So goes that Eric Carle (Bill Martin?) line from Head to Toe. Anna loves it, shrugs. Problem is lately I can't really un-shrug my shoulders. I've been thinking about this loop I wind up in, chronic denial of my chronic illness. Is it politically correct? Barf. Anyhow. Last night a close friend said, "I didn't know you had a disk thing in your back, I knew it was something but..." and it made me think about how sometimes I don't talk. I reference shit like people should already know it (as I do with my writing) and overtime forget that they don't. It's a degenerative disease, in my back that is, hopefully my brain is fine for now.
So I started making a list of "what Fibro means for me" and am kind of appauled at my life. I have a serious attachment to diners and basically can't eat at them or sit at them anymore. I detest that chronic illness and pain change my identity and personality out of necessity. I have a hard time deciphering what's about growing up and what is about these limitations, and a harder time identifying it to other people. I don't want to be the woman who leaves the birthday party because someone is using cleaner on the table. I don't want to tremble defenses at people who are trying to tell me their natural oils will help calm me, when actually I'm going to be out of commission from the allergies they'll cause me for days. I like "that woman" best in comedy skits and complaints. It's an identity politic I don't want.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
the past?
A few years ago I basically had to therapy myself out of journalling because it was making me latch onto things in a way that wasn't good for me then. So much work on The Present but I'm super stuck on the time that was: sperm search, insemination, pregnancy, birth planning and The First Year. It was hell and it was unique and I'm kind of mourning it and missing it and not sure how to best document it, but it feels important to. I also feel like I need to get to the now with my kid and I need to deal with this stuff first, get to some sort of balance between knowing that that is/was mine and that I don't have to forget or unlive it, but that I have to move forward from it. I'm also having a lot of resentment, towards the person I've been involved with/co-parenting with to an extent (for the past 8 months), to friends who are around now but not involved or making things harder in Anna's first months, and around people who are newly pregnant/parents/planning that.
I was having some intense ghost kicks the other day. Then found out someone I know with an Anna-aged kid is pregnant again. I also suddenly am having all this issue-y-ness with giving away tiny infant clothes. I'm not ready to hand off even those mini literal parts of Anna's infancy and I'm not willing to admit that I don't have the same options as others in "family planning" (the condom aisle.) Fuck you money, we were never friends anyway.
The actual Getting Pregnant part of getting pregnant is a story. It's cute and rad and alty and has all kinds of bits and objects to hang onto. But it's a very small moment in the process. I think people think that because I was out of town they didn't know shit, but that's not it. What about when the doctor's thought I'd miscarried? Or when people were so complimentary because I wasn't giant but my midwives were worried about my not gaining? Or the Rabbi. No one ever asks me the story of the fun I had booking an appointment to schedule a naming ceremony for my kid with a rabbi I'd never met, having to explain my single homo broke-ass planned DIY at-home pregnancy and whether we might be able to change the language in some of the prayers to reflect that. I'm actually not the toughest or most shameless, and maybe somebody reading this knows I don't really go for the most radical form of Jewishness when I do seek it out.
So that sucked. I'm trying not to be angry or flaky or, I guess spiritual here, but it's probably not working. I want to say my kid likes The Clash more than Barney as some sort of repentance, but it's not even true.
I was having some intense ghost kicks the other day. Then found out someone I know with an Anna-aged kid is pregnant again. I also suddenly am having all this issue-y-ness with giving away tiny infant clothes. I'm not ready to hand off even those mini literal parts of Anna's infancy and I'm not willing to admit that I don't have the same options as others in "family planning" (the condom aisle.) Fuck you money, we were never friends anyway.
The actual Getting Pregnant part of getting pregnant is a story. It's cute and rad and alty and has all kinds of bits and objects to hang onto. But it's a very small moment in the process. I think people think that because I was out of town they didn't know shit, but that's not it. What about when the doctor's thought I'd miscarried? Or when people were so complimentary because I wasn't giant but my midwives were worried about my not gaining? Or the Rabbi. No one ever asks me the story of the fun I had booking an appointment to schedule a naming ceremony for my kid with a rabbi I'd never met, having to explain my single homo broke-ass planned DIY at-home pregnancy and whether we might be able to change the language in some of the prayers to reflect that. I'm actually not the toughest or most shameless, and maybe somebody reading this knows I don't really go for the most radical form of Jewishness when I do seek it out.
So that sucked. I'm trying not to be angry or flaky or, I guess spiritual here, but it's probably not working. I want to say my kid likes The Clash more than Barney as some sort of repentance, but it's not even true.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
2012.
I don't need to spend more time online, and really my toddler won't let me. But alas, here I am. And strangely even considering finally succumbing to Facebook. I'm feeling disconnected, and struggling with liking being disconnected from many things/people and then missing others. Shocker: turns out community *does* impact identity? But what 1997 is it that I'm talking about these things?
