Eating my way out of crazy town

Among the various things I'm in therapy for, my issues with food have proven to be some of the more interesting topics of treatment. Throughout the course of my life, multiple factors have come together to make food and eating a pretty high source of anxiety. So much so, that if tomorrow they were to create a pill that you took once a day and you didn't have to worry about nutrition, I'd be first in line.

It's not that I don't find food satisfying or delicious. Nor is it that I've had no exposure to great food. Quite the contrary. Food is amazing and when done right, one of the superlative features of living. Still, it really, really stresses me out.

There are the obvious stressors like what food is good for me and what food will make me fat. These thoughts are what helped me loose all that weight back in 2005 and part of what has inspired periodic bulimia since the age of 15. Positive and negative results. Thoughts that aren't very unique to me either. They are, however, the tip of an interesting iceberg, or the chocolate sauce on an ice cream sundae of crazy. (I was going to say the chopped nuts, but I'm allergic to peanuts and didn't want to run the risk of a reaction, even if it's only in my metaphors).

The next level of anxiety producers are (nice segue) my allergy-based food restrictions. They annoy me and embarrass me. Yes, I have to be careful about peanuts. It's a dangerous allergy and I have to be constantly vigilant. I also have to be a perpetual downer and pain in the ass for people who want to feed me. I know they don't want to kill me with their food and they most likely don't mind accommodating me if they can, but I know that everyone involved would be happier if it just wasn't an issue.

There are the foods that may kill me and then there are the foods that will hinder me through headaches. Raw onions or some wines to name a few. Too much garlic and my heart races. It's food I can eat, but I'll pay for it.

So many boundaries. So many rules. And we're not even at the best part yet.

You'd think that having food allergies and body image compulsions would be restrictive enough, but I dove head-first into the crazy pool and threw in some more. Here are some of the highlights:

- Super-fast eater: Yes I grew up in a house where we all ate really fast. M eats really fast. In all situations, I am the first one done my meal. And by done my meal, I mean plate cleaned, licked dry if I'm in the right company. I think there are a couple of factors at play. Even though I've never had cause to fear for where my next meal is coming from, I eat each meal like it's my last. Also, spending so much time focused on regimented dieting, I'm usually really, really hungry by the time food is in front of me.

Next, and I think this is the kicker, by eating, it means I don't have to talk. Dinner conversation? When the food hits the table, I don't have to stress about thinking of things to say. Just eat and listen. A handy-dandy distraction for the socially anxious.

- Fear of the unknown: There are some parts of my life where I am open to new ideas and experiences. Food is not one of those things. I'm not entirely sure where my notions of what's tasty and what's not come from, but when I have them (right or wrong) they are fully cemented in my brain. More often than not, my notions have been confirmed by smelling the new food in question and, in some rare instances, by actual tasting.

I've spent some time in therapy addressing this issue in particular. As mental as the other food problems are, this one seems to cause me the most stress. Eating a food I may not like really freaks me out. What if it tastes bad? What if it's the only food there is to eat? What if I'm wasting food? What if people get upset with me for not liking it and begin to question/judge me?

You may find this comical, but even just writing those four questions set off feelings of anxiety in me.

Because I have so many rules (both rational and irrational) going out for dinner can be a very stressful situation. Friends may note that I just keep going to the same places over and over again. I know that there's food that I will like there. I will be able to eat the whole meal and I will know that it's a sure and safe thing. I will be able to enjoy going out for dinner, I will not waste food or money and I won't have to have the nerve wracking experience of trying to find something I know I will like on a new menu. I'm totally one of those people who can eat the same thing every day and not be bothered by it.

So, so many boundaries. And they're often tested by a spouse and friends who delight in gastronomical experiences. Many, many times I've encountered flavours and foods that have really enriched my life. And by encountered I mean, tried them kicking and screaming all the while.

Therapy so far seems to be all about experiments. Trying things that test my assumptions, usually proving them wrong. This alleviates anxiety. Something I've found to be true when applying my experiments to social situations. Now we're on to food.

One of my experiments is to try a new food each week. Not a big deal for some I'm sure, but for me, not an easy task. It really stresses me out and nothing seems more appealing to me than being my usual belligerent self and sticking to things that are tried and true. But I'm doing it. And no one is happier about this than M is. He's captain adventure-food and I think with progress in this arena, I'll be less of a culinary albatross around his neck.

It's been two weeks since this experiment began and I haven't as much tried totally new foods as I've tried different incarnations of things I know. Preparations I would have previously refused.

