crazywonderful

friday 20:24
so, i was thinking that a good idea would be to go to my grandparents’ this weekend, be coddled and patted and generally spoiled rotten, but as it turned out, every time i picked up the phone and started to dial i also started to cry, so…never mind.
21:42
just got off the phone with my cousin who – i found out via the family grapevine today – is pregnant. i love that we share genetic material, because laura anne, blonde, blue-eyed, telemarking ski-patrol wonder, is a small god. she’s already referring to the baby as the “little buddha.” got me to thinking about all the things i wouldn’t know without my extended family. the first three that came to mind were how best to survive cramps, drive a standard (over 140 km/h) and down vodka shooters.
saturday 10:25
woke up this morning at 5:30, which is what i get for going to bed at 22:30 and doing my ceiling staring routine last night. (was trying not to toss and turn too much, and then i realized i could toss and turn as much as i damn well pleased, and then my tossing and turning started to annoy the crap out of even me.) stayed up for half an hour and then felt tired again, fell back asleep until 8:00. still, this leaves me ample room for nappage this afternoon, which is a good thing. another message from poke this morning, who called and left a message yesterday as well. apparently my brave face is showing cracks.
met my right side neighbor yesterday. jordan. i keep wondering when i get to start feeling like i’m not pretending to be an adult.
20:16
the napping is cutting into my blogging, but i’m okay with that. ken & nethers were by a few hours ago with the dogs and ice cream treats. i think i may go sit out on the porch for a while and watch the people. there’s a break in the rain so all the west-enders will be resuming one of their favourite activities: walking around. earlier this afternoon a man went by shouting and swearing and gesturing at someone who wasn’t, as far as i could see, there. possibly he was on a cell phone. possibly he was just nuts. (possibly he was both.) i was hoping he would come by again so i could figure out what all the shouting was for.
21:37
bedtime. my great aunt, the youngest (surviving) of my grandfather’s 10 siblings, is at my grandparents’ house this weekend. i haven’t seen her in years, so i am hoping to haul ass over there tomorrow for a visit and moderate amounts of grandparental spoilage.

sunday 06:20
didn’t actually get to sleep until after 23:30 last night. so i rung in this morning at an astounding seven hours straight of sleep. sweet! very much looking forward to hanging with my aunts, mother and grandmother this afternoon. there are so many amazing things about aunt eunice, but this morning i am obsessing over her laugh, which can be…a bit startling, and gives mine, already ‘boisterous’, a good name.
08:15
aunt eunice had a younger brother she was close to, who died in his very early twenties when he took her car for a ride he’d promised he wouldn’t. her oldest son is named after him; she had two more sons after that. she plays the piano, any song by ear, yet had, in her home in coquitlam, a player piano (the kind with rolls of paper and foot pedals. i loved that thing. it was absolute fucking torture sitting with the adults while they chatted until we were allowed to go play. (amnesty international should have been on that shit.)) i feel a strange connection to eunice, though she loves my brother best (he is, she told me in an email last year, “one of my favourite males.”) because she was the one who was there for me the very first time i got stung by a bee. she chopped an onion in half and held it to my palm. i remember it doing nothing for the pain, but still being positive that it was working, because i wasn’t dying. aunt eunice is perfect for a child (of any age) somewhat stuck inside their head because she is mostly made of magic. and now i need to go shower because it is going to take me forever to get ready. my aunt will look both fantastic and in style, and i like to nod to the better players with at least an attempt. (blogger’s note: this entry should also help explain why “the entertainer” and “killing me softly” are two of my favourite songs – the former i’ve played about five million times, at varying speeds of pedaling, with my fingers resting on keys that depressed themselves, and the latter i sang along to long before i heard roberta flack’s version. (needless to say, after i did hear it, i liked mine better.))
10:38
ready to head out and i am glad to be going, not only because i want to see my aunt eunice, but because being on skytrain will give me a chance to read (i plan on treating myself to barbara kingsolver), i am fitting in a visit with laura (the ex, not the cousin) and also because the water pressure here is so outrageously strong you have to turn the taps low when showering or risk self-erosion. i can’t blame the guy upstairs for wanting to bathe sans pain, but the noise it is making is reminiscent of the sound my grandmother’s stovetop whistling kettle used to make, but lower and louder. and it hurts.
22:17
stopped on an errand for laura en route and ran into a high-school classmate who was much more appropriately dressed for going to a craft store. “you look great,” she said, after a few up and down double takes, and there was no good way to convey “this is a bit of a fluke, i’m afraid. normally i look much more like someone who purely does not give a shit.” instead i found myself offering personal information in that throat-baring way that women who are in a position to be generous will. i will probably come back in my next life as a leper.
got to grandma’s and aunt eunice left about fifteen minutes later. apparently i even missed her 45 minute stint on the piano. she’s taking lessons to learn how to read music. so many of the women in my family kick ass. please god, may i have some of that in me.
23:13
thought perhaps i would phone ken, check in, but it’s a bit late. got to thinking about the tasks that befall a brother, and when i looked in the mirror i remembered spending a great deal of my childhood believing that one day ken and i were going to finally break through to telepathy (fueled, no doubt, by tony and tia from escape to witch mountain). still sometimes i find myself straining to hear.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
questioning/examining:
if, as my brother assures me, my house is a ship, and i am the captain, what the fuck is going on in navigation?
grateful/relieved:
that the ulcer has subsided enough for me to enjoy coffee and lots of it, with lots of milk and lots of sugar. lots and lots.
regret/deny:
having the weekend blog-as-i-go idea. like i needed another excuse to sit in front of my computer.
musing/reflecting:
i can’t decide if the world is a much friendlier place than i previously supposed or if i’m just retreating further into denial, but either way, it seems to be working.
whistling/humming:
killing me softly with his song – fugees
my brave face – paul mccartney
absorbed in:
exitwound – photos so gorgeous they make me feel hungry.
reminding myself that no-one else is going to come home.
shout out to:
laura anne, mother-to-be.
the other laura, blind from squinting.