Weblog Archives

November 2003

November 30

Just for the record, when yesterday's entry was on this page, I accidentally typed the wrong date. I didn't do two entries on Friday. One was from Friday & one was from Saturday.

This entry is going to be seriously disjointed because I'm scatterbrained today - I had even less sleep than usual last night.

I bought one of the Boy's Christmas presents today. Being Santa totally rocks. I can't wait to wrap up each little thing separately so he gets all excited over and over again. Christmas is going to be big fun.

I'm very impressed with myself. I've managed to write 30 entries in thirty days. Usually I can only keep a paper journal but for the first time ever I have managed to keep an online one too. That is if you can call this a journal. That depends on your definition of journal I guess. This is a daily record of my thoughts on a variety of topics so I imagine that counts. Oh, right, I'm the boss of me, I decree that it counts.

I was just talking to my oldest friend. That sounds weird. She's not old, we've just been friends since kindergarten so she predates most of my other friends. Anyway, she just sold an article to The Telegram so I'm v. proud of her. (Way to go, Peggy!) She'll be coming home at Christmas time so I'll guess there'll be a few conversations about life, the universe and everything to be had over the holidays (HURRAH!).

I think I'm done writing, let me check, yep, nothing more to say. Thank you and good night.

November 29

Hilary and I have come up with the best invention EVER (BIE to you, Phil). You know what a salt lick is, right? Well, we're inventing a human version - a sweet tart lick. It would be a giant sweet tart wheel that I could spin to choose the flavour and I could eat it while typing because it would be hung at tongue height. (Boy that's a off colour sentence no matter how you look at it, isn't it?)

I had an excellent improv practice today. Sure, there are still some rough spots but this bunch are all about the moments of brilliance that save the day. I especially like their character event, which rocks thanks both to a structure that Jason created (nice work, dude) and the team's ability to feed off each other's cool ideas. Whoot! The games are all this week at St. Bon's, we're competing on Tuesday and I'm really looking forward to it.

I am so incredibly tired that I could just nap right here on the keyboard but I think I'll try to stumble to bed at least.

November 28

Aren't I the efficient Mombie? I'm writing this while I'm on hold for the bank. The damn fools (or at least their recorded representative) are offering me a credit card right now, little do they know that they're wasting their breath (or whatever equivalent recordings have.)

The music they have on hold is re-damn-diculous, I mean, it's not bad enough to keep me waiting - I have to listen to Britney Spears?

Anyway, on to what I want to write about. I've decided on two of my goals for December 1) to finish my business plan for freelancing 2) plan my goals for next year. Once I have those two things done I can start the new year ready to succeed beyond my wildest dreams.

Wait a minute, if I already know that I want to succeed beyond my wildest dreams does that mean I need to develop new wild dreams in order to succeed beyond them? Oh right, I'm an anthropologist not a philosopher, I don't worry about those sorts of things. Deem? Care to weigh in on this pressing issue?

November 27

Man, I don't feel at all like writing today. I just had my writing class (Hi Sarah!) but I didn't feel like writing during that either. I guess I learned a lesson though (and isn't that what life's all about?) (blech, I can't believe I wrote that, even though it was a joke. And clearly I can't delete it or anything - CLEARLY!) which was that I can still write when I don't have any inclination to do so. I managed to write some fairly decent stuff during my class even with an overwhelming urge to go 'meh!' and give up.

I'm trying to decide now, what my December goals will be. In November I managed to write in here every day except one (and I did a double entry the next day) and I presume I can keep that up for the next three days. I also managed to exercise most days except when pain or illness prevented it. So I can congratulate myself for November's efforts while trying to figure out how to challenge myself in December. Perhaps, a certain number of essays or stories? A number of query letters? A number of books to read?

It's hard to be your own boss.

November 26

I need to devise a way to get more writing done. At present I manage to write in here and in my journal everyday so I'll commend myself for that but I need to squeeze a little more writing time out of every day. I would particularly like to work on some more lucrative forms of writing but between lack of brain power, lack of uninterrupted time and lack of research time I don't get a lot of that done.

I guess what I really need is a regular schedule of writing time and I need to stick to that. In order to do that I need to either write at night or get a babysitter. Of course, in order to write at night I'd need to still have energy at the end of the day and what are the chances of that? And in order to have a babysitter, I'd need to have money to pay someone and, our budget being what it is, I won't have money for that until I make some from my writing. Gah!

