44 and not afraid to admit it!!!!

 

I turned 44 today.  That's right the big DOUBLE 4!!!!  I have lived, breathed, loved, hurt, gasped, screamed, laughed, fallen, jumped, dived, wallowed, basked and enjoyed life for the last 44 years.  Yes, I have wrinkles on my face.  You know why?  Because I smile and raise my eyebrows and I'm 44 freaking years old.  I SHOULD have wrinkles!  I have never been one of those women who is afraid to acknowledge how much time I have spent on this planet. It should be worn as a badge of honour.  I should be standing on the street corner yelling "Look at me!  Look at all I've done in my life!"

I decided I was going to be a world-class gymnast at the age of 8 after seeing Nadia Comăneci at the Montreal Olympics!  I won a public speaking contest for Kingston Elementary School when I was 11 years old with a speech entitled "Our Country Canada is Great"!  At the age of 13 I lived in California  and I survived bullying from a pack of adolescent girls.  I was class valedictorian for my high school!  (Not because I had the best grades, but because I was the best public speaker - see previous accomplishment - who was also an A student!)  I graduated university with a degree in ... THEATRE!!  I have written 4 one-woman shows, several plays, a bad romance novel, three children's books, 1/2 an erotic romance, 1/2 a YA vampire novel, 2 screenplays, articles, letters to the editor and a vampire rock opera.  I have had my heart broken and found love again!  I have an amazing daughter who makes me laugh at least once a day and who makes me weep when I see her dance!  I was a surrogate for another family and have the best in-laws on the planet!  I found a partner  who makes my life as close to perfection as possible - a partner who is there for me, who supports my insanity and who surprises me with the most thoughtful of gifts - not just on my birthday - but nearly everyday.

I have friends who support and love me - who break bread with me and who let me cry on their shoulder when the need arises.  Life can be messy, and sure my body doesn't do what it once did, but I am 44 years old and I'm in better cardio shape now than I have EVER been in my life!  This year has brought incredible adventure and has taught me that old dogs can indeed learn new tricks.    I listen to music differently, pay more attention to the way words rhyme and I'm producing a workshop for a vampire rock-opera this summer.  I am 44 years old and life is freaking  GREAT!!

I DON'T GLOW...

You know the phrase "Horses sweat, men perspire, ladies glow"?  Well I must be a freaking Clydesdale.  Never in my life have I glowed.

I don't participate in group exercise for this very reason. Why, oh why would I want more than a dozen people at a time to see the sweat stains that evolve in ever-increasing circles from my armpits - sometimes ending up at my waist?  Not to mention under my breasts and down my back.

I ride the stationary bikes.  They are in the darkest corner of the Y where no one ever turns on the lights.  (This is good for me, because the well-lit part of the Y has lots of ceiling fans that create a near-strobe effect - which has a tendency to throw those susceptible to migraines into that fugue-like aura state.)  In the dark recesses of the stationary bikes cavern, I climb onto a recumbent cycle.  I set up my program (Fitness Level 2) - the slightly hilly one - and I enter a starting level of 6 and usually a time of 45 minutes.  I then prop the Android Tablet onto the control panel, plug in my headphones and begin to pedal my ass off - or at least that's the theory.  I watch tv shows upon the tablet - sometimes Grey's Anatomy, sometimes Buffy - this week it's the 2nd season of Downton Abbey (another tasty bit of television).  Watching these shows almost distracts me from the fact that I am near death and sweating like a Clydesdale.

After I warm up, at five minute intervals I change my pedal level.  I vacillate between 8 and 11 - if I don't feel like I'm really going to die, I might go up to 12.  If I were to attempt this without a tv show to distract me - I don't think I could manage it.  Books are okay, but they don't do the same job as a visual stimulus.  It's all about misdirection.  Instead of giving in to the urge to vomit/pass out, I pay attention to a neuro surgeon/vampire/head housekeeper.  Pretty costumes, drama, camp - it's all misdirection.  When my time is up I'm dripping with sweat, my red hair looks black for its moisture and I'm panting like a rabid dog - but I HAVE survived!!!

