a little light....

So, in amongst all the sh*t, there's been a bit of light.

The photography is full tilt. As is the ensuing editing. I'll sleep when I'm dead right?

Yesterday went to a Blue Rodeo concert, my favorite band ever ever ever....

I'll leave you with this song which made me cry, full out, standing in Place Des Arts, tears streaming down my face. That's Jim. On whom I've had a crush since I was 17. Yumm. I've met him a few times now, nice guy....



Yesterday I was on the computer, and someone got me onto chat. I'm not sure if I mentioned a friend trying hook me up with a photographer from the local newspaper...hook up as in friendly, not meant to be romantic...we have alot in common with the photography & are both foodies etc....she thought we might get along.

Long story short, we met at a vernissage of his, but due to his job, my job, & my friend's job we haven't been able to get together for a meal out. He's not my usual type, but seriously, sexy in a big way. Nice smile. And the brains in this guy's head. Also turns out we know someone in common (naturally, this small old world). I thought he might be interested but, he never asked me out.

Fast forward to yesterday. Not sure how it happened, but I told him I wouldn't say no if he asked me out. He was shocked. Said he would so do that, except just last week he started seeing someone. That he didn't realize, I didn't realize, and now we both know and nothing can be done about it because, in his words "dammit, you're a week late, but wow, you really tempt me, you are sooooo cute."

I did feel a bit better about myself, seeing as I've been feeling so damned down about everything. And it made me smile. And hey who knows, it may not work out at all with this other woman, right? :)

no pain no gain?

Ok so if I thought I was a numb disaster before, well, the past week's little gifts have made sure that I really am a completely numb disaster now.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't that close to Grandma, not like Grannie, but I watched her die, as I held her hand, alone in her room at the palliative care, she started to die, her hands changed color as they do, her breathing slowed, she knew my sister and I had gotten there, and within the space of a 1/2 hour from our arrival, she was gone. I started to panic she would die with only me in the room, my dad (her son) wasn't there, but I didn't want to let go of her hand in case she did go, didn't want her to do it alone, she didn't seem as though that's what she wanted. Thankfully, my sister came in the room, looked at my face as I croaked out "her breathing has slowed" and she called the rest of my family into the room. She breathed her last breath with everyone she cared about around her.

Waking up to a dead rabbit, one of my favorite pets, beside me in bed wasn't pleasant either. Considering I was trying to get some sleep, Tao just wouldn't leave me alone, he was spinning in circles going insane, and I couldn't get rid of him. He was upset. Rabbits understand death and mourn. His girlfriend had died overnight. I started to bawl, which freaked him out even more, not just cry, but straight out wailing, such that I never do.

Funeral that day from grandma was fun. Me crying for a rabbit, withdrawing from my family completely, didn't speak to anyone at the funeral other than family members, sister accusing me of being disrespectful to my grandmother (she's dead, how can you be disrespectful), and me wanting to just go home so I could check on my grieving rabbit.

Tao was sitting staring into space when I got home. This rabbit full of energy and vim, just sat and stared into space. Contacted my colleagues at the SPCA to make sure he was going to be ok, was assured as long as he was eating it was fine. He was. He was just pretty much devastated and worrying the crap out of me.

We got a bunner in at the SPCA a week and a half ago, a pretty female Rex, came in with her boyfriend and 2 babies, which were taken away from her as she wasn't producing milk. She was separated from the boyfriend. And she was grieving, doing the same thing as Tao, just staring into space.

So the girls decided that maybe the 2 grieving bunners would make each other happy. So on Sunday, I brought Mae home. They're very interested in each other, they're both much more active, Mae even binkie-ing (a cute little bunny jump, look up "bunny binkie" on Youtube), even though they can't be together completely yet (Mae is going to be sterilized tonight, don't want anymore mourning bunnies).

And then there's me. I'm still mourning Grannie. Semi-mourning Grandma. Mourning Molly. Mourning the Brit. He didn't make any fuss about me deleting him. Never contacted me (it's been just short of a week), and really tells me alot about how much I meant to him, regardless of the lip service I was given. I hadn't deleted him from my MSN, because, truthfully, I never go on it, but happened to go on to talk to a friend in Hong Kong last night, he popped on for probably 3 hours, and never once contacted me.

