Thursday, August 31, 2006

Curve Balls


Sometimes it feels alot like life has me on the defensive. That the world is conspiring to just keep throwing stuff at me that I have to 'deal' with. Curve balls.

Then I give myself a shake and tell myself to quit thinking so negatively. Count your blessings. Be happy you've got as many gifts and privileges as you do. And I do.

But still.... sure would like the world to throw me a meatier bone now and again. I think the last really great bone I got was my daughter. It's been twelve years! Can I have another one please?
Last spring I thought I must be overdue to either a) win the lottery; b) land my dream job or c) fall madly in love with someone wonderful who loved me.

Instead I got a really ridiculous law suit and more of the same....

And the beat goes on and it's still fun to laugh.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Jazz Musician




















Jazz Musician
Chalk Pastels
August 2006

.... hands are impossible!!! and I'm not really great at faces either!! Ah well.... I doubt I'm ready to give up my day job after a total of 3 drawings!!

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Why not to mess with a librarian.

Not all that long ago I met a man in a bar. We laughed and danced, he walked me home and asked for my phone number. How 1950s, wouldn't you say. It was nice.

A week went by and he didn't call. It's not the first time a man has not called. But I thought this one would. He didn't strike me as a player.

Another week went by.

Here are the things I knew about him:

His age, first name (both legal and common), his profession and the neighbourhood in which he lived. I knew the year he was born and what he looked like. I knew that he was more fun on the dance floor than I've had with a man in a really long time. And I knew he kissed well.

I went online. Within half an hour I had his email address and sent him the following message:

Hello,

Never flirt in a bar with a librarian, because we WILL find you! : )

Since you haven't called I figured:

a) you are married
b) you didn't like me as much as you did when you were drunk
c) you lost my phone number
d) you blacked out the entire evening

Care to let me know?

signed,

tall beautiful blonde you met 'in orbit'


I heard from him the next day.

Sleeping and other bodily functions

One of the things that I'm really good at is sleeping. First of all, I grew up with one of the best sleepers I've ever met. My father. I swear to god, a normal day in my father's life (when I was a child) went something like this:

morning: rise early - somewhere between 4 and 8 am depending on the season. 7 would be pretty average. work, eat, have coffee, work, have a snack, work, break for lunch.

afternoon: have a nap after lunch either on the couch, or maybe in his chair, occasionally lying in the sun. work, have coffee and snack (or beer maybe in summer), work, quit somewhere between 3 and 6pm. Sit down to read a magazine, fall asleep. Wake up for supper.

evening: eat supper and chat with family. Lay down to watch tv, fall asleep. Wake up from nap and maybe spend a few hours on a hobby, talking with family, or more work. Fall asleep and if not already in bed, get up and go to bed.

Seriously.

Of course, don't forget I remember this through my child's eye. This was what his life looked like to me. I have less knowledge of what his daily life was really like. Seems I once heard he had difficulties sleeping... or maybe that was his mother.... Certainly we all know that great grandma who lived with dad as he was growing up - used to get up in the middle of the night and make oatmeal as she assumed it was morning, or at least was going to treat it as one if she were awake anyway.

I've inherited many things from my father and his mother's side of the family - one of them is sleep. We have a strange relationship with sleep.

I've been heard say on more than one occasion that I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime, and for any length of time. I knew when I fell asleep on a Guatemalan chicken bus - you know - one of those buses that we used here as a school bus in 1966, and then shipped to the third world thirty years later and is now serving as standard inter-town transportation for both cargo and passengers in many small countries. In Guatemala the people are pretty small. They put extra seats in the bus. When I squeezed my 6 ft form into the seat, my knees were pretty much in my chest. I slept for at least half of the 8 hour journey. In the heat! I knew then that I had a rare and wonderful talent.

When I fly from Toronto to Vancouver (4,5 hours) I often fall asleep before the plane leaves the tarmac in Toronto and wake as the plane approaches for a landing in Vanouver. I'm not kidding. I slept all but 5 hours of the 13 hour flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver and then half of the connecting flight to Toronto.

And no, I do not take sleeping pills.