After I've finished, I then make the trek through the well-lit part of the exercise centre.  My t-shirt usually drenched to a deeper shade of whatever colour it started out as.  My flushed cheeks giving off that 'just slapped' Fifth's Disease vibe.  And my ass... Yes, my ass - I somehow manage to consistently have a large circular wet spot on my black yoga capris - in the middle of which is a completely dry heart shape.  That's what I try to leave people with as I depart the Y.  I look at it as my gift to the masses.  The non-Clydesdale people who don't look like they're verging on a heart attack as they spend their 1/2 hour on the stairmaster.    I brighten everyone's day - with that dry heart on my ass.

Tasty Television for the Theatrically Inclined...

We have Netflix.  We hardly ever use it, but we pay our $7.95 a month and have it.  Every now and again we discover something on it.  Like the TED talks - which if you haven't been watching you MUST - but in addition to the TED talks there's something else you HAVE to watch...

 

A couple of weeks ago David and I discovered Slings & Arrows.  We were late to the party - we missed it when it first aired between 2003-2006.  This series is pretty much the perfect backstage series.  Having just mainlined SMASH with Rissa - I know what I'm talking about.  Where SMASH has pretty much NO truth nor depth to it (and please don't think that I'm saying that's a bad thing - SMASH is what it is, and it is a deliciously soap-like, cheesy, truly enjoyable confection of pseudo-theatre) - Slings & Arrows is the real deal!  It is so freaking tasty!!  Not only does it tap into my Shakespeare addiction but it gave me a near epiphanic moment today.  Paul Gross delivered a quotation from Samuel Taylor Coleridge in S01E05 that summed it up perfectly:

"Drama is that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith." 

That's it!  Poetic Faith.  Just typing the words makes me clench a little inside.  Poetic Faith.  I can walk into a theatre and I'm at church.  The awe and wonder that strikes me when I'm in a theatre is as close to mainstream religion as I'll probably ever get.  I turn all crunchy-granola and near-spiritual when I'm in the theatre.  When I'm onstage, I swear that I can feel the energy in the building left behind from audiences past.  I feel the lights upon my face and an angels' freaking chorus might as well be singing at my ear.  The air is different, the sound is different.  I am filled with the power of theatre.

Today, David and I went to Buddies in Bad Time Theatre - to view the space in which we'll be workshopping the rock opera this summer.  I stepped into the building - not even the theatre space, but just the building and I felt it.  That little frisson of arousal along my spine.  The venue is perfect.  Industrial, with concrete, exposed brick and steel - ramps and staircases and those elementary school-type sinks in the bathrooms.  You know the ones, kinda like this one here,

 
except the ones at Buddes are all industrial stainless.  They are AWESOME!!!

If the production is mounted in Toronto first - I want to do it at Buddies - it's ideal.  My tummy is all butterfly-y just thinking of it.  I walked out of the building this afternoon with goosebumps on my arms.  GOOSEBUMPS!!!  And it wasn't from air-conditioning.  I was actually TURNED ON being in the space.  How great is that??  Praise freaking Thespis!!!

Ducklings aren't wild animals...

I received my first 6 rabies shots Tuesday at approximately 4:00 p.m.  By Wed evening we were up at a family cottage enjoying the beauty of Macgregor Lake in Quebec.  At approximately 7:00 p.m. I was touching these!!!



Because why?  Because they LET me!!  They were begging for it in point of fact.  Or perhaps they were begging for the hamburger bun in my hand, but they were definitely begging and I will  say with near religious certainty that at least 5 of those ducklings leapt willingly into my waiting hands.  (Or up at the hamburger bun in my hand)  But at least they didn't squawk too much when I gathered them to my bosom and tried to nestle them into my cleavage.  Two might have been kissed upon their wee little duckling breasts.

Upon which action David could be heard yelling from the dock, "You JUST got a rabies shots!!!  Do the words avian flu mean NOTHING to you?!?!"

To which I replied, "I JUST got rabies shots - this is the BEST time for me to be doing this!!!" 