I have one foot in Canada, the other in the UK. I am so confused about what I want to do, and I am so horribly lonely I can't even tell you. I am always out, always social, and yet, I need that extra that a man might give me because I've been without it for so long. And it's spring. That seems to be affecting me alot.

But I have to be self-aware enough not to get myself into any situations because I'm lonely...because I've been alone for so long, out of desperation. My instincts are generally not too bad when I meet people in person, so I don't entirely worry about that (believe me, I meet many men that give me the complete willies....I know..).

I somehow don't feel that I will ever meet anyone that I actually like and might actually feel the same about me. And I'm well aware it's something I need to be positive about, but I'm not feeling it right now.

The house. Don't go there. I've done enough yelling at people about that. I just feel...stuck. Like I can't move forward. Like I'm in quicksand, and it just won't let me go.

So. Slog ahead. Get 'er done. Etc. I know. I just don't have the energy, desire etc to do any of this right now. And I really need to, I know that...I know I need to get my arse in gear in order to move forward, but I'm thinking that my fear, my hesitancy has to do with the fact that I don't have any idea what I'm moving forward for.

If that makes any sense?

the latest

My grandmother died, today was her funeral. (for those confused, that's 2 dead grandmothers in a month and a half - I officially have no more grandparents).

One of my rabbits was dead in my bed this morning and her other half is freaking out. I have a heartbroken rabbit on my hands. And a heartbroken me.

Any questions?

status quo?

So, I’m feeling a bit better.

Off to Ontario today. The other grandmother is not long for the world. This one doesn’t upset me as much (and I feel completely terrible about that), and we knew this was coming – were prepared for it, she’s 60 lbs maybe due to the cancer, and we have absolutely no idea how she’s managed to make it this long since her diagnosis, seeing as she can’t eat, can’t breathe, and it’s in her brain as well as lungs/pancreas/stomach.

Ah cancer. You bitch.

I’ve stopped contacting the Brit completely. And he’s not contacting me, so I guess that’s that. All this precipitated by a fight with him during which I wasn’t very nice. But oh well. It’s not very nice to be hot & cold now, is it?

Whatever.

Someone told me I was beautiful the other day (yes a man, and one I know). I had to ask him if he had said that to the correct person, but it was nice to hear all the same. It’s something I hear…well…never. So I wasn’t sure he meant me 

Got invited to attend my friend’s dinner club tomorrow night. We’re doing Jamaican food and I can’t wait. Love love love, if my life isn’t making me happy, let me tell you, good, amazing, flavourful food does. Or cooking.

Kitchen. Still nothing. Argued with the adjuster the other day. Asking me why the contractor wants to redo my plumbing. Maybe it’s just me, but generally, when one rips out counters and then puts them back in, one needs to remove and redo the plumbing. But what the hell do I know? This woman. Seriously pisses me off. I really want to punch her in the face. If you saw her, and the look when my sweet cat rubbed against her leg…you’d want to as well, trust. Fucking French bitch (sorry francophones!).

Received a copy of my Grannie’s will in the mail the other day, which I expected. What I didn’t expect was the bawling that ensued after I saw her signature. Weird what can set you off. I need to have a big glass o’ crappy wine in celebration of that will.

England. No clue. One day at a time. I’m still saddled with this house. I’m still confused. I still don’t know whether I’m coming or going.

Photographed 2 artists of note in the past few days. Charlie Winston (and he's yummy to boot) and Milow (actually not too bad himself either!). A Brit and a Belgian...go Montreal you international city. They were both fantastic and neither had their cds for sale so I had to resort to some other means to get their music (see my halo?). I tried.

Um. Think that’s it for now. I need to get off this puter and get my arse in the car home, I need a nap for my 5 hours of driving tonight will bring. At least my sister is coming with me, otherwise, I really wouldn’t make it.

Soundtrack: Heart Of Stone - Rolling Stones & Just Another Day - Serena Ryder

I'm just so....

