News of Note: As of October 26, it will be illegal to use hand-held cell phones while driving in Ontario. A wise law. There will be a three-month weaning-in period, in which offenders will simply be informed of the law, and beginning Feb.1, they will be fined. A generous concession.

The same law will also make it illegal to text while driving.

Excuse me while I collect myself. And my jaw from the floor.

Text?

While driving?

While I suppose I am grateful for such a law, I am astounded that it could possibly necessary. While yet astounded, I ruefully concede that it is very likely necessary. I sigh for humanity.

So, Driving Texters, be forewarned: You have until Feb.1 to break yourself of your ludicrous habit.

And while we're at it, driving texters? Because it seems we can't take any degree of sense for granted... It's also a Very Bad Idea to drive blindfolded. Write that down. Just not while you're driving, please.

Parenting brings wisdom. Wisdom and humility.

Know why?

Not because of the mistakes you make and learn from, though of course they help. Not because you constantly run the risk of psychologically damaging your children. I think that risk is HUGELY over-rated by parents. Kids are just not that frail. (Look at how many parents are terrorized by their toddlers and teens. Frail? Pfft. Those small (and not-so-small) bullies are causing trauma, not receiving it.)

No, parenting brings wisdom, and a cold dose of humility, because you can see yourself in your kids. You see echoes of your younger self in their behaviour, and thus, you get an adult perspective on your own behaviour.

This particularly applies to adult children. My eldest is 23 now. A young adult, but an adult. Given that she's been living mostly on her own since she left for university, and that since graduation she's had a job in a different city and paid her own way completely, she's earned those adult stripes.

But she is a young adult.

We're just wrapping up a conflict, she and I, and a significant one. At one point, I greatly feared we were heading for another estrangement. We had one of those for the three years between 17 and 20, and I'd assumed that with adolescence behind us, we'd left that kind of thing with it. This week, I seriously questioned that assumption.

But it seems we'll make it out of these woods. And what have I learned?

1. Keep my opinions to myself.

Not that I am terribly forthcoming with them. Once they hit their late teens, my kids can go months without hearing an opinion. They get lots of questions bytimes, exploratory questions, not aggressive ones. But I don't often pronounce on their lives. When they leave home, I do this even less.

At this point, though, I'm thinking that I won't tell her anything I'm thinking, at least when that "anything" is at all critical of certain areas of her life. I think I'll be reluctant to do it even if I'm asked (which, we can all note, I wasn't this time). We will call this A Lesson Learned. From here on in, she is welcome to learn from bitter experience.

Lesson 1b: It is probably best she learn from experience.

2. She is not as measured and mature as I thought she was.

I'd expected disagreement with my position, expressed with some degree of huffiness. I did not expect a full-on onslaught of furious outrage. I expected her to disagree with my opinion, even to tell me I had no business imposing it upon her; I did not expect her to deny my right to an opinion. (Obviously, expecting a negative response, I did not embark on this conversation lightly. I felt it necessary, a maternal duty shouldered with stoicism rather than enthusiasm.)

She is certainly not as meaured and mature as she thinks she is... which leads me to the Most Important Lesson of all:

3. At age 23, I was not as measured and mature as I thought I was.

Without a child of that age to point the way, I'd have only my memories to go on... and they are, of course, the memories of a 23-year-old. I'd have a 23-year-old's perspective on the situations, the people involved, their responses, my own behaviour.

Of course, I've gained perspective over the years, even without my children's input. I've learned some stuff about my younger self along the way, but I will tell you now, NOTHING shows you how blinkered and restricted a 23-year-old's thinking is like arguing with a 23-year-old, even a sensible, mature, intelligent 23-year-old such as mine.

Wow.

Um, mom? On the off chance you ever stumble across this blog?

Sorry.

Series of tweets from a young mother:

Baby just tossed himself off of bed and onto hardwood floor. Am worst mother, ever.

Seconds later: (He's fine. I'm not.)

Six minutes later: 6 and a half months old. Husky fella, but still: BABY

Two minutes after that: It was a high bed. Will berate myself forever.

Four minutes pass, then: Thanks, all, for the reassurance that I am not, in fact, the worst mother ever.

It does occur to one that the trauma could not be oh-so-bad if she could turn her back on her baby and occupy herself with her invisible friends in the computer. One could even be a bit scathing about emotional aggrandizement/grandstanding and self-indulgence, if one were of a cynical turn of mind. (And an unkind one.) You would also be missing the crux of the messages.

It's the last tweet that reveals the core reality. Did she truly think she was the worst mother in the world? No. She is an intelligent woman. (She is. Highly.) She knows there are vastly worse things a parent could do (and have done) to a child than a mere moment's inattention.

Was she, however, shaken and in need of reassurance?

Verily.

And she got it. In spades, within seconds, and from a variety of sources. For all its flaws, the Internet can be a good and kindly place.

Which is why we're all here, right?

I knew it would hurt. I'm not an idiot. I picture the procedure (as described in fairly graphic detail by a helpful girlfriend), and I just know, you can't have that happen without pain.

However -- and here I haul out that tried-and-true test of female fortitude -- I have had three babies. More to the point, three labours, and even more to the point, all of them without drugs. Sure, they hurt, but I was up for it. I can deal. I am focussed, I am stoic, I am capable. I don't like pain, but I can manage.

