Rabbits Disapprove of Giving Rabbits for Easter

We are a family who has House Rabbits. 

I'll give you a moment to compose yourself as you laugh and wipe away tears. 

Yes. House Rabbits. Free Roam, litter trained, spayed and neutered House Rabbits. Kind of like Cats, with longer ears and the whole vegetarian vibe going for them.

I never planned on being a House Rabbit parent.  No sir. I was fine with La Chatte, a neighborhood cat who adopted us upon our moving into HER home. I mean, it wasn't as if we were going anywhere, and she seemed nice enough. I was however, a little shocked. People just move away and LEAVE their pets? Really!?

I later came to find that in Montreal, it is a huge problem - especially on the July 1 - Moving Day. Shelters around the city begin to be flooded with animals of all sorts whose owners decided that , Meh - just not worth the trouble to move the animal. 

Now, there is a pet store in our local Mall, which shall remain nameless. Every time we are in the mall, Emily Begs to go and see the animals. Lizards, Birds, Rabbits, Guinea Pigs, Rats, Ferrets...all the way up through $1200 purebred dogs. And I hate it. I hate the whole thing.  I watch children beg and plead for the cute animals...and sometimes they go home with them. 

But what happens after that?  Let me tell you what happens after that Twelve dollar baby bunny is no longer "cute" or "convenient" or "fun".

Jackson is our male gray chinchilla rabbit, with lovely long silky ears. He was most likely adopted as a baby bunny around Easter last year. He was, no doubt, very sweet and cute and fuzzy. He was also, most likely, well behaved and easy to manage.

When they found Jackson ( and another male rabbit) they figured that the two boys had been in the now empty, locked apartment for 2 weeks. They were both undernourished, but managed to stay alive. Maybe the previous owner had left the rest of the bag of pellets out for them. In fact, that is the only way I can figure they were able to not starve to death. Jackson was taken to the SPCA where he was examined, and when he was healthy enough, put up for adoption. His path and ours intersected as we were looking for a guy to bond with our female rabbit. 

We were interviewed, and gave our Exotics Vet name and number as a reference. We got a call, came back and met Jackson and agreed to foster him for a couple of months, to see if he and Coco bonded as well as free up a space in the shelter for another rabbit in Jackson's situation. His neuter was scheduled for the coming Friday and we planned to pick him up after the procedure. 

Of course, Jackson's experience with humans had not been stellar up to this point. It took him some time to relax and heal. It took longer for him to get used to eating a proper rabbit diet of mostly greens instead of pellets designed for Meat Rabbits. He did, however, fall in love with Coco ( who had been rescued after living in a dark basement in a small cage for 2 years). By October, we had gone back to the SPCA and made the fostering into an official adoption. He had a forever family.

Loki, our current Feline Family member is also an SPCA abandon. Never Neutered. Never immunized. When we adopted him he was already infected with Feline Rhino, a viral infection which stays with the cat for life if infected. His already damaged nose ( kicked in the face? His front teeth were also broken) is now forever really messed up. He can't smell most things due to the after effects of the virus.

What do all these stories have in common? Abandoned Animals. Discarded when the novelty wore off. Animals who became teenagers after being cute puppies or bunnies or kitties and their humans just couldn't be bothered.  

For we in the House Rabbit family, Easter is a terrifying time. I know that people will buy bunnies from pet stores, only to turn them "loose" by summer when their hormones kick in and they become rebellious, sexually frustrated teen Buns - like a smaller, furry motorcycle gang with the ability to rapidly reproduce.

What happens to those rabbits? Well, what would happen to you if we stripped you naked and set you in the middle of the Amazon?  A majority become dinner for larger prey. A few ( very,very few) make it until the cold, or people or cars kill them. Some go on Craigslist where some people may "adopt " them, not knowing anything about the intensive care and feeding that rabbits require, only to be given away again, or set "free". Some become food for peoples pet snakes.

So, do me a favor. Research. Consider. Think. If you choose to bring ANY pet home, are you willing and able to provide care, medical attention, nutrition, and social interaction/exercise that this Pet deserves? 

Just because a pet is small, doesn't mean it doesn't need to be seen by a Vet who is knowledgeable about their species. In the case of Coco and Jackson, they see an Exotics vet for yearly checkups and the occasional in between visit for possible ear infections/teeth/sore hocks issues.  When Coco was so ill with Bloat this winter, it was 500 bucks for a 4 day illness. When Jackson was seen a month ago for Stasis - a condition which can worsen and kill a rabbit - it was 170 dollars for a visit AND all of the medication, special food and fluids. Not to mention I had the supreme honor of having to force feed a rabbit with a syringe.

Yes, they were both spayed and neutered, and it wasn't cheap. Yes, they eat a very small amount of pellets, but the majority of their diet is fresh greens - about 8 cups a day for the two of them. And the Hay I buy in bulk from a local farm. They eat a 4 pound bag a week. Oh - and you can't just "leave them alone" when you go on vacation - Rabbits need to be boarded or otherwise cared for in your absence. More $$.

Rabbits need a minimum of 3 uncaged hours per day - more if they can, and in the case of Coco and Jackson, free roam, 24/7. Less leads to muscle issues , as well as gut immobility. They are grazers and built to be moving. Being confined in a tiny cage does not serve their body well.

Which leads me to rabbit proofing - thick plastic cables to encase the cords, small gates to keep them from the bigger things and hundreds of dollars of replaced cables when we forget.

In the words of my vet, who examined Jackson after we had adopted him and after hearing the story of how he had been found in the locked apartment:

"There is a special place in hell for assholes like that."

I sure hope so.

Don't be one of those people.

Want to research more on the care of House Rabbits?

House Rabbit Society is an excellent place to start.

A personal favorite: Binky Bunny Forum. This is my "rabbit" home and these folks have kindly taught me nearly everything I know. Jackson and Coco stories are on there, including their bonding story. I also  LOVE the store and my rabbits adore the Maze Haven, Tunnel and every other product!

Sacre Bleck!

This morning Emily was discussing a post she saw on Facebook referencing Easter.

As you know, we are not a religious sort of family. Now what you may not know is that both Terrance and I were raised as Catholics. I took a detour into the Anglican church during high school, but still considered myself raised as a Catholic. Our choice to not immerse our offspring in Catholicism and religion in general was quite intentional.

