In Which I Hide From Adult Responsibilities In Ridiculous Pipe Dreams

Tags

books, life, Twilight, writing

I like to hide from reality.

I mean, my reality is mess right now. I never know when I get up in the morning how much work/parenting I’m going to have to do. PH’s energy levels vary from “practically functional” to “zzzzzzz”. I almost always do the morning diapers/breakfast/clothes/school routine (although PH did handle things this morning, giving me the first sleep in I have had in many moons). Evenings, though, vary wildly. Sometimes he cooks dinner and puts the baby down. Other times I cook dinner and put both kids to sleep.

Then there’s work. I’m working part time at the vet clinic because I like a steady cash stream. But they’re always badgering me to work more. In dire circumstance, I agree, and then I feel guilty for putting more burden on PH. Other times, like today, I refuse and feel guilty and worthless for not being able to do my job.

On top of the clinic job, I’m supposed to be focusing on my dog training career. But I have extremely mixed feelings about my dog training. On the one hand, I enjoy teaching classes and helping people with their dogs privately… WHILE I AM DOING IT. The process of arranging appointments, booking appointments, calling back prospective clients etc etc fills me with crippling levels of anxiety.

So I haven’t been doing it much.

Instead of focusing on actually getting work, instead I’ve been focusing on a complete pipe-dream.

My book.

Remember when I first starting complaining about Twilight, and I made my Rowling vs Meyer rants? Well, for NaNoWriMo in 2012 I wrote a book which I intended to be a sort of Twilight parody, featuring a strong female character named Stella and a gentle zombie love interest named Howard.

But as I worked on it, it stopped being a parody and became a unique book in its own right. I got attached to Stella and Howie, and I realized that in order for it to be a true opposite of Twilight it would need to have a complex plot, three dimensional characters and so on. So I spent years and years achieving that.

After years of beta readers’ feedback and re-writes and re-re-writes and obsessive editing, I’ve decided to finally publish the thing. And so, when I should be out leaving flyers for my dog training business or working more hours at the clinic, I’ve spent it getting my book published.

It’s scheduled to come out in December. I have an author website, and a Facebook page, and an instagram account. I have it available for pre-order on kindle, and it’s listed on Goodreads. I’ve arranged a giveaway on The Militant Baker‘s website on November 30th. I am setting up advertising. I have it listed on Netgalley for review (hopefully they’ll be gentle – Netgalley readers are notoriously tough). I have mailed copies to the big pre-publication review houses.

Whenever I get a free moment I spend it on promoting my stupid feminist zombie book.

Because the thing is, what I really want to do is stay home and write all day. Not call people back about their dogs (as much as I love dogs) or work at a vet clinic. I love writing. That’s what I want to do.

Or at least, I think I do. So far, I have only gotten rave reviews on my book. I’ve emailed free copies to strangers and they have replied with enthusiasm. A complete stranger, who reviews books harshly from what I can tell from his Goodreads account, said my book “far surpasses what it was inspired by” and called it a “masterpiece” and that MADE MY DAY. Another, a children’s author who has won a bunch of awards from her book, said she stayed up all night reading it. And man, that got me through another day.

But if a rave review can make my day, what will a negative review do? Because I’ll get them. It’s a book full of swear words and feminism so some people out there are going to HATE IT. I like to think that I’ll be okay with it as long as people hate it for the right reasons (feminism) and not because they think I’m a hack.

I think that when it is finally published and more reviews come in, I’m in for an emotional rollercoaster.

But in the meantime, I am living in this dream world where my book could be adored by everyone and I could become a famous author and stay home and just write in a white room with a lovely view.

That makes much more sense than just, like, dealing with reality, right?

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Eight Years

Tags

anniversary, depression, family, life, love

Yesterday, we were sitting around watching Stephen Fry’s Q.I. on Youtube when Perfect Husband sat up straight.

“Oh, SHIT.” He covered his mouth. “I forgot!”

“What?” I was alarmed. I wracked my brain. Were we supposed to be doing something that night? Was there something vital that I had let slip through my calendar?

“I have to call a prostitute right away! It’s my last chance for the seven year itch!” he said.

I leaned back on the couch and stuck out my tongue.

Eight years ago, we were married. 

Eight years ago, he was my rock, my prince who made me feel like the luckiest person in the world. I couldn’t believe that I was getting to spend the rest of my life with this man who worked so hard to make my life better.