There has to be a solution to this Catch-22 but I haven't figured it out yet. Perhaps once I get more sleep (2008?) the solution will arise from my subconscious like some sort of mental Loch Ness Monster.

That's not a bad analogy, seeing as I'm not sure if the solution actually exists but if it does it is currently lurking in the murky depths of my brain.

November 25

When the Boy was younger I sometimes referred to him as the impossibaby (mostly due to his poor sleeping habits) and we were revisiting those bad old days today. I guess he would have to be the impossiboy now, maybe just impossiboy (no article). I don't think I have heard the word Mommy said as many times or with as many different inflections as I did this afternoon.

The amazing thing about impossiboy is that he has secret energy reserves. It is now 10:56pm and despite only taking short nap this afternoon, he is still up and ready to party. I don't know how he doesn't just collapse but he doesn't, he doesn't even feel the need to slow down.

Actually I know the source of his secret energy reserves - it's me. I think he absorbs energy from me, perhaps when I'm trying to sleep (is that why I wake up exhausted?).

Ah, I'm too tired and cranky to be coherent. I give up!

In the this epic battle between Mombie and Impossiboy, I surrender. He may have won the battle but I will win the war!

November 24

On this day two years ago I brought the Boy home from the hospital. He had actually done remarkably well for a baby born 7 weeks early, he was only in the hospital for 13 days and he only had one breathing incident that made alarms go off.

Those alarms were the scariest thing about having a premature baby, I didn't find his small size scary (he was 5lbs, after all) and the fact that he was very thin wasn't off-putting: he had all his parts and he was v.cute so I was good. I mean, I was overwhelmed by his early arrival (we didn't even own a receiving blanket and my in-laws were in Europe) but I wasn't scared about it. The alarms were frightening though. He was hooked up to a heart rate monitor and a breathing monitor and had a feeding tube and if I moved him the wrong way the adhesive patches would detach a little and things would start beeping. It was like some sort of bad mother detector was going off.

Not that I thought of myself as a bad mother, but there were so many nurses watching me in the NICU and I couldn't help feeling that they were judging me. I mean, they do this day in day out 365 days a year. There I was in my first few days of motherhood, long before I was prepared to be, and I had to learn the ropes in a room full of professionals. I wouldn't have been surprised if they had been carrying notebooks to record my every mistake. It was v. weird and v. intimidating. But I survived it, like I always do.

On to the issue of the day: I am in a time conundrum. I have very little time away from the Boy and I have more brain work to do than time to do it in right now. I can either organize my work or do it. There's no point in organizing work I have no time to do and there's no point in doing unorganized work (that feels waaaaaay too unproductive). So, I have to figure out a way to do enough organization to make my work feel productive - hard to do with the single functioning brain cell I have today.

November 23

Sometimes I hate being right, not often (I really enjoy being right), but it happens, and yesterday was a good example. I knew that my day was going too well and that something was going to go wrong. (I'm not usually a pessimist but I do believe that things can go too right for me sometimes).

When it took us 25 minutes to go through the line-up at the supermarket I was really hoping that was the shoe dropping. It did, after all, cause us to rush a bit. Alas, I was wrong.

It turns out I was right on two counts 1) something was going to go wrong 2) I would forget my lines. I had the general gist of each scene but I sailed right by some of my favorite lines. And I had to rely on pure emotion to get me through some of them, luckily my character has a powerful anger to work with so I could tap into that when words failed me. And since I'm working with very talented and forgiving people, they were able to cover for me.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think I sucked completely and I definitely didn't screw up the whole show or anything but I'm disappointed in my own performance. I hate disappointing myself.

But to the other cast members who may be reading this: You guys rocked! I'm thrilled with your performances and I look forward to working with you again. See you at the cast party!

November 22

Something is definitely going to go majorly wrong today, I just have a feeling that the other shoe is going to drop. After all, it is 1:41 on a show day and I got to sleep until 10 (Thanks to the Man), I played with the Boy, did my Pilates routine, had a bath, had lunch, the Boy went down for his nap with very little effort on my part and now I'm typing this. In an hour or so, I'm going to buy the desserts etc for the show. This is waaaaay too relaxed for a show day, something is going to give.

