Still incredibly busy, although on Tuesday, when midterm reports go in, I should be able to breathe a little easier. Tonight I gave up Friendly Rich to spend the night marking Nineteen Eighty-Four essays; I appear to be breaking out in a rash of responsibility. I was in the process of packing Blake off to Camp Grandparents when it hit me: I could spend my time marking instead of having fun! So I did. It sucks but at least I won’t be as anxious as I’ve been.

Why all the anxiety? Throughout most of the fall season I’ve been struggling with a cold that lingered improbably long. This has put a serious dent in the amount of marking I’ve been able to complete at work, as most of my “free” time is spent preparing for lessons I might otherwise have faked my way through were I feeling shipshape. Also, I can’t pretend that I haven’t been dragging myself to extracurricular activities in addition to the Amy Millan concert: I had two dance recitals in the week leading up to Hallowe’en, I lurched through my second Toronto Zombie Walk, I dressed up for work, and I sewed my best costume yet (about which more later). The arrival of Hallowe’en was a desperate relief: for the first time in days, I only had to worry about Blake’s costume and not my own. Sweet.

The crowning touch was that two days before Hallowe’en, Mason’s car died and I had to scramble to buy a new car. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were a nightmare, but now I have a car. It’s black, as Henry Ford would have wanted, and it smells good and it’s mine. It’s the first car I’ve owned since the ill-fated Mustang Scotty. I'm very proud.

This coming week will be all about insulating my bathroom so that my upstairs bathroom doesn't grow any more mold, sewing a purple outfit for my NEXT dance recital, and perhaps attending to the dishes more than once a week. I'm excited.

And, without further ado, Hallowe'en!

I'm pretty sure that the weeks of stress leading up to this night were more than worth it.

Labels: blake, car, outfits, outings, photos

DSC_2036
Originally uploaded by kylecassidy

My son at worldcon, with K82. Photo by Kyle Cassidy, of Who Killed Amanda Palmer? fame. There's a shot of me & Blake in this sequence, but it's sort of hideous.

Labels: photos

Taking advantage of a short breather to write. I am insanely busy for someone who's not supposed to be working. Although I can't afford to pay my brother for daily workouts, I'm still seeing him about once a week and I'm starting to use my new gym membership. Mason & I have developed a passionate dislike of one of the fitness teachers, which always adds interest and excitement. I need that; working out with my brother is not only good for me, it's so much fun. He pushes me like crazy, and he makes me laugh while I'm trying to do one of his insane sets. He brought my plank up to a full minute in a week, which is just ridiculous. And he doesn't smell as much as his room would suggest. I highly recommend his services.

Wednesday was particularly busy. In the morning we joined a fitness class (see above, re: dislike) and in the evening I went to my first troupe practice in months. Since it was just Jessamyn & myself, we did a couple verses, ate dinner & then I took a bunch of pictures of the jewelry she's selling on Saturday. This would have been enough for me on a normal day, but since I've been full of summery ants in my pants, Mason & I decided to go out to see the Zeus show. I took my camera this time, and I have many lovely shots in that buttery Dakota light that makes everything look both cozy & epic at the same time. We had to leave early, which is probably just as well, since I managed to avoid the tinnitus this week.

write this down: z.e.u.s. zeus, bitches.

Yesterday I worked on recovering from the stupid exercise class of Wednesday and assembling my submission package for the Sock Museum. It's a little obsessive; I included 28 pictures, and that's after culling. Amy promised to take them with her to the Summit, so I said I'd meet her at the Purple Purl for what I thought was knit night. Well. Need I say that Mason & I stumbled into a yarn tasting? There were last minute cancellations, so we were able to stay the night. It was Mason's first tasting, and the lucky guy walked away with a skein of handpainted 80/20 baby suri alpaca/silk. I was no less blessed, as I managed to win a skein of new sock yarn that will be perfect for at least one of the baby berets I need to make this summer.

Honestly. I went there so that a knitting teacher could do me a big favour and deliver my socks personally, and I planned to buy the yarn for at least three projects. I walked into a sampling night with complimentary shortbread and a lovely discount for participants, during which I won yarn. Have I mentioned that the socks I delivered were knit from a donated pattern, from top-shelf yarn at a deep discount? My knitting life is so extraordinarily blessed that I can barely believe it. It's so very past time for a karma-balancing donation to KWB.