It's less than two weeks into the new year and the most productive things I've done have been two job applications and making a list of every New Years Eve I can remember. There's a tearjerker. I love New Year's Eve! Oscar Night and Halloween. My High Holidays. Well, I like the actual ones of those too.
Simple Resolutions: cut down how much I type the word "really" and say the words "I know." Baby has picked up the latter so it must be a bunch.
Here's a letter that I hoped to make into a zine that I wrote for my friend Sarah Mangle last night. It's an immediate response to her new zine, Tourism of the Heart. You can pick up a copy from my kitchen table.
Your zine made me think about:
James/time
romanticising other places. How I want to live in Halifax, but also New Orleans and Guelph (I don't want to live in New Orleans, it just made me think of it.)
I like the line (page) about friendship not being about Not Fucking Up. I also like that it's true even if i have a hard time believing it. I'm weird and teary around friend conflict these days.
That my favourite writing is always writing that normalizes things that are regular to me. Like how you didn't explain the zine radio show.
I guess on that note, also things that criticize things from within the bubble. Activism, queers, sex work ideologies. I've been in a straight relationship for so long that I lose track of just being on the map not being enough. (I am not an island! Or am I?)
also i like that i get to be in this one. i like that i got to pick my name for it. it makes me feel more punk rock to be in your zine. i hope i live up to it.
These are things I am thinking about now: Maybe my baby has a lactose intolerance. Maybe she is just eating too much fruit. I had a conversation with Rox about the conversation you had with her about how the two of you deal with conflict. I never tell you when I'm mad at you. [I made a little list here but am being shy about writing it on the Internet.] I wonder if I will make out with your friend. I think about the domestic aspects of friendships I have that always take place in my apartments. How my allergies play into my social dynamics. How that's not great because I am already territorial. We add bacon to the brussel sprouts. It basically cancels them out. I need to stop being so scared that I always end with humour. I need to not treat adults like they're babies who will always choose the last option they hear. I guess adults should also stop acting like that. We had a writing group too, Sundays.
---
That's the end of my letter to Sar. I have been wanting to be online more in a way that's about reaching out and also remembering. Baby brain has been real for me, I'm losing touch in ways that my A+ memory would have never before. I won't call it a regret, because it wasn't a choice, but I wish so much that I'd documented my search for a sperm donor, my insemenation and pregnancy, Anna's first year of life. I couldn't, it was a choice between blogging and taking showers. It took effort to pee and not puke and things that I just needed to deal with. There's a lot of privilege that goes unacknowleged within radical parenting circles. That hurts.
It's less than two weeks into the new year and the most productive things I've done have been two job applications and making a list of every New Years Eve I can remember. There's a tearjerker. I love New Year's Eve! Oscar Night and Halloween. My High Holidays. Well, I like the actual ones of those too.
Simple Resolutions: cut down how much I type the word "really" and say the words "I know." Baby has picked up the latter so it must be a bunch.
Here's a letter that I hoped to make into a zine that I wrote for my friend Sarah Mangle last night. It's an immediate response to her new zine, Tourism of the Heart. You can pick up a copy from my kitchen table.
Your zine made me think about:
James/time
romanticising other places. How I want to live in Halifax, but also New Orleans and Guelph (I don't want to live in New Orleans, it just made me think of it.)
I like the line (page) about friendship not being about Not Fucking Up. I also like that it's true even if i have a hard time believing it. I'm weird and teary around friend conflict these days.
That my favourite writing is always writing that normalizes things that are regular to me. Like how you didn't explain the zine radio show.
I guess on that note, also things that criticize things from within the bubble. Activism, queers, sex work ideologies. I've been in a straight relationship for so long that I lose track of just being on the map not being enough. (I am not an island! Or am I?)
also i like that i get to be in this one. i like that i got to pick my name for it. it makes me feel more punk rock to be in your zine. i hope i live up to it.
These are things I am thinking about now: Maybe my baby has a lactose intolerance. Maybe she is just eating too much fruit. I had a conversation with Rox about the conversation you had with her about how the two of you deal with conflict. I never tell you when I'm mad at you. [I made a little list here but am being shy about writing it on the Internet.] I wonder if I will make out with your friend. I think about the domestic aspects of friendships I have that always take place in my apartments. How my allergies play into my social dynamics. How that's not great because I am already territorial. We add bacon to the brussel sprouts. It basically cancels them out. I need to stop being so scared that I always end with humour. I need to not treat adults like they're babies who will always choose the last option they hear. I guess adults should also stop acting like that. We had a writing group too, Sundays.
---
That's the end of my letter to Sar. I have been wanting to be online more in a way that's about reaching out and also remembering. Baby brain has been real for me, I'm losing touch in ways that my A+ memory would have never before. I won't call it a regret, because it wasn't a choice, but I wish so much that I'd documented my search for a sperm donor, my insemenation and pregnancy, Anna's first year of life. I couldn't, it was a choice between blogging and taking showers. It took effort to pee and not puke and things that I just needed to deal with. There's a lot of privilege that goes unacknowleged within radical parenting circles. That hurts.
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