You Can't Hurry Love

Having spent quite a bit of time on online "dating" sites for the past year or so, I feel that I am now more than qualified to comment on its credibility as a venue for finding a mate.

All the dating sites, of course, will tell you that they are fabulous ways to meet people, that many of their members have met and fallen in love and yes, even gotten married! They even have them pose for their website with pictures of them taking vows, holding a newborn babe. Very impressive. But I'm beginning to wonder. You know how all the models on the magazine covers are airbrushed and manufactured ... they don't really look that way in real life? Well, I'm beginning to think these so-called success stories are nothing but cardboard cutouts posed to boost the reputation of the dating site and are not real people at all. Either that, or they're definite future guests on the Jerry Springer show.

Before I started going online, I had heard many people say that the only people who go on online dating sites are total and complete losers and degenerates. Guess what? So far, they're right! I don't think I've "met" one "normal" person yet.

The one guy I did meet off a dating site started off really promising. We met, were just as attracted to each other (I thought) as we had been electronically, we were smokin' hot together, and then ... he dumped me, broke my heart. It turned out he was just after the sex, just like all the other online predators I'd heard about. But I tried not to let that get me down. Not everything works out, I reasoned. Surely there is another guy out there I can connect with who will truly fall in love with me, and I with him, and so on.

Nope.

Since this other guy dumped me, I have come across a parade of losers I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Every single one of them has been "suspect" in some way ... either they're overtly sexual, or I see them on the website 24 hours a day (okay, I know, what does that say about me? :-) but I just check in for a few seconds, I can see these guys LIVING there!) ... their marital status is "undisclosed", I can go on and on.

Recently, I had a real disappointment, though. Despite all these red flags, disappointments, and sometimes outright hilarity, I managed to get sucked in by a guy just the other week. This guy seemed entirely normal. His picture was fine, he looked like a nice, normal guy, cute enough. He was divorced and had two teenage daughters and made a lot of money as an electrician. But he was very humble, modest, and intelligent. He was also very spiritual and philosophical, and we exchanged some really great emails back and forth, and, I confess ... I was excited. He wrote me that I sounded perfect and even though he was a shy guy, he wanted to jump in with both feet and meet me for coffee. Sounded harmless enough. I got his email late, though, and he had wanted to meet me that evening. I told him I was sorry but didn't have time to arrange a babysitter and could we please do it the next day or on the weekend. I also gave him my phone number so he could call me if he wished.

Never heard from him again. Not by phone, not by email. I couldn't figure out what the fuck had happened. We had exchanged all these warm emails, we had so much in common, it sounded like a real possibility, and ... it just died. I went over it a few times in my head, thinking, Did I offend him somehow? and then I thought, No, how could I, all I said was I couldn't get a babysitter on such short notice, and I left him my phone number so we could arrange another time. It just did not make any sense, and I can only conclude that he was just another nut.

I have to admit, I was pretty angry after awhile. It even crossed my mind that he had done it deliberately, because nothing else made sense. One morning I sent him a short email the basis of which was: Thanks a lot, asshole. I couldn't help myself.

Anyway ... I'm really beginning to think that computers are not the way to meet people. No matter how much we wish we could just program the person we want and have them materialize in front of us, it just doesn't seem to work. Maybe some of you out there have experiences of your own that are better than mine, I don't know (I know Ian does :-) And maybe some of you have similar experiences to mine. I would love to hear from you about them, both good and bad.

I know I won't stop searching, even though it's a constant source of irritation and unrequited hopes for me. I just can't stand the thought of "waiting" for HIM ... THE ONE ... to show up in my life, however he happens to do so. I am very impatient by nature, even though I know what the Supremes said: You can't hurry love.

Up North

The arrival of summer came a little bit early today, as this morning Emily and I got in the VW and headed up north to Midland, Ontario, about 90 miles north of Toronto, where we have a trailer. The trailer has been a bit of a controversy so far this year. Even though I asked my ex numerous times about the status of the trailer -- did he pay the fee yet, could he wait a bit longer for me to give him my half of it? -- he would just mumble that we couldn't use it till it was paid for and walk away. Well, I never bought that for a second. So, I decided to take Emily up there today and just hang out, see if he was there, which I was sure he was. And I was right.