So during our recent vacation, I had a seared duck breast, a watermelon salad with feta cheese and balsamic vinegar (three flavours I enjoy independently, but would not ever eat together) and, the biggest deal of all, a burger just the way it was. I only eat burgers with ketchup on them. That's it. This burger had pancetta bacon, smoked cheddar cheese, a deflamed onion and heirloom tomatoes. I had the burger with all the stuff on it and it was really, really good.

Maybe I'll be able to stop pinning my hopes on the food pill after all.

HRH

8/10

As some readers have noted to me, I've been not-so-subtly been putting it out there that the last 5 months have not been the pinnacle of sanity for me. I haven't missed a day of work and I've resisted the urge to retreat an anti-social cave of my own making, but it hasn't been easy. I have this problem, where my throat and esophagus constrict and it doesn't go away until I deal with my anxiety in some manner.

A little while back I started CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) cause this not swallowing/choking thing is so last year. There are a couple of things on the plate to sort out, the first of which we started tackling today: social anxiety.

My particular brand of it doesn't usually manifest when I'm actually around other people. It comes to light when I'm preparing to interact with other people. Interacting socially, not professionally. Thankfully something flips in my head that prevents me from getting freaked out in professional situations. Socially I get freaked out when I'm imagining all the ways I can do things wrong or embarrass myself. When I think of all the ways I can be judged.

I do all kinds of pre-thinking, imagining all the ways people I know and may meet will negatively judge me. Everyone does this to a degree. This is something we all have to contend with being social beings. I seem to amp it up a few more degrees than necessary.

So to start modifying the behaviours that go with my thoughts about potential negative judgement, I was instructed to list all the thoughts and feelings I have when I'm anxious prior to a social event. So feelings like fear, frustration and anxiety, and thoughts like "I'm going to do something embarrassing,","People are going to think that I'm stupid; shy; stuck up; rude,", "I shouldn't be nervous,","I should be more interesting,","I'm wearing the wrong thing","People are going to think that I have the wrong purse; shoes; etc."

When you look at it all, I mean, no wonder I get socially anxious. I make it seem like I'm living in the movie Heathers. No one is actually that awful. Okay, there are some people like that, but most people are really nice, understanding and could care less about my purse.

Happily I've got two things to do that can help me avoid getting anxious before a social gathering. First, I have to keep reminding myself that my pre-thoughts are largely untrue. Like, absurdly so. The second, and more interesting idea, is that in order to develop comfort with negative judgement, I assume that a two out of every ten people will disapprove of me. Simple as that. Which means that on average I'm going to have a good time with and be liked by 80 per cent of the people I encounter in social situations. That's pretty cool.

By just assuming that there are two people that are going to negatively judge me, I feel less stressed about it. No matter what I might do, right or wrong, they're still going to judge and that's just how it is. Somehow knowing this ahead of time puts me at ease.

So if we meet at a party and I refer to you as a one through to an eight, it's shockingly not a Battlestar Galactica reference, it means that I don't think you're judging me negatively and we're totally cool. If you're nine or ten, you suck.

Today's sing-a-long song: Extraordinary Machine by Fiona Apple

HRH

Bad wiring

So here's a wee update on the mental gymnastics Olympics going on in my brain.

I don't know if it's going poorly, I don't know if it's going well. I do know that I'm frequently confused, conflicted and really don't want to have to be doing this, but have little choice in the matter.

I feel like I'm learning to walk. But unlike the first time I learned how to walk, I'm self-conscious and aware of the world around me. As a child, you don't care if you fall down, because you're a kid and you're supposed to fall down (and entertain evil people like myself who think it's both adorable and hilarious watching toddlers fail and succeed at independent motion) and everyone is so proud of you for walking.

That was a really long-winded way of explaining that learning how to be emotional again sucks because I remember why I tried to stop being so emotional in the first place. Emotions, especially the sad ones are messy and irrational. I think it's good to be tidy and logical and while I always understood that people are emotional, I silently judged those who were and thought well of myself for becoming as even tempered as I could be.

I still don't entirely believe that emotions should be expressed with the reigns off. That's where the being self-conscious thing comes in. And I don't mean self-conscious in the sense of insecure, I mean aware of my existence in relation to my fellow humans. I know that there have to be boundaries for this kind of thing. But I have no idea where they are and how they work.

Also, I thought that it would be easier. If I really expressed my feelings in the moment, then it would be right and good. And it isn't always. And that's even more confusing.

Sorry if this is largely incoherent, but that seems to be where things are right now.

HRH

Toppled by Zen

It's come time to stop posting random clips from the Muppets and start writing again. I'm sorting my situation right now and learning that it's not anger that's making me so not myself. It would be simple if it were just one emotion and fantastically entertaining if anger was the only thing to process, since I'm a much better writer when I'm angry.