Perhaps I've forgotten all my lines, maybe one of my actors will show up drunk, no, wait, someone in the audience will try and pat one of the actors on the ass and I'll rip them to shreds, ruining split pea's reputation in the community. Meh, whatever!

I realized yesterday that I'm not really sure why I'm keeping this online journal type thing. I don't write my most personal things in it because I don't want people to know and comment on them to me or to each other. I don't write about things that people do that bother me,or disagreements I have with my friends or any of the things that really bother me (at least on an interpersonal level). So why do I keep this weblog type thing?

I guess the writing practice is good, and it's a way of commenting on parts of my life and I hope it is interesting for people to read (at least most of the time). I've never been one of those people who likes to pour out their soul to people on paper or in person. I mean, I talk a lot and about some very personal things, and I would probably tell you stuff that that many people would keep to themselves, so some people might assume they know all about me. That isn't the case, though, I keep an awful lot to myself and that's fine with me. I think there's a real tell-all feeling to a lot of web journals but I have no desire to join that trend. I don't think readers need the details of my sex life (it's great, thanks for asking), my friendships (as a rule, they're going fine) or my family conflicts (of course I do, everyone has family conflicts).

So in the course of writing this, I've realized that I don't need a reason to write here. It's my website and I can put whatever drivel I like on it. It's up to the readers to decide whether it's worth checking out.

So endeth today's drivel ;)

November 21

So I did The Matrix Personality Test today and was not in the least surprised to discover that I am the Oracle. As if anyone couldn't have called that one from fifty paces. I mean, it's not as if I like to talk things out with people, weigh all the responses carefully and use my intuition and experiences to help them find a variety of solutions to choose from. Oh wait! that's exactly what I like to do.

I think I would have liked to discover that I was Trinity (another shocker) but I can definitely live with being wise, aware and comfortable with my decisions.

Listen to me (or should that be 'read me') I sound like this test actually determines my personality or something. Way too late for that, I think I forged this personality in the womb.

Speaking of which, I'm a real believer in babies being born with a personality. Not to diminish the whole nurture side of the nature/nurture debate but I think that you are born with a great deal of your personality in place and depending on the people you encounter and the life you face, different aspects of your personality will be dominant but it is all there to start with. Yeah, so there's my pointless philosophizing (did I make up that word or just the spelling?) for the day.

November 20

I don't want to write another entry about how tired I am, yet I am so tired that I can't think of anything else to write about. There's a Mombie paradox for you.

Oh wait, here's a tangent from the first paragraph. We call my sister Denise the paradox because the Boy calls her Aunt Neece. Figure that one out.

A month from now I will be full into the Christmas zone and I can't wait. The Boy will be so excited by the tree and all the presents (or as he calls them - prizes)...

Oh another tangent, he did the funniest thing earlier. He ran up behind me while I was standing in the kitchen, pushed his way through my legs, and shouted 'surprise!' when he got to the other side.

...back to Christmas. I'm really hoping to do more of my shopping in the early part of December and actually get some cookies made this year. Once upon a time (i.e. pre-Mombiedom) I used to make cookies to give out to all my friends and family, on average I made 20 kinds of cookies on a single day and filled little containers to give out. I don't see that happening again but maybe I'll make enough to give to a few people. Mostly I'm going to try and take it as it goes.

Hey, I managed to get off the topic of tiredness for this long. Aren't I clever?

November 19

Happy Birthday to my wonderful friend Krista who rocks in ways unimaginable to ordinary humans.

I had a great day today, Alex wasn't too wakeful last night so I had a decent night's rest and we had fun hanging out this morning.

This afternoon I shopped for birthday gifts and then met my new friend Daniel for coffee. What a delightful person he is! He has the most flattering way of listening, I can't describe it, but you really feel as if you are conveying vital information with every sentence. So a v. cool afternoon followed by birthday cake at Krista's and a long drive around town with the Man this evening (how can we still have stuff to talk about after 12.5 years? I don't know, but I like it;)). Fun all around.

I feel I should say something profound in these entries but I can't quite manage it this evening. Perhaps I'll have better luck tomorrow.

November 18

When am I going to make a permanent connection between exercise and positive spirits in my head? The end of last week I was stressed out and sort of down, and my life was starting to feel out of my control. The beginning of this week everything is fine. The explanation?