I spent almost three hours sorting through picture files this morning, and I'm still not anywhere close to completed. Here are some photos of the summer so far:

Labels: health, knit, music, outings, photos

As the truly long-time readers will have noticed, Sunday marked my twelfth anniversary of keeping this journal online. Twelve years and no domain to call my own! To celebrate, I uploaded a funkload of pictures, correlating to the appropriate entry. Yesterday I made the first setting change since I added Blogger comments, which is that I disallowed anonymous posting. I've been noticing that when people want to tell me that Mason is creepy, they do so anonymously. Feel free to judge our attractiveness, just tag on a name from now on. Also, have you noticed how fat I'm getting lately? Discuss.

To address an (anonymous) comment from the last entry: yes, I am surprised that the Boy has served the papers. His only action thus far has been to leave; I've been cleaning up the legalities ever since and have been paying the bills of nearly 3 grand. Perhaps in retrospect I should have expected that he would jump on the cheapest, easiest step…but I didn't. Be clear: I don't consider myself a victim here, but that doesn't mean that I can't acknowledge when things are done suddenly and without warning. It was a shock. Wondering why is not productive…although it may help to know that I dream of reconciliation 3 nights out of 5, and wake up feeling worse than ever. (Last night I dreamed of a Christian rockband that solved mysteries, so it's not always like that.)

A lost anecdote from Renfaire day:

On the way home, we discovered that Sage could "sing" "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," although it was a lot like listening to Frankenstein's monster & Tarzan sing holiday greetings. He skips words, syllables, lines…sometimes he'll produce 6 garbled sounds before awarding himself a flat "yaaaaaay."

It was far past his bedtime, and halfway through the long drive home he became incredibly tired and cranky. He started to produce the long, sustained crying that doesn't stop until a bed is produced…but if asked, he would still "sing". So we sang with him, over and over and over. Near the end of this litany, Blake turned to him and asked, in all seriousness, "Sage, do you know any other songs?"

Um. Stats? Of a sort.

• So. I suppose that, except for waiting for my heart to numb during brief custody hand-overs, I can reasonably claim that my relationship with the Boy is now completely over. That means that I get to add another milestone to the journal stats, which is that I have written of the birth, the flowering, the withering and the death of my marriage, all in one series. Yee haw.
• I have developed an interest in photography, and am starting to be able to (sometimes) produce the pictures I've visualized since I was a child.
• My child has gone from a surprise union of two cells to a fully literate boy who dresses like Spiderman, demands his own copies of Neil Gaiman books, and sings hooks from Apostle of Hustle songs in the other room while I'm making dinner.
• I have accepted my occasional nature, and stopped apologizing for it. To compensate, I make sure that my feed links are working, and I have Facebook trolling for notes as well.
• I have redeveloped a love of music not really present since my earliest journal years, and spend much more time at concerts and listening to new music than I would have thought possible five years ago.
• I have permanently lost touch with Poet (by his desire), Palaver is too sick to venture out much of the time and Preacher lives in another country. Of the three, I am closest with the one who lives farthest away, and our sons get along famously.
• I have added a third person to my monogamy series. The first is getting married sometime soon; the second will be divorced from me in about three weeks.
• I finally found a job I loved with friends, love, yarn, and mutual respect; these elements have disappeared or been co-opted so that I am more than ready to move on next year. And yet I can't imagine being anything but the World's Worst Teacher. (A label to which Blake strenuously objects, by the way. He thinks I should get it changed to World's Best. I already have the t-shirt, though.)

two years ago

five years ago

seven years ago

eight years ago

twelve years ago

Labels: achievement, angst, blake, comments, mason, music, nostalgia, on-line diaries, photos, the boy

Today dawned so sunny & lovely that I was sorely tempted to skip work and spent the day taking pictures. I didn't. But I really really wanted to.

I've finally come back up to speed on the crafting I dropped this spring. I was so deep in a hole from February onward that I not only didn't craft, I didn't want to. Yarn hung around patiently, waiting for me to notice. I left all of my unfinished objects alone, deciding to focus on anything but the sense of guilt and obligation. I waited, too.

Last week I started knitting again. This weekend, I almost ran out of projects. Truly, I am back.

Labels: knit, photos

I ♥ my new camera. We will be getting matching tattoos and having lots of babies.

More if you click through…

While I'm all about the love, I should say that the other new thing that stuck its claws into my brain, locked into my pleasure centre & shakes it these days is DIG! LAZARUS DIG!! Mason & I went to the concert last October, and even not knowing the new songs, I remember being surprised by how much it all rocked. I can take or leave the ballads he does; some are brilliant and some put me to sleep, and judging from the concerts I've been to since the late 90's, I'd expected this concert to have a healthy dose of quiet piano work.

