Broken Heart Rescue Balm – A Home Remedy

Before Broken Heart Rescue Balm

Now, I myself am not capable of incurring a broken heart (because I’m, you know, a superhero and all), but it occurred to me that perhaps some of you might need a fix for this particularly annoying human ailment.

Because sometimes the universe does things like, say, dump a person in your lap that seems to be super-special and you think, “Gosh, the universe isn’t so bad after all!  I should send a gift basket with a nice thank-you card tucked inside!”  But sometimes this seemingly kind gesture is tempered by the fact that the universe – being the sick little pulling-wings-off-flies little fucker that it is – also chose to dump a big fat ocean in between you and that special person and things just don’t work out.  (In the movies, this wouldn’t slow things down, of course, but instead would inspire a cinematic climax involving a bouquet of flowers being waved out the sunroof of a limo, or at the very least, a boombox serenade.  But alas, that universe is actually a parallel one, one that is less of an asshole than your own.)

So should you find yourself in the blue zone (not me, because of course, my own heart – yes, I have one…a tiny one – is made of high-grade titanium wrapped in Kevlar with a thick coating of Teflon, thus I am impenetrable by such weak emotions as anything resembling this ‘heartbreak’ that I have heard so much about), I have a few suggestions for you.

First of all – it is important to make the most of your wallowing.  It is like sweating out toxins.

Ingredients to have on hand:

1.  A plentiful supply of tissues (or for the environmentally friendly, a pillow that you don’t mind getting snot and tears all over).  A cat will also do.

2.  Chocolate.  This likely won’t help a whole lot, but it won’t hurt, either.

3.  Ice cream.  Ditto.  (And what the fuck if you get fat, you’re never going near anyone ever again anyway.)

4.  A large stack of trash magazines with a high volume of articles about LiLo, Britney, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, etc.  This will serve to show you that somebody else’s life probably sucks more than your own.

5.  The phone – for when your best friend calls repeatedly to offer condolences.

6.  Sleepy drugs that you can’t OD on, like Nyquil or Benedryl.  Feeling drowsy will help you feel vulnerable and sorry for yourself.  This is a good thing – if you can count on no one else to pity you, at least you can pity yourself.  Plus, you are probably sleep-deprived from all the being-in-love crap.  But under no circumstances should you indulge in alcohol or other recreational drugs just yet.  You don’t want to numb the pain or risk a drunk-dial.  So spoon yourself around that box of Kleenex and give in.

7.  Soft, comfy clothes (even better if you have one of his old sweaters to wrap yourself in.  But improvise if you must.  Just make sure you don’t coordinate.  You need to look as bad as possible.)

8.  Hot showers – though you don’t want to waste any wallowing time on grooming, you will need to periodically rinse the salt out of your eyes or you will risk going totally insane from the burning.  Even better if you can manage to actually cry in the shower.  This is another one of those cinematic acts that will make you feel like a tragic heroine, which is a highly desired state and a key ingredient in Broken Heart Rescue Balm.

9.  A box in which to put everything that reminds you of him – pictures, letters, gifts, anything and everything.  It all goes in.  You might think this goes against the rule of wallowing, but it doesn’t.  You see, you have been living with his photo next to your bed/on your fridge/on your computer for so long that the absence of them now will be more tear-jerking than if you just left them where they always were.   You may replace these items with other things, just make sure the substitutes will not, under any circumstances, make you laugh.  For example, replace his photo with a photo of a sad-looking puppy.  (Not a puppy you actually know, or else your angst will be re-directed, forcing you to begin the process of wallowing over him all over again once you finish crying over the puppy.)

10.  Male friends who think you are fabulous.  Surround yourself with them.  Don’t under any circumstances let them kiss you, though – at this point, you will just be reminded of the person you wish you were kissing and this may lead to contaminating a perfectly good friend with the broken heart virus.  Perhaps later you can come to some sort of friends-with-benefits kind of arrangement, but right now it is too soon….far, far too soon.

11.  Caller ID.  You do NOT want to have to deal with mothers or telemarketers right now.  They do not deserve to feel the burn you are giving the universe right now.

Take all ingredients in any combination desired or required, as quickly as possible before scar tissue begins to develop.  (For those of you with hearts, you really want to keep it as young and healthy and flexible as possible.  It’s good for the circulation.)

The next day, shovel all those used tissues into the compost, put on your hottest shoes  – with the highest, sharpest heels possible, all the better to drop-kick that asshole of a universe – and go back to planning your summer vacation.  Go somewhere fabulous, like Paris.

After Broken Heart Rescue Balm*

*Results not typical

Guilty Pleasures

Guilty pleasures.

We all have ‘em.  But it alarmed me recently to realize how very, very many I have.  Boy, do I.  (Of course, I probably don’t feel quite as much guilt as I probably should…but whatever.)  And let’s face it – don’t we all feel so much better about our own kinks when we learn what other people are up to behind closed doors?

So I’m laying it on the line.  It is my hope that by clearing the air, shaking the skeletons out of the closet, I will find freedom and maybe, just maybe, some other poor soul out there will read my words and find comfort in knowing they are not alone.

