Light My Fire

I am sure that if 30 year old me could have had a word with (i.e. influence upon) 20-something me, my life might not have been nearly as exciting as a Twixter. Let’s compare site statistics alone. DC Cookie, my long-[permanently]-hibernating site of singledom, gets twice as many daily hits as my current project. Because let’s be honest, despite the melody of my voice, who [besides best friends and cyber-stalking exes] really wants to hear the droning hum of an old woman’s romantic drivel? I have such vast, worldly wisdom to extend upon the lovelorn masses, but nary an interested, needy listener.

As such, I challenge those who stumble across my SAT-vocab-infused mumblings to suggest a topic of interest (within PG-13 boundaries, of course). In my infatuated state of matrimonial exhilaration, without assistance I simply cannot conjure a "Stream of Jessica" that is not directly related to my emotional jubilation – which, lovely in small doses, can also act as a ferocious audience-repellant. I welcome any and all commentary, anonymous or otherwise, to ignite my creative spark plugs. I am aching for new fodder...

Holiday Family

I have never spent a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day without my family. Whether Canadian blizzard or temperate West Coast aurora, my sister, my parents and I have always unwrapped our multitude of blessings together following the yuletide dawn; our day awash with giggles, hikes, family games and gluttonous turkey giblets. There is enough laughter in our Christmas celebration to fill a lifetime.

This diaphragm-tightening chortling got me thinking last night about those who are not lucky enough to have family, friends and in-laws vying for their companionship in the holiday season, and those who are unable to escape the claws of their employment to relax for a few weeks as the New Year approaches. The Christmas season is my absolute favourite time of year; a time when stress disintegrates from the merriment of loved ones around a warm fire. And the concept of somebody unable to experience that same warmth with his or her own congregation of relatives minces my heart to shreds...

Viva

I don’t know what it is about the city of sin, but I absolutely cannot get enough of it. Las Vegas is a desert mirage of grandiose proportions. The clocks stop [or rather, cease to be] and the multitude of toothless gamblers and Amazonian women propel forward as if with slow, chaotic purpose. I am infatuated with the din of clanking slots and techno, the barren breeze and the perpetual neon. I’ve seen the city from every angle; stripper pole to artisan bar; thousand dollar bottle service to e-infested late night rave; family musical to sensuous revue; cool, mountainous hike to sweltering poolside; strip to suburban home. The gaudiness is magical and the local inhabitants are simple in their wants but complex in their open-mindedness.

I have been to Las Vegas more times than I can count (I flew there four times last year alone), but I have never celebrated the beginning of a New Year in this necromantic cesspool of wonder. It is perplexing how uncontained my excitement is for my upcoming Sin City holiday…

Yin and Yang

After landing on the runway at National Airport a few weeks ago following a trip to Mexico, my cell phone vibrated repeatedly with news from my best girl. She is in love. As I patiently awaited the reappearance of my overstuffed bag at the luggage carousel, I called to listen to her amour-intoxicated voice describe her knight in all his untarnished valiance; she sounded as relaxed and jovial as I’d ever heard her. I beamed. I adore hearing tales of love-revelation, particularly when it’s my best girl who has unearthed her long-merited, romantic compliment. I absolutely cannot wait to meet this fresh, deep-water catch.

Our conversation later reminded me of some unsolicited advice I gave last year, when my sweetheart was being slandered by a woman scorned. Though horribly misconstrued, the intent of my pointed blog post was to remind the Infuriated that love can never be forced, nor should we permit ourselves to erupt green with jealous vitriol when the path we have taken to find it dead ends. We stumble unknowingly through a series of unfit lovers until the yin to our yang comes along and when he does, it’s glorious. I wonder now, when an irrefutable love has been deservedly delivered to her doorstep, if she’ll understand that the blunt vocalization of my counsel was never uncongenial. I hate to see a woman suffer, whether a best friend or a complete stranger. In fact, despite that we have never met, I feel oddly delighted by her new found happiness.

