what you sow my love, perhaps if you paid more attention to the seeds you scatter so indiscriminately. perhaps if you noticed the hearts you trampled on the way. maybe, just maybe, if you realise that you feed on the esteem of others and instead learn to believe in yourself.

perhaps, just a titch of self reflection. look into yourself instead of at yourself.

i know, those eyes really are pretty, but deep eyes are no substitute for depth.

be well, heal thyself and if you please? be gentler with the fairer sex, we are fragile and break easily and are not simply for your amusement.

farewell my friend, my imaginary friend, my soulmate that isn't. may you grow and spread your branches and become the beautiful human you're capable of rather than simply choosing the simple paths and the easy answers.

you stunt your growth sir and never has that made me sadder than with you. your potential. oh it boggles the mind. please love, believe in yourself and find the hard places. the dark places. the ones that hurt.

go exploring your self instead of your eyes.

your depths are limitless, you have but to welcome them.

and with this i set myself free.
love always
sass

ethnic soccer/football/calcio/?

.
i'm watching the world cup and they're doing the italian anthem so they're cutting to the team and the fans and the coaches and i'm struck by how much i really do look like these people. i'm also struck by just how attractive i find them. the old men look the way i like my old men. the young men are beautiful and dark with flashing eyes and lovely cheekbones and somehow their bodies are shaped right.

i mean it's inexplicable. even the ones i don't think are *hot* i find attractive.

the men my age? i wanted to introduce myself to all of them... and i was struck by a single fact.

struck.

i should move to italy.

i look just like the women look there except i don't look like them at all. i have their hair and cheekbones and eyes and lips but what i don't have is their sense of style. mine is completely different.

and the thing is? every time i'm in a group of italians i'm a hottie.
.

oh my word.

this is some of the worst officiating i have EVER seen in a world cup football (soccer) match. maybe i should call it calcio (italian word for soccer/football) instead because it's getting very hard to explain that whole thing.

anyway so far approximately half of the calls have been blatantly ridiculous. i mean i understand that they're trying to turn football around and make it less violent but at the same time the guys have to go after the ball. the round ball you hit with your feet.

people are going to trip each other. there's going to be falling. sometimes there will even be injuries.

what's funny is that BOTH teams are doing the total stunned face at the refs when the red cards are getting handed out. i mean i don't think we've played more than thirty seconds without a whistle so far in this half.

and i don't think either team is enjoying the fact that bogus penalties are getting handed out... they can't play, they can't run, they can't try to block they just have to play and not touch each other or the ball.

the coaches look frustrated.

i mean ultimately this is supposed to be a game. there should be some FUN after all.

hah the announcer just perfectly called it "i don't think the referees are watching the same game"

like these guys aren't even calling the offsides correctly. fortunately the referees get evaluated as well so HOPEfully these guys are done for the rest of the tournament.

okay i'm cheering for italy right? but seriously i cannot comprehend how that last goal was offside? ahhh okay. hey check this out you guys? the ref got this one right! another guy was blocking the goalie. wow weird. [obstruction to the goalkeeper]

anyway this has been an exceedingly strange game, the refs get about half of the calls totally right and the other half are utterly fucked. i haven't even finished the paragraph about how he gets one right and he's doing it again.

if this game ends in a draw it's okay actually because it's 1-1 so the goals against scores aren't going to go up with any relevance.

and it did. frankly seems only fair considering the terrible officiating.

that wasn't the direction i expected this post to take that's for sure. i was going to go into a long discussion about ethnic markers and the people that we're innately attracted to. i was going to muse a little about whether it's racist to be attracted to people from your own ethnic neighbourhood.

i was going to wander down some odd pathway in my brain and come out the other side with an excuse to hang out in little italy more! (actually that really is a good idea) not to mention that i was going to look at the idea of dating outside of your comfort zone. of dating the people that don't look anything like you. the ones whose skin isn't quite the right colour to complement yours or whose height is really different.

and i realise that i've mostly done that. i haven't dated a single italian man in my life. oh sorry, except a couple that summer when i was nineteen and staying there. and boy did they like me that summer.

course i've never looked hotter in my life... and yet still i did better in italy than here. i came back looking better than i ever have OR ever will (what? i was NINETEEN and twenty five pounds lighter than i am now, with a massive tan and hair down to my ass. i may be more elegant or well built or have more character now but come on. i look better now than i did then but it's the expression on my face now rather than the body that's winning it) and still the boys here didn't find me nearly as interesting.

i dated one guy that year and he was eleven years older than i was. and the only man after me all year. AND somehow i was the 'res slut' because i was hotter than all the girls in residence. no one ever noticed that i never actually slept anywhere but my own bed until i got a boyfriend that i kept for the rest of the year.

i'm sure tired of being gay. being a slut. being an interim chick. being too hot to date you. being too smart for my looks. being... not enough.

i'm tired of it... and i legitimately suspect that if i go after my own kind (so to speak) i might just do a little better.

and that i even think that makes me feel a little... well... racist.

shapeshifters...