So here we go:

This one is a bit embarrassing.  I sort of pride myself on not being a typical ‘girl’.  But if you’ve been following along, you’ll recall the post about my current smitten situation causing me to purchase a pink computer.  Well, it’s a pervasive kind of disease, this being-smitten thing.  And now I find that I can’t stop buying shoes.

[But seriously...aren't they preeeetttty???]

KinderEggs.  The chocolate tastes like crap, the toys are weird and always end up in the junk drawer or the recycling bin and they are probably responsible for at least 3% of the world’s pollution problem…but I can’t resist buying them!  I think they [you know - THEY] know this and that’s why they stick ‘em right next to the cash registers.  I don’t know – it’s that element of ’surprise!’ or something.  Followed by the mild, low-brain-power challenge of putting together the plastic house shaped like a pumpkin or whatever that just sucks me in every time.

Cat yawns.  I’m going to confess this, knowing full well that it may throw my animal-lover status into question, but since I’m committed to full disclosure, it must be told.  My cat Sassy has the most enthusiastic yawns you’ve ever seen in cat-dom.  When I first got her, over 13 years ago, for some reason or another, I thought it would be funny – while her eyes were closed during the yawn – to stick my finger in her mouth so that she would be surprised by it when she closed her mouth.  It was pretty funny.  C’mon – it was!  And so it became something of a habit.  I will actually skip across a room to make it to her in time if I see a yawn beginning, just to stick my finger in her mouth.  I honestly think she does it on purpose.  She likes it, I know she does.  But I think you can probably understand the ‘guilt’ part of this sick little pleasure.

The Carpenters.  Singing along with them in the car.  Really loudly.  I know all the lyrics.  Some of them make me all thoughtful and melancholy.  Of course, after the tape was discovered by a date, I did toy with the idea of sticking a Sex Pistols label over the original text, but instead I’m coming out about it.  It’s very liberating.

Cheating at The Sims 2.  Don’t get me wrong, EA did a great job – it’s a wicked game.  But it’s a little…well….PG 13 for my tastes.  I have every downloadable hack and mod there is.  My Sims can have casual makeout sessions in public places, closet woohoo with random strangers and they can get knocked up as teenagers.  They can get free clothes whenever they want them without ever leaving the house.  I have killed all the fugly game-generated townies and other non-playables and replaced them with hot, beautiful replacement default facial templates so that they can all have gorgeous babies.  I am a boolprop ADDICT (if you are, too, you will know what this means).   My fingers can hit CTRL + C to access the cheat console faster than you can say ’shooflee’.  And this one is such a multi-layer guilt.  There is the guilt, firstly, from wasting time playing computer games in general.  Then there is the guilt from hacking up a game that the developers put so much work into.  Then there is the less tangible but no less disturbing guilt from all the time I force my Sims to spend lying on the grass waiting for a satellite to fall on them or how much stargazing with the fancy telescope that I make my male Sims do, hoping for them to be abducted.  I also really like watching them have nervous breakdowns.  I would make such a horrible god.

Free tv on the Internet.  Yes, that’s right.  I’m admitting it – come and get me.  The way I see it, until some website comes up with a way to prevent free tv from getting out there or they clue in and just start selling advertising to cover costs the way old-fashioned television does (duh), or else offer me every single show I want to rival the variety I can get elsewhere for free…I’m just gonna keep doing it.  I like to think of myself as a partisan for the free tv movement.  It’s not that I can’t afford cable.  I used to have cable, actually, but had to disconnect it when I realized I knew the names of all the Carter siblings.  Some pleasures just come with too much guilt to be worth it.

Well, this is by no means a complete list.  I have a shitload of vices, peeps.  So stay tuned for more embarrassing crap and possibly incrimating evidence in the future.

The Curse of the Ringbearer

Some of you already know that I wear one of those oh-so-millenium symbols of feminine independence, the right-hand ring.  It’s one of those ‘marry yourself first’ kind of things – it went on right after I gave my last serious live-in the boot and it pretty much never comes off.  It’s a reminder to be a little more cautious in the future about what kind of crap I put on that same finger on the other hand.  (Yeah, okay…and it’s pretty…)

But today I took it off to do dishes (okay – fine - I wasn’t doing dishes.  It was to measure my finger for some half-baked Facebook quiz a friend challenged me to.  Whatever.  Shut up.)  No biggie, I put it back on right afterwards and carried on with my day (which still didn’t include doing the dishes, sadly).

Imagine my reaction when I had that ’something’s not right here’ tingling – and looked down to see that I had somehow put the ring on the wrong hand!!  You may be having trouble picturing it.  Okay, try this:  Imagine the reaction I would be likely to have if I looked down and saw a seriously pissed-off tarantula about to take a slice of my finger for lunch.

Why this drama, you ask?  Why the slightly mental overreaction?  Let me illustrate.