If I could have snuck a duckling away from its mother,  all warm and cozy in my cleavage, I would have one on the desk right now beside the keyboard in a tub of water - cavorting, making little quack-quack noises...

As I got the 7th of my rabies shots today, David attempted to make me promise  that I would stop trying to pick up stray animals. 

"I can't promise you that." 

"Why not?" 

"Because I would be lying.  The best I can do is say that I won't try to pick up feral animals - the ones that just look mean and skitter away when I call to them.  A stray cat might be stray because it got lost.  Even if it doesn't have a collar, it could still be a relatively tame cat who might just want to get picked up."

David sometimes gets this look on his face.  It's the look that says "You are insane."  But I have the "My logic cannot be bound by the traditional notions of how most people think the world should work" look.  Usually when I hit him with that he gets sidetracked - depends if I'm waggling my eyebrows at the same time.

On my walk tonight... I might have, uh... maybe... pet two cats.  But they were totally someone's housecats, even if they didn't have collars.  One of them actually laid upon her back and begged to have her belly rubbed, and as feral cats definitely don't  exhibit that sort of behaviour, I had to touch it.  You know what they say... "If I cat offers its belly...   Heather will go out of her way to touch it."  But too be fair, I'd do the same for David too.

Six down, four to go...

So...

I couldn't catch the silver-grey tabby.  It didn't follow the cleverly laid trail of kitten treats to its trapped siblings in the cat cage... in the garage.  The mother cat showed up.  Along with the father/brother/uncle cat.  I couldn't turn in the captured siblings to the animal shelter.  I just couldn't.  All I could think was that I'd abducted these two completely innocent kittens and if I were to take them to animal jail (where they might possibly be put to sleep, because who wants a feral kitten?)  the mother cat and father/brother/uncle cat might well be emotionally scarred forever with the loss of the two kittens - who had nothing to do with my blood loss - while the silver-grey demon kitten was out running free.  The silver-grey kitten in turn would then have a complex about being the cause of its siblings' demise.

I opened the cage.  They bolted.  Guilt covering my very DNA, I put down a can of cat food.  The mother cat and father/brother/uncle cat came and ate some food while watching me - prepared, I think, to finish what their child/sibling/nephew had started yesterday. I gave them space.

They give you rabies shots in your large muscle groups.  In my case 1 in my bicep, 3 in my right thigh and 2 in my left thigh.  I have been advised that these puncture points could become sore.

Now David thinks that this might stop a person from approaching stray animals.  David... is wrong.  I may well re-approach the original silver-grey tabby in the hopes that we can salvage our blossoming relationship.  Kittens are pretty much crack to me.  I may have to be restrained if this family of feral felines continues to live near our home.  Yep, I just got 6 painful shots (completely deserved) for being too impetuous in my approach of stray cats.  I shall now be more stealthy.   Lesson learned.

Don't cuddle the feral kittens...

The good news is that rabies shots no longer number in the dozens, nor does one have to have them all upon on one's stomach.   The bad news??

Let us revisit yesterday, right before dinner ...

I am outside.  The weather is a balmy, breezy, sun-dappled 27 degrees.  I have just put the veggies onto the BBQ to grill.  I hear a wee "meeping" noise.  A kittenish noise.  A 'grab my animal-lover's attention' noise.   A noise that I immediately mimic back into the wild in the hopes that any stray kittens might willingly gambol towards me knocking me over with their enthusiasm for human contact.   I step to the edge of the deck, looking from whence I heard the 'meep.'  There are two tiny tabby kittens beside my house, hiding in the shrubbery.

One silver-grey with wide, expectant sky-blue eyes and a black and brown one, deeper in the shrubbery.  I quickly calculate the number of cats currently living in our home = 3.  Chances of my being allowed to bring any more into our home = 0.  But there is still the potential for kitten contact.  I lie upon my stomach on the deck, making the universal kissing noise that one uses to lure small animals into your grasp. The kittens keep their distance, but more importantly, they don't run away. I try my hand at the "Look I speak your language!" mewing once more.  Nope.  They aren't biting.  Not yet.