.
it's funny the fallout my scales post has had. people that i talk to in day to day life are referencing it. it seems it's going down as a classic. fair enough, that shit pisses me off and maybe it should be a classic.

*laughs as she imagines some doctor reading it and the comments at a conference*
.

there's this man at the gym, we'll call him salt. yes, you've heard of him before... more than once.

anyway i met him a while back and we exchanged names and chatted and grinned and then his friends noticed and got embarrassingly helpful and then we stopped talking to each other because it was weird.

then i didn't see him for a few months. this was probably good because i was busy being in love with an ex friend who was busy leading me on [i'm not bitter at all *snerk*] and then i was busy recovering.

so a couple of months back i say 'hi salt' and he goes 'hi uhhh climber girl...' with an embarassed smile. and i can't explain really but he actually got points for that.

why?

because he didn't pretend and then go find out. he copped to forgetting my name and looked embarrassed about it. so i go 'i take it from that that you would like me to remind you of my name' or whatever and then we chatted a little.

a couple of days later i see him again and he's all 'hi *sass* how are you today?' and then he used my name like three times in five minutes... and when i commented that i hadn't seen him in ages he said 'that's because you don't climb on dayone and daytwos anymore....'

and i went to myself... hrm interesting, why does he want me to know that?

anyway i pay it no real mind except to notice that every time he sees me after that he takes great pains to use my name at least twice.

then i show up this week on monday to climb away my sorrows after telling the nice man that i couldn't see him anymore and weirdy mcweird salt (while talking to a group which includes a very hot girl) throws his arm in the air and grins really wide and kinda waves.

like he looked surprisingly happy to see me.

and then they leave and he stays and chats for a bit... and then we end up at the other end of the gym together and talking some more.

and i'm starting to think i should invite him out for coffee...

but it's so fucking hard to do that sort of thing especially in a place where you see someone all the time and i can't shake the feeling that if he wanted to ask me out he would have already.

and then i think about those embarrassingly helpful friends and i wonder.

i'm not up for anything like that right now anyway but i do find his continued repeating of my name strangely adorable. i think it's because he's almost turning it into a private joke and not at all minding that i know he forgot my name.

maybe if i see him without his embarrassing friends...

maybe not

... probably not
.

have you ever loved someone helplessly?

known it was totally hopeless and loved them anyway?

what do you do? do you cut them from your life entirely or try and try to transmute your romantic love into sibling love?

it seems to me that no matter what you do in that situation you're fucked.

i haven't ever managed to be friends with someone i felt that way about, but then it's only happened once or twice and in one case i didn't have the balls to do anyhing about it and in the other he was a liar.

i suspect in the second case that if he hadn't been a liar we would still be friends... maybe.

when i was eighteen a man fell hopelessly for me. hopeless because he was twenty years older than i and he knew all along it couldn't happen. and then we were friends for years. like five or six or something and at a couple of points i asked him if i wouldn't be better if we stopped being friends.

if that would be easier for him.

he said no and cried while he said it and thus we stayed friends. and never once did he look at me with anything other than romantic love. and to this day i wonder what would have been kinder, to stay friends with him or to cut him loose ruthlessly. [we lost each other because i moved a lot and eventually 'forgot' to tell him]

he told me that he was a big boy who could take care of himself, but i'm not sure that we're rational in that situation. i'm certainly not.

it just makes me wonder is all...

that first guy i fell for hard that i didn't have the balls to say anything? those feelings did eventually fade as i realised that he and i weren't in fact suited to each other. it's much harder with the second because the person he *seemed* to be was in fact perfection as a match for me.

unfortunately it turns out that he was only a shapeshifter without control.

ahhh shapeshifters. brutal people to know because they turn into whoever you want them to be... and the young ones don't get that they're doing it.

i know this because i am one, it's just that i've learned to harness it and use my powers for good... well better anyway.

happy friday!

scales

.
you know that question?

the one that goes "on a scale of one to ten..."

well that question pisses me the fuck off. like so much.

no, it really does:
x: on a scale of one to ten, how much does it hurt?
s: have you ever been in shitty chronic pain for more than a year? two?
x: what does that have to do with anything?
s: have you ever crawled up the stairs to the bathroom
x: yes
s: while sober?
x: no
s: you don't understand what six is in my world.

and they don't.

i was bleeding out of my urethra (god that's ridiculously fun to say as long as it NEVER fucking happens again) and it hurt so much i made little mewling noises when i peed.

