Book Lust

I have a confession to make...

My husband is leaving tomorrow for work. He'll be gone for a little more than three weeks prior to being back for one.

We had a lovely family dinner of bacon and eggs in bed while watching The Incredibles for possibly the eighteenth time this week.

I want to get in as much time with him as possible before he goes...

 

But I've fallen in love.

Book Love.

Actually, at this point, it's only Book Lust. But I can feel the love coming. The all-consuming love that makes me ignore my family and my phone, my work and occasionally hygiene in order to find out what happens next to my favourite characters

It doesn't happen very often. Maybe once or twice a year if you're lucky.



I remember when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows first came out. I'd pre-ordered it from Amazon. I waited impatiently. It arrived. I had house guests. I decided to prepare a delicious and complex meal so that I could spend the evening in the kitchen, sneaking in pages in between stirring. So rude!

I can't help myself.

I've been a Book Luster my whole life. Summer holidays stretched before me and my equally book wormy bff, L. We were completely taken aback when the local library limited the number of books we could take out in a week. I think it was twelve...we'd sit side by side with two stacks of Babysitter's Club books and chew through twenty four in a week. That's a little less than two hundred books a summer.

Currently my lust is attached to the I Am Number Four series. Series Lust is the worst. There's already all that foreplay...

The Fall of Five will be my constant companion from now until I turn the last page. It's YA (Young Adult. Which I am not). I have a special fondness for the YA genre. Perhaps because of all my time spent with it as an eleven-year-old. There's no Book Love like First Book Love.

I would not be a writer without the books I've loved. They were the constant companions of a shy pre-teen and a lonely single mom and all my other iterations in between.

Because all I want to do is get back to reading, I'll leave you with a list of some of my more recent Book Boyfriends:

- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

A beautiful and richly imagined Universe. I haven't wanted to be in a book so badly since Hogwarts.

-  The Quartet by Lois Lowry

The Giver was the first book in this series and it came out when I was still in elementary school (which was, to be brief, a few years ago). Last summer, I re-read it as I often do and decided to google "What happened to Jonas at the end of The Giver?" Instead of receiving the straightforward Internet answer I'd been hoping for, I received the life-changing news that Lois Lowry has written MORE BOOKS and that The Giver was actually a series.
Kiss me goodbye for at least a week.

- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Completely my friend A's fault and she was the one who paid the price. A brilliant fantasy novel with complex, flawed characters and breathtaking plot turns. Described (well) as Harry Potter for grown-ups. The sequel is equally readable and there's a third somewhere on the horizon.

- I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

I picked this up shortly after she died. She was a brilliant writer and taught me a lot about who I want to be as a writer just by being so transparent. This is a lovely, lovely memoir. So funny. Please read.

 

-The Perks of Being a Wallflower  by Stephen Chbosky

I know this has been made into a film and although I'm obsessed with Emma Watson because of my aforementioned Harry Potter addiction I loved this book too much to watch it.

-Outrageous Openness: Letting the Divine Take the Lead by Tosha Silver

Tosha is brilliant. If you have met me, I have very likely recommended this book to you already.  It's hilarious and insightful without being the least bit didactic. Also, I'm friends with her on facebook which makes me feel hella cool.

I'd love to write more, but I have some reading to do...

What are you reading? What are your Lifelong Book Loves?

I'll be the one cheering on Loriens from the sidelines,

Er

What's in a Mane?

Text sent out to several of my girlfriends about two weeks ago:

"Of all the people we know, who's most likely to burn off half her hair in a freak colour mishap, six days before her wedding?"

(Hint: the answer is Me)

When I was in my twenties, I sincerely believed that I would no longer do dumb shit by the time I hit my thirties. And while I have immaculate credit and tiny rrsps that make me seem like a proper grown-up, I also do things like burn off half my hair. THE WEEK BEFORE MY WEDDING.


My friend, J usually does my colour for me. She's been busy giving birth to the most delightful little boy. So, my other friend (also a J) was planning to come help me out but she'd been out of town and needed some time with her delightful hubby.


My (now) hubby said,

"Are you sure you don't want to wait for one of your friends?"

This is not a story about how I took good advice...

When the bag over the colour started to get hot, I took it off. The hair underneath was BILLOWING smoke.

It melted off in huge chunks that resembled scorched SOS pads.

***Note to all you ladies: If you find a man who can make you laugh while you pull off your chemically melted hair by the fist full, I recommend that you marry this man as soon as possible***

I'm not immune to vanity, but I was fairly quick to pick up on the perspective that my love laid on me. I did not lose my hair because of chemo therapy. It's just hair.*

*All perspective aside, it was six days before my wedding. I cried, took two Cypralex and went to bed*

However...

