| z for zzzzzzz ... |
[26 May 2007|09:58am] |
| [ |
music |
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none (cal's asleep) |
] |
It has been a really, really long time since I've posted in this journal. I have another one I use for writing projects -- prompts and exercises and silly little poems that pop into my head -- and I have my work blog, and once I get all that stuff out of me, I don't have a lot to say here.
But hey, I'm sick today -- caught the bug Cal's still getting over. We never get sick, so it's weird to be so under the weather. We were supposed to go visit my parents for my dad's birthday this weekend, but he said he doesn't want us to bring whatever this is (a bad cold? a flu?) out there. Which I understand.
And I'm thankful. Visiting them is always so stressful. They're so hypercritical of me and my life and my choices; even when they're not saying something judgmental, I know it's there. I try not to assume they're going to be mean, but when you've lived with it your whole life, it's difficult not to try to prepare for it.
They have gotten better though. A lot better. And that could be because I've finally got a good job, a real career they can be proud of again, but hey. I'll take it.
Cal and I have decided that, for our vacation in the fall, we're going to hike the 94-mile Massachusetts leg of the Appalachian Trail. We've been going up to the Becket/Washington town line to hike as far as we can along the AT, and it's just gorgeous. Easily my favourite trail we've hiked.
When did we become such big hikers? I have never been too outdoorsy, but lately I just itch to get out on a trail. We don't camp, though, so we've broken up our 94-mile trip into nine days: We'll drive one car to one spot, then the other to the start of that day's hike, then hike back to the first car, collect the second car and head home. Where we'll sleep, then get up to do it all again.
I can't wait. I know Cal and I both are hoping this will be a life-changing experience -- setting a goal and sticking to it and, finally, reaching it. That's a big thing for me, one of the causes of my worsening depression, something I hate about myself: I never finish anything. I never see things through. And maybe, somehow, completing this little stroll from one end of Massachusetts to the other will show me I'm capable of finishing something.
The weekly-arts-supplement editor at my paper, a really lovely person, wants Cal and me to write about the experience for the magazine, and she's going to use our photos and everything. I'm so excited. More paid writing clips! And photo sales to boot!
We haven't done much wedding planning. At first, we thought we'd go all out and do a big huge bash, but. Well, the more we looked at the costs, the more we thought we'd rather save that money for other things. We could spend thousands and thousands we don't have on a single day, or we could save up to adopt a child a few years from now. We have expensive dreams, too: owning our own business, making films, going back to school. There's so much we want to do with our life together. It doesn't make sense to blow a lot of cash on one party.
As I always say, every day should be a celebration of our love -- not just our wedding day. Besides, we're already married, just not legally. Not yet.
So we're keeping it small. Just our immediate families and us. We'll probably have a nice little ceremony someplace and then go out for a nice dinner somewhere fabulous. Doesn't take a lot of planning, right? Oh, it does. We still have to find an officiant and clothes and a site and flowers and rings and transportation (oh my!). And we have to write our vows. And figure everything else out. But I think the small scale helps. It's certainly less intimidating than if we were planning to invite a couple hundred people.
I really, really want to write a book called "My Big Fat Queer Wedding." Or a guide to gay marriage in Massachusetts. Or finish my novel. I guess what I really want is just to write.
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| y for you're so vain ... |
[28 Mar 2007|07:40am] |
| [ |
music |
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"you're so vain" (in my head now) |
] |
I had never heard of the RHETI personality tests before this morning, when dreamsrundeep posted a poll about Myers-Briggs and RHETI. I figured, what the heck? And took the RHETI test.
I can't say the results are too surprising, eh:
Type Four -- The Individualist
The introspective, romantic type. Fours are self-aware, sensitive and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative and personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. They typically have problems with melancholy, self-indulgence and self-pity. At their best: Inspired and highly creative, they are able to renew themselves and transform their experiences.
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| v for visions of sugarplums |
[19 Dec 2006|10:54am] |
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Caleb and Dana were in the car far too early in the morning. 7:45. They had been to the post office at opening so they could mail off their last holiday packages, and now they were heading back home to sleep.
