A blast from the past and a glimpse of the future

Sparta, stabbing bubbles at the church. Maybe "grownup" isn't the right word.

The past few days have been a strange juxtaposition of my past and present.

It started on the weekend, when I attended the wedding of a girl I was good friends with in elementary school.

To be honest, while i was delighted to receive an invite, I was a little surprised as I hadn't actually seen her for a number of years. Most of my memories of her are from around the time that Barbie with the rollerblades that shot sparks, setting the occasional hapless child on fire, came on the market. I remember because she got one for her birthday.

And yet, there she was a couple of months ago, hand-delivering an invite to my parents' house. My mom said she knew who it was the moment my dad answered her knock and that familiar little voice came twinkling through the doorway.

On Saturday, as she stood there in her wedding dress, I couldn't help but see her as the little girl in a bride costume I knew so many Halloweens ago. It was so hard to wrap my head around the idea that this is all for real. There we were, making toasts and drinking wine, wearing bridal gowns and party dresses, high heels and makeup and none of it was stolen from our mothers' closets!

Monday, I felt a similar jolt when I went to see another friend from elementary school and to meet her baby daughter. When we were 12, she lost both of her parents to cancer within three weeks of one another.

We were best friends at the time and I was with her at the hospital when her mom passed. She moved away shortly afterwards and we've lost touch over the years, with the occasional update or chance meeting. To see her with her own daughter, a mom herself now, well, neither my brain or my heart knew quite what to do with that, beyond smile. Wide.

It's not like it's the first time I've been to a wedding or been friends with someone who had a baby, but for the most part, the people I know who've done these things were either not people I knew particularly well, or they were suitably beyond me in years. Last time I checked, my friends and I were all still pretty much adolescents.

With my own impending leap into adulthood, in the form of the great cohabitation caper, set to commence in four days (thanks again for all of your wonderful advice!), I'm beginning to wonder, is this what being a grownup feels like?

In other news...

Meet my ghostwriter.

As we are both far too warm (due to a sudden heatwave and no air conditioning) to form coherant thoughts, let alone write them down today, we hope you enjoy this little story from June 24th last year.

So you can ballroom dance, but can you YMCA?

Better together?

After almost four years of long-distance dating, Sparta and I are finally closing the gap. Not only are we going to live in the same city for the first time since the summer we met, we are going to live in the same apartment.

The plan has been in the works for a while, but I haven't wanted to write it here for fear of jinxing it. That and I've been pretty skeptical about the whole thing as I've been waiting for the timing to be right for some time now, and it just never seems to work out. But, knock on wood, it's official.

Not only is he moving in at the end of the month, he's applying for a job at the paper. That's right, after four years of barely seeing each other, it looks like things are about to get extremely cozy.

What? That looks suspiciously like a recipe for disaster, you say? Well, you might be right, but after four years, I've kind of taken the attitude that if we're going to drive each other crazy and we can't stand to be around each other for lengthy periods of time, we might as well find out.

At least that's the cool as a cucumber line I've been repeating to myself and anyone else who cares to hear it. However, yesterday I had a moment of panic when it occured to me that I don't really want to find that out.

Suddenly, this cucumber started to sweat.

Oh. my. god. What if I leave my wet towel on the bed or the lid off the whatever and he leaves me for someone who looks just like me only taller and fitter and who doesn't roll her eyes and lunge for the remote whenever UFC garbage is on and always, always hangs up her towels properly?????!!! WHAT IF HE EATS ALL MY CHOCOLATE OR MAKES NOISE WHEN I'M TRYING TO WRITE AND I HAVE TO KILL HIM??????!!!!!!

Once I regained consciousness I figured I should share these concerns with him.

"What if I do things that drive you crazy?"

"Like when you leave wet towels on the bed?"

"YES! Exactly!! See? I already do things that you hate! What if I do that by accident and you break up with me and..."

"If you leave wet towels on the bed, I will move them...And make fun of you."

So, at least that's settled. Now to purchase some earplugs and a combination lock for my chocolate stash...I mean...learn to share?