I've learned that nothing happens "to" me. Not without my participation or consent.

So.

That begs the question: why in the name of all that's Holy would I do such a thing to myself?

The mystic in me conjures the image of the snake shedding her skin...the comic in me thinks I possibly did it for the cheap laugh at my own expense.

My very wise colleague, A suggested that my mind was so frazzled that I was vibrating at crazy high frequencies and quite literally fried my head.

Perhaps as a test? A fiance who can love a moulting woman can handle most adverse situations with ease. One of the only things that consoled me in the first half hour was his suggestion that I could blog about it one day :)

I kept enough hair for my bff's brilliant cousin to style it for the wedding. The next day, I cut it all off.

If you think you're not a vain person - try losing your hair. I always thought I was pretty chill, but in truth, I've hidden behind my hair for most of my adult life. Only when I'm at my slenderist have I ventured anywhere even remotely in the neighbourhood of short hair.

There's no place left to hide now...

Stay tuned for either:

A: a revolutionary life change

 

or

 

B: a wig

As my friend, J's mum used to say, "You take yourself with you wherever you go."

Love the one you're with,

Er

Let's finish with a hair montage, shall we?

They call me Dr Love

"It's a good and bad thing to be considered an expert in love. I don't think there's any point in pretending that you get to be an expert by meeting your soul mate early on, going through a few meaningful ups and downs, marrying in a cloud of good taste or even in a meteor shower of funk and crunk, and then dying, 50 or 60 years later, having had a faithful and fulfilling love life. We don't call those people experts. We call them lucky." (-Amy Bloom)

I am not one of these "lucky" few (nor, if you're interested is Amy Bloom, author of the above-referenced article). Some might say that I've done the research necessary in order to become an expert, however. If wisdom comes from learning from mistakes, I've made enough mistakes in love to be a sage.

Nonetheless, last Wednesday, I got married. Not for the first time. It's an entirely different matter to call oneself an optimist over the age of thirty (especially with so much mileage). However, I believe this story calls for a glass-half-full mentality.

Once upon a time...

In 1992...

two little girls met in Mrs Reid's fourth grade class.

(Hint: I am one of those two girls)

The other girl is my oldest and dearest friend, L. We celebrated our twentieth anniversary last summer in Vegas. We discovered that we are too old for roller coasters and met the actual living descendants of Captain and Maria Von Trapp (We went for tacos with them! At 2am! At Jack-in-the-Box!)

She is my family. She is my heart.

I have always loved the family that came with her (as she did mine) not just because they're awesome, but because they belong to her.


So. My point. I just married my best sister-friend's little brother.



Think about that friend.  The one with whom you first shaved (hacked) your legs. Who listened while you sang Rizzo's part in Grease (over and over). The one you call when your life falls over. The one who sends you flowers with quotes from Bio Dome on the card.

And then you fall in love with her brother and the two of you get married.

That's what I did. On Wednesday. August 14th because it was their beloved grandparents' wedding anniversary. I married my best friend's brother. Not only that, but I got to marry his WHOLE FAMILY. And he got to marry mine.

The whole thing is so filled with joyous memories that distilling it once again becomes my blessing and my curse.

Deep breath...

The day before the wedding, by miracle or design, my fiance and I find ourselves alone in a quiet house. It is a "Remember This Moment" moment. As though the collective sum of our troubled pasts has somehow imploded to create something unspeakably perfect.

Our sister (!!!) L and her amazing partner collected driftwood from Kootenay Lake and created a stunning arch under which we
were married.

 

Everyone cooked. My dad played guitar and sang a playlist (vetted by my mother) of the best love songs ever written. My new brother-in-law brought his turntables all the way from Calgary and played the most beautiful and irreverent set you could imagine.

We wore what we felt like wearing. My new husband wore a Canucks hat and purple high tops. I wore white. Yeah. I know.

We didn't send out invitations. Mostly, we ran into people who were really excited to spend our wedding Day with us and those people showed up.

It was the perfect day. It is the perfect love. The perfect family.

Listen Friends: I would never pretend that I was patient with love. Even if I tried to get away with it, no one who's ever met me would buy it.

I lost faith in love many times after nearly killing myself trying to convince the world of my worth (or lack thereof). I tried so many goddamned times to give my love to people who didn't want it.