"Look," Caleb said. Dana pried open a single eyelid. Caleb continued. "The person driving behind us looks just like Ann-Marie MacDonald."
The other lid snapped open. Dana sat up quickly and flipped down the passenger-side visor, peering into the mirror, angling it just so. "Huh," she said. "I see what you mean." She squinted; it was bright, but the driver did look like their hero.
"Same haircut," Caleb pointed out.
"Yeah."
They reached their driveway, and the pickup truck roared around them.
"Wait," Caleb said. "That was just a guy in a hat."
Caleb and Dana work nights. To them, 7:45 a.m. is the middle of the night. A hallucination here and there can be excused.
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| u for unwanted |
[02 Nov 2006|02:22pm] |
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Yesterday afternoon, as I was walking to work, a carful of fifteen-year-old boys drove past me, screeching around the corner. The one in the back seat flipped me off. "Hello, beautiful," he called, and then they were gone.
Story of my life, eh. And that was just the start to a truly terrible evening.
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| r for respite (q was friends-filtered) |
[18 Aug 2006|11:09am] |
| [ |
mood |
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suspended |
] |
| [ |
music |
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ani difranco -- hypnotized |
] |
In less than one month, Cal and I will have two whole weeks free from work. I am giddy with anticipation.
The first few days we're going to spend in Kingston, Ontario, where I went to university. It just so happens that alumni weekend at Queen's has fallen during our vacation the last few years, so we've gotten to go up and revisit. The first time, Cal fell in love with the town and the school and the country, and now we try to get up there a couple times a year, if we can.
I can't wait to wander the streets during the day and the night, take the Haunted Kingston ghost tour (we've always wanted to do this but haven't yet), picnic in the park that runs along the water, run on my old route past the prison, hang out in Mac-Corry and the JDUC. To eat at our favourite places and maybe discover new ones -- maybe even get a meal at one of the cafs, so that Cal can experience a Queen's caf. To take a student-guided tour of campus just because. To spend a few days back in my favourite place on Earth.
This nostalgia makes me feel older than the 30 I turned over a week ago.
The last few days we're going to spend in Ogunquit, Maine. We went to Ogunquit a couple years ago on a long weekend (I hadn't ever been, but Cal had gone with his family) and it became an instant vacation favourite. We stay right in town, where we can walk to everything -- the restaurants and shops, and the pristine sandy beach, where we bring chairs and watch the sun go down after flying kites that glow in the twilight. We giggle at the sandpipers, which have to be the cutest birds in existence. We drive out to the Nubble lighthouse when it's dark, and we listen to the ocean and the perfect peace of vacation. And perhaps best of all, we traipse up and down Route 1 and stop at all the little antiques shops; we always find too many treasures we just have to bring home.
No, best of all is the time off, the time together. With our work schedules, we don't get a lot of time together. Just Friday evenings and Saturdays, and a day and a half just isn't enough. But coming up, sooner every day, we'll have two whole weeks -- Saturday, Sept. 16 through Sunday, Oct. 1 -- together. (My vacation actually starts Friday the 15th and goes through Sunday the 1st, but Cal doesn't have that Friday off with me. I'm using my Labour Day holiday (at the paper, if we work a holiday, we can save it and use it later) to take the 1st so we can end vacation together.)
We don't know yet what we're going to do in the time between Kingston and Ogunquit. Kingston's only a two-night stay, and Ogunquit is three. We need to sit down and plan out day trips, since there are places we'd like to go, such as Oneonta, N.Y., and Concord, Mass., and maybe Ithaca or Rockport or Nantucket or wherever. But the main point is all that undivided time we'll get to spend in each other's company. If we want to stay the entire two weeks in bed, we can! If we want to go out and do a million things, we can! If we want to make heavily detailed itineraries and then scrap them for a Vermont antiques run, look out Vermont!
Vacation, vacation. I can't wait.
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| p for plentiful |
[16 Aug 2006|01:06pm] |
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music |
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rufus in my head |
] |
I feel nostalgic today, nostalgic and restless. Fall is almost upon us, and vacation -- I feel like vacation is already over, since it will be before we know it. So many things on this week's to-do list, and I don't want to do any of them.
