morning gruel

the coke-bottle kid

On Sunday I went to church. Yup that's right, you heard it here first. It's certainly not my normal type of activity but the choir and band of my high school, Westgate Mennonite Collegiate, were on tour. They had a stop in Vancouver and I just couldn't resist reliving a small moment of the past.

When Morgaine and I got to the church, there were a couple of Westgate students in their uniforms on the sidewalk. I noticed that the uniform hadn't changed at all. And just seeing those uniforms made me feel like a high school student again. You see, in high school I was an awkward, coke-bottle bespectacled, insecure teenager. And in that moment, all of my years away from Winnipeg building my own independent life, getting a degree, being a competitive athlete (I was a benchwarmer in high school), guest star TV roles, starting a family... it was like none of it had happened. And I thought, Why would I want to relive this? I had to work hard to remind myself that high school was long since over.

We went inside the church and sat down. That's when Vic Pankratz, the choir director, spotted me. He came over immediately and told me to make sure to speak with him after the service. And so I did. I spoke with him and Bob Hummelt, my social studies teacher who is now Westgate's principal.They were both happy that I could make it to the performance. They spoke very kindly. It was then that I remembered that it was the kindness and understanding of (most of) my high school teachers that allowed me to survive until graduation. I always maintain that I would not have survived a public school.

Sometimes I still feel like a kid, locked in the pain of my teenage years. And I do still sometimes suffer from bouts of insecurity. Even at 6'2", I often have a mental image that anyone in a position of authority over me is taller than me. I know it's a completely symbolic psychological thing, but it's there. But on this meeting, I realized that my high school teachers weren't taller than me. It seemed that the insecure, awkward teenager had taken off, leaving just the adult me behind. What a relief. And I was so happy to be allowed to meet these people again as an adult and finally be able to speak to them eye to eye.

I'm glad I went.

what's better than chocolate?

About a month ago now, Morgaine and I went for a walk in the park.

There was a beautiful late-afternoon light that made everything look like it was made out of gold. We walked around the park until we settled in on a dock that ran through a little marsh and looked out over Trout Lake. We lay down on the old wood slats of the dock and Morgaine took photographs of the swallows that swooped overhead.

After a while of quietly enjoying the most beautiful day of the year so far, Morgaine said, I have a surprise for you.

Is it chocolate? I asked.

It's not chocolate, she told me. She asked if I wanted to take another guess but chocolate was really the only thing I could imagine that would constitute a really good surprise. I mean really, what's better than chocolate?

Morgaine smiled and said, We're going to have a baby.

Okay, that's way better than chocolate.

it takes two

Last year, Morgaine and I learned to dance the tango.

Actually, Morgaine learned the tango and I tried to learn the tango. I was constantly frustrated by my inability to incorporate new moves. In fact, sometimes I could not even understand how the new move worked. And I would leave class unhappy that I wasn't getting it. Eventually, my frustration chipped away at my enthusiasm. I stopped having fun. And my newly-found bad attitude wrecked all of the enjoyment that Morgaine was getting out of our dance classes. So we stopped going.

But I still find myself thinking of the tango longingly. The music! The passion! The great shoes! I hear the sound of a concertina and my heart aches. I watch footage of people doing the tango and am saddened by the fact that my dancing skills are limited to the robot.

I love the tango. But mostly, I want to love doing the tango. Maybe I'm finally ready for some more instruction. I'm sure Morgaine could be convinced to go back to class. But the question is: could she be convinced to go back to class with me?

i am the grand marshal of the cakefest parade

Last week I got back to the gym...again.

You see, I have the Canadian National Freediving Competition coming up at the end of May and I haven't been training properly. I've watched my eating habits veer toward unhealthy. I've skipped working out if it looked just a little too chilly outside when it was time to get up and go to the gym.

This was pretty much the same place I was in before the last competition when I blacked-out twice and therefore finished LAST. So proper training has begun. Running, gym, eating right. I've got about six weeks to be where I want to be physically and mentally. No problem.