So yeah, this was going to hurt, but I knew I could cope.

So I lie down on the table, wearing nothing south of the navel but a pair of disposable panties. (Indeed. Who knew those existed?) And the sweet young twenty-year-old sets in to deforestration.

It's not so bad. The wax goes on, warm and almost soothing. The wide strip of cloth is applied. I press where instructed, to hold the skin taut, and -- FZZT! -- the cloth is ripped off, taking a decent amount of foliage with it. And sure, it stings like a bugger. My skin is burning. It ain't pleasant, I'm not having fun, but it's nothing I can't deal with.

And that's as bad as it would have ever been, had I just been getting a "bikini wax". But, brave, gallant fool that I am, I was not stopping there. For I was getting a brazilian.

Why? Because I am a generous and considerate woman, that's why.

See, we've just passed an anniversary, my sweetie and me. Our first, if you're measuring from the wedding. Our twelfth, if you're measuring from our first kiss. (Yes, we married on the anniversary of our first kiss. Isn't that so sweet and romantic? It was he who made note of the First Kiss date, not me. I'd never have been more specific than "sometime in the spring, wasn't it?")

So, because he is such a wonderful, sensitive man, and because I am still very happy to be with him, I thought to commemorate this occasion in some way. In addition to the small piece of sculpture I bought him, more of a desk ornament than anything, I thought I would get him something more personal, more ... intimate.

Given how many highly satisfactory hours the man has spent (all told over the years) nuzzling about down there, considering how he gets far more up close and personal with the lady bits than I've ever managed -- more so than any of the various medical personnel, even -- I thought I'd buy "him" a wax. And no half-measures here. We're doing the full monty. Nothing between him and the object of his affection but ... air.

The sweet young twenty-year-old bends to her task. "Press here." "Just once more, then I'll move over there." "Push down here, please." "Just once more for this spot." "Gee, those ones are stubborn, aren't they?"

Gradually, she moves in from the outer edges. Gradually encroaching on ever-more-sensitive tissue.

And when she gets to the crux of the matter? When she's into true brazilian territory?

"I'm going to use this kind of wax now," she chirps, indicating a different pot on the table beside us, "because it's gentler."

She daubs it on, taps it to test for consistency, gets a good grip, then ...

I passed out.

KIDDING!!

I only WISH I had.

There is nothing, people, nothing more painful than what happened next. There is no pain on earth to match it.

Okay, I exaggerate. We all know that. If you've had an arm gnawed off by rats, if you've had toenails removed without anaesthesia, if you've had smallish portions of your body seared with hot irons, you've experienced worse. But in the ordinary run of things painful?

Nothing can match having goodly sized chunks of hair ripped from the edges of the lips of your labia. (Too graphic for you? Too bad. I lived through it. That's far, far worse.)

I stared at my focal point. I did the labour breathing -- the third stage, high-level, I'm-going-to-die-if-this-doesn't-ease-up-in-12-seconds breathing. It helped. I know it did, because I stayed there on the table. I did not, as flashed through my mind at intervals, beat the sweet young thing unconscious with the magnifying mirror and make a break for it.

I did not even scream, though at times my head jerked back and my chin jutted to the ceiling as my eyes rolled up and gasps, ohmyGODithurts gasps squeezed past clenched jaws.

And, when the waxing is finally, finally over, when she puts away the pots and the wooden spatulas and the bits of cloth, just as you're starting to think you have indeed survived... she goes in with tweezers. For the hairs that didn't come out with TWO kinds of wax. That is, the REALLY, REALLY STUBBORN ONES. Tweezers.

My labour analogy?

A brazilian at its epicentre is worse than all but the very worst moments of labour. In fact, if a brazilian lasted as long as the average labour, women would go insane. Totally mad with pain. And possibly never recover.

If labour hurt as much as a brazilian throughout its entire duration, women would certainly never have a second child. Not without heavy, heavy drugs.

I am not having a second brazilian without heavy, heavy drugs...

On the way home, shaky with a combination of pain, adrenaline and sheerest relief, I phone my girlfriend, she of the graphic description. Who has had, I now note, never had a brazilian, but only the far gentler bikini wax. Because when women experience something we need to TALK ABOUT IT. At length.

I inform her that when the esthetician left the room and I had a look ... there were a fair number of stray hairs. 45 minutes of unpleasantness which included 30 of sheerest agony, and there is STILL HAIR DOWN THERE!

"So did you call her back to finish it off properly?" A reasonable question. I paid an exorbitant amount of money for the procedure; the damned thing should be done right.

Did I call her back in?

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND???"

"Call her back in"... Good lord.

Matthew is delighted. And very solicitous of my comfort, and beside himself with appreciation for my self-sacrifical agonies. I have earned many, many, many Wife Points.

So there's that.

And I will never, ever do that to myself again.

The End.

Great excitement in the Irreverent household today! Bekah and I finally got around to trying out the cookie press we bought at the Pampered Chef party a month ago.


