safely back in the world

"my heart's not new
I'm not like you
I've loved and been loved
well and badly too
my body's been
through everything
I've used and been used
I got over it
there's something that you learn on a tightrope
just outside the spotlight,
there's a big net waiting"
Tanya Donelly
I'm Keeping You

I'm listening to my son making little sighing noises in his sleep. It's been three and a half days, and I still can't quite believe he's here. I probably do not have time to tell you about his birth before he wakes up, but I can tell you that it was one of the most challenging and most rewarding experiences of my life, that spook showed me a depth of devotion and care that I can still hardly fathom, that although I was terrified that it would somehow be too much for me to cope with, it was not. And now he's here with me.

my family just got bigger

This is Nico, second of my World's Most Gorgeous Nieces.

nom nom nom

It's not all throwing up and fainting and complaining about how my clothes fit, 'round here at Newly Human--some of it is waxing rhapsodic about the grocery store near our new apartment. We went over today to measure some room sizes and sign our lease, and on our way home we stopped by to do a sample shop.

From a neighbourhood grocery where icing sugar and veggie burgers have both been known to qualify as a "frill," we are moving to one where the No Frills has live Tilapia, a butcher's counter, and seven kinds of ready-to-bake pies (four if you want them in the "pie for two" size). They have bean curd in hot chili oil, they have Mole in jars, and cans of tomatillos, they have fancy snack nuts. About halfway through our shopping spook started giggling helplessly and widening his eyes at me, like can you believe this shit?

This in addition to a Sobey's right around the corner and about six fruit stands within a ten-minute walk, two coffee shops selling fair trade beans, a cheese shop and an organic meat store. It is food heaven.

the Time Traveller's Fife

...okay. More like the Time Traveller's Harmonica, but that does not a witty book title reference make.

When I was in university, my friend and sometime room-mate Adam was in a band called Aardvark and the Crumpled Sleeve. They played punk-blues: loud, fast, and with uneven levels of proficiency (the band got better over time, but there were other factors, such as the drummer's tendency to speed up with every beer, that cannot be overlooked). They were a wall of noise, which I usually hate.

I went to every show they played, except for the ones which happened while I was out of the province, and many of their rehearsals.

Understand, at that point in my life, music was What I Was Doing (which is one of the reasons I don't have a degree, but I digress). Adam was in another band, with me, many of our other friends were musicians, we were all writing music all the time, and listening to it, and performing it. So going to another band's rehearsals didn't seem as crazy in that context as it sounds in this one. Besides, you never knew when something incredible might happen, like the time Nathan's amp spontaneously caught fire mid-song. You can't pay for that kind of entertainment.

They played a reunion show last night, which I really ought not to have attended. They didn't even go on until 10:45, which is an hour after I have usually gone to bed, and I had to work today. But miss it? No way. Dude, I still remember the words, at least all of the words I could understand over the general blare. Before their set, Adam looked around the room and said "Huh. This is way more pregnant than our audience used to be." But what I was surprised by was how much it seemed like no time at all had passed. Looking at them under the stage lights, no one even looked older. Of course, offstage, we're all older. Eleven years older, in fact, with jobs and kids and better glasses. But it was a kind of magic--time travel--and I'm glad I went.

the sound that wonder makes

Casually, near the end of our appointment today, our midwife said "We might be able to hear the baby's heartbeat, if you're interested." spook and I were both like "Uh, yes." So I laid back on the sofa in her practice room and pulled my shirt up. "We might not be able to hear it, so I'm sorry if this takes forever." She put goo on the end of the doppler rod and placed it much lower than I would have guessed, over to the side toward my hipbones and then working toward the middle. There was a weird, echoey thup noise. "That's your heartbeat." she said. "That's the kind of sound we're listening for, but faster. Oh! There it is!" And there it was.

A tiny thupthupthupthupthupthupthup, like something small beating its wings.

quiet/loud

Two things you must know in order to appreciate this story: one, Lucy is obsessed with dogs. She has that toddler gift of spotting a dog at a hundred paces, on a leash, in an advertisement, going by in a passing car, and she remarks on all of them. She does not seem to have any trouble with the idea that a Chihuahua and a Great Dane are the same kind of animal, and I can't discern any preference for one or the other. They're all dogs. Uuf uuf. Two, there is a little white dog who lives next door to Lucy, and this dog excites much interest, especially since she can sometimes see him from the window of her living room. You'll catch her peering out the window, standing on tiptoe to get her little chin clear of the sill for a better view. Frequently our conversations on the matter go like this:
"Are you looking for the dog, Lucy?"
"Uuf." [signs DOG]
"Where do you think that doggie is?"
"Homa." [signs HOME]
"That's right. The dog is in his home."
Last Tuesday I looked over to see her standing at the window for the third time in an hour. "Whatcha doin', Lucy?" Without taking her eyes off the yard, she signed WAITING.

