Silver White Winters that Melt into Spring.

i've never taken up more space than i do right now, what with a tiny human and a massive stroller accompanying me wherever i go. and ironically, i've never felt more invisible on the streets of my city.

so weird. some people are hyper aware of the baby, stopping to ask me how old she is or where i got her hat. others pointedly glare at us for either taking up too much room on the streetcar/sidewalk/grocery aisle or simply for existing, sometimes even talking about us into their mobiles as though i couldn't hear or understand what they were saying.

"ugh. omg, i'm sorry i'm gonna be a few minutes late. i'm stuck behind this total slow walker and her fucking baby."

...really?!?

yep.

anyway. i walked from work on the east side to my home on the west side during rush hour tonight.

big. fucking. mistake.

never mess with commuters in business attire and galoshes who might be late for a train back to Snoresville.

but on a very bright note i got to work today ($$$) and it was an unseasonably warm last day of january.

T-two weeks till Serena and i are on an overnight flight to the sun. yipeekayay muthahfuckah.

POPULAR

Gaylene says i should blog.

she says i have plenty to say and i seem to have a built-in audience on facebook. i assured her that it is not me, but my daughter Serena who is the one with the fan club. holy shitballs.

i posted a photo of the two of us this evening and i think we are up to 70 comments.

she is pretty cute.

she's asleep now, thank christ.

so tired.

on the weekend i bought her a Phil & Ted's Lobster chair and attached it to my kitchen table. she hates it and fusses to be taken out of it a few minutes after i put her in, but this is a battle i intend to win. anyway, attaching it meant that i had to reconfigure the kitchen seating, so now i'm facing the back door instead of the mini kitchen tv where i lose myself in Jimmy Fallon and a honkin' glass of wine every night.

so tonight i blog instead...

i just got caught up on my friend Julie's blog (TO DO WITH JUL). she wrote the most simple and beautiful account of the birth of her son Gus a month ago. i swear it made me cry.

the play by play of her labour and delivery and the peaceful love and support she felt was really touching. the way she describes her husband Rich whispering to her is lovely.

made me so jealous. (kidding.) (sort of.)

mine was nothing like that. while i did have a lot of love and support from my friends, family and doula, i did not have a partner. now, most of the time i don't mind being single. but if there's ever a time in your life when you lament it, it's when you're about to give birth. trust me. it sucks.

but...six months have passed since then, and i am too in love and way too busy with my daughter to spend much time thinking about it. and the pride i feel for doing what i do every single day and night virtually by myself helps to mitigate any loneliness i might feel.

oh. gotta jet. Jimmy Fallon is on.

Pregnant.

i'm pregnant.

doppel-dating.

what does it mean when your ex's new love looks remarkably like YOU?
it's trippy, no?
a 'version' of me- taller, shorter, thinner, preferably fatter. is s/he improving on a theme (i.e. you), or is s/he trying (and failing) to re-live the perfect past (i.e. you)?

thoughts?

chicks.

i had such a good weekend with a few of my girlfriends. the weather was stormy and conducive to staying inside so one night they came over to my place, and the next night we all showed up at stacey's. it was kind of spontaneous - which rocks - but it was so easy and seamless that it felt like it had been planned. i liked that i was the connectsh - they didn't know one another before, but we're all friends now.

my life feels really quiet sometimes because i live alone and i am self-employed so i work on my own, but my house and my life were really noisy this weekend. stupid amounts of food, wine and shameless laughs. good times.

kelsey, kelly, liza, gaylene, stacey, carolina: you rock.

x

this pretty much sums it up...

so. stupid or smart?

x

my hero

i love my brother.
he's truly my hero - my toughest, sweetest, most staunch defender.
how and why is our secret, but my love and my gratitude is what i want the world to know.

gracias, hermano.

Children Rock.

i'm not a huge fan of Coldplay, but i love music, teachers and kids. and as Denis McGrath says in his blog, "if you cannot love this, you are a dead thing, made of stone, not sticks". Viva La Vida indeed.
x

Embarrassed!