[EVERY.FIVE.MINUTES.!!!!!!]

oh wait you don't get it. i wear bruises with pride, ask anyone.

so yeah, with the mewling noises? i was fucking dying. and they're asking me scale of one to ten.

i can't begin to answer that question without asking what 10 is in their world. and do they mean
acute or long term?
current or ever?
bearable or no?

what?

like elle. elle, i can tell you without ever having met her or spoken to her on the phone, has a pain tolerance that average mortals cannot comprehend. and yes, we still whine about papercuts.

what? human okay?

this rant brought to you by the word relatively in my previous post. the one where i told you about chucking the very nice man. i was thinking about it when i read it again today.

i said that telling someone i'm not into them the right way was relatively unpleasant.

and i got to thinking. what if the worst thing that ever happened to you was that your date stood you up on prom night?
*snerk*
or.. uh
your mom spanked you once cause you stuck your finger in a light socket
or...
*giggling*
you got a D!
or
whatever you get the gist. for you, telling a nice man that you just aren't there is going to be the worst thing ever.

but... if the worst thing that ever happened to you involved the death of an immediate family member or the long slow leaving of an ailing pet or some really oprah worthy and true tales of your childhood ["my parents were on jerry springer. twice together, my mom twice more and my dad just that one other time"] (sorry, i know what really shitty childhood means {know social workers} and my heart goes out to anyone who had one. if you're IN one? call a helpline. no really... as soon as it's safe.)?

then it would be significantly less shitty to do that. like a lot. just because on a scale of one to shitty your shitty meter is really fucking high.

like elle's pain tolerance high. or mine...

now if you get both of those people to describe that same experience one of them would put it at like nine and the other somewhat lower. but it isn't like either of them had a good time.

relatively unpleastant. man i'm a git.

that said? i could tell stories.

i think weight is turning out to be a scale now and not the kind where you weigh yourself. the richer you are the thinner you are. only the super rich can afford to be that thin and still be alive and pretending to look healthy.

i suspect many of them have terrible skin up close... but that the rest are just that odd tiny hipped body type.

"rank the following images in order of wealth..."

*imagines scale with kirstie alley a couple of years ago, [i know nothing of money in hollywood] britney spears now, jennifer aniston and kristen french* you'd probably get it right if you did it by weight.

[notes that she meant kristen johnston rather than french and that nicole kidman would have been a better choice. further notes that she mixed up french saunders and kristen johnston of third rock's names...]

okay britney then would rank higher than britney now...

"on a scale of one to eight, with eight being least dislike and one being most dislike..."

um what?

seriously what are you trying to ascertain? how much i hate the ass reaming you're trying to find out if you can hand me?

'well sir, twenty seven percent of voters eighteen to twenty five were in favour of..."

in favour of what? just exactly what was the question? and who formulated it?

holy shit i just started arguing the quebec referendum!

[hey if you're not canadian. quebec sort of wants to separate, mostly, well a lot but not really and so they keep not voting to separate by like one percent. and last time there was some kind of supreme court of canada (but who recognizes that in separate quebec?) ruling about a clear majority AND a clear question and then they started arguing about who decides it's a clear question and {oy vey!} so on]

i know that those questions are designed to get the answers they need fast and easy. but what are they losing in translation? what did the voters want in quebec that year? i read the question and i don't fucking know.

do they want to know if i can sleep with the pain or if i'll lie awake all night and cry or do they want to know if i can bear to make it until morning?

if i say six what does that mean to you?

slightly spoiled

.
*long sloooooooooooooooooow exhale*

so i did something relatively unpleasant today. i told a very nice man that i just wasn't that into him and i didn't enjoy a second of it. it wasn't that i didn't like him because i did.

it wasn't that i didn't have a good time with him because i had that too.

it wasn't any of the things you're thinking. it was simply the lack of spark. this was made even less pleasant because he felt it and i didn't.

to quote everything nice? 'god damm that one sided spark'

and i am here to tell you that it sucks in either direction but it's assuredly worse when you're the one feeling it. because there isn't anything you can do. it's not like there's some magical way you can convince the object of your affection to like you. all you can really do is wait and hope and try to be awesome.

of course because you're *trying* to be awesome you never succeed.

i had the enviable luck of falling dreadfully badly for someone who claimed to never have felt an iota of spark with me. i say claimed because he either led me on or felt it and then changed his mind. neither of these are awesome and i will never know because honesty was apparently not something i deserved.