***

"Has she been playing the game where she gives you nothing?" Adam asked me this morning. Apparently, one of Lucy's new things has been to go down the hall and pretend to pick up the light from the digital readout on the carbon monoxide detector. Then she'll deposit the light in your hand, proclaiming "Ta ta." Lather, rinse, repeat.

She did this several times at top Lucy-speed, bolting down the hallway in her staggering run to grab at the light and place it carefully in my open palm, laughing. (On the cuteometer, this is at least a seven out of ten, edging into the eights when her laugh turns into a chortle.) The one thing this game had not taken into account, however, was the reset/test button, located a mere centimeter or two below the glow of the display.

I can now say definitively that Adam and Chelle's carbon monoxide detector works.

Lu is a pretty laid-back kid. When the piercing shriek of the alarm screeched through the hall, she didn't cry. I thought I might, for a few seconds, frantically looking to see if I needed to do something to make it stop. Several earsplitting tones later, it stopped on its own. I looked at Lu. Her eyes were perfectly round. Solemnly, she intoned "Beep beep."
"Yep, it went beep beep. It was quite--" don't say scary-- "alarming."
"Beep beep," she said, a little more certainly, and then signed "All done."

There was no more carbon monoxide detector frolic today. We are all done with that terrible noise, apparently. (Other things Lu is "all done" with: the inhaler she has to use to treat her cough, her last several lunches, donkeys. All done with donkeys.)

endurance training

One thing that children require: stamina. Today I read Dennis Lee's poem "Alligator Pie" nine times in a row. When Lucy said "More!" (or more accurately, "Muh!") for what seemed like the zillionth time I resolved to teach her to say "Again!" and so that was the lesson for the afternoon. Along with repeating "Can you say 'please'?" over and over, to be rewarded with her little voice piping "Peez!"

Oh, I love her. I love her so much.

So that was my today, Lu's head pressed hard against my breastbone as she leaned back into my lap while I read stories and picked out important words when she got impatient and turned the pages really fast and repeated and repeated and repeated.

p.s. "Eg!" Success? You decide.

in which I get concussed, drown, and am crushed by beer bottles

We're back from the cottage. I love cottages, because what I really want to do on vacation is lie around reading my book, swim, cook, and argue with my friends. It's true. I'm funny that way.

It's also neat what things you learn when you spend a few days living in the same space with people. For example my friend Greg, who is much admired among those of us who know him from work for his handiness at any number of tasks, built the most crazy-ass incompetent fire I have ever seen. Sorry, dear, but you know it's true. Some kindling, and then some juniper branches, and then a giant log plopped right on top.

Greg: "I'm waiting for all the apologies I'm going to get when this burns."
Thea: "I'm rehearsing, wait: 'You got lucky.'"
Peter: "If that actually catches fire, I will walk into town, buy the ingredients, walk back here and make you a pie."

Alas, I foiled my own chances to get pie when he kept adding more and more and more juniper, and cardboard, and then some juniper branches approximately four feet long, draped over the fire with their ends dangling.

alex [quiet, but incredulous]: "On top?"
Me [laughing hysterically, intervening]: "Oh my god, stop. Stop. Stop."
Greg: "It would have worked."
Me [stuffing kindling into the hot part at the bottom]: "Seriously, no."

It rained all of Sunday, so of course we had to go get in the lake and toss a frisbee and a miniature football back and forth. I can neither throw nor catch, which caused no end of trauma in gym class, but it was very pleasant to play with people who didn't care. Eventually Greg and Peter started throwing rocks at each other again (Me: "Use your words!") and I got cold and got out and went back to reading my book.

The hijinks did not extend to the food, the brilliant food, at least not unless you include the addition of copious volumes of butter. So it was with a heavy heart (but grateful arteries) that I got in the car to come home yesterday morning. I was shaken out of my melancholy by the necessity of fitting myself into the front seat with the better part of the 120 beer bottles we were returning. I'm glad to be home. I missed Lizbeth, and I wanted to sleep in my own bed. But you can bet I'm plotting next year's trip already.

"Up!"

This new imperative brought to you by my niece, the incomparable Miss Lucy. It's one of the apparently gazillion things she's learned to do since last Tuesday.