I’ve been proposed to a lot.  This is not a boast.  It is case in point of the fact that I possess that je ne sais quoi that brings out the crazy in people.  These proposals have ranged in seriousness from the dude who threw himself down on one knee three seconds after being introduced to me – to the tool who showed up at my parents’ house in a suit and tie, requesting an audience with them to ask for my hand (result:  mom, wearing her Rolling Stones tongue logo t-shirt, secretly wishing she were a drinker; dad, not saying a word, but quietly chuckling away to himself the whole time.)

People probably think that the reason I haven’t gotten married yet is because I have commitment issues (not really), or because I value my freedom too much (possibly), or maybe I just haven’t met the right guy (could be).

But I believe the real reason is this:  Every time some guy sticks a ring on my finger, I get hurt!  I don’t mean emotionally – no, I mean full-on physical, literal HURT.  Like with blood.  I swear to god.   Here, I’ll show you…

Ring # 1:   4th grade (shut up – it still counts).  Royden…somebody.  I arrive at school one day and on my desk is a small brown box.  Inside – a ring (gold with a green stone), 29 cents in change and a note on a scrap of paper that says, “Just a little something.”  Cute, huh?  Yeah, sure.  Until I tried the thing on, and immediately developed a horrifying rash highlighted by the bright green circle it left around the afflicted digit.  Not cute.  Not at all.  Of course, setting a pattern for later stages of my life, I still let him take me to the movies.  (Okay, so not a lot of actual blood in this one, but hang tight – I’m just setting the stage here, people.)

Ring #2:  Age 28.  Fiancee #1.  We’d been together for 10 years.  I’d moved out and moved back in about five times that year.  Things weren’t going so great.  In a final act of desperation, during lunch one day he comes over and does the whole one-knee thing (which I just find really silly – and my first thought at the time was “Shouldn’t he know I would find that silly?”).  Now, you should know that if this had happened about 10 years earlier – hell, five years earlier – I would have been ecstatic.  When I was in my early twenties, I wanted nothing more than to marry this guy.  A classic case of too little, too late.  And I believe the actual proposal went something like, “If we work things out, would you consider marrying me?”  (At that moment, a tiny rift occurred in the fabric of space/time and my younger self, overhearing this, paused in her browsing of china patterns and proceeded to slit her wrists.)

ANYWAY – the ring.  It was silver (score – I hate gold).  It wasn’t a diamond (score – at the time, I hated anything so traditional.  I have since been enlightened.  Though I still only approve of fair-trade bling.)  It was wrought in the shape of a sun; a recurring theme in our relationship…partly because of a dream we once shared of starting our own theatre company in Jamaica and partly something to do with me being (yeah, I know) the centre of his universe or something (yes, I am aware that the sun is only the centre of a very small solar system, not the whole universe.)

It didn’t take long.  As it turned out, the sun shape had some very pointy bits.  Which proceeded to completely shred my fingers.  One day it got so bad, I ripped the damn thing off and threw it across the bedroom, where it was forgotten about until later that day when it embedded itself in the sole of my foot.

Ring #3:  A couple of years later.  Fiancee #2.  This time I picked out my own ring – a simple silver band with a small round amethyst set flush with the rest of the band.  Loved it.  Until the day I was being rushed out of the apartment by F2 and in going to turn off the light, the ring somehow got caught on the corner of the switchplate.  In some freak moment of ridiculousness, the momentum was just right to force the ring to open up at the seam where the ring had been re-sized (made smaller for me), pulling the ring, with its now raw metal edges, all the way up and off my finger, creating two long ragged gashes the entire length of it.  I still have the thing, actually, and it looks like it was hit by a train.  That wedding never happened, either, by the way.

Ring #4:   A few years after that.  Fiancee #3.  This one proposed on the second date, so a ring was not immediately produced.  Actually, this guy was bipolar and refusing medication, and was also an artist, so while there was big talk of the amazing ring he was going to design for me, and many intricate drawings made, no ring ever actually was produced.  So technically this ring never actually hurt me, but since he tried several times, I still feel it counts.

In any event, this is why I panic at the sight of any jewelry anywhere near that hand.  My friends find it kind of entertaining.

But you know, I might consider marriage…if I ever got a ring on that hand that didn’t try to kill me.  I’m not holding my breath, though.

Waiting for the Worms to Come

I think I must have been taking a smoke break or something the day patience was handed out.  I know this.  (I am nothing if not self-aware, even when it hurts.)

So this is why last Friday, when I was taking my father to a hospital in the city for day surgery, I prepared myself.  I knew there would be a fair bit of sitting around in the waiting room.  But how long could it take to remove a kidney stone, anyway?

The answer is:  11 hours and 12 minutes.

Yes, that’s right.  My sorry ass was in that chair for ELEVEN HOURS AND TWELVE MINUTES.

But I get ahead of myself.  Let’s back up.

The day started out optimistically – Dad was in good spirits, I had a bag filled with survival tools (three books, one of which was a brand-new copy of ‘Long Way Down’ by Ewan MacGregor and Charley Boorman, which I’d been dying to read, my dayplanner and to-do list, candy and water).  It was sunny, a great day for a drive to Halifax.  I was also psyched because I happened to know that this particular hospital had a kick-ass food court with this awesome Lebanese place, and I planned to score some dolmas and falafel and tabouleh to take home with me.