in a way i'm glad that i had that experience. if i hadn't i might have been tempted to pull punches and be less honest. okay i'm not exactly glad, the same way no one is glad when anything shitty happens even if it is a learning experience.

still without it i might have been tempted to be kinder. i don't mean that i was mean or anything. it's only that i tried to be as blunt as i could and as fast as i could. just because i'm not feeling sparky is no reason to torture someone else.

he took it with such class that i was actually even a little sadder that i wasn't sparky back.

he would have been an excellent man to date.

so yeah, back to celibacy.

joy.

my day wasn't all bad, my neighbour and i hooked up and made further adventures in the art of making granola. and let me tell you, we're getting better. this one is much better than the last one although we managed to overcook it slightly *again*

err i take that back... now that i try it when it's cooled it's really quite delicious. slightly crispier than i wanted but soooo delicious.

i'm really glad that pile and i have discovered that we like making granola... the cocoa flavoured one makes a fantastically fattening and delicious snack. fuck worrying about fattening, i have maybe five more years where i can eat what i like and i'm SO taking advantage of it.

every woman i know who is of a certain age says that her ability to eat and get away with it disappeared at forty. and i only have five years until then...

mmmmmm granola.

it strikes me as strange that anyone who works out as much as i do will ever have this trouble with eating whatever she likes. it's just that some of the people saying this?

pilates instructors.

yeah.

i'm hoping that adding cardio to my regime will solve that problem. right around forty one i may be able to afford a condo and i'll just have to make sure that it has a pool in it or a community pool VERY close.

this is required. i really miss swimming and there's no convenient pools around here.

perhaps clarity will start going at a time i can go or we'll hook up about it or... yeah must email clarity.

anyway i went to a party this weekend, and i had the interesting experience of being one of the slimmer girls there. okay that's not that weird at non-climbing/pilates parties (at those i'm sort of chubby [and i AM! and i'm really tired of people yelling at me when i say stuff like that. hell, pile was at the conference with me last weekend and he'll tell you i'm kind of chubby in that company. not fat. not out of shape... but kind of chubby]) but i'm still getting used to it.

anyway this one woman took a shine to me and kept touching my hair and telling me how beautiful it was and then she refused to believe that i was my actual age. apparently i look twenty eight instead of thirty four. so i commented that it was because i had gained a lot of weight which had filled up my wrinkles and that they hadn't drained yet.

but don't you worry darlin' i look my age.

so she started yelling at me that i wasn't fat. which i'm not. but i hadn't said that.

i had said that my wrinkles hadn't finished draining fat yet. which they haven't. every month i look about three months older than i did the month before, and i expect this to continue until i look my age.

it's not as though i'm going to get fatter. not with the way i exercise.

but i'm not calling myself or my wrinkles fat. okay i'm calling my wrinkles chubby because although they show up more than they did they're still not here yet... and i can tell.. trust me, they're not done yet.

i can tell mostly because of the comparison with my hands, knees, elbows and feet. they tend to drop weight before my face in my body... and my face tends to drop weight before my ass. it's just how i am.

it's just that it's getting hard to comment on it now. people start thinking that i have anorexic tendencies or something. well no one who has seen me eat but...

so at this party? i ate like four helpings of dinner and half the chips AND a pile of cookies and sweets... but this woman never once saw me eat, and when i was so stuffed i could hardly breathe she started lecturing me to eat.

ah well, victim of her own assumptions that one.

i suppose it's ironic in some ways that she looks older than i do but claims two years less. and her wrinkles ain't skinny either. that said, she is clearly living a hard life, so who am i to comment on her wrinkles.

it's funny that although in any of these cases i don't really feel like i did anything wrong, i am still somehow left with a bit of an unpleasant flavour in my mouth and the sense that had i handled things better it wouldn't be there.

misspent youth

.
some really hard to comprehend things have been coming at me lately. hugely mixed messages so to speak.

one of my clients thinks that the things that i say in my blog render me unprofessional and that as such no medical professional would refer me clients. i find that really hard to imagine so i'm throwing it out there to my long term readers.

are there things that i regularly or occasionally discuss in my blog that would cause you to think 'hrm no, i don't think i should send her people, she's not professional?'

i'm especially asking those of you who HAVE had trouble because of their blogs and those who have read more than one post.

she was talking specifically about my occasional mention of my own health troubles and/or marijuana use. too much information or some such.

don't get me wrong, i can see her point, but i'm curious what the general perception is. and as to whether i should make my blog more secret...