He was the kind of person who cooked dinner and then washed the dishes, while insisting that I sit and rest. He was the kind of person with whom I could talk for hours and never grow bored.

The best part of it all was the fact that he thought he was the lucky one – he actually felt lucky to be with this socially anxious awkward girl with weight problems who loved to take care of pets and babies but also desperately needed to be taken care of by someone else.
Ten years ago, I started dating my best friend. I avoided it for so long, because it sounds like such a terrible idea, but within days we knew that this was it.

We knew that we would move in together. We knew that we would get married. We knew how many kids we would have and what their names would be before he even formally proposed.

Sometimes you just know.

Eleven years ago, he emerged from years of crippling depression, and I discovered that the man who had always been my best friend because even better when he was free of his chains. The man who had always been willing to talk for hours about books or argue with me about hypothetical situations, who had always been willing to give the shirt off of his back to help a friend, stepped out from under the clouds so I could really see him in his entirety. He turned out to be a sunny optimist with a can-do attitude that I found deeply attractive.

Twelve years ago I stopped him from committing suicide. Even then, I knew that I couldn’t live without him in my life. Even then, he was part of the furniture of my mind. Even then, I was willing to sacrifice his happiness to keep him alive. Even then, his pain mattered less to me than the continued beating of his kind heart.

Thirteen years ago my parents met him for the first time, and they thought, “that’s the one.”

“That boy is in love with you,” my father told me later.

“Yeah… we don’t talk about it, though,” I replied, and my parents wisely kept their mouths shut. But they told me later that they knew from the first moment that they saw us together that this would happen. That he was meant to be their son in law.

His parents have said the exact same thing.

Let’s face it, Perfect Husband has said the same thing. “I knew it was just a matter of waiting,” he said.

Show offs.

Fourteen years ago, I sang a Lorne Elliott song with one of the actors in the production of Hamlet that I was stage managing. Almost no one knows Lorne Elliott and we were both delighted to find someone else who did. Almost no one else has read Gordon Korman, but he had, and we talked about it for an hour. He liked Who Is Bugs Potter. I preferred I Want To Go Home.

Fourteen years ago, I found a new friend.

So here we are, fourteen years in, thirteen years in, twelve years in, ten years in.

Eight years in.

I don’t have a photo of us, now. He doesn’t want his picture taken. He doesn’t want to remember this.

Life is different now.

The depression is back and has been raging for years. Most days, he isn’t the sunny prince that I married, but he is still the best friend that I couldn’t live without.  I have met this side of him before and I married him knowing I would probably see it again. So it doesn’t scare me. He is still kind. He is still my best friend. He is still the man that my parents knew I would someday marry.

We have two young children that demand almost all of my time. I feel a constant gripping anxiety based on the fact that I want to work more, because we need more money, but I also want to work less, because I feel overburdened as it is, and I can’t afford to shift too much of that burden onto my husband, and I really can’t afford to pay someone else to take on some of that burden.

I struggle constantly to hide my stress because he blames himself when it emerges. A stray tear, wiped away too late, and he will be pestering me, asking what he can do, beyond the impossible. He thinks that I will blame him, or should blame him, for this.

I don’t.

I was there, you see. I saw how he couldn’t make himself wake up and go to class. I saw how he sometimes backed out of plans because he couldn’t face a social scene. I knew him. I married him.

Yes, I miss the man who pampered me and spoiled me. Yes, I miss feeling like he was someone that I could lean on. Yes, I miss feeling that he was someone I could come to with my problems, instead of someone that I needed to shield from them. Yes, I sometimes feel envy when I meet people who can just get their husbands to take the kids at a moment’s notice, no problem, or who can go out with their friends or on date nights on a regular basis.

Then again I know people who have husbands that are perfectly well and are just giant dicks, and then I feel very grateful. He may be asleep a lot, but he’s not a dick.

Besides, I knew he was sick, and what that meant, and I said the words, “in sickness and in health”, and I knew what I was saying when I said them.

“You could still run away, you know,” he whispered before the vows started. “Now’s your chance. Look, there’s a door just there.”

I looked out of the side door near the altar. It was open to let in cool breezes. The dandelions swayed in the old cemetery where couple after couple lay side by side. Then I looked back at him and shook my head, “no.”

“Now is YOUR chance,” I told him.

