tell me about your big but

Battling a low-grade spring cold and a heavy conviction that I won't manage to finish out the teaching year in good form. Two weeks to finish Catcher in the Rye and all I want to do is lie down. With a book that isn't Catcher.

In my last entry I think the emphasis came through in the wrong place. I wasn't so much complaining about my impossible child as I was coming to the realization that I need to make things a lot less tough on myself. It's my stubbornness that makes things so damn hard for both me and Blake. It's this feeling that I'm doing him a disservice if we bring a wagon, or if I buy him an ice cream in the afternoon. I need to stop taking such a hard line about everything and try to be happier, lighter and more present. I need to stop worrying about the future Blake (the soft, spoiled kid I'm afraid of creating) and start enjoying the weird, energetic, sweet boy I have now.

Last night I participated in one of the most fun ideas ever conceived: a blend of Rocky Horror and Pee Wee's Big Adventure called "Pee Wee Herman Picture Show" at the Bloor Theatre. Nic, Mason, Pixie, Pixie's husband and a few hundred others came with me and were transported. Unlike the Rocky Horror Experience, in which you are encouraged to hate the characters on screen, we all love Pee Wee. I know the movie well from my younger days, and I think I scared Mason a little with the depth of recall I could command once the Danny Elfman score started to unspool. By the time we staggered from the theatre, I was voiceless from two hours of laughing, singing, and cheering along. Mason, Nic and I all agreed: if we hadn't had to work today, we'd have turned around and bought a ticket for the second show. I hummed the theme all the way home. Oh, and that this was Pixie's very first time seeing the movie. I couldn't have picked a better way to show her.

And there was something about being in a theatre full of happy people that made it better than Rocky Horror in which you throw contempt along with your toilet paper. Everybody was there for Pee Wee, and a number of them brought their kids to share in the fun. It still makes me grin, just thinking about the screams during the Large Marge scene.

"You have to watch it! You're 30!!" - nic attempts to be sensitive to my anxiety

I had promised Nic Ethiopian food that night, and after listening to his hissy fit when we went to Chippy's before the show, I decided to take him out for some fermented fun after the show. Unfortunately, Nic was a little too sick to enjoy himself, so Mason & I sipped drinks and tried to resuscitate our voices while my brother morosely shoveled food in his pie hole. I went to bed far too late for a school night, but so very happy that I had made it down.

Labels: blake, family, friends, health, outings

- 1 comments/hedgehogs -

- Rocketbride's adventure of 5/30/2008 06:20:00 p.m.