I like to sleep. I do it a lot. I'm good at it.

Turns out I also have one and possibly two medical conditions that cause and/or necessitate that I sleep an inordinate amount. When it gets really bad I'll sleep about 17 hours a day.

It's a rare day when I can't fall asleep at night. Rarer still is if I awake in the night and can not go back to sleep. In fact, I wake often in the night. I wake, look at the clock, turn over and go back to sleep. Often up to 6 times a night. Like my father before me, I am the queen of the cat nap. 5 minutes; 15 minutes; an hour or two - and often.

So... when I can't fall asleep at night, I figure, like my great grandmother before me, that I may as well just treat it like a day. I get up. I do something. Tonight I have written this....

Actually I meant to write about this, and hormones, and that I'm having one of those 30+ day months that I get occasionally.... or is this the beginning of the end? meaning.... the big M; the M word; the change.... fucking menopause. Obviously, I'm not happily embracing this inevitable part of my life. I've thought alot about death and dying and I don't think I'm too freaked about that.... but menopause.... shit ... turns out I'm not really crazy about it. Like Samantha from "Sex and the City", menopause means growing old, losing youth, losing sex appeal. People can die at any age, but menopause only happens to those who live that long.

In either case.... onset of menopause or one of those freakishly long cycles I sometimes have... this explains a lot of my eratic behaviour of late. Turns out the week I met the latest object of my affection I was at the height of my cycle; meaning I was fertile and looking for sex! I really didn't think I was, at the time... but .... maybe that's it.

I do consider the possibility that love is just about proximity. I may simply fall in love with any man I fuck when my hormones are in a particular 'state'. That's it: wrong place, wrong time, if he likes me a little and is reasonably attractive himself. Voila! I'm in love!

Now... at least one of my friends would be interrupting me right about now to insist that what I'm talking about isn't love. Well, in answer to that I would say that I think there are lots of different kinds of love and that although they start and grow (or not) in many different ways... 'falling in love' is one of the more common starting points. Sometimes we 'fall in love' with someone we already know... a friend or colleague... but we still 'fall'.

Besides, that's one of the reasons why blogs are so great.... you get to talk, without friends interrupting.

I am kept awake by thoughts of the object of my affection; and that I am likely not the object of his affection; and perhaps I'm going into menopause and if that's true, it's no wonder I'm not the object of his affection.

If I keep this up I'll never fly. (Happy thoughts Peter. Think happy thoughts. - Tinker Bell to Peter Pan)

Happy thought: My day will come.


For more hormone related amusement see:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060826.LEAH26/TPStory/?query=leah+mclaren

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Under my skin

I suffer from a common love malady: I tend to fall for men who don't want me. Men who withhold their affection or are unable to express affection; who are fundamentally unavailable to me. Much has been written on the phenomenon of the emotionally unavailable male... I'm not going to wax poetic on that one.... the question for me is why me? Why do I do it? What draws me to these people.

My therapist and I have concluded that the roots lay in my first intimate relationship: the relationship with my mother. The hypothesis is that she was fundamentally unavailable to me in some important way and thus the unavailable seems 'normal' to me; attractive to me. Unavailable, in my weird little psyche, is a defining characteristic of love.


To make things even more annoying, for some reason most of the men that actually express desire for me are severly wounded and problematic people. They drink too much, are under achievers, and are angry with the world and ultimately act in abusive ways.

I probably scare the living hell out of your average healthy emotionally available man. I think I tend to the intense; and that can be pretty intimidating I guess. For example: here is a short and not overly poetic poem written during one of my many unrequited crushes:

I've got you under my skin.
I'm fucked up!
I want to scream.
I want you in my bed.
You have me body and soul (probably)
yet.... you don't want me.

If a thousand ants where crawling under my skin it would not torment me more.

Pretty INTENSE! Sounds like something a sixteen year old would write doesn't it?

I have these infatuations relatively often. I see something in 'us'. And they don't. Does this happen to all of us? or just me? Perhaps I've never managed to mature when it comes to intimate relationships.