Sadly, it's complicated and there are a couple of things going on. I've made some seemingly logical choices in the past 5 to 10 years that I've taken to such an extreme that the results have become a problem. And by problem, I mean not being able to swallow for four days and waking up in a panic attack on the one out of three nights when I sleep well.

I've got a nice big emotional wall up. I'm exercising a lot of control over my feelings and my environment. The more I can control, the less opportunity there is for external forces to effect me. Problem is, as I'm getting older, and hopefully wiser, it's more and more clear that there's not very much in life that can be controlled. Thus I have anxiety. This is the way that I know how to work, but it doesn't work, so what do I do?

I don't really feel like getting into the nuances of why I try to control my feelings and my world. It's not really interesting to anyone but me. I do it for pretty logical reasons I think. I don't want to be hurt and I don't know how to grieve. I realize that sounds absurd, but I seriously don't know how to. The bottom line is that my body has staged an intervention on my mind.

I tried to cut out the fantastic highs and the horrible lows, or I guess more accurately, I tried to cut out the lows and the highs came with them. I'm not suggesting that I've managed to totally flat line my emotions for the last few years, as there have been many instances where I've had them and expressed them in less-than-graceful fashion, but most of the time when I have, I've questioned or berated myself for letting them out.

So I'm under instruction to get in touch with my heart. You know, the thing I've been referring to as the "cold, empty, space in my chest." I'm quite in touch with my mind. Perhaps too much so. I, apparently, need to focus on being, rather than doing. Which is awfully Zen for someone like me, but I think, after digesting it for a week, it means rather than planning and repackaging my emotions I have to just let them out ("like I do, every night between 10 and 10:15, on a pillow shaped like my father,"- Clone High).

I was telling a friend about my situation, and she being a former Buddhist, told me about a saying she thought fit my situation: "Suffer what there is to suffer, enjoy what there is to enjoy."

I can't promise that it's going to be pretty. I can't really promise anything, but I'll try to be genuine. It's not control, but it's real. Really ugly right now. Ugh.

HRH

Time out

I have a bad case of "the anger." I imagine a lot of people get it. That blood boiling and completely random rage that if left unchecked results in all kinds of un-ladylike behaviour. I'd like to think that it's just the world's longest bout of PMS and I just need some salt or chocolate to simmer me out, but as it's been about six weeks that theory is bunk.

Because I don't actually have a tangible reason to be angry, I'm trying to keep a lid on it. Doing the whole "act the way you want to feel" thing. More often than not it works. I know it's not foolproof, but it keeps things operational. It kind of leaves me feeling like I'm floating about two feet above my own body

As much as I would love to indulge my rage and be a class-A bitch to everyone and about everything I still have my wits about me. I still have that nugget of wisdom that was given to Thumper so long ago. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

That's part of blog-reticence of late. There have been interesting things going on, neato things that I've observed, but every time I start writing, it devolves into seething anger. So until I've sorted this out or blown my stack, I'm taking a moment to count to 10, or 100,000 or however long it takes.

HRH

Of mice and superwomen

I read Kari's post today and realized that we had a mouse again last week and I didn't tell you about it. A mouse. Sorry. I need a moment to calm myself.

...
...
...

I'll admit I'm not great with some of my fears. I had a stint where I couldn't even think about graveyards, there was the whole clown thing, dogs, polyester... I have a few things I've feared in my days. But I've overcome them. Now I'm a pretty level headed individual fear-wise. I'm the spider killer in the house. I investigate when things go bump in the night, maybe because I'm more curious than sensible.

There is one thing though, that makes me silly with fear. That makes me jump and scream like a helpless damsel in distress. Yes. The much dreaded mouse. Mus musculus as it is known in Latin. Like seriously, just looking at the mouse on that wiki page made me shiver.

And then I have flashbacks to the moving experience when I moved back from Prague, in a storage locker in Kingston, preparing all the things I'd stored for three years for the move to Toronto. The wonderful experience of being reunited with your things for three years, until the moment where you're looking through your old stuffed animals, and you have a deep, deep affection for said stuffed animals, and all of a sudden a mouse jumps our of the stomach of one of your white bears. And you're all alone in a storage locker complex and there is no one to hear you scream.

Anyway, now we live in a really old house and tenants on the lower floors have seen and killed many of them, but Zeus has generally done his job as a mouser and we haven't had to deal with them, except for these two times.