Last week I didn't do the sort of intense exercise I have been doing for the last couple of weeks, no weight training, no aerobics, just some yoga and a couple of short walks. So far this week (i.e. today and yesterday) I've exercised for almost three hours with a good mix of aerobics, weight training, pilates and yoga.

Obviously I need to make time to exercise a lot even when I am most stressed so I can combat the worst of it. I'll have to keep that in mind over Christmas.

November 17

Happy Birthday Dan!

Happy Birthday Krista's Dave!

I know an awful lot of people born around this time of year. Between the Man's birthday in October and the his brother's birthday in January I have 12 birthdays to celebrate (3 in a remember to call way, 9 (nine!) in a buy something or have a party sort of way) That's madness! No wonder Christmas always sneaks up on me.

Speaking of Christmas: I can't wait to see the Boy reacting to all the decorations and the presents. His birthday was overwhelming enough for him. Things on a Christmas scale should put him over the edge.

I just wish we were rich enough to go mad with shopping for family and friends and each other. Maybe I'll win the lottery by then. There's one problem with that though: I never buy tickets. So there's a big hole in my make-it-rich scheme. Perhaps I should try pyramid sales.

Hey Phil, isn't this MDEE (most disjointed entry ever)?

November 16 (reloaded)

I had the freakiest bout of tiredness today. This being Sunday it was my turn to get up with the Boy while the Man slept in. That part wasn't so hard at first, we got up at 7 and played and had breakfast and I checked my email and wrote an entry here. But at 10 I was overcome by tiredness and had to go back to bed. The Man and the Boy came in at 12:15 to wake me up and I could not get up. My hands were all weird, my muscles were jumping and my head was full of waterlogged cotton (well not actually, it just felt that way - or perhaps it was and it disapated, anyway...) I took some ibuprofen (my own personal wonder drug - yes you can take it while nursing. yes you can, I checked it out) and awoke and hour later feeling a little more human. At least, I felt human enough to drag my ass into the bathtub for a long soak. Then I felt a lot better.

It was a really freaking weird, horrible feeling. I would have thought that in this two year experiment in sleep deprivation that I unwittingly signed up for by having the Boy, I would have experienced every possible permutation of tiredness related illness but apparently I still have much to learn. Ain't life an adventure!

November 16

I couldn't get an entry up on the 15th, the day was just too busy so I am going to post two entries today.

Yesterday I had the most relaxing opening day ever! Even though the Boy only allowed me two hours sleep I still managed to get through the day with minimal stress. I just started getting ready as soon as I got up and I made sure I had company on my rounds (thanks Melissa!) and Ange ran some of my usually show day messages (thanks to you too, kid!). My cast was ready to go on time and they were enthusiastic, which was a treat because punctuality and enthusiasm aren't usually part of the same package with my friends.

The long and the short of it was : The show rocked!

As I was discussing with Hilary last night, it's like the members of split pea have some sort of group energy above and beyond our individual energies that we can tap into and pull even the most nerve wracking show together once the 'curtain' goes up. Hurrah for us!

Thanks to all my cast and crew. And thanks Jan and Dan for organizing the food with great aplomb.

November 14

Okay, so I was sure I would feel better today if I got a good night's sleep (or at least what passes for a good night's sleep for a Mombie) but alas I did not, the Boy was absolutely squirmtastic last night. It was enough to drive me to drink. Alas, I can't drink because I'm still nursing the Boy and I'm not inclined to give him alcohol poisoning. Damn morals!

I actually do feel a little better today, though because I rehearsed with the Phil this afternoon so I have a better idea of my lines. How does the writer/director end up spending the day before the show scrambling to learn her lines? Because her brain is full of money worries and toddler language and writerly ideas, I guess. GAH!

So I'm going to keep this entry short too, just so I don't babble about crappiness. I don't need that, and neither do you.

November 13

This is going to be a short one but writing is writing so it still counts.

This has been a very frustrating day, one of those times where it seems that the 'hurrieder I go the behinder I get' which is a quote I stole from somewhere but I can't for the life of me figure out where right now.

I really don't wish to have a permanent record of the stresses and general time crises of today so I think I'll stop writing.

Before anyone panics, I'm all right, or I will be once I get some sleep (ha!) and get some perspective.