(Note to self: Do NOT take enthusiastic and social teen to party at which one might be tempted to spend outrageous amounts of money on luxury goods. Enthusiastic and social teens are so damned appealing that it is very hard to say "NO. No, we will NOT be purchasing the cookie press at $41.50, and we will even more so NOT be purchasing the $40.00 deep dish pie plate, even if it IS in a very pretty cranberry and even if you DO love pies and even if you WILL make pies yourself -- AND clean up the kitchen, mum, really!!!" It is very difficult to say NO to all that sweet and sincere enthusiasm without looking like a total wet-blanket drip of a mother in front of a room full of completely besotted adults. "Isn't she cute? My 14-year-old is never so sweet and enthusiastic.")

So we haul the cookie press out from under the counter. We mix up the recipe included with the kit. We ooo and aaaah over all the different shapes.

We learn a bunch of stuff, too. We learn that you need to set the press flush against the cookie sheet. Flush. And press the handle once, and only once. We learned that it is wise to scrape the exterior surface of the disk after every couple of cookies. We learned that if you tip the barrel up, you will get air bubbles in the batter. We learned that when you change disks, you need to tap the barrel to get the dough to settle against the disk again.

We learned so very, very many things!

Then we set the three dozen cookies into the pre-heated oven. And within three minutes, we have learned another, VERY important cookie-press lesson. When you are preparing cookie-press dough, you may not (NOT!) substitute margerine for butter:


Ahem.

I hear the giggles as I walk by her room. Bekah is chatting on Skype.

(She has no idea of the luxury of those limitless calls. Limitless long distance calls -- limitless because they're free. What will be the luxuries her children enjoy which bemuse her? What awaits my grandchildren?)

She is chatting with her friend Philippe. Philippe was the very likeable young man who spent a summer with us as an exchange student two years ago when he was 17 and Bekah not quite 13. English-speaking 17-year-olds from Ontario went to Quebec and New Brunswick to improve their French; French-speaking youths came here in exchange. A lanky young fellow, with an exuberant mop of red curls, Pilippe's soft-spoken easy-going ways and good humour endeared himself to the entire family.

Bekah, it seems, endeared herself particularly to him.

They've kept in touch through emails and IM, and most recently with the free phone calls. The conversation just flows between those two. Hours and hours of it. He's held her hand through a boyfriend and a breakup; she gives him (very sensible) advice re: family relationships and the appalling lack of greenery in his diet. I don't know what all else they might talk about over the hours. I'm not told.

I am of two minds about this relationship. I am not entirely comfortable with the amount of time she "spends" with him. Obviously, sex isn't an issue, which is a relief to me, because she's only 14. A physically mature 14, a very sensible and emotionally stable 14, but still fourteen. But still, she spends a lot of time on this one relationship. I worry some about balance in her life. I keep an eye on her, making sure that other activities and relationships are not suffering as a result. They don't seem to be, but I keep a cautious maternal eye on her.

On the other hand, and this hand weighs heavily, I am very pleased that one of the most significant relationships in her life revolves entirely around conversation. They have no shared activities. They have shared interests, but, separated by a thousand kilometres or so, they can't do them together. The can't watch movies together. They do occasionally play internet games together, but not often.

What they do is talk. And talk and talk and talk.

Yes, I do haul her out of her room. She eats meals with the family, chores get done, homework is accomplished, she spends time every day chatting with me. But they talk. Every day.

I recall an occasion when her father came to visit me over Christmas break. We were in our early twenties, maybe even in our late teens, and had each gone to our respective families for the holidays. But ten days was too long for our love-struck hearts to be separated, so he drove over to visit one day.

After visiting with my family, we were desperate for some time together, so we went for a drive, chatting idly about this or that thing out the window, and ended up having a coffee in a roadside diner somewhere. We sat on opposite sides of the table ... and the conversation shrivelled. We had nothing to say to each other. Nothing.

He held my hand. We smiled at each other. But we had nothing to say.

Why did I go ahead and marry this man, when conversation is so desperately important to me? Well, at the time I didn't know that. I didn't know at lot of things at 19 or 20. It took twelve years of a conversation-free marriage to teach me how my soul craves conversation. Not just mindless words, words, words tossed out, cluttering the air -- though there's certainly a place for casual, idle, and functional chatter. But conversation: a steady flow of interest in the other, the exchange of ideas, the building-up of new ideas as a joint creative enterprise.

To me, that's the bedrock of a relationship. Fundamental, foundational, indispensible.

And for twelve years, I lived without it.

I married him because I was young and stupid and "in love". We loved each other! Conversation would come, right? I didn't realize that "in love" would not create something that didn't exist. I didn't realize that "in love" would parch to dust and blow away in the desert of silence and strictly-functional communication.

Bekah, in her room, chatters away. There is no lack of conversation with those two. Their relationship is not, as mine was with her father at the same point in the relationship timeline, built primarily on hormones and the physical.

So, though the amount of time she spends with this one friend does cause me some concern, the quality of the relationship reassures. If he is going to become someone significant in her life -- someone even more significant -- they are going about it the right way.

But I'm still glad he lives in New Brunswick.

Story from another blog:

Woman looks for parking space. Woman does not find one. Woman parks in a tight niche beside a drive, trying hard (but, it emerges, not entirely succeeding) not to block the driveway. Woman returns to car to find this note on her windshield.

