Christmas? What the #$*%! Is Christmas??

 John Waters said of Christmas, "You can love Christmas, or hate it, but you can't ignore it."

Truer words. And of course John Waters loves Christmas because what's tackier than Christmas?

Right - weddings. Every time I see one of those white wedding gowns now I think of silver Christmas trees. So mean, I know, but fuck the patriarchy in the ear, ladies. The only people who should be wearing white wedding gowns nowadays are Drag Queens. And why a Drag Queen would get married NOT wearing a white wedding gown is beyond me.

Oh dear. Did I just cancel myself? Whatever. Can't care about everything. And Christmas is definitely off my list of cares. In fact, I'm so past Christmas, I thought yesterday was Christmas Eve! Not that it mattered a whit when I found out, no, the Christmas people have now taken to saying "Christmas Eve Eve" and so I got confused, not having noticed the extra "Eve".

That's right - eves are being added to Christmas.

I'm on a so far not noticeable anti-anxiety medication, although perhaps the rest of you are reading this under your beds, given the weather bombs your loved ones are traveling in - during a pandemic in which our premiers have allowed our healthcare systems to implode because - clearly - they don't work for us.

No. Shut up. You're officially canceled if you think Ford Nation works for you and not the Mob.

I mean, developers.

And why it's healthcare "systems", plural, in a country with a population less than that of California is... annoying, but I suppose makes it easier for Putin to destroy Confederation via our blatantly corrupt and glaringly compromised premiers. Oh and Liberals, New Democrats and Greens who can't be arsed even to split the vote again so they squeak in to raid our treasuries for the Mob, I mean, developers, instead of march.

But that's not what this entry is about because this entry is about a Facebook memory that came up this morning about a tweet from last Christmas Eve, before the latest Putin puppet took over Twitter:

"LOL... just realized I hadn't made the bread for stuffing yet! OOPS...on it!"

Here's my Facebook memory:

Saw a tweet: "LOL... just realized I hadn't made the bread for stuffing yet! OOPS...on it!" & I wanted to reply: "You may as well cancel Christmas dinner then because bread should be stale for stuffing & yours is going to be fresh out of the oven." But then I thought about those reminders that come up now on Twitter when it's a "both sides" issue (so right vs wrong as if wrong isn't wrong it's just different from right) to remember before replying that there's a person behind the screen. #christmasspirit

Yes, I know - "You're a riot, Alice". 

But seriously, if you're doing Christmas from scratch - and if you're not, why are you doing Christmas at all? - and you've pretty much blown it by being late making the bread, rip it all up and stale it in the oven before making the stuffing and maybe it won't be a complete washout for you.

Also, and it's likely too late now, but you should add the spice packet from a box of StoveTop dressing, so as to re-create the *smell* of Christmas, but at greater expense and effort, of course.

If you're going to host - host. None of this "no one will care if everything's not perfect" bullshit. YOU care. So don't screw up like maybe you did last year by neglecting to buy organic cranberries dried in orange juice for that hit of sweet (but not too sweet!) with the savoury.

Dollarama may have a few boxes of StoveTop leftover from Christmases past. Worth a run in the gas guzzler to check. Because, trust me on this, once you stop keeping up with tradition (with updates because, although lard is easier to work with for your pastry, butter improves its flavour AND goes better with your mincemeat) you're just one short slide away from forgetting it altogether.

Anxious Much?

 My first major panic attack came after going out for lunch on Mother's Day, a pleasant meetup downtown (Ottawa) with my partner, eldest, and two friends on a patio at a place we used to frequent in pre-pandemic days.

I thought it must've been the fish or maybe the draft lines weren't clean. I hadn't had any trouble with white fish before, although I was no longer eating salmon (or duck) due to unpleasant after effects that were not, however, like this. I'd had each twice, same reaction - unpleasant, and I had to get rid of them, but not terrifying. Also my partner had eaten half my meal and had the same draft and he was fine.

