Boot camp for a lazy muse

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I have realized something over the last few days: writing is g.d. hard when your inspiration is out of town. Seriously. I figured if I finally gave myself an outlet, the words would flow. The ideas certainly do. But I don’t want to post crap. No one has time to read crap. Most people don’t even have time to read stuff that isn’t crap.

My need to write is a physiological thing that happens at unpredictable and often inconvenient times. It’s like a fart. If you’re at home alone, you can let it out freely without having to worry about others being around to experience what’s going on. It might stink, but time will fix it and no one will be the wiser. If you’re in public, well… then it’s all about repression of instincts.

I think this is why I’ve become so interested in photography. You don’t need three hours to take a decent photograph, especially if you consider yourself a documentary or “real-life” snapper. Let life happen and hopefully you’ll have your camera ready when something interesting presents itself. Then you can edit when the kids go to sleep or when they’re trying to pull your pants down or, even better, when your husband takes them to the pool — both of them, together, without another adult (my hero).

In my experience, which is very little, you can still dabble with presets when you’re sleep deprived. In fact, I find it relaxing to fiddle around with a photo in post processing. Does it look better in black and white or colour? What if I boost the contrast? Does that look too fake? Is fake okay?

Writing, on the other hand, requires me to have some semblance of mental function. I should mention here that I am in no way saying real photographers can work in their sleep. It’s much more of a honed craft for them. They know what works and what doesn’t and how to manipulate a photo (either before or after they take it) to look just right.

I’m sure if I sent some of my shots off to for some CC, as they call it, my photographer friends would come back with a plethora of suggestions for how to improve the exposure triangle, the lighting, the saturation, the composition or all of the above. They would suggest changes I couldn’t have seen because they never would have occurred to me. It’s similar to when people send me their writing. I suggest changes they couldn’t see because they aren’t used to the puzzle known as structural flow.

I think that’s my favourite part about editing. Often when people send me a piece, it isn’t the writing that needs help, it’s the structure. Move that sentence here, flip that paragraph around and, often, find the lede somewhere in the middle. You’re still getting from point A to point B, but without as many obstacles or switchbacks. There are times, though, when I get carried away and commit the asshole crime of editing for style. I pay penance for that because I know how much it sucks to have someone hijack your mojo.

I suppose that could also happen with photos. The eye is so personal, as we all learned from the black and blue dress. You know, the one that *isn’t* white and gold? I keep asking photographer friends for editing advice, but I’m not respecting the difficulty they must face in separating personal style from direction.

I need a moment here as I feel the enormity of creative possibilities that exist in the world. Can you imagine if we all liked the same music or read the same genre of book or ate the same food? Life would be boring as shit. The interesting thing is that we sometimes fail to see the value in those differences. We look at ourselves and subconsciously ask whether our clothes or cars or even parenting philosophies jive with the concept we want to present to the world. We see outliers and either envy their ability to stray from the norm or flee from the discomfort of something that’s too different.

I met a lady the other night — normal person/mom/wife like me — and she had the most amazingly rad hair. I thought, good god this woman is fantastic! I immediately started imagining myself with this kick-ass hairdo. Then I quickly came back to my own reality. I loved it on her, and it may very well look great on me, but it’s not who I am. I am subtle. I wear run of the mill clothes. I don’t dye my hair, I don’t do my nails and I only wear jewelry when I feel the need to look grown-up.

I am just me. And today I wrote about writing farts and rad hair.

Defiance of the self-defeating sort

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According to new conventional wisdom, menu planning is the key to modern domestic bliss. In the absence of cloning machines that would allow us to successfully cook, clean, entertain children and be good partners all while making good coin, this one little task is a supposed godsend. After all, staring into the refrigerator has never resulted in a roast chicken jumping into my hands, and if it did, I’d probably throw the chicken out.

I have read many an article that would lead me to believe this parent/partner thing is dead easy for people who have their shit together. It should only take 20 minutes to come up with seven well-balanced meals that everyone will enjoy. Then we’re off and back from the store before our precious bundles have realized it’s time to wreck havoc. We've probably even managed to teach them about macroeconomics while we were gone.

In my experience, this is complete bullshit.

I have been known to go on menu planning kicks. I sit on the floor of the pantry, amongst the vacuum-immune cracker crumbs, and dive into my glorious cookbooks. I sift through recipes looking for meals that speak to my seasonal palate all while imploring my husband to manage the children while I solve our dietary dilemmas.

