Still Life with Wyliekat

Archive for the ‘Happiness’ Category

So long and thanks for all the bloggies.

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

This is a hard post to write. Saying that, I guess it’s been driving towards inevitable for a while now, too.

The reality is this: I came onto the Internet in 2001 looking for a community. I have always felt a bit like the odd duck in most rooms, and I was wondering/hoping that there would be other odd ducks out there in the world, who, when teamed with other ducks, would form a happy community of odd ducks, celebrating and marveling at each others quirks.

At the time, the Internet as a community was still very much in it’s early stages, and there was still a great deal of fear that anyone you met virtually stood an equal chance of being a pervert or a liver-stealer as a normal human being.

Times change. The Internet is now a place of commerce, community, research and common usage. In richer countries, like mine, it’s highly unusual for anyone (including our parents’ generation) to be computer-less.

As with anything, the proliferation of voices has had both positive and negative impacts. The positive? It’s been recognized as a marketable, legitimate media and is even changing the face of the odious 24-hour a day disaster broadcasting, which pays no attention to whether or not there is actually a disaster taking place.

The negative? The dilution of community, of course. In the blogosphere, it appears as though there’s so much fear about keeping or owning your own market share, that it becomes impossible for a true community to maintain itself.

Do you know where I find that sense of community? Oddly, the answer is the same as it was in 2001 - I find it on livejournal. Oh, I know - it’s the bastard stepchild of the blogging industry. It started out as a member’s only site, and then became this crazy open source, closed conversation kind of joint that you either belonged to or openly mocked.

Livejournal isn’t set up the same way as other venues. It’s not intended for standalone use. You’re meant to read about people and be read by the same people. In short: it’s designed to be a fully functioning community, where people know about and care for each other. This has certainly been my experience. When life slaps me upside the head, it’s those folks who see all of the angst and support me as I work through it.

And you know what? That’s what I want out of my blogging experience. I want the sense of community. It’s just not the same experience without it.

So I’m going to return to livejournal. Truth is, I never left. However, I was putting my best energies into this place, and it’s time to redirect them to my roots - to the place where I am most comfortable. To where (yes, I’m going to do it) everyone knows my name.

For those of you who’ve read me and supported me here - I can’t thank you enough. I wish that this platform was set up the way livejournal was, so that we could talk back and forth more easily. I suspect I’ve missed out on some fairly awesome friendships here. Still and all, I appreciate your readership, and hope that you find this experience to be what you wanted it to be.

If you want to keep in touch with me, you can still find me on livejournal. I am, as I always was - Wyliekat.

Heck, if you’re disenchanted with what you’re doing now, I’d encourage you to do more than just read me over there - join up yourself!

Posted in Getting older, Happiness, geekery | 6 Comments »

My husband at 35

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

On Sunday, my Buddy turned 35.

Pfft. Took him long enough*.

For his birthday, he got fed kielke and trappings on Friday, pizza and beer on Saturday, and my mother’s famed chop suey (with three kinds of meat!) and blueberry pie for Sunday.

See how I didn’t cook a meal for him? It’s ‘cause he gets my food every *other* day of the year. This time of year, he gets everybody else to cook for him.

He was also gifted with a Halo 3 special edition Xbox 360 Elite, which has replaced food, air and me on his hierarchy of needs. Temporarily, of course.

IT IS TEMPORARY, RIGHT HONEY?

To compensate, I’ve taken up crocheting again. Not by any pattern of any kind. I just started making a string to see if I remembered how to do it, and the next thing I knew, I’d created six or seven rows of the same pattern, three up, three across. I have no idea what I’m making, but apparently I like it that way, just fine.

I also gave him as much of the weekend as possible for his own entertainment. Which meant that I had to do more running and bending and lifting than I’ve done in quite some time, but you know what? 1) I’m extremely grateful that my spine came around in time for me to be able to do it and 2) It was entirely worth it.

That man. He draws me pictures and puts them in my lunch box. He pats my head when I’m sad and my back when I’m proud (the rest of the patting has been censored, for your comfort). He is a tremendous father and caregiver to both our girls. He is funny, sweet, kind and clever.

I’m incredibly grateful to have him in my world. I still love looking at him. I miss him when we’re apart. I’ve had to change everything I understand about the world because of the love he’s given me, and I regret not an inch of it.

Which is probably why I (mostly) put up with his ageist remarks against me.

