allergenic.

something tragic has happened.  somehow i have become allergic to cats.

no, you don't understand:  this is a disaster!
i love cats.  i have always loved cats.
i pet them in the streets.  i pet them in the fields.  i love them even though one gave me poison ivy all over my face two weeks before my wedding. 
the best christmas gift i ever received was a kitten when i was seven.  tigger.  he used to chase me around the house and put both front legs around my ankles.  we would play together.  8 years later, when we moved, tigger disappeared from our new house and it was devastating.

i don't know how this happened.  maybe it was being away from pets for so long:  first four years at ssu, then two in alberta.  whatever the reason, i am inconsolable.


.

Geeking Out

If you've never organized your iTunes before, I most adamantly do NOT recommend it. 

I haven't written all day, and the reason why is this:  I have been severely geeking out all afternoon.  The problem is that once I start organizing my music library (or photo library, or documents, etc), it's got a sick addictive power over me.

I forget to eat.  I forget to speak.  My legs inevitably fall asleep as I sit there, a blue-tinged glow on my space-cadet face.  The occasional expletive thrown in when the computer just isn't obeying me.  The truth is, it is a poor use of time.  I know this, but I have already started and the thought of not finishing makes me want to vomit (likely because I've already invested so much time in this, which will be 'wasted' if I don't 'finish').

Judge me all you want, but I dare you to try it.  Once you try to organize it - getting the correct song names, album names, and album artwork - you will see what I mean.  It's just so nice to not have four 'Arcade Fire' spots mysteriously showing up on my iPod. 

Also, I think I'm kind of OCD.


.

accepting my own skin.

it takes an enormous stretch of my imagination to fathom this truth:
in less than a month, i will be thirty years old.  3-0.  thirty.

i have heard (from people who, no doubt, are also attempting to come to terms with the fact that their twenties are over) that the thirties are awesome.  suddenly, you don't care what people think of you anymore!  suddenly, you are comfortable with yourself, content in your own skin, a real developed person!

i can't wait.

jokes aside, i do hope for this.  and i hope, after the past couple of dreadful years, that maybe i have finally learned how to make better decisions.  that maybe i will learn to love myself and treat myself with respect.  that my size and shape won't determine my self-image, and that i will let myself be a real person - also known as having grace for myself, and others.

there is at least one practical way that i am already changing, already accepting myself more.  it concerns a little thing called makeup, or as i like to call it, super-fun art for the face!!
i grew up with makeup all around me...literally.  my mom loved glamour.  she was a makeup artist and (oh 80's trends!) an image consultant.  she did 'colours' for women so that they could learn what colours looked best with their skin tones (p.s. it actually makes a huge difference!), and she wanted to help people feel good about themselves.  and she did.  but whether it's the times a-changin' or just me a-changin', i don't believe (as she and so many other women did) that a woman shouldn't leave the house without 'putting on her face'. 

i loved, and still love, to play with makeup.  i love to put it on others.  it is a little-known fact about me that i have taken courses in makeup artistry.  it is just fun.  i've never personally been one to wear a lot of makeup (lipstick in particular tends to look awful on me), but i have consistently worn it since i was, oh, thirteen or so.  it became something that i needed to feel good about myself...or just to feel like myself!  as my friends know, i have had a love affair with liquid eyeliner for at least 10 years, and it got to the point that i looked weird to myself if i wasn't wearing any.  i was trapped by my own consistency!  if i dared to go a day without wearing any eye makeup, the inevitable consensus was that i looked so tired!  people weren't sure why, but it was clear that heather was exhausted and needed to be asked many times if she was feeling ok.  

truth be told, my eyelashes are invisible.  they are the colour of nothing, and they stick straight out, so if i'm not wearing any mascara, i look like maybe i tried lighting a gas stove to my own detriment.  or maybe i'm sick.  or really, really tired.

what's weird is that i'm becoming okay with it.  me, heather, on the cusp of my 30th birthday, may be proving all those people right who say that 30 is the magic number! 
don't get me wrong:  i still love makeup.  but my husband can testify to the fact that i regularly go without any makeup at all, whole days even!, and that i appear to be able to handle it just fine.  to not care, if you will!

so what happened? 
i'll let you know when i figure it out.