So far, my ex and I have been fairly civil (strictly due to me) about our breakup, but today when me and Emily drove up, he started packing up to leave right away. I could tell he was not pleased to see me there, and kept telling Emily not to leave her stuff inside, he was leaving and closing up. I went in and he said, "You're not allowed in here until you give me your half of the fee." Not allowed? I thought. I own half the fucking thing. Anyway, I didn't say anything, I just walked outside and sat on a bench and waited for him to get his stuff together. Emily kept telling him, in her ebullient little voice, "Me and mommy are going to the beach," and he would just say, "That's nice, Emily," and continue to pack up. Anyway, just before he got in the car and drove off in a huff at our presence, I told him I wanted to see the receipt before I paid my half, that I wanted a set of keys made, and I needed more cheques for child support. He told me, "Give me $900 and that's when you'll get the keys and see the receipt." I felt like fucken strangling him.

I feel bad for Emily. I've known for a long time what a cold, selfish, emotionally constipated person my ex is, but she is still a child and is confused by his behaviour. "Why didn't daddy leave the trailer open, mommy? Now we can't go in there." I bit my lip against the million obscenities that just wanted to leap out of my mouth and start enlightening her, but because I love her more than my life, and want to protect her as much as I can from any hurt, I just said, "Don't worry, we'll get our own set of keys and then we can go in when we want."

It was so weird being up there on my own, though ("on my own", meaning, without my ex). Summers up at the trailer have been a tradition with us since 1987, just after we first met. All of us love it up there, especially my daughter. She asked me for the millionth time since we left that morning to take her to the beach, and I took her to Little Lake Park, our old hangout, where there is a pretty beach and a playground, she got into her bathing suit, and she was off. She loves the water. I sat on a bench and watched her. It was overcast but very warm for most of the day today, and despite the unpleasant scene I had been subjected to by my ex earlier, (and basically ever since I left him), I felt amazingly tranquil just sitting there looking out at the lake. I kept thinking what amazing changes my life has gone through and now I'm embarking on my first summer as a single mom. I have to admit, I'm a little wary about being up there alone with my daughter. I'm afraid I'll be depressed seeing all the other couples up there, get yet a million more reminders that I am single, and that the hours will just tick by so slowly and that I will be bored to death without any other adult company (I don't socialize with anybody up there, really, never have.) But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the solitude and seeing my daughter run around with her friends having a ball will be just what I need to restore my soul.

All I know is, I'm getting really sick of my ex's haughty, snubby attitude towards me. I have gone out of my way to be as nice as I can and it has not moved him one fucking bit. It obviously is not going to soften his feeling towards me, for the sake of our child or anything else. And Emily's birthday party is coming up in a few weeks, which we always celebrate at my mother's house. I know my mother will want to include him and previously, up to now, I have said yes, by all means, include him. But now, the thought of sitting at a table with him for a few hours after all his unflinching petulance ... it just sickens me. I really would rather he not be there, and I think the less we see of each other, the better from now on. But then, I don't want to make a big issue out of it if Emily wants him there, which I'm sure she will. So I guess I'll probably just have to face another depressing afternoon faced with The Judge (my mother) and The Jury (my ex) silently charging me and condemning me, at the same time.

Yippee.

The Frizzies

One thing I have always been vain about is my hair. I will spare no expense buying expensive shampoos, conditioners, occasionally getting it re-styled and highlighted, getting it all kinds of little tokens of my affection like cute little barrettes or bun holders or ponytail clasps.

When I was a little girl my daughter's age, my mother used to put quite a bit of ceremony into my hair. Every morning I would have to stand or sit and grin and bear it patiently while she combed it out, every single snag and snarl, and every time I hissed in pain she'd say, "Don't be so soft!" Then she would usually braid it for me, twin braids. I loved my braids. My hair was truly a thing of beauty in those days. Hair dryers or toxic cosmetic products hadn't touched it yet, so it was shiny, natural, soft and smooth and beautiful. One of the most heinous things my mother ever did to me was marching me to the hairdresser one day at the end of summer just before junior high. There, for some unknown reason, she instructed the hairdresser to cut it all off up to my neck, so that I looked like the popular figure skater at the time, Dorothy Hamill. It did not suit me. Without my long, beautiful hair, I felt like a boy. I couldn't relax until it grew back, and of course I never let her get me near another hairdresser again.

