November 19, 2003

• Vortex.

  
  

  I am finding that online life is becoming a great big drag lately. I feel like the mother of 800 women, who all need to be closely supervised or they will snatch each other's toys. I can hear the whines: "MUUUUUM! SHE SAYS SHE ISN'T MY FRIEND"....Oy. I am done with being sympathetic, I referee enough squabbles in my day to day existence under my own roof. Enough people. It's online, it is 2D, not 3D, and if someone is trying to pick a fight - ignore it. And for heaven's sake, where is the payoff in picking fights, anyway? It's not  like you can SEE the person cry or get upset. All you get back is words. You all need to take a deep breath, and spend more time with your families if this is all you can get out of an online community. Life is too short and too precious to waste it warring over words that may or may not have been said, or implications that may or may not have been implied, or sticks and stones that may or may not have been thrown. Not to mention, it is the height of arrogance to assume that everyone is all that fucking interested in the linguistic swipes going back and forth. I have my opinion on who's right and who's wrong, but I cannot even summon the desire to get involved anymore. Give it up, and give the rest of us some peace.

  
  

  Okay. On to other things.

  
  

  Guess what? I am going home to Calgary for the first time in 3 years for Christmas. And I am taking the hub and the 'gruesome twosome'. My mum hasn't seen Mouse since she was 6months old, and hasn't even met the Spewprincess yet. Ditto to my gorgeous three sisters, one of whom has a new son whom I've never met, and who, from all biased accounts, I am going to love.  (ahem, not enough to want one of my own, see previous entry). I haven't seen anyone with whom I share DNA in the Great White North in 3 long years. I have a new brother-in-law that I have never met. And another whom I've only met when he married my sister, and another whom I've known for a while, but never get a chance to get silly with.

  
  

  Does everyone get how important this is?

  
  

  So why am I nervous?

  
  

  Well, let me count the ways.

  
  

  1. I still haven't lost my post-Spewprincess baby weight. I am carrying about 20 extra pounds and feel like John Candy. And for some reason, I always feel fatter around my gorgeous siblings. (No guesswork required there). I am sure they are gonna look at me and say 'too bad, she's really twinkied out since the second kid'. Call me superficial, call me shallow, but hell, I am older than dirt, and such trivial things start to matter when you can fold your boobs in half and tuck them into your waistband. If you had a waistband, that is. 

  
  

  2. I actually LOOK like my passport photo. And it's shocking. I look about 100 years old. I remember hearing once that when you age, you are either a 'shrinker' (your face gets tight and hollowed out and wrinkled' or a 'sagger' (your face starts to slip down your neck). I am the latter. I had cheekbones once, but since I had baby No.2, they appear to be located on either side of my mouth. You might, in a fit of nastiness, call them 'jowls'.

  
  

  3. What if no one really thinks it's a big deal?  What if they are all sitting there, silently resenting all the hoo-haa that is going on in preparation for our visit, and wondering why I think I am Miss Thang?  (My mother has already planned the entire visit, right down to when we get the tree, and the baking of cookies. She's also bought, wrapped, re-bought and re-wrapped, all the girls' presents.) I can imagine that, if you were one of the daughters who didn't leave her family behind in a spate of 60's revisionist soul tripping/navel gazing, you might start to get a little narky about the prodigal daughter coming home to the fatted calf. (think Richard Gere as King David dancing around in his diaper undies while the people throw palm fronds at him and genuflect. I'd be the one throwing bricks, prolly if the tables were turned). 

  
  

  4. We are broke. We cannot make up for being the prodigals by buying lavish presents and treating everyone to neato things. Which would be my usual way of handling things. So I am going to have to get by on sheer personality. Which brings me to No. 5.

  
  

  5. I know I have changed since I had kids. I changed when I had my first, and I can guarantee I have changed even more since my second. Insert words/phrases like 'short tempered', 'grouchy', 'goes to sleep at 9pm','no fucking fun' and you get the idea. They will probably hate me. Worse, I will probably bore them. I used to think there was no worse fate than to be a bore. Now I just think 'I hope I am so lucky'.

  
  

  6. And what if they hate my kids? There is no rule that says just because you are related to a child that you have to like her. And my 3 almost 40 year old can be hard work. I mean, I love her, and I understand her, and I get her little quirks and I get when she is testing limits and when she is just tired and confused, but then I have to. They don't. They can just go home, shaking their heads about what a terrible mother I am. And my youngest does this weird grunting thing almost all the time. I know someone is going to get irritated, I do - I mean it does go on all the time she is awake. And let's not mention how cute the spew will be the 40th time it's appeared on someone's freshly laundered shirt. Or expensive carpet.

  
  

  I need a liposuction, and a Dr. Phil personality makeover with a side order of some Oprah 'Live your real life'.  And I've only got three weeks to do it in.

  
  

   

  • 2:10 am
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