on a related but totally different note here is a paraphrasing of an actual conversation i had with someone we'll call w for reasons known only to me.
s: yeah i've been in a lot of accidents
w: i'm not surprised with the way you drive
s: the way *i* drive???
w: well yes
s: so you're telling me i'm a bad driver?
w: no i'm not saying that at all
s: but you're saying that you expect me to get in accidents?
w: no, no i'm not.
s: but you just said you aren't suprised that i get in accidents, thus you are clearly *expecting* me to get in one.
w: that's not what i'm saying
s: yes it is, and if that's what you think why do you ever get in a car with me
w: i'm just saying i'm not surprised you've had a lot of accidents
s: so why enter a car with me if you're expecting me to get in an accident?
w: that's not what i said
s: yes it IS, that's a logical fallacy.
w: etc.

the thing here is?

if you truly think i'm an unsafe driver there are two things that are then immediately obvious. the first is that you would NOT enter a car with me. the second is that you would actually tell me you think i'm dangerous and why. thus i could educate myself right?

but no, i'm expected to get in accidents but i'm a good driver but i'm not expected to get in accidents but accidents are unsurprising with the way you drive.

um what?

seriously i cannot comprehend that conversation. so, if you've been in a car with me? am i dangerous? do you expect me to get hit? is there something i do that's particularly unaware and risky?

if you haven't been in a car with me? what do you think anyway? :)
.

okay so i better decide soon if i'm going to pilates on tour in seattle. the ticket has gone up like eighty bucks since i looked last week. i'm sure i can still get a decent deal but decision time is now.

really it all comes down to location, the conference is being held here:

The Westin Bellevue
600 Bellevue Way NE
Bellevue, Washington 98004

and i frankly have no idea where that is or how it relates to anyone i know in seattle. so anyone in the pacific northeast... and by east i mean west do y'all either have floorspace near there OR a recommendation of a hotel nearby that's 80 bucks instead of a hundred and fifty bones per night?

since i have to stay four nights i'd really rather find some valumotel or whatever that's not too far from the bellevue. cause with a special rate of a hundred and fifty clams a night it's too rich for my blood.

please? (i'm happy to take transit or rent a car if need be but i can't really be more than an hour from somewhere i have to be at 8am... although that will be 11am for me which makes things slightly easier.)
.

i've had to make an appointment with the physio again because my little pulled ligament in my spine isn't getting better. funny though because the body around it is getting happier and happier at an almost visible rate.

i can do things after last weekend that i couldn't do a WEEK ago!

i mean my TEACHER was IMPRESSED!

yeah dudes, i wasn't kidding when i said i had a new body after the weekend... and i know that i was right because rr sees it too.
.

so about blogger... do you guys want to stage a mass move?
.

so i went to see ministry and the revolting cocks and pb/dc (pitbull daycare). i shouldn't have gone.

ministry is old now and it's almost a tiny bit sad watching these men who have to be at least forty dancing around to industrial metal. it's actually not as sad as the rolling stones but still. not happy.

the weird thing is that i'm still perfectly happy i went.

they played nwo and thieves and liars and a couple of other old tunes and i got to be wearing a pink camouflage shirt and get looked at funny by all the people who were wearing the ministry uniform (black on black on black).

i think pink camouflage is ironic.

anyway, i did, of course, manage to pick up the only gay guy there *snerk*

weird part? the bands were good in reverse order.

so the headliner sort of sucked and the second billing act (rev-co) wasn't bad and the first band had me dancing along.

yeah, i didn't see that coming either.

i'm glad i went, it was nice to revisit my youth, but it was even nicer to get home and be the middle aged woman i am.

my poor ears y'all... they were ringing so much i had to turn on a fan to drown them out!

:)

real men

[i started this post some weeks ago]

this man that i'm seeing does the strangest thing...
he tells me he likes me

he's straight up about it and i'm flummoxed.

i keep thinking that he can't be real. i mean that's just not possible, he likes me AND he admits it?? and he's eager to see me all at the same time?

there must be a game.

and then it hits me, how fucked the world actually is.

some man is being straight up with me and i assume he isn't real. i mean imagine that, if all of the honest and sincere people in the world get so burned that they lose the ability to believe in each other? then what happens?

then nobody ever believes anyone?

i mean i'm already getting to that level of cynical so i can't imagine what it must be like for people who get burned more regularly than i do. those people exist for sure because i read their blogs.

i just can't believe that living in this modern age has managed to get a relatively sane woman to look at a man who is by every indication straight forward and honest and doubt his reality. i'm legitimately looking for him to trip up or something and i want to stop it.

i want to just be trusting and innocent and believe him.

i want to believe him the way i believed the last asshole i let anywhere near my heart, or the one before him, or that guy before him too.