I cannot stress enough the validity of the most common of clichés; “when you know, you know” and nothing else is worth the draining effects of wrathful, heartbroken spite. If rapture, trust and devotion do not instantly envelop both parties in a milkshake of sanguine euphoria, then the recipe needs an ingredient overhaul. And tender patience is the only means to reach that perfect state of satisfaction with the partner for whom we are intended.

It's a Wonder I Don't Starve

It is with unfortunate biological chance that I did not inherit the gifted cooking genes from my mother’s side of the family. Thankfully my husband is a genius at the stove; even his drunken snacks at 3am involve the sautéing of exotic mushrooms with avocado oil and finely diced shallots.

But when my sweetheart travels, I am left to my own devices. Knowing that there is an elevated likelihood of all the Frosted Mini-Wheats in our house disappearing this week in his absence (for lack of other pre-made ‘instant gratification’ options), he set it up that I would have a series of delicious, reheatable portions of homemade turkey soup available for the duration of my brief solitude. Before packing for a trip to Puerto Vallarta (where I will be joining him shortly), he meticulously cut the last of the turkey from the bones and boiled the carcass into a flavourful stock. The only thing I had to do after dropping him at the airport was add the contents; an easy task, for someone who isn’t a bumbling idiot with a hot pot. How could chopping carrots and scooping grains of rice possibly go wrong?

Humbly, I am the living proof that it can.

First, I determined that celery, onions and carrots were not enough legumes for me. Why not broccoli, or better yet, cabbage? The pretty purple variety…that just happens to turn turkey broth into a veritable borscht (oops number one). And exactly how much dry rice should be added to a 10-quart pot? My un-cuisine-educated guesstimate was 3 overflowing cups, which unfortunately was at least double what was necessary (oops number two). So instead of turkey soup, I’m left to consume an indigo-hued rice casserole for the next three days.

I’m praying that my fatuous housewifery is recessive…

Namaste

I know for a fact that the lore of the creative muse is not mythical. I happen to have one myself in the fetching form of an olive-skinned femme fatale. She has pillow-y lips, zooma-zoom-zoom rump cheeks and a rhythmical hip thrust that could break a man mid-mambo. Her acorn-sized, cocoa eyes are as arousing and welcoming as a sun-kissed, temperate ocean. When she graces you with a smile, your world becomes so much more than a simple oyster. She neutralizes fear; she discourages boundaries; she cleanses, sanitizes, blesses. She is heaven’s gatekeeper and the caregiver of the universe. For a reason understood only by the cosmic powers that be, she has chosen me as the apprentice friend to whom she reveals [almost, some things are sacred] all. I know both the character she has developed (what Hollywood coins ‘based on a true story’) and the resilient, but oft vulnerable, maiden beneath the cloak; the innocent, untamable, commanding, genius of an edifying wellspring.

She is my muse for many reasons, at the forefront of which is her mastery of expression. She breathes inspiration into a vacant keyboard. If she ever discontinued my complimentary access to the verbal manifestation of her emotional impulses, I fear my writing would evaporate. My ability to place two unlikely words in the same sentence would be lost to apprehension. My blog is the mosquito to her elephant; her posts are the necessary red river of platelets from which this Stream subsists.

This, my dearest Namaste, is my significantly more befitting commentary.

Tears of Sweat

A word of advice: don’t read Tuesdays with Morrie at the gym. I was out of trashy, starlet-glossed magazines and the book was compact enough to fit on the reading ledger of the cross ramp. The read was quick, common and predictable. Regardless, the final chapter brought a few embarrassing tears to my already pink, puffy, salt-encrusted cheeks. Might have been an ugly scene for a crowded cardio floor if I hadn't been able to pass them off nonchalantly as sweat beads. Thus, can anyone recommend a Plan C to this hour-a-day gym rat who yearns to avoid the quick-sand monotony of her exercise routine? I can only read so much about Brangelina before I want to beat my head with my ipod and the dense content of my latest Erica Jong read is far too thick to rest motionless in front of my bouncing eyes.