"PLEASE DO NOT PARK SO CLOSE TO DRIVEWAY. ITS A WRIGH OF WAY THANK YOU"

Woman sniggers at spelling and grammar, and determines to park IN the drive the following day. I agree, the "wrigh" is sad and silly, and I, too, would snigger at it. The total lack of punctuation is sad. However, spelling and grammar aside, it was a polite note, and -- hold on to your hat, folks! -- Woman was in the wrong, not the note-writer.

In the comments, several people identify it as a "passive aggressive" note. Huh?

"Please do not park so close to the driveway. It's a right of way. Thanks."

Polite, yes. Clear, certainly. Passive aggressive? Would they have preferred "aggressive aggressive" and had the woman come back to a shattered windshield? Since note-writer didn't know how to contact car-owner, what are his/her options, other than leaving polite note? Well, obviously, to be passive, full stop, and not object politely to the other guy's lack of consideration. Because bothering us just because we inconvenience you? That's just ... inconvenient! Object to my behaviour?! You passive aggressive, inconsiderate schmuck!

If Woman does park in the drive, I hope note-writer has her towed. Would serve her self-righteous self right.

Several commenters also suggest she visit passiveaggressive dot (something. com? org? net?) In fact, I've been to passiveaggressive dot whatever a couple of times, and stopped because it was so appalling. Its contributors have no idea what passive aggressive means.

Very few of the items cited there could in any way be construed as anything other than clear, polite communication. The real objection, if these people had the integrity/maturity to acknowledge it, is simply that they have been corrected for some small misdemeanor, and they don't like it.

So, if they don't like it, if the communication annoys them, let's just call the other guy's behaviour "passive aggressive" so we can ignore it and continue doing whatever the hell we like -- and it can be the other guy's fault!!


Great system for people who want to go through life without once saying, "Oops. Sorry!" Too bad there seem to be so damned many of them.

Six things about me. Meme from John.

1. I have claustrophobia. I have trained myself so that I can manage elevators, if the trip's not too long, and I can manage the toilets on trains and planes, but caves? Can't manage 'em for love nor money. (I've tried both: a bit of naughtiness completely scuppered by a panic attack; and if even that can't get me in there, bribery can't even begin to be effective.)

2. I used to play the piano with reasonable competance. I loved Chopin's waltzes in my teens, but now find them a bit lush and overblown. Bach's preludes and fugues were my adult favourites, but, sadly, life encroached and it's been years since I've played properly.

3. Every morning, I sit in front of a SAD light for 45 minutes. It keeps me from plunging the depths in the winter. I loathe winter. Loathe it. Unfortunate, that, given where I live.

4. I used to scoff at the idea of a soulmate. If such a thing existed, most of us managed just fine without one, but I had serious reservations as to the existance of such a thing. That was my stance on the matter for years. Until I met mine.

5. Although I've been happily monogamous for some years now, I am generally ambivalent about the practicality of monogamy. I certainly don't think it's neccesary or essential.

6. I am left-handed.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

I can't imagine you don't have some idle curiosity as to why the blog's suddenly gone all covert. My own fault. I was trawling around my list of blogs, and popped into my daughter's, left a comment, and only after the comment appeared did it dawn on my I was signed in with this account.

I have another, family-friendly account. THIS one is mine. Now, I can't think of a single thing I've written here that would offend the girl, but the point is, I want to be free to do so, should the need arise. I do not want to be censoring myself in this place, looking over my shoulder for the sensibilities of my near and very dear.

I emailed her immediately, of course. (Well, immediately after I made this place private. Which took all of 2.5 minutes.) She said not to worry, she had private spaces, too, and quite understood. However, she is only human and I am realistic. I do not believe for one second that faced with the ongoing temptation to get a peek into mum's private world, she wouldn't do that. I know I certainly would, were our positions reversed. I might resist for a time, I might not resist at all, but inevitably I would be in there, snooping about.

Hence the quick vanishment.

Not to fear. It is temporary. I figure a month or two. Let her try to find it a couple of times and then lose sight of the project.

Okay, so that's that. What I REALLY came here to tell you all about is my newest writing venture!

Another contract, this one even more fun than that wedding place. Check me out over at my very own twice-a-week paid blogging gig. Topic? Women's sex and sexuality. So far I've talked about talking about it, about ebb-and-flow sex drives, Global Orgasm Day, illegal vibrators, and most recently, the boredom that is porn. Fun, no?

Well, I think so. Pop over, take a gander, leave a comment if you wish. Then pop back here and tell me what you think. And if you have any brilliant ideas for post ideas, send me an email. You know where to find me.

"You're only as old as you feel," says my mother. She's 67.

"True enough, until you catch sight of yourself unexpectedly."

We cackle down the phone. We've both done it, of course. Walking down a street, you look into a display, and instead of the items inside the store, you see yourself mirrored in the glass. Unexpected, your response is as to a stranger. For a split second, you're not seeing yourself through the filter of your consciousness, your self-perception.

This can be a rude jolt. A bakery has a large mirror on the wall behind the till. A quick glance up, "my GOD, that woman looks severe." My God, it's me. How mortifying. Paste a smile on that face, you forbidding harridan.