I feel only like crying, like curling up in bed and having a good blat.
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| n for nuh-UH; o for obligation |
[07 Aug 2006|11:41am] |
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This morning, I sent the following e-mail to the editors of Bicycling magazine, and to the northeastern regional media manager at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation:
To Whom It May Concern at Bicycling:
I find it interesting that your magazine's appeal to readers for feedback says, "Send your kind words to..."
Words, you see, are important. I'm a newspaper copy editor, so words are something I manipulate every day. They can be kind, and they can be less than kind. They can help, and they can hurt. Each individual word can tell a story -- a story about a person, a sport, a society.
The words were what first pulled me in, a year ago, when I decided I wanted to read some magazines to help motivate me in my fitness goals. Since I bike and I run, I grabbed issues of Runner's World, Running Times, and Bicycling, in addition to other general fitness mags. Your magazine stood out from the start: It was better written, and better edited, and contained far better stories than all the others. It was the only magazine to which I sent a check. I have enjoyed it immensely, learning more and more about the sport every month.
But some of the comments in the interview with Dave Zabriskie and Floyd Landis (August 2006) leapt off the pages and slapped me in the face. This is what I mean by words that can hurt. There were pull-quote windows that made my jaw drop. They shocked me, and then they made me angry. I had to set aside the magazine, and I have not picked it up since.
These are not kind words. They are anything but:
DZ: Ok, I'll say a rider and you just say the first word you think of.
FL: Fabulous! Can you write it with a lisp?
and:
DZ: If we were superheroes, who would be Batman and who would be Robin?
FL: That's a gay question...
Homophobia is rampant enough in the world of sports without its stars perpetuating stereotypes. Kids and teens -- and adults -- who read these scornful messages internalize them, and this weaves them further into the fabric of society.
In words from the website of GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation: "When media images of our lives are fair, accurate and inclusive, we find ourselves increasingly welcomed into a society that respects difference. When they're not -- when stereotypes and misinformation pollute the well of cultural acceptance -- we become vulnerable to anti-gay forces working to create a world in which we do not exist."
There is no way to interpret Landis' comments as positive. His was not a message of acceptance, or even of tolerance. It was disrespectful. I can understand that perhaps the world of bicycling is one in which males might feel a need to "prove" their heterosexuality -- look at the bright jersey colors, the sleek, shiny tights, the shaving of the legs, all of which can earn scorn from "real" men outside the sport. But this does not excuse Landis' mocking tone, his disdain for the very real lives of others, who are hurt by words every day.
I am not blaming Bicycling for the comments. I understand well enough that you, the editors and designers, did not choose the words, did not make the comments, and in all likelihood did not mean to wound or offend. But you did choose to emphasize these sentiments in pull-quotes. You did choose to portray them as zany off-the-cuff witticisms, when in fact this type of verbal violence takes casualties every day, in business meetings and casual conversations, in print and on television. And you, being in the business of words, should know better.
Big red words accompanied my September 2006 issue: "THIS IS YOUR LAST ISSUE!" they screamed from the billing envelope. "You're absolutely right," I thought. I have not even read it.
Sincerely,
[name]
[address]
[phone]
cc: Mike Lavers, GLAAD Northeastern Regional Media Manager
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| m for mmmmmmovies |
[29 Jun 2006|12:16pm] |
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mood |
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nervous |
] |
| [ |
music |
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harry potter |
] |
Sometimes there's nothing you can do but veg on the couch with some chocolate and laugh at all the considerable queer subtext in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Honestly, it's the gayest film. I love it.
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| l for love |
[29 Jun 2006|10:13am] |
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mood |
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worried |
] |
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music |
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hilliard ensemble |
] |
I know ~ that God really is love.
I believe ~ we are the sum of our choices, and more than the sum of our choices.
I fought ~ the law, and the law won. (Okay, not really.)