Meanwhile, my towels are hanging neatly on the hook I installed on the back of the door. For practice.

Any advice from experienced cohabitators?

In other news...

Ever wonder what your favourite small town reporter looks like while chasing a story?

And speaking of sneakers

Guess who will be attending a fabulous cocktail/auction/dance party at the Bata museum this weekend?

I know, I'm practically jealous of myself.

Happy weekend!

Funboy and the Golden Sneakers

About a month ago I started taking a class at this cute little dance studio one town over. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I've really enjoyed it so far. Each class is different, so if I have to miss one for an assignment, I don't have to worry about catching up on what I missed.

The classes are being held at the local YMCA over the summer while the new studio is being renovated. So last night I strolled into the Y for my first class there and asked a woman at the front desk to point me in the right direction.

Before she could finish pointing out which way to go, a young man, who I swear materialized out of nowhere beside me, shouted "I'll show her!" and bounded toward the stairs like a puppy, looking back to see if I followed.

As we chatted on our way up the stairs, It became clear that he was maybe a little developmentally delayed.

As soon as the music started, it also became clear that he is, without a doubt the most joyful dancer I have ever seen. Although he wasn't necessarily getting the steps down, he was damn sure moving and grooving.

Now, I always enjoy the dance class. I feel fairly energetic and by the end I've usually loosened up enough to really let myself go and enjoy.

This class was different. it was like he stepped in and gave us all permission to relax and laugh and have a little more fun. His enthusiasm was just so infectious.

Every time there was a lull in the music, all you could hear was "bahTAH ba ba!" as he scatted along, with the occasional "Yahoo!" thrown in for good measure. I had to give up on suppressing the giggles that were almost constantly bubbling up happily from my stomach, and when our eyes met in the mirror, he just laughed right along with me.

It was like someone came into the room and set up a bubble machine or upturned a box of fuzzy, playful kittens. Sure it was just this side of ridiculous, but you'd have been hard pressed not to feel just a little delighted.

And then, just when I thought I couldn't be any more entertained, I glanced over during our water break to see him reach into his little backpack and pull out, not a water bottle, but a pair of gold shoes.

He sauntered proudly over, looking at me, and down at his shoes. "What do you think of my shoes?" he asked.

"I think your shoes are amazing!" I replied.

"Yeah, they used to be my school gym sneakers" He shot me a look like, can you believe it? "But I spray painted them gold."

"Well they look great!" I smiled.

"Yeah, my nickname's Funboy. And I sell t-shirts."

Funboy.

For a second, the universe made sense.

Writing's on the wall (Very Superstitious)

I've never thought of myself as particularly superstitious. I can never remember which shoulder to throw the salt over or why (besides the obvious reasons involving hygeine and sanitation) I'm not supposed to put my shoes on the table.

However, I can NOT walk by a penny on the ground without picking it up and preferably giving it away (thanks for that one, mom) and I'm definitely one for signs and omens. Sure, perhaps it's a tad narcisisistic to assume that nature or whatever would take the time to arrange itself into my very own magic 8 ball, but hey, in a moment of decision making paralisis, where both sides seem equally stacked with pros and cons, I'll take all the help I can get.

If that help is nothing more than narcisism, irrationality or my overactive imagination, so be it.

I swear part of the reason I decided to go ahead and uproot my life to move here a year ago was because the day before I got the call telling me about the job and asking if I might be interested in applying, I had impulsively bought curtains and couch cushion covers. It's like I was pre-nesting for no apparent reason, until the call came and gave me one.

On the weekend, as I dragged my drowned rat self back from an assignment I had shown up in the rain an hour early for, I was doing a nice job of fretting myself towards hairloss over whether or not I'm spending my time where I should be right now. Should I be moving on to something bigger and scarier? To something in the city?

Then, as I turned onto the road home? This:



That rainbow might as well have been my very own bat signal, shining directly out of the top of my house, from the looks of it.

So I figure I'll stick around a little longer.