Terrance: Was she talking about Good Friday?

Emily: I don't know!

Dawn: It could be she meant Good Friday...

Terrance: All I remember was that we couldn't go outside between noon and 4 because that was when
Jesus died...

Dawn: What?!? How on earth does anyone know the precise time Jesus died?  What would have happened if you had gone outside?

Terrance: Oh, and those stations!

Emily: Stations?

Dawn: Oh, yeah, the Stations of the cross. I hated those.

Terrance: Yeah, they freaked me out. I once came across an outdoor version in college. Scared the shit out of me. What were they? Reclamations?

Dawn: Acts of Reparation, Terrance. What would you be reclaiming?

Terrance: What was that time of day called? When Jesus was dying?

Dawn: The passion.

(Emily listening, horrified and amazed)

Emily: So, you had to do something?

Dawn: Yes. You have to go to each station and pray.

Terrance: Now you have to look it up. Go look it up and tell us what you find out.

(This is the price to be paid when both parents are PhD's.  Look it up! Look it up!)


Emily (Later): I looked them up....

Dawn: And?

Emily: They were horrifying. Like stop action animation.......but FAR WORSE and creepier!

Dawn: That is an excellent analogy. Hey Terrance, you could take her to services this week while she is on Spring break.

Terrance: Yeah, I suppose I could. There is Good Friday.

Dawn: And Maundy Thursday.

Emily: WHAT?!?! What is so Good about dying on a Friday? Why is that Good?

Dawn: Of course that only comes after Headache Monday.

Emily:  (silence)

Dawn: Then there is Groin Pull Tuesday

Emily: (silence with smile)

Dawn: Then comes Stomach-ache Wednesday. Jesus had a terrible week.

Emily begins to full on belly laugh.

I love my kid.

ETA: Later, we were walking to the movie theatre and Emily leans is to say:
"It sounds like Jesus had the type of week that Daddy has every week..."

That's my girl.

Desiderata

I write stories in my head as I fall to sleep. I do not know if others do this, but this soothes me. Helping me make sense of the day and ordering the toys I have not put away, I add pieces and bits to the stories until I finally blink out for the evening.

It may be my need for some kind of order, some kind of understanding of why things happen or why people act and react in the manner that they do that drives this habit. Perhaps it is borne of my years of observing children, puzzling through the how and why of their actions to catch fleeting glimpses of the wonder inside their heads. Perhaps I am just a storyteller.

***

I do not think I am beautiful. I do not say this to elicit responses of "On NO, Dawn, you ARE", but to simply frame my understanding of myself. My attractiveness is rarely considered by me. I will dress in a manner that pleases me,  for I am attracted to a certain look, a certain feminine sureness. I like high heels. I like dresses. I like jewelry and I (finally) love makeup. Yet, I am oblivious of how I appear to others.

My appearance is never something that I consider static. I dress for a part and those parts are divided by where I am. I can be "Professional Dawn", which has morphed into "Professor Dawn".  I can be "Not at work" Dawn. Those people are not the same and don't really look the same. "Not at work" Dawn wears her quirky tshirts and funky flat shoes. She wears about the same amount of eyeshadow.

(I had a couple of nights of work time in my Creative Arts class. I arrived in my yoga pants, a Red Riding Hood wearing a wolfskin tshirt and my black sneakers with rainbow skulls. One of my students was startled. She told me she almost didn't recognize me.)

I am not married to man who makes much comment or notice of my appearance. He does not tell me I am beautiful, or attractive. I do know that he wishes, frequently, that I would tone down certain parts of myself. That's not happening any time soon, so I continue to wear patterned fishnet stockings and bright eye shadow. If a person flirts with me, I rarely understand it is happening at the moment. It is only in the reconstruction of my day before I fall to sleep that a glimmer of "ohhhhh" may take place.

I often wonder what it would be like to be with a partner who "gets" me in the way that Terrance does not. Terrance does not think I am funny, nor finds the things I find funny to be humorous. Terrance is not impressed by my outfits. Terrance thinks my newfound love of eyeshadow is ridiculous. He quietly seethes at my shoe collection. He does not like my music nor the shows that I like to watch.

My plan to choose a partner and not a friend as a spouse has exceeded my expectations.

***

While cleaning the bathroom, I note how much hair I seem to shed. It is quite obviously mine; long and brown. As I clean, I find more and more.  

I begin to wonder how I can lose that much hair and still remain with the ridiculously thick and unruly amount on my head. 

***

The rabbits are noticing spring. Jackson makes humming noises as he hops around. This usually means that he feels romantic, despite his neutered state. He has decided to reconstruct his cardboard house and spends hours ripping and shredding cardboard. 

Coco is more taciturn, preferring to figure out how to knock the barrier down and make her escape down the hall. She is showing her age a bit more, but rejoices when she makes her break. 

I hear squeaky bunny snores as I drift off, weaving the stories of my day in my head.

Acceptance II

Yes. There was a post that was here with a similar title.

While I rarely take posts down, that one felt too close to my bone. Perhaps it is because I am getting older, or perhaps it is because that inevitable ending belongs to another person as much as it belongs to me.

Within all of my writing here I have always tried to assert that this is my version of the story. I am never blameless.

Acceptance of the way things are is a difficult concept. My nature is not to accept anything, but to push forward, onward. It is that nature which has fueled my survival.

Being in this emotional place, this in between - Not happy and not entirely unhappy - is like being on a raft in a lake of no consequence. I neither win nor lose. I simply am.

Yet there remains some small voice that emerges saying "There is more. There is different than this." It is that voice which I instinctively heed. Other times, such as now, I stifle it. The discontent it breeds does not serve me well.

I must learn to sit on my raft and be content for now. My stasis is not unhealthy to the position which benefits the majority of my family.

I must accept that.

This is what happens when you live with a teacher/geek

Conversation #1

Terrance (on phone): Um, there is a strange charge on our house acct...

Dawn (in her office): Hmmm?

Terrance: Yeah. It is for 199.99 and is National Geographic?

Dawn: Yeah. That's me. I ordered one of those Genealogy kits for myself. You know, the one I asked for in 2007 as a birthday present? I went ahead and bought it for myself with some of my tax refund money.