No, this was different. On the walk to get the bus home I started to feel a terrible dread, later white knuckling it on the bus. There was no stomach pain, just feeling completely alienated, plus knowing I would have to empty my body of lunch. I'm vomit-phobic too so it took some doing, and a lot of lying on the bathroom floor, heart pounding, cold, then hot, then cold again, before hours later I was able to take a couple of gravol and go to bed, relieved it was over.

I did it, got rid of lunch. Oh the relief. Blessed, blessed relief.

(I remember the Freedom Convoyer driving by during lunch, truck festooned with obscene flags, engine roaring, and the people at the next table breaking out into Ram Ranch, giving them the finger. We joined in with applause for their outburst, but it was unsettling, a reminder of the breakdown in law and order, in the end having to rely on the very police who'd betrayed us to the bullying mob to run it out of town.)

Democracy is quite the compromise these days it seems.

I still won't risk fish (or duck) anymore. My sister suggested they were farmed and maybe I was allergic to whatever they were fed. But the incidents happened again and again and again, generally after venturing out, and so no, it's not the cauliflower or vegan tacos.

The last attack, just this past Saturday, a late afternoon meet up with a couple of friends, we passed a trio, a woman draped in a flag flanked by a couple of men, this one the Indigenous every child matters flag, parading down the sidewalk like the Queen of Sheba, as my mother would say, the narcissism off the charts as is the case with all Freedom Convoyers.

Then there were the two gangs of men, young, but too old to be shouting their Freedom Convoy allegiances (vaccine conspiracies this time) back and forth across the street.

"It's a little bleak downtown", commented my partner who, like a lot of us, really just wants to punch the fascist motherfuckers, always either in a truck or a gang, in the face.

"It's a dystopian nightmare", I replied.

But we had a nice time anyway and then I got home and the dread descended and it was Mother's Day all over again. (And yes, I recognize the "M" word here - in my case a reminder of the psychological pain she was in, and so I was in, too, before we both enjoyed her MAiD.)

So okay. I'm having panic attacks. And why not? I'm the most anxious person I know. We're in a pandemic, we just experienced an occupation, and our healthcare system is collapsing.

And by some sort of Christmas miracle, and being the 50% of our household with a doctor inherited from a retired doctor, I got in to see him Monday afternoon.

One of his patients must've enjoyed MAiD instead of keeping her appointment?

So now I have a prescription for anti-anxiety medication because he basically recognized and in fact gave me the words to describe what was happening to me - I'm having panic attacks due to a too high baseline level of anxiety. (Meanwhile I denied being an anxious person before suddenly blurting out, "Oh my God - why am I pretending I'm not anxious to a doctor? I'm the most anxious person I know!" He, in turn, confessed to experiencing a level of stress in his job he'd never experienced before, causing me to add, "I know and I'm feeling your stress right now!")

I won't name the medication. It's a low dose, what he'd prescribe a 5'5" 110 pound teenager. It's to treat the baseline anxiety to hopefully prevent the panic attacks, which are very debilitating. Sunday I was in my pajamas all day, for instance, a few hours long nap in the afternoon, very light eating, lots of water.

I've never taken this type of medication before so... I'm anxious about it! But I also don't want to have panic attacks so I'll take it.

Oh and he's trying to get me free therapy because he's all about the two-pronged approach, as the best doctors are, but we both know how likely that is to happen so in the meantime I'm blogging this shit out, privacy be damned.

PS: I'm also back to sobriety, inspired by one Tweedy on Twitter, of all cyber dystopias, with, I think, I hope, more openness as to what that will mean. Also, I'm on medication now and it's $50 a month.

Twitter Leavings

So if you're not on Twitter, or left early under its latest fascist billionaire management, you're missing a lot of farewells.

"I just want to let everybody here know, I've been accepted over at X site. You can find me under my handle XX."

Although now the latest fascist billionaire management of Twitter has declared naming these new sites verboten so people are using rhyming words to let other Tweeters know where they'll be.

Almost all of these people I recognize as like-minded politicos, some more political than others, offended by the overtly fascist politics of its latest billionaire owner.

Meanwhile, other like-minded politicos are vowing to stay and fight, not cede the space to the far Right, believing they're standing up for democracy.

In their opinion, Twitter should be part of "the commons", a regulated space for politicos to express our opinions about the news of the day. Every second of the day. Thousands of us. All at once.