Friday, August 25, 2006

.... and a note on art


In terms of work, it hasn't exactly been a productive summer. However, I am relatively pleased by the amount of creative product I have produced. So... I may well die a penniless artist one day. Starting to feel like an attractive option... hmmmmm

By the way, all the images on this site are my own photos or photos of my art. (Unless I note otherwise). I take many of the pictures with the idea of creating paintings of them. I'm overly drawn to flowers for some reason.

I find it hard to reconcile my self- image with my love of flowers sometimes.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Emotional memories

Lately, I've been thinking of going back through my files, journals, etc. etc. to find the evidence that supported my decision to spend those 5 years with x. Turns out, it was by far the worst relationship of my entire life. Yet I do remember a time when I felt, wrote, and believed that he was "my love, my life, my destiny".

How could my feelings have swung so extremely; from one end of the spectrum to the other in a mere 5 years? Am I bipolar? Is he? How could I have made such a bad decision? Maybe going back to the writings I made at the time we were getting together, would help me remember the reasons I made the decisions I did.

I don't do it though. The thought of reading my feelings from those days is exhausting and scary. I'm not ready to face that version of me, head on. I'm not ready to re-live some of those feelings; the memories are hard enough and they are fading.

Common wisdom maintains, and experience generally confirms, that ultimately we remember the good for longer and with better recollection than the bad. But does this remain true when the experience is REALLY bad? Do the biggest pains dull as quickly as the little ones? Do the good memories and feelings have enough power to overwhelm the really bad memories?

Here's a scary thought: What would happen if you had so few good memories that they just weren't enough to fill your mind, so the bad ones stayed with strength too?

So.... do we make decisions based on feeling good, and betting that if we make a decision in a particular direction we will continue to feel good tomorrow?

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Indian Paintbrush


Indian Paint Brush Aug. 05

Slow? or Quick?


I usually think of myself as being quick. I generally understand others. I process information fairly quickly. People, to complement me, will mention my mental capacity more often than any other attribute I posess.

I'm usually impatient with those who process slowly. Especially men. I have chosen at least two men who drove me crazy because the speed at which they operated was noticeably different from mine. It does not necessarily follow however, that they were my intellectual inferior. Not necessarily so - just slower.

Therefore, it comes as a bit of a shock to learn that I am extremely slow at processing my feelings. It is Tuesday. I am starting to understand my behaviour on Sunday night.

I went to 'the local' for a pint. Love Sunday Night Gospel! I chatted with a number of folk I know there, met a few new ones. And yes, I did think how it would be cool if H were there and how he would react should he find me there.

Be careful what you wish for, they say. Almost last call and I turn and look up to see those eyes. I am surprised. He appears surprised as well. Light warm hugs and kisses are exchanged.

I felt mildly rejected and disapointed that my fantasy did not materialize. Duh! Like how often do fantasies actually materialize anyway?

He did not sit down next to me, look into my eyes and tell me: "I'm SO happy you are here."

I don't think he was either happy or unhappy that I was there. However it seemed clear that he was no more interested in talking to me that evening than anyone else there, and perhaps did not want to be seen as paying me more attention than anyone else. People can be strange about that.

But - boy - I want that. I want someone I like and am electrically attracted to, to find me as endlessly fascinating as I find them.

You know, I'm not sure there is such a thing as feeling 'mildly' rejected.

I didn't know at the time exactly what I was feeling and as such, doubt that I was at all clear or eloquent in trying to discuss my feelings with H. Why the hell did I feel compelled to discuss it with him at that particular time? Stupid fucking beer!

Will anyone ever understand that we have more to gain by falling in love than we have to lose? Life is fundamentally better when you are in love. Wow - I'm a fucking love addict!

I want a reasonable opportunity to work again at making a love like that last, evolve and reward.

Any takers?

J's family

I spent some time again this evening looking at the websites and blogs that J put up about his daughters.

I met J at a party about 6 months before the birth of his first child. I fell for him almost immediately. His wit and quickness blew me away. And he has the most mischievous smile with a twinkle in amazing blue eyes. Oh yes, and an accent to make my knees weak.