The first was in October when I was about to bake some cookies and went for my white flour in the cupboard only to find that it was almost completely eaten. As I stood in the kitchen staring at the now empty bag in disbelief, I looked up to the cupboard to find a mouse sitting on top of my baking power, I swallowed my scream and ran into Matej's office. It returned into the hole it came into, I taped up said hole, washed everything serveral times and started storing my flower in Tupperware.

The our landlord brought in an exterminator, so we thought out mouse visits would be over. But Zeus was still on the job. Most nights he starts guarding the closet in the hall. The closet where we use to store the peanuts that M would feed birds with (silly on two levels, storing peanuts in a closet and I'm allergic to them, duh!), where I had discovered all kinds of broken and eaten peanut shells when cleaning. I've never seen a mouse there or been able to find evidence of a hole, but clearly there was evidence that at least one had been chowing down.

This brings us to last week. M and I are nestled into bed, starting to drift off to sleep. We have two sets of pillow on our bed as we use ergonomic ones for sleeping (as it's better for our necks and M likes anything with ergo in it) and leave the regular pillows on the floor. Suddenly Zeus tears into the room and starting clawing, biting and generally kicking the crap out of M's pillow on the floor. This is not normal behaviour for our cat.

We turn on the light and watch him for a moment, occasionally giving each other the "aren't you going to take care of that" look. M pulls Zeus off the pillow and I, with most of the strength of will I have, flip the pillow over. There is nothing there, the mouse isn't under the pillow... no the mouse is now in the pillowcase with the pillow. Of course this has to be confirmed, which takes the rest of my will to do. But I do it, slowly lifting up the end of the pillow case to peer in, pressing down the pillow and finding a little brown ball of terrified terror. I get only a glimpse, as that is all I can handle and report to M that "Yes. Yes there is a mouse in there." and I just stare at the pillow and pillowcase, like if I stop looking at it, the mouse will run out and get me.

At this point it is very clear that I have been as useful as I'm going to be so M takes over. I supply him with work gloves and he goes about removing the pillow from the pillow case and catching the mouse. I hide around the corner while he gives me play by play. He then says "It's really cute, you should come and have a look at it." I opt not to and he proceeds to take it outside to release it.

I'm kind of proud of myself for just washing the pillowcase and not setting it and the pillow on fire after it was all said and done. It's been quiet on the mouse front since, though Zeus still stands guard each night. Of course now I'm pretty sure there's a squirrel stuck in roof. which, oddly enough is less distressing than the mouse.

HRH

Sunlight in the land of shadow

I've been saying for days that it feels like I'm waking up in Mordor each morning. Yes, there's less of the barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume situation, but the unrelenting darkness and cloudy skies of late really make for a passable comparison.

I'm holding my own in the battle thus far. I still feel like always I'm on the verge of tears, but don't really manage to cry. I'm functional. Happy, hard to say. But functional. I know where the boundaries like for being in serious trouble and so far, I am not there.

And there is hope. Like this morning, when I got up and looked out the window, I could see sunlight. Yes it was still creeping it's way up from the east, but it was sunlight, not just a lighter shade of grey. And I found it easier to breathe. It's so strange, but it helped so much.

On the drive into work, making my way east down Lakeshore, I didn't even put down the sun visor in the car as I didn't want to loose sight of the light. It was worth squinting for. I didn't want to turn north, but eventually I had to. I walked around the street in the cold for ten minutes before going into my office building too, afraid that it would get cloudy at lunch (and it has).

I feel so improved by that little bit of sunlight that I might just start watching the weather radar to see where the clouds aren't this weekend and be a sun hunter.

HRH

The winter purge

Come winter time I am usually overtaken by the need to cut the fat, both physically, mentally and well, physically. I always want to lose the baggage I carry around my waist, but I also have this yen to shed the clutter in my head and the clutter in my house.

Since I've been doing this on an annual basis for awhile now, I'm starting to have less clutter to expel. There's always some, because I've married a pack rat (who has his own room in our home where he can keep his crap thankfully) and because I hit a point where I have to stop myself or my OCD nature would have me living with nothing but three outfits, a toothbrush, my computer and a couple of tools for cooking. I just get really engrossed in the process.

I like order. It gives me a feeling of comfort and control that makes everything else in the world okay. Is it right? I don't know. What I do know is that if the world ends tomorrow, I'll be better off because I know that all of the instruction manuals for my appliances are neatly organized and accessible.*

When I do the purge there are some things from the past that I have traditionally clung to. School notes, projects, journals, bad teenage poetry and things like that. Every year I go through them reflect on the person I am and the person I was. There are things I find that I'm very proud of, but there are also things that make me feel badly about how messed up I've been at points in my life and I then clean ferociously for hours afterwards in a hope that it will make things right.