In from the cold, glance towards the window, encounter a mirror I didn't know was there. My SKIN. What's happened to my skin? Isn't the cold supposed to shrink things? Shouldn't it make my face smoother? Another ten years, I'll have jowels, so help me. Gawd.

But sometimes the jolt is a good one. Just having had my hair done, I glance to one side to speak to the friend beside me, and see myself in the mirrored pillar behind her. "Wow. What a gorgeous woman." And it's ME. Ha!

Which has me wondering: what is the face I expect to see? If I'm only as old as I feel, what age is that? My self-perception and reality are obviously a few years out of synch. How many?

I suspect about ten years. I think were I to see my 35-year-old face smiling (or, as the case may be, glowering) back at me, I wouldn't be at all startled. Which, were I suddenly blessed with my 35-year-old face, would be rather startling.

Would people react differently to me? And if they did, would it be an improvement or a diminishment? Would people see the younger woman as more vibrant, more vital, more "with-it" and thus more worthy of attention? Perhaps, but I have my doubts.

The younger woman certainly got more sexual attention, more global, universal awareness, but the 40-something me gets her fair share. Just from a different, more specific audience.

My perception is that I get more respect now than I did ten years ago, but perhaps that's a function of my increased self-confidence and greater depth of wisdom. (Yes, I think I have some small store of wisdom, accumulated through the years.)

In which case, I am as old as I feel. Which is my real, my chronological age. My well-earned, well-lived, well-considered age, with its gray hair (diligently covered), its wrinkles (signs of the life lived within this skin), its occasional hot flashes (power surges?). And its very rich interior: the experiences, the memories, the time spent thinking, evaluating, reading, learning, considering, the richness of perspective, gleaned in bits down the decades. The interior. Which, in the end, is far more significant than the exterior.

A pretty twenty-year-old woman suddenly loses her composure. Sobs shake her slender body. An uncle spots her, hastens to her side and drops his arm around her shoulders. He gives her a squeeze of comfort and encouragement.

"Now, now. It's all right. Dry those tears. He wouldn't want that."

"He" being the dearly departed.

You know, at every funeral I've ever been to, someone has said that. It's a truism. The mother, the uncle, the brother, the friend who has just been lost wouldn't want to see his/her loved ones so full of sorrow.

Well, true enough, if he were alive. But, since we are all gathered at his funeral, this is clearly not the case.

A friend of mine recently admitted to having avoided a co-worker's funeral. "They're just so sad," he said. "Someone always cries, and I just hate that. I see someone crying, then I cry."

To which I responded, "Well, of course. You're supposed to be sad. That's what funerals are for: to mourn the person together, to gain support from the presence of others who care."

Grief can be a very isolating experience. It's nice - well, it's comforting, at any rate - and healthy, to be able to grieve together.

I don't object to the idea of a wake, I don't object to the notion of celebrating someone's life with a rollicking party. I don't think it's wrong to laugh at a visitation, or at the reception following the funeral (though it's probably best not to break into hysterical laughter during the ceremony). After all, if you cared for the deceased, you will have happy memories. So, yes, you can celebrate their life, remember the good times, laugh with others who share those happy memories. I would hope that, when my time comes, people can laugh with each other in fond remembrance of my more loveable eccentricities.

But there will also - should also - be sorrow. Which may just be expressed through tears.

I just want to say, for the record, so my expectations are clear and unequivocal: I will be seriously pissed off if at least a few tears aren't shed at some point during or after my departure commemorations.

Really.

I would like to think that my death will leave a sizeable hole in one or two peoples' lives. I would like to think that someone will genuinely grieve my passing. I would NOT like to think that, after mixing it up at the visitation, after listening to a few solemn proclamations at a funeral, each and every one of them would then proceed blithely onto the rest of their lives without a single backward glance, the occasional tear, a wistful glance, a sense of loss.

Come on, now.

I'm not demanding that every single person who ever knew me, no matter how slightly, be devastated. I'm not demanding a full two years' formal mourning from my family. I don't expect, or even desire, that people never recover from their grief.

But, for a few people, the people I care most about?

Yes, I would like some tears at my funeral.

Sheesh.

FUN MONDAY is being brought to you a day early here at Irreverent Mama, as IM (aka Laura) will be out of town and possibly unable to blog for most of next week.




Lisa wants to know why we blog.

I’d like to know more about you, what makes you tick. I’d like to know how you started blogging. Did you keep a diary under lock and key safely hidden as a child? Do you still? Do you share the same things on your blog that you would have, or do, in your diary? Why did you start blogging and why do you continue? May as well throw in any roadblocks you have run into while blogging. If you still have your old diaries we’d love to see them.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, I had another blog. It was a great little blog, a fun little read; I had a decent readership and a steady email correspondence with enough of them to keep me busy.

But it wasn't about me, not really. My readers tended to think that was me, and projected all sorts of (generally very flattering) things upon me. Flattering, but limiting, too. It was a work blog, and, as such, showed only a small part of my character, and essentially none of my 'real' life. The person speaking on the blog was a persona.

I wanted to have a place where my real voice could be spoke. One night, when I should have been sleeping, the perfect-for-me blog name popped into my head - and I leaped out of bed to claim it before someone else did. (Geeky, I know. But hell, I don't need to feel foolish for this; you're all bloggers.)