November 12

Well, this day started with a crisis but turned out just fine in the end.

We found out this morning that the place where we were booked for our show had rented the place out from under us for Saturday. We had to scramble to relocate, but we managed to find another more flexible space (Thanks Leo and O'Donel!) so that's a great weight off my shoulders. Oh, and thanks also to Hilary for the Council of War and the tidy living room.

We had an excellent rehearsal tonight, in spite of a lot of goofing around. I can't wait until this show goes up, it is going to be great.

Oh, and I guess this should have been the first thing I mentioned: I am officially a real writer now, I've received my first rejection letter. I submitted a piece to Mamaphonic: The Book in September about motherhood and creativity but it didn't meet their needs. Oh, well.

I thought I would be more upset but seeing as I did my best on the piece, I can't beat myself up about it. It's their loss. Sucks to be them.

Hi Jason, I hope you're feeling better and that you sleep well. I don't wish a lack of sleep on anyone, let alone you!

November 11

Happy Birthday to the Boy!

I can't believe he's two years old. I don't know if it is harder to believe that I am the mother of a two year old or that my tiny baby could grow so big and talk and plan things and imagine and be fun.

I think his imagination is the thing that impresses me the most though. He goes shopping, he races cars, he makes Dora and Boots have conversations, he pretends that kitchen tongs are a monster, he pretends to be a frog (or a srog in his vernacular) and manages to enlist otherwise sensible adults into hopping and ribbiting along with him. It is absolutely incredible and so joyful and awe inspiring.

I can't believe the love I feel for my son. It has made me re-evaluate my feelings for everyone, and find deeper meaning in my other relationships. Despite the chronic lack of sleep, motherhood rocks.

November 10

Happy Birthday to me!

I've had a fun-tastic birthday so far (it's only 4pm).

I woke up at 9:30 to a giggling son and birthday presents (which he tried to open ;)), I read my new book in the bath, I got lots of email greetings (thanks Ange, Jason and Melissa), my cousin called me from Korea, Derek took me to see The Matrix- Revolutions (more on the movie below), I shopped for a while and now I'm home writing this.

I may be in the minority here (and when am I not?) but I really liked the third movie. Yeah, there was corny action movie dialogue and they were a bit heavy handed with the power of love theme and they often inserted dialogue where a look or silence would have sufficed but overall I was pleased. I thought it was a good continuation of the story-arc and all of the loose ends I was concerned with got tied up. I won't argue that it is a great movie, just that I liked it. And from my perspective, that's all that matters.

One thing I like about the Matrix series is that there isn't any 'but she's a girl' crap. It seems like the most qualified person does the job that needs to be done, with Trinity (or Niobe) saving everyone's ass equally as well as any of the male characters might. I liked how they carried that through Neo and Trinity's relationship too. He wasn't suddenly her protector, she protected him just as often. When I move in and out of the Matrix, I hope I save the Man's ass as often as Trinity saved Neo's. After I download the martial arts program, of course.

November 9

This is going to be a short one because I'm too busy to write much today.

I had a great rehearsal this afternoon. One of my cast hasn't been able to make it to many rehearsals so we organized a special one for him today and he absolutely rocked. His performance is excellent and his song kicks ass. I'm so happy! That's a weight off my shoulders.

I have another rehearsal tonight and I have high hopes for that one too. Maybe the bar has been set too high now, poor evening-rehearsal -cast.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I feel excited already, like I'm turning 6 instead of 31. It's not even the presents, it's the excitement of a day in which I feel entitled to indulge myself.

Thanks for the birthday greetings, Finnish Steve!

November 8

So my essay never got written. (Writing teachers everywhere are cringing at that last sentence. Never use the passive voice!) The truth is that I didn't write my essay but dammit I tried. I followed all the rules: I forced myself to sit in my chair, I brainstormed, I made lists, I tried just typing and typing until I got into it. Nothing worked. Either I'm losing it big time or that essay just isn't meant to be an essay.

Hey, there I go again, writing until I get an answer to my own question. That rocks.