Dad’s appointment was for 1:20 pm.  We got there with lots of time to get him registered and things went as planned for a while.  We made it to pre-op.  That’s when things slipped into the Twilight Zone.

I was a bit worried because my dad had never been under general anesthetic before, and he did have a heart condition…and it didn’t help that every show that came on the television involved some sort of graphic video footage of operations in progress or corpses…and every magazine I picked up was filled (I’m really not kidding) with articles about medical screw-ups – like where the guy goes in to have a mole removed and ends up having his liver removed or something.  I was a wreck.

One-twenty came and went.  The waiting room began to empty out.  At around 4:30 pm, the nursing staff shut down the computers and went home.  I was starting to get light-headed from lack of food or water, but since Dad hadn’t been able to eat or drink anything since midnight the night before, I couldn’t bring myself to eat or drink anything if he couldn’t.  I was already fantasizing about the water in my bag…the hummus downstairs was calling my name….

YES!  Five pm – they take Dad away.  I offer the least sincere ‘good luck’ ever as I race for the elevator to take me to the cafeteria.

It was closed.  I swear to fucking god.  FIVE PM!!

All there was left to choose from was a bare-bones version of Tim Horton’s, and a fridge full of nasty-looking iceburg-lettuce-based salads and a few old sandwiches.  So I begrudgingly purchased an egg salad wrap, which I ate quickly with large doses of self-pity.  But it was okay, because they had told me that the procedure would only take about 20 minutes, then about 30 minutes to an hour in recovery…and we were out of there.  I might still make it back to town in time to hook up with my friends at the pub.

I returned to the waiting room around 20 minutes later, just as they were wheeling my dad’s bed back down the hallway.  And any worries I’d had were quickly dispelled – he looked wide awake and alert and not in any pain at all!

“Done already?”  I asked, full of boastful pride at our good fortune.

Ummm, yeah, no.  False alarm.  They weren’t quite ready yet.  They needed to wait for space to open up in the recovery room before they could proceed.  So they thought he’d be more comfortable here where he could watch tv.

Sooo, we settle in for a bit longer.  At least I had been able to drink some water and had eaten something, even if it was an amazingly soggy sandwich.  Poor Dad’s lips were starting to crack.

Now, I’m not sure if this happens to other people, but when I get bored waiting for things, my inner anarchist takes over.  I start plotting revenge.  Though I have never so much as shoplifted a lip gloss in real life (oh, okay, fine, there were those few articles of tavern signage that struck me as particularly funny – but it was on a dare), my inner anarchist begins to calculate how much of that tasteful faux-Tuscan furniture I could fit in the back of my dad’s station wagon.  I was thinking that painting might look sweet above my fireplace.  I was sure I could find some use for those neglectfully left-out prescription pads.  I couldn’t understand why Dad didn’t want to take me up on the offer to have a wheelchair race in the hallway.

At 6:30, I accosted a nurse passer-by, who explained that they were now waiting for the anaesthetist, who was running late in his previous surgery (six hours late?)

At 7:10, they finally take my dad away, for reals this time.  And the nurse said reassuringly, “Well, at least it’s a quick procedure.”

By this time, the waiting room was deserted.  They had shut off every light in that wing of the hospital exept the light directly over my head.  It was like the hotel in The Shining. The room was freezing – I was curled up with my coat over me like a blanket.  I could hear not a sound beyond that room – no signs of life anywhere.  But it was okay – Dad would be back any minute and we could be off.

An hour and a half passed.  Any minute now.

The janitor came in – a person!  A real live person!  In what was likely a desperate attempt to confirm that I was still real myself, and not some doomed spirit waif, destined to haunt that tastefully decorated waiting room for all eternity, I smiled my biggest smile and lifted my feet for him, asking if I was in his way.  He smiled his biggest smile and gave me a ‘don’t-speak-English’ kind of look.  I heaved a sigh and snuggled back under my coat.

Another hour and a half pass.  Okay, now I was freaking out a bit.  It was past 10 pm and they took my father away 3 hours ago for an operation that should have taken 20 minutes?!   I searched everywhere for an intercom, a buzzer, a ring-bell-for-service…nothing.  I toyed with the idea of setting off the fire alarm.

This was when my inner anarchist took her leave.  Now my inner panicker was taking over.  Where was my daaaaaddddy???  Had he been taken to an evil parallel dimension?  Would I ever see him again?  Was he still in this dimension, but deader than dead due to an unforeseen allergy to the anaesthetic and how would I tell my mother?  I could no longer sit still.

At the end of the corridor, there was a huge sign that read “Hospital Staff Only.”  I peered as far around the corner as I could, without feeling like I was being ‘bad.’  (I told you, my inner anarchist had long since thrown in the towel.  Probably went off to find a falafel.)  I could see nothing in either direction.   I whistled a little tune and tapped the clickety heels of my boots, hoping to possibly remind someone that I was there.  I strained to listen for signs of life.  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

My heart started racing.  The clock now read 11:10 pm.  I had been there since 12:35 pm.  I was this close…

HEY!  There’s a guy!  Walking toward me down the Forbidden Corridor!  Wearing a coat, carrying a backpack, looking kind of doctor-ish!