.

harsh times.

last night a girl who was past tipsy told me that she is surprised to find that she really likes me, because she had heard that i am kind of harsh.  and it made me so sad! 

i don't know how, but i seem to give off the impression that i am pretty confident.  which is a gross overstatement of the facts, which are that i am actually shy and awkward with strangers.  i don't usually know how to relate to people that i don't know, which is why most of my dearest friends are the people who took me in or made an effort towards me or just showed me that they loved me from the start.  i know, it's a tall order.  and a protective measure.

since grade two, when i found out a friend's mom disapproved of me (for being too headstrong? slightly rebellious? a natural liar?), i have two intense, subconscious fears that colour all my interactions:
1. being disapproved of
2. being misunderstood
yes, the two go hand in hand, like best friends on the playground.  i have an inherent distrust of adults (which i have started to work through, maybe because i am now one myself...what?!).  i lack discipline and can't seem to surrender to authority.  but i am trying to overcome these things.

my sister, five years my junior (an eternity in my younger days) once told me that some of her friends found me intimidating.  this shocked me, but it shouldn't have.  i wasn't really all that nice to my sister or her friends.  i don't know why.  i regret it.  it wasn't really about them, is the thing.  i am just a classic self-absorbed, emotional artist-type, so wrapped up in my own things that sometimes i forget to see people.  also, i find it hard to trust people.  not because i assume some flaw in them (although occasionally this is the case), but probably because of some deep-seeded sense of shame or the idea that there is something wrong with me, that i will inevitably be disapproved of.  it's not logical, but it still is. 

perhaps it's this subconscious feeling that drives my intense desire for non-confrontation in all things.  i'm not very good at sharing...my feelings, my things, anything!  my go-to response throughout the jungle of teenagedom was "i don't want to talk about it" and it was my opinion that things were better left unsaid:  since words can't ever be taken back, it's best to let situations evaporate on their own.  needless to say, i don't feel that way anymore, or at least i don't "feel" that way in my brain.  on some level, though, i still feel that way in a deep place.  but i have seen what not communicating can lead to, and i have witnessed that in spite of the botched jobs we do at relating, to deal with things is far superior to letting them fester.  because things do not evaporate, really.  and if they do, they come down again as acid rain.

but let's get back to the beginning:  i don't want to be harsh.  i want to be kind, and open, and welcoming, and nonjudgmental.  i think i can do this, with some effort to not let myself give in to being the lowest common denominator, the easiest version of myself when i'm sad or wrapped up in my own thoughts or just feeling awkward.  it probably gets easier.  i just need to be more aware of the way that i give myself out to the world.  because, believe it or not, people will form some kind of impression of you from the evidence you hand out, true or false.  chris is fond of saying that i'm a tough nut to crack, but i'm sick of that.  i don't want people to need special tools to get to the heart of me, i want to be willing to yield the good stuff without putting up impossible barriers.  because in the end, i really do believe that human existence is doomed (and should be doomed) unless we can learn to love more, and show it more.  this applies to everything. 


.

a little lighter in the loafers.

today i actually feel lighter. 
it's a strange truth that the spiritual, the psychological, the emotional...these things somehow affect us in a very physical way.  we carry our pain on our shoulders like oxen, every step a grim reminder of our failings and the failings of those around us. 
i don't know how it's possible, especially for someone as religiously jaded as i am or have been, but my burden has been lifted.  i am willingly yoked now, reining in my rebelliousness, and somehow this new load that i am committed to is lighter. 
it's something about forgiveness!  for ourselves and for others!  i think if we can figure out how to do it (or let ourselves be helped in doing it), it just might be the thing.  for moving on, and letting go.


.

the dread of scheduling.

it's the weirdest thing, blogging.  i feel guilty when i don't do it, like the blog is a living thing, a neglected friend that is hurt by my procrastination.  and, like a real friend, the longer you go without speaking, the harder it becomes to bridge that awkward, guilt-ridden gap.

i don't mean to stay away, i really don't.  i intend to write every day, not for the fact of online self-indulgence, but simply because i know that i need to write to be sane.  and i like this forum.  i like the idea of a virtual catch-all, a journal with the possibilities of photos and recipes to share and without the tiresome effort of handwriting (it cramps after a while!).

but.
as we all know, life tends to get away from you unless you grab it with not one but both hands.  days seem to literally disappear as they melt into one another, and without discipline (because oh, how i lack discipline!), i end up doing none of the things that i intend to do.  and i wake up every morning intending again, always intending.