No, seriously.

Today she said "ball," which as far as I know she's never said before. She's started laughing in this abrupt, hilarious "ha!", every syllable its own world. I spent our walk home from the early years centre composing a goofy song around the sentence "Nobody rocks the house down like Lucy's marching band," and then when I sang it later she banged toys together more-or-less in time. When I do something she thinks is funny she will lean toward me to get her face close to mine before favouring me with her giant grin. She blows my mind, is what I'm trying to say here, people.

my fandom can carry a tune

"He's a really good-looking guy and I thought he was kind of cheesy at first--"
"Trust your instincts!"
"--but he turned out to be totally sweet. Sometimes people are layered like that. There's something totally different underneath than what's on the surface."
"And sometimes, there's a third, even deeper level, and that one is the same as the top surface one."
"...Huh?"
"Like with pie. So are you going to see him again?"

Oh, I know, I know I'm behind the curve on Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, but--it's just so--awesome. Like an awesome thing with awesome sauce. :sigh:

those garden pictures I've been promising you

Well, some of 'em.

the best part of my new job

just called to say it's good to be alive in such a small world

Guh.

D'you ever hear a song for the first time and have it knock the wind right out of you? The Flobots "Handlebars" just killed me dead. It doesn't hurt that I heard it for the first time over a brilliant BSG fanvid (spoilers for season four, y'all), which makes me want to make videos. Except that I don't have the patience to learn vidding software.

Also five-thirty in the morning has not been kind to me this week, and I have to go to bed now even though it is still light out.

Books rule!

...as does this excellent video about reading.

Have I mentioned lately that I love my house? I love my house.

I love spook, and I love Lizbeth, and I love the Many And Irritating Cats of Disaster.

Also, dudes, I am so sick, and I should really be in bed, so I'm gonna go do that now.

p.s. for your amusement, a recipe for Schadenfreude Pie.

THE TRIUMPH OF GOOD OVER EVIL

Giants win! Giants win! Giants win!

Overheard in my living room:

"Now Peyton Manning can call Tom Brady up and be like 'My little brother kicked your ass! Do you want to play my mom now?'"

I am lightheaded with joy.

swear I way more than half-believe it
when I say
somewhere love and justice shine
cynicism falls asleep
tyranny talks to itself
sappy slogans all come true
we forget to feed our fear

The Weakerthans, Confessions of a Futon Revolutionist

Last night we went to Nathan Phillips Square to attend the Winter City festival. I love Toronto's sneaky paganism. It was wonderful to go to city hall and celebrate Imbolc in a manner which far outstrips my own little candles at home. I am having some technical issues with uploading my crappy pictures from my phone (oh, if only I'd known I would have brought a camera...) but when I can, I'll add them and you too can see. It was beautiful. There were giant sculptural spheres set up bestudded with pots of open flame. There were flame pots set at regular intervals all along the balustrade. There was even one sculpture which moved, giant flame-laden spokes which raised and lowered, surrounded by a circle of little fires in, you guessed it, more pots. At the apex of this movement the sculpture would spew some misty liquid--water? fuel?--and all the fires would ripple, causing mingled delight and alarm in the onlookers. There were skaters in the rink, and musicians, and tents set up as warming stations.

We went and ate dinner and came back to watch the Weakerthans play an hour-long set.

I've pretty much given up live music, because a thing I do not love about Toronto is that so many of our venues suck. Too big, floors too hard, bad sound. The nail in the coffin was going to see Le Tigre, nearly passing out, and getting variously ignored and/or stepped on by the other members of the audience, an experience which left me thinking "I love the band, but this scene is so dead." And those are the feminists. Yeah, count me out.

In all my cranking, though, I'd forgotten how much I love watching a band. Part way into their first song, I started to cry, big stupid grin on my face, tears streaming. This often happens with musicians I really love. The couple standing in front of us knew all the lyrics, danced the whole time. They helped to restore my faith in the music-loving public. They were also ferociously cute (spook pronounced them "adorable").

I had very odd dreams--I blame the fuel for that and for the fact that all of last night's clothes smell like lighter fluid. In one of them, I was one of the Spice Girls, and we were playing a benefit show. Everyone else was onstage already, and I realized I didn't know the words to the song we were performing. There was a computer by the stage door, and when I frantically googled the lyrics, the verse I came up with had distressing colonial overtones*.

"I have to sing about Indians?" I squeaked. Meredith, who was suddenly there, looked at me in disdain.
"No. Nobody sings that verse."



*For this bit, I blame Cassie Edwards.