i want to have faith in the inherent goodness in people, especially men, and not wonder always when they're going to knife me in the side.

but that is getting harder and harder to do.

maybe buffy was right after all... the hardest thing to do in this world is to live in it.
.

interestingly i started this post before i saw my ex and in rereading it i note that my feelings have changed a little.

either i'm still high from the meeting going so well or on the relief of it all or on my new space or my feelings have changed. for the better.

i'm learning that when the crap left over from tr drained away it took a lot of other stuff that was festering inside of me with it.

i've learned that that stuff had me more closed off than i thought i was.

and it seems that since i saw my ex and since i realised that i wasn't crazy for liking him i'm having a little more faith in my instincts again. i mean just because they are occasionally wrong is no reason to think that they're always wrong and it was hella helpful to re-meet tr and see why i went out with him in the first place.

[the above was written RIGHT after i saw my ex]

he's actually fucking awesome. of COURSE i went out with him. he was the catnip ...
.

that doesn't make me any more trusting though. i think i've finally hit the one too many times line. the one where you can't

[oh fuck i'm dead. peanut butter chocolate is available pre-packed now. so it's CHEAPER and 2 for 12 bucks.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

*clears throat*

*looks innocent*

*slurps*]

get past it anymore. the one where there's this little barrier that thinks it really is easier to be single. after all then you don't have to open yourself up or trust anyone or let anyone in.

and don't fucking tell me that it's the same as making friends. cause it ain't. don't even think about going there.

making friends is easy. you're not fucking them (shut up you know what i mean) [and if you fuck them emotionally you were never their friend... so] and you aren't telling them the things you care about in an effort to get to know them better.

and if you are it's not the same.

you're opening up but you aren't also getting physically involved. which is probably easier for people who tend to boink on the first date.

so, somehow with friends it's not the same. there's less of the jigsaw puzzle somehow. you're not trying so much to fit. you're not really wondering if the other person is actually who they say they are.

you figure they wouldn't bother since y'all are just friends.

you wait for the other shoe to drop.

but here's the thing, when do you *stop* waiting for the other shoe? do you ever? i mean there are people splitting up that have been together for forty years.

forty.years.

so you don't ever stop waiting right? you always assume a little that the other shoe will drop. except then you have to wonder if you're a self fulfilling prophecy or something. after all, they say you bring on what you ask for. hell i got the one std i was afraid of.

interesting isn't it?

if you trust them then you're foolish for trusting.

if you don't, you can't get anywhere.

if you put up a bunch of walls and expect them to fuck it up? they can't really help it can they?

i mean it's called a self-fulfilling prophecy for a reason.

i was tempted to cheat once. on a guy who assumed he wasn't worth loving and that thus i would cheat on him. he didn't trust himself so he didn't trust me. he was so sure that i was going to cheat on him that i started to believe it too.

so what does the above dilemma say about me?

*pauses for thought*

no seriously, what does it say?

old habits...

.
holy holy.

i have a new body.

no i'm serious. i just threw it enthusiastically into a pool of the best teachers ever and came out someone new. i've learned a million and one new things and at least three quarters of them are beyond words.

i don't move the same way as i did on friday morning.

and? !!!

my teacher and i got a lovely compliment. kathy corey (who is an excellent teacher and i must take more classes with her) and i got to talking and i asked her about a client who had no pelvic floor after childbirth (i have several) and not much sex drive (more than one) and what she would do about it.

so she told me and then [we were at the friday night cocktail party] suggested i find her over the weekend and she would take me through it. so i did.

oh my word. stomach massage. an exercise i never once got the point of. it made no sense to me whatsoever. why? who cared? so she taught me two reps. and one leaning on a table thingy where i did maybe three reps for prep. (trust me i remember it well also)

TWO reps.

and i was covered in sweat and high for twenty minutes.

twenty minutes you guys! can you imagine? i admit those two reps took a minute, but not many. and damm did i feel some new spots.