Sometimes I think he should have run. He isn’t equipped to handle the stress of caring for small children. I see how just our presence in the household raises his stress levels. I think about how much  of his time is spent on blaming himself for my own stress and misery.

Sometimes I feel like we are Albatrosses around his neck.

And I know he feels like an Albatross on mine.

We keep telling each other that we have no regrets. We keep telling each other that we prefer this to the alternative.

Maybe one day, we’ll finally believe one another.

Because let’s face it: If there is such a thing as fate, we are it.

So let it be. If we are lucky, we’ll have another thirty or forty years together. And I can’t speak for him, but I would still sign up for that in a heartbeat.

Thank You, 2015

Tags

depression, family, life, maternity leave, new years, parenthood, parents, pregnancy

I have mixed feelings about the passing of 2015.

Some parts of 2015 really sucked. My husband nearly killed himself, I ended up heavily pregnant, with a bacterial infection, working and caring for our four year old who also had a bacterial infection, while he was stuck in the hospital and unable to help.

My father broke his hip and overall has deteriorated markedly in his health.

My relationship with my son deteriorated, as my capacity to tolerate his extroverted highjinks hit a new low.

I spent a significant amount of this year coughing, exhausted, diabetic, extremely stressed, half-expecting to become a widow at any moment, researching the potential cost of burying my husband, and wearing Depends because I kept wetting myself.

On the other hand…

This year also brought me the generosity and love of the friends and relations who came streaming in to help during these difficult times. There were friends who picked Owl up at daycare when I was stuck at the hospital, and friends who brought Chinese food so that I wouldn’t have to cook, or took Owl for play dates so I could nap.

There was my mother in law, who is terrified of flying and financially limited, flying in TWICE to spend a grand total of three months sleeping on our couch, just to help.

On the first visit she made me diabetes-friendly meals and arranged snacks for me at a time when I was working and exhausted and could never have kept up the dietary management that was expected of me on my own. She put my son to bed at night and made him breakfast in the morning, she read to him and joked with him and brought some humor and pleasantry to a home that was seething in stress.

On her return she cooked and cleaned, entertained Owl and then held the baby so I could shower, get dressed, eat meals, and spend some quality time with my son.

And in between those visits, my parents flew in for four months. They took money from their nest egg to rent a place nearby, and my mother drove back and forth making meals and snacks, cleaning, and reading Owl bedtime stories.

Not only did it bring me much needed aid, but I got to spend time with my father while he still knows who I am.

And this year brought me Fritter, who made a safe landing on the shores of time and gave us the gift of a colic-free fourth trimester. She brings me joy every day with her grins and chortles, and I wouldn’t change a thing about her.

And with all of those months of support from our family, PH was able to retreat and rest and begin healing. While he is still very ill, I have seen more of the old Perfect Husband in the last three months than I have in the past two years. There are mornings when I come downstairs to find breakfast laid out for me, afternoons when he greets me at the door to take my coat and offer me a drink, and evenings when he rubs my feet and offers to run me a bath.

Whenever he has a good day, I feel like I could suffer another two years just for a chance at more days like that.

I feel like I could kiss 2015 for bringing me even one day like that, let alone as many as I have been gifted with these last few months.

2015 also brought me maternity leave, which I love because I am a lazy slob. I love being home with my baby and watching The Walking Dead or writing during her naps. It’s way better than working. I’m sad that there are only a few more months left. I have a lot of writing to get down in that time.

Yes, over all I am very grateful to 2015. I feel like it got handed a terrible set of cards but it played them all right.

2015 for me was a year of defeat and renewal, of family and love.

We survived it, and maybe it has made us stronger.

If 2016 can keep up with this upward trend, I think I can look forward to the coming year.

And if it can’t… well… Bring it, 2016.

Another Chance At Christmas

Tags

Christmas, holidays, life

So far, this has been the best Christmas in years, and it isn’t even really Christmas yet.

I started celebrating early, since we’re going to spend a good two week chunk of time over Christmas and New Year in Nova Scotia, and there didn’t seem any point to decorating a week before we left. So I decorated in November.

  
We violated an old rule of ours and got an artificial tree so that when we went to Nova Scotia we wouldn’t be leaving behind a fire hazard. We aren’t proud of it, but it’s a pretty little tree and how else can you get a Christmas tree in November?

I also started our advent calendars early, counting down to departure instead of Christmas Eve. I took Owl to story time with Mrs Claus and a gingerbread house party.