Terrance: (pause) Oh. Ok.

Several Days Later

Terrance (on phone): HEY! There is a crazy charge on our acct?!?!?! It is some children's store in NYC and it is for nearly 500 dollars?!?!?

Dawn (in her office): Oh, yeah. That is me. Shit. I thought I put that on my checking card. I must have used the house card by mistake. I'll transfer the money over in a second.

Terrance: Are you sure that this is yours? Someone could have cloned my card when I was in the city last week!!! It's a place called Kaaaa-miiissshhh??

Dawn: No, it's me.  It's Kamishibai. Remember those cards I have for storytelling? The ones from Japan? I ordered the stage and some more story cards for my class. I want them to do some Japanese style storytelling.

Terrance: I don't know what you are talking about.

Dawn: Never mind. I will move the money over right now.

Terrance: It was 500 dollars!!!

Dawn: Yes. I am buying it out of my refund cheque. 

Terrance: But it was you, right?

Dawn: Yes. It was me. The money has been transferred now. 

Terrance: Because I was going to start canceling the bank cards...

Dawn: No need. Everything is fine.

Gorey Love

Happy Birthday to a person who brings me much baleful joy.

HVD 2013

Nothing says Valentine's Day like Bright pink lipstick.

And a upcycled cat beret.

The thing that can not be mentioned

The thing that can not be mentioned lives just outside my eye line. I can almost see it, if I turn my head quickly.

However, like all things that can not be mentioned, it flees if looked at directly.

There are times in which I realize that I have almost forgotten about the thing that can not be mentioned.

It emerges from shadows before I drift off to sleep, sidling up to my bedside and whispering to me.  I lift from my descent into sleep just long enough to recognize this old friend, this love long departed, before I close my eyes and try to return to sleep.

It never quite works, of course. The thing that can not be mentioned has settled in next to me. I struggle to find a comfortable spot in my bed, while the thing that can not be mentioned shifts and moves with my contortions.  I sleep, sweaty and restless. I wake with my head where my feet should be and my sheets twisted around my body.

I go to work. I laugh. I take pleasure in my work.  I come home and indulge the rabbits, giggle with my daughter.

Later, the thing that can not be mentioned will return. Emerging from the gloaming; slinking, skulking, stealing up in to my bed to curl around me once again.

I sigh.

My lips part and I exhale.

"I miss you."

I close my eyes to the thing that can not be mentioned, rolling over to gather my pillows in my arms. I pretend it is not there and seek my peace where I can find it.

Second First Day

My second semester begins tomorrow and I am nervous.

I wonder about these new groups of students I will share space with, wondering about their personalities and if they will like me...or rather if they will trust me enough to listen to whatever it is I am going to share with them.

I fidget as I work on syllabuses. Striking some things, writing others, struggling between too much rigidity on the syllabus and too much wide open space. They need structure, but I need flexibility to observe them and work on some parts while skimming over others.

I've not yet decided in what costume I will adorn myself. That is, after all, part of the role I play.

I have created my stage in my classroom. I hope they are soothed and inspired by the environment, as it soothes and inspires me.



At the end of term last year I found a card in my box.

"Dear Professor Rouse,

Your class was never dreadful because you are a splendid instructor."


This is the mantra I will use as I face my next group of students.

Teaching Lab

A few days after Christmas, I began a transformation of my teaching space. I enlisted Emily into a sort of captive teen servitude as I began to deconstruct the teaching lab.

It was not a simple cleaning. Twenty years worth of materials needed to be sorted and cleaned. Any person who has walked into the classroom of another knows exactly of what I speak. Cabinets had to be excavated. Paints washed and combined. Items labeled and placed in the correct places.

The custodians were kind, but clearly wondered why the new professor was spending her break in the school, working 2-7 hours a day cleaning materials.  They patiently hauled bucket after bucket of trash away.

Some tasks were easy, but mundane. Pulling out all the broken bits of crayons, peeling off papers on what can be used to melt and recreate, discarding others I suspect are toxic.

I test markers, I open glue sticks to make sure they are usable  I wash and refill glue bottles.

I have been collecting baskets and bowls since September when I knew that I was going to begin this transformation. I visit the local Salvation Army and Goodwill frequently, looking for treasures. I want no plastic containers; choosing old wooden bowls, small glass containers and sturdy natural baskets to be my medium.

It takes nearly three weeks of cleaning and arranging before I am content.  On Tuesday, I tell my colleagues that I am satisfied.

A somewhat cluttered teaching lab is now something more; a place for students to see what we are talking about when we discuss aesthetics and functionality.

This re-imagined space pleases me. I will be adding a light table and beautiful new instruments in the coming weeks (hurrah for grants). I am creating lists of materials that we need in the Resource Library ( A whole OTHER photo essay as I purge that particular room) and still looking for lamps and other ways to soften and change the lighting. I am not a fan of fluorescent light and don't like for children or adults to be surrounded by it.

This is where I teach.

Subversive Tights

There is nothing better than subversive tights, worn on a Sunday afternoon:

Except for, of course, subversive pink eyeshadow and hot pink lip tar.

Scarred

You can still see the scar under my right eye. Look closely. It lies in the crease of my cheek, running from the corner of my eye downwards.

I acquired this scar when I was three and sat on our sleeping dog. The dog, named Dog, was startled and bit me in the face. I recall the panic in the voice of my mother. I recall my father being incredibly angry. I have no doubt that the injury looked horrific - bloody, close to my eye,  pieces of my flesh laid open.

Like all wounds, it healed.

Most people do not even notice that I have such a scar. The placement folds naturally in my cheek and I wear glasses.

I show my scars to you. I have no ulterior motive.

I, like every other adult on the earth, am flawed.  The difference is that I don't fear my flaws. I don't obscure them or gloss over them.

Imperfect Uncertainty.

White Light

Some days you have to wear your Gorillaz Converse with sparkley tights and go to the movies.

Doors Closed

I spend a great deal of time trying to puzzle through my relationship with Terrance.

On nights like this, when he has called me a selfish and miserable bitch and I follow him to tell him that he has my full attention and what does he need which causes him to tell me through clenched teeth and bulging veins to leave him alone, I wonder why I stay married, why we stay married.

