But also I don’t want to say any of it here. I’m not uninspired elsewhere. I am writing every day. Just not here.

In most TV dramas involving a doctor, there will be a scene where the doctor tries to revive someone who isn’t breathing. The doctor pounds and pounds on the patient’s chest and blows into the patient’s mouth and this goes on for far too long while dramatic music plays until finally someone else, often the doctor’s love interest, character foil, or nemesis says,

“Enough. He’s gone. He’s GONE.”

That’s how I feel about this blog.

Except it’s still here. Representing eight years of my life. Representing my 30s, I realize, as I prepare to celebrate my 38th birthday.

And I don’t measure time in decades, so it’s not that my 30s are ending and zomg what do I dooooo. It’s that this little spot I carved out and sat down on, back in 2003, has been slowly dug out around me and now when I look around all I see are the walls I’ve built. I can’t see anything outside the walls. Until I climb out of here.

I did the digging! And I’m proud of the digging I have done and the walls I’ve built. But writing about the walls you’ve built is, well, not very interesting. A writer who can’t see anything can turn as pretty a phrase as she wants and it will still be a pretty phrase about a dirt wall that everyone has seen before.

So, in the past couple of months I have visited here, looking at this body of work and appreciating it for what it is. Appreciating the growth that I see from the first post to the most recent. Loving the sanity and clarity it’s brought me over the years. The outlet, the writing practice, the escape.

The most wonderful thing it’s brought me is community. You people. (You are people, right? Because I’ve met some of you, but not all.) OK, well, even if some of you are Borg (I don’t understand the joke but I make it anyway)(it might not even be funny)(I don’t care) or really smart cats, so be it. I’ve made friends by writing words on the Internet. I’ve met people I’ve borrowed child-sized socks from and not (yet) returned. I’ve met people whose pants are in my closet. I met you all here. Talking about shoes and cheese and kids and stuff.

I never wanted money. So that’s a relief.

And if the cheeseblog is the patient being stubbornly attended to by a physician who refuses to believe that it’s over and time to move on to a new patient, let us say that this post about Anthony Wiggle is the zombie heart (again, does that even make sense?) that refuses to stop beating. An honourary slow-clap for the post about Anthony Wiggle, which keeps getting comments, including one from someone who knows his wife? or something? bringing it to FORTY TWO comments over the past three years. The most comments any of my posts has received. Forty two. The meaning of life.

If that isn’t internet success, I don’t know what is.

I keep wanting to write “I’m not quitting,” but I am. I am quitting. Not writing. Just this space. I will maybe — possibly — probably? want a new space. A new patch of ground to sit on, if there is any left in the world.

And when I do make a new space, there will probably be patio lanterns. That’s all I know for sure.

xoxo, Gossip Girl. Wait. No.

I am just going to ignore everything except the one about cuddling because I am trying to survive the SHITSTORM THREES over here and if you’re telling me that four is no better but in fact WORSE I might have some problems.

I know Jana knows this because she has an older child as well, but I know, too, that every child is different and her younger one HAS BEEN TALKING LIKE THIS FOR YEARS kind of like Fresco, which I suspect her older one did not (as mine did not), so OMG it’s going to get louder? I am quitting is a totally reasonable response.

I only had 20 minutes to write the last post so I didn’t get to a) the good things about Four, and b) my personal strategy for surviving it, other than earplugs and gin.

No, four is not worse than three. Really. In my house, anyway, so far, and bear in mind that we are still a few months from Four, so I reserve the right to change my mind / sell my kidney, buy an RV, and leave this town forever.

The tantrums are fewer, with Four, but they’re bigger. And meaner. Three (sometimes) accepts what you say at face value, then punishes you later with tantrums and you have no idea why. Four does not accept what you say, so it’s more straightforward. Four will respond immediately by refuting your statement, so you must remember to NOT ENGAGE in dumb arguments. This is key. You cannot — as I tend to do — argue about the sky being blue or not blue. You have to learn to say you are wrong, even if you aren’t. Because if you insist you are right, Four will argue with you until you are crying for mercy. And then you will be too tired to enforce the rules that matter, like no eating chocolate bars off the shelf while I buy groceries.