  
Perfect Husband has shown frequent glimmers of his old self and has been helping me make lists of things to do, putting together Christmas music playlists, and generally being PRESENT in the household.

It makes a huge difference.

The last couple of Christmases have felt half-assed and lackluster. My miscarriage baby was due in December, so the Christmas that she (she was always a she in my thoughts) would have been due was particularly gloomy. All I managed that year was a single Charlie Brown Christmas Tree on the table.

I vaguely hoped that people would think I was taking the message of Charlie Brown Christmas at face value and refusing all other decorations out of principle. At least that sad little tree reminded me that Christmas was not about glitz.

Last Christmas was a little better – at least I was pregnant! – but due to stress/pregnancy/anxiety I couldn’t handle basically anything. It also felt horribly ironic because I had always wanted to be pregnant at Christmas – I had imagined lounging with my feet up while adoring relations laid footie pyjamas over my belly and complimented my glow – but instead I was overworked, sick, and we couldn’t afford to go home so it was just the three of us.

PH ended up pushing himself way too hard to help out and I partially blame that for his crash in January.

I sort of feel like the last year didn’t really happen. It’s hard to believe that it is Christmas time again, because we actually haven’t finished cleaning up after last Christmas.

You see, when PH crashed, a lot of things went on hold. One of those was putting away Christmas stuff. And by the time things were looking up again, that Christmas stuff had stopped looking like Christmas stuff, and just started looking like part of the normal background of our lives. It felt strange to put Christmas stuff away in July, so it just sort of stayed.

  
Like the Christmas village, which has been boxed, but sitting under the side table in the living room for a year now. We didn’t set it up this year because we’re going to be away so it seemed like too much effort.

  
Or Beloved Dog’s “12 Days of Dog Christmas” quilt, which has now basically just become a regular blankie that has sat on his memory foam dog bed for 12 months now. I wonder if he would get upset if I took it away, now? I mean, look how he snuggles with it.

  

Or this Christmas angel, which has sat on the shelf for the last year without anyone really noticing it.

  
And when we needed the tinsel for the tree, we knew exactly where it was – on the DVD shelf where it has been for the last year.

Hey, I mean, it probably saved us valuable seconds in decorating for Christmas this year. The house came predecorated! Like how my parents just leave their Christmas lights up all year round and only start plugging them in again on December 1st each year.

It’s nice, really, to think that Christmas keeps coming around. And if one, or two, or eight don’t go as well as I would like, well, it’ll be back again before I even get around to putting away that dog-cuddling wooden angel thing.

And like I say, this Christmas is on the upswing. I think I’ll mark this year over-all a win. Especially since I finally have my Christmas baby.

  

Warning. Warning. Introvert Levels Dangerously Low.

Tags

extroversion, introversion, introvert, life, overwork, play, setting limits, toddlers, work

So, basically everything I said here still applies.

I am not depressed. I’m not even taking antidepressants any more.

But some mornings, in the first half hour or so that I am at work, I struggle to fight back tears.

It’s not sadness, per se, although I still feel like my life got derailed back in May, and often catch myself moping over might-have-beens.

But I think that that is more a symptom than the real disease.

The fact is that if I were a car, my fuel light would be blinking and the fuel gage would be dipped below the E line. Pretty soon I’m going to make a scary clunk and just stop altogether.

It’s no one’s fault except, arguably, my own.

Hey, Single People, Here’s A Window To Married Life

Tags

dialogue, humor, life, marriage

Perfect Husband and I are in bed and settling down to sleep. For me “settling down to sleep” means reading for an hour in dim light until I develop the ability to go unconscious. For Perfect Husband, it means *snore snore snore snore*.

Perfect Husband: “I have a vital task for you.”

Me: “What?”

Perfect Husband: “Before you go to sleep, turn the dryer on to timed dry so it doesn’t run all night. Do this, and I will reward you with riches beyond your wildest dreams.”

Me: “And if if I don’t?”

Perfect Husband: “I will lick the inside of your nose.”

Me: “…I’ll remember.”

In Which I Fret About The Chance That Things Might Change In The Nebulous Future, Because, Hi, I’m Me.

Tags

anxiety, change, generalized anxiety disorder, homes, life, living far away, moving house

PH likes change.