I do not claim to be innocent. I ignored him as he comes moaning into my bedroom, seeking my attention. This is because he does this constantly. He moans, he groans. He tells me that he thinks his chapped lips mean that he has cancer, or that his stomach ache is an ulcer. He interrupts what I am doing to make me look at the cut on his foot, or ask me to put a band-aid on it. While moaning.

This drives me fucking crazy.

Then he stands in front of the television. Like a three year old.

I do not give him the attention he craves so he, like a toddler, amps up his requests for attention.  Then, like a toddler, he storms and rails against me. Unlike a toddler, he knows my soft underbelly and rarely holds back.

He uses the words I use to describe my mother: Narcissistic, self involved, selfish. Why does he fucking put up with me?

The truth is that I don't know.

The other truth is that since 1991 I have been building my walls against his disapproving anger. I insulate against the punishment, the disappointment, the litany of words that describe what I am not for him.

I have deadened my reactions to him because the alternate would be to live on tenterhooks. This state of being is not conducive to attempting any kind of normalcy.

The other mind fuck is that I can no longer tell you if it is him, or if it is me or if it is neither. I have no grasp of what is real in this relationship. I do not trust what I see nor what I feel. I certainly don't trust the person who has told me that I am neurotic and have low self esteem for 21 years. I recently asked him to introduce me to the person he thinks he is married to since I have no idea who this person might be. She doesn't look like the person I know internally.

Goodness knows that the person he presents to the world in no way resembles the man with whom I live.

So many of these doors are closed and I have no energy or desire to open them.

Doctorem

Something arrived in the mail last week.


I am not yet ready to write about the murders of children in Connecticut. Suffice it to say that I have cried more than I can quite understand. Emily has been comforting me as I weep. I do not like for her to be my comfort, for it is not her job in the world. That is my job in her world. Yet, those events broke something in me. Perhaps it is because I have loved and taught children just like those children. Perhaps it is because I am now teaching young teachers, just like those teachers.

All I know is that I continue to cry, even now writing this.

Chip off the old Baleful

The drive home tonight after I pick Emily up after school:

Emily: "Eli asked me if I knew the reason we celebrate Christmas and I said "I dunno - gifts? Trees? Family?" and he said "NO! We celebrate the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ!" so I just shrugged and said..."Uhhhhh......OK."

Me: "Was Eli upset?"

Emily: "Yeah, he was getting all stressed about it. Then I started to giggle and he asked me what I thought was so funny so I told him "Easter." That is when he asked me if I knew what Easter was all about then proclaimed "Our savior rising from the Dead!" That is when I said "Do you know what my Mom and I call it?" and he asked me what, so I told him."

Me: "Oh, no......"

Emily: "Zombie Jesus. I thought his head was going to explode he was so angry. I asked Eli if Zombie Jesus needed to eat braaaaiiiiinnnnnssssss and he just didn't think it was funny at all."


Me: "I'm not sure you are going to be invited over to have pizza at Eli's house anymore."

Incorrigible

I had been watching the men working on the lot across from my office for quite a while. There was a house there that suddenly one August day .....was not.

I thought not much more about it. These things, houses and people, come and go. One is best served to not resist the flow of the tide, but rather observe and remember.

I settle into the flow of my days, of classes and students, of new names and faces. I settle Emily into her new routines and smile to myself as she begins to socially blossom. My smart ass sense of humor flows directly through my daughter. This does my heart proud.

By the beginning of December the work men come back to the lot across the street.

I am getting tired, although I dearly love my job and the students.

Later that night, I am leaving my late class. The sun has already set and it is getting cold. I walk towards the parking lot.

I watched the men pour the concrete that day. The tug of longing to stick my finger in the rough, cold cement and make my mark surges up, a remnant of childhood.

I look around. Surely, no one will stop a professor on the way back to her car. It will just look like I dropped something and bent down to retrieve the errant object.  My finger touches the concrete. Still damp and rougher than sandpaper.

D.................R............................

My giggle erupts after I finish, snap the picture and walk elegantly back to my car.

I remain incorrigible.

Midlife

Therapist: So how are you feeling?

Me: Fine.

Therapist: Are you happy?

Me: Happy? What do you mean?

Therapist: Happy. Are you happy?

Me: I don't know. I'm not unhappy.  I don't know if I have ever been happy though.

Therapist: Would you say that you are depressed?

Me: No. I'm not depressed. I know depressed, this isn't depressed.

Therapist: Have you considered the mood stabilizers?

Me: Yes...And No. I read up on them and the side effects are unacceptable. The Pristiq is doing fine at controlling the depression. I'm not adding a mood stabilizer that might make things far worse. Maybe I am just not meant to be happy in the way other people think of happy.

************

What is happy, my internet friends? Where does satisfaction with some of your life become enough? When does one stop looking for or expecting something that is not meant for you, by virtue of brain chemistry? When does the desire for that something spill over into the unobtainable which keeps you chasing the elusive desire that it might be just over there...just beyond that house, around the corner?

I'm not talking about giving up, but acceptance of how it is?

Is this the midlife crisis? Trying to figure out how to reach some kind equilibrium?

Wistful

I've mentioned that I really like my job, haven't I? I do. I like teaching and I like the students. I like poking at their brains and hopefully making them think beyond what they know now or what they might assume.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The students are kind and respectful. If I have failed them - as I surely have on some days - they seem to forgive me. Emily visited one class and told me that I am goofy even as a Professor. Utterly NOT shocking, that news.

We are heading for Thanksgiving break and I am glad. I need the break, even the two day break. There is reading to do and lessons to plan. While I am teaching the same three course next term, there are tweaks to make and readings to change. I scan, I make lists, I try to respond to emails promptly.

I tell them that I scaffold.

Inside of me, the mist still remains. In the few quiet times, my tendency towards melancholy returns. I struggle with this part of my being.

I understand with pinpoint precision why I allow work to overtake my life. In work I am engaged. A busy brain means no room for the other parts, the doubts and the sadness.

I wait for that part of me to fade, to return to some hibernation so I can live inside the pleasure of my work, my vocation. 

Sigh of relief

We voted in our new home, Wisconsin.

I like to think we helped to tip the balance.