This year I made a choice. The things I was proud of, the certificates of my accomplishments in music, my diploma and degree, report cards, school notes of courses I actually still find interesting and other scrapbook worthy things I organized and stored. The things that made me feel continually broken, the journals where I wrote things that I don't even remember doing or feeling, the bad poetry... well I did something that I'm sure some people will consider awful, but I threw it all out.

I used to think there was some kind of benefit to holding onto all the bad things in the past, but I don't think that anymore. I know we are shaped by a combination of our positive and negative experiences, but by keeping those things I felt like I was paying the negative some kind of undue reverence.

I just don't see the value in holding on it all any longer. It's not like I need it to remind me that it would be a good idea not to get depressed again or that growing up can be great, but also really sad and messy. Those lessons, I get them. Life is short and I don't think I need to give those lessons any more of my time nor do I need to feel badly about things disturbing and long forgotten.

Really, I've got more important things to organize in my world than bad memories.

HRH

*in total truth, they are not. It's just something on my list of things to do this weekend. Just imagining how organized they will be makes me a little dizzy with delight. I'm not sure if I'm happy or embarrassed about that.

Armed and ready against the inevitable

Here we are in yet another new year. A wonderful holiday passed and I was very much spoiled by all my loved ones with affection and presents. It was busy, but it was one of the nicest holidays I've ever had. And I got a piano! And that makes me quite happy.

With the changing of the calendar, I had a chance to look back at my goals for last year and I was pleased to see that I actually got some things done. I had this To Do list in progress that always seemed to have the same eight things on it. There are only two items on it held over from last year: Look through the boxes in the garage and find a wire basket for the towels in the bathroom. Sure there are 11 items on the list now, but nine of them are new. It's kind of lame as accomplishments go, but I feel good about it.

I also have this list of hobbies and interests that I've been working on for years. It's a list of things that I find fun, interesting or have a passion for. And I am very happy to report that in the twelve categories of interests, I made progress in nine. Even nerdier is that I've set goals for this year too, like a Nitrox course for SCUBA, getting back into painting and learning to decorate cakes for real. It's always the cake decorating that falls off the list first...

I'm trying to keep happiness sustained as well as I can. I felt the first pangs of depression yesterday and I didn't like it. Not one bit. I shook it off, but I was coming from a really mentally strong place. What happens when I get tired and stressed? Crossing fingers and thinking positive.

HRH

Persona

Some people thrive on the spotlight and it's amazing to see them just turn it on. it goes beyond introvert and extrovert. I know incredibly shy people who become entirely different creatures the moment they hit the stage. There are also people who are always on. I am neither of those people. I am pretty much always me, all the time. This is why I am not an artist (I mean, there's also the talent and dedication thing, which I have a smattering of, but not enough to make it a career). There is nothing for me to turn on, as I have no switch.

Throughout my life I've had opportunities to perform. It's been a long time since I've been on a stage, but for awhile there, it was a pretty normal place for me to be. Of course, 95 per cent of my stage time was logged playing double bass, comfortably nestled within an orchestra of 80. I stopped playing the piano just as I was moving into the part of life when I was becoming really self-conscious. There is evidence of me performing alone, but I was too young to really get it.

There was one foray into acting, which I was told I was good at, but that was only because I was personally attached to the narrative, so it was more like retelling than pretending. Singing in a choir is fine. Singing on my own, anywhere other than the car or a karaoke bar can be a vomit-inducing experience and an unintentional, terror-driven vibrato. I've done it and survived, and in my mind, I'd love to do it, yet do I ever? No.

Dancing has always been in groups. And while I've never been particularly good at it, it's always brought me out of my shell more than anything else. And that's not particularly far. Even now, where I'm just taking classes at a gym, with no possibility of anyone outside of my classmates seeing me dance, I've taken to dabbling in a pre-class drink, just to chill me out. Dancing in clubs doesn't even count as it was always part of crowd in the dark. I hate to admit that I fall into the category of that "dance like no one is watching" life affirmation phrase, but I am compelled to admit that it would be nice if I could do that.

I mentioned this to a colleague who is a Belly Dancer and she suggested that I create a performing persona so that I don't have to have a drink before I go to dance class. She recently did that and it really freed her.

So I'm trying to craft a persona. One I can put on when I'm out in a club or in classes when I'm taking things way too seriously. For when people are watching. For fun. Really, it's why I play music or move. Maybe if I have a performer-like identity I can show people the fun that I have in my head. Oh the joys of a rich inner world.