And thus IrreverentMama was born. Here, I do what I want. I don't feel compelled to post daily. I don't feel compelled to interact with my readers. (Though, obviously, I do so - because I feel like it.)

And I say what I want. Oh, there are still things I don't say here - those things go in the password-protected hidden file on my computer. But everything you see here is genuine.

Lisa asks about journalling, which I have done since I could write a sentence (and long before I could spell). For various reasons, I don't have any of my old paper-and-pen journals, but for me, journalling is qualitatively different than blogging, anyway.

So why do I blog? It's a forum for expressing more - but by no means all! - of the genuine me. I enjoy the fact that it's public; I appreciate the possibility of interaction. Blogging is like bumping into congenial strangers at a bus stop or your local pub or in the park - only with blogging, you can come back again and again - or not at all - and maybe some of those congenial strangers evolve into something like friends.

It's a fascinating world, out there in the internets.

:-)

Fun Monday this week is brought to you by the letter U, and the number... limitless.

Uncaringbear wants to know:

Share with us a little white lie that you may, or may not, have gotten away with. Perhaps it's something more sinister than a little white lie - maybe even a deep dark secret that you've kept buried for years! All the better! Now's your chance to get it off your chest and confess: "Yes, I did eat that last slice of cheese cake", "No, I wasn't washing my hair that Saturday", "Those pants do make you look fat"!

So, do "little white lies" include faked orgasms? Yes, yes, I know. We independent, confident women-of-the-new-millennium aren't supposed to. And, since my first marriage bit the dust, I've never faked it just to bolster some bumbler's pathetic ego. But sometimes, you know, it's been just lovely, really, it has, but you're very tired now and you really don't care if you 'get there' or not, and what you really, really want to do now is snuggle up and go to sleep, but the fellow you're with, he Just WON'T Quit until you do... so you do. Fake it. Really.

Every woman has done that a time or two. Whether she admits it or not.

Not that that's necessary with Matthew, sensitive and aware man that he is. Besides, he's a canny sort, and has long since discovered that if I'm left to sleep and simmer, I wake up ready to burst into flames in the morning. No fool he.

The rest of the time? I sometimes indulge in little white lies because I'm lazy. It's easier to say the kind and comforting thing than get into the Big Discussion over something that doesn't really matter - or won't matter tomorrow.

"I'm sorry. I'm not much company today. I'm worried about X."
REAL ANSWER: YES. You are being a complete blight on my evening, and I wish you'd just SUCK IT UP or go somewhere else.
LWL: Oh, I noticed you were a little quiet, but that's okay. I'm sure you'll feel better tomorrow. (And, if I'm feeling particularly saintly, "Would you like a backrub?")

But by far the majority of my LWL's are sins of omission than comission. It's not what I say, but what I don't say.

"That was an impulse purchase that I truly regret now. What a waste of money!"
REAL ANSWER: Damned right, woman. And it's not the first time, either. How much money will you pour down the drain before you grasp this?
Little White Evasion: I'll bet if you put an add in the paper, you can sell it in a few days!

"I guess I didn't give him the benefit of the doubt."
REAL ANSWER: No you didn't. Like you didn't last time, and you won't next time, and frankly, I don't know why he puts up with you.
Little White Evasion: Being in relationships is hard, isn't it?

"And everyone was staring at my child. Why can't people cut a three-year-old a little slack?"
REAL ANSWER: Because most people's three-year-olds do not stand on tables and scream in coffee shops. You're not asking for 'slack', you're asking for license to riot.
LWE: Guess it'll be a while before you go back to that place!

"I guess I was a bit rude to that other driver."
Laura pretends to have dropped into a sudden, unexpected coma.

Yes, I can and do get into tough conversations. In fact, I often quite enjoy them. But they aren't always necessary, they certainly aren't always welcome, and sometimes? Sometimes it's just none of my damned business. And for those occasions?

I just loooove me some Little White Lies...

"You'll be surprised."

That's what people told me when I was going through my divorce. "You can hardly wait for this to be over, but when it's over and the dust has settled, you'll be surprised at what you'll miss."

These were well-meaning people, trying to prepare me for the post-divorce life that they were afraid would only let me down, not being the unmitigated, unceasing bliss I was anticipating.

They were well-meaning, so I didn't swear. I didn't laugh in their faces. I didn't even roll my eyes. I might have sneered, just a wee bit.

This was not a celebrity-style, marry-on-a-whim, divorce because you don't like the way he chews his Cheerios. We'd been together twelve years, we'd produced three kids. I was committed to the death-do-us-part, otherwise I would have left at least six years previous. Did the marriage counselling. Changed some habits.

But when the divorce finally - finally! - happened, what would I miss?

- running short of money, having to scrimp on groceries because the man spent $800, or a thousand, or $1200 that month on... what? (Not drugs. Gambling? His girlfriend? Buying rounds for the entire office? I never did find out.) Just gone, frittered away, vanished forever...

- the fact that my husband had a girlfriend? Who would phone him at our home whenever I was out. (How do I know? I bugged the phone. Heh. Rather exciting and nasty, that, except their conversations were booooorrrring. So very, very boring.)

- being sneered at whenever I spoke, or have him simply walk out of the room mid-sentence?