Then, in my teens, I began to use hair dryers and hair sprays and all sorts of other shit that basically destroyed my hair and brings me to the topic of this latest post. I have suffered from "the frizzies" for many, many years. I spent so much time trying to tame my naturally curly hair and force it to be straight and feathered like Farrah and all those other girls (which of course I never could, for more than two minutes), that it rebelled and just became frizzed. The top of my hair is fine, but the ends are atrocious. I have to get it cut often because when it gets too long you can really see how straggly it is. Do any of you remember Larry from the Three Stooges? I'm sure some of you have seen Albert Einstein. Well, that's what my hair is like, especially on rainy days. These past two weeks in Toronto have been almost unrelentingly damp and drizzly, exactly the type of weather my frizzy hair likes to party in. I've been walking around feeling like a walking ball of fluff.

It's amazing how much time and effort I spend trying to work out my hair issues. I'm always thinking, Maybe if I cut it this way. Maybe I will just have to cut it short, I'm over 40, after all. Hmmm, this stuff says it tames frizzies, conditions them and heals the hair follicle. $12.99? That's not too expensive, not for my hair! Then I try the stuff and it's like everything else ... bullshit. My frizzies have become immune to conditioners and botanicals, much like diseases become immune to antibiotics. But what's a girl to do? I love my hair. I love having it long, even though it may be past its prime.

But these fucking frizzies bug the shit out of me!!!

Not Much To Say

I haven't had much to say lately, therefore the long lag in between posts. Life is just kind of plodding along, much as it has in the last few months. I keep waiting for something monumental to happen, something I've always been waiting for ... but, so far, still waiting. They say everything has its season. If that's true, then my life is still in winter, with everything deep underground, waiting to sprout.

Actually, that's not entirely true. The one area in my life where I am seeing consistent growth is in my job. My boss has "upped" my job duties to actually planning/plotting a curriculum for grade 7 and 8 kids. At first, I was completely daunted, thinking, No fucking way can I do this. I felt I was way underqualified, did not have the expertise, and he was just being a cheapskate by not hiring some who did have those qualifications. But I've been doing it for a couple of days now, just to give it a try, and it's coming along. I'm beginning to think I can actually do this. I still think he's a cheapskate, though. :-) But a nice one. This guy is the best boss I've ever had. He doesn't bug me, doesn't look over my shoulder, and doesn't make a fuss if he catches me checking email.

Another area where a tiny seed has sprouted is that I found myself a babysitter. She's a 14-year-old girl, a really nice kid, and I had her watch my daughter last week while I went to see a movie. Providing she turns out to be consistent, this may open up yours truly's social life a bit. So that's a good thing. My mother did not approve. Whenever my mother gets pissed off at me, she smoulders silently. That's been going on since she found out I'd acquired this babysitter. She's barely spoken to me. Why should she, after all? I'm living my life, I'm independent, I found a job in time to rescue myself, I haven't had to crawl back home in surrender. So why the fuck should she talk to me?

Don't mind my sarcasm or cynicism. It's a given these days. I used to think of myself as a diehard optimist. Well, that's slowly changing. I'm turning into a true cynic. But I haven't given up all my optimistic naivete yet. Maybe there is still a chance it will survive.

I bought my daughter a few birthday presents that were on her list. Her birthday is on June 21st and she'll be seven. I got her a Mermaidia Barbie and some little Mermaidia babies to go with it. Plus a Barbie DVD. I'll probably end up getting her a toy kitchen she wants and some more videos. Credit card hell, that's where I'm headed.

Anyway, that's all from Nowhere-land, for now. Sorry, make that Jobland and Nowhere-land. That's better. Over and out.

My Horrible Small-Rodent Incident

CAUTION: Do not read this post if you have just eaten. You have been warned.

My buddy Ian, a fellow blogger (http://bungeeventure.blogspot.com), wrote about the horrible demise of his pet hamster Spock in his blog yesterday, and I told him to ask me about my own horrible small-rodent story. He did, and suggested I post it here, so here goes.

A couple of summers ago, my husband and I were having a slight mouse problem in our home. I really despise mice, and it was horrible enough having them around. I would be sitting watching t.v. at night and I would see one with my peripheral vision, just whiz by from behind a chair or something. I'm sure you know how fast mice are. I would just seem them out of the corner of my eye, as a black blur. This was not the worst of it.