( Read more... )
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| k for killjoy |
[28 Jun 2006|02:16pm] |
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mood |
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terrified |
] |
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music |
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none |
] |
Cal got some scary news in his doctor's appointment this morning. I feel terrible that I didn't check our voicemail sooner; he'd left me a message at 10:00, but I didn't get it till after 1:00. He's scared, and so am I.
They think the head pain and pressure he's been experiencing of late is his pituitary tumour. He hasn't had an MRI in a few years, and he's been off the medication for longer than that. What if it's grown? What if they put him back on those meds, the ones that made his life hell? What if they want to go in and remove it?
He's got an emergency MRI scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and we'll have the results by Friday morning.
I'm so scared, and so angry with myself for not insisting that he go in for a checkup, an MRI -- anything -- sooner. Why didn't I just make the appointments for him when I saw he was hesitant? He would have gone. I should have. What was I thinking?
I was trying to respect his wishes, but I should have gone ahead and done what was best.
God, Cal, I love you. Please be all right.
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| j for jumpy |
[28 Jun 2006|11:04am] |
| [ |
mood |
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migrainey (again) |
] |
| [ |
music |
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rufus in my head |
] |
I really should start tracking my migraines and my depression to see if the two coincide. Maybe the depression is just the very beginning of a migraine aura? Who knows.
But don't worry, I won't do that here.
The sky outside is bright grey, and rain is dripping rapidly off the leaves that brush the windows. Somehow the weather knows.
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| i for inevitable |
[27 Jun 2006|01:18pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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eh |
] |
| [ |
music |
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arrogant worms -- don't go into politics (in my head) |
] |
Why does returning to normal life have to be so arduous? And why is it that normal life is never really normal when we return to it?
Depressed again. I suppose that's all the 'normal' I really need.
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| h for homecoming |
[26 Jun 2006|09:11am] |
| [ |
mood |
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hollow |
] |
| [ |
music |
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rufus in my head |
] |
We went to Canada again this weekend. Kingston, Ontario, where I went to university. We wandered the quiet lanes on campus -- most students are already halfway through their summer adventures -- and the busier ones in town. I wanted to take pictures, but how do you capture a life that is over? So the camera remained a vestigial appendage at my side.
I had life once, and promise, and it was all somehow contained there, in the way the light hits the retinas in just the right spot. I wasted it, that light. And though I firmly believe we are all the sum of our choices, the collected consequences of our experiences -- I still can't help but wonder, and wish.
I know that I would not be the same me, would probably not be here in my home, with my sweet love and my prima donna cat, had I chosen even one little thing differently. I do not, and could never, wish home or love or cat away. The me is a stickier question.
What would I change, really? I could be more persistent in chasing after my goals. I could work harder at discovering myself and the world. I could learn to live again that promise, the one I banish to disguise its neglect. It does not matter where this happens; I know these parts of me do not live in any country or town. But somehow the roving soul inside me keeps pointing north. Nudging.
We are starting to consider emigrating, though I keep expecting to find out that Cal is only thinking about it for my sake, and not his own. The fortune is too great -- I think, how could he have fallen in love with the country, too? Then, of course, as one in love, I wonder how he could not.
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| g for genuflection |
[19 Jun 2006|09:28am] |
| [ |
mood |
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panicky for no reason |
] |
| [ |
music |
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rufus in my head |
] |
It's so warm here already today, too warm for running or writing or laundry or baking or anything else I have on my list. Our kitten, who is now much too old and huge and fat to be called a kitten -- but who will always be our kitten -- is lounging on the landing. It's one of her favourite places, because she can keep an eye on both floors of the house. I can just see her little sleepy head through the doorway to Cal's study, which means she can just see me. She does like to keep an eye on everything.
Cal isn't feeling well today. He's been having migraines often the past week or so -- bad migraines, the kind I get, where light and sound hurt, where the nausea grips the stomach and the throat and won't let go. I'm a little frustrated because he won't take anything stronger than Tylenol or ibuprofen, neither of which is enough. I have Imitrex, I tell him. I have Relpax. They work. But no.
I'm really getting to the writing stage again on my novel. I keep coming up with images, with sections that need to be written. So why don't I write? What irrational fear is keeping my fingers from the keyboard, the story in my head?