I had the worst audition this past week. Painful, and I am only just recovering three days later. It was for a play, which I thought was terrific since I don't get to do much theatre. But since I don't do much of it, I am also not very well-versed in the art of auditioning for it. As any actor will tell you, auditioning is quite different from performing. While they share some obvious characteristics, The Audition is an entirely unique beast. It takes practice and when work is scarce we don't get many opportunities to hone our skills. I hope I get another opportunity soon. And I hope I don't fall on my face quite so hard. Yeouch.

x.

delinquent

i have been neglecting the blog...

please forgive.

it's amazing how life can get so busy all of a sudden. the life scramble feels a bit like musical chairs sometimes - you're plodding along to the happy tune, knowing that at some point you will have to pick up the pace and you cross your fingers in the hopes that when the music stops you will have a chair in front of you. this is especially true of the self-employed artist, such as moi. one always has to be ready for the music to stop. when the red phone rings, you have to be prepared to drop everything and find a chair to sit on. and there are always way more players than there are chairs. anyway, it drives me to distraction. i imagine that it's a bit like being a mother and trying to get some sleep. one eye must always remain open.

anyway, lately my red phone has been ringing a lot and work has taken up way too much mental space for me to sit down and write.

but i'll be back. promise.

x.

tupperware love.

if you have a good container that's just the right size and you seal it air-tight, the contents will remain fresh indefinitely. even if you hide the box in the darkest corner of the basement. and when you take the lid off, even after say, two years, there it all is.

after a break-up, we often stuff our feelings - anger, questions, condemnations, sadness, lament, desire, affection and love - into boxes. little compartments that get tucked away into the deepest corners of our hearts and minds.we have to; it's a matter of survival. heartbreak can be really inconvenient when there is work to be done and life to be lived.

a couple of years ago i went through a difficult break-up with a man i loved. we had been special, close friends and the sadness i felt at the loss of him was great. the heartbreak was deep and wide, and though it took some time, i eventually managed to wrestle it all into a surprisingly small box. it didn't take up too much space, but the lid didn't fit so great and it leaked every once in a while. still, it allowed me to move on. thank goodness for 'the box'.

last night i had dinner with him. it wasn't the first time i'd seen him. we move in the same social circles, so we actually run into one another quite a bit. but this was the first time in two years that we spent any time alone together. it was great to see him. we were a bit nervous at first, but it quickly got comfortable, easy and warm. old friends catching up and chatting about life.
the box was with me, but was obscured by the conversation, the sights and sounds of the restaurant and by our genuine desire to just have a nice time.
but the more time that passed, and the more wine poured by our pink satin-clad waitress, the box came into sharper and sharper focus.

eventually i took the lid off. i examined the contents a bit and began to talk. he was receptive - more like accepting, really. he listened to what i had to say and for the first time, i felt like he truly heard me. his softness surprised and moved me and i felt grateful. anyway, not to mix metaphors, but at the end of the night i felt like we crossed a bridge and turned a page. we said goodnight with warmth, peace and genuine affection.

when i got home i sat in my garden to wait for all the old feelings to pass through me. i thought about the now-empty box in front of me and everything i had hidden away in there. it seems obvious now, but i couldn't quite believe that all that stuff was still there, sealed fresh inside. i sat across from this guy and i took the lid off and there it all was. of course.
we all have baggage (or tupperware) from the past that we carry around with us. some of it is heavy and we can lug it around for years without ever bothering (or having the courage) to look inside. it's important to purge every so often so that we can make room for newer, less weighty things. though it wasn't the heaviest load i've carried in my life, that little tupperware that i opened up last night had made quite an impact on me, and being able to air it out allowed me to understand a little better what that impact was. it gave me a knowledge of myself that i suspect will help me to pack a little bit lighter from now on.

x

What To Wear???

today is april 25th, early spring in toronto. however, today's high temp of 27 degrees Celsius felt more like summer, and the city dressed appropriately.

sun dresses - strapless ones, even! shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops, sandals and even cowboy boots with mini-skirts.

after a morning in the garden wearing wellies and cargo pants, i changed into a stylish t-shirt, black jeans and open-toe heels. breezey but warm, casual but stylish. parfait, i say.

silly me though, i wore that to rehearsal and rehearsal was a cross-town bike ride away. heels are actually great for biking, as they provide a natural pedal-grip. try it! anyway, wouldn't you know it, the high temperature and accompanying humidity brought with it a summer-like thunderstorm. dark, loud and windy. really beautiful and sexy. especially, if not only, when viewed from inside. during rehearsal breaks i went to the roof door to smell the air and feel the wind. i hoped the storm would have passed by the time rehearsal was over, but alas this was not the case. i walked out onto the street while the storm raged on.