Having been an office temp in several of our federal departments, I get antsy just thinking about it, not that I necessarily disagree with the sentiment.

And where does this news of the day - where does it come from? Why from professional journalists of course, the most maligned people on Twitter by my like-minded politicos.

Neil McDonald, when he quit Twitter in a huff years ago now, described it as "people shouting one-liners out into cyber space". Another journalist of my acquaintance described it as "a thousand conversations going on at once and nobody listening to anybody else". He never signed up and is now retired.

Instant publication of opinion by anyone who can get it together to sign up is what Twitter is.

I retweet all my like-minded politicos' farewells so they can find each other but I won't be joining them. For me the new ownership is an opportunity to ditch a time wasting addiction, made easier by the stark realization that with a drop in retweets I'm less interested in tweeting.

Stuff your "likes". Retweet or GFY.

I also learned a valuable lesson in the last municipal election about how little Twitter matters in real life when it appeared in cyber space Catherine McKenney would soundly defeat Mark Sutcliffe in the mayoral race, instead of what actually happened, which was the opposite.

Now I imagine how different the results could have been had all the energy that went into tweeting about how great a mayor McKenney would be had gone into shouting it on suburban street corners instead.

But it was when the latest fascist billionaire owner of Twitter called us, his Tweeters, "citizen journalists",  while attacking actual journalists, I realized how I and all my like-minded politicos had fallen for The Big Lie, and were, in many instances, reacting on the basest of impulses and shooting the messenger because we didn't like the message.

Twitter tweeter twaddle.

Running, Running, Ran

Back in my younger years, 12-18, I was a runner. I forget why I started, running not being a thing at the time, but once I started I was committed to it and ran 2.5 miles every night, often doing 5 miles on Friday and Saturday nights.

It was an obsession, as connected to weight watching as fitness, but I also had a very active fantasy life in those days and daydreamed so well on my runs that I was often reluctant to go back in the house and real life again.

I forget how I came to know the distance, someone must have driven around the block to measure it, but I remember 10 times around equaled 2.5 miles. Eventually I became known for my nightly run and at least one elderly gent would stand at the end of his driveway having a smoke, occasionally calling out encouragement as I ran by.

I realize now he was likely keeping an eye out, or maybe he just enjoyed the interaction. Another elderly gent watched from his living room window. He would turn out to be a guidance counsellor at the high school I eventually attended.

Anyway, all that to preface my recent attempt to restart my running obsession, which I guess came about because my blond companion, who I've never seen run, and my brother, who I've also never seen run, are both running now. And while I'm delighted for both of them, I'm also so competitive - still! - I decided if they're running, I'm running, too.

I hate it. And last night while chatting on the phone to my eldest, then my friend B, I realized I hate it because it doesn't feel right or good for me anymore - if it ever really did. Back in my youth when I ran my fuel was my imagination. It sustained me, kept me going, the fantasy of physical perfection, "I'll show you all" achievement, the ensuing celebrity and adulation of the masses.

Ah, daydream memories - Olympic gold medals in gymnastics (although I've yet to get up gracefully from a backbend, so likely never will because backbends just feel dangerous to me now, like biking around Ottawa) with Bob Dylan, Gene Hackman AND David Cassidy all fighting over perfect me featured on the cover of Seventeen magazine.

Now, though, I'm just aware of how unnatural it feels to me, how flat the slap of my feet (albeit not yet in proper running shoes) feels on pavement. My head aches a bit and I start to worry about being that person, the one who drops dead on a run. And I've got shin splints already. Also every bit of pavement in Ottawa seems to slope a bit and I feel off kilter, like I'm slowly but surely twisting my ankles.

Meanwhile, every day I've run I've passed a couple of elderly (more elderly than me!) gents out walking, verrry carefully, having had what I'm guessing was a serious health scare, and I feel like I'm doing the same, just faster and minus the serious health scare, like I'm lording my luck over them.

