"All Is Full Of Love"

Although I generally eschew hallmark holidays on principle, I was quite eager for this past valentines day. I am glad to report that I was not disappointed. In fact, I ended up having the best date of my life! *Cue: girly squeal of delight*

First I must explain a bit of my romantic history over the past month... Not too long ago I went on the worst date in the history of the universe. (Ok, not quite. But certainly the craziest - in a bad, bad, way - that I have ever been on.) I will blog about it, in perhaps a year or so. I have already written about said event, in fear that my mind will attempt to block it at some point. But as details would be incredibly incriminating for the fellow (who does not remember the majority of the evening's occurrences) and my sister has reminded me that our mother reads my blog, I shall wait a while before posting.

Then last week I was stood up for the first time in my life. By the same guy. Are you all yelling at me via your monitors yet? All right, I get it... Do not bother dating emotionally unavailable men who are on drugs, no matter how gorgeous and full of potential they may be. I am not naive. Just a little too apt at seeing the goodness and beauty in everyone. It can cloud the judgement.

So instead of sitting at home, despairing my singleness, I decided to take myself out on the date I really wanted this year. Thus began the hatching of plans for wunder-valentines-day!

This past Sunday, after ridding myself of the children, I longboarded to the florists with one of my of best gal-friends. There I purchased, for myself, a bouquet of gigantic, luscious red, gerbera daisies. Then we were off to an uber-inspiring poetry workshop hosted by another soul-sister. A good start.

Next we boarded about, talking of life and love, and I received my first longboarding wounds, ever, after attempting to make it down the largest hill in town. Blood was spilled. It was great fun! (Yes, I am a terrible adrenaline junkie. It's my one vice.)

When we heard the roar of her boyfriend's purple franken-jeep behind us, and my mate said she would see me home, I admit to feeling a wave of loneliness. He reappeared once or twice en route to my place, but we managed to dodge him after that. This was still girl-time.

I fancied myself up a little, donned a sweet pumpkin-coloured merino-wool dress and went to the cinema for some eye candy. Thank you, John Travolta! Then I took myself out for dessert: chocolate, brandied-cherry trifle in a martini glass. It was insanely delicious. (I would gladly eat nothing but this, for the foreseeable future.)

In the dim candle light of the restaurant I wrote a hilarious love letter, to moi, in poor Parisian and reflected on how much fun I actually have being "alone."

I rolled home on smooth roads, wind in my hair, grinning all the way. Ditched my board, then walked to the river to listen to the rapids. As their roar filled my ears, I truly felt the Bjork-ism: "All is full of love."

The Burning

On January 30th, by light of the full moon, I burned my wedding dress.

This was the most immediate release of negative energy I have ever felt. I can't begin to explain how beautiful and freeing the whole experience was. All of the hurt that went along with my marriage literally went up and away with the smoke.

I invited others to bring pieces of their lives that needed burning as well. Letters, and even another wedding dress were tossed to the flames. We roasted marshmallows, went for a bright night hike in the woods, and talked over hot chocolate while listening to guests take their turn at guitar and accordian. The Burning was more wonderful than I could have imagined, and I rode a high for the next week. My energy level has been insane! (Even more than normal. How is that possible?!) Much thanks to all of the friends who helped bring this night to fruition.

Matthew, my wonderful, artistic mentor, captured the event on video. I saw it just as my state of euphoria was starting to fade, and am currently on another high. Here's the addy if anyone feels inclined to check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go1eZzAjxzE

P.S. I have been struggling to come up with a new last name for a number of years now, and am pretty certain I finally have a winner... Berligh. Thanks to the ever brilliant DKLG for the inspiration. I am trying it on and feeling it out. Exciting times!

A Night in the Life of...

It's been a while, and instead of writing something of real substance I thought I'd just share the events of my evening with everyone (this is a normal night for me)...

• Put the kids to bed at 8:30.
• Talked to my sorta-not-really-a-boyfriend on the tele for a few moments. (If anyone has a lead on someone with real boyfriend potential, give me a holla. It is perhaps wise to forewarn any potential suitors that I am not domesticated.)
• Promptly fell asleep.
• Awoke at 11:30 and practiced banjo until my fingers fumbled  - the brain became too sleepy to handle it.
• Ate sushi I made this afternoon with much wasabi. And chocolate. Lots of it.
• Finished watching a foreign film I started a week ago. I like subtitles.
• Yoga!
• Messaged a gal-friend to call me if she was awake. She was. And was thrilled that I had read her mind. What can I say? I'm phsychic like that. Talked about the ridiculosities of life.
• Had an ayervedic mustard bath in which I ate more sushi and chocolate, and began re-reading "The Convictions of Leonard McKinley" by Brendan McLeod. http://www.brendanmcleod.ca/
• Contemplated making the hula-hoops I bought supplies for over a month ago. But instead, sang Lily Allen tunes, lazily. (She gets us women folk.)
• Discovered Sleep Talkin' Man and laughed my ass off. http://sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com/

So there you have it! A typical night for a not-so-typical gal. I work best in the wee hours, which does not always jive with my daytime responsabilities. Thank jeebus for redbull. And luckily, my place of work is closed for the next two days for renovations. I shall take multiple naps.

More "real" bloggage to follow soon!

Note To Self:

Do not arm-wrestle Anyone. Ever. Again.

An aquaintence has been giving me tips on the art of arm-wrestling. It seems there is some strategy involved. Not just brute force and grunting, as I had previously assumed. First to twist the others wrist and muscle them down from the shoulder, using upper body strength, will be victorious. Huh. How silly of me! All along I thought it was just about the arms.