it goes against my artistic temperament, but i think that making a schedule for myself - regardless of how it chafes at me - may be my only hope.  it's not exactly the same thing, but let me offer a case in point:  on our honeymoon, i decided that chris and i shouldn't plan anything for our trip, except for booking the flights, ferries and the rental car.  we would pick up the car in london, drive through northern wales, ferry to dublin, and then spend the next two and half weeks roaming the irish countryside.  we would be spontaneous! and carefree!, two whimsical souls so in love that we could not help but have a magical time.
but then it rained and rained and rained...the rainiest summer in fifty years. the campgrounds flooded, and we shivered in our tent wearing all the clothes we had with us (not exactly the picture of newlywed bliss).  every hotel, motel, b&b, hostel and guesthouse on the entire island of ireland was booked up (summer tourist season, anyone?).  we would often find places to stay at the last minute (i.e. later in the evening, after much stress) that were not nice but still not cheap.  we slept in the car on not one but two occasions.  as fun as that sounds, it wasn't really.
we still had a great time in ireland, but it could have been one heck of a lot better if only i had been willing to make a plan and stick to it, rather than trying to leave everything open-ended so that we would be available for whatever incredible and sudden opportunities would come our way.  and which often didn't, at least not where accommodation was concerned. 

it's sort of the same, isn't it?  instead of planning my days, even a little bit, i just assume that my best intentions will get me through.  combine that notion with my pathetically poor concept of time and what do you get?  a thoroughly unproductive person, verging on 30 with no foreseeable career possibilities (part of which may involve my distaste for the word 'career' and its connotations) and a head full of dreams.  no, heather, just because you delusionally assume that you can paint multiple paintings, write something worth publishing, cook elaborate and healthy meals, play your guitar, finally learn your mandolin, and make a family christmas movie from old home videos all within this week, does not mean that it is possible.  especially when you waste all your time on facebook (for shame!). 
i just really hate having a schedule.  it makes me not even want to do the things that i do want to do!  plotting things out seems to be the antithesis of creativity, and yet i suppose that the alternate (doing nothing) is not very creative either.  so i am going to try, God help me.

i would like to try to write something here every day.  i'm sure i will, for a few days, and then it will peter off again.  unless...maybe i will try to write every day for a month.  a whole month!  wowee.  they say habits are formed through repetition.
one can only hope.

.

being well.

i never thought i would do it.
i suppose it's the same for everyone - there are some things that you just know you would never do...until you find yourself doing them.  and then you must suffer the consequences.

luckily for me, this time it's a good thing, and the consequences are rewards rather than suffering. 

i guess i didn't picture myself as a 'vegetarian' type of person. i wasn't against it, but i wasn't running out to the market to stock up on tofu and sprouts either.  maybe what i'm trying to say is that i simply never thought much about it.  a life-long animal lover, in my eyes there was no contradiction between adoring living creatures and gorging myself on their flesh.  no, i didn't eat any household pets, but i was a happy (one might say 'blissfully ignorant') carnivore.  PETA was something that celebrities posed nude for.  veganism was an inconvenient, incomprehensible setback to dinner parties.  meat wasn't murder, just a normal part of life.  pepperoni was a naturally-occurring, delicious topping for pizza and nothing else, certainly not the ground up parts of a pig.  chicken wings were yummy pub food, not the wings of an actual chicken.  i was living in a dream world.

in the past few years, there have been more and more voices speaking out about the horrors of factory farming, and the subsequent threats that this method poses to public health and the environment.  i listened, a little bit.  i decided to try to buy organic meat whenever possible, and eggs from free-run hens.  as painful as it was, i paid the extra money...sometimes.  the problem was two-fold:  money, and eating out.  in an age of cheap meat, the cost of organic meat seems outrageous.  i wanted cheap chicken breasts!  what was i, made of money?!  so i would occasionally splurge on "good" meat, but mostly i would skulk around in the bulk meat section at the grocery store, feeling guilty as i picked up the packages of soft, pink flesh.  the other problem, eating out, was even worse.  we didn't cook very much meat at home, but we certainly weren't asking whether the meat was organic when we went to east side mario's.  and you know, you just know, that the meat they serve in restaurants is the worst of the worst.  unless you happen to be at a restaurant that buys meat from small, local producers, there is no doubt that your steak came from the feedlot.  this is not to mention the fact that chris and i would occasionally succumb to the achilles' heel from our childhoods: mcdonald's.  we didn't go often, but inevitably when we did i would be left with a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.  yeah, that's probably because the burgers are ground-up 'who knows?' parts of cows.

i did have one 'aha!' moment in st. stephen when, after graduating, i worked for precisely one day at the chocolate factory before running home and vowing never to return.  said moment came during my orientation tour, when we were shown huge buckets of misshapen candies that had to be discarded.  "where do they go?" someone asked.  "we sell them to local farmers to feed to their cows" was the reply.  yep.  even though cows' stomachs can't process the candies, which leads to agonizing gastrointestinal problems, these refined-sugar, processed pieces of shit are fed to cows to fatten them up for slaughter.  i couldn't believe it.