31 Flavours

I have made the bold statement numerous times that every year of my life has been better than the last. It’s easy for an active, healthy, rich (according to world standards) and deeply loved woman to speak so blithely.

And then yesterday, I turned 31. This year’s birthday, falling humbly on a Monday and overshadowed by the tornado of bliss [aside, has anyone else noticed my perpetual use of this particular word?] that was my recent nuptials, provoked a moment of sober reflection. My 30th year was so bounteously saturated with blessings and joyous, epochal events that how am I to top it? In no particular order I fell in love; got engaged; got married; watched my sister cross the portable, sunlit stage as the proud new recipient of a Harvard MBA; drank a Boston lager and ate sweet potato fries with my Dad on his 60th birthday; danced a Floridian jive with my grandfather on his 80th birthday; house-warmed my punk-rocking cousin’s new fixer-upper chateau; toasted my parents in their 35th year of matrimony; earned another six figures with the sweat of my intellect; gave my aspiring-actor cousin a standing whoot following his jaw-dropping stage performance as the lead in Ionesco’s Rhinoceros; high-fived my little-miss-athlete cousin after her team won the Ontario soccer championships; dove, swam, sunbathed and hiked through a paradise half way around the world; spoke French with Parisians in Paris; met the most famous man in rugby in box seats at the World Cup; ran a half-marathon; celebrated Canada Day in Canada’s capital; and started my sparsely-visited [for now] but motivational Stream of Jessica...

With a renewed urgency to make my 31st year of life equally as immaculate, I have hit the gym daily and pondered my course of action. I am the only one in control of the ante. Do I increase my mileage from 13 to 26? Do I learn a new language? Do I pursue an extracurricular degree? Do I outline the fiction novel I so abstractly claim I want to write? Or maybe, do I follow the lead of the tortoise rather than the hare and allow 30 it’s appropriate reign supreme?

All thoughts I let slide into syncopic slumber yesterday night during a romantic, crystal candlelit, pomegranate-themed, White Star infused, home-cooked birthday dinner. There are worse things than plateau-ing at the height of euphoria…

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
— John McCrae

This past Sunday, after sneaking in behind the choir, I grabbed my old, familiar seat in a middle pew at the church of my childhood (because no Presbyterian chooses the front pews unless amicably forced). The sermon centered on Remembrance Day and when the congregation struck up a proud, vociferous ‘Oh Canada,’ I started to cry. It has been 13 years since I’ve been in a room full of Canadian patriots singing the anthem of my homeland and the angst with which I suddenly longed for maple leaves and frosty air hit me like a GO train.

Hence, why I will absolutely, decidedly, indubitably, positively, unquestionably, determinedly, unequivocally…be attending this event on Saturday. Group of Seven paintings and Canadian ice wine are just the extinguisher I need for my conflagrant homesickness.

Home Base

I’ve always likened myself an adventurer. I have the luxury of a job that affords me bi-weekly travel to any continental destination of my whimsical desire. This month: Toronto and Puerto Vallarta. I hop onto planes happily and frequently. Meeting new people, drinking exotic cocktails, becoming momentarily immersed into the language, cuisine and dance of foreign cities – I crave these things with constant pangs. Home for me is a comfortable resting place between voyages; a base for take off and landing.

Despite my ping-pong travel schedule, I can count on just one hand the number of times I’ve altered the latitudinal coordinates of my home base; each time never more than a long car ride away from a loved one. Yesterday, however, my sweetheart and I discussed the remote possibility of being whisked away to the land of the kiwis for the job of a lifetime. Still a direct plane flight to my parents’ peaceful California abode, but far, far away from the status quo I have built on the Atlantic Coast. With jittery nerves and a brave face I tell my love that I will follow him to the moon, because I will.

I wonder then what happens to the pangs of cultural curiosity when the adventure becomes the reality?