I didn't realize he was married. In a moment of brazenness I told him I really wanted to kiss him. I saw him hesitate briefly, but we did kiss and it was amazing. I was smitten. We met again a week or two later and even though at that time I did find out he was married we set out on a friendship that included sex. Sometimes I think we tried not to - certainly I think he tried not to. I didn't promise him anything, nor he I. After a few weeks J begged off the relationship and we minimized our contact to a phone call now and again.

His daughter was born with severe medical issues, no doubt putting stress on a marriage that was already very difficult (at least for J). Although he admitted loving his wife he found her very difficult to live with. A few months after the baby was born J and I got together again. Again it lasted a very few weeks; was restricted to very few get togethers and they were always very short and often did not even include sex. But an hour of conversation with J was more stimulating and enjoyable than entire evenings spent in the company of other men.

Six months later I received a Happy New Year greeting from J via email. Sporadically we had exchanged emails and the odd telephone call. I responded and we agreed to get together for a drink and a catch up. The baby was doing well, all things considered, but their marriage was more stressed than ever and his wife had recently proclaimed that she wanted a divorce. I felt so bad for them all and encouraged J to hang on to his marriage if he could.

During the weeks that followed we spent a bit more time together as J looked for a place to live and spent much of his time outside the house. We went together to the same annual party where we had met the previous year. It was the only 'date' we ever had and it was an amazing evening. We danced together and laughed and went home early to make love. Mostly I remember the dancing and how J liked to hold me so close to his body that it felt almost as if we were one when we were dancing.

I seldom thought that J and I would ever have a future together. Even if he hadn't been married, there were things about him that I think would have eventually caused me pain and I recognized them relatively early. Besides, at the time that I met J I was not interested in pursuing relationships. I was deeply wounded from my own horrible marriage that had ended the spring before J and I first met.

Shortly after that date, J called me to tell me that his wife had accessed his email and found out about us. They say that people who get caught in their affairs want to get caught and I often think that J wanted to be caught. Finding out about me seemed to galvanize his wife's resolve to stay in the marriage and eventually J felt he must give it a chance. His wife corresponded with me via email a couple of times. She was very accusatory and hurt and hurtful. J and I had coffee once or twice over the next few months but then we settled back in to our own lives and rarely corresponded.

About a year later I gave J a call to see how things were going. Their daughter was very ill and they did not expect her to live too much longer. She had been in the hospital for months and they were working to bring her home for palliative care. J also told me that they were expecting a second daughter in a few months. I called again a few months later and his workplace told me he was away for the week. I thought "either the baby has died, or the new baby has arrived".

Very occasionally when I am driving in J's neighborhood late at night I drive down his street to see if I can see him sitting outside having a cigarette. I know that is his habit, even if I don't know exactly which house is his. One night not so long ago I spotted him. I stopped the car and whistled softly out my window in his direction. When he looked up he recognized me immediately. He told me that the baby had died the previous month and that the new baby had arrived 12 hours later! We promised to get together for a drink one day soon.

In the following days I sent J an email of both congratulations and condolences:

It was really nice to see you this evening - if just for the moment. I'm not sure I reacted appropriately to hearing of [baby's] passing. I am so sad for you and [wife]. As I drove down Bathurst a wave of sadness swept over me and I wanted to cry for all you have been through in the last 3 years. I can't imagine the feelings that you have been going through - for to even try to imagine them overwhelms me. Happy for [new baby] - sad (and perhaps relieved and happy) for [first born]. Guilty for feeling happy and relieved and sad and .... it's just too much ...

Sometimes I wish we had never had what we had... perhaps if we hadn't we could just all be friends and part of one another's lives, and I could have known [your daughters], and it wouldn't be so difficult to just get together and talk politics and freakonomics and parenthood and how the world should be... perhaps even [wife] and I would get on - you love her - perhaps I would too.... it's just all a fantasy....

But we did and I can't really be sorry. Neither can I forget, nor completely let go.. I will always think of you and wonder how you are doing and every once in a while I will just appear - like tonight.

It still remains true - that an hour of conversation with you was more exciting and stimulating than an entire evening of love making with many others. It also remains true that you had kisses that made me feel I was 15 again.