In order to deal with this situation, we called an exterminator, who put poison down in various places in the house. My husband also went to the hardware store and got some glue boards. These things are rectangular pieces of cardboard about 12 inches long, 4 or 5 inches wide, with glue covering the whole surface, so that when the little critters ran over them, they would get stuck and not be able to get away. Even though I really hate mice, I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for them to end up in this predicament. All that they would be able to do is struggle to get away, sit there when they realized they couldn't, and wait to expire. But hey, when it comes to living with them or not living with them, I'll take NOT living with them, thank you very much.

So one hot summer weekend, we went up north as usual, and before we left, my husband put a few glue boards down. When we came back, sure enough, I could see when we walked in the door that something had been caught. I can't remember if it was still alive or not, but I remember when I looked down at it, I saw this mouse sitting there, and (hold on to your lunches or dinners), I saw these little pink, fleshy bits around it. I thought, holy shit, it must have ripped itself open and its guts came out. In sick fascination, I bent closer to look, and I realized that the little pink bits were hairless mouse babies. A pregnant mouse had gotten stuck on this glue board and ended up giving birth, and of course the babies were stuck too, as a result. There were about 3 or 4 of them.

It was one of the grossest things I have ever seen in my life, and I still have the image of it in my mind today. Okay, I made you sick. Sorry. But that's my horrible small-rodent incident. Hope you enjoyed it, Ian. :-)

Jinxed!

I'm really starting to question what the hell is going on in my life. I'm wondering if maybe the Big Guy Upstairs is trying to tell me something. Let me fill you in.

They say that bad things come in threes. Okay:

1. My little VW Bug got hit by a cab driver. Luckily, the accident was entirely his fault so insurance paid for the damages. Still, it was a pain in the ass.

2. Last week, I went to pay some bills at the bank and the teller told me that my account had been frozen. Then she asked me if I had recently made a withdrawal of $981.50. I stood there in shock, going "NO"! Apparently, someone had gotten my PIN (not PIN NUMBER, Ian! :-) from an ATM and skimmed this money from my account. Again, luckily, I was reimbursed as the bank is insured for this kind of thing.

3. Here's the most recent mishap. Yesterday, I stopped off at a new grocery store on my way home. Everything seemed fine until I got home and found my cell phone missing. I looked in my purse, I looked in my car, I looked in my apartment ... no cell phone. In the morning, I even dialled my cell phone number in case I had missed it in my search and I might find it by hearing it ring. No go. I also dialled it to see if someone would answer. No one did. I went back to the grocery store to see if they had perhaps found it. Nope. So I checked at work when I got there, and it wasn't there either.

Later in the day, I tried the number again, and this time someone answered. It sounded like a teenage girl, maybe 14 or so. I said, "Who's this?" She goes, "My name is Jennifer. Is this the owner of the phone?" I was like, "Yeah. Where are you?" She told me an area of the city and I said, "Where did you find it?" She told me she had found it at the grocery store I was at the night before. Then she goes, "Where can I bring it to drop it off to you?" I was so fucking relieved. I told her I'd pick it up myself. Then she says, "Call me back in 10 minutes, I'm just about to go in to a doctor's appointment." I said sure and told her, "Thanks for picking up my phone." "You're welcome," she said, sounding like she was smiling. Then I started thinking, when I go pick it up, I'll give her 10 or 20 bucks for her trouble, just to thank her for being honest.

So, 10 or 15 minutes later I try again, and the voicemail came on in about two rings, so I figured she was probably in with the doctor. I tried again, a few minutes later, and this time it rang and rang and rang ... no answer. I kept calling back after the voicemail kicked in, it must have rung about 50 or 60 times. Intermittently, I would call and the voicemail would kick in after two rings this time, so I knew she had turned the phone off. I started to feel a little warning bell go off, thinking, oh fuck, she changed her mind, she's going to keep it and not answer the fucking phone after all. I must have tried calling her for about an hour and a half, and every time it would either ring 15 or 16 times a call or the phone was turned off. I finally gave up and called my cell phone company and told them it had been stolen and to cancel the service. At least the little bitch won't be able to use my phone.