Art of War

My mother’s most earnest gift of wisdom she bestowed on me the eve before my wedding as we snuggled, gossiped and relieved the pent up stress of entertaining familial masses was “learn how to fight well.” This was interesting because my sweetheart and I had not yet battled over anything more intense than how many place settings are reasonable to request on our registry (what weighs stronger: the capacity of existing cabinets or a lifetime of slippery-fingered offspring?).

Her point was reiterated this evening during a lively seafood supper with my mother-in-law. She imparted the wisdom her own mother had given to her about the subtle art of cacophonous dispute and was shocked to learn that, even during our extensive travels half-way around the world, my husband and I had not argued.

This is not to say I hibernate naively behind those rosy-hued glasses through which I prefer to view my blessed life. An environment awash with hormones, differing opinions and extenuating circumstances will at some point spark the heated quarrel that we have, up to this point, so blissfully eclipsed thanks to that potent extinguisher called compromise. No matter how inconsequential the debate we listen actively, we persuade patiently, we speak at room temperature, we back-down graciously, and we always, always touch – during and after.

Thankfully, for my mother’s peace of mind, I’ve always been an exemplary student.

Gifts That Keep On Giving

There is an aura of permanence surrounding a bridal registry; gifts that are meant to survive the tides of a couple’s life together. 12 sets of dinner plates to accommodate for clumsy, unborn toddlers; 12 sets of linen placemats and pewter napkin rings to serve a slew of in-laws a gluttonous Thanksgiving dinner at the couple’s yet-constructed, yet-purchased residence; 6 sets of pillow protectors for the pillows that will send a gaggle of future house guests into restful slumber... The bride is carried across the threshold of her blissful, marital abode and is followed with such an abundance of lasting tokens of the generosity of friends and family that no closet, pantry, desk or cabinet drawer will click completely shut.

The comedy, of course, arises when the bride discovers each memento spurs within her a deep thoughtfulness for the person who sent the gift. She pours a cup of oolong and thinks of her mother’s adoring smile. She dishes a serving of Indonesian beef stew from her slow cooker [aside: she did not prepare this beef stew she is serving and thanks the stars her husband actually enjoys the art of food preparation] and applauds her grandparents for blessing her with a savour for the exotic. She sips Bordeaux from an ornate wine glass and toasts Webcowgirl. She cuddles into her cocoa/vanilla-coloured, thousand thread-count bed sheets, against warm skin, and winks virtually to her California girlfriends. She perches on the ceramic throne in preparation for a 'dainty tinkle' and laughs audibly when the baroque toilet plunger conjures images of her high school BFF...

As such, with unavoidable cliché, the bride humbly concurs with the simplicity and truth of the phrase “it is not the gift but the thought that counts."

Something Borrowed

Nobody in the world can prepare you for what happens to your insides when your childhood minister holds his hand firmly over the fingers you have entwined between the fingers of your sweetheart and states with a smile “by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” I shivered like an electrified caramel flan, sniffed back a blundering leak from my right nostril, squeaked out an involuntary laugh of elation and smiled so wide that my eyes disappeared. I blinked back the salty mist forming behind my eyelids and basked in the warm breeze that was the love emanating from my husband’s gentle kiss, until my breath returned.



It has been exactly one month since that perfect moment and I have yet to return from the ambrosial cloud on which I landed. I can’t think straight. I have been blessed beyond repair. I have been given Eden.

A dear friend inquired the other day as to what I could possibly write about now that I’m sporting two sparkling bands on my left hand and have vowed my forever to a single man. “You’re married and kind of done; it's the whole happy ever after thing.” Exactly. My life as it is worth documenting has only just begun…

Blogs and Distance Running

Question: What do blog happy hours in DC and Half-Marathon events in Chicago have in common? Exactly. Nothing. So ask me again why I decided it was rational to attempt to do both in the same weekend? I have never felt more physically miserable than I did coming around the bend of the 13th mile, hamstrings buckling, awash with self-generated brine, than I did yesterday on the heated pavement of those glorious Hyde Park streets.

Rather than blaming my own lack of preparation (the truth is less comical), I have decided to blame my new friend INPY. Four shots into the night he cackled mischievously, "You aren't getting on that plane to Chicago tomorrow...mwaa haa haaaaaaaa."



