This Is How I Feel Right Now

There is almost nothing in the world that cannot be improved upon by oregano, rosemary, dill or garlic.

I may feel differently tomorrow.

I say that because by tomorrow there may no longer be a goose egg on TOP of my head. By tomorrow, there may not be a grimace of pain every time my scalp moves when I smile.

By tomorrow, the mild concussion I think I gave myself by accidentally banging my head way harder than I ever have before on my five foot bedroom ceiling last night may be just a silly memory. By tomorrow the admission that I set my alarm to wake myself up every two hours because that is what people who live alone and have a concussion *do* because they have no one to watch over them will be just a faintly embarrassing idea.

I'm sure it happened because I spent a week laughing at Yeti every time he did it after insisting he wasn't as stupid as me.

It was worth it.

For now though, remember: oregano, rosemary, dill or garlic.

Off to the Wars

June 17 - My little (half) sister turns 18.

June 29 - My little sister graduates from high school.

June 30 - My little sister, who is exactly half my age, gets on a plane to spend the next 7 or 8 years committed to the Canadian military.

The navy.

Logistics Officer.

With a BA in something or other through the Royal Military College of Canada.

Apparantly, this is pretty prestigious - announcements at grad, press releases, 3,000 applicants - 250 accepted. I'll be going to her swearing in this Saturday.

So much for getting to know her better now that I'm back in town.

I didn't know, actually, that we'd been going through the same process when I mentioned to them that I was applying for the Reserves so it's been a bit strange that we're going through the exact same process at the same time.

Sure, as an officer in the Navy, she'll be pretty safe in the war that gets closer every day, I think. In my case I'd be on the ground setting up command posts and, if required, fighting (with a gun, kids) if I chose to accept a posting so, I suppose I would be in more danger than her.

That's it though, that's the rub - I can *choose*. She can't. They blow up that big ol' boat you're on and well, Officer or not, you're still going to die like the rest of great unwashed non-officer rabble, screaming all the way to the bottom of the ocean.

She's never been away from home for longer than a week.

She'll never get to enjoy being out of school and 'free'. She'll be 27 before she'll have a chance to make her own next major life decision.

If I were her, I'd be scared shitless. I AM scared shitless.

We are doing it for such wildly disparate reasons, as well. Mine are here, but she's doing it to continue on the great family military tradition.

Of which there isn't one because it was all an elaborate lie my father told his whole 'second' family.

Some of you might know that story and maybe I'll tell it here someday but right now, I'm just not willing to. I've been feeling pretty good in my head lately and the occasional blip during which my family can hammer me back down will have to stay one of *their* weapons. One which, these days, I don't feel like using against myself by dredging it up and writing it down.

Although I think I've figured out why he did it, partly because I am just as much my father as I am my mother, I will never come right out and tell her. She loves him so much, in a way the first three of us never ever will and I have no desire to hurt her in any way, (nor him actually).

I'm proud of her. And I love her. More, I LIKE her.

It's strange to think that if I don't come back from my travels, I may never see her again. It makes me a sad that I'll miss getting to know her better.

It makes me even sadder that love can unknowingly breed such terrible things. That, in the end, that lie just might be responsible for killing her.

Pressing Against My Skin - Moments Far Apart and Near Again

Today, my life feels alien. Sitting blank at that impersonal desk and wondering where this is to go: I can't quite grasp the day of the week; I don't remember driving to work this morning; I remember the feelings and the fears and the details in sharp stark perfection of this mornings' dream about Matt; I don't remember where my wallet is or, abruptly, the reasons to speak - I don't see that there is anything I need to say, there is nothing outside of everything inside of me and I can't begin to tell you how it survives.

In this moment the shape of my life seems unfamiliar. Wrong.

There is no reason for this. If reasons must be made, and being made, make sense of this sudden shape then there are bright blue flashes of fear that too many things were said, that far too much was left out. Shouldn't have been. Couldn't have been. Might have been missed. Myriad reminders, floods of understanding and looking backs in confusion. Past and present. Then and now.

Unconsidered, unthinking and imprudent I have always been - all the while holding aloft a shroud of honesty and ducking behind a sparkling shield of disclosure to deflect and distract those who wish to know me. To love me. To understand me. Finding, losing, believing it's all a lie, believing that nothing could be more true.

Knowing, regardless, that I have never felt so met.

But all, yet all, when all I understand, ever, is that I am the only person I cannot change; that I am the only person I have a hope of changing; that I am the person I fear to be; that I am the person I yearn to be, already.

Some truths given are not always true beyond the minute or the moment or the breath it takes to fuel them. Truth given freely is a far different animal than the truths we seek for our own knowledge.

Wanting to be understood, sometimes I blame you for not knowing which truths are transient and which truths are enduring and timeless. I blame you for not caring enough about the truth. I blame me for not being good enough to make you want to. I blame my inadequacy. I blame your lack.

On this day, the only truth I have to give the world are these three things...

There is a joy that rides, whispering in my ear, wrapped cozy around my shoulders like a tender shawl.

There is fear like a ferret - long and sleek and utterly incapable of rest - deep in my belly it digs and bites through all I know of my world.