Oh, and this morning when I went in to work, the alarm went fucking crazy. My boss had given me a key to the office just yesterday but neglected to tell me that the alarm would still go off when I got in, and he also neglected to give me the code to turn the alarm off. It must have been quite comical. If I had been a fly on the wall, I probably would have really enjoyed seeing myself run around like a nutcase trying to figure out how to get the fucking alarm to stop screaming. I also couldn't figure out how to turn on the goddam lights, there was no light switch on the walls anywhere that I could see. I finally located the light switches in a box on the wall, but it took me awhile. I called my boss on his cell phone and thankfully he answered and gave me the code and told me the alarm company would probably be calling, which they did. The girl there told me the police had been dispatched. :-) Are you getting the idea now? Am I jinxed or something? Why is it everything I touch or whatever happens to me these days seems to be one big fuckup?

Actually, that's not entirely true. It's actually funny, because each one of these mini-disasters ended up being resolved in a way that didn't put me out too much. First of all, the damages to my car were paid for. I got my money back from the bank. And as far as the cell phone goes, I got it through a friend at my old workplace. Her husband works for the cell phone company. I told her what had happened and she told me he would get me another one to replace the one that was ripped off.

Still, all this shit makes me wonder ... is God trying to tell me something? Or just having a really good laugh at my expense?

Gimme Gimme (Never Gets)

I'm starting to get really tired of being asked for money. I do feel sorry for homeless people. I can't imagine how awful it must be to live on the street, with nothing but the clothes on your back and whatever money you can scrounge. Add to that the alcoholism or drug addiction or both that led them to the street, and I can double not-imagine that.

However, and this kind of goes back to what I wrote about yesterday ... when do people stop bitching about how miserable their life is and actually do something about it?

There's a guy I've been seeing in my neighbourhood for at least the past year. This guy is not your typical homeless type. He's in his late 30s or 40s, and he sits outside a chain drugstore in a reasonably posh area of town and has a sign with him that says, "Family of 3, Need Money, No Job", something like that. This guys wears a jacket and pants, dusty and dirty, but a jacket and pants. Anyway, every time I see this guy I get angry. If he has no job, why the fuck doesn't he get off his ass and go get one? Especially if he has a family of 3 to support? I'll be damned if I give this guy money, and I never have.

It seems like every two steps I go these days I get accosted for money. The other day I was walking up the same street with some shopping bags in my hand and some scruffy guy saw me coming and stuck his hand out, saying, "Spare me some change?" This seems to happen to me way more often than it used to. It's getting so I dread walking down the street with shopping bags, because then they know you've spent money, and for sure they'll bug you.

On the large scale of things, I'm not that much better off than these people. Obviously, I have a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, and I'm working a good deal of the time now and have some extremely good prospects for full-time work. But I barely get by. I have rent to pay, groceries to buy, gas to buy, you name it. I'm not trying to minimize their struggles by comparing them to my own, but I'm really starting to resent being seen as a target for a handout every single place I go.

To top it off ... and this is on a larger scale ... yesterday on the net I saw a headline about Bono bitching because the Canadian budget doesn't leave enough room for foreign aid. Now, I love Bono. I have been in awe of him since the early '80s, when I first heard him and his famous bandmates. But his political agendas have now graduated from being merely tiresome to extremely nauseating. I mean, here's a guy whose net worth alone could probably feed who knows how many countries in Africa and other parts of the world, pay for their medicines, and put all their kids through college. And he's hitting normal working people up for their money. It kills me how all these celebrities are so quick to lend their names to certain causes but when it comes to putting up their own money, it's a different story.

Come on, man, give me a break. I'm just a working single mother, not a poor people's ATM machine.

Argument

Remember the friend I wrote about last week, the one who has never worked, who lives at home with her mother and who I believe is chronically depressed? I had it out with her yesterday.

We went to the Lakeshore with my daughter. I was feeling tense all morning leading up to when I saw her, because thoughts I've had about her since I last saw her have really been bugging me. I am a compassionate person, a kind person. But I also have my limits. I'm really sick of giving her pep talks and offering her my opinions/experience, whatever, because she never does anything about them. How much can you give before you just finally run out? I cannot give this girl any more than I already have, and she seems to have no interest in what I have to offer.