I don’t just plan a week, I plan a whole month. I don’t just plan dinners, I plan meals that can be repurposed for something totally different the next day or made into beautiful scenes on a melamine plate. I cross-reference what’s in the pantry and the freezer and make side notes for the produce I’ll need to purchase at the beginning of each week. Most importantly, I make sure there is no repetition, other than Fridays when the kids eat pizza and we have our post-bedtime take-out date.

Yes, I realize this means I need to get out more. But it is a work of art, I tell you. I could probably sell these puppies if I had nicer handwriting or any skills in graphic design. At least then I would know someone would use them. I, on the other hand, seem unable to take direction, even from myself. As soon as I’m done, I look to see what’s on for that night and immediately think, "Screw you, menu! I’ll cook whatever I damn well please.”

It makes me wonder whether housewives in the 1950’s faced the same issues while sipping bourbon and dropping cigarette ashes into hideous globs of blown glass. I have this notion that life was easier back then. People didn’t worry about expanding their children’s palates or making sure they ate kale and quinoa. They worried about getting the kids fed and off to bed so they could sip more bourbon and play Yahtzee with the neighbours.

“Let’s see, should we have meat and potatoes, tuna casserole or something encased in Jello?”

A wiser soul once suggested that instead of planning meals for each day, I should make a list of meals that are easily achieved. That way, I can maintain my strange, the-dude-does-not-abide mentality without having to search the entire Internet for an acceptably enticing way to prepare chicken and rice.

Again, the notion failed. For, along with my distaste for authority, I also eschew predictability. Food is the culinary version of music. There are only so many notes in the scale and yet somehow people continually compose music we’ve never heard. Remaking food we’ve already tried would be like putting the same album on repeat from now until acid wash is back in style (please tell me it isn’t back in style).

Here’s where I’m supposed to tell you I’ve come to a fabulous solution but sadly, I have not. I generally start thinking about dinner when the chill of the toilet seat brings me into consciousness every morning, then procrastinate throughout the day until it’s too late to do much more than mezze (fancy word for veggies, hummus, olives and whatever else looks promising). Perhaps one of these days I’ll get my shit together and realize how easy this gig really is. Until then, I have a well-planned and blatantly ignored menu ready for anyone willing to show it some love. 

Teller of truth

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The problem I seem to have with starting a blog, or anything really, is that I want it to be perfectly formed before it ever sees the light of day. I think I get this from my father, although I’m sure I’ve read some parenting thing somewhere that says we discount the concept of individuality by suggesting we inherit traits from our parents or that we pass them onto our children. It implies we are all merely the same person living over and over again just with less ozone and more technology.

I'd argue we're more likely to see the challenging parts of our personality (or label them as such) play themselves out in our little reincarnations than we are to see the good we pass on. The more modest among us are, anyway. In light of that, I will also suggest I get my ability to write from Dad and that I inherited my mother’s desire to help others along with her propensity to worry. A bit from Column A, a bit from Column B.

But here’s what I’m realizing. This little seed that I’m planting here can’t possibly grow into its own thing unless I put it out into the sun and add a little water every now and then. It’s like having children: we fool ourselves into believing we have some semblance of control when really it is they who call the shots, before they even divide into two cells.

I want to control what this may or may not become, which means it isn’t becoming anything. It is a dog on a leash in front of the most amazing off-leash park. There are so many piles of shit to roll in! Why won’t she just let me go!

This is probably where fear in the creative process comes into play. If I never actually launch this site, it can’t possibly fail. If no one knows it exists, no one can’t read it. I can go on living with this lovely notion of having this beautiful thing like so many others I see without actually having to do anything. It’s easier to live with the dream of success than the reality of failure but I’m creatively lonely and tired of having nothing to call my own.

I realize it’s possible to just write for myself, but (shock of the century), I have an ego. I enjoy writing for other people. I enjoy sparking conversation or helping people feel they aren’t alone by expressing what many of us are too socially respectable to say. My truth is real and the filter is thin.

(As for my photography, I really don’t know what I’m doing but I’m enjoying the challenge. Constructive feedback from those who do know what they’re doing is always welcome.)

So here we are on the eve of my not-40-yet birthday and I am finally (mentally) ready to push this thing out of the plane. It’s certainly not perfect. It definitely requires work. But at least it will now have purpose.

Nanoo Nanoo, and all that jazz.

Five days in November

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Karma and I have had a falling out. I wouldn’t say things have been going swimmingly recently, but they’ve definitely been better than a dog paddle. I no longer roam through each day in a sleep-deprived fog and I’m able to eat the majority of my meals without feeling like crap. These are definite bonuses, especially when most days involve some kind of battle with a four-year-old reincarnation of Stalin.