Listen. You are right. It doesn’t matter if your child believes you or not.

And lest you worry — as I tend to do — that setting a precedent for letting your child win an argument or believe that something is true when it is patently UNTRUE will result in him becoming some kind of sociopath, or bully, or right-wing nutjob, it won’t.

I think of developmental growth as like being in a tornado. You’re over there, and your mouth is moving, but your kid can’t hear you because he’s in a tornado. When he comes out of the tornado, your house will be messy, but he’ll be himself again. He learned a bunch of stuff while he was ‘away from you’, and now is ready to listen to your seminar on Manners and Cutlery Use.

He’s not going to make the connection: “I’m always right because Mommy agreed that the sky was yellow even though it was blue.” He doesn’t even remember that conversation. It had nothing to do with the sky and everything to do with CONTROL.

(however if you give in on the chocolate bar, even once, that one will come back to bite you)

I survive by not giving a toot about him eating his crusts, or him calling the table a stupid table, or saying he hates the cat, because it’s the intent behind it that he is immersed in and when he emerges from the bath of that intent, he will be cleaner and probably ready to love the cat / clear the table / eat the crusts.

And finally, some great things about almost-Four are:

1. Sustained concentration — 45 minutes building with Lego? Check.
2. Incredible imaginative play. (just make sure you let him be the director)
3. Wicked sense of humour / great bubbling giggles and belly laughs.
4. Ability to walk for miles without complaint.
5. Drawing faces.
6. Hugs still fix 80% of life’s ills.

Courtesy of Saint Aardvark, T.O.R.N.A.D.O by the Go! Team.

It has been harder lately to ascertain what of my children’s behavior is related to developmental stuff and what is related to a) they are getting sick b) they are getting over being sick c) it’s the holidays AND they’re sick d) I had a headache for a month and made a grimace face at them approximately 11 hours a day e) it’s back to school f) they’re getting sick g) and not sleeping h) but when do they sleep? Really? Ever? Like, could I complain about this any more?

HOWEVER. We have been healthy and well-slept for four? five? days now, and the holidays are over and the back to school routine has been well re-established and my headache stopped on the 14th of December, so I can safely say that Trombone is settling down, now that he is five and a half (don’t get me STARTED on how wrong that is. His head is now as big as his whole body was when he was born. Cat’s in the Cradle! Etc!) and Fresco is moving into a period of some, transitions, and um, other bullshit ways of saying PAIN IN THE ASS.

Guys, they don’t call it The Fucking Fours for nothing.

Here are the rules of four.

1. He is the Boss.

You want him to do that thing that he loved doing last week? He isn’t doing it. He loved the cat. He might still love the cat. If you ask him to feed the cat? He will say, “No. You can do it.”

2. He is right about point 1 and everything else in the world.

“Please feed the cat. It’s your job. And the cat is hungry.”
“It’s not my job. It’s YOUR job. I hate the cat.”
“You hate the cat?”
“NO. I DON’T. I HATE THE CAT.”

3. He is ANGRY that you will not acknowledge how right he is, and that he is the boss.

“I’M NOT FEEDING THE CAT. Anyway. It’s evening. Where’s my dessert.”
“It’s 9:30 am.”
“It’s EVENING. Stop LYING TO ME.”

4. He loves me so much and wants to cuddle and kiss my neck and pet my hair.

Tickle games. Snuggles. Made all the more bittersweet because, well, it’s ending. The sweet snuggles are ending and he’s becoming his own person (more so than before) and this is it no more babies oh god what have I

wait. No. It’s OK. Because.

5. He wants to punch me in the face.

“I need to get a drink of water now. I’ll be back to snuggle in a minute.”
“YOU CAN’T LEAVE. I WANT TO SNUGGLE YOU.”
“I’m thirsty, Fresco. I need a drink –”
“Stay or I punch you. Those are your choices.”

6. He is so, so sad because I yelled at him because his fist was in my face because he loves me so much.

“Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
“I’m sorry I yelled at you. I don’t like your fist in my face.” *
“This is all your fault. All of it.” (that’s a direct quotation, by the way. OK! Thanks kid!)