That’s all I’m saying.
* Yes, he’s approximately seven and a half months younger than me, and yes - he does like to hold it over me. Like you, I am also amazed that he survives such antics.

Posted in Getting older, Happiness, buddy, family | 3 Comments »

My daughter, my therapist.

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Over the past couple of days, Rosebud has been applying some heavy duty emotional grind to her mother (and really, all of her beloved and loving family). It feels like being inside a keg of suspicious looking black powder in a room full of nervous, lighter-bearing pyromaniacs. You just never know what’s going to set off the explosion. After a while, you become conditioned to flinch at everything.

So that’s been our last couple of days with the spirited, one-of-a-kind child that is Rosebud. However, I think she’s doing her infamous mind-melding trick again. Like any child this well-versed in tyranny, she senses when she’s pushed her loyal subjects too far.

She then throws them a bone.

Last night, halfway up the stairs to bed (typically a raging minefield, with the black powder and aforementioned nervous pyros), she decided to take matters into her own hands.

Rosebud: You be me, and I’ll be da mama.

To reinforce this, she put her hand on my back to gently encourage me up the stairs.

Rosebud: Okay honey, it’s time for bed.

If you could resist this opportunity, you’re a better woman, mother and human than I will ever be.

Me: But I don’t WAAAAAAANNNNAAAAAA GO TO BED!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

To my surprise, this was precisely the response Rosebud was after. Apparently, she sensed that I might feel better if I could play the role of recalcitrant child.

To be able to whine loudly and have it elicit giggles and encouragement? Oh hells yeah, it was on.

All the way up the stairs, through the toothbrushing process, the final potty break and the pyjama donning, I carried on with my tantrum. At full volume. Until my throat hurt.

Damn, that felt fan-fucking-tabulous. Must do it again some time.

Posted in Happiness, Rosebud, family | 4 Comments »

Because it’s true.

Friday, November 27th, 2009

You know, it becomes more obvious on a daily basis how much my kitchen is my happy place. I love to bustle around it in, even (and perhaps especially) on a Friday night. I go there to put everything else in the world aside.

And it’s a mark of how often I’m in there, and how enthusiastic I am about the whole process of making food that nobody even comes in to check, regardless of how much hammering and thunking goes on. They’ll snoop about the food, but they never blink at the noise.

This is good, because I lost the head of my meat mallet whilst beating naked chicken thighs to a pulp. When I say lost, I mean propelled. And when I say propelled, I mean tossed upward.

Guess the reflexes haven’t quit on me just yet.

Posted in Being a girl, Happiness, Health, cooking, family | 2 Comments »

Better living through pharmaceuticals - reprise.

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

In the winter of 2007, I started taking anti-anxiety medication. After being on it for about six weeks, I wrote a post about it. This is an excerpt:

I’ve now realized that what I previously thought of as “managing”, was really cripplingly difficult and often left me with giant holes in my self-esteem.

Things would eat away at me for decades. Literally decades. I don’t think there’s an awkward incident in my entire life that I can’t catalogue for you.

And now? Well, I’m still me. I still worry. I still fret over things that I can’t control.

But the huge, massive, gargantuan, insane worries that I could never put down for a rest, no matter how much I wanted to - those are gone.

I still have bad days. But then I can get up off the couch and carry on with my evening.

Now, I play more with the Rosebud. I worry less about every single thing she does or puts in her mouth. I can relax and laugh a bit.

So yeah - basically, what the hell was I waiting for all this time?

In July of this year, I went off the meds. I did so because I wanted to assess my mental state. I was operating with the theory that the bulk of my heightened anxiety was post-partum related.

Turns out, it was less post-partum and more parenthood. Or aging. Or something.

Bottom line is this: I quit taking the meds and now, I’m going back on them. I am, I realized, a better parent and a happier person when I don’t have the anxiety looming over me.

Even though I’m madly in love with my family, have a job where I’m valued, a home that I love and friends who care for me - I find that I can’t appreciate any of it when I’m constantly in a state of fear: Did I just say something horribly wrong? Was that chest pain a sign of a looming heart attack? What kind of asshole (read: me) shows up 15 minutes late to a meeting?

These thoughts? They’re fairly normal. But the difference between normal and me is that I think these thoughts for days and days and days after I may or may not have said the wrong thing, had a chest pain or missed a meeting. It doesn’t quit. I don’t quit.

As T-dot said so aptly “It seems like you’re doing okay, but you seem really tired from trying to keep it all together.”

