return of the mack

I've been back in Toronto a month and finally found the Canadian equivalent of Blu Tak enabling me to stick my little pieces of flair all over the walls -postcards and doodles and bits of memorabilia, so my room FINALLY feels like my real room now.

It's been a month and I don't have a job but I have a phone, a bank account, a bike (with a basket) and a social insurance number.

It's been a month full of weekends and long weekends and weekdays that might as well be weekends and these have been filled with laughter and trips to the LCBO and staring at the sky from Trinity Bellwoods park and late night stops at Smoke's Poutinerie.

It's been a month of reunions with old friends and new unions with new friends and first dates and skype calls back home.

There have been rooftop shows and pool-hopping and island jaunts and bikerides and railroad-bridge adventures and romance and that time I nearly fainted (don't ask..).

I could really use a job though.

#ToasterStrudels #Heisenberg #BreakingFast

#ToasterStrudels #RealMature

Bruise pristine.

Yesterday I took the ferry to the island with a couple of new friends. We biked around in the sunshine, lay a blanket down on the beach, and spent the day drinking a eating mango-cilantro salad.
In the evening, we biked home but not before making a short pitstop to pool-hop at Alexandria park. I guess I knocked my knee while clambering over the metal fence, because I woke up with this bad boy this morning.

Capsize

“Billy, she's a beaut!”

“Thanks!” Billy grinned as his older brother slapped him heartily on the back. They stood on the dock admiring the little boat, bobbing up and down in the water.

“Come aboard,” Billy invited Don, extending a hand. “I've got to show you her sexy little engine.”

Don couldn't care less about boats or engines. They were Billy's thing, always had been since they were kids. But this was the first time in a long time he had seen his little brother excited about anything, and he was more than happy to indulge him. So he nodded enthusiastically as Billy listed off the specs, and gave a low whistle like he was impressed when Billy announced the speed she could hit, though knots meant nothing to him.

He figured his attempt to feign interest was poorer than he thought, because after ten minutes of the charade, Billy's face seemed to fall.

“Aren't you gonna offer a guy a drink?” Dan chided.

“Of course, of course,” and Billy hustled him into the cabin, rooting through some cupboards before producing two glasses and a bottle of bourbon. He poured generously.

“We'll have to get the boys around sometime soon. Christen her properly, you know? Take her down the river, a real fishing trip. Maybe take Dad's old guitar with us, what do you say?”

Don swallowed a mouthful and nodded but said nothing. It was a nice idea but it would never happen. The “boys” he referred to were only boys of summers long gone. They were men now. Johnny's wife had just had their second kid, Lucas was working in the city and usually only home for a week around Thanksgiving and Ed Wirth was moving to Ohio for a woman. There would be no fishing trip to celebrate Billy's acquisition of a small boat.

“Of course,” Don added with a smirk “This boat has a lot more potential than just getting drunk with a bunch of hairy, stinking dudes. Girls will love it. You always hear about how much pussy sailors get!”

Billy gave a half smile but looked away and muttered that he didn't think so.

Don laughed, and slammed his glass on the table.

“I'm telling you Billy Boy, this boat's gonna see more action than the audience at a Steven Segal double bill!”

Billy wasn't amused. “Ah, c'mon, stop... Hey, how's mom doing?”

And that was it. Don had pushed too hard and now the rest of the evening would be spent discussing family stuff and the superbowl.

Around midnight, Don hugged his brother goodbye. Billy decided he might as well sleep on the boat, it was late, he was too drunk to drive home anyway, told Don he should stay too. Don knew he should, and maybe if he'd been sober he'd have stayed, just to be nice. But he was drunk and the thought of staying in that lonely little cabin with his brother and playing boyscouts was depressing, so he dug his hands in his pockets and started to stumble home. It was still warm enough and there were stars. He wondered if Jill was asleep, and wished she was waiting in his bed for him to cuddle up to. Maybe he could call round to her place.. nah, it was late, she'd think he just wanted to get laid. He did want to get laid, of course, but that wasn't the only reason he wanted to see her. Nah, he'd leave it. He could see her tomorrow. He wondered if Billy felt like this every night. How it must feel, knowing that no, you won't see her tomorrow. That poor fucking bastard.