*note: he has not actually punched me in the face.

7. The best way to express excitement about something is to shout at the thing that excites you!

“CHOCOLATE BARS! IN THE GROCERY STORE! I WANT ONE! I WANT ONE! I WANT ONE!”

8. Don’t tell him what to do.

“Please put the chocolate bar back on the shelf. We’re not buying a chocolate bar.”

9. Didn’t you see the top two?

(cover your ears)

10. He is the Boss.

(might want to block your face, too)

But he’s still not getting a chocolate bar.

(photo credit: Fresco’s preschool teacher, who apparently denied him his autonomy right before this photo was taken.)
(just kidding)

Today 2012 called me, on the telephone.

Hello? I said.
What are you bringing me? said a deep voice.
Who is this? I said.
This is 2012. I start tomorrow. And I am wondering, since you want so many things, what are you bringing me?
What? I said. Like a sacrifice? Are you that kind of god? Do you want a goat or something?
My point is, I’m a year. You’re a person. You’re in ME, not the other way around. I don’t bring you things.
Oh. OK. So — how do I make this — you — a good year?
I’m not good or bad. I’m a block of time. I think you’re confusing me with someone else. Like God. Or Santa. I don’t care what you do. So don’t blame me for your shit at the end of next December.
Oh..kay?
I didn’t want to be a year, you know. I wanted to be a virtuoso pianist.
Yeah?
You’re lucky. You’re a human. You can be whatever you want. Who wants to be a year? It’s like being the weatherman. The news one, I mean, not someone who actually makes the weather. The weather is made by Science.
Science is Real.
I know.
OK, so… I prompted.
So, it said. Bring me your best things. And you will have the best year.
It’s that easy?
It’s that easy.
It’s not like putting lipstick on a pig?
No, more like using real butter in your cookies.
Like smiling with your eyes?
Yes. Like smizing. Exactly. Except with fathoms more moral depth than Tyra Banks.
You get what you give? I asked.
You got the music in you, it replied.
OK.
I have to go. I have more calls to make. Have you seen facebook? People are asking me — a year — for all kinds of stuff. Cars! Girlfriends! Good fortune! It’s like I’m the Easter Bunny, tooth fairy and Santa, all rolled into one. And people are talking SMACK about 2011. 2011 didn’t do anything except exist as a series of days, you know?
Yeah. Got it.
See you on the flip side. Remember. Bring the good stuff.
OK.

The good stuff.

At the end of a calendar year, people talk about meditating on a word for the coming year. They talk about resolutions, although it seems resolutions are uncool anymore. More people are resolving to not make resolutions. I’ve had ample time to think, lately, and nothing is presenting itself to me, resolution or word-wise. Or, you know, life-wise, career-wise, anything-wise. So I think I will do two things:

1. Ask myself if what I am about to say or do is true.
2. Ask myself if what I’m bringing is my best stuff.

I guess my word would be authenticity. But yesterday, walking in the forest, Fresco decided he would name his new stuffed puppy “Deciduous” and I kind of like the sound of that too.

Happy 2012, friends and foes! Deciduously looking forward to all your best stuff!

You, and by you I mean I, get used to having even that ten minutes of time or whatever it is that I get in a day. It takes a few days to get used to the routine change. You know. Togetherness. Which leads to bickering; the bicker bone being connected to the scream bone, the scream bone connected to the stress bone, the stress bone connected to the WINE. No bone. Just wine.

We muddled through, me feeling a) like crap and b) like a total parenting n99b (that’s, like, even n00bier than n00b)(get it?) and c) that Doom/Panic feeling that comes from feeling like crap in one way or another for MONTHS and like it will never end, but trying not to complain about it because no one likes a complainer that’s why I’m sneaking it into this paragraph handwave and the kids reacting to that and being assholes and me being a bigger asshole just to prove that I AM THE BOSS ASSHOLE. In case there was any doubt.

I am the boss asshole.