Is it my usual fear of success, of finishing something, anything? I don't understand this fear, not one bit. I've always wanted to be good at something, to succeed wildly at something. Why would I fear the one thing I've always wanted? Why avoid the one path I have to meeting that dream?
But wait -- I must be afraid that I'm not good enough. That I'll finish something and it won't be any good, that I won't have succeeded after all. This is a distinct possibility, I know. And it paralyses me.
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| f for frivolity |
[17 Jun 2006|09:55pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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ehh |
] |
| [ |
music |
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rufus in my head |
] |
Have I ever mentioned my apron collection? Not sure if I have. At any rate, I collect vintage aprons. Actually, Cal and I collect vintage kitchen anything, but my aprons are special. Nothing inspires me to do housework like tying on one of my 1950s housewife aprons.
(Actually, I loathe housework most of the time, so getting into character may actually be the only thing that inspires me to do housework.)
So far, including the two I picked up today at a junque shoppe in Scotia, N.Y., I own six:
1. The first I acquired was an adorable little while half-apron with a very fine red-and-black floral-type pattern; it has a small frill around the edges and a tiny pocket (which I swear, though I don't have any research to back me up, was designed to hold a woman's wedding ring). The tag said it was from the teens (!), but I'm not sure that was true. Still, I love it. Bought it for $12 at an antiques market in Vermont.
2. That same morning, I also picked up a full apron with a blue-and-white-and-green big floral pattern. This one also has a wedding-ring pocket.
3. On a trip to Maine this spring, I snagged a gorgeous multi-paneled full apron with a big full skirt in red and pink, with smallish floral pattern accents. This one is so very much fun to wear.
4. On the same trip, I also got a 1960s or 1970s smock-type thing in red, with big wide white pockets that have a fine red-and-black plaid design.
5. And today, I bought a sheer white half-apron with big red floral appliqués. I've been wanting a sheer apron for a while -- the more I look through my 1950s housewifey books, the more I want some girly sheer aprons. Now I have one!
6. I also got, at the same shoppe, a black wrap apron: It's a half-apron that looks like a wraparound circle skirt. I love this thing. It has a smallish pattern of white flowers, and I can't wait to wear it.
Actually, I can hear Cal downstairs doing dishes, but no! I'm the housewife! That's my job! Time to fly downstairs and insist that if he won't let me wash them, he at least put on an apron...
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| e for ebullient |
[16 Jun 2006|09:56am] |
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mood |
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ill |
] |
| [ |
music |
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something in my head |
] |
I am exhausted. Perhaps that should have been the title of this entry. E for exhausted. E for entry. E for eh. But no, I wanted to go for the fancy vocabulary word. Plus, I try to stick with the first word I think of, and that was it. Ebullient.
It is finally my weekend. Cal woke up E for early this morning and went to work. Poor thing -- since I work E for evenings, he does too... E for except on Fridays, when I have the day off and he goes in at 7 a.m. so that we can have the whole afternoon and night together. Usually we head to Northampton for dinner and shopping, and then get our groceries in Hadley, and then head home. It's kind of a long trip for groceries, but we love Northampton so much we don't care. And it's time spent together; who could argue with that?
I can't E for even E for express how terrible this week at work was, so I won't try. Last night, though, I trained the new girl on doing the local section front, and although I was worried about being too much of a control freak to handle sitting and watching someone work*, it was actually a loose, laid-back, fun night. Of course, I was ill and out of it, so that might account for some of it.
Okay. This post feels disjointed, and I'm all sweaty from the E for exertion of sitting upright (I really am ill). Time to get some water and get back into the air-conditioned bedroom.
E for end.
*Notice I didn't say "someone else" because "watching someone E for else work" just sounds silly.
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| d for daily |
[14 Jun 2006|08:37am] |
| [ |
music |
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rufus in my head |
] |
Sometimes Cal is just so beautiful I can't stand it. I know that he and I, and a few others, are the only ones who read these words; still, this is the best way I know to tell the world, to share my awe. My love. I call him that, you know, love, because he is.