I run inside the house and find a sample bag of kitten kibble left over from when Steve and Lola became part of our family last year.  I sprinkle bits of the kibble upon the ground near the deck stairs.  Yelling upstairs, I tell David "WE HAVE KITTENS OUTSIDE!!!!"  I return to the deck and see the tail of one of the kittens disappear from the step and hide under the deck.  The kibble is now gone.  I sprinkle more kibble and lie in wait.  I am not disappointed, the grey kitten comes out.  On my hands and knees I silently approach, intent on feeling the warmth and sweetness that is kitten and scoop it up into my waiting hands.

Apparently, there is a difference between kittens from the litter of a happy, "well-accustomed-to humans" house cat, and kittens that are feral.  Feral kittens don't cotton to being handled.  This sweet and fuzzy grey tabby morphs into a hissing, spitting, growling demon kitten.

 
I try making the 'shush, shush, shush' noise to  calm it so that I can put it down safely, but it is VERY panicked.  I can't just drop it, it might get hurt in the midst of its hairy hysteria.  Well-versed in the ways of soothing the savage breast, I adeptly change my grip to the scruff of its neck.  Then the party really gets started.  The little darling opens its mouth and latches onto the fleshy part of my hand, right between the thumb and forefinger.  Now I really can't let go because it would just be hanging from my hand by its teeth.  Still growling and scratching (my wrist is now bleeding as well), the kitten doesn't seem to have any plans to release my hand, so I have to pry its mouth open a bit before making sure that the wee terror is not too high above the deck before I release it.  It skitters under the deck, while onlooking neighbours look at me as if I have turned into Hannibal Lecter himself.

"I was just... it seemed... cuddle...  I WASN'T GOING TO EAT IT!!!"

While at the Dr's office this morning, on a completely unrelated matter for Rissa,  I mention casually that I have been bitten by a very small, more than likely harmless, stray kitten.  Subsequent to this,  there have been phone calls to the Health Unit and Dr's office.  If I cannot contain the animal, I will have to have rabies vaccination shots.  And though they no longer number in the dozens, they do number in the several on days 0, 3, 7 & 14.  I realize that, through my own animal-loving stupidity, any hopes of catching the kitten are nigh on impossible now that I have made it terrified of humans in general and me in particular.

Choosing to be optimistic, I  go outside and check under the deck, you know, just in case.   I see a kitten skitter away.  One kitten.  I can't be sure if it's grey or not.  I gather my kitten kibble and put some on the step.  I go to check later and the food has not been touched, but I hear a sound from the garage.  AHA!  Kittens in the garage!

I arm myself with a pair of leather work gloves, a flashlight and a cat cage and enter the garage, closing the door behind me.  A kitten careens off the garbage can, bolts to the door, then behind the flammables cabinet and then back to hide in the snow-blower.  I think.  I take my flashlight and creep towards the business end of the snow-blower.  There I see two kitten asses.  One runs in the corner I manage to grab it and get it into the cage before reaching for the back end of the other.  We wrestle.  It sounds as if I am tearing out its guts through its throat.   But it too, ends up in the cage.  I have done it!  I have two kittens in the cat cage!!  Crisis averted!!

Unfortunately, upon closer view, neither kitten seems to be particularly silver-grey. The one that bit me yesterday was definitely silver-grey - its colouring was very distinctive.  I clutch at straws: maybe because today's weather isn't as sunny, the kittens' coats just don't look... the same way that they... did... yesterday?  In fact neither cat really resembles the two that I saw yesterday.  I go to check the kibble on the step - it is now gone.  That could mean three things: either the mother cat came back and ate it OR our white-trash druggie neighbours got the munchies, saw the kibble and thought "Cool!  SNACKS!" OR there is a third silver-grey kitten, still at large, that  knows the taste of my blood.

Hold on!  Rissa is yelling up the stairs.  "MUMMY!!! Come quick!!!  There IS a grey kitten!!  It is looking at the other kittens in the cat cage!!!"

If I put the cat cage back in the garage, and leave a trail of kitten kibble... might it be possible to capture the elusive silver-grey kitten?  There is the distinct potential for cat apprehension and avoidance of multiple rabies shots!!!