Anyway, when we got to the park and sat down, my daughter took her sand buckets and started playing (even though it was way too cold, rather brisk yesterday) and I just said, "... I'm just going to say this, because it's been bugging me and I have to get it off my chest ..." Lord knows I can be a big mouth and blurt out things that may sound rather harsh, but I swear, it's only in what I believe are the person's best interests. Basically, I just told her, "When are you gonna get your shit together? I can't even have a normal conversation with you, you never answer questions, or if you pretend to, you just start giving me this unintelligible kind of muttering and I have to ask you three or four times to repeat yourself, and you never come up with anything lucid." She keeps saying she is going to move out of her mother's house, which drives me absolutely crazy, and I said, "How the fuck are you going to do that WITHOUT ANY MONEY? Without a job? Or some kind of income?" And she just sits there. I told her, "You're not serious, because if you were, you'd have some kind of plan, you'd be taking action."

I told her, "You are wasting your life. It's as if one day you just decided, I am going to go into my mother's house, shove a rock in front of it, and not come out of it, ever." She might as well have done that. The last time she had a boyfriend was over 20 YEARS AGO ... she has never had a job ... she has never had what you would call a "normal" life, and this is what makes me so angry. Everyone is entitled to a normal, happy life. It is everyone's birthright. If life throws you some kicks in the ass, like it does to all of us, you fucking get up and move on, not lie down and fucking die!!! I'm really sick of seeing her act so weak and fragile and helpless. Everybody has the tools inside them to survive, you just have to use them. But she just assumes she can't do things.

"You have to get ANGRY," I told her. "You have to get angry enough to start changing things."

The only thing she was clear about in our conversation was: "It's really none of your business."

THAT'S what really made me fume. I have known this girl since grade 2. We used to be inseparable when we were teenagers. I made her the godmother to my daughter. Do you know how many people have told me I should cut her loose, forget about her, over and over again, when I've told them what she's like? I didn't listen to them, I coddled her instead, I stayed her friend. And that's what she fucking says to me.

So I told her, "It's none of my business? Okay then, don't tell me any more about the bullshit your mother puts you through, or your sister, because I'm sick of hearing it."

And as far as I'm concerned, she can roll that rock in front of her mother's door and stay there forever if she wants. I just cannot handle being around her anymore. I'm sick of enabling her and pretending for her sake that she really is normal and is just a little slower than most people. If she doesn't think enough of me to confide in me after all these years, after all the things I've done for her and how I've been there for her ... then she can fuck off. That's the way I look at it.

What is the point of hanging out with her anymore? If we can't converse about things that really matter, then what the fuck are we going to talk about?

It's beyond me. But I think I have finally given up on her.

United 93

I finally got around to seeing "United 93" this weekend. I'd planned to see it last weekend, but I had to work. Now, thankfully, I have the whole weekend off, much needed after squinting at a computer screen 8 days straight for 6 hours at a time.

I went to the mall first and got my brother the new Tool cd for his birthday. I love Tool, and the new song "Vicarious" is fucken wicked, as usual. Love ya, Maynard. My brother likes them too, so he should enjoy it. I parked myself in the food court and had a little Chinese, browsed for awhile, then headed to the theater. With nothing but a box of Junior Caramels and about a 1/4 full cup of coffee for company, I sat down to watch the movie.

The movie was really good. No bells and whistles, no big stars, just a very straightforward, blow-by-blow account of what happened on September 11th, 2001. The movie started off with the terrorists praying in a hotel room, readying themselves for their suicide mission(s).

You know how a lot of people always say they'll never forget where they were the day JFK was assassinated? I missed that by a little over a year, I wasn't born until 1964, so I can't make that claim. But I can most definitely say that I will never forget where I was and exactly how I felt on September 11th, 2001. I had just started working at my previous job. I had been there for a week. And I remember how beautiful that day was, how bright and blue the sky was. It was almost as if it had been hand-picked to contrast the horrible things that happened that day. I was sitting at my desk working, and one of the girls, who was listening to the news on the radio, said that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center, and another girl working beside me said, "See, that's why I don't like flying." We all thought it had just been a tragic accident and nothing else, like I guess most people did. My brother (the one I bought the birthday cd for, as a matter of fact) worked in the same area as I did, and he was coming downtown to meet me and I was going to show him my new workplace. I went down on my break and there were a lot of tvs in the area, and that's where I saw the burning towers, the smoke, and tons of people were crowding around watching too, everyone trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. Eventually, of course, we all discovered what had happened, and I remember being truly afraid. I worked downtown in the midst of a lot of office towers, and Toronto is not that far from New York City. I pictured planes flown by mad religious fanatics ploughing through the windows, and of course, nobody could really work, or think about anything else that day. My brother eventually showed up; he'd been stuck on the subway because they had closed the subways down. We walked around, going, what the fuck, what the fuck is going on here? It was amazing how the whole world just kind of stopped that day. These terrorists had altered the whole Western world that day, in the course of about what ... two or three hours?