I threw myself at him.

It turned out he was the anaesthetist.  And in true Drea style, although a few hours ago I wanted to drink his blood for breakfast for making me wait so long, he was instantly forgiven (partly because he was pretty cute, but mostly because he was sososo nice and I was sososo grateful for information.)  Apparently the operation went great and they were about to release him.  Of course.  Now that I’d already had a heart attack.

Top the day off with a late-night hour-long drive home with a streaky windshield and a chatty father that was stoned out of his mind on painkillers and you have the whole story.

I wonder if the kidney stone would have been less painful?  At least it would have got me some drugs.

Sunsets and Skyscrapers

 

 

There is a photo on my desk that people often ask about.  It’s a photo of a young, tall blonde boy, barechested in low-slung jeans and hiking boots, wearing leather cuff bracelets and a bear-tooth on a thong around his neck, playing guitar, his hair hanging in his eyes.

Most of my boyfriends get very jealous and weird when they see it.

But have you ever been lucky enough to meet someone who was able to show you an upside-down view of the world and make you a better person for it?  That’s what Tim was to me.  I keep his photo there not as a tribute to our relationship, but to remind me of the freedom he helped me find.  I believe that people show up in your life when you need them.  Tim was one of those people.  I sometimes wonder if he was even really real.

I was 24.  Working two jobs.  Sleeping…rarely.  A pre-med student specializing in neuroscience, planning to undertake four more years in a basement laboratory in order to: a) prove to myself that I wasn’t stupid; b) prove to my family that I wasn’t stupid; and c) hopefully, along the way, help others.

I wasn’t happy.  But I’d kind of given up on ‘happy.’ 

It was summer break, and my best friend and I were indulging in a rare night on the town.  We were stumbling up the hill toward our favourite alternative club, Birdland, when Keri grabbed my head and pointed it in his direction.  “Look at that guy!  He looks just like Leonardo DiCaprio!”  

He and a friend, I would later learn was Darrell – also beautiful, with shoulder-length curly auburn hair – were busking with their guitars outside the Art College.

I was wasted.  I wanted to dance.  I could have cared less about Leonardo DiCaprio lookalikes.  But we went over and said hi.  And somehow ended up inviting them to join us at Birdland.  As we walked, we paired up – Keri with Darrell, leaving me to speak to Tim.

He was 20.  He had busked/hitched his way across the continent after spending time in the Mexican rainforests with nothing more than a tent, a blanket, a tin cup and a journal.

By the time we hit the club, Tim and I were in a full-out debate about life in general…and hours later, still at it.  We talked about the western part of the country that I had never seen.  He told me about the mountains I had never seen.  He belonged to another time – he was fresh air and earth, innocence and an old soul.

He moved in with me the next day.

That summer, this younger, much freer man drilled me about myself.  He was my mirror and I was his.  He had grown up the middle child in a middle-class family much like my own, but longed for more.  Unlike me, he had stopped trying to please others long ago.  He went out of his way, in fact, to test people.  In public, he deliberately acted like a jerk to try to offend people.  Later, we analysed one another and when I told him my impression was that he purposely tried to drive people away just to see if they would climb over his hurdles, he became pensive, and admitted I was the first one to ever point that out.  He constantly tested the limits of society.  I was fascinated by the strength of his sense of self; although alone, he was romantic and vulnerable.  When I asked about his travels, envious, “What colour are the Northern Lights?”, he paused for a moment, thinking, and then said, “They’re the same colour as your eyes – green and gold, with bits of blue.”

We read each other’s diaries.  We wrote in each other’s diaries.  He drove me nuts, because he would wake me in the morning, playing Velvet Underground songs on his guitar, singing at the top of his lungs, or he would storm out of bed, dragging the blankets with him.  When I followed, cold, with hands on hips, to demand what he was doing, he would laugh and hold his arms open, saying, “I just wanted to see if you would follow.”  He dug around in my apartment, scanning my bookshelves, pulling out long-abandoned paintings and demanding to know why they weren’t finished.

The moment that changed my life was the night we were heading out of town in my car, with friends in the backseat and Tim riding shotgun.  I was so used to the jaded ‘city’ mentality – keeping up with the Jones’, making fun of anything that wasn’t ‘hip’ and ‘of-the-moment’, that I didn’t get it when we drove past what was obviously someone of a very lower class – wacky wardrobe, slight stagger – and Tim muttered under his breath, “Oh – would you just look at that!” 

A part of me shut down.  I was so disappointed in him.  I had thought he was above making fun of people for how they looked.  I shot him a glare from the driver’s seat and heaved a massive sigh.  He looked at me, mystified.  I began to explain my disappointment, when he said, “Come on – have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”

And I looked where he was pointing – and saw, beyond the skyscrapers, beyond the city skyline – the most gorgeous sunset, magenta and orange, filling the evening sky, that I had ever seen.  He hadn’t even noticed the person on the sidewalk.  That shame remains with me today.