For a second, when Billy woke, he didn't know where he was. White sheets... white sheets... why are these sheets white? Then he remembered he'd slept on the boat, got up and stood out on the deck. It wasn't until then, a whole minute after waking, that he thought of Rebecca. He was used to waking up on the blue sheets she had picked out, being disappointed not to feel her body next to his, seeing her photograph on his night stand. But this moring, for an entire minute, Rebecca didn't exist. He had never known her, loved her, lost her. Until, standing on the deck he smelled that harbourside smell she had always commented on, and he'd thought of her, and his heart sank.

For she's a jolly good fellow.

Oh man, a friend just posted a clip of Disney's Fantasia on facebook, and it brought back some traumatising memories I thought I'd share!

It's nearly my eighth birthday. I'm not a kid anymore. Previous birthdays involved tea-parties with my mom and my dolls, mostly just my dolls. I really loved dolls. But not this year, I'm eight and I'm ready to have a real birthday party, with real friends! Or at least real kids my age. It's going to be a normal party, we're going to do the things normal kids do, there will be rice krispie buns and we'll watch movies and everyone will leave thinking "Amanda is so cool and normal!".

Being normal is important when you're eight.

So I invited about ten kids from my class, including two boys, which was kind of a big deal. Gerard was my on-off boyfriend all through primary school (I'm pretty sure we held hands once) and Podge had big brown eyes and the biggest mushroom-step haircut in the class, like woah.

So everyone comes, and they give me sparkly note pads and glitter glue pens and squishy bracelets, you know the typical neon fare for a birthday in the early nineties (apart from one girl who gave me this really unusual but pretty silk flower in a glass vase filled with water.. kind of like this. Which I liked so much I bought a similar one for a girl's birthday the following year who looked at it in disgust and said "Why are you giving me a grave ornament?")

Anyway, all is going well and then it's time for the movie. My mom had rented a video earlier, and when I asked what she'd gotten I hadn't heard of it, but she assured me she asked the clerk for something for a birthday and I figured it must just be a new release. What followed was the most embarrassing twenty minutes of my life at that stage. 

Have you ever seen Fantasia?!

 It's fucking weird as shit. All I really remember is that it was weird and creepy and there were no words, and there were hippos dancing in tutus and I couldn't decide if I thought it was for babies, or for grown ups (high grown ups) but it was definitely not appropriate viewing for a normal eight year old's birthday. Normal kids had normal moms who rented normal movies like Hook or the Goonies or the Neverending Story 2: The Next Chapter. What kind of bullshit was this?!  Oh god, and everyone was like  "Uh... what is this, Amanda?" and I'm all "Um... I think it gets better", thinking "It HAS to get better!" until I eventually  begged my mom to let me turn it off despite her telling me I was being silly and ungrateful and everyone probably wanted to see the end. No, mom, nobody wants to see the end!
 And that was the day I decided never to even try be cool ever again. I think it was the first time I truly experienced embarrassment. If I ever have a kid I will be force-screening Fantasia at it's eighth birthday for character building purposes, and for kicks.


UPDATE!
I found a couple old photographs from that particular birthday the other week, so I thought I'd add one. I'm in the pink and purple ensemble.

Felt the fear and did it anyway. Boom.

So, I made a dentist appointment today. So what? Well, I'm it's kind of a big deal. 

You should probably read my original post first -the general gist being that after ELEVEN YEARS of avoiding the dentist due to sheer terror, I decided to try to actually deal with my phobia instead of hiding from it and feeling like I was being followed around by an ever increasing dread cloud the last few years.


Actually, I never really made an update after that post. I talked about my plans to psyche myself up to make an appointment and confront my biggest fear and ... then never followed up. What a tease!

So, come settle down children and mama's gonna tell you a story. A wonderful story, the best true life story that ever was since Homeward Bound! Well, just before Christmas 2011, I went to the dentist. I just ended up going to a local guy my mom regularly goes to. My doctor had prescribed me valium for the occasion, but on the morning of the big day I was so stressed out that I forgot to take it until five minutes before the appointment and by that stage there was no point. (Don't let me make the same mistake on my wedding day! Eh? Eh?). My sister drove me up. The surgery (why do they have to call a dentist's office a surgery? Why not just call it an office? Ugh) was located in a regular house. I sat in the waiting room for about five minutes, nervously laughing  (while secretly wanting to vomit) with my sister who was totally getting a kick out of the thing, but still being nice and sisterly and telling me I'd be fine. Then the dentist came out and lead me into the room. 