It is one of his most baffling but also more endearing qualities. He likes to visit new places, try new things, and basically expose himself to all kinds of potential for disappointment, regret, and other things that I avoid as if they were herpes.

Change me no likee.

Well, that’s not quite true. I like GOOD change. Really obvious, risk-free, guaranteed-to-be-positive change!

Most change doesn’t fit that criteria.

It was his love of change that sent PH out to Vancouver in the first place. He sold all his possessions, up and moved.

Making the decision to move out there with him several years later was probably one of the riskiest things I have ever done. I was leaving friends and family behind and quitting a job I liked. But on the other hand, I was heading to a place with much better job opportunities, I was young, and I had my fiancé with me.

It was fun, and exciting, and difficult. I had trouble finding a job, I had trouble making friends, and I had a lot of trouble putting down roots. I suffered depression. I lost two jobs.

But I’m finally getting settled in.

And now, Perfect Husband is starting to get bored of Vancouver.

I think he is also getting tired of sharing me with three different jobs – my vet clinic job, my dog training business, and my occasional Elance work.

Even though he knows we need the money, and he is supportive of my dog training business in general, he doesn’t like me disappearing for half the weekend on my dog training appointments. And if my clinic job asks me to work a Saturday? There is definite grumbling to be heard.

But at the same time, we want a second child and have no idea how we will be able to afford it. The math just doesn’t work.

If we didn’t have a $220,000 mortgage plus monthly condo fees, we wouldn’t be feeling the pinch so much. It doesn’t help that we know that if we outgrow our current place, we’d need an even larger mortgage. Our current one is tiny by Vancouver standards, because our complex has so many repair issues.

For a larger place, we’d be looking at $600,000 or more, very probably. And that just ain’t gonna happen unless I suddenly become VERY famous and rich.

So whenever a job pops up at PH’s company in a place with lower housing prices, even if it’s a job that he is totally unsuited for, he applies for it and starts browsing houses. I’ll get a text saying ‘Hey, want to live in Memramcook?” or “Who wants to move to Burns Lake?”

Of course, since he’s largely unqualified for most of these jobs, and because he lists moving costs as a condition of getting the job, the chances are remote… but there have been some close calls.

And every time he does this, I have to think about how I feel about moving.

The problem all comes down to change.

I’m actually HAPPY right now, which, to quote Marlin from Finding Nemo, is a big deal, for me.

I like the vet clinic where I work. I like my boss, and my coworkers.

My dog training business is picking up. We actually have a minor TV celebrity on our training roster right now. If we get permission to use her name on our website, that will look AWESOME.

I have friends who have little boys of about Owl’s age. Our neighbour dropped his two sons off to play with Owl for a couple hours yesterday and the house got so much more peaceful with to toddlers to occupy Owl’s attention. We have another friend’s tot coming over for a babysitting session tonight, so Owl will be happier than a pig in muck.

For all of the issues we occasionally have with Owl’s daycare, he loves it there. He talks constantly about the other kids, he hates to leave, and they love him. They tell him “I love you, baby” constantly.

Daycare Lady’s daughter even painted a large (and slightly Uncanny Valley creepy) portrait of him which now dominates the playroom. It is the Temple of Owl over there.

So why on Earth would I leave?

Oh, right – the fact that we are a $4,000 flight away from our families at Christmas time.

Oh, right – the fact that our parents aren’t getting any younger and are missing Owl’s toddlerhood.

Oh, right – the fact that we have no idea how we will be able to support a second child.

Oh, right – the fact that we definitely have no idea how we would ever afford a larger house than we have now.

If you had asked me three years ago if I wanted to leave Vancouver, would probably would have said yes. I was unhappy with my job, my friendships still felt uncertain, and I was lonely and feeling damaged by years of workplace bullying.

But now I don’t know.

I want to be closer to my family, but I don’t really want to start over in a new city – make friends, put down roots, go through all of that again.

I REALLY don’t want to have to hunt for a new job. My job experiences have been so fraught with stress that I just can’t face it again.

If we moved anywhere, I would want it to be either such a massive promotion that PH could mostly support us on his own, and I could just write or train dogs for extra money on the side, or it would have to be a place with such cheap houses that it amounted to the same thing.

And when it comes to moving back to the Maritimes, well, I have a lot of conflicting feelings.

On the one hand, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are home to me, and probably always will be.

The clapboard houses, the drifts of snow, and the shabby corner convenience stores are real to me in a way that Vancouver has never been. I see Vancouver as shiny and soul-less by comparison.