This week had an agenda no sleep trainer or elimination diet could have saved. After all, the combination of no child care, -30º weather, and a temporarily absent husband is I believe what you will find in the parenting cookbook under recipe for disaster. Additional ingredients for extra zing include a teething toddler who’s also learning how to walk and a preschooler whose starting position for everything that doesn’t involve TV or chocolate is an ear-piercing NO.

In my naivety, I thought it would be manageable and, potentially, fun. Even the Cheerios tried to warm me. Perhaps an arrow pointing feverishly to the door would have been more effective message of impending doom.

Normally on days when the kids are home, the first mission of the day is to get the hell out of the house. But it’s November and it’s dead-of-winter, snot-freezing cold.

E was not-so-secretly pleased about our inability to venture out of doors. She has developed a strong sense of fashion that doesn’t include her one-piece snow suit. I understand where she’s coming from, but at the same time I don’t need my ear drums pierced every time I suggest a romp in the snow.

After one particularly impressive display that would make Gordon Ramsay look polite, I decided my sanity was worth the exorbitant cost of new snow pants. So we made a deal.

“What should we do if you (lose your shit) at the store?”

“Take away my show.”

Losing TV screws me more than it screws her, but it’s her currency so I had to go with it.

This is (one of the many times) where I feel like an asshole. I set her up to fail. It was late in the day, she was tired after a morning play date, and I was about to take her into a huge store to try on something bulky, hot, and complicated. Brilliant combo.

We left the store with no snow pants and, of course, no Dora on the horizon.

That evening, I realized the dishwasher had been sitting full of clean dishes for three days. I unloaded them onto the counter and crammed an Ikea’s worth of colourful plastic bowls into the machine. Then, I went to the basement to relocate the carpet in anticipation of the cleaning ladies’ arrival the next morning.

Mid-way through sorting toy trains and Frozen costumes, I heard an appliance yelling at me from the kitchen. It was the dishwasher. It quit.

At this point, I guess little man was feeling like he wasn’t pulling his weight in the catastrophe department. About ten minutes after the dishwasher buggered off, he woke up and started a night from hell. He screamed more than he slept and I cursed everything under the sun, including boy’s trips to Phoenix.

Day Five has arrived. Our entire collection of dishes is on the counter in various states of dirtiness, there’s a pork tenderloin in the fridge that’s been waiting to be cooked since Thursday (when I still had hope), and there is no TV again today, thanks to the g.d. snowsuit. I thought I had a decent post-nap peace offering in the form of a muffin and new puzzle, but the muffin went flying for not having enough chocolate chips and there was too much screaming to allow for a new toy.

This is when I start to wonder whether four-year-olds understand consequences.

Now that everyone is asleep (knock wood), I start my evening ritual of second guessing every parenting move I made during their waking hours. I google things like “why is my four-year-old so angry” and read articles that make it sound like I’m damaging both of their psyches. I text my friends for sympathy and pray the kids have good benefits when they’re older.

Luke’s resurfacing is sure to be met with gloriously happy children who will make the incessant texts he received over the past few days look like vacation-killing lies. He will be popular, loved, cuddled, and serenaded with giggles. I, on the other hand, will be the jerk who didn’t want to make waffles because it would have dirtied our last three dishes. At least now there’s someone else around to share the glory of dish pan hands.

Saving daylight. Losing sanity.

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Igot yelled at this morning. A lot. In my quest to deflect blame from yours truly, I landed on the most obvious villain I could find: Daylight Saving Time. That jerk.

You see, children, like farm animals, are not swayed by the concept of hours and minutes. They (the children, not the farm animals) are driven by desire, hunger, energy, fatigue and the search for that invisible line that separates what they can control and what they can’t. What makes all those things easier to handle is a nice, predictable routine. Having well-rested parents also helps.

Enter Daylight Saving Time, a true abombination. The sun still rises and sets. The weather stays relatively consistent. But all of a sudden you’re either going to bed when it’s light and getting up when it’s dark or vice versa. It doesn’t make sense to me (and millions of other people) so why should it make sense to someone who can’t tell time or discuss macroeconomics.

I am flummoxed by the havoc this tiny little hour wreaks on modern society. It’s easier to adjust after traveling across three time zones than it is to physically accept this biannual sixty minute leap. Maybe it’s because when you hop around the continent, you’re psychologically geared up for time-related turmoil. Also, it often means you’re on vacation, which makes lots of things easier to take.

I went to an adult person gathering (i.e. not a play date) on Sunday, the day of the time change. Most of us struggled to string together three coherent words. I even drove to the wrong house. Not the wrong house on the right block but the wrong house in an entirely wrong neighbourhood.