I have been told, in not so many words, that if I do this correctly, cave-man trophies will be awarded and hot babes will flock from near and far to watch me take down my opponents one after another. This does not appeal to me so much. I do, however, appreciate arm-wrestling as a time-honoured male-bonding ritual.

As I am an open-minded artist, I thought I should give this art-form a try. See what all of the hoopla was about. I also thought it would be cool if I was the gal who could put the men-folk in their place. My teacher agreed. If he could do it, so could I.

My teacher is not a large lad. This gave me hope for my own arm-wrestling career. He's actually a lanky fellow of average build who no one ever suspects of being an expert. I have watched him win copious amounts of money from much larger men. Sometimes, sadly, the same man over and over again. Guys who opt to be repeatedly taken down seem to have a larger than average ego, and to have imbibed more alcohol than others.

But after an evening of arm-wrestling with him and others, old tree-planting injuries flared up. A couple of days after my lesson, I could barely do dishes, and certainly couldn't sleep. Haha! Serves me right, I suppose.

When I spoke with him about this unexpected turn of events, my teacher explained that the key is to only arm-wrestle people who are weaker than you to begin with. Build up some arm strength. Huh. Looks like maybe I was at least patially right after all. I told him I am going to practice on my kids for a while. But secretly I am hoping that he won't broach the subject again. I don't think my ego can take it.

Stationary Bike

This is not a plea for pity. Nor is it a cry for cash. It is merely a statement of fact and feelings, in hopes that I can relieve myself of some anger. A state of being that I rarely dwell in for too long. But tonight I am having trouble letting it go... I have been pedaling away anger on my stationary Schwinn on and off for the past two hours. Rage keeps returning in fierce waves, and I wonder how long into the night this will continue?

I cried for hours this morning after my ex-husband called and woke me up saying, "We need to talk." He has been bouncing child-support cheques more often than not. More often than we ever got the *bow-chicka* on in the five and a half years we were married. It's usually a bad cheque every couple of months. But this time he is two and a half months behind and has been promising to make the back-payments every single day this past week. Each day there is another reason he does not. Today he says he will have some of it tomorrow...

My friends and family want me to lawyer-up. I have already been through two lawyers who did nothing they said they would. I am, admittedly, not as squeaky a wheel as I ought to be with the lawyering-types. Emotionally abused women are rarely squeaky wheels. We have been taught to stay quiet. I am trying to unlearn this, but it's a long process.

When my eyes stopped flooding and I went to work this morning, I actually had a great time. I thank the fates for friendly customers and funny co-workers today, of all days. But now that I have put the kids to bed, I am the embodiment of fury. I am worse than Ben Stiller as Mr. Furious, in Mystery Men. Really. I want to smash things, set fires, and shout nasty words. I want to call in the knee-cap breakers, who deal with people like my ex with body language... because my words aren't working.

But these are not viable options at the moment. The kids might wake up. And hired thugs would hurt my conscience.

I am emotionally exhausted. So I will pedal until my body feels the same and then sleep until lucid dreams begin to undo the tortures of today.

And this weekend I will buy a punching bag to hang in my basement. Really.

Sheepishly She Returns With Excuses

Please forgive my prolonged absence from the internet... I have been enjoing the holiday season immensely this year. I would even venture to say that this has been the best x-mas I have had in at least a decade.

It has been full of icy, middle-of-the-night runs. Sometimes just home from the noisy local bar where I visit with friends, and wish like mad that there was an indy coffee shop open late to hang out in. Other times I have run for its sake alone. To watch my breath catch, and hang, on the winter air. To smell ice,  hear my heartbeat, and feel truly alive.

This past week has been full of music. Santa (who is me, in case you are still buying into the parental lie) bought ukuleles for myself and the kids, much to my mom's dismay. I don't know if she was worried about the noise, or the fact that I dabble with tonnes of things and don't always follow through. She probably thought it was a waste of money. But after seeing the awesomeness of my bright red uke, and hearing how easy it is to play, my mother jumped on the literal band-wagon and bought one for my sister, and one for herself.

On Christmas day I watched my son play his uke and sing, when he was supposed to be having a nap. He didn't know I was watching. "We can be small togetherrrrrr," he crooned.

I am deeply in love with this instrument, and have been strumming in my sleep.

I am filled to the brim with parties. At the last one I watched a drunken friend be held up over a toilet to vomit, as she could not hold herself up any longer. Of course I was concerned. But I did think, somewhat smugly, "this is why I don't drink too much." And I wondered why people do this to themselves.

Karma kicked my ass the next night when I met a musician (guitar and banjo) from a neighbouring town. He had been ice-fishing for most of the day and was still wearing fishing boots. That's my kind of man. We danced to Michael Jackson after imbibing too much beer and tequila. I'm not a big drinker, so the hangover was insane. Lesson learned, apologies to drunken gal-friend. I get it, sistah.

I have been finding joy in the little things, as usual. Someone once told me it's because I am an aries. First sign in the zodiac, so everything always feels new and wonderful to me. I dunno, could be. No matter the reason my brain functions just so, I like it.

These past few weeks have been full of full-body smiles. When every atom of your being just feels pure joy. Here's hoping that this year will bring more of the same...

A Plate Full Of Epiphany

Yesterday's liscence plate of the day: BMINDFUL

*Smiles* Just what I needed to see.