My dear friend, J's mom, Donna used to say, "Better no one than an asshole." Now. Not all of the men I've spent time with were assholes. Some were very lovely. Some would qualify in spades. Nonetheless, I venture to expand Donna's saying oh-so-slightly to include, "Better no one than the wrong one."

I cannot say if this is true for you. It has been true for me. Insincerity chafes at the crotch for me. I never get away with it for long before Life kicks me hard in the proverbial junk.

And so, after many years of swimming against the stream, I gave in and adopted a dog. I had pined for a dog for many years. "I'm alone every night. Why not?" This was the physical manifestation of my deciding to make my solo life a joyous one. Not by going to the bar. I was a single mom. I learned to step out beyond the limitations of barely tolerating my own company into the liberating territory of loving myself. It has not been easy. I do not pretend that your road has been easy or will be easy. In fact, I'm SO SORRY for how hard it has already been.

All I can promise is that it's worth it. Please believe me. Just a little?

This bitch got her happily ever after when all hope was exhausted. My best friend is my sister. Her brother is my husband. He's the yin to my yang. The perfect fit. He loves my child the way parents do. He does, like, all the dishes. Seriously. 85% or more.



Please wait. Or don't wait. Make your life as awesome as possible the way it is now. That way, if your perfect fit never shows up, at least you're having a kick-ass time of it.

That was my "strategy" anyway.

From someone who's been there,

-Er

Happiest. Chick. Ever.

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." —Mahatma Gandhi

Okay. So. Was the tone of my last blog (http://beeatree.blogspot.ca/2013/07/why-i-go-to-therapy-and-you-should-too.html?spref=fb) upbeat and hopeful? That was my intention...

Buuut in the spirit of mental health being a somewhat squeamish subject for some of you, I've decided to write a follow-up piece about how I am currently living the way I intend to MOST OF THE TIME IN MOST AREAS OF MY LIFE!

Have you any idea how miraculous this is?! It means that all that needs to shift in order to be living EXACTLY as I intend to is the scale.

Here's how it shakes down:

*I am writing my Truth and telling it to the world. Approximately SIX HUNDRED of you are reading my truth and to you I am deeply, staggeringly and humbly  grateful. Thank you. A lot.

*I teach yoga one night a week. About a dozen of you are devoted students. About fifty of you are semi-regular. Some of you have come once and not liked it very much. Some of you have thought about coming half a dozen times but Survivor was on. Some of you didn't know I was a yoga teacher prior to reading this post. You will find teachers who are stronger, bendier, balancier than me. But I deeply love the transformative power of this practice and I am thrilled to be able to share it with you.

I'm sending the biggest blessing I have to every single one of you that I practice with. Or will practice with to any degree. Or not. I bow to you. I bow to my colleagues all over the world who are spreading the good word. I bow as deeply as a person can bow to my teachers.

PS you are ALL my teachers.

*I have the most inspiring, kindest, most forgiving, non-judgemental, supportive, talented, funniest, amazingest fiance ever. Really. Best of everything. I recently thanked his mom for him. Everyone who has met him will testify. He really is the best human*

*with the exception of my daughter. If there is a cooler human than her, I've yet to encounter him/her. My fiance agrees.

*We grow some of our own food. Lettuce, kale, spinach (which didn't really turn out, but we eat it anyway). Soon-to-be wax beans. Some herbs that I planted and can't identify because I chucked them in pots and rows without rhyme or labels. We eat organic meat and some tofu and when we're not eating quinoa every night, we're eating bacon because it makes us happy.

In the spirit of full disclosure, we still eat sugar. But we both drink a green thing every day.

*I practice yoga (fairly) regularly, eat (mostly) really clean, meditate with deep devotional gratitude. And I feel DAMN good.  I've been thinner (which usually means that I'm stressed right out and not eating). I'm not without jiggle. But I'm in my body and it's a conversation instead of a civil war between my ass and my self esteem. I don't define my love for myself (or lack thereof) by the number on the scale. In fact, I threw my scale in the garbage. I haven't weighed myself in years. This is a big deal for me. I used to weigh myself at least three times a day and judge myself HARD. I love myself more than that now.

This is a hard-earned happiness. I've earned it and I'm appreciating every single second. I only have to get slightly pissy before I realize that I have everything I could ever want.

So. Why is this chick telling us how crazy she is one day and then how happy she is the next? Because, Dear Reader. I want you to be happy too. I want you to hear it from someone who's been to the dark and back. This happiness is available to you once you survive whatever it is you're going through.

Rooting for you,

-Er