Or so I thought. I remembered that it's Morgaine's birthday this weekend. And what comes with a birthday? Cake! What's the big deal about cake, you ask? Well, last year after my birthday I decided that one cake wasn't enough. Over the next few weeks I staged my very own cakefest, which is kinda like Oktoberfest with pints of chocolate icing instead of beer. My cake craze signaled the downfall of my personal fitness regime over the winter.

And it's funny how after eating lots of cake other unhealthy foods seem a little less unhealthy. Suddenly a grilled cheese sandwich is good for me because it has less sugar than cake. And chips have less fat. A milkshake has no flour, therefore less carbs. Even skinny little bio-engineered Pocky looks like a healthy option next to a big fat slice of chocolate cake.

Perhaps when cake is presented this weekend I should summon the kind of willpower I use when I hold my breath. A difficult task indeed because for me it's actually easier to hold my breath for six minutes than to say no to a piece of delicious birthday cake.

snackenstein

Morgaine and I went out for sushi last night and at the end of the meal, we received a package of Pocky with our bill. That's right, Pocky, the Japanese super snack food. Somehow I had managed to forget all about the wonder of Pocky. For those of you who've had Pocky, you know how great it is. For those of you who haven't had Pocky, it's a skinny, dipped pretzel stick. That's it. But it's a superior skinny, dipped pretzel stick. What makes it superior? Well, they don't coat the entire pretzel, they leave part of it uncoated so that you can hold it without getting your hands dirty. Now that's smart snack food! Plus, they are especially yummy!

So since last night I haven't been able to stop thinking about Pocky: How can I get some more? When can I get some more? What flavour should I get?

Immersed in my Pocky obsession, I looked up the website of Glico, maker of Pocky. On the Glico website, I read a little bit about Pocky (yum!) and about some other Glico snack foods which I decided I must also get my hands on.

I explored the website further. In the menu there was a link to 'Biotechnology Research'. Oh no, I thought, I'm never going to want to eat Pocky again after I hit that button. But I hit it anyway. What I found was terms like enzyme improvement by new molecular modeling-based protein engineering and cycloamylose with high degree of polymerization. Now I don't know about you, but that sounds more like a science experiment than a snack food. I just don't need to eat something that includes a promising post-genome material for its superior protein refolding capability.

I guess that's one more bit of junk food that I can cross off the list. So long Pocky, our love was short but sweet.

get over it

Remember yesterday when I told you about the horrible note I wrote to my friend over 25 years ago and how I was looking forward to apologizing to him? Well, I haven't done a lot of truly horrible things in my life but there have been a few things that I've felt the need to apologize for. Here's one:

Several weeks ago, an old high school friend got in touch with me on facebook. We always got along and we sent a few notes back and forth. And then finally I had to apologize. You see, she asked me to be her date to grad back in 1989 and for no good reason I said no. I had decided that I was going to grad dateless and I was sorry but I just couldn't be her date. I always felt bad about that.

I mean, think about it. It's hard to ask someone out. I was terrible at it. I got so nervous. I remember asking out a girl that I liked and having my lip twitch uncontrollably. And back when we were teenagers, girls didn't usually ask boys out (at least they didn't ask me out). So when she asked me to grad, that took guts. And she must have liked me, at least a little. She was attractive and funny and talented, but I said no, I'd rather go alone. What a jerk.

So after a few messages back and forth with her on facebook, I finally apologized.

It turns out that she had gotten over it years ago. It was me who hadn't.

the meanest thing i've ever done

Well, I must say I'm somewhat shocked. I received a phone call last night at the store from an old school friend. A really old school friend. He was my best friend for several years in elementary school. I haven't seen or heard from him in 25 years. Well, it just so happens that he and his wife (news to me!) are moving to BC and he was wondering if I would be interested in getting together and catching up. All I can think is, WHO WOULDN'T?! What a rare opportunity I've been given. So with any luck, we'll be seeing each other sometime next month.

It will be nice to see him again. I mean, we were close. I would go to his house nearly every day after school and we'd play Atari. I remember eating his mom's fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies. I remember selling lime kool-aid (with pepper added for flavour) on the sidewalk in front of his house. I remember thinking his family was so exotic because they had an old Land Rover and his dad smoked a pipe.