And all in me, once and still; something dark and immense, like a shadow passing below me in the deep water; the anarchy of my body and the hot happy sex; the sound of doors opening and then wavering in the in-between world, swinging closed, searching for their balance point.

I'm Not Pushy *At All* Dammit - You're a Tourist, You Must Just Do What I Say

...because, YES, there was slug licking.

Even after Yeti was witness to the following conversation....

me:   "C'mon, Les, *everyone* licked a slug when they took us down to the Park every year. You just won't admit it."

Les:   "Uh, no, Jen. No one licked any slugs. I don't even know wtf you're talking about. "

Yeti and I both did it though. And, once he actually downloads and sends me the pictures, eons from now, I'll prove it to you. Well, that *he* did, anyways. There's no photographic evidence of me licking no slugs.

Hey, I may be crazy but I'm not stupid.

hee hee.

Yeti has also left me a jar of *shudder* Vegemite and while searching around for a suitable quote I came upon.....

... and like Vegemite and nasal sex, it's an acquired taste. "

posted by some gentleman named "Bat" at The Daily WTF?. I quite liked the reply from Stan that comment got....

While I can (almost) see someone acquiring a taste for nasal sex, you will never convince me that Vegemite consumption is anything other than a public display of bravado -- Aussies needed something viler than the merely foul Marmite those pommie poofters were eating so they could prove their intrinsic toughness.

If there's anyone out there that wants it, let me know and I will ship it out of here POSTHASTE, right quick and so fast you'll be able to feel the wind of it's passage.

I think I just saw it move.

ick

Just a Quick Note

...to say that we had a great time but I'm utterly exhausted and spending the night with my books.

I seem destined to periodically drop off Australians at ferry terminals and drive away feeling desolate.

Although, this time was about 1 millionth of a percentage point as hard and there was only a little tear that never made it past my lid. Which suprised me a little - a week with one of Matt's best friends, after never being able to talk to anyone that actually 'knows' him - was harder at the end than I thought it'd be...

...it was also hard to watch the 'last' one head off to get on a plane to leave Canada...

...and since I can now admit it's entirely possible that I'll never see Matt again, this felt a little - in a very strange way - that dropping Yeti off was letting Matt go once more - just in a different way that's so very hard to explain.

I didn't want to let go and I've never wanted to just walk away and get on a plane with someone so much in all my life.

But, I didn't. So, I'll see you again soon.

House Guests & Hostesses. It Takes All Kinds.

I've never had anyone over to visit, except for Matt, so this has been a little bit of an interesting habit adjustment.

You know, the 'house' is what 100 square feet? It didn't really bother me when Matt peed or blew his nose in the shower, but it's kinda disconcerting when it's someone you're not ... you know.

Although, to be honest, since I pee every 20 minutes and Yeti stores water like a camel, it's probably harder on him than it is on me.

ha

Walking around Matheson Lake last night I had to stop and wait while Yeti crawled around on the ground taking a picture of the biggest black slug he'd ever seen, exclaiming excitedly the whole time. It was about 5 cm long and 1 cm 'wide'. Which is nothing really, not when you've grown up in the rainforest.

I was explaining about elementary school field trips when every autumn we all trooped out to Goldstream Park to watch the salmon spawn and die and lick a banana slug. I don't think Yeti believed me. Banana slugs are the second largest slugs in the world - up to 24 or 25 cm. and their slime is anaesthetic as protection against predators.

Tomorrow, we're leaving to head up island to Cathedral Grove and then on to Tofino and Pacific Rim National Park and as soon as Yeti said - "You've done this? Licked a slug? I'm pretty hard to gross out, Jen, but I think you've just managed to do it." then *suddenly* everything became clear to me.

Cathedral grove is the perfect habitat for banana slugs.

I'll give you only one guess as to what my goal in life this weekend is.

muah ha ha ha

It's All Just So Creepy

My best friend, B, has been going on about these guys from Banff who've come in and leased the bar she works at - how they're great and she looooooves them and they actually recognize that she's the best waitress they've got -.....you know. It's great actually cause she's been treated badly by quite a few of her bosses.

I've been promising to get out there and eyeball them but haven't actually gotten around to it. It's even farther out of town than I am, a bit of an obscure old bar that my first boyfriend would take me to when I was 16 and then make me hide in the bathroom when the cops came in for a look-see, sometimes for like half an hour. Apart from my personal ghosts that live there it has some ghosts of it's own - it's always on those 'spooky Canada' shows.

ANYWAYS, so Yeti and I went there yesterday for a beer and a burger and I'm looking at this really cute guy and thinking, "Man, I know him from somewhere."

It's the boss guy.

So, he comes by to collect our plates and he says, "Hey, don't I know you?"

Turns out he used to work at a couple of the bars I used to go to in Calgary. Funny, hey. What are the chances that this guy shows up in this totally random out-of-the-way place 4 months after I do and ends up being my best friends boss?

Even worse, I've been laughing at myself all morning though because on the way to work today it finally *clicked*. I had the biggest honking crush on him and the first thing I did in both of those bars was to stop by to say hi to him - I went down especially on his last night before he went off to Banff and once when I went to Banff, we stopped by his new bar to see him.

I'm sure his memory is better than mine and it's clicked in by now who I am.

I can never go there again.

ha.