So if my essay isn't an essay (measurable brain activity) it must be a fleeting thought and hence it belongs here. So here goes:

So I know this guy who gives excellent compliments, the kind that echo in your head long after you hear them, the kind that you smile about whenever you do the thing that prompted the compliment in the first place. Thinking about his compliments made me realize how few and far between good compliments are. I mean lots of people will toss off a 'you look nice today' which is appreciated but how many people will say 'that thing you do with your eye make-up is very flattering, I really like it, it's cool'? Not many. And I think that's the key to a good compliment. No, not eye make-up. Specificity. A generic compliment is nice but it's, well, generic, it could be applied to anyone. An eye make-up design compliment? Just for you, baby.

I like to give compliments, specific ones, and I'll give them whenever I feel they are deserved (I wield both sides of that sword but that's another essay). Compliments like mine are rare enough that my intentions have been misinterpreted and it has been assumed that I'm hitting on the person I'm complimenting. And that's disconcerting. I mean, how many people are going through day after day without hearing a single nice thing about themselves so when they do they assume a sexual interest?

I'm not finished thinking about this but I am finished writing about it right now. I'll wander back to this topic once I've articulated some more thoughts.

November 7

Okay, now I have performance anxiety. Not only did I make the mistake of promising that today's entry would be clever BUT I've discovered that at least three people are reading this on a regular basis (yep, that's my broadcast audience folks - 3!). And they're people I know, who know me and they might care about what I say and...this is stupid. I refuse to be phased by this. If I post something on the internet I have to expect (and hope) that people will read it. I just didn't know it was happening yet. So ANYWAY...

Clever, clever, um, I can do clever. I'll just keep writing and hope for the best.

***********************

I have a picture of Trinity (not the holy trinity - should that be capitalized? - but the Matrix character) pinned to my bulletin board for fitness inspiration. I know I'm no Carrie-Anne Moss but I think she has a reasonable amount of muscle to aspire to, and I know I can rock a pair of leather (well fake leather) pants so she didn't seem to be a bad choice for inspiration.

The big key to acheiving these sorts of goals is supposed to be visualization (I read a lot of 'know yourself' and goal setting/success books so I know these things) but I suck at it: I just don't have an image of myself in my head. So I can't visualize myself accepting my Nobel Prize for literature, I can't visualize myself covered in muscle, I can't visualize myself driving the car I want to own. None of that works for me.

It's v. odd. I'm a very creative person, and I have a huge imagination but it stops before visualization for some reason. So I have to rely on written descriptions or actual photos of someone else doing what I want to do. Hence the picture of Trinity.

There we go, clever or not: Here endeth the lesson.

November 6

I'm not sure I'm coherent enough to write a weblog entry this evening. For some reason, I'm especially mombie-brained today. I could barely string together two words at Improv and at rehearsal tonight I was next to useless.

I did manage to exercise today, both strength training and aerobics. Oddly, aside from my vow to myself for this month, my main motivation is to be in better shape to play my role in The Kate and The Bill, my play that opens next week. My character is a lot like me (well... an exaggerated version of me) except that she's in better shape and she has red hair. I wish getting in shape was as easy as getting red hair.

I'm even boring myself here so I'm going to stop writing. The Man isn't working tomorrow so I should have time to write a clever entry here AND an actual essay (I've been working on one about the art of the compliment which was inspired by a compliment I was given by my only fan (and possibly only reader) and I hope to polish that one for uploading tomorrow).

November 5

I don't know if it's the daily entries here or if it's the exercising but I feel really positive lately. Not that I'm usually a negative person (or at least I don't see myself that way) but I haven't had to work at it lately. I feel very excited, like something great is about to happen. Well, universe, I'm ready for the great stuff, bring it on.

I beat my record from yesterday by the way, as I write this it is 9:39 and I have already exercised. Hurrah for me!

My birthday is coming up on Monday and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm not one of those people who dreads getting older, I'm always really happy with the age I happen to be. And I really feel like I've done a lot with the past year. Not external things but internal ones: I've really gotten my shit together. The things I want out of life are clearer to me now that they ever were.

Wait. Perhaps that realization explains my positive energy lately. I wonder how that connection slipped by me until I started writing this? I guess sometimes you don't know what you know until you try to explain it.

November 4

Someone call Guinness, we're looking at four days in a row here! Yes, I will stop the self-congratulation soon. Or maybe not: I rock. Now I'm done.

It's only 10:25am and I've already exercised and now I'm writing in here. I hope the rest of my day is this productive.