Yes, it will be nice to see him again, find out what he's up to... and apologize. Why, you ask? Well, it was in grade 5 or 6 I think, and I randomly decided to be mean to him after years of close friendship. One day, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, I handed him a note that said something that I'm actually too embarrassed to print here. It was one of the meanest things I've ever done in my life and I remember crying about it afterward. We were never as close after that, partly because I was completely embarrassed by my own meanness. I couldn't look at him without feeling horribly, horribly guilty about what I had done.

Of course, these things don't matter to adults. So when he called, I was THRILLED to hear from him. And then I recalled my meanness. And I wondered, Does he remember it? Well, he probably does now because it turns out that he reads my blog. So I'm guessing that he's either gotten over it or when we meet he's gonna sock me one.

keeping up with the owens

The other morning Morgaine woke me up. She goes on to inform me that she's been up for a while and has already 'done her morning'; She's done yoga, showered, and responded to several e-mails. Yup, she's been up for hours.

Well, I got so frustrated with not being able to keep up with her that I decided to break my no caffeine rule.

So yesterday I had not one, not two, but three cups of black tea spaced strategically throughout the day. In this way, I was able to stay alert and more importantly, on pace with Morgaine. I got up when she did but I was a little sleepy so I had a cup of tea. Then I went on to get a bunch of stuff done. Eventually I got sleepy so I had more tea and did more stuff. Then, when I got sleepy in the evening, I had another cup of tea and managed to stay up through an entire movie.

I have to say, it was great to be able to keep up with Morgaine all day. There are two things I failed to mention though:

1) I had a two hour nap in the afternoon and 2) it's now 2am and I can't sleep.

hi ho, hi ho

I'm leaving for work in a few minutes.

Morgaine is out for the afternoon so I'm sitting alone at home listening to Billie Holiday. This would be the perfect day to stay home and curl up with a good book. But I can't.

You see, I have funny work hours. I have my days free to do whatever I like: write, relax, hit the gym, read, drink tea...  and then I end my day by going to work. Strange finish, I think. I'm not the only one who thinks so either. Many customers come into my store (when they're done work for the day) and they see that my store only opens at 4pm. Some of them scoff and say, Nice hours ya got, what do you do all day? Do you have another job? But I don't, and when I tell them this they often say, You mean this is ALL YOU DO?

I find this somewhat offensive because I just can't figure out what it is about owning my own business that makes people think that I'm not doing enough with my life, like I must have another real job. I guess all of those seven day weeks that I've put in over the last few years don't count for much.

Of course now I'm down to four days a week and I think that's plenty, even if other people don't.

he's back, and this time it's personal

This here is the post where I really begin to explore how candid I can be in this public realm...

I have a love/hate relationship with the movies.

I have been watching movies incessantly since my mother died when I was a teenager. It seemed the best and quickest way to escape the horribly painful reality that I had to face everyday. I was a lonely kid, a momma's boy with no mom. One of the few joys I had in my life was going to my Uncle Jake's audio/video store (back before giant rental chains existed), where I would rent a movie and talk to my wonderful cousins who worked there. They, and so many other kind and generous relatives, made me feel like part of a greater family, which eased my loneliness a bit.

But I digress. For years I watched movies several nights a week; they became my closest friends. And so it's from movies that I learned all about life: romance, war, love, family, crime...

The thing is, MOVIES AREN'T REAL. But they permeated my psyche to such an extent that even today when my life isn't regularly punctuated by happy endings or perfectly witty one-liners, I have to remind myself that life's not actually like the movies. I remember a moment of trying to 'romance' Morgaine in the earliest stages of our relationship: I actually used a cheesy line from a movie because hey, it worked for that guy. Of course, Morgaine just rolled her eyes. Smart gal.

And so although movies got me through some tough times, they also affected my personal development deeply. I still catch myself imagining ideal future moments for myself that have no basis in reality: happy endings, romantic interludes, intrigue... And so I have to work hard everyday to turn off the movies that play in my head and allow my life to unfold without false expectation.

And just be.