First off, it was pretty nice! It had French doors that looked onto a backyard with lots of flowers, and felt a lot less formal than I expected. The chair too -that looming figure from my nightmares -was also less intimidating than imagined. It was smaller than I remembered, and much lower... less like an operating table and more like a chaise longue. The dentist was super nice too. I guiltily told him how long it had been, feeling like a lapsed Catholic at confession and he just told me there'd be nothing to worry about.  Next thing I'm saying "ahhh" and I can taste the latex gloves as he pokes around and prods a little with the little mirror and pointy thing. I was still nervous, but a few months beforehand, just imagining this much would have had crying and retching. But here I was, doing it, in real life! And I just remember thinking "this really isn't so bad...". I'm still waiting for him to recoil in horror, to call for back-up, to give me some indication of just how far gone things are.  Instead he asks if I grind my teeth. I said I didn't think I did, but I drank a lot of soda -my big, dark, dental secret. (Why would someone who hates dentists do much do that to herself?). Then he said he wanted to take an x-ray, so I had to bite down on these weird metal things that made me think of electroschock therapy, but obviously, it was painless. This whole thing took about five minutes and then he pushed himself back on the wheelie stool he was sitting on and said "Right!" as if that was everything. Here it comes, I thought, trying to absorb and appreciate these last precious moments of ignorance before hearing the verdict, the long list of things that needed doing.
"That's perfect then. Just come back in a few months and try not to grind your teeth, I can see some wearing on your enamel."

"What, you mean that's it?!"
"Yep. See, nothing to worry about."
"You mean I don't even have any cavities or... anything?!"
"Nope. Don't let anyone touch your teeth, they're fine! And really, once you get to your twenties if you don't have many cavities it generally means you have strong teeth and shouldn't expect to get cavities as long as you look after them."

This was insane. I could not believe it. This was impossible. I hadn't even hoped for an outcome as unrealistic and awesome as this one. I walked out to the receptionist to pay up and was stunned. My sister saw my face, probably white as a sheet from the shock, and asked how it went, excitedly. Frankly, I think she was a little disappointed when I explained I had been given the all clear, and who could blame her... there had been such a build up to this, that it was almost a anti-climactic. Almost. I was on top of the world, and I still think that's always going to be one of the best moments of my entire life. And if you think that's sad then you just don't understand how big this fear was and what a triumph it was to face it. To not need any work was just a dream come true on top.
It was a Christmas miracle!!

That was a year and a half ago. I purposely didn't visit a dentist during my year in Korea because I had heard scary things, and meant to go as soon as I came home, but of course it's pretty easy to put off things we don't want to do. Still, it's been well over a year and I do not want to let it go so long that all that fear builds up again, I know it's best to go when the memory of that super positive experience is still fresh in my mind. So, I phoned today, like the total badass that I am, and I have the check-up Thursday. And I'm certainly nervous and fearful and worried but it is absolutely nothing in comparison to how I felt two years ago. Two years ago, choosing to go to the dentist of my own accord was just an impossibility. Downright unfathomable.

I know it all sounds very trivial and first world problems of me if you've never experienced a phobia to the same extent. But it honestly changed my life, to know that I could do the one thing in life that scared me most. That means I can do anything. (Well, not anything, I'll still never be able to do a cartwheel or ride a bike with no hands or drink cream liqueurs, but you know what I mean.) It's weird though, to think that two years ago I had this crippling phobia that was  affecting me on a personal level, I mean I got depressed about it every day. And now, I actually feel free. I don't know, I'm really not into all that new-age-y bullshit, but I will never underestimate the power of positive thinking and ideation. If you have a phobia or just a fear/dread of something that is affecting your life, I really would urge you to do something about it. Make a plan, start imagining positive experiences, create favourable memories even if they are fictitious, KNOW that the imagined fear is a zillion times worse than the actual experience will be, take small steps, think about how fucking rad you will feel about yourself when you conquer it, and how you will wish you had done it sooner.

And if that doesn't work, just be grateful you don't have mangoworms. (Seriously, do a youtube search for mangoworms. It's THE WORST. I can't stop watching.)