It's not that I'm unhappy with who I am and what it is to be me. It's just that sometimes, who I am is tremendously practical, kind of shy and prone to caring too much about what people think. There have been times in my life where I've been uninhibited. As uninhibited as I get. And I think the persona should come from there.

I think she will wear more hats that I do.

HRH

Concentration issues

Should I be concerned that I hear a clock ticking when I own no ticking clocks?

I love being alone in an old house on a cold and rainy night.

HRH

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Any time now

I like to think that I'm a pretty healthy person. I try to eat well, I exercise a great deal, get a good amount of sleep, don't smoke and aside from the fact that I've had at least a drink a day for the last two months*, I'm pretty good with the sauce.

I don't think I get sick more or less than the average person. I work in healthcare, so I'm pretty good with the hand washing since I have peripheral exposure to some exciting nastys. I had a cold about four weeks ago. Three days of phlegmy good times and four weeks of a cough. Four weeks! Frankly I'm bored with it.

My mother has informed me that a virus can take as long as six weeks to really work it's way out of your system. This was news she imparted to me when I called to her ask if I was developing Tuberculosis. You know, cause catching consumption is the new black** and I'm just a bit of a drama queen when it comes to my health.

So two more weeks to go of this and then maybe I can watch Moulin Rouge again.

HRH

*sadly this was a direct result of stress, which I tried to mitigate through exercise, which sadly wasn't enough. A cider at the end of the day did what it needed to do in order to prevent my head from blowing off my body. Thankfully that period of stress is over now.

**Something Tash and I were wondering about as we were discussing my persistent cough.. how was it that in all those movies when the courtesan was dying of highly infectious TB, that no one, including the poor sap she had fallen in love with and was in very intimate contact with, actually caught it too? Think about it.

In which I react badly to a minor change

Wedding season is over, summer is over and I no longer need to hide my upper back with really long hair. Having long layered hair was tremendously fun. It looked great while dancing and it was, in truth, pretty easy to maintain. It usually strangled me in my sleep, but it made me feel pretty.

All that said, it was getting unruly and damaged. For the last few months I kept looking at photos of women with really angular bobs and thinking "Wow that would look so cool." I mentioned this to my stylist in July while I was in for a trim and she suggested approaching a dramatic change like that in steps. Very sage advice from a woman who knows me well.

I go into the salon yesterday, totally over the bob thing, cause I know that I would miss having my hair on my shoulders too much and she tells me with relief "Oh I'm so glad you changed your mind! I've done 17 bobs in the last week. It's getting out of hand and I know you don't want to have the same haircut as everyone else."

True dat. But I was still up for a bit of change. So the plan was that it was the end for the super long layers in the back, eliminating what I have referred to as my pelt for the last three years (it was this section of really long hair, made me think of a beaver's tail, so I guess I should have called it my tail, but I didn't, so we're all stuck with pelt) and it was time to make my sweep of bangs more structured. All good ideas.

And this is the result (photo taken with my camera phone):



My colleague Anitra made me take a smiling version of this photo, as the first one I took made me "look like an assassin"



I don't know if I like it or not yet. Honestly, it's not that much of a change. Yes, it's about four inches shorter, but it's not dramatic in it's difference. I guess I'm just not in the mood for even the slightest change today.

HRH

Interpretive sums

I kind of feel like I'm in limbo. At least for the next week. I'm in this place where I don't really have my feet firmly planted in either job; the new one or the current one. It feels like the new one has been so long in coming that I still don't quite believe that it's real. I know it is. I see my signature right there on the contract. Yet at the same time, I'm still in shock about it. Happy shock, but unreal none the less.

The socially crazy summer is also drawing to a close and being in this neither here nor there state, I am vulnerable to an attack of introspection. I spent so much of the summer making sure that I was on top of everything and I'm running out of things to be on top of. That really isn't intended to sound as wrong as it does.

Looking back at my calendar I see that I did a lot, but don't feel like I got anything done. I was busy, but when I start to tally it all, it's less than impressive. I got my double bass back, yet haven't had the time to play it as much as I want to. I started a scrap book of our years in Prague, you know, since we've been back for more than four years. I hung some new photos on the wall, played a lot of Facebook scrabble, got hooked on The Hills (and by proxy got back into makeup, fashion and headbands) and barely managed to keep my plants alive on the deck. Grew some seriously hot chili peppers though.

Upon reflection I have shopped more than I should have, I'm so glad I joined Flirty Girl full time and before I tasted the Jugo Juice Low Carb Zone Smoothie I had no idea what I was missing. I feel, that given how tired I am, the sum of all my reflections should add up to more than that. Not that any of those things are bad. They're just not big on the "wow" factor.