Emily asked me to wake her when the election was called. I just shook her gently and whispered that President Obama had been re-elected. She sighed, "Oh good" , and rolled over and went back to sleep.

Yes, my love. We can both sleep easier tonight.

Skin Flick

Several months ago I made mention that I was now wearing makeup daily.

What I failed to mention was my habitual obsessive need to encompass as much knowledge as humanly possible about all things "makeup" since I had shown an interest in the topic.

In those short months, I have developed a stunning amount of knowledge about makeup and skin care. I actually stunned a Sephora sales girl recently as I waxed poetic about the different types of BB creams, and why I preferred the one I was currently using...although I was interested in trying out a different line once this tube I have runs out.

I went from a makeup zero...to a makeup hero in several short weeks.

Of course, I took care of my skin in a cursory way. I washed with the cleanser that my esthetician told me to use, and followed with the toner/moisturizer. I wore sunblock. I added eye cream when I turned 40.

Now? Oh. I have a regime. Care to hear about it? Good, because I want to share.

I've kept my G.M. Collin organique cleanser and moisturizer. It reminds me of Montreal, but I have to have it shipped here. Thank goodness for the internet, I say.

What I have changed is this: Ole Henricksen Truth Serum, day and night. Ole Henricksen ultimate eye lift gel (night only) and Ole Henricksen  invigorating night gel.

This stuff is magic. Pricey - but magic. The products don't smell overpowering and the results are fairly solid. The eye gel was the first part of the line that sold me, with the truth serum and night gel following quickly. Although Terrance says he can't tell any difference and that I am ridiculous for purchasing this, I don't care. My skin looks smoother, my pores are smaller and I think I am looking pretty good. At a faculty function recently, I said something about being 42 and a much younger faculty seemed genuinely shocked at my age.

Then again, it could have been the t shirt and rocket dog skull sneakers.

As for BB creams, primers and eye shadow primer - I am all Too Faced, baby. Again - the stuff works for me. I tried the urban decay primers and ....meh. Not right for my skin. Didn't feel right.

I most likely will try to Dr Jart's BB cream at some point once I get my hands on a decent sample size to give it a few days run. I use an air brush to apply my BB cream, to which I add the tiniest dot of Kat Von D foundation. I do mean the tiniest dot, because the description isn't kidding when it notes that this stuff can and will cover tattoos. On the other hand, it adds a seriously beautiful finish to your skin.

I don't dig Kat Von D, overall, but her makeup is pretty kick ass. I have three of her Tattoo Liners and prefer them to my other liquid liners. Yes, you read that correctly, I only use liquid liner now.

While I do have some Urban decay eyeshadow and will absolutely agree that this is pretty great eyeshadow, my real eye shadow obsession is Concrete Minerals. I am embarrassed to admit that I keep a spreadsheet of which colors I have, including the ones I picked up as limited edition releases.  I was super nervous about using loose mineral eye shadow - However now that I have converted, I can't imagine going back to "regular" eye shadow. Same with liquid liner - I simply can't imagine using a pencil anymore.

Want to guess how many I have? Huh? Huh?
Ok. I have (whisper)....35.

Yes. I wear red eye shadow to work. Lime green, orange - Yes. I wear them all. Fierce heels need fierce eye shadow.

Lipsticks are still being tried and worked through. A friend has spoken highly of the OCC Lip Tar  and I will most likely make a couple of choices to try out in the next month or so. I have a multitude of handmade lip tints and stains that I use as I prefer the staying power of the stains to a lipstick and can not bear to have anything drying on my lips. I layer a balm, then lip tint in layers until the right color is achieved.

So how long does it take to get a PhD? Six years. How long does it take me to learn 40 years worth of makeup and skin care knowledge? 2 months.


*No promotional consideration was received for the mention of these products. No free stuff at all. I bought all this stuff with my own cash. Being the contrary bitch that I am, I most likely would have hated anything I had received for free - being suspicious of companies that want to "influence" me.

*Stop crying, JB, I know how proud you are. 

Except some things, which mean everything

I found a new massage therapist this week.

The timing was perfect, as are all of these discoveries when I open myself to seeing them. I was achy and sore, my hips were hurting and the miserable twinge in my  left knee had begun to flare.

The knee is a pain I have known before. It flares when I feel powerless, as I seem to hold some kind of energy in an injury I incurred on the night of my 40th birthday party. It wasn't a fear of getting older, of course, but the dawning realization that I had no control over my world and was losing love.

I had tried to ignore the hip and knee pains, telling myself that I was just getting used to wearing heels all the time again. This body is different now. This body pushes back harder when I try to ignore it. This body begins to rob me of sleep.

Sleep is the delicate fulcrum on which my sanity balances. Mess with that and you get my attention quickly.

This massage therapist is not like my beloved Sandra in Montreal. He is a big guy, maybe 270 pounds. I believe he was a biker or may still be one. He has old tats and piercings. He may be the age of my father. Yet, he is good. He warns me that he applies pretty deep pressure and to tell him if I start to hurt.

Hah! You've got no idea what I can take, buddy.

His hands are very different, very big. Yet I still feel the tingle of energy leaping up when he begins. He works on my legs and knee first.

With Sandra, I could feel the energy moving from her hands into my skin. It was a direct transfer. James doesn't transfer as much energy in to me, as he does push my energy around. He knocks down barriers in my body, brushing them out of the way.

As always, I lay on the table listening to my inner reactions, breathing through any discomfort.

Once again, my grief surges through me. This fucking grief that I can't seem to shed surges back every time. My inability to understand why people that I love abandon me, or to adequately defend myself so that I am not in a place to need to understand never fails to push its way to the forefront. My anger at my feelings of dissatisfaction re-emerge, asking me what exactly am I looking for and do I really believe that anything better lies beyond the horizon?

After the massage is finished, he says to me: Your aura is dark.

Yes. I know. 

Flabbergasted

The way to make my spouse lose his ability to speak?

My daughter: "What's the KKK?"


Yes folks, someone has dropped the race ball...and that someone isn't me. Now, to be fair...we lived outside of the US between her years of 7 and 14. Canada has a very different history when it comes to race. We didn't have the same sort of conversations because the context was so very different.

Moving back to the state has reminded us that there are some areas in which our child has no deoth of knowledge.