I've had the coolest morning. After I checked my email this morning and went downstairs to get the boy some breakfast, I noticed it was snowing. So like the rocking mom I am, I bundled us into our coats and boots and we went out on the patio for a little snow fun. We hadn't even had breakfast and we were already outside having fun, I really felt like a great mom for embracing the moment and the boy had a great time drawing in the snow and trying to catch snowflakes. He's seen snow before (November babies can't avoid it!) but he wouldn't really remember it and he certainly wasn't old enough to appreciate it last year.

But my great mom moment wasn't even the best part of my morning. After breakfast, I started my exercises and my adorable son got down on the floor to do them with me! He was stretching and trying to do Pilates rolls, and ab exercises and imitating my aerobics moves. It completely rocked. I am in awe of how quickly he picks things up nowadays. He has never tried to imitate me so directly before and it really touched me. he wanted to do what I was doing! I just felt so connected to his little brain. It kind of hurts to think there will be a time when he won't want to be anywhere near me. I hope I'm wise enough and brave enough not to make a fuss when that happens. I don't want to go all Peggy Hill on his thirteenth birthday.

In the meantime, I'll just enjoy what I get right now.

November 3

This is impressive. We are three days into November, I've exercised each day and this is my third entry in a row in this blue column. Aren't I a good girl?

You know, I consider myself a fairly creative person. I rock a brainstorming session. I can problem-solve like nobody's business. And I recognize that a lot of creativity comes from forcing yourself to think about the task at hand, putting your butt in the chair and typing (in my case) until the right stuff starts coming out. The stereotypical idea of the artist languishing on the chaise longue awaiting the muse is 99% crap. However, there are times when glueing your ass to a chair just doesn't help and this has been one of those times.

I have a show opening on the 15th and I've been working on the lyrics to a song for the show since May but no go. In the past week or so, I've sat down on a dozen occasions and puzzled over the words, brainstorming, daydreaming, humming a melody but nothing worked. I could not pull those lyrics out of my head no matter what I did.

Then tonight I sat down with Hilary (it's her song) and tried thinking about some rhyming words and next thing we have the whole song mapped out. It was so weird. Did I have to put in the frustration to earn the lyrics or something?

Don't get me wrong, the lyrics still need serious work but, hey, at least we have something to work from.

November 2

Well, look at this! Two whole days in a row, I'm definitely setting some sort of personal record here.

We let the boy watch Monsters Inc. last night. He had a great time watching the scay mossers (scary monsters). Watching the boy has really let me know how much of being scared is social conditioning and how much is ingrained. Things that adults assume will be scary (monsters, a Hallowe'en dracula) don't faze the boy at all. But show him an adult dressed up as a cow, or the giggle bush on Dora the Explorer and he's terrified.

He was excited by the parade of horrors that came by our door on Hallowe'en. I had told him that we were going to see lots of monsters but that we'd scare them off with candy and I don't know if that had any effect (even though he's obviously a genius he's only 23 months old so you don't know how much he's taking in) but he had a great time coming to the door with me. Not one costume caused even a whimper. Weird. Weird.

So we've conquered Hallowe'en. Now if I can only get them to stop playing the caveman episode of The Wiggles, we'll be able to keep the fright to a minimum around here.

November 1

My goal for November is to write here every day (so brace yourself, there may be a fair bit of crap to slog through) and to exercise every day. I've been on exercise programs and writing programs before but I've never stuck with them, but this time, I'll do it for sure ;)

I don't know why I have never stuck with the programs in the past. I'm inclined to say that I'm just lazy but that mostly isn't the case. I think the main problem is that I'm involved in so many varied things that my life just gets fractured. And now I have my Mombie duties and accompanying lack of sleep to contend with as well. The deck is stacked against me* but that's just the type of situation that I shine in. Or at least that's what I like to think, perhaps I'm wrong. Oh, wait. Who cares? Even I've stopped caring.

So my goals are to write in this space every day for a month, to exercise (any exercise counts!) daily and to really mix it up I will post one real essay or piece of fiction every week for the next four weeks.

Wish me luck!

*(is it a deck that gets stacked against you? I think it is but now that I've typed it, it sounds funny. Well, imagine your own cliche and stick it in there.)

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© Christine C. Hennebury 2003