TWO REPS!!!!!

anyway kathy goes 'beautiful' or 'very nice' a couple of times (with her hands on my body) and i go 'yeah, i'm blessed in my teacher' and she goes 'you are!' ... so i'll have to tell rr that one.

i took mat classes with alan herdman, elizabeth larkam and kathy corey and workshops with alan and marie jose blom lawrence.

i wished i could have taken workshops and classes with them all but i need anatomy and deep theory before i need more moves. i don't even know the whole repertoire yet [in other words not capable of doing some of it still], but i do like learning new ways to play in my body.

my hips feel like someone elses hips and have a decidedly more balanced sway, my ribcage and breath are functioning differently and it feels like more deeply and i think i'm closer to the plumb alignment then i was. and good god my feet. what they learned about themselves!

it's funny, some of it went into my body even though i don't remember it and other bits are lodged in my brain... the rest is in my notes. which i'm going to read. (now or never)
.

yeah so i didn't touch my notes. i read 'digital fortress' by dan brown instead. it's okay, no da vinci or robert langdon and a little less mayhem. i liked it better than da vinci code and about equally with angels and demons. that said? the guy is a hack.

i woke up today and i was so tired. my brain is staring at things and having trouble speaking. it certainly wasn't a good day for a job interview so it's good that i didn't have one. what i did have was a meeting with some people who don't pay their teachers although they do have a very fair split with them.

if you're good and your classes are full you can make a killing doing this. if you aren't? not so much. the thing is it sounds like a lot of work. she's busy telling me that they'll do all the marketing for me and that they'll work around my schedule and the more i thought about it the less i wanted to do it.

it's not in my end of town and the studio is in a basement without windows. they have a lovely floor but it doesn't have much feng shui so to speak and it's quite chill. i don't know i just didn't feel like it was my place to be. which is strange right because i really liked the people.

it's also possible that i'm so tired from the weekend that nothing is going to get my attention today so i'm not making any rash decisions. there was one funny aftereffect that i really was not expecting though. i couldn't teach today. well not couldn't exactly, i mean i did fully teach after all, it's just that i was discombobulated and disorganized.

which is fair, i talked to a fellow teacher and she said that she didn't know how i did it and that after ONE day she was finished. i was too, it's just that i was still hungry. hungry the way you are when you're at the best buffet in the world. you've eaten your fill but you have to go back just one more time... for just that one more little tidbit of wonderfulness.

and that's really what the weekend was like. the buffet was filled with so many wonderful dishes and tastes and flavours and even though i ate everything i could i failed to even sample at least half of what was on the table.

there were legendary teachers and teachers who will soon be legends and somehow i didn't even hear a word from half of them (okay other than hello when we were introduced) and still i'm overstuffed with wonderful information.

really the major tragedy of my life right now is that i have to get up at seven am tomorrow and my insomnia has kicked in again hard core. i'm tossing and i'm turning and i think it's the fucking drugs for the uti but i might be making that up.

in fact i can't swear that i haven't been having trouble sleeping since before then but it's hard to tell because things keep waking me up. i guess it's a chicken and egg problem. i can't sleep so then i finally sleep but lightly and then someone yells outside and i'm awake and more exhausted and then i can't sleep even more and and and.

and of course once you get overtired it's worse.

this weekend was particularly funny because i couldn't turn my brain off at all and none of my old sleep tricks helped in the slightest. ahhh i was so cocky thinking that my sleep troubles were behind me. i guess that's what rampant excitement and an overstuffed brain do to an insomniac...

ahhh illusions :)

overstuffed

.
you know that feeling that you get after excellent sex? [or excellent masturbation] where you're all exhausted but totally fucking happy at the same time? and if you're a woman or a lucky man? there was probably more than one orgasm.

i feel like that right now.

and since y'all know that i was bleeding from my urethra on wednesday morning you can imagine that it wasn't sex. cause frankly the idea of touching or being touched anywhere NEAR there?

OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

anyway from this you must gather that i am not discussing orgasm. well at least not one that involves the genitals *grin*

*brief pause for dirty thoughts*
*(wonders why such thoughts are 'dirty'*

i am in fact experiencing post conference bliss. in fact? i don't even have words for how much fun i'm having [or how full my brain is]. all of the people involved in this shindig are wonderful and happy people who are living the best lives they can imagine. don't get me wrong, i'm certain that they consider it work but at the same time? they're clearly loving it.

marie jose blom lawrence was on the menu today (and tomorrow). she is a wonderful lady who became a stewardess so that she could take classes from all the teachers and fly for free. sheer genius i tell you. course she's been teaching full time for years now.

yesterday was alan herdman and he. well. i have to move to england.

no seriously i have to find a way to spend a year in London studying under him. that i've certified already? that i have no money and a thriving practise?

DOES NOT MATTER!

well of course it does. so i would have to do it like over the course of six summers or some crap like that but i don't care? i want to follow him around and sit at his feet and just. oh my god.

marie jose did that to me last year, and to a certain extent this year but i have EU citizenship and i don't have rights in the usa. so i'll take london thankyouverymuch.

for now i just want to get to seattle but there is no way i can swing airfare AND tuition let alone a hotel room. damm those workshops sound mindblowing and i'm a greedy bitch. some of these teachers are *old* now and must be studied with while they're still teaching. Already there are only like six people left in the world that still teach and actually studied with Joe.