Terrance reacted out of fear yesterday, driving Emily to tears and me to exasperation. He tried to explain that there are people who will hate her for her skin color, and she said "But I'm not black, I'm biracial..."

And his head exploded again.

Later, I tried to explain that to some people her skin color designates her as only black. That those people can't imagine the concept of people being more than one thing at the same time. I tried to find the words to explain that her father wants to protect her and that part of that protection is for her to identify as black.  I had to explain the history of the more favorable treatment of light skinned black people, and the idea of trying to "pass" as white.

At all of these things I feel inadequate. Terrance is angry at Emily' lack of knowledge...yet he does not move to fill in the gaps, opting to lecture me about our failures as parents. When he paused for breath mid-lecture, I interjected: "It is as if you are asking me to teach her what it is to have a penis. I can't do that. I am not qualified to do that. I don't have that base of experience. The best I can do is to tell her what I think  it may be like to have a penis, which isn't the same."

I can't tell her what it is to be black.

Pistachio Pudding

This past Friday, I was one of a very small amount of faculty in my department who were on campus. The combination of a conference somewhere else and Oktoberfest meant that few people were in the building.

I don't mind this, of course, as I tend to get an inordinate amount of work done. Grading, planning, responding to emails that I failed to return. You know, stuff.

I should have know the day would not go as planned when, at 9 a.m., as I was walking towards the child care at which I was going to be doing a student teaching observation I passed a young man dressed in lederhosen.

Not joke lederhosen, but real, authentic lederhosen. He was not being ironic. Oktoberfest is a really big cultural deal here.

"Oh!", thought I, "There is a young man of about age 19 in lederhosen. Huh."

Then I walked into the child care and began my observation, placing the young gentleman in elk pants out of my mind.

Later that afternoon I sat in my office, grading quizzes. I have one class of mostly sophomores and I am training them to do the reading I assign by giving quizzes based partly on lecture and partly on reading. As I sat in my (truly lovely with large windows) office, one of the maintenance gentlemen stopped by.

I should mention that I have made a concerted effort to say hello to everyone in the building. I am an introvert who disguises this well, knowing the value of appearing as a friendly and reasonable person.  Any of you reading know that this exhausts me - By Wednesday night, I fall asleep between 5:30  and 7 p.m., my internal energy resources entirely burned up.

I am also not a fool. I know how important support staff are in the scheme of "things running smoothly." I've been that support staff. I push myself through the motions of "normal human relations" hoping that I can use my astute observation skills to "learn" how to behave.

I've only just met the maintenance gentleman who has now appeared before me a few days prior. Of course it occurs to me much later that he knows exactly who I am in the way that maintenance people become intimate with the inhabitants of their buildings. He has watched the transformation of my office over weeks as the former inhabitant disappears and I exert my personality through things brought in and arranged. He sees photos and art appear on the walls. He sees what sits in my bookshelf, and what appears, then disappears on my desk. He knows I don't take my work Macbook home and have a "French Baguette" scented candle sitting over on the sideboard.

I lift my eyes and smile when he enters my office. I am recording grades into the computer, saving after each one so the system will remember them. I am careful to check and double check when I do this, fearing the fallability of my short term memory. The late afternoon sun is beginning to stream through the glass.

He sets a metal baking dish on my desk. He explains that there was a pot luck and they have leftovers. He wants to give the few faculty the leftovers.

"It's pistachio pudding.", he explains. "Pistachio is a kind of nut."

Perhaps I looked as if I was unfamiliar with what a pistachio might be and he felt the need to reassure me. In truth, I am well versed in varieties of pistachio. Iranian? Californian? Soaked with Lemon and Salt? I did not share my expertise in things pistachio, however.

"Oh.", I say. "It looks delicious, but I don't have a plate or bowl for you to dish me out some."

The pudding is green and has a cool whip topping. I suspect the bottom is nilla wafer crumbs. It is the type of pudding I have seen several times here at picnics and potlucks. I think of it as a very Midwestern dessert.

His solution is direct. He takes a box which recently housed a desk copy of a book I am considering for use in class next term and rips off the shortest flap. He then slides the cardboard under a section of the pudding and presents it to me.

I sit at my desk, holding a rectangle of cardboard topped with pudding and coolwhip.

I smile. I then do the only acceptable thing I can think to do at that moment. I eat the pudding off of the cardboard. I have no fork or spoon. I simply lift the cardboard to mouth and begin to gracelessly slurp pudding while making sounds of delight.


Later, as I recounted this story to my child and she was doubled over with laughter I remarked:
"If I hadn't just lived that, I may not believe that not only was I offered green pudding on a piece of cardboard - but that I licked it off in front of another human being."

And this, my friends, is how I live now.

Conversation Interruptus

No. wait. Let me stop you there.

Did you just say to me that you think that Kristen Stewart is a great actress?

You aren't saying this in an ironic manner, correct?

You've seen the same movies as I have, right? The ones in which she exhibits the exact same expression (that of bored indifference or annoyed indifference) in every scene?

Because up to this point, I've really really been liking our conversation and am experiencing a sort of glittery   feeling that I rarely feel with any adult human. One in which I am attempting to seem not goofy and maybe even impressive and mysterious.

If you truly feel this way about the quality of this non-actress then I suspect a deeper character flaw than I may be willing to ultimately forgive.  Bored indifference/disgust in an expression does not equal deep thinker...and it definitely doesn't equate to passion.

What it equates to, overall,  is my desire to punch her in the face and tell her to shut the fvck up.

I also think that it is a testimony of my glittery feeling that I was able to keep my facial expression from going complete "YOU HAVE GOT TO SHITTING ME?!"

The fact that I didn't make the face of utter contempt OR the face in which I am very obviously not saying the words playing through my mind only speaks to how much I was trying to seem normal. Also see glittery feeling.

However, you are WRONG. Badly, terribly wrong about Kristen Stewart. She is a terrible actress.

You are also wrong about the douchiness of St John in the context of Jane Eyre.  He is a douche. You will never convince me otherwise.

*A conversation I should have had six months ago, but instead said nothing. It has bothered me ever since.

Terribly unwitty

I wish I had some energy to report the news of my life.

Not that there is news at the moment. I seem to be wholly within a sphere of prepping for the next class, grading and meetings. Oh, the meetings. Lots and Lots of meetings.

