O Canada

Just for shits and giggles, I went back and re-read the July 1, 2008 post. Wow. So much has changed in a year! You know, I would have thought I was done with all the change. I think it’s true that the older we get, the faster the world spins. I guess we’re cramming more life into smaller spaces. Last year at this time, I’d gone home early to meet with Hockey. Hockey! And a year before that, it was Donny.

Now, I’m sitting in my loft apartment in B-town, listening to the fireworks from Spencer Smith Park, and enjoying my solitude. I thought about going down to the Park to watch the fireworks, but the idea of being in that crowd just freaked me out a bit. I went downtown to go to the movies at seven p.m., and I was leaving as people were pouring in to watch the fireworks.

I saw Wolverine, and it was about as I expected it would be. Lovely eye candy, and an enjoyable romp. I went to the cheap theatre, so it only cost me $5. I was pleasantly surprised to see Ryan Reynolds, a Canuck, in the film. I’m sure I knew he was in it, but I’d forgotten. He’s so purdy. And then… shocker, Gambit! I never read the X-Men comics, but I did (very) occasionally indulge in the Saturday morning cartoon. And Gambit was always my favourite character. And then to see the beautiful Taylor Kitsch… Mama Mia!

I was going to talk, in this post, about how amazingly wonderful it is to be Canadian. But I’m staring at the light that’s shining in my Ikea cupboard, highlighting the China teacups and saucers, and the Lorna statuette, and the little tiny cream and sugar service that I inherited. And I’m thinking about the people that they came from. . . My mother, my “great aunt”, and my grandmother. It’s so wonderful to be connected to past generations like this. I like knicknacks. I always have. I do my best not to collect them, but I love them. To me, it’s just an honour to have these beautiful things that someone else bought, that someone in my past cherished. I’m blessed to have these little pieces of memory in my life.

So perhaps that is a bit about Canada. I wonder, you know, do women in Iraq have bits of their grandmothers and great-aunts? Do they have little items to cherish? What about the women living in poverty in Africa? Mexico, Peru, Afghanistan? I’m very lucky to have been born in this amazing country.

Sometimes we spend so much time telling ourselves that we’re not American that we forget it’s more important to celebrate the fact that we are Canadian. We have unique ties to Holland. We share the longest undefended border with the world’s superpower. We have a history of splendid military events, and one of the best peacekeeping forces in the world. We have the biggest country, with some of the best natural resources. We pride ourselves on being polite. How do you argue with a nation like that?

Happy Birthday, Canada.

Get This Party Started

Work was okay today. I ended up with slightly tense shoulders, but overall, I managed to stem my grumpiness and function properly. It helped that everyone wanted the hell out of there today, because tomorrow (erm, technically “today”) is Canada Day and we all have the day off. A Wednesday in the middle of the week is a pain in the ass day to have off, but whatever. Could be worse – could be no day off.

Then I went to Candy Mountain, where I worked the last shift with one of the teenagers. She’s done now, has quit and moved on. I’ll miss her, for a little while. She related to me the drama that has been her high-school life for the past month. And I realized how completely tiny and insignificant it was. Not her life in particular, but the drama in general. It just doesn’t matter. The fact that she had a fight with her best friend of three years is really irrelevant in the long run. On her life, this is going to have a very minor effect. Perhaps she’ll be less trusting of people in the future, perhaps she’ll expect less of people. I don’t know. But the drama. It’s so… petty.

Not that my own drama is any different. T. slapped my hand. So did Chicago. So did Woodstock. T. knows Mud best and gave me a few pointers about her own experiences. Chicago, who has listened to me bitch and whine for well on a year now, gave me a righteous slap upside the head. And Woodstock delivered perhaps the most well-thought-out blow of all. If even TheEx had trouble reading you sometimes, she pointed out, then why do you expect that Mud will know exactly what you want and need to hear?

Well shit. Good point. I just sat there and stared at the screen. I had never thought of myself as hard to read. I figured I emoted too much. So to hear TheEx say that if anything, I needed to emote more, well, that was a shocker. And then to have Woodstock put it in context – that if even this man that I was with for ten years had trouble following me sometimes, how could I expect a new, long-distance relationship to keep up?

Anyway. Mud texted and then called tonight. We talked for close to three hours. There were some uncomfortable silences; he wasn’t himself. Hmm. Let me re-phrase that. Obviously he was himself, but he wasn’t the Mud I was used to. He wasn’t picking on my “aboot” and “oot” incessantly. He didn’t mock me or interrupt me every time I said something. And, Woodstock would be proud. Near the end of the conversation, I muttered something about him talking and me listening, because that’s what I do. And truly, it is. I told him that people tell me things all the time that they probably shouldn’t, etc. (not that I mind, it’s just the way it is. I must have one of those faces.).

When I told this to TheGiant, he just continued to talk. TheGiant didn’t care. He was fine with the talking/listening thing. Mud stopped flat and said, “Why?”

Huh?

Why don’t I like to talk about myself? Why didn’t I do it more often? In a series of tangled ums, ers, uhs, and I… false starts, I said that frankly, I didn’t think I had anything exciting or interesting to say. My life is pretty boring. And no, I’m not beating myself up. I just don’t have a really exciting life. And he said, “And what, you think all the stories I tell you aren’t boring?” And as far as I’m concerned, they’re not. I’m interested in his day. I’m interested in what he does and how he does it, and how he reacts to things going on around him. How else do you learn about a person? (Yes, thank you, I realize the irony here. Shhh. My blog.)

And then. . .

(Brief recap: ballgame with Grammar last year, in which he sat in the seat next to me and texted me rather than talking to me.)

Then Mud says to me, “Maybe that’s why that guy was texting you at the baseball game rather than trying to talk to you. Maybe it wasn’t for his benefit, maybe it was for yours.”

WTF?

Surely … I mean… see, this is how I converse with Mud when forced to talk about myself. I can’t get out full sentences. Huh? What a keen observation. I never thought of it that way.

But I was trying to do as Woodstock had suggested, and open myself up to him a bit. Let him through the gates of Blue’s World, as it were. He’s decided that the next time we talk, he isn’t talking. I am. I was like, whatever. Because if there’s anything I do know about guys, it’s that most of them like to talk about themselves (no offense, Chicago).

By the last forty-five minutes of the conversation, he was more like the Mud I know. All right, and love. Shut up. Tonight was awkward, but I’m hoping we’re over a bit of a hump.