He stayed with me for the summer.  His friend Darrell, after having a brief fling with my best friend Keri, headed off back to Alberta, but Tim decided to stay.  I was torn – I didn’t know how to resume my basement laboratory life with him in it. 

He asked me to come back out west with him.  He said, in his middle-child-afraid-to-commit way, “We should get married on a mountaintop in the Rockies.” 

I couldn’t.  I had responsibilities.  I was committed to finishing school.  I was a grownup. 

One morning, I awoke in a blaze of sunshine and he was watching me.  He said, “I think today is a good day to hit the road.”  And I knew it was the right thing.  I was sad, but it was time.

So we said good-bye.

I’ve never really regretted not going with him…because Tim taught me to accept that there is a part of me that can never tow the line, resign to the status quo, be happy with city skylines. 

A few weeks after he left, I covered my car with painted flowers.  And I did the drive west that we had talked about.

I finished my degree, but opted to defer grad studies.  I had things to do first.  I needed to see the Northern Lights for myself.  Now, I’m pursuing my art for real.

And you know?  The men who come into my life have nothing to fear.  That photo on my desk is not a symbol of my regret.  It’s a talisman, a reminder of who I really am - a reminder to look beyond the skyline and not lose her again in other people’s dreams.

How To Suck At Animal Rescue

It was a bitter, cold winter day.  I sat in my office typing transcripts, when I heard my co-worker say, “There’s a duck in the road.”

I leaned back in my chair and removed one earpiece.   “A duck?”

“A duck.”

“A duck???“

“A duck.”

What can I say?  I like to look at wildlife.  I threw down my headset and ran over to the window.

Sure enough.  There was a duck in the road.  A kinda dead-ish-lookin’ duck.

A man got out of a nearby truck, placed the mallard drake on a snowbank on the curb and got back in his vehicle.  I could only assume he was the murderer.

But wait – what if the duck still had life?  It must be saved!  Leaping into action like the superhero that I am, I raced to the coat closet and grabbed my shawl.

I raced down the stairs and out the door, barefoot in the snow (I work in a very casual office – don’t judge), darting through traffic as I made my way across the busy street (well, okay, sort of busy…ish).

The duck was clearly in shock, though without too much visible injury.  It lay on the snow, looking up at me with sad, pleading eyes.  Wrapping it tenderly in the shawl, I carried it quickly to the heater inside, barking out phone numbers of vets for my co-worker to call as I ran.  After a few hasty phone calls, a doctor was found who would treat the wild bird and a driver for my car was found to transport us both to the clinic.

The car wove in and out of traffic, making every second count as we rushed the injured bird to the doctor.  It refused to stay in the box designed to be used as an emergency stretcher, preferring instead to stay in my arms, twining its long neck around my own.  This bird would not die!  This bird must be saved!  It was DESTINY!

Leaving the animal in the trusted care of the doctor, I returned to my office, triumphant.  Confidant that I had made a difference.  Grateful that I had found the bird and been able to play a part in its survival.

Glowing and relieved, I bounded up the steps to the office two at a time.  Several regular clients were at the top.  I greeted them cheerily and waved, smiling my big I-just-saved-something smile.

They looked at me weird.

I went to the washroom to wash my hands before returning to my desk.  That’s when I noticed my face was smeared with mallard blood and my sweater covered in feathers.

And, um…yeah.  The duck died.

25 Fascinating Facts About Mememe

Okay, I’ve been tagged for one of these meme things (I was wondering how long I would be able to dodge this bullet.)  Apparently, I am just supposed to list 25 random things you don’t know about me.  And if you do already know about any of these, then kudos to you for either paying very close attention or for your stalking abilities.

I don’t normally bore you with these things (of course, the thing with that is that I LOVE reading other people’s memes).

And let’s face it – I know how compelling you find me.

Here goes:

1.  I lied for years and told people I didn’t know how to swim, because I’d taught myself and was never sure if I was doing it right.  I got caught one night while drunk and skinny-dipping with a group of friends.  They decided to swim all the way across the lake, and we were all about half-way there when my boyfriend of 10 years stopped and looked at me in amazement and terror (because he already thought I had multiple personalities) and exclaimed, “Hey!  I thought you didn’t know how to swim!”  I just kept treading water and shrugged.  It’s hard to explain stuff like that when you’re drunk and naked.

2.  I can build a computer from scratch using discarded parts and bootlegged software.  (Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?  But it’s not really that hard.)

3.  I only like green apples.   But I like those a lot.

4.  My great-great-great-something and Audrey Hepburn’s great-great-great-something were siblings, making me a distant cousin of hers (my mother’s maiden name is actually Hepburn).  I like to brag about this.

5.  I have framed portraits on the wall of my library of:  e.e. cummings, Björk, Thomas Hardy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and J. D. Salinger.  (Björk  is just there to keep you on your toes.)