She’s right. I’m tired. Time to avail myself, once again, of the miracles of modern medicine.

See you on the other side.

Posted in Being a girl, Getting older, Happiness, Health | 4 Comments »

Reclaiming my humanity

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Well, after magically waking up on Saturday morning in very little pain (from my back), and following that with both dancing and wearing of high heels, resulting in yet more MINIMAL PAIN, I am feeling most optimistic and generally perkier than I was last week.

This is good, because I could’ve brought rain to the desert with the giant cloud I was carting around.

I’m not going to start doing cartwheels or seeing if I can pretzel myself into interesting new shapes - I’m not crazy (much). I’ve been warned that the pain can be intermittent, but if that was an intermission, it couldn’t have come at a better time. My very own Halloween miracle.

Why was this timing so immensely awesome?

T-dot and her freshly minted husband got married on Saturday. It was an absolutely stunning event, and I think it was most definitely worth the effort T-dot put into it over the course of the last year. Her design sense, love for Halloween, and general happiness showed in every fine detail.

Wonderful.

Now, the reason I was in such need of a fully functioning spine? I had the daunting* task of giving the reading at the ceremony. Going up to speak during a person’s one and only special day creates an entirely different level of pressure.

What if I trip on the way up? What if I deliver the reading with so many verbal typos that it becomes virtually incomprehensible? What if I pass out? What if I deliver the whole thing in a nerve-wracked wisp of a voice? What if I just suck? I WILL RUIN THEIR WEDDING WITH MY FAIL!!!!

Suffice to say, I was seriously, deeply and incredibly happy to have gotten through the whole thing with a minimum of disaster, and may have enjoyed more than my fair share of wine in celebration of this fact. I am equally grateful that my dear friends asked me to perform this task, and that they didn’t ask me to read from the Bible (which would’ve resulted in Fire and Brimstone, if I so much as cracked open the tome).

It was a good time, with good people.

As my lovely (and utterly unnecessary) thank-you gift says: A friend is someone who knows everything about you, and loves you anyway.

Too true. I’m grateful for my friends.

*When I say daunting, please read this as TERRIFYING.

Posted in Being a girl, Happiness | No Comments »

Don’t call me Speedy.

Monday, October 19th, 2009

I was at a party on Sunday. It wasn’t for candles, foodstuffs, cooking gadgetry, Tupperware, happysexyfuntime or anything else of this sort.

It was a toy party. A CHILDREN’S toy party.

Still and all, with Christmas coming up, I’m not going to miss an opportunity to shop whilst snacking and chatting, instead of shopping in a mall in the dead of pre-Christmas retail or the ‘net and its myriad stores that refuse to ship to Outer Mongolia (a.k.a. Canada).

So I went over to my friend’s place. The hostess, as it happens, is someone I’ve been acquainted with over the years. (Hey, we’re a reasonably small generation in a reasonably small city. It’s not like there are that many degrees of separation between any of us. Happily, we’re on the right side of Not Inbred, though I think it might be by a narrow margin in some cases).

Last time she saw me was pre-baby, pre-Buddy. Naturally, being the toy rep, the saleslady extraordinaire, she was immediately interested in ascertaining how big a mark I could be many kids I was shopping for.

Me: Two - Rosebud and Juniper.

Her: Oh, you have two kids?

Me: Yes - one I made and one I inherited, through marriage.

Her: So you’re already remarried?

Me: Yes.

Her: Well, that was fast.

In case anyone is wondering, “Well, that was fast” is not listed anywhere on the Miss Manners Spectrum of Congratulatory Phrases.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed in the time that Buddy and I have been together - those scant and measly not-quite-two years - people sure do like to have an opinion about how a relationship ought to proceed, particularly post-divorce.

According to the timeline written in the sky, I should’ve painted my skin with ash and shaved my head and mourned the demise of my marriage for a lot longer. Sex and the City informs us that the shelf-life for relationship grief is half the length of the relationship, which means that I should have been torturing myself for four years before I even considered dating another man.

Fortunately, as much as I’ve always enjoyed the TV show, Sex and the City is not my bible, so I don’t feel compelled to hang onto anger and/or grief for any circumscribed period of time.

But honestly, I’ve confronted this attitude (both subtly and directly) more times than I’d care to count. And it pisses me off.