Besides, if we moved back there I wouldn’t be facing the making friends issue – I still have friends there, although they don’t have boys Owl’s age the way my friends here do.

But they’re old friends who would pick up with me as if I never left.

On the other hand, I’m a massive snob.

I went through the public school system in Nova Scotia and I shudder at the thought of putting poor Owl through it. Even though I know there are good teachers and bad teachers everywhere, and it’s all just a crap shoot.

I also feel like being a professional dog trainer from Vancouver means something, whereas if I ever wrote a dog training book, the fact that it was written by a trainer in, say, rural New Brunswick wouldn’t do much for my reputation.

Everything in the Maritimes is small, and expectations are low. Businesses tend to have shoddy signs, and websites that use comic sans. People “from away” are looked at with suspicion.

I feel like moving East would be a huge step back for my career, even if it were a step forward for our finances and family life.

This is the stuff I torture myself over. 

I’m happy right now, but like it or not, change is coming – either we have a second child and things get really challenging, or PH actually gets an offer from one of these jobs he applies for, and my entire life will be uprooted, with good and bad consequences mixed right in.

I DON’T LIKE CHANGE.

NaNoWriMo 2012, Here I Come!

Tags

life, NaNoWriMo, writing

I’m attempting NaNoWriMo this year.

Even though I am exhausted.

Even though my anxiety is clearly still an issue – I spent all night having nightmares about being late for work (because we had a home visit euthanasia scheduled first thing in the morning) and then woke to Owl going “eight! Eight there, Mommy!” and exploding out of bed in a panic because it was 8:15 and I had to be at work in 30 minutes (by some miracle, Owl was highly cooperative and I actually made it).

Even though I may be picking up two new dog training clients this weekend and am experiencing so much anxiety about it that it makes me wonder why I do it.

Even though Owl’s sleep has fallen apart again and we’re having to make a formal sleep training plan again.

Even though we’re planning on potty training him soon.

Because I have had this story idea for almost a year, and I need something like NaNoWriMo to push me into actually writing it.

I’m hoping you guys like the idea – it’s a parody of Twilight, only featuring a heavy-set, intelligent, self-condident girl who moves to the big city of Vancouver and ends up in a relationship with a devoted undead servant, who considers her wish to be his command.

Basically, it’s Twilight the way I think it should have been written.

With zombies.

Here’s an excerpt from what I wrote yesterday. It’s the opening preface: 

Healthy young people don’t expect to die young, and I am not any different in that respect. When we do fear death, though, it tends to come in nightmarish forms – the monsters under your bed, the thing in the closet. Now here I stood, fearing death from the kind of terrifying, ravening monsters that haunt people in nightmares. Except that I was awake, and this was real, and I could very well be killed in a disgustingly gory way.

Maybe I should have gained some comfort from the fact that I was loved. Beloved. Adored. Worshipped, even. When you are in love, you are supposed to hold hands, and face death with serene acceptance. Maybe we could share a dramatic kiss as we died in the tradition of star crossed lovers everywhere.

“Fuck that shit,” I said as my chainsaw sputtered and then began to roar. “Let’s slice off some heads.”

—

What do you think?

30 Years in 30 Seconds

Tags

age, ageing, getting older, life, life story, time, timeline

1 day old

0. Born, squall, learn to move my own body parts.

1. Learn to walk and talk and swim. Realize that the reflection in the sliding glass door is actually how other people see me.

2. Get toilet trained by a visiting aunt. Now, whenever I use the potty I say, “Auntie Helen happy?”

3. Learn to read, which means that I no longer have to pretend to read magazines which fooled no one anyway because I often held them upside down.

4. Attend pre-school. Learn that when someone asks you “how are you, today?” you aren’t actually supposed to respond honestly – just say “fine, thank you”. Learn through teacher’s example that guinea pigs should be fed foods fresh in vitamin C and not left out in the sun for prolonged periods of time.

5. Start kindergarten. When a family friend picks me up at school because my mother was in a car accident, I worry about the safety of my Popple who was in the back seat (said Popple turned up yesterday during a purge of Owl’s closet and I vetoed throwing it away). Come down with chicken pox that same night, because my mother’s day was clearly not difficult enough. Accidentally kill my goldfish, Fred and Frieda, when I fail to alert my mother that their cage is due to be cleaned.