That being said, in my effort to remain more elusive and poetic than my DC Cookie alter ego, my recap is simply this: Thank you. I was surprised how absolutely decadent it was to see everybody again, and to be flirted with so egregiously before my impending marriage. You all made me feel like the Queen I most certainly am not. My gratitude is immeasurable and my spirit humbled.

And I'm sorry to have missed Barbara, the most gracious and inspiring blogger in our community of verbal artists - thank you again for your thoughtfulness - I adorned my hair with the ribbon from your gift for the remainder of the evening.

I would say "see you next month" but in lieu of attending an October happy hour, I will instead be lying on a chaise lounge on a powdery Indian Ocean beach, beside my new husband, with a dexterous Seychellois resort employee kneading out the tension from my still-aching hamstrings...

Kickin' It Old School - Happy Hour

I hear the one on the bottom left enjoys a nice vodka tonic, or 8. Last chance to flirt with her before she's a married woman...

Brought to you by: The artist formerly known as Cookie, Arjewtino, I Now Pronounce You, KassyK, Virgle Kent and Just Going With It.

Es Muss Sein - The Karma of September 29th

After painstaking review of my schedule over the next year, I chose my fast approaching wedding date for the simple fact that it wasn’t near any birthdays, holidays or notorious months of bad weather. It was either this fall or next summer and given the speed at which my sweetheart and I have fused into a single entity, it didn’t make much sense to prolong the legal record of our happiness. The availability of a breathtaking reception venue in the canyons of Southern California, and my childhood minister (willing and able to travel 3,000 miles to marry me) sealed my choice. September 29th, 2007. Something about that date felt auspicious.

Months following the booking did I realize the karma behind my anniversary. On the evening of my wedding it will have been exactly one year to the day that I spent 12 charmed “es wird sein” hours falling in love with the man I’m marrying. September 29th of last year I was in Las Vegas for a business trip. I had decided to spend an extra night in Sin City to be entertained, as was tradition between us, by an old friend. He met me at the Venetian casino while I whittled away a few fifties drinking Grey Goose at a black jack table and then whisked me through lesser known local watering holes and tapas bars off the strip. His smile made me weak. A few hours before my morning flight, he slipped his arm under the curve of my neck, curled up not-so-platonically against my lower back, and massaged my shoulders with his fingertips until I fell asleep. We didn’t kiss that night, but we had before and I knew it was only a matter of days before we would again; he had been offered a job in DC. That chemical connection we’d always downplayed to our friends was no longer constrained by coastal distance or significant others. This was it…

So not only will our wedding date memorialize our vows, it will also be a celebration of the exact hour of our unity as soul mates, one year earlier. I liken the rarity of that coincidence to the purity of our affection, and I look forward to embodying the proof that marital odds can be beaten.

75 Cents

Today I reached deep into my left pocket to pull out the only 75 cents I had to my name at the time and dropped it into the one free palm belonging to a man holding the hand of a silent, angelic four year old boy in an orange t-shirt. His request "Can you help me and my son get back to Rockville, I forgot my wallet?" The number of times I've heard that excuse could fill a naughty homeless man's detention chalkboard.

I will not lie and pretend I'm seeking bus fare
I will not lie and pretend I'm seeking bus fare
I will not lie and pretend I'm seeking bus fare

I smiled and asked Little Man in his oversized, pumpkin-shaded scrubs how he was doing. His mouth remained firmly sealed; his gaze elsewhere. Little man had clearly been his panhandler father's monkey lure for too many hours that day and it broke my heart. But in the humidity of the day, I couldn't get fired up at the father’s cunning use of innocent bait-age. In a world of have and have-nots, the dividing line between me and this man/son partnership was indisputable. Regardless of the blatant manipulation, the have-not patriarch provided my ‘have’ self with a 75 cent ticket to a clear conscience for the day. I helped a poor man and his son get back to Rockville (eat a sandwich, or smoke a pack of cloves). Anything to get precious Little Man out of the clammy, Northeast sun-haze and back under the comfort of a moral roof.