- being thumped around? the black eyes? the bruises in less conspicuous spots?

- waking with a start of fear when he came in at 3 in the morning. Would he slip quietly into bed? Would he be in a foul mood and wake me to start a fight? Would he (and this would be the least attractive option) want sex?

Or maybe I'd miss the dirty socks left laying about the bedroom, the toilet seat left up, the newspapers strewn all over the living room and the used kleenex on every seat in the house? Or his terrible driving and the weekly speeding and/or parking tickets? His barking at the children?

Yes. So much to miss. How can people say such drivel? It's been 12 or so years, and all I feel when I consider the marriage that was, is relief.

Heady with relief, I am.

A friend gives me an article by Robert Fisk. I am urged to read it. Fisk is a 'great mind', says my friend. He 'doesn't tolerate fools gladly'. I've heard of Fisk, and even of the verb ('fisking') spawned by his rants, but never read him. (I know, I know. Shockingly insular North American am I. Given what I read of Mr. Fisk when I did investigate, I'll be back for more.)

But this particular article? I've heard this sort of thing before, and find it no more than an annoyance. Let me be clear. I'm well-read. I have decent grammar, a good vocabulary, I love the language and deplore sloppiness. I have a degree in English. Sometimes, sometimes I even manage to write something that sings, just a little. But this word snobbery, this 'zero tolerance' approach to word sins, galls me.

((But, Mr. Fisk: "Authoress"? Did anyone after George Eliot actually use that word? With a straight face?) Yes, this quibbling proves that I, too, have my fisk moments. It also proves that those who rant about words set themselves up for this kind of quibbling. However, I know that the quibbling is, at best, a clever-ish form of personal entertainment; at worst, nothing more than basest snobbery.)

Picture this:

You’re at a dinner party. The food is excellent, the furnishing comfortable, the people varied and interesting, but as the evening progresses, you find yourself feeling more and more uncomfortable. You’re not sure why, but people are being a bit stiff with you. Normally an easy conversationalist, your overtures stumble, you can’t seem to generate any momentum. You are never quite able to relax and enjoy yourself. By the end of the evening, you leave with relief, not certain why the occasion was so awkward.

Subsequent to the dinner, a friend who was also at the event explains. Your clothing was wrong - style, colour, vintage. Your tie too wide (or too narrow). Your laugh too loud (too high, too soft). Your hair an embarrassment. Your jokes out of fashion. You held your cutlery wrong, your taste in music was wrong, and the books you like to read? Well, everyone knows that type of book is out of fashion.

Your reaction? Well, can’t speak to yours, but mine is to dismiss the critics. (And perhaps to wonder how I ever got myself invited to such a gathering...) They have established an entirely arbitrary set of rules by which they judge whether someone is ‘in’ our ‘out’, whether a person is sufficiently ‘in the know’ to be part of the group. I do not judge myself by the style of my shirt or the music I listen to, nor will I allow myself to be constrained in such an ill-fitting social box. In short, they need not bother to exclude me; I want no part of their arbitrary judgmentalism. They can do the anatomically impossible.

Now, people do that sort of thing all the time, of course. Teenagers develop their own dialect, listen to certain music, wear certain clothes. Twenty-somethings watch certain television shows, dress a certain (different) way, laugh at the same type of jokes as other twenty-somethings.

Each age-group does it; each sub-group does it, down to the two women having coffee together two or three times a week. Each group has those things which identify them; it has those things which they delight to mock. Every time it’s done, its declared intent may be something noble - they're ‘expressing themselves’, ‘conversing intelligently’, ‘exploring ideas with like-minded people’ - but in fact the motivation at root is sheer adolescent clique-ishness. They desire nothing more than to identify and exclude outsiders. If you can mock them at the same time, even better!

The language snobbery of Fisk is nothing other than this. Even though I agree with him at a number of points, his argument overall simply wearies and annoys me. He knows which words and phrases are worthy, and which are to be vilified. He claims a standard by which he slots the words into their appointed category, but in fact, it’s totally arbitrary, merely a matter of his personal taste. Some words and phrases are acceptable, others aren’t, and if you don’t know which is which, you are a boor.

Pfft to Mr. Fisk.

I didn't do it. My success last year notwithstanding, I did not complete NaNoWriMo. No, that is only part of the truth: the bare fact is that I did not write ONE SINGLE WORD toward it. Really, I bailed even before I'd begun.

Do I feel guilty? Embarrassed? Nope.

I am grateful to my mother, for advice she gave me back when I was fifteen. Advice that was intended as guidance to my sexual future, but which has proven applicable in every venture: "When you do something, make sure it's your decision. Don't do anything because someone else has pressured you to do it. And when you do decide to do something, ENJOY IT. Don't waste time regretting it." Which advice I have extended to include, "If you make a bad decision, don't bemoan it - learn from it."

Sensible woman, my mother.

This advice has helped me avoid 90% of the guilt so many women seem to revel in piling on themselves. I don't know about men. Maybe they battle guilt, too, but I can only speak to the women I know, see, and read. What is it with women and guilt? Yeesh.