Saint Aardvark came home at the end of the day and took the kids upstairs and put them to bed (but not before a parting shot re: how hungry they were because I forced them to bed without supper, oh wait, no I just asked you to SIT at the TABLE more than FIVE TIMES and so I assumed when you started dancing around the room that you were done, oh you weren’t done? Go to bed for 12 hours and then you can have breakfast. BOSS ASSHOLE.) and everything got better.

At the end of the evening I saw the broken bag of reindeer food on the shelf and told SA the story and he fell on the floor laughing and then I laughed too and realized that actually it’s all just funny.

Oh you want to hear the reindeer food story?

One of Trombone’s teachers gave him a card and a bag of reindeer food. You folks all know about reindeer food? I didn’t until recently. Without meaning any disrespect, it’s bullshit. It’s 2 ingredients: oatmeal and glitter. And a little tag that says sprinkle me on the lawn and reindeer will come! Except usually it rhymes.

Like, great, who’s going to clean up all the reindeer poop? Oh, my mom will get it, don’t worry. She’s already cleaning up everyone else’s poop.

I think there is a third ingredient: Magic, but since we are a low-key Santa-acknowledging household, we don’t sit around all day talking about where the reindeer will land. We live in a townhouse and we have a gas fireplace. Let’s not get into the details.

Anyway, it was 10:30 am and I was about ready to lock myself in the bathroom for the rest of the day, hang the expense, because I was trying to get the children to put on their coats and walk with me to the store. You get to a certain point, a tipping point, maybe? I haven’t read the book, where the the children both NEED exercise and CANNOT BE PERSUADED to do anything that will facilitate that exercise, so there I was, in all my outdoor clothing, with the kids half-clad and Trombone whipping the bag of reindeer food around, pretending to be a Ninja or something, yelling “Hooooowayyyyyahhhhhhhhhhh!” when of course it broke. Oatmeal and glitter all over the kitchen floor. < --- word count: 666.

"OH NO!" Trombone said.

He was dismayed. As was I -- I don't want reindeer in my fucking KITCHEN are you kidding me?

"Uh," I said. I leaned against the kitchen counter and surveyed the chaos.

"I'll sweep it up," he said. He went to get the broom from the bathroom, walking right through a puddle of oatmeal glitter. Then he commenced to sort of wave the broom around, making the lightweight glitter float through the air.

"I want to help!" said Fresco.
"You can hold the dustpan," said Trombone.
"OK!"
"Not like that. Hold it flat. It has to be...Oh now it's all going everywhere. YOU HAVE TO HOLD IT FLAT."
"But I am..."
"No you're not, you're holding it sideways. I have to sweep it in and it has to be FLAT."

Fresco dropped the dustpan and made his mad face.

"HEY PICK UP THE DUSTPAN YOU HAVE TO HELP ME."
"NO. I DON'T."
"MOMMY TELL HIM HE HAS --"

"Put your coat on."
"But we have to --"
"Put your coat on."
"But the floor --"
"Put. Your. Coat. On."

Next time I will just look at this photo, which I will be printing to poster size and putting up on my wall. Happy 2nd-to-last-week-of-December!

(We went out to look at Christmas lights with these “Happy Glasses” that are like 3D glasses except what they do is turn the pinpricks of light into heart shapes. Like acid, without the acid.)

Fuck you. Seriously.

It wasn’t enough to start the month with two kids with Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease, a time change, and a smack-tonne of rain. You had to give me a 13-day headache, neck spasms, a head cold, four canker sores, and my period.

Fine, one of those things would have happened anyway. BUT COME ON.

I tried, November. You know I don’t hold a grudge against you, like some people. I wrote a novel during you, once. I wrote a blog post a day, one year. This year, just to be funny, I wrote a post about how to survive you. It was just supposed to be a cute post. It wasn’t meant to be a challenge. You ass.

This morning, when I woke up, my head didn’t hurt. At first I thought I was probably dead. I spent an hour in the middle of the night listening to it throb and wondering if that doctor I saw last week was wrong and maybe I do have a tumour the size of Shangri-La pressing on my whatchimasomethings. But no — I was not dead, my head was attached, and yet I did not feel much pain.