in my perfect, sexy summer-like spring outfit, i had to ride back across town on my fender-less bike.

i went from this:

to this:

i brought a jacket in case it got windy, i brought a hand fan, in case the stage got too hot. i did not however bring a raincoat or sneakers. gee whiz, a girl can't think of everything, can she?

i don't know what tomorrow will be like, but i hope i am prepared.

x

Paris Je T'aime.

it's everywhere today. first i got a postcard with an eiffel tower photo on it, though it was sent from a friend in vancouver. the city of l;ights is also featured in many of today's blog pages, plus, i had a very nice email exchange with my friend jacques who currently lives there.
ooh la la, paris!

thought i would post a pic of my favourite rooftop garden, seen from the kitchen window of my friend segolene:



and this is the view from her other kitchen window.
no garden, but it'll do:


sigh.
a cliche-eh perhaps, but this canuck loves paris.

x

mexico not in north america, apparently.

yep.
it came as a surprise to me too, and i got an A in geography.

if you have a telus phone and you have a north america roaming package and you travel to mexico during the interminable canadian winter, and you decide to use your blackberry's data services, well...don't.
seriously.

it will cost you $65 per megabyte used. and if you use it a lot, you just might get a $2047.00 bill for just two weeks in mexico.
for real.
but only if you don't use the phone for occasional checking in. then it might only cost you $1889.00... that's right. the phone is cheaper!

mexico is not in north america, and don't let a map try and tell you otherwise.
(those NAFTA folks will be pretty shocked when i tell them!)

Telus doesn't even support the iphone.
why am i with them again?

i could just scream. in fact, i think i will.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that didn't help.

so, to re-cap:
mexico is NOT in north america.
not.

ugh.

x

Been a lawn time comin'.

i used to love going over to my friend emily's house in the Annex when i was a teenager. her mother amanda was an avid gardener and had created a stellar urban oasis in the backyard. there were little paths throughout the yard and plants of all sizes, shapes and colours. i was most impressed by the absence of grass (well, of lawn, actually - she had all kinds of ornamental grasses). i'd never really seen that in any toronto backayrds. anyway, amanda's garden has remained my favourite toronto garden and is the one i compare all others to.

i love gardening and i have tried to do it for years. i say tried because i have probably killed more plants than i have grown. i've learned quite a bit over the years and though i have done a little bit of research, most of my knowledge comes from trial and error - mostly error. the house i rent had a garden when i moved in, but it was in rough shape when i got a hold of it. in five years i have done quite a bit with it and i am rather proud of how it has come along though i still do call it my ghetto garden. initally i had great intentions to make it a chemical-free, organic haven-in-the-city, but that quickly went to shit. i think i was too eager (read: impatient), so i resorted to a little miracle-gro here and there. the lawn was nice when i first moved in, due mostly to my landlord's aggressive love of herbicides. naturally i put a stop to that one and just attacked them manually. but, after a few summers of filming out of town, the weeds (bull thistle, crab grass, goldencreeper , dandelions, creeping buttercups and so on) overtook the grass and were beginning to encroach on the other plants.

so, last spring i decided to tear up the whole lawn and start from scratch. my big plans went nowhere fast, as i had to work out of town for over a month and when i came back the lawn was full of pretty, tall cosmos and annoying rasberry mini-bushes that i just couldn't bring myself to kill.

a full on disaster.

so THIS spring, i will finish what i started last spring. i promise. i have re-dug everything, removing every last trace of weed root that i could. it was a very long process and my back and hands are paying the price, but it felt SO good!

finally i got the ground ready and yesterday i lay down all the grass seed. happiness. today the rain is falling and is meant to continue all week. timing couldn't be better. fingers crossed that the seeds germinate well. and maybe one day

the garden will look more like it did before (and of course even better), and i can once again frolic and play in it - hopefully with YOU. that would make me very happy. wish me luck.

x

First

This is the first one. It won't be the last.
I don't really know why I'm doing this. I guess it's just for me. I'm not doing because it's important or because I have anything important to say. It's not for the children or for world peace or the fashion world or Fitness World or even for Exotic Cat World. Just for me.

And yes, also for you.

Welcome.

x