I'm sure all of you remember where you were and what you were doing on September 11th too.

All of us were given the go-ahead to leave work at about 12 or 1:00 that day. My husband and his brother came down to pick me up. Everyone had left work that day. My husband was off work at that time, attending the Toronto Film Festival as he does every year. They had cancelled all the screenings that day. He has a special place in his heart for New York City. We'd been there a couple of times together and we both loved it. As he drove us home, and the reports were continuing on the radio and we were telling each other where we were and what we were doing when it happened, I looked over and saw a tear fall down his cheek as he was driving. We were talking about how the towers had collapsed and how fucking terrible, how unbelievable, it all was.

When we got home, we sat around watching the omnipresent CNN news reports, then decided to get away and took my daughter, who was a little over 2 years old at that time, to the park. We sat there on the bench watching her play and just talked about how awful it all was.

I remembered all this as I watched this movie. United 93 was the plane that was brought down because the passengers rushed the cockpit and prevented the terrorists from reaching their destination, which was the White House. I sat there wondering how I would feel if I would have been one of the people on that plane, or on any of that planes that day. I just hope those passengers got in a few good punches or kicks in the balls to those fuckers who took over the plane before it went down. I know I was rooting for them, even though I knew what was going to happen.

Dreams Are Cool ...

... but they're also pretty frickin' weird. Like the one I had last night.

I dreamt that my teeth were falling out. Not just one or two, but the whole mouthful of them. And in the dream, I could actually feel them hurting. They were really painful too, throbbing and aching. And then I'd put my hand up to my mouth and two or three would tumble out. They were huge ... all of them were molar-sized, or even larger, almost like stones, and they sounded like marbles when they clinked against each other in my hand. No sooner would I get rid of one handful that another two or three teeth would fall out, and I'd do the same thing again after plopping them all in a big bowl on the table. I was freaked out in the dream, really scared, but then I noticed after leaning really close to the mirror, that were small replacement teeth under the ones that had fallen out. Oh, I thought, this is okay then. I won't be a toothless hag.

I used to have this dream interpretation book I referred to constantly when I was a teenager. I lost track of it; I'm sure I still have it somewhere, and it's all dog-eared and the spine is all wrinkled. Since I didn't know where it was, first thing this morning I Googled "dream meanings & losing teeth" and got a slew of websites on it. I went to a few of them, and apparently, dreams where teeth fall out are very common, along with flying dreams, dreams of being late for an exam (this is a recurring dream for me, I have it very often, and it always panics me). Anyway, it said that it could mean a potentially embarrassing situation, or something about appearance. It could mean many different things.

I remember seeing an Oprah show once where she had this woman on who'd written a book about dream interpretation. I have that book too, and it's around here somewhere. (Hmmmm ... did I say my daughter was disorganized?) But anyway, I remember her saying that dreams have very specific meanings tailored to every individual who has them. Things have different levels of significance to everyone. That's why you can't really use a book to look something up. A cat may mean nothing to one person, and be hugely important to another.

Dreams come from our subconscious, and our subconscious speaks to us in riddles, in puns. They never mean what they appear to on the surface. They are never straightforward. It's almost like a game. Your subconscious is teasing you, and seeing if you can figure out what it's trying to tell you. They say that all the answers we need are right inside us, and one way they come to us is in our dreams. I'll buy that. I'll be damned if I can figure it out though.

You're supposed to ask yourself things like, What does this situation in the dream remind me of? Did someone or something make me feel like this today? Is there something I'm worrying about or thinking about?