I have also been waking up before 5 a.m. and craving carbohydrates like there’s no tomorrow. Sometimes those 5 a.m. wake ups are greeted with the silent, shadowy figure of a child staring at me through the darkness. Try getting back to sleep after that.

So let’s take stock. We have a house full of tired people, two (maybe three) of whom are still trying to get in touch with their emotions, one of whom has zero language skills other than to feverishly use the sign for please while making anxious grunting sounds. Add to that the fact that I am trying to wean myself off coffee. It’s no good. We all need an emotional reset.

This morning, in an attempt to make peace, I sprinkled a few chocolate chips in E’s oatmeal. After witnessing a performance that would make Gordon Ramsay look polite, I played my last card.

“Just try it. It tastes like a chocolate chip cookie.”

She tries it.

“NO! It does NOT taste like a chocolate chip cookie. It tastes like a chocolate chip cookie WITH OATMEAL!”

<Dish gets pushed off placemat. Placemat gets thrown off table.>

Needless to say it’s been a rough week, one that has us all wanting to disguise ourselves as unmade beds and promptly fall asleep (see photo). And as I trudge around in my new gluten-and-caffeine-free hell, I am wont to lose perspective. It’s her job to push my buttons. It’s my job to… I don’t know. Not go totally insane? Keep making oatmeal?

In the absence of revelations, I am choosing to watch this twice then go for a walk. You know, to take in some of this daylight we so desperately needed to save. 

A shot in the dark

IMG_8112Today is the scariest day of the year - the day we make that annual trek through neighbourhoods of ghouls and goblins (i.e. pumpkins and scarecrows) to join hundreds of other parents and children on a similarly daunting task.

Today is flu shot day.

Back in the B.C era of my life (Before Children), announcements about flu shot clinics barely registered. I was healthy! Shouldn’t our bodies learn to defend themselves? Besides, every flu shot recipient I knew got the flu! Blah blah ignorant blah.

In truth, I was secretly hoping to get sick. I just wanted a few drug-induced days of bad television. I may have even touched a few germ-infested keyboards in an attempt to hasten the process. It never worked.

Now that I have kids, there are several reasons why I hold my breath and dive into the flu shot pool:

I don’t want the kids to get sick (because we will all be tired and grumpy).

I don’t want to get sick (because I will be tired and grumpy while my kids bounce off the walls).

I don’t want Luke to get sick (because I’ll be grumpy at him for staying in bed all day).

So I make the gamble that two hours in close quarters with hundreds of people and three hand-sanitizer stations will reduce my overall risk of sleep-deprivation and bouts of irrational anger. At least this year, I had a brilliant plan.

“What kind of jerk takes their kids to get flu shots on Halloween?” I thought to myself with a menacing cackle.

Turns out, there are lots of like-minded jerk parents in this city, many whose children were on a P.D. Day. What’s that saying? Great minds think alike and dummies end up standing in a huge line with restless kids who can’t stop thinking about candy?

Our collective ignorance led us all astray. Despite it being less than an hour before lunch, I packed just a few small snacks, water and, thank the good lord, a half-charged iPad. One lady forgot her health card and had to fill out a detailed form about her life, since I guess you wouldn’t want to accidentally vaccinate an impostor. Another lady looked longingly at the zombie-like faces of my hypnotized children as her wards tried to swing off the line dividers.

We were ushered to the nearest nurse’s station. Janet, our kind and brave practitioner, introduced herself as I attempted to pry the technology from E’s hands. Up until that point, E had been all for this act of preventative health care. But the moment it went in her arm, she opened her mouth, turned red, stopped breathing for a few seconds, then let out the kind of scream one might associate with having a car door slam on your hand.

Janet and I locked eyes. Hers held the look of a long day getting longer. Mine conveyed a mix of embarrassment and regret. I turned around to see the saucer-like eyeballs of the kids standing in line as their parents hung their heads in defeat.

“Probably not the kind of advertising you were looking for,“ I offered with a sheepish grin. She smiled and turned her attention to the little guy. After his jab, he cried for a few seconds then got distracted by something shiny.

Then we went to Safeway where E was offered a free donut and we bought their few remaining bags of over-priced and unpopular candy. High fives all around.

Next year, I will leave earlier, pack more snacks and, most importantly, check to see if it’s a P.D. Day before we walk out the door. I will also try not to leave my Halloween candy purchasing until four hours before the Elsas and Ironmans start arriving at the door. At least with this strategy, I wasn’t tempted to erase the morning’s shenanigans with waxy chocolate and no-name cheezies.