No fool, I sat up very slowly. Still, it didn’t hurt. I stood up — ah, there it was. My old friend, Spike In the Brain. But when I moved around, the pain kind of … faded, instead of intensifying.

I actually felt better.

Holy fucking hallellujah and pass the beans.

I have made it through six hours of my day without taking a muscle relaxant, an ibuprofen, an excedrin, let alone several of each. I have not heated up my magic bag once, let alone every fifteen minutes. I can sit here and type this which, frankly, is a miracle. I haven’t been able to sit at my computer for longer than 10 minutes in days.

Why don’t you want me to write, November? What do you think I’ll tell the world? THAT YOU’RE AN ASS?

Your parting shot this morning, where we arrived home from walking Trombone to school and my key stuck in the lock and I couldn’t get it out so I had to take the deadbolt off the door and then I couldn’t get it back on for two hours and it was freezing cold and I had to keep my neck bent the whole time? Nice touch. But I still win.

Why?

Because tomorrow it will be December.

Don’t the door hit you on the way out, November. I’m done being nice to you. Next year I’m going to Belize.

Yrs in readiness,
Clara

Gwen Bell asked this personal question for reflection and this morning, just out of bed, I reflected on it.

It’s apropos because I have been suffering with neck and shoulder tension for a few days now, and it’s buggered up my head. I get these tension headaches periodically — at least I think they are, I’ve never been formally diagnosed — and on Thursday morning, I woke up with a sore neck and shoulder on the right side. It’s always the right side. So I went about my day, feeling kind of tired and off, but that was the second day I’d woken that way so I wasn’t surprised.

After supper, the headache started. It was a bad one. I ignored it for the first little while and then it got worse when we walked out in the snow up to the school to watch them light the giant cedar tree on the corner. With lights, I mean. Not on fire.

Incidentally, it was our first year attending this annual event and instead of raining like stink, it snowed like stink instead, and all was bright and cold and festive-feeling.

We got up the hill to the school and suddenly my headache began making itself known, in that I’m in trouble, I need an ibuprofen right this second sort of way. It was too late to go home and come back in time for the tree lighting so I just held steady. It was one of those headaches where you can’t bend over because the blood goes rushing to your head and then you feel intense pain and also like maybe you are going to throw up.

It took a double dose of ibuprofen and a heating pad on my neck to get me to the point where I could sleep.

I woke up yesterday all groggy from the pain medication and my neck still hurt. I took ibuprofen when I felt the first twinges of headache and it didn’t come back. The neck and shoulder tension is still there, though.

Back to the question! What do I have in my bag? I was noticing yesterday at the mall that the bag I was carrying cross-ways over my heart (symbolic?) was pulling at my right shoulder. Yet, across my other shoulder it is clunky and interrupts my walking.

It contained:

- my wallet
- a powder compact in case I decide to wear powder. It hasn’t happened this year, but it could. At any moment.
- a shirt that I was returning to a store at the mall
- a ‘first aid kit’ with drugs, bandages, antiseptic spray
- a shopping bag, for when we got our groceries
- several pens (but no paper)
- lip gloss
- tissues
- cell phone
- candy
- an apple

My bag is a ‘ready for anything’ mobile unit. Almost everything in it is just in case.

In light of my recent realization about the rope — no, not a thread, much weightier than that — of anxiety that connects me to both my father and my son, I am hyper-aware of the tendency I have to be prepared. As if being prepared for 90% of what life hurls at you will help you when you turn a corner and run smack into Ms. 10%. Wouldn’t it be better to spend one’s energy learning how to deal with adversity, learning how to be healthy and happy despite the 10%, and then you would be prepared for the entire 100. Without having to carry around way too much stuff in a bag.

I don’t remember what I used to carry in my bag before I was a parent. I think it was more like notebook, pen, music player, wallet. Having kids made my preparation gene go into overdrive. I think this happens to a lot of people, judging by the massive diaper bag market. There are systems man.

I digress.