I guess as you get older it takes more to be a big deal with your math. Either that or it's less about "wow" and more about "nice." I should really lie down before I try to do any more thinking like this.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield

HRH

Not quite good enough for Napoleon Dynamite

So I'm one of five people on the planet who haven't seen Napoleon Dynamite. I am okay with this. The trailer made me uncomfortable and I am overcome with the desire to hurt the character every time I see him. These things made me think that 120 minutes of him would do really bad things to my blood pressure.

Even though I haven't seen the film, it doesn't mean I haven't seen/heard a lot of the jokes from it. The "Vote for Pedro" T-shirts, the chapstick and, sadly, the dance sequence.

Normally having a dance sequence in a film would make it near and dear to my heart, but this one annoys me. I will try to be fair, though. Napoleon is a doing a pretty good job, and the fact that he learned to dance in two days watching a video and actually won a student body president election with it, well that's very nice for him.

It's just that Canned Heat is big song for me, strange as that is. It became a bit of a personal anthem in my last year of University and I have so many fond memories of dancing to it or listening to it in the car with my friends. I guess the song is era defining for me.

I guess it's not the movie itself that bugs me, but the fact that everyone but me and the four other people who haven't seen it think of Napoleon Dynamite when the song comes on. I think of the awesome final sequence for Center Stage (you can fast-forward to 6:38 to see the relevant portion if the entire ballet doesn't interest you) or of my friends and what dancing to that song meant for us, and in comparison, Napoleon Dynamite seems, I dunnno, unworthy.

I don't know why it took me three years to figure out why it bothered me as much as it did.

HRH

Home longer than gone

Getting this close to 1000 posts has me overwhelmed with nostalgia. Today I've realized that I've been back in Canada for four years, which means I've been back longer than I was away.

I was talking to my mother-in-law about this and she felt like I did, like I've only been back for maybe two years. Like living in Prague was just yesterday.

And it made me wonder, do you lose expatriate cred as you spend more time on your native soil? Not that I matters I guess. Maybe I'm looking for meaning in milestones that simply aren't there. I just can't shake the feeling that if I stay in one place too long I'll be there indefinitely.

Thing is, I really like being in Toronto. I love that 95 per cent of my friends are within the city limits. I love where I live and there's still so much to experience here. But there are also a lot of other amazing cities out there and I fear that as we get older we become less inclined to take risks.

Maybe I should just let passing dates be passing dates.

HRH

Such a girl

So for most of the hockey season I was a good Leafs fan and made disparaging comments about Chris Neil of the Senators. I called him a "thug" and other such unkind things. Suddenly this evening, after watching an interview with him before the game about how amazing it was for him to witness the birth of his first child, he's just the nicest guy.

I give up. I have no principles when men get emotional about being dads.

HRH

I like change, I just don't want to be there when it happens

M and I have been making our way through the first season of Monk. I think it's a show that we both appreciate on a different level than the general public. Mostly because we're both dancing back and forth along the line of normal and OCD. Some people find it entertaining. I find it sadly validating.

HRH

What lies behind closed doors

Every morning when I take the streetcar to work, I pass a series of houses that stress me out. It's a bunch of row houses on College street between Lansdowne and Ossington. These houses are small and not in the best shape, but you can see that the people who live in them do their best to take care of them.

Because I've looked at them almost every day for the past four years or so, I've noticed that most of them have porches that have been closed off and turned into more living space. A totally understandable, albeit kind of ugly, home improvement in that part of town where space is a premium commodity. The thing is, many of these people have filled their covered over porches with crap. Crap that is piled ceiling high. Boxes, cookie tins, exercise equipment... I can only imagine what their closets and the basement might look like if the crap has made it out that far.

Each time I see it, I want to jump off the streetcar, run home and start throwing things out. That's right. Other people's junk makes me want to get rid of my own. I can't very well bust down someone else's front door and make them clean up their act, but I can make sure that I never suffer the same fate.

You see, clutter is like bacteria. Unless you're on your game and you keep fighting the good fight against it, it will consume you and before you know it, you'll be having to cut off a gangrenous limb. Okay, more accurately, you'll find yourself living in a home where most of the good space has been overrun with kitsch and the more of it there is, the more painful and unappealing the clean up process is.

So why does it bother me so much? I like things being neat and tidy, that's the primary reason, but sometimes, the times when I get a little manic about it and it's going to sound crazy and more than a little dark, but I do it because of death.

"The hell?" you all say. Death. When I'm dead and people are going through my things (assuming there are people who are compelled to look), I want them to see that I had my shit together. Yes, I actually think like this. I think that someone is going to notice and reflect on the order that I've filed my books in.