Please Don't Drink and Blog

…Or you could end up sending driveling text messages to your newly published author/friend about how proud you are of his accomplishments. For shame.


The Novel

There were several moments this weekend when I felt an unusual sense of joyful melancholy kick into gear. A bliss that provokes somber reflection. Little snippets of wonderful that make me contemplate how much has changed.

In the plush booth of a local lounge where my old blogging friends had gathered to get silly on screwdrivers and whiskey, I perused the introduction to an acquaintance’s debut novel and lamented not knowing better the man behind the verbal philosophies. I was touched when one of my favourite humour columnists praised my rhetoric so vehemently, but distressed that I cannot contribute daily. And again I slouched contritely when I discovered I had not attended such an event, at which I used to be a fixture, since November.

In the dressing room of the bridal shop as I zipped two of my bridesmaids and best friends into their simple, navy blue, chiffon dresses and admired their classic beauty, my smile felt unnaturally forced. It was a blithesome moment, but I felt a distance I wasn’t used to. I no longer know what is happening to them via the real-time play-by-play we used to have as roommates. Though I am the happiest I have ever been, supported unconditionally by my fairytale Prince Charming, I still need the women in my life. My work schedule is such that I am barely able to scrape together quality time with my fiancé; and as a result my girlfriends feel the greatest brunt of my absence. The growing pains that come with life’s milestones are to be expected and even though I struggle to find that one-on-one time that flowed so freely in our youth, I hope they know I love them just as deeply as I always have.

Interesting that every disappointment breezing across my thoughts this weekend centered on a single theme; time…and the regret for the way in which I prioritize it. I suppose that even as we go along our divergent paths, we always have our memories to ground us.

Citizen Canadia

My heart has been burdened since I discovered the one thing I swore up and down I would NEVER do is going to be a requisite sacrifice of my marriage. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in common citizenship…I will be taking a vow of loyalty, duty and support of the man I love. And as a result, for reasons irrelevant to my point, it appears I may be obliged to renounce my homeland; that extraordinary tundra of a moose-pasture that shaped my inner being.

I sport a maple leaf tattoo on my backside. I eat poutine and drink 2-4s of Rickards Red. Gord Downie’s voice makes me jizz. I cheer for the Olympic athletes in red and white spandex and I care which province wins the briar. I love the word eh? The joyful tears that sweat from my lashes each and every time I see my ‘welcome home’ sign are just one of the multitudinous proofs that I am the spitting resemblance of Stompin’ Tom Connors’ Real Canadian Girl.

So why, if I have lived and loved in the United States for almost half my life, does the thought of being anything more than a green card-bearing, permanent resident give me such fits of heart burn? But for my sweetheart...I'll do what I need to.

In Flight

I never had a fear of wedging my hips securely in place by the seatbelt of a hurtling human sardine can; it’s something I do every other week. In fact, whenever possible, I tuck into the window seat so I can survey God’s wonder passing below the cumulonimbus puffs of air on which I ride towards my destination of the moment. I swore for the longest time that my dream career was not consultant or writer, but rather, commercial airline pilot. Neither turbulence nor icy wings could dissuade my opinion that airplanes are the most miraculous of vehicles. I have picnicked at Gravelly Point for hours just to hear the deafening roar of engines pushing tin.

Why then, do I suddenly find my heart in my throat with each spontaneous ding of the fasten seatbelt sign or decrease in the decibels emitted by the motors? Because at 30, my iceberg of invincibility is just beginning to melt. In all my infinite happiness it is only now that I am able to conceive of what I would be leaving behind, God forbid something were to happen to me. And in an environment where I have absolutely no control over my own safety, regardless of the odds, my mind starts to wander.

The fears however, will never stop me from continuing to duck into those speeding metal cabins of fascination. Like I said, it's just...what I do.