[my picks to take if a trip to seattle magically appears]
[Mary Bowen - Pilates and Psyche ]
[Mary Bowen - The Spine ]
[Alan Herdman - Progressing to the Advanced Work ]

MUST!

oh i wish i had a million dollars sometimes. then i would take a few of years and go train with alan and marie jose and kathy corey and anyone else i feel like that i haven't met yet and don't know about. and then i'll go see if
elizabeth larkam will let me dance with her and then?

then i'll open a studio and fix broken people forever. :)

ahhh that sounds like such bliss. really learning first instead of this winging it and trusting my gut shit that i do now. i mean it's a good gut but there's a lot of information it doesn't have and i'm afraid it only has a surface understanding of what it's looking at.

and the good teachers? they all trust their guts, they just have a lot more information to feed to theirs.

i've noticed something about teachers that i respect, they all have three key traits in common.

all of them have a thirst for learning which keeps them out there asking questions and learning from each other and being curious at all times. okay probably not when they're walking the dog.

all of them would love to answer any question you can throw at them, the tougher the better. and the longer you give them the more they'll answer it. they'll offer to show you without expecting you to pay them (within reason) and they will expound.

all of them never stop teaching. they want to share everything they know with you and they just wish that they had more time to do it in.

i think i might be like that a little. i don't know if i'm at their level, i'm lazy and a climber and a blogger and i hate reading textbooks but i have the second two for sure.

hmmm i think i've thought of a fourth trait. they are creative and willing to admit that they don't know. that's five? the first three are the big ones.

i know a lot of really excellent teachers who stopped learning a long time ago and think that they know everything. they won't be legends like these people are. it's impossible. but better than that?

when i see someone like alan herdman thinking about a question or learning something from marie jose or whatever? i see that i've found a calling that involves lifelong learning *and* it reinforces how little *i* know.

i hope there are always teachers like that around to learn from, in fact i think i study from one of the next generation now.

ah !

*little dance*

i'm inspired!

and so tired i'm eating leftovers and passing out!


========================================================

Sass Inak came to Pilates by way of a car accident and by the time she met her Teacher her once fit body was overweight, shuffling and occasionally crawling up the stairs. By her third lesson she knew she had found her calling and has enthusiastically pursued further knowledge and experience ever since. Sass tends to specialise in 'broken' bodies but equally enjoys teaching groups and fit people. [She certified through Body Harmonics/The PhysicalMind Institute and continues her studies at Mind the Body and by taking workshops from legendary teachers]

how's that for a bio? and :
for a pic? [new job part time maybe... at a wellness centre :)]

homeless cats

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i can't sleep and my fingers are twitching.

interestingly i'm spending the weekend at a conference here in toronto called pilates on tour. i'm fucking stoked because i've just recovered from paying for it and that means that i can afford to buy a couple of toys when i'm there.

they're effectively half price due to the lack of tax and shipping.

so yeah.

things are perking up in the finance department a little AND i got a serious offer today. this client who has a finger in a lot of pies told me that when i'm ready to get my loft if i can't get financing he can get it for me or introduce me to some people etc. this is excellent because it's hard to get money when you're self employed.

i'm feeling kinda blessed.
.

these cats need a home. they're from toronto:

Slim & Shady:
.2 beautiful black cats need a home, brothers, 3 years old
.we've had them since 5 weeks.
.love to curl up together, super affectionate, snuggle up with you on your lap and always want lots of love! if you have your back to them, they will reach out their little fuzzy paws to get your attention. they love each other and don't want to be seperated.

.both are fixed
.They are healthy and happy, but need to be the only cats in a home
.We will leave you with a litter box, carry case and lots of food.

Please forward this message to anyone who may be interested or call us to find out more


*i* am not putting their number on the net. email me for it.

why would anyone chuck a pair of cats ? ahh probably moving to singapore or something.
.

that wasn't a dis, they have a quarantine there like the brits.
.

bleeding from your urethra sucks ass. fortunately the drugs work fast.
.

i had an interesting experience today.

i was in a car with a couple of friends and this guy drove around us slightly erratically and one of them dissed him and then the other did and then i said something positive about him. like they made up nasty stories about why he was driving erratically and i twisted it into a nice story.

and i got a little bit teased about it and informed that being negative was more fun.

but it's not.

right?
.

that's it you guys my eyes are closing so here's something out of the random file:



:)

don't forget i was illin in that pic :)

oh fuck 5 hours now... *sigh* dreaming of sleep

and othercat, hubris and i:


night!