My hips ache, too. The worst of old ladyisms, the aching hips. Plus there's no way in hell I'm going to keep this up once there's even a hint of ice. Yeah, yeah, I could get cleats, but if/when I get cleats it'll be for walking to the grocery store, thank you very much. I'm still dealing with last year's broken wrist. (Oh and those skates are going to the Sally Ann because there's no way in hell I'm going skating after at least 30 years of not skating - even on that godforsaken canal we pressure each other to "enjoy" every freeze/thaw winter we could skate on our sidewalks - if we had them.)

I even emailed a book club friend and marathoner for advice on how to do this running thing, very mature for me, seeking advice from someone I know would have sought her own advice on the subject, and I followed it for two whole runs already. (With regard to winter running she advised the cleats, or, better yet - a treadmill at a gym or community centre, adding "but there's a reason we call them dreadmills".)

Then yesterday, as I was doing the walk back from my run/walk (run for a bit, walk for a bit, building up to running a full 20 minutes, as per my friend's advice - although I don't even own a watch so...) I ran into a woman whose new dog doesn't like Bernie (her old dog put up with him like the Queen with EVERYBODY, so our chats are shorter now when we cross paths) and she asked where Bernie was. So I told her what was going on (after telling her about Bernie performing surgery on himself, which I'll blog about in my next post) and she talked about how much she hated running.

"But I was heavy set when I was young, just like I am now. I'd do it, because we had to, and the other kids made fun of me because I took my time and would always be last. 'Haha it's because you're fat!' And I'd say 'No it's because I pace myself. I don't want to end up barfing in a corner like you because I ran too fast.' I was lucky because I never took it to heart. I liked table tennis, volleyball. And I've always walked. Love walking. And rowing on Dow's Lake. I used to walk there from our house and row for hours."

Listening to her I thought to myself, "What the hell am I doing? Am I so competitive - still - I'm going to ruin every day of my remaining life by shoving an obligatory run I hate doing into it? I don't even particularly like walking anymore because I've turned it into fast walking around our neighbourhood (which I don't like, either, because it's neither urban nor suburban - just ugly) for added exercise."

But Bernie's slowed down quite a bit in the last year and the walk is now entirely for him while we work on being Zen about it, or, as I say, go limp and just let it happen, or not, but stop arguing with an old dog - you're not on Twitter, you're supposed to be enjoying real life outdoors, so it's not exercise anymore, hence the fast walking addition.

Anyway, as I walked home I thought about the community centre and how it's within a decent walking distance and how I took drawing lessons there and how I'd like to take knitting lessons if they're on offer. Oh and how I took a yoga class, a few of them, that I really liked because the instructor was adamant about not doing or holding poses that hurt or cause stress in a way a person of my age knows is bad as opposed to just harder than what we're used to and we'll get there. Eventually. No rush. No rush at all.

Although there was a man who could do all the poses, including standing on one leg with his eyes closed for the duration of the pose. Super nice and helpful, though, including pointing out he'd noticed I was consistently doing a particular pose backwards and would eventually end up hurting myself, causing the instructor to gasp in alarm, come over to my mat, and carefully manipulate my arms and legs into the correct position because I have trouble translating from Yoga to English.

Long story short, I'm quitting running, not even giving it the old college try. Forget the hunt for proper running shoes, it's over. Done. I hate it and that's all there is to it.

Also I no longer have the eating disorder that more likely than not prompted my running obsession in the first place, nor can I daydream my way through it - life being good enough as it is, I guess, so lucky me.

Stay Tuned

 Hi there. It's been a while since I blogged because I've been writing for Galaxy Brain instead.

That Looks Good on You! You Should Buy It! is a book I wrote about working in retail and it's being serialized there by a wonderful man named Michael Murray, creator of Galaxy Brain.

Also, I went from just reading Twitter to commenting on it, became instantly addicted, and have now quit cold turkey, since there's no other way to kick an addiction, not for me, anyway.

So yes, stay tuned.

You've Been Waiting...

 ... And here it is! Issue #15 of Galaxy Brain!

Wtf? Issue #14? Already? Hallelujah!

 Yay! My book is still being featured in GalaxyBrain! Plus a short and true story and a long bit of advice! Enjoy and thanks for reading - you're the best - the best I tells ya!