I quizzed myself this week, matching students names to faces - a task at which I am lousy. I seem to be up to about 80% success, so I feel a bit better about addressing people in class.

Emily is slowly settling in to her routine. She takes the school bus to and from school. I am honestly surprised that Terrance doesn't follow the bus to and from school, as he frets everyday about whether he should drive her to school.

Not I. The bus is fine and she is absolutely all right with taking it.

I fuss at my syllabi, not liking what I wrote a month before I met the students. I fuss at my lectures, not liking what I wrote the night before.

Some nights I get 4 hours of sleep before lectures and others find me passing about at 9:30 p.m.

The rhyme and reason of my life right now is "get through the next class."

First week as a University Professor

Holy Hell, I'm tired.

One week down. I don't think I have failed too spectacularly as of yet. A couple of lectures were a little too long, a couple too short. One thing even went really, really well - better than I expected.

Everyone seems to believe that I know what I am doing, even when I am hearing the small voice in the back of my head yelling at me to throw the glitter bomb and make a run for it.

But Tired? Good gravy. I'm tired.

Eyeliner

I had a funny story about thinking I was going blind, only to find that my liquid eyeliner had run into my eye - causing a thin film of black to disperse over the lens.

This caused me to mention that I could no longer see out of one eye. In turn, Terrance went into the store and rather than getting me the 2 buck saline drops I requested came out of the store with some crazy homeopathic eye drops. As he muttered bitterly about 10 dollar eye drops, I attempted to clean out my clouded vision.

There was no immediate success, but I was able to wash enough eyeliner out to get a smallish portion of my eyesight back. By that point, however, I had ruined my eye makeup in totality.

Emily starts school tomorrow. I start school tomorrow. As one might expect, having two anxious ladies in hizzie is a real barrel of laughs.

She worries, I soothe. It is a circle unto itself. This is something I do well, soothing her, reminding her that there is nothing to fear, nothing to worry about.  She still allows me to soothe her, my voice is still able to find the space in her head that calms her.

If all else fails, I make her laugh.

She is soooooo my kid. If you can make us laugh, we can't stay worried or angry.

Sadly, Terrance has never acquired this skill set.


Tomorrow, we both set out on new adventures.

New things to see

 Bits of the landscape are so familiar

Not mountains, but coulee's. Just tall enough to make me feel at ease.

A childhood in Vermont, a young adult hood in New Hampshire. Both rural states.

 The rock here is what throws me. I am accustomed to granite. Marble. Speckled and resolute. Stone of the ice ages.

That is not this rock. This rock is sandstone, crumbly. Full of fossils and older than time memories of riverbeds long gone.

 The smell is familiar.

Hay, not yet cut, at its high summer sweetness.

The cicadas sing constantly.

Swallows dart and weave.

I feel like I am ten years old and sent out to gather cucumbers. Lifting up cool spikey leaves, I find garter snakes staring back at me.

That smell is this smell.

And then I see the absurd.

Two adults, dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2, biking down the sidewalk.

I giggle and snap a picture.

Renewal

First I would like to address an unusual search question which brought some unknown person to my blog:

"Why can't women wear stirrup pants?"

Well internet stranger, because no woman has ever looked attractive in stirrup pants, ever, since the beginning of time. Even women who are 5ft10in and weigh 100 pounds do not look good in stirrup pants. That is why women do not do this. We have enough body image shit to deal with, let us not add naturally unflattering pants to the mix, shall we?

So now that I am a PhD and all, what have I been up to? Well..revisions. And more revisions. The damn thing became a fetus that was refusing to vacate. It finally was deposited on August 15th and I was able to breathe a small sigh of relief.

As part of my practice for going back into the workforce, I have taken to attempting to apply makeup every day. In particular, I aim to master the liquid eyeliner.

Yes. I plan to make liquid eyeliner my bitch. 

Here I am after an attempt with green eye shadow which caused Terrance to ask me if I was soliciting for customers. Since I know that he is 1.old and 2. immune to any charm I may possess, I ignore him.

Frankly, we can all agree that I am pretty hot for a lady doctor of 42.

Although I have found myself feeling a bit vain, fretting over the fact that my eyelids don't seem to be as taut as I recall. It isn't that I want to be young....I do not.

I have no need or desire to return to those places. It is simply reacquainting myself with me. 

It is written that we renew ourselves every seven years. Seven years ago, I started this blog.

I lived in New Hampshire next to a lake and was terrified to leave, although I knew it was for the best.

Seven  years later, I return to the United States to move to a part of the country in which I never imagined myself living...let along as a Professor.

I am becoming. Still.

Suspiration

It must have been around 2:30 last night.

I lay in my bed, my body stretched diagonal across the mattress. The fan spun above me.

I waited for sleep.

My eyes closed.

The yearning hit me so hard I almost began to sob. A vision of my beloved city rose up behind my eyes. I was driving over the Champlain bridge and knowing I was home. The far off landmarks rising up from the St Lawrence.

I did not live there any more. It was no longer my home.




I have a new home now. Or at least a new place to build a home. A nest to feather.

I weave the bittersweet.

Rabidity

Emily went to camp on Sunday. Six days of horseback riding and walking around in 90 degree humidity. Woo Hoo!

Six days in which I can attempt edit, and think of syllabi and start to figure out the classes I will be teaching as of September 2nd.

Six days to re-litter train two obstinate rabbits who have gone all "Attica! Attica!" on me - parsing their protests in urine and the throwing of hay.

On Monday, the phone call came at noon. The message on the answering machine was vague.

"Great", thought I, "the kid has melted down and is sobbing in the office of the camp director, demanding to be sent home."

***************************************************************

Emily and I have been taking the Cousera course on Vaccines.

The format is hardly intensive. Listen to a lecture of about 20 minutes, answer some questions at the end. She and I watch the lecture videos together and answer the quiz questions.

She has been interested and attentive in the history of vaccines; how they were made and the diseases they were developed to combat.

******************************************************

When we finally got to speak with the camp director, it was not an issue of homesickness.

"The girls in your daughters cabin opened up the side vent and they think a bat flew out. Since no one can tell if the bat was in the cabin all night, and bat bites are very small.... the Health Department recommends that the girls all receive the vaccine for rabies as a preventative measure."