6. Start as a “full day” instead of a “half day” student at my Montessori school. Develop a crush on a boy called Michael who has red hair and spits when he talks. Get a puppy.

Farewell, Moby.

Tags

hoarding, life, tv

I have said that I am a bit of a hoarder.

Part of this is anxiety related. The mental answer to “should I throw out this piece of paper with an unidentified phone number scribbled in the corner” tends to be “but what if, at some point in the future, I remember whose number that is and decide that I DESPERATELY NEED IT?”

The other part is from my tendency to anthropomorphize things. The Ikea guy would totally yell at me. I just don’t like to get rid of my old things.

When I moved out here, though, we brought next to nothing with us. Only what we could fit in my Toyota Echo. I left most of my things behind. My papasan chair. My 70s retro mirror cube side tables. My cookware. My glass kitchen table.

It was very hard.

including one stuffed animal

On the other side, PH picked up a sofa and chair at value village, and we shelled out 100 bucks for the cheapest TV we could find.

Cable costs extra. We don't pay extra.

We didn’t even have a bed for the first year. As it is, our bed consists of a dented hand-me-down frame and a headboard which isn’t even attached to the bed, because of the aforementioned dent.

So when someone offered us her 32″ HDTV for $200 bucks, we jumped at the chance to own something that didn’t suck.

Slight problem:

It was enormous.

You see, this TV wasn’t LCD or even Plasma. It was still a tube television.

SCALED UP.

I can’t even tell you how difficult it was to get this thing into the car. It wouldn’t fit in the trunk OR the back seat. It would only go into the passenger seat, with the seat pushed and leaned back as far as it could possibly go, and that was with a LOT of squeezing.

The two of us together couldn’t even lift the damn thing more than a foot off of the ground, but somehow we had to get it up three flights of stairs.

Success smells sweet

We named him for the same reason you name a mountain – it’s so BIG that it demands a title.

By the time we hauled Moby’s heavy ass into our apartment, with new scratches on his casing because we had literally DRAGGED him up step by frigging step, he seemed like an extremely real entity.

(Since then we have lugged him through two moves, and I think our selection of places to live that were NOT up three flights of stairs was largely due to our desire to NEVER TAKE MOBY UP STAIRS EVER EVER AGAIN.)

He was totally worth it, though. The transition to a 32″ HDTV was amazing for us to behold.

THIS IS HIGH TECH, MAN

That was in 2007.

Four years later, we have begun to be aware that Moby is nearing the end of his natural life.

First one of his component video ports crapped out on us.

Then we began to notice a slight change in colour around his edges. Sometimes it was there and sometimes it wasn’t, but it appeared more and more.

Also, as time has passed we have become less impressed by Moby’s size. Most of our friends have bigger tvs – or should I say, WIDER tvs that weighed a 75% less.

But while PH’s testosterone levels resulted in some minor drooling in stores when we passed those big, glittering screens, we never seriously entertained buying one. We had Moby. We would make do as long as he lasted, and when he died… we might have to live without a television for a while. Not the end of the world.

But then PH found a really good sale, and pointed out that by combining some Christmas cash with gift cards, we could get ourselves a big new TV without biting into our savings.

A lot of hemming and hawing ensued. I wanted the new TV as well, so I could try out my new Xbox Kinect (a gift from PH, who gets free stuff through his workplace points, of which he has many, because he keeps ranking first in the province for Best Something at Doing Whatever) on a proper screen.

But we’re not overflowing with money right now. Shouldn’t we use our remaining bonus cash on practical, boring things, and split my gift card into batteries or Colin Firth films, and wait for our 10 year old television to flicker and die?

After nearly an hour of waffling in the store, we decided to bite the bullet. We knew that Moby could crap out on us at any time, and right now we had the very rare wherewithall to actually pick up a new TV.

So we did.

It’s a difficult transition for me. I’m not a fan of spending money on things that aren’t food, diet pepsi, baby stuff, or books.

Plus I feel bad for Moby, looming in the corner until we can figure out how to get him out of the house.

But DAMN.

before

after

That’s an upgrade.

We’ve come a long way. 

Instead of scrounging for things, we’re trying to get rid of them.

I’m childishly excited by the new TV… BUT…

I still feel bad for poor Moby so I can’t help but question our decision. Besides, HOW DO WE GET RID OF HIM?

I hate change.