Is my bag — and baggage, ho ho — causing my shoulder and my neck and thus my head to ache? I don’t know. It’s as likely as anything else. I don’t hold my body properly all the time; sitting at this laptop, for example. My position in the car when I drive. My tendency to sit down facing one direction and then turn my head to look at things over *there* instead of turning my whole body. It could also be: hormones, the weather changing, that my children (weights: 45 and 37 lbs, respectively) like to dangle off me like monkeys.

The purse part is kind of irrelevant. The part about being prepared helps to foster the illusion that as long as I have everything with me, nothing bad can happen. Maybe it’s time to just let shit happen and deal with it when it does. Seriously, by now, I have the tools I need, right?

Dear Universe: Please don’t answer that.

Can I possibly practice being less ready for anything? Perhaps, yes.

Then, the clocks go back an hour. The rain starts. Leaves start to drift, then plummet, from the trees. It’s dark when we wake up and dark when we eat dinner. Noses run, and run. Our eyes are always bleary. There isn’t enough coffee in the world.

November isn’t my least favourite month (that’s January) but it can be trying. I recognize this more in recent years; with the children around, many experiences are intensified. A little tired becomes Exhausted. A time change becomes A Crisis. Three days of rain becomes Holy Fuck Will We Ever Go to A Playground Again.

Here’s what I’ve been doing to keep myself relatively regulated.

Five Tried and True Ways to Survive and Even Enjoy November:

1. Make Your Own Light

You need it. Open all the blinds, take out your window screens, check yourself periodically to make sure you aren’t sitting slouched in a dark room waiting for the day to end. Of course, using too much electricity will result in the early wreckage of the planet, so rather than destroying what little happiness you have in a day, light candles. I pull out all the tea lights (IKEA 100, 10 years ago) and just leave them lit — in the kitchen, bathroom, wherever. It’s a bit of trickery that makes me believe I am in the dark on purpose. Also: everything looks better by candlelight.

2. But Don’t Fear the Darkness

The other day was a dark one. Lots of cloud, lots of rain, bad news all over, and sickness all around. Fresco insisted on playing the same Elliott Smith / Eels / Richard Buckner set on the CD player. I did some breathing, lit my candles, and smiled at myself in the mirror a lot but it didn’t do any good.

At one point I gave in, said to myself, Today is a dark day. Embrace it, don’t fight it. Stay away from social media. Listen to Elliott Smith and be glad you are alive. Tomorrow will be different.

Using energy to try and banish the dark can sometimes be as fruitless as shoveling Jell-O. Sometimes it is more productive — more energizing — to dive into the darkness, revel in it, feel low and slow and nurture yourself and then? Unfurl.

3. Eat Comfort Food

I’ll repeat it in case you don’t remember what I said last November: Put cheese on it and bake the crap out of it. Whatever it is. I don’t care if you gave up dairy. Take it up again.

Remember in July when it was so hot you could only eat watermelon for dinner? Rejoice, for now you can casserole. Also, baking things will warm up your house.

Salads are for lettuce season. It’s cheese season now.

4. Don’t Drink Too Much

You will want to. It is dark and cold and raining against your window and good lord can we just be drunk until April? No. We can’t. It would be bad for us. We must drink responsibly because in the morning? We have to get out of bed and do things. We are not 20 anymore.

Also, remember: even if it is dark at 3 pm, that doesn’t make it happy hour. Have some tea.

5. Go Outside

You won’t want to. It is dark and cold and raining and windy. There are leaves blowing at your face and the children are whining about how far it is to school (Three blocks, everyone. Three damn city blocks.) and how cold their hands are. Put on rubber boots, wool socks, a rain coat, a hat, gloves and go outside. Walk around. You don’t have to go far. The fresh air will replenish you.

If you are a parent, take a walk without your children once in a while. Walk fast. Walk like you used to walk before you had children.

And; go places and see other people. Make dates and keep them. In the warm light of a pub or coffee shop, who cares what month it is.

BONUS:

Avoid the mall. It is probably decorated for Christmas, overheated, and full of keen shoppers and viruses.

…what works for you? SAD lamp? Vitamin B/D/Everything?