Come again? 

I might have started to giggle before the death ray glare from Terrance snapped me back to the present.

"Oh my. What a way to start camp...", my voice is sympathetic to this young woman calling us; one of 4 parental groups to whom she has to break this bizarre news.

Terrance glares at me.

The rest of the day is a blur as we talk with public health officials, local doctors, and the camp director. We learn about the "new "rabies vaccine which is only 5 shots over 2 weeks in the shoulder instead of the "old" series of 23-30 shots in the stomach.

I know that Emily knows what I know about rabies. We watched the lecture together, after all. Louis Pasteur worked first on the attenuated version to fight rabies in Paris. It was later that the vaccine available today - the killed virus version - was created. The attenuated version occasionally killed the human subject, but given that rabies without vaccine is 100% fatal? It was a risk worth taking. Even today, rabies is fatal once the vaccination window closes.

I know she knows all this.....

We finally speak with her on the phone. "What do you think,sweetie?", I ask. "Do you see any new red bumps? Do you think you have been bitten?"

She is oddly calm. "Well, I would rather be safe than sorry", she says. "If I have to get the five shots, it's no big deal", she trails off.

Huh? This child flips the frak out with dry heaves at having a blood draw and now she is cool and collected about having 5 shots to prevent rabies?

"Well", she reasoned, "I don't really want to die..."

In the end, we decided to not have her vaccinated and she was all right with that decision.

She never ceases to amaze me.

I think the kid is all right.

Anthill of Madness

It isn't enough to move across a country, and international border.  No. I have to work on revisions as well.

Yes. The madness. It is upon me.



But I will stop and gorge myself on these treasures for  little while. Emily would tell you that I squealed with delight when I found them yesterday at the library. (You know we found the library within our first week in    residence and presented our selves for cards, right? I mean we have priorities here, people). I had read the first one ages ago, but assumed it hadn't been picked up for more issues. Templesmith, sigh.

I am such an easy date. Truly.

new soil

We are here in a new home.

Five days of driving, five days of no A/C in brutal heat. Five days of packing the rabbits around bags of ice to help keep them alive as we drove and drove.

One day of unpacking in brutal heat, sweat rolling off of us as we carried things and boxes.

Four days of trying to find things in boxes.

Two days of looking for Loki who escaped on the first night we arrived. He returned after the fireworks on July 4th to a much relieved family.

The landscape here is strange to us. We wander stores and I am overwhelmed by choice and colour and LOUDNESS. There is far too much to choose from and it makes me irritable. I don't want a four page menu. I want a menu like I grew accustomed to in Montreal. One page. It is what it is.

People apologize too much. They are all sorry for making us wait. At one restaurant, we three broke into giggles at the waitress. Wait? Oh honey, you don't know from waiting. We had barely sat down when she arrived. ....Wait? Snort. Hardly.

Next week I will go to the University and complete more paperwork, but not yet.

Right now I work on getting my bearings and writing the final edits to the dissertation, dipping my toes into this soil. 

Exuviate

The defence is scheduled for Thursday morning at 9:30. Provided that I do not burst into flames or begin throwing my own feces like an angry monkey, I should be a doctor by about 11 a.m. or so.

The house is a maze of boxes and bags, half packed and overflowing.

 I continue to fill bags for the local goodwill, carting off bits and bobs of my life. I took my Gamecube and N64 systems( with games) to my local Second Cup, where the systems were re-homed. I must face that the odds of my hooking up the N64 to play Conkers Bad Fur Day ( one of the most spectacular games of all time, complete with a squirrel who swears and a Poo monster that throws corn at you) is so remote that I can't justify the movement of the crate across the border.

I wept a bit as I watched my beloved Zelda games depart.

No matter.

Onward, intrepid traveller.

foundations

I saw my massage therapist on Sunday.

I went because I needed comfort, my body felt adrift. I wondered if my medication was lagging, as the sensation felt a little like a depression spike.

I wasn't entirely shocked. I expected that the laser beam focus that got me through the dissertation would crumble and the exhaustion and fear would sweep over me; a tidal wave that had been straining to breach my levies. I was prepared for that.

Yet, it stretched on past week two, into week three. I was snarling and snappish needing no excuse to open my jaws and clamp down on the nearest throat.

I felt lost. Alone on a sea on which I was repeatedly throwing my tow rope into the vast dark water, hoping for it to catch on anything. Exhausting my arms with pulling the rope back, only to futilely cast it out again.

As Sandra put her hands on me, she found the spot deep in my lower back. There was another at the bottom of my shoulder blade, equally sore.

"So tight, my god Dawn. What is this?"

I knew what it was. I always know what it is.

"I don't want to move. Which isn't really true. These years have not been happy ones. I don't Love the place, but I set down roots and then resist pulling them up, even when the roots are in toxic soil. I resist so fiercely that I hurt myself, even as I logically know that it is for the best, that moving is better..."

I trail off, the pain is brutal as my body refuses to release.

"I guard the castle even as it falls down. Even after everyone else leaves, I still remain."

I don't love this personality trait. It has never served me well and I end up brutalized at the end of any transition, even good transitions....long overdue transitions.

Two weeks later, I was back on her table...working through the anger that I had locked in my lower back after another brutal argument with Terrance.

The routine is the same; her hands find the sore and tender spots and I tell her what it is that resides in that part of my body. Anger. Powerlessness. Fear.  She pushes and kneads until my muscles give up the energy of those emotions.



I need to build a new home. I need a home where I am safe. I need a place in which I do not fear constant anger and disappointment radiating from a partner. This house is toxic and it is killing me.

Slowly but surely.

Go Ahead, Judge Me

These are only the ones in boxes...prepared for transport.

The ones in bags are not shown.

My joy at figuring out the clever way to make parcels of 4 using packing twine did not impress the spouse.

Yet, I care not.














Here is a garter snake who has taken up residence in my side garden. I am delighted to see him and have spent an inordinate amount of time watching him sun himself.

Shoes and snakes. I am so easily amused. 

Lattice

Weave yourself around me

In and Out

Ramble your brambles along my length

Decorate me with your foliage

Peek out of my hidden spaces under cool leaves of green

Breathe me in

I wait. Constant in my changeability.