October 22, 2007 at 10:45 pm
· Filed under 2007 books
Just prior to all the nonsense I mentioned below, I finished reading a fabulous new first novel – February Flowers, by Fan Wu. Set against of backdrop of China in the 90s, this is the story of two friends – Ming and Yan – who find themselves in an unlikely friendship. It’s truly more of 17 year-old Ming’s story, and her intense fascination with the older Yan.
There is a more sophisticated storyline here, one that shows us old and new China, and the emotional realities of living in a post – cultural revolution world. But the bits I loved best were the ones about the girls’ friendship, and the odd, familiar dichotomy of love and hate that runs through it. The girl crush, the girl flirt, that you remember from your late teens, when the world was opening up to you in new ways. When you met that older girl who just seemed to emulate something bigger than yourself. Wu’s prose reads like poetry on this subject:
I wanted to follow her but instead I fell back onto my bed – a strange dizziness struck me in a kind of ecstasy. I felt my blood pumping through my veins and crushing my organs. A strong current of warmth permeated my heart. I had difficulty breathing. Never before in my life had I been so paralysed by an unspeakable emotion and so incapable or expressing my thoughts. (page 54).
October 17, 2007 at 11:23 pm
· Filed under Uncategorized
The last two weeks have been crazy. Nuts. Unbelievable. Stressful. Overwhelming. Bizarre. Are you getting my drift yet? Things so out of control that all I wanted to do was curl up in a brown paper bag and sleep the next few months away.
First, I almost fainted at the H&M in the Eaton Centre in the maternity section and the hipster kids called 911. That, my friends, was an interesting experience to say the least. Sitting behind the counter while trying to catch my breath, as a bunch of 20 year olds stared at me and whispered “are you going to give birth here, miss?” Miss. Fuck you, fuckers. I’m only 14 weeks and just a little out of breath. Ok, granted, I can’t stand up right now but you don’t have to stare. A combination of a lot of walking around, carrying a ridiculous amount of shopping bags, and dehydration was the culprit. Oh, and let me tell you – been carried out on a gurney throughout the Eaton Centre? Well let’s just say it made my year of course.
Then, my daughter got the croup days before I was to leave for France on a big business trip. She was feverish, weak, and apparently very contagious. I came down with a wicked mixture of the flu/cold within hours of arriving in France. And spent most of my week trying to cope.
I then returned home, started to feel a bit better, only to have Alice start a new daycare and go ballastic. Crying, tears, the works. All inside the new daycare with me there too, crying along with her. Nothing beats seeing a crying pregnant mommy hugging her crying 4 year old, sobbing “this will be a good change for you, you’ll see!”
And after all of that, I tried to relax with a nice night with Scarbie and her kiddos and some Greek take-out. Only to have the pipe under my sink spring a huge leak, flooding within minutes. (That was actually comical, to be honest: Alice and Nate were running around screaming, Nadine was holding up her poor little baby who was covered in shit, and I was screaming “oh my god, oh my god” as the water poured out). Matt was not home but did talk me through finding the water source in the basement so I could turn it off. Word to everyone out there who DOES NOT know where their source is: find it NOW. You will thank me later.
A whole bunch of other stuff happened in between all of this, including my extended family going apeshit in other ways (a story for another day). And surely the two weeks weren’t as terrible as they could have been. We’re all still here, relatively healthy and happy. But all of these events did take a toll on me, and I found myself needing a big fat pick-me-up. Something to raise my spirits and make me just giggle. And just at the right moment, something perfect came along…
Those of you from my previous lives (pre-blog and pre-baby) might know one important thing about me: I love the movie Fame. No, like I really love it. Like I used to dream I could be one of those dancers running through New York. I did not have the coordination nor the skill, but good lord if I didn’t dream about it all the time. I can’t really put my finger on the actual tangible thing that makes this movie so…well….loveable for me, but it’s true. And most especially the below song. It’s cheesy and terrible and emotional and teary all at the same time. When the dancers come on, and (sigh) Bruno, (and the leg warmers, the LEG WARMERS!) and when Doris starts clapping along with the music and the drummer nods…sigh…it’s heaven for me. And a perfect tonic after the last two weeks.