Baby Elizabeth

For the most part I wake up from a dream feeling either momentary confusion as I acclimate to the light, or relief that I was only envisioning the ridiculous tableau of jealous former flames or dangerous alien menace that had displayed so vividly across my subconscious only minutes before. As I regain my bearings, I curl up into the curve of my sweetheart’s arm and he squeezes the hand that I slip gently under his fingers to reassure me that his presence is every bit as real as it feels.

The other morning, however, in a shocking moment of biological clock tickage, I woke up after a graphic dream feeling…disappointed. I had been lying on the tissue-coated plastic of a doctor’s examination table, gelatinous fluid on my exposed belly, staring at my tiny likeness on an ultrasound screen; a smiling head of curls. But when I opened my eyes it was only my sweetheart who lay beside me, no little one in brew.

With less than three months to go until I marry my perfect match, I’m not surprised that my subliminal imagination is running rampant. In the 30 years since I emerged from my mother’s womb I have always known what I’ve wanted. The overwhelming thing is, those feeble figments of desire are now my life.

For a brief moment, I experienced the same elation that I’m going to feel when I enter the gates of motherhood. I’m not racing to that finish line, I’ve spent 30 years weed whacking my way through to the ideal paternal candidate and I am savouring every breath-taking minute of our courtship. The disappointment I incurred in the sunrise following my dream was simply a side effect of detoxification. When I do reach that milestone, motherhood is going to be the high I will never come down from.



**May I also extend heartfelt congratulations to my dear friend Ted whose beautiful baby girl was born the very hour of said reverie.

Grammar Police

“I’m gonna miss you, like a child misses their blanket...” So, not only is my boy Josh Duhamel dating a troll, he’s also dating a grammatical misfit. How are the young millennials supposed to learn how to speak their own language correctly when the songs that infiltrate their middle school radios match singular nouns with plural possessive pronouns?

Trying to Decide...

...if I should worm my way back into the blog spotlight or not. Back in my heyday, people I'd never met used to approach me in bars because they knew my face from my blog. I was quoted, I was chastised, I was linked, I was adored. Whether the adulation was sincere or not, I was always flattered. But I haven't been to a blogger happy hour since November and the vacillation of the scene is such that, at this point, a scant few would even know who I was. Four months off is career suicide in the blog world.

My intentions vary now from my original dessert-nicknamed goals. And I wonder if I have the courage or desire to withstand the public scrutiny I so welcomed with my last endeavour. I welcome commentary, but at what expense? I temporarily exited the blog world to avoid the inevitable vitriol of personal dramatics; my words are always laced with the pure kindness of my soul and I wanted nothing to do with spiteful battle. This is simply an after-hours extracurricular, not my life (of which I'm only willing to reveal innocuous, pedestrian tidbits) Thus, my hesitation to announce my return with floodlights.

I am here again, sans alias, writing to placate the explosive needs of my imprisoned, creative demon. And the question remains, what kind of visibility do I truly desire and how much would I be willing to sacrifice to achieve it?

Bertha

Despite the few extra curves I’ve carried around with me since early adulthood, I’ve never felt burdened by my weight. I’ve never been controlled, nor limited, by the three digits on the scale that vary by a pound or two depending on the time of month.

Which is why, instead of feeling disgust or objection at the sight of a 400-pound woman gimping out of Fuddrucker’s the other evening, I experienced heartache. Each cane-assisted footstep was painfully effortful because her jello-loaf calves were the size of a toddler. There was no evidence of ankles. If curled into a fetal position, I could have fit my entire body into the cavern of her belly. The folds of skin under her chin pulled her face into a permanent frown (or perhaps that was the result of the additional weight of people’s ridicule). Each breath was an ordeal. I couldn’t imagine what sort of damage would occur to a spirit to be caged in such an enormous, downtrodden physical space; unable to take a natural stride at will.

The extra five pounds of ‘relationship complacency’ that has deposited around my hipbones does not restrict my ability to run half marathons, ascend a flight of stairs two-at-a-time, lift heavy furniture, or even walk to my car from the entrance of a restaurant. It was the pitiable woman I observed struggling to function at the most basic of levels who served to remind me what the burden of obesity can do to one’s soul.