I've also read that people recommend you try writing down your dreams as soon as you wake up so you don't forget any of the details. Hey, it's a great idea, but when I first wake up, the last thing I feel like doing is trying to scribble down a gazillion things. My dreams are often so complex and so detailed, I'd be writing for a half hour to get everything down. I actually did it for awhile, then stopped. Reading over my hazy notes wasn't enlightening me any, and it was pretty brutal. It's so true, though, that you lose everything. You think you'll remember this very vivid dream you had when you first wake up because it was so clear in your head, but then by the time the afternoon rolls around, you can only remember a fragment or two. I've also heard that you can keep a tape recorder or microcassette recorder by your bed so you can talk into it after waking up from a dream, rather than writing it all down. That sounds like the better option to me, and I have one of those too (a microcassette recorder). But guess what? I don't know where it is. :-)

Anyway, that was my dream. I have a stash of four or five dreams in my head that I've always been able to remember because they were so clear. I'll write about them in another blog. But dreams are really cool.

One Way My Daughter Drives Me Crazy Is ...

... that she is an absolute slob. I shudder to think about what lies ahead in her teens if she continues on in this slovenly way, which I can't see stopping anytime soon. She is forever dropping things, tearing things, throwing things, losing things (under piles of junk she has created herself), and generally causing me quite alot of stress on a daily basis.

Today, for example, I was picking her up from my brother-in-law's, who was watching her for me after school until I finished work. I get there, and she's sitting/standing on the couch with a plate full of barely-touched macaroni and cheese beside her. She stood in front of it, and as usual, the plate was right at the edge of the couch and on a slant, and just as I was thinking it, the inevitable happened and macaroni and cheese went all over the carpet.

This is not a new phenomenon. Whenever my daughter is in the vicinity of any plate, cup, glass, dish, bowl ... it is pretty much a given that left unsupervised, whatever is in said plate, cup, glass, dish, or bowl will end up on the couch, floor, chair, or her clothes.

I stopped by my mother's to show her the rental car I'm driving and while my daughter was in the garden, she got a plastic shovel and started digging up the garden and putting the soil in a bag. Dark black soil was all over my mother's Grecian bench, and my daughter's face and hands.

Her room is a blog in itself. My daughter is also a clotheshound and loves trying on different outfits, several times a day. As soon as she gets in the door, her shoes and socks are off, on the table, floor, wherever they land, and she lounges around in her underwear for awhile until she's ready to start checking out her wardrobe. The drawers in her bureau are always half stuck out, with crumpled clothes sticking out of them, items of clothing are always all over the floor, and I can't even see half of the blanket on her bed.

I don't know how many times I've yelled, cajoled, bribed, had a meltdown about these things. I'm constantly going around after her picking up after her like a mere minion. One of my regular things to say to her is, "What do you think I am, your slave?" Her answer: "Yes!"

Ahhhhhh, kids .....

My New Car (sort of)

My beloved little Bug is in the shop being fixed after its unfortunate encounter with the cab driver, and the insurance company has arranged for me to have a rental car while it's being repaired. It's a silver Toyota Corolla. It's a nice car, but it feels like a fucking tank compared to the Bug, and the brakes on this thing are deadly. When I started driving it away from the body shop this morning, there was a red light right ahead of me and I touched the brake and nearly hit the ceiling (literally). I'm surprised the airbags didn't go off. Those things are tighter than a ... well, I won't go there. But they're tight. :-)

It's weird driving another car after you're used to your old one. It feels like you're walking around in super high-heeled shoes or something, and you're trying to figure out the best way to balance yourself and get acclimated. I drove it to work after my first run home with it and felt reasonably comfortable. I'm sure when I have to take it back, I'll miss it. But nothing can compare to my little loveBug. :-) God, I love that car.

My love for my car is especially poignant because I didn't start driving until last year, so you can do the math and figure out how long I had to depend on my feet and public transportation to get around on a daily basis. Add winter storms, about four heavy shopping bags at a time, shoes that made my feet bleed, and either horribly hot or cold weather and you know what I'm talking about.

Yes, cars can be a pain in the ass. The price of gas is obscene, if you have to repair them you have to pay thousands, they have to be maintained and there are all kinds of fees and miscellaneous things that keep cropping up with them. Still, I'll take owning and driving a car over going back to being a regular subway- and bus-user. I sympathize so much with people who have no means of getting a car, because I know how shitty it is. But I figure I put in my time, and now I can enjoy the luxury of being chauffeured around in my own little vehicle by my own little (okay, not little) self.

My VW RULES!!!!!!! (Viking Cheer!)