but things take time to process.  sometimes shamefully long.  i avoided reading anything on the subject because i was afraid that i would have to change.  this seems to be a sad human tactic, avoidance.  we don't want to know because then we have to live with the responsibility of a guilty conscience.  it was the same for chris and i in fort mac - we avoided reading things about how environmentally devastating it was because we were there, trying to get out of debt.  as much as we wanted to leave, we felt like we 'couldn't.'
we should have, though.  we should have run away screaming. 

chris had been gently suggesting the possibility of vegetarianism for about a year before we actually took the plunge.  i just couldn't imagine it.  the embarrassment of telling people.  especially when invited over for dinner, Lord help me.  but then, i don't remember why, i bought the book 'eating animals' by jonathan safran foer.  and that was that.  i read it on our vacation at the beginning of february, made chris read it, and we have been vegetarians since the moment our plane landed back in northern alberta. 
once i read what he had to say, i knew that we needed to go meat-free.  the meat industry is out of control, particularly in north america, where the demand for cheap meat and the successful lobbying of industrial farms has led to the disintegration of even remotely ethical behavior.

why does this happen?  i have met many people who truly believe that animals do not feel pain, or that their brains don't process pain the same way as humans so it is simply a physical response.  the fact that this is wildly untrue, that animals are emotional and intelligent creatures capable of forming societies of hierarchies, communicating with each other, protecting their young even at the risk of personal injury or death, and even occasionally forming monogamous, lifelong relationships with a mate...these things are not taking into account.  scientific evidence that fish do, in fact, feel pain is flippantly dismissed.  the fact that pigs are far more intelligent than our pet dogs, and can sometimes have heart attacks on their way to slaughter due to the emotional trauma of intense fear......ignored. 

i could go on and on, but i'll stick with these reasons for now.  maybe in the future i can touch on the human rights violations that take place in the meat industry, the insanely unsanitary conditions of many slaughterhouses, and the bruised, frostbitten, cut and abused hides of freshly-slaughtered pigs that my friend sean has handled in alberta. 
i am ranting.  but what i want to say is this:  not everyone 'needs' to be a vegetarian.  however, a vegetarian diet is known to reduce the chances of heart disease and pretty much every other 'western' illness.  lowering meat consumption can help - try going a couple days a week meat-free to test it out.  the 'protein myth' (that vegetarians don't get enough protein) is just that, a myth.  sure, there are plenty of unhealthy vegetarians out there, who exist mainly on french fries and grilled cheese sandwiches, but there are a lot of really quality sources of protein out there that are animal-free.  for example, quinoa - a grain that just needs to be cooked like rice and that has all of the necessary amino acids.  yes, protein!  in a grain!  it's technically a seed, actually, but it looks like a grain.  anyway, chris and i eat tofu, tempeh, quinoa, beans, nuts, seeds, nut butters, and more to get our protein.  it's really not as difficult as people imagine it to be, unless of course you are forced to frequent chain restaurants on a regular basis (as was our sad fate for part of this summer).

since being in new york, chris and i have been about 85% vegan - yet another thing i thought i could 'never' do.  we realized after gaining weight this summer that we were consuming an exorbitant amount of cheese (chain restaurants!!), and so we have been trying to eat more healthfully.  for breakfast we usually have oatmeal (with almond milk, blueberries, raw almonds, raw pumpkin seeds, and a bit of raw agave nectar) or whole-grain toast with natural peanut butter and sprouts.  we have been relying a bit on granola bars, since we are on the go in the city, so while we are here we have been having one a day (but i don't plan on making these a staple in our diet...too processed).  we like the new builder's bars by clif - 20 grams of protein, no refined sugar at all.  for lunch and dinner, we will usually try to have some kind of mix of veggies and protein like quinoa or beans.  what's awesome about this city is that there are about a million vegetarian/vegan restaurants (actually, 42, but it feels like a million), so we have been trying them out too.

we have also been exercising a LOT more.  after two sedentary years sitting for 15+ hours a day, i cannot tell you how good it feels to be moving again.

all of this isn't to pat myself on the back, but just to say (as a record for myself and maybe as an encouragement for anyone who reads this) that we feel AMAZING!  especially since we have started eating mostly vegan.  this is probably too much information, but i have to say it anyway:  we are pooping (floaters!) every single day, sometimes twice a day.  things just feel like they are legitimately moving through us well, and it is such a relief to know that we don't have rotting flesh clogging up our intestines.

if you have never tried eating a mostly plant-based diet, it can take some planning but it is so worth it.  i would recommend this way of eating to anyone, even if just for the health benefits. 

more to come.