I'll be cleaning or organizing something and if I'm tired and want to stop I will actually say to myself "What will happen if you stop now and you die and the laundry isn't done?" Any sane person would respond with "You're dead! The laundry is irrelevant." Me? All I think is "Oh no. That would be terrible. My loved ones will think about my death and it will always start with 'the laundry wasn't done'..."

All those who think I might want to take my morning tea with a side of SSRI, say "I."

HRH

Getting out of the groove

This is insane. Five minutes ago there was a full package of wasabi peas on my desk and now I have nothing but an empty bag and a spinning head. Why do they make something so potentially painful (yet sinus clearing) so addictive?

I'm having a terrible case of writer's block and here I am, writing about it. So I'm in part doing the right thing as all the great authors always say, just keep writing even though there are no words. I guess I have words, I just can't get them into the right order and the right order only seems to come to me when I'm in the shower or on the treadmill. And frankly, that's just not fair.

I've come to think that different types of writing are like different muscles in your body. Keep writing in one style and you'll develop a big, bulgy brain muscle for it. Write only in that style for, say about, four years and you'll find that your ability to write in other styles has completely atrophied. And all you can do about it is eat wasabi peas and feel inadequate.

I guess all the scientists weren't kidding when they talked about keeping your brain challenged with a variety of new activities to keep it elastic and young. I think I've been driving my brain in the same patterns for awhile now. Doing writing for work, writing my blog and that's about it. I haven't been creative and now I feel like I'm falling short of my potential. My brain is like a record. Start it and it just follows the grooves.

Perhaps it's time to upgrade to a rewritable DVD-R.

HRH

Heaven, send me a stylist

There comes a time when a girl has to ask herself serious, life-affecting questions. Probing questions that reach down to the core of my being and expose the deepest, darkest, queries of my soul. Indeed, the time as come where I have to ask myself if it's time to cut my hair.

Inspired by watching "The Search for the Next Doll" and spending a lot of time in dance class tossing my hair about, I was going to try to keep my hair really long. Sure it annoys the heck out of me, especially when I wake up in the middle of the night almost choking from having it twisted around my neck, but there's also something delightfully girly and empowering about having it long and wild. I don't think a mighty gust of wind would be nearly as fun without it. Also, I was hoping to have it really long for Tash & Chris' wedding in September as a kind of insurance in case my back exercises don't pay off like I'm hoping they will.

Thing is, it's April, five months away from their wedding. A no doubt oppressively hot summer is knocking down the door and keeping it from looking like a flat, mangy mess is becoming increasingly labour intensive. It's like I passed the threshold where I got get great hair with modest effort and now it's all work with minimal reward. Unless someone has decided to add an extra hour into the day what I can fill with blow-outs and rollers, there's no way I have the time to put in the work required. It's just too long, too heavy and volume-less.

As much as I'm grousing, I know as soon as I cut it off I'm going to regret it, so I'm not sure what to do. The scary thing for me is that I'm not hugely motivated to do anything about it. I stood in front of the mirror today and thought about ways I could hide my hair in a bun for weeks on end. It's like there are more important things in my life than my hair.

Seriously, what's happening to me if I don't have my vanity.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Makes Me Wonder" by Maroon 5

HRH

Every little thing

I've proven to myself time and time again that when there's an opportunity to become neurotic about something, I will grab that brass ring, hold it tightly in my hand and do it. I'm always thinking about the implications of new things. Almost always assuming that the worst outcomes, planning for contingencies even before a new idea is fully formed. I can be more than a bit of a buzzkill with it.

This ability to imagine all the ways things can go wrong serves me very well professionally. It also means that there are canned goods in the house that we don't use because I'm saving them for the apocalypse.

So the new thing that's making my little brain work over time is facebook. I've been on it for almost six months, and it's actually been 100 per cent positive, but the time I've wasted looking at a person's profile from highschool or university pondering "Will they remember me? Did they even like me? Did I even like them?" and then I just say "Aw, fuck it! Just say 'Hi!' already." and everything is fine.

It's a great social networking tool and I've reconnected with so many people, but it's also been strange because, in some cases, it's brought me back to thinking about things that are long dead. There's also the fact that facebook kind makes all the connections in your world visually explicit, further emphasizing how small the world can be. Even though I know I've tried to keep expanding mine, it seems to be getting smaller. So strange and maybe not bad.

You'd think that after being a blogger for almost five years that I would have already worked through these particular mental gymnastics. Seems I'll take any chance I can get to be overwrought about something.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Hung up" by Madonna

HRH