(Awe)ctober

MegsDregs

     I love this season; how the rains have finally come and the air smells of rot and smoke, and one can wear pashminas and Dr. Martens again, while seeking out hot cheesy carbs and be contented with a steamy bath and an early night inside with slippers and a glass of red wine, a candle burning and a good book.

     I have not been cold since 2016; this is not a cute metaphor for the love of motherhood keeping me warm, but the actuality that I’ve been both sweaty and upsetty continuously for the better part of two years.  To illustrate my point, the zippers on both of my winter coats have been broken for this same duration and I haven’t found the need to fix them, yet.  The stubbornly lingering post-pregnancy weight, coupled with my Western-exposed apartment, added to this absurdly hot-ass summer, had me craving October something fierce this year, and I don’t mind one bit that it’s started off on a soggy note (but then I always did love the rain, too).  

     I cannot stand being hot; it makes me fairly insane.  I remember being enormously pregnant and sitting in front of my 8,000 BTU air conditioning unit, in varying shades of undress, crying because of the heat, much to the startled amusement of my spouse, who entered the apartment to behold this emotionally-fraught scene, unsure of what to do.  I cannot peel off my skin…after clothes there’s nowhere to go.  I cannot contend with being so hot, a cold shower finds me immediately sweaty after towelling off.  I cannot easily acquire sustenance when I am completely tired of the taste of water (thank you, Grapefruit Perrier), and have no penchant to eat anything cooked.  I cannot deal with restless nights in bed, being aggressively pelted by a fan and endlessly tickled by my cornea of baby hairs, trying to starfish my arms to get away from the body heat of my own self, only to finally wake up with numb limbs cramping.  I cannot deal with going outside into the blinding sun and the deafening HuZzZzZzZ of cicadas in various states of amplification, walking to the wherever with sweating ears, reassuring myself that a run today was responsibly out of the question, because running in extreme heat makes me vomit (quite actually).  I cannot deal with not being able to wear makeup, because it is so freaking hot, it will melt off my freaking face. 

     People that say they love summer most, as a season, are people that either have central air and/or pools, are retired and/or childless and/or have adult children and/or don’t fully understand the poignant beauty of there being a small nip in the air and having the luxury of pulling on warmed jeans and/or socks fresh from the dryer.  

     I am not these people.

     Enter scene: October; October, with its reasonably-timed and temperate sunrises and sunsets, and its much-welcome Thanksgiving eats with family and friends, and all the birthdays of all the family and friends, and all the oranges and reds and blacks and yellows, and Halloween, which is like Christmas, but only lasts a day rather than a month and thusly, is much less effort and much more affordable; October, a lingering nod to the Roman empire (my favourite empire, to date), and a safe space for horror movies everywhere (which I still love, though I can’t enjoy as much anymore, because now I’m a parent and that shit scares me a lot more than it used to [more on this later]); October, with its creative-inducing spark of electrical love running in the air and through my mane as I breathe it in and exhale something new again.

     October gave me life, gave me a son, gave me a best friend and a brother, gave me a wealth of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and memories chasing my cousins door-to-door, egging a Chumby ever-onward, drunk on tryptophan and spiced, gelatinous pies, porterhouse steaks and banana-vanilla cakes, a dozen costumed birthday parties spanning the spectrum of valiant to minimal effort and, of course, a bookend to close another year of learning, writing, laughing, being  — what’s not to love?

Ode to the Run

     I started running post-high school graduation: a tidy little 2.5 km around my block, which I had incorporated into my morning ritual, alongside tilling away at my online course upgrades and various uncommitted writing endeavours.  I saw it as an opportunity to get out and go and sweat and smell the morning and barrage my earholes with the music that helped me rise and fall, and it was a great way to collect my thoughts on the precipice of some “what now?” decision-making.

     Nine years later, in a new neighbourhood in the east end of Toronto on a similar ledge, I found myself running regularly again except this time, I was running longer, harder.  I found I was propelled to continually improve my pace, my distance, and I had the entire city at my disposal: beautiful streets lined with luxury homes and lilacs; aged cemeteries housing former Prime Ministers and carpets of decaying leaves ready to crunch under my Nikes as I pounded on through; a lone, melancholy clarinet-playing busker on a morning corner, suffused by fog; bodegas bursting with ripened fruit setting up their wares for the day, to say nothing of a Great Lake with a vast, sparkling waterfront, stretching through the city limits and beyond.  Running made the city smaller to me, more accessible, and as I gained kilometres I gained perspective, bolstered by the strength of endurance and garnished by all those delicious endorphins rushing through my body, acting as balm for my tender calves and shredded feet.

     Now I find myself at another changing place, a state of flux and altered tides, and so I am running again, but I am not running alone this time; I am often running with a stroller (carting a cheeky two-year old) and/or running with a spouse whose legs are a lot longer than mine, and I am slowly starting to appreciate the presence of these companions on what was once a satisfyingly solitary endeavour.  While long gone are the days when I could accidentally run 21.1K in two hours, followed by a hot bath, a carb-ridden snack and a drool-induced, comatose nap sprawled out like a starfish, I now have the support and companionship of these little(ish) running friends.

     Though it is not easy to run pushing a 30lb child in a stroller up hills in Ontario’s blistering, muggy-butt heat, it is similarly difficult to massage one’s own sore, run-ridden shoulder blades after a cold snap hits.

     Though it is harder to attain that bliss space after 5k, where your breath and your stride is in sync, and your sweat is merely a highlighted garnish of you, and you have room to think about writing, and you feel you could keep the pace up forever and never thirst or tire, it is also satisfying to look back and see two of your favourite people in the entire world, smiles and curly locks shining in the sun; to know that you’re instilling healthy values and engaging in quality family time simultaneously, is also, exceedingly satisfying.

     Last weekend, my spouse and I participated in the Toronto Zoo 10K, (my third competitive run since our son’s birth; I’m moving up distances slowly), and we both exceeded our own personalized expectations, but it’s not about one run, particularly, it’s about all the runs, all of the times you get out there and hit the pavement and get sweaty and salty instead of stewing inside like a complacent, chubby chowderhead.  I can say with certainty that runner’s verve is infectious and stimulating, and that running with a group or even with a partner is a great way to push yourself beyond the laze of routine.  I defy anyone who says they “can’t run,” and counter with the real possibility that perhaps they just haven’t found the tools they need to do so effectively, yet.

     Three tools that I need to run are a hella-supportive sports bra, a comfortable (though not worn-out!) pair of running shoes, and music.
Here are some of my favourite running tracks, currently:

Big Shiny Running Playlist:
1. Radiohead – The National Anthem
2. Saint Pepsi – We Belong Together
3. Blur – Go Out
4. Robyn – Dancing on my Own
5. La La Land Soundtrack – Someone in the Crowd
6. Beastie Boys – Sabotage
7. Major Lazer – Lean On (feat. MØ & DJ Snake)
8. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Can’t Stop
9. The Smiths – Bigmouth Strikes Again
10. Florence + The Machine – What Kind of Man
11. Crystal Castles – Vanished
12. Orgy – Blue Monday
13. Dragonette – Pick Up the Phone
14. Beck – Dreams
15. Icona Pop – I Love It (feat. Charli XCX)
16. Frankie Goes to Hollywood – Relax (New York Mix)
17. Garbage – Special
18. Childish Gambino – This is America
19. Jamiroquai – Canned Heat
20. Rammstein – Du Hast
21. Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)
22. Kungs & Cookin’ on 3