I do hope we manage to get together for that beer every now and again.

My deepest deepest sympathies for your loss. And my most warmest congratulations on [baby's] happy arrival!

As always, I remain ...

Your friend and kindred spirit...

With love,




J called me one day a couple of weeks later (and a couple of weeks ago) and we chatted for almost an hour. I followed up with the following message:

Hi,

Thanks for calling tonight. It was nice to catch up, even though at times I found our conversation a tad awkward. I'm not sure why really - probably we were both in 'odd' spaces. Me: sleepy and still reeling from the legal battle depression stuff. You: sleep deprived, grieving, and as always struggling with the mild existential angst that we share.

I spent a lot of time this evening on [first born's] website and both her's and [new baby's] blogs. It's a gift you give to share your family and your experiences with the world. Thanks.

My heart is full and warm for you and your life so full of family and friends. Hang on to it J. It's really all there is.

Love,


Very very soon after sending that last message I received a voice mail message from J's wife. She had somehow discovered that J and I had been in touch, was furious and accused me of tempting a married man. I attempted to speak to J before I responded in any way to her message but he did not return my message. I finally wrote the following to his wife and copied him:

I received your voice mail on Sunday. I wish to assure you that I have no intention of pursuing a relationship with J. Yes it is true that I have spoken to him occasionally. I have called him a couple of times for professional advice re: web design and marketing. I have also called him a couple of times to inquire as to the health and well being of all of you (especially baby). I have also run in to him on the streets once or twice. That is all.

I suppose you are correct in saying that my motivations for contacting him on those few occasions have been selfish, in that I was the one seeking something: (advice and/or information). However, I certainly did not think that my calls could cause him, or you, any pain or suffering. I am notorious for keeping in touch with friends - if only through the occasional phone call. I find it difficult to dismiss people from my life completely. I choose my friends because of a real connection that does not just disappear when circumstances change. I did not for a moment expect that I was "
fucking with his brain" as you put it. It is obvious that you have issues with trust or you would not be so hurt and angered by our occasional conversations. However, I do not wish to make things any more difficult or painful for J than they already are. Therefore, you can be assured that I will not be calling him again anytime soon.

Whatever happened between J and myself is in the past. I wish him (and you) all the best. I also wish to offer my sympathies on the passing of your daughter. And my congratulations on the recent joyful arrival of another daughter.

Best regards,


I have not heard again from either of them and this is how it should be. I check the websites for the girls that J maintains now and again. Perhaps I shouldn't. His wife's accusations haunt me.... did I 'tempt' J? What role do I / did I play in upsetting their life? Before I backed out of J's life when they decided to keep working on the marriage I asked him what his feelings were for me. He told me he felt tenderness. I too, feel tenderness for J.

I have promised them I will not contact J. So I won't. I hope I just bump into him once in a while so I can see that mischieveous smile again.

I miss him.



Saturday, August 05, 2006

Taking Bad Turns

Unlike the legendary Alfhild - I have not (yet) had the wisdom to wait for my equal before succumbing to the temptation of marriage. Forty something years old, a myriad of relationships, marriages, lovers and liaisons and I seem barely closer to choosing a good partner.

Normally you would expect someone as useless at choosing men as I am to have a childhood history of bad relationships with men. I don't! I spent a lot of my formative (under 5) years with my father, uncle, and grandfather. I loved them all. They were all men worthy of respect. They are treated me exceptionally well. They were all kind, decent people. The closest they came to violence was going on male bonding hunting trips every fall.

Many women give up on men by my age. After all, by and large the majority female opinion is that with relatively few exceptions - men suck! But as my friend R says - I am perpetually optimistic in love. Also perpetually stupid she might have added, but kindly didn't.

The latest candidate has thrown yet another wobbly today and now I face going to a friend's birthday party without him when I had happily anticipated going with him. This one can't decide to be with me and can't decide to be without me. What's my excuse for tolerating this semi-abusive drama? He is actually a really good man. There are so few of them.

Like probably 35,000 other 40 something women - this blog is about my journey with men. Perhaps by the end of it I will be closer to understanding why I take so many bad turns on this journey.