This album is loud and frenetic and wild. He does things with his vocals that I haven't heard since the early Bad Seeds, or the Birthday Party. Every song on that disc is a different soundtrack to fuel my supercool daydreams in which I drive really fast, lay waste to hearts, smoke unfiltered cigarettes and never have to stop to do laundry for a small boy who finds it more convenient to use his shirt than find a napkin. Each song is a different flavour of manic, overlain with the threat of crushing sadness.

Despite the smoking hotness of "Let Love In" era Cave, I think I even prefer watching balding, mustachioed "Lazarus" Cave. He's putting out the best music of his life, he still dances like a spaz, and he's funnier than ever. I never dreamed there was an album like this left in him.

Labels: music, photos

Spent the weekend in Watertown. Now that it's over, I'm having trouble remembering how it all fit together. I've had a cold for a week, which isn't too serious but comes with a runny nose and perpetual headache, both of which slow my thinking and scrub my memory.

I know it started with a dead mouse. When I came home from work on Friday, I found a mouse in the kitchen trap, its back half hanging out the side. Awesome, I thought. (You wouldn't be sentimental either if you knew that they were using your son's highchair to get to the counter or if you had to wash shit out of your pots every time you wanted to cook.) For some non-psychotic reason, I wanted to take a picture (vindictiveness?) which was when I discovered that my autofocus was busted and my latest point n' shoot was useless right before a vacation.

This was not the worst part, though. That came a few minutes later, when I emptied the trap in the park right behind my house as a gift to the scavengers and it started to twitch. Traumatic. I watched in horror as its convulsive twitching brought it a centimeter from where it was dropped; then my courage broke and I fled to the house, locking the gate behind me. Mason ended up using a garden shovel to put it out of my misery, which surprised me because I was the one who had to deal with the skinned squirrel that appeared in the backyard last summer.

Getting out of the city was a hassle. Mason couldn't find his passport, I had That Headache, and what with anxiety and irritation the packing took twice as long. We didn't get out of town until 6:15, which sucks when you have a four hour drive ahead of you. But we were fed, watered and walked, so we were able to go straight through. We got there at 10:30 or so, Blake sleeping in back and the two adults singing along to the radio to stay awake.

Preacher & Martha were waiting up for us, and we quickly initiated Mason into the Watertown diet, which relies heavily, if not exclusively, on beer and cigarettes. The only downside to the diet is that, by the time we were all ready to pack it in, it was unconscionably late for two sets of adults with very young boys. Blake proved this to be true just before 6 the next morning, when he arrived at my side, wet and repentant from soaking the bed. I let him dress himself, which was amusing, and it was about 10 before I was able to drag myself out of an allergy-swollen sleep to join the party.

It was Saturday morning, showing Mason the newly-restored historic downtown with the boys in a wagon, that I noticed Preacher & Martha's boss camera. I got my tax return last week, and after the car repairs got whacked off and I decided to put off a tattoo yet again, I found in me a deep desire for a spanking new camera. Preacher explained the awesome pictures that could be taken with this model; Martha poured fuel on the fire by extolling the bargains to be found at Sam's Club, and it didn't take much convincing before I resolved to take the plunge.

As we brought Mason from site to site and I looked at the ready-to-go wrought iron fountain, the still-crumbling Masonic lodge (my future home) and the Tiffany stained glass window that was completely blocked off before the library's restoration, I found myself calculating the views as one who would soon return with an awesome camera. Watertown's epic combination of the glorious and the crumbling are the photographic subjects of the gods, the exact thing to make my heart go pitter patter with voyeuristic lust.

Lunch was at the Crystal, where Mason confirmed my faith in him by falling as deeply in love with it as I. But poor Blake was sleep-deprived from his late-night arrival and early morning bedwetting, and a chocolate milk to one unused to such luxuries was not the best balm to his spirit. When he ran out before the food arrived, he demanded another, and by the time my tuna melt had arrived he'd had a little meltdown of his own. I spent a fair amount of time at lunch trying to coax him back inside the restaurant, asking him to sit down, reminding him to eat, hugging him when he cried and fending off his attempts to relieve his bruised feelings by throttling me. Preacher made a big deal about how slowly I finished my sandwich which earned him a caustic reply softened by a smirk; yes, I'm a slow eater, but if anyone else at the table wanted to hug Blake and risk the sudden choking, I didn't see any hands go in the air.

It was at some point at lunch when the subject of my mouse-ridden house came up. Preacher & Martha offered me their cat, a sweet tempered blue who has been unhappy ever since the puppy moved in. At first this was a joke: ha ha, an allergic couple is bringing a cat across the border! Then Martha offered a new litter box and the chance to return her in a month if it didn't work out. "Ok," I said cautiously, "but if I want to give her back, I don't want to hear any sassmouth."