Mom and Fifty Shades...

So my Mom called the other day.

Here she is!  With her lovely smile!
She's probably cackling with laughter in this pic.
She has the BEST cackle.

"Have you read Fifty Shades of Grey?"

Not what I expected her to lead with, but okay. "Yep.  Have you?"

"No, but I've been hearing a lot about it.   There was a man in the pro shop (Mom is a golfer) who said that every man should read it."

"I'd have to agree with him."

"And there was a woman from my bridge group who said that she couldn't believe that they would allow such (insert offended noun here) to be published.  So I was just thinking if you had it, I might take a look."

"I have the e-book, I'll bring my reader along with me this week when I see you."

"Well that would be great!"  And then she asks, "What did you think of it?"

Whenever anyone asks me about the Fifty series of books, I need a second to collect my thoughts.  I read the first two in the series, but (and this should be a good indicator of how I feel) chose NOT to read the third.  A person who chooses not to finish a trilogy has been let down, fed up or just plain disinterested.  I was let down.

I read those first two books.  In spite of the mediocre writing.  However implausibly plotted they might be.  First off, what woman just graduating university is still a virgin?  Then there is the single, drop-dead-gorgeous multimillionaire male who MUST have the virgin?

Okay, I'll suspend my disbelief.  I skew towards the kinky; enjoy the world of D/s.  (That's Dominance/submission for those who know nothing about the lifestyle.)  What I DON'T enjoy - is reading about two people who bicker constantly, with no trust for one another, but who make the mistake of thinking that argumentative passion will make for a lasting relationship and that the capitulation of your own values, your own wants and needs is a good thing.   

If you don't trust someone and you think that the kinky lifestyle that they lead isn't right for you - THEY AREN'T THE RIGHT PERSON FOR YOU!!!  Don't try to change a person you have known for a couple of weeks into who/what you want them to be.  It won't work.  It never works.  

That person doesn't want to change.  At this point in their life, that person wants NOT to be emotionally open and trusting.  Maybe later, MUCH later down the line, they might evolve into a different type of person, but it won't be now.  You will just have to be happy that  possibly because of you, they might have evolved to the point where they'll be able to love someone whole-heartedly.

Oh, and another thing!  It's okay if you like kinky sex. And it's okay if you don't.  Maybe you like to organize your tissue paper in the ROYGBIV freaking spectrum, and that's your kink.  But you shouldn't think that because you don't understand or desire someone else's kink, that that kink is wrong.  It's not wrong for them.  What consenting adults do, is UP TO THEM.  If there are 6 consenting adults who want to play house where all they do is run around nude but for frilly aprons, and use a feather duster on each other's sassy bits?  That is UP TO THEM.  Let them be.  Don't try to change them.

As to the Fifty Shades Series... the sex wasn't earth-shatteringly hardcore.  I've read worse, but more importantly, I have read MUCH, MUCH better.    The best thing going for the series, is that it has brought erotica out in the open.  Women are reading it and they're not afraid to admit they are.  This series almost seems to be required reading to keep up with everyday conversation. 

But the best part of this series becoming so popular??  After reading these books, these newly anointed erotica converts will seek out more erotica and they'll find the BETTER stuff.  (Think Alison Tyler and Megan Hart - and I am more than willing for you to introduce me to others.)  The stuff with more substance and fewer grammatical errors, the stuff that you don't want to take out your pen and redline.  The stuff that really delves into any number of other kinky lifestyles.  Or maybe not even kinky.  Maybe just graphic married sex - because that's out there too - and the fact that is IS, is a GREAT thing.

With the advent of e-readers we can now read ANYTHING we want without that dude across from us on the train, or the person next to us at Tim's,  any the wiser.  Thank God for e-readers.  I LOVE the fact that I can be reading hardcore erotica pretty much anywhere and don't have to feel embarrassment over the ridiculously cliched sometimes graphic images on the cover.  The shirtless men with 6-packs or the women tied to bedposts, the titles that make a literate woman cringe.  My burgundy-coloured e-reader cover makes it appear like I am reading an number of erudite novels.  And sometimes, I even am.