You would think that at my age (in case you weren’t around last week, that’s 41); I would have some frigging clue what I’m doing.

I have none. I feel like I’m hanging by my fingernails over a cliff, no idea if I should climb back up or just allow myself to fall into oblivion.

It’s been 9 years of this. Since I left my husband. I worked my arse off, closed my business, worked sometimes 5 jobs at a time (it may have been 7 at one point), for at least 6 months, clawed my way back up the corporate ladder until 2 jobs ago when I was able to afford to buy the house off my husband and boot him out (that was 4 years ago this summer).

That’s actually when life began again, or should have, but whatever.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had pretty much a blast these past 9 years. But there really has to be something else.

I’m so discontented right now and I’m not sure which way to turn or why actually.

I’m frustrated that I can’t get to the UK fast enough. I’m still waiting on the insurance for the kitchen, I’m still waiting on the inheritance from my grandmother which will help fix everything else I need done (otherwise I am completely unable to do it). I can’t afford the f-ing visa I need to get to get a job, which is probably good because at this time there’s no point in my applying for anything, I’m stuck here for the unforeseeable future. I want to get rid of this godforsaken house that eats every cent I have(or may have in the future), an albatross around my neck, the time is right to be selling and I’m stuck.

Men. Well you all know my feelings on that. I don’t think I’m in the right city frankly, I’m not young, skinny, cig smoking & coffee drinking (and ingesting nothing else) and tiny, I’m tall, fat, old and I’m bloody well eating what the hell I please, I’m still continuing to lose weight. There is never that elusive “he’s interested and so am I” thing that supposedly is supposed to happen when *I* meet people. It’s always one or the other.

Except for the Brit, but I’ll get to him later.

But I am *so* tired of going it all alone. I don’t seem to have it in me to do anything that I need to, I don’t have the energy nor do I have the desire.

Then there’s work. I’d love to photograph full time but we all know I’ll make nothing doing it, so I go to work daily at the corp that is frustrating the hell out of me and hasn’t given me a raise in a while, and due to circumstances such as a new computer system that makes it so we lose half of our profit on files to our overseas office and problems with the same computer system, I won’t see any profit sharing for the second year in a row. We wouldn’t want to reward hard work would we? No no, the world is in economic crisis, we still have business but we’re not making as much for all the work we’re putting in, but of course, we deserve nothing.

I’m at the end of my rope.

The only relationship with the opposite sex in which there is interest on both parts is with a man in another country, a man that works more than anyone I’ve ever met, who I have to fly overseas to see etc, and even then, I don’t get to see him for a heck of a lot of time. I often wonder why he and I reconnected. Is it the universe attempting to ram home the idea that I will be alone forever and will never have what I want? I someone up there playing with me and laughing the whole time? Or is it that really, this person I met & fell head over heels for 16 years ago in May is the person I should be with? It just wasn’t time back then? Otherwise, what point is there to this?

I moved at warp speed over the past few years, nothing could stop me, I was going to make it at work, going to own that house, I was going to show everyone. I no longer have that energy. I no longer have that drive. With exception of going to work, seeing friends, and my photography, I have no desire to do anything at all.

I even considering staying home instead of seeing friends these days. I want alone time more than I’ve ever wanted it in my life. And yet what I do when I’m alone is sit and cry.

No. It’s not clinical depression. I know in a lot of ways, it’s situational. The wanting to move and not being able to, the man being over there, the whole house situation, and , maybe stupid to people around me, my grandmother’s death has knocked a lot of my wind out of me. Things remind me of her and bring me to my knees in pain over her not being around anymore. I think I always considered her my only advocate in life (and in a lot of ways, she was the only one truly on my side). Although I’ve always been fiercely independent, done everything I’ve done, achieved everything I’ve achieved, by myself, I always had her as a sounding board, or to cry to on the rare occasions I needed it. I know she’s still around in my head, but it’s not the same. Talking to myself. Which essentially it is….and still constitutes crazy 

I think, at the crux of it all, is that I can’t continue being as strong as I’ve been. I’m no longer capable, and I don’t know what to do about it.

Soundtrack: "Time For Mercy" - Jann Arden