"With us there's always sassmouth," Preacher replied. He picked up the cheque, and the deal was sealed.

Our gorgeous morning turned grey as we ate, and we hurried home to avoid the rain. Martha & I left the various boys to their various devices & went off to buy a camera. At Sam's, the only D60 left was the display. Not being particularly snobby about getting a product pre-smirched by little fingers, I asked about a discount. What they knocked off the sticker price was enough to pay for a carrying case & a smoking memory card. I was ecstatic. I floated through the rest of our errands, buying sheets and allergy meds but dying to get to an outlet and begin The Charging. After The Charging would follow The Insertion of the Memory Card and then! The Taking of Many Pictures.

But. My beautiful new (slightly sticky) camera would only take two half-pictures before the shutter quit completely. I was crushed. I walked out to the backyard, where Preacher and Mason were in the early stages of a bbq.

"My camera is defective," I announced. "I need a beer and a cigarette."

There were many consoling hugs, and promises that it would all get sorted out tomorrow after church. We decided that I would do a straight-up return/refund; later Martha offered to check out the Sam's Club near her church. These things being tomorrow's problem, I shoved aside the disappointment and we concentrated on getting supper into the boys with a minimum of spray, crumbs, dawdling and breakaways to fetch small toys. After dinner we piled into the cars and went to Sackett Harbour for ice cream cones, the final element in my comfort triumvirate (tri-comfor-ate?). And also, when the boys were put to bed, I had the added joy of the fire pit, a perpetual memorial to Preacher's mom that, not un-coincidentally, gives light, heat & primal soothing.

The next morning, still vaguely smelling of woodsmoke, Mason, Blake & I got ready for church. My original plan had been to walk, but it was cold and wet and Mason appeared to have sprained his ankle the day before. I didn't push it. Since we were a half-hour early, we decided to drive around and see if we could find any more fun features of Watertown. We managed to stumble across Thompson Park, which was worth it (if terribly chilly), and got to church – ta da! – two minutes late. Blake consented to visit Sunday School (which I thought terribly brave), and this was the best Mother's Day gift I could get, as it freed me to sit next to Mason and soak up Preacher's rather uncharacteristically casual sermon in peace. Breaking the usual rule of polite distance, I found us some kickass seats near the front and I could laugh, snort and gesticulate in response to Preacher's storytelling. I caught hell for it during the Peace, of course.

"Don't ever laugh at my sermon again," he warned me as we hugged.

"I was laughing with you!" I protested. (And I'm sure he wouldn't be able to handle complete humility from a girl who once went after the wafer with not so much as a by-your-leave.)

After church (and the obligatory snacks), I went off to return my first camera. We met back at the house, all of us more than ready for a late diner lunch at Sh(hhh)orty's (I told Blake & Good Hank that the extra 'sh' is to remind you to be quiet; this isn't Yellington's, you know.) I packed as quickly as possible, knowing that we'd still have to come back for the cat. Preacher and Sally looked at each other, clearly figuring out who was going to break the news. Uh-oh, I thought. They've finally decided to stop letting us come visit. But it was the cat; they'd had a moment with her the night before and decided to keep her. I was both relieved and crushed: no worries about allergies, but who was going to chase my vermin? It's probably better this way. I guess.

At the diner Blake managed to soil two shirts with his spaghetti & meatballs, and was taken to Best Buy with a hand-knit wool sweater zipped up to his neck. My new camera was the next model down, as it was on sale and still more expensive than my pre-smirched Sam's Club special. I resolved to be patient and not think about how long it would be until I was home and my battery charged up.

It wasn't until we were home, catless and yet laden down with much NY pale ale, new sheets, Ontario fudge and enough dirty clothes to choke a fish, that I realized my lovely new camera case (and my even lovelier unused memory card) were still in Watertown. And I cried.

Still, I hear that cases can be mailed, memory cards can be purchased locally, and Watertown will still be there when I have all my ducks in a row. It was a wonderful weekend, full of old favourites and the joy of introducing them to a new love. It was a rollercoaster of camera elation and crushing camera disappointment. It was Blake's joy in a new pet, and then the reality of saying goodbye to a cat we'd never really had.

Good thing the kids have tomorrow off; I'm just not ready to lead the youth of today in useful pursuits. As I said in September when I pulled in the parking lot on the first day of school, "I'm just coming here to come down."

Labels: blake, friends, mason, photos, vacation