Sometimes I feel like a bit of a freak, I experience so little guilt. I have some. Most is warranted; some is not. That which is warranted, I do what is necessary to deal with it: I make sincere apologies, I make retribution, I seek forgiveness. Being guilt-free does NOT mean denying/avoiding all consequences of poor decisions and plain old bad behaviour. Guilt, however, doesn't weigh me down, it doesn't haunt my soul, it doesn't often cloud my relationships and muddy my decisions.

Thanks, mum!

Mustn't grumble. Can't complain.

Recently had an evening in a pub with a friend who's retired home to Canada after having spent twenty-five years or so in the UK. After all that time, he's more Brit than Canadian in many of his attitudes, quirks, and social mannerisms. He has a tendency to the pendantic and a predilection for ranting, both leavened by a piercing sense of humour. In short, he's wicked fun.

"Oh well. Mustn't grumble," he says, a bit tongue-in-cheek, poking a bit of fun at a certain mindset, but hearing it, I laughed out loud. That is SUCH a Brit thing to say, SUCH a Brit mindset he's poking fun at.

Thinking about it later, I decided the North American equivalent is probably "Oh well. Can't complain."

Think about that for a sec. Brits say "Mustn't grumble." Americans say "Can't complain."

HA!

Both patently false. North Americans are tremendous whiners. Inveterate, even. We complain about all manner of things. Whining is a national pasttime. Everyone indulges. It's small talk, socially expected. Those who don't complain, those who decry whining are "unrealistic", obviously mental featherweights, not to be taken seriously.

And Brits? No whiners there, nope, not like N. Americans. But grumblers? Oh my! How they grumble. They gripe, they grouse, they deplore, they harrumph. How does this differ from whining? Comes down to expectations. Americans expect someone to do something about what they don't like. If we can't get the government to fix it (Canadians), we'll sue the ass offa someone (Americans), because if I don't like it, I shouldn't have to put up with it, and how could it happen to meeeeeee?

Brits don't whine, not like that. Throughout all their harrumphing, they feel superior to that which they criticize. They don't feel victimized - they are vindicated. Ha! I knew it! Country's going to hell in a handbasket. What else can you expect, in this day and age? Bloody hell!

"Can't complain."
"Mustn't grumble."

Oh, but why not, when it brings you so much satisfaction!

Clever, isn't it? Check out the rest of this great blog!

(Oh, and the picture is a link to that post in the blog.)

Truthiness and Wikiality.

Apparently there is a political satirist*, name of Stephen Colbert, who likes to coin words. He proves his wit and gift with the language on his television show, giftedly and wittily entitled, "The Colbert Report".

(*Which I discovered here. Some people might have discovered this by watching his show. Quite possibly many have. Just not me.)

"Truthiness" and "wikiality" were two recently Colbert-minted words, picked up by the Global Language Monitor.

Quiz: how would you define the terms?
Stop and think about it, now.
.
Truthiness
.
Wikiality
.
.
.
All right, then. Got something?


My guesses:

"'Truthiness'?" I scoffed. "How silly. We have a word for that - truthfulness." A pretentious redundancy, I thought, thus proving I have never watched the clever and witty Mr. Colbert before, because his definition is indeed cleverer and wittier. And I should have seen it in the suffix. Nuts.

On to wikiality.

Wikiality is, obviously, derived from Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia compiled by anyone who wants to make a contribution. It has managed to let a couple of suspect bits of "information" out into the ether. Thus, I guessed, its meaning would be something like "information/belief which is easily accessed but of questionable validity/veracity." I was closer, but not as clever.

Okay, are you ready for the Global Language Monitor's definitions of Mr. Colbert's terms?

Truthiness: Truth unencumbered by facts.
Wikiality: Reality as determined by majority vote. (As when astonomers voted Pluto off their list of planets.)

Clever. Maybe I'll watch the show next week.

Bekah reads "Brain, Child" and complains, "There's an article here that says that middle school is all pain and suffering. Hmph. I liked school last year."

"Grade seven is a tough year for a lot of people, sweetie. I wonder if you were able to enjoy it because you have self-confidence, especially socially. If you were trying to make it to the top of the social heirarchy, up there with the 'popular' girls, Chloe and Valerie, you might have been miserable all year."

"Well, I don't want to be at the bottom!"

"No, of course not. And you're not! They don't pick on you, do they?"

"No, they mostly ignore me."

"Probably because you don't try to make them like you."

"I have friends I like and trust. You can't trust those two. Actually, Valerie came over one day and asked if I'd like to eat lunch with them, and the girls at my table were all 'Oh, wow! Valerie invited you!!'"

"So what did you do?"

"I said 'no, thanks, I'm sitting with my friends right now'. She went off all put out, because nobody says 'No' to them! I don't think they could actually believe it had happened!"

Bekah pauses, unable to speak over my laughter. "They like to do that. Invite someone in for a week or two, then spit them out. Then that person is really at the bottom!" She muses for a minute. "I just don't know how people like that end up popular, mom! Why do the kids give them that kind of power?"

Me, I'm left wondering how I ended up with such a wise, wise child. "Give them that power", she says. She sees that it is given, not earned nor deserved, merely given. No one will have that kind of power over my Bekah, because she sees this stuff so clearly. She doesn't buy into the system mindlessly. She thinks about it - and strives only for what she can see is good for her.

I am so fucking proud of her!