May I never let those five pounds turn into fifty. I just signed up for the Chicago half-marathon.

I Am Not Bridezilla

No more than a year ago you may have spotted me in the middle of (or on the stage above) any local scene-ster dance floor, sharing many a Grey Goose and tonic with the shirt of my hunky male dance partner of the moment. I lived in the nightlife, faithfully, for the better part of my 20s, stretching my body to the legal limits of indulgence. You may have even been blessed to have met my counterpart; that wear-a-wig-for-no-reason, shot-pounding, bar-dancing, boisterous tornado of a socialite whose mastery of flirtation has saturated male egos across the globe.

I can’t imagine that anyone who played with me in my moonstruck glory would have pegged me to be the settled, stay-at-home mom type. But I met my match in a gifted man who could both keep up with me and calm me; follow me on every one of my whimsical paths and revel in my glow. There was not a doubt in my mind from the moment he first grasped my hand and smiled at me that I would love this man until I die.

And so, here I am, just a few short months away from proclaiming my vows of unconditional surrender in front of an intimate audience of family and close friends. The planning has been as effortless as the engagement. Despite the numerous hours of detailed research performed so generously by my mother, the decisions have all been simple and unanimous. At the end of the day, it’s not about the complexity of the invitation, the flare of the décor on the head table, the number of roses in my bouquet or the VW in the label of the dress. Our wedding is simply meant to be a celebration that happiness, the way Hollywood tells it, really does exist. Anyone who frets about the thread-count of the reception table napkins should really reexamine her reasons for saying 'I Do.'

Diner Food

It was a good buddy who forewarned me never to voyage past the central landmark. Never go east of Comfort St. It’s run-down; saturated with the dregs of the impoverished; dangerous and tattered. “I wouldn’t go there, it isn’t safe.” I heeded his advice until this evening when, after an excruciating day, I found myself famished enough to throw caution out the roof of my convertible.

I suppose then that my shock was understandable as every driver used his signal and waved a ‘thank you’ as he passed; every tired blue collar worker walking the mile-plus journey home at dusk, sans automobile, carried a smile on his face; every patron in front of me at the local diner stuffed an unnecessary dollar in the tip jar at the take-out counter. This may not be Park Avenue, but the inhabitants welcomed me in their streets with such reassuring integrity that my conscience couldn’t help but pang from the guilt of having fallen victim to the rumours of second-hand judgment with obvious naiveté.

Poor does not equate to criminal. Shame on me for not doing my homework before avoiding a venue so enriched with joviality...and divine roast chicken.

A Friend Reminded Me

Can a woman proclaim to have an amigo she has never met? A warm, moustached man with a likely southern drawl who sends her Christmas DVDs every year despite her absence?

I went for a long run Sunday afternoon to clear my mind. I have been heavily burdened in the last few months by the weight of my inability to say 'no.' I work too hard. I determined a 5 month engagement was a reasonable amount of time to plan a cross-coastal wedding. I travel virtually every weekend to see friends and family dispersed across the Americas, leaving scarcely enough time to nurture the friendships in my own backyard. I rest my weary head on my pillow each evening waiting for the fast-forwarding of my life to wane.

The path I chose that particular afternoon took me through a Spanish neighbourhood of such amicable proportions that the gregariousness made me whimper with regret. Extended families lingered peacefully on every stoop, basking in the calm of the perfect sunshine. The children smiled coyly and the women waved their jovial 'holas' as I skittered past. That was what a Sunday evening should be; an icy lemonade at dusk in the company of mi familia. Somehow I have lost sight of that in the whirlwind of filler that is my current state of being.

I wondered then if I shouldn't consider writing again. Whether talented or not, it's the hobby I adore more than any other. And it was a masked amigo, one who has supported my creativity since the dawn, who coincidentally reminded me it was time for my return... So yes, though I have not [yet] shaken his hand in person, I will call this gentleman my friend simply because I am grateful for his support.