Waking in the morning to his sleeping curls on the pillow, nothing but curls peering out from the blankets -- this is heaven, always was. Ever shall be, amen.
Life has to be this sweet to offset the bitterness.
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| c for canadian |
[13 Jun 2006|10:46am] |
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I am in love with Ann-Marie MacDonald.
This is one of those things I'm going to regret someday, when I'm a famous author and AMM comes over to my quaint little stone house in Kingston for tea and we laugh and laugh at how silly I was ever to have been mooning over her, when all along we were destined to be best friends. Oh, I'll laugh, but inside I'll regret it. How gauche.
I am, though, in love with her. Cal says it's okay for me to write that here, because he is, too, in love with her. As he says, there's just something about the way she looks at you, so intense, that makes you weak in the knees. Well, maybe not you, but us. Probably you, too, even if you won't admit it.
It was fun to go over the border this time, to be able to say, "Literary festival," in response to the purpose-of-your-trip question. The border agents said, "What?" and we responded, "Literary festival." Duh. The Canadian guy didn't even ask for our documents; he just let us cross. Who makes up "Literary festival"?
AMM's mum came up on stage and regaled us with stories of what a "rascal" AMM was as a kid, and AMM had one of her two children on her lap as she signed our books. The poor kid was gnawing on a juice bottle out of boredom. As if anyone could be bored in AMM's presence. We didn't get to talk to her this time, or entertain the kid, because some Canadian band had just started playing and was drowning out everything that was said around us.
We took tonnes of pictures and now one of them is on my desk at work, to remind me what I want to be when I grow up. And, maybe, too, to allow me to swoon just a little bit at work. I'm depressed now. How do you go back to everyday life?
Unrequited love sucks. Hard. This is another of those things I'll regret someday. "Oh, Dane," AMM will say. She'll call me Dane. "Of course it's requited."
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| b for ballyhoo |
[08 Jun 2006|02:55pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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wheee! |
] |
| [ |
music |
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rufus wainwright -- foolish love (in my head) |
] |
I've been meaning to update forever and haven't actually done so.
1) My aunt got back to me (after a weekend in which I had to take Xanax to get any rest), and... she had good things to say about my excerpts! I am so, so pleased -- her opinion really means a lot to me. She said she has some more specific comments she's going to send along sometime, and that's fine with me. The real agonising wait is over.
2) One of the things my aunt said in her e-mail was that she wants me to be proud of my writing, and proud to show it to anybody and everybody. That meant so much to me.
3) Still nothing from the writing centre director, but I understand: He's a teacher, and it's the end of the year, so. And really, having heard nice things from my aunt, I'm less worried about his response. Though I still would love it if he had good things to say as well...
4) I've actually done a chapter outline and reworked some things that didn't work before and plotted out what's going to end and -- this is the biggie -- come up with an ending. It's not what I WANT to have happen to my characters (because I love them and don't want things to end this way), but I think it's a good ending, and it's the twisty psychological kind of stuff I love in books, so.
5) Cal and I are going to see Ann-Marie MacDonald give a lecture this weekend! This will be the second time we've seen her speak, and if it's anything like the University of Rochester talk... *swoon!* I am beyond excited. She's my hero! We haven't decided which of her books/plays we're going to bring (in case there's a signing), but we're definitely bringing her newest play, the one that came out just recently.
Okay, enough. I have to get ready to leave for work.
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| a for anxious |
[26 May 2006|11:58am] |
| [ |
mood |
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gack! |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
rufus wainwright -- rebel prince |
] |
Okay, a semi-reply from my aunt. I'd written her this morning to clear up something I realised might be confusing to people who know me (id est, the name of one of the characters is the same as my ex's, but the character IS NOT based on my ex; the same-name thing is an unfortunate coincidence, since the story is based on a Catholic legend, and the name in the legend just happens to be my ex's name), and she wrote back.
Anyway, she said she won't be able to spend time on it until Monday at the earliest. My parents are going down to Delaware to visit her family, and they'll keep her busybusy.
WHAT WAS I THINKING? The work isn't ready for readers' eyes. It needs so much revision. Oh man oh man oh man.
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dana13's journal