6.    I can play piano, clarinet, guitar, recorder and tin flute.  Though none of them well.

7.  I am still best friends with my best friend from high school.

8.  I regularly walk alone through ‘dangerous’ neighborhoods after dark, walk under ladders, pet strange dogs, refuse to carry an Epipen even though I’m allergic to bee stings, and go camping alone in bear territory without telling anyone where I’m going.  Because I’m a bad-ass rebel and don’t you forget it.

9.  My design won the National Dental Week Poster Contest in sixth grade.

10.  I can complete a Rubik’s Cube in 54 seconds flat.

11.  I strongly feel that playing The Sims 2 should be required for all high school students (along with all the downloaded mods and hacks that allow for risky woohoo).  It would teach them a lot about time management, finances, choosing a spouse, teenage pregnancy, and the risks of trying to fix electrical equipment without the necessary mechanical skills.  At least this is what I tell myself when I waste an entire day playing it, rather than admitting that I just like to play god.

12.  I got my navel pierced in 1991, long before most people in Nova Scotia had ever heard of it.  I had to bribe an Indian lady to do it for me in the back room of her import shop, surrounded by swirls of smoky incense.  She accidentally pierced my main trunk nerve and it hurt like fuck.  But it looked cool and was a bit of a freak show, because no one else had one.  (I took it out when Britney got hers.)

13.  I once missed my cue to enter onstage because I was in the green room making up my gorgeous male dresser to look like Marilyn Monroe.

14.  I used to sleepwalk a lot.

15.  I am deathly, retardedly, ridiculously freaked out by spiders.  And I can’t kill them, because it’s not their fault I’m a retard.  So this has actually resulted in me driving to someone else’s house to use the bathroom instead of dealing with the spider in the shower, or standing on my coffee table until the spider on the carpet goes on its merry way, etc.  I used to have a voracious cat that ate them all, but he died last year and I had no idea how much I took his appetite for granted.  It’s very embarrassing (especially because I jump out of airplanes without breaking a sweat) and quite debilitating.  I plan on overcoming this soon, because it’s a serious pain in the ass.

16.  I listen to classical music in the car a lot.  I think it would reduce road rage if more people did this.  Unless you hate classical music, of course.

17.  I have naturally curly hair, but didn’t discover it until I was 35.

18.  I used to have a go-cart track membership.  I had to have three pillows behind my back to allow me to reach the pedals, but it was all worth it when I ran the guys off the track and into the haybales.

19.  These are the jobs I would like to do before I die:  architect, seeing-eye dog trainer, pottery artist, and astronaut.

20.  I drove all the way across Canada and forgot to visit the Pacific Ocean.

21.  The last time I had a cold was 2002.

22.  I love people with good wrinkles.  Good wrinkles are the kind you get from laughing, talking and just generally living a great life.  I like to grin and squinch my eyes up at myself in the mirror just to check out how my crow’s feet and laugh lines are coming along.

23.  When I was a very little kid, I was obsessed with rocks.  I filled every pocket I had with pretty rocks.  I pulled the handle out of this ride-on duckie I had when I was two and filled the hollow body of the duck with rocks.  I still have a bit of a problem, actually.  The surfaces in my house are covered in geodes and chunks of raw amethyst.

24.  According to my mother, I started walking when I was eight months old and learned to read when I was three years old.  I’ve always been a very impatient person.

25.  WordPress doesn’t feed my incoming links to me consistently, so I have no idea who has blogrolled me or how long I’ve been tagged for this meme.  I also am not entirely sure what to do to tag someone else, but I’ll get on that right away so I can read all of your silly ‘25 Things.’  You’re almost as devastatingly interesting as me.

On How the Universe Will Bite You in the Ass Every Time

I was a freshman in theatre school.  Never trust a first year theatre student.

I was having one of those days.  I just wanted to be left alone.

I needed clean clothes.

So I was sitting in the local laundromat, waiting for said clean clothes, reading and thinking about the first year language requisite I was taking – Russian, because by the time I’d gotten the call to tell me my audition had been successful, all the ‘normal’ language classes were full.

That’s when I noticed that the laundromat lady was a little crazy.

Okay, maybe ‘crazy’ is a bit harsh.  The laundromat lady was… ’special.’  And I didn’t feel like making small talk with her. 

But sure enough, she was headed my way. 

I can’t remember the icebreaker she used to start being my ‘friend’, but I do remember what I said.   In a heavy Slavic accent, “So sorry…do not spik…Inglis…ya styudenka pa Rusky…” 

Laundromat-lady’s face lit up like she’d just discovered diamonds in someone’s pockets.  She nodded and smiled and left me alone.   I buried my face back in my script.

A few minutes later, I heard her speaking to her replacement prey.  “See that cute little girl over there?  She’s from Russia!“ 

It hadn’t occurred to me that I was going to want to wash my clothes there for the rest of the school year.   I became so good at the accent, I minored in Russian the following year.

I’m Not Clumsy, I Just Live a Dangerous Lifestyle, Godammit.

I’m sitting here watching blood seep out of my index finger.  I sliced it open this afternoon while cutting lemons (and yes, it stung as much as you would expect).   It probably could have used a stitch.

But I cannot go to the emergency room in this town anymore.