Here’s the thing that I’d like everyone to *get*. I didn’t marry the next man who came along. It’s just that the next man who came along happened to be my soulmate. I didn’t marry him so that I didn’t have to be a single parent. I didn’t marry him on the rebound. I didn’t marry him because I didn’t think I could hack dating. (For the record, I’m a very good dater. I meet people easily and can usually find common ground with anyone.)

Here’s the flat truth: If anyone says to you ‘I’m really into you, but the timing sucks’, guess what? They’re not really all that into you. You know how I know this? I know this because if you happen to meet *your* person, the one single solitary soul in all the world who speaks to every part of who you are, well . . . the timing of that meeting won’t make a damn bit of difference to either party. You will move heaven and earth to be with your person and if you’re smart, you will do so immediately.

In the end, as much as it ticks me off to have people presume things about my life based on their own sense of appropriate timelines, (even though they have little to no frame of reference for how my first marriage ended, the fact that Buddy and I were already friends AND that when I was still married, I thought he was awesome enough to want to set him up with a girlfriend* of mine), I also know that it doesn’t make a difference. People will have to figure out, in time, that we are together because we belong together.

(And the sex is pretty great, too.)

*Dodged a bullet there, didn’t I?

Posted in Being a girl, Happiness, In the mother/stepmother 'hood, Rant, buddy, divorce | 5 Comments »

I need to hit the candy aisle before this burns a hole.

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Today is an historic day for me. For the first time in my adult life, I’m the proud owner of an allowance.

“An allowance, Wylie?”, you say. “Did your husband pat you on the head when he doled it out, too?”

You know? I’ll let you be snide about it - just this once. Because no, Mr. or Ms. Smartypants, with whom I am not having an imaginary conversation, so shaddup - he does not pat me on the head, because the allowance isn’t like that.

See, I have an ever-growing list of things I want/need, with a sideorder of all the nice shiny things I pass by whenever I happen to be in a place that houses and/or sells shiny things. Shiny things are good. Shiny things are fun. Everyone should have bits of shiny in their lives.

Here’s the thing. I don’t buy the shiny things I see, or if I do, I spend far too much time gnashing my teeth and donning my inner hair shirt. And then, I get mad at myself for feeling guilty, so I don’t buy the next shiny thing I see and covet.

Do you see how this might be a wee bit depressing? Do you see how I might go months and months without buying a new black sweater, to replace the one that got mysteriously shredded, like an object placed between Garfield and a tray of lasagna? Can I really justify taking food out of my own children’s mouths* to purchase a black sweater?

A couple of weeks ago, I announced to Buddy that I wanted an allowance. I wanted money that I could sit on, spend, secrete in a mattress, fritter away, impulse purchase or in any and all other ways not prohibited by law or my own moral compass - manage on my own.

As a good, sweet and sensible husband, he readily agreed to this plot.

So now I have an allowance. And no surprise, I immediately want to take my two dollars and head down to 7-11 and spend it all on the candy aisle, just like I dreamed of doing when I was a kid. Swedish fish for all!!!!

Who’s with me?

*Okay, honestly. We’re not that poor. It’s simply that this is the psychological barrier I confront when I’m spending communal money. It *feels* wrong to spend that money on things just for me. Carving out some funds for me to do with as I please makes all the difference in the world.

Posted in Being a girl, Happiness, buddy, family | 5 Comments »

Reason #637 that I was clearly destined for this man.

Monday, October 5th, 2009

His family is almost entirely made up of foodies. No surprise, really. I’ve known about CH’s foodie nature from extremely early on and Pal is no creampuff in the kitchen, either.

On Friday, we went over to his uncle’s home - where we were fed with local chicken, local potatoes, local corn and extremely local bread and apple pie (both bread and pie made by said Uncle) produced from local apples.

No kiddin. I’ve never had a bad food experience with his family. Dinners are generally occasions where wine, food, conversations and children roam freely. The food, even if it’s delectable, never quite drops the conversation into catatonia. The wine paints CH’s cheeks a rosy red and puts a warm fuzz in my stomach, but never seems to generate slurred vitriol about who made the better battery (Duracell, of course) or which way is the appropriate way to pour coffee (*in*, not *on*, for the record).

And this kind of dinner? This is exactly the kind of dinner I love. If my entire social life could be composed of dinners with friends and foodies, I don’t think I’d ever want to depart this mortal coil.

But since that’s unlikely, I’ll have to resign myself to the simple knowledge that I have these dinner parties in my life, and be grateful for that.

Posted in Happiness, buddy, cooking, family | 2 Comments »