Why, you ask?

Because it is a very small town, with a very small hospital, and the same doctor seems to always be working the emergency room when I need to go there.  And because I am a wild, reckless woman who likes to live life on the edge and walk the path of danger, my visits have been many.

And as a result, said doctor thinks I’m hot for his form and that I am deliberately hurting myself to be close to him.  Strangely, the psychotic part of this delusional theory doesn’t seem to frighten him.  I kind of get the impression he finds the idea appealing, which makes him even sicker than a girl who would send herself to the emergency room on purpose in order to stalk the doctor.

The first time I met Dr. McHottiePants [not my nickname - this is what he is generally known as around town...with the women, anyway; I suspect the men call him something different], I had been playing with my scroll saw (it was an art commission thing) and despite the protective goggles, a stray piece of sawdust managed to make it in and scratch the crap out of my cornea.  Real sexy.

Not a week later, I discovered that working out a lot and not drinking enough water can lead to a kidney stone.   Dr. McHP jumped up on the bed with me and scooched up close.  Putting his arm around me, said in what I think he thought was a schmexy voice, “Drea…we have to stop meeting like this.”  I recoiled.  NOT the way you want someone to behave who has just been handed a cup of your urine.  Seriously.  Ew.  Again, real sexy.

After this, there was another sliced finger incident, and another time, a pulled tendon.

There is nothing sexier than a chick with a faceful of road rash.

The capper was the night I stumbled in, barefoot, with a completely shattered arm and wrist after taking a bit of a tumble (completely sober, I swear to god).  In the car on the way to the hospital, I was chanting my mantra, “Please don’t let it be McHP, please don’t let it be McHP…”  And who do you think it was?  Of course.  And this time, he not only gets me in a bed, but gets to render me unconscious in order to set the bones.  (Doesn’t that sound x-rated?)

 

Of course, the benefit of having an emergency room doctor who likes to flirt with you is that they make sure your cast matches your pretty pink dress.

Anyway, my cut today took hours to stop bleeding, but it finally did.  And now, I’ve just noticed that there is blood all over my hand again.  But I’m not going to the hospital.

I’m pretty sure I saw a sewing kit around here somewhere.

The Caffeine-Fiend Within

Here in Canada, our most popular coffee shop is Tim Horton’s.  It’s sort of like the Canadian version of Starbucks – except far cheaper, far more potent (it is rumoured they spike the coffee with crack), and not nearly as classy (lots of brown and orange by way of colour scheme).  They have this contest every year called “Roll-Up-the-Rim-to-Win”, which gets everyone in these parts pretty excited.

Now, I don’t normally drink coffee.  I’m a pretty hyper chick and well, let’s just say…it’s not really required. 

I knew it was a bad idea when I came to work jacked up on caffeine after being tempted by the promise of winning a car or a big-screen tv, and my boss turned to one of my co-workers and said, “It’s Roll-Up-The-Rim time.  You know what that means, don’t you?” 

I paused in my chugging to listen:

“We’re going to have to put up with Drea on coffee for the next two weeks.” 

But still, to be truthful, I didn’t usually actually drink the coffee.  I would take a sip or two and then dump it from impatience to find out if I’d scored anything (and all I ever scored was – surprise! – a free coffee.)

No, up until about a month ago, I was a caffeine-free entity, if you don’t count the ballet years.  But I wouldn’t really classify the sludge sold for 35 cents a cup by the theatre school office as coffee.  No, I was all about the herbal tea.  Or if I was feeling particularly wild, a cup of Earl Grey while I was out for breakfast with a friend.

A month ago, I happened to be suffering from a slight sleep deficit and was wandering down the gourmet coffee aisle in the grocery store, where I’d never been before. 

WELL!   Who knew?  Who knew.  Seriously.  I was mesmerized by the smell!  The names!  It was an assault on my senses…images of chocolate, hazelnuts, vanilla, berries and citrus fruits and spices….

I couldn’t take it – I had to try it.  

It started out innocently enough…a nice pack of freshly ground hazelnut cream.  The buzz was extraordinary.  I couldn’t believe I’d been preaching the evils of caffeine for so long!  (And yes, I am aware of the hypocrisy of someone who enjoys her liquor as much as I do preaching about healthy lifestyle choices.  Whatever.)  With this kind of energy, I might be able to forego sleep altogether!  Think of all I could accomplish!!

Well, let me tell you, friends.  It didn’t take long.

The office where I work received a huge gift basket for Christmas…filled with caffeine-based products.  When the original hazelnut ran out, I cautiously reached out…thinking that there was no way any of these others would live up to my initial hit.

Within mere weeks, I was experimenting.  Combining products.  Mixing up speedballs of cappucino spiked with liberal spoonfuls of the ol’ Instant Sanka, just to see what would happen. 

Ibegantalkinglikethis.  I needed more and more just to get high.  Life would never be the same.  World domination was practically within my grasp!!

Now I need to get my hands on some of these chocolate-covered coffee beans I’ve been hearing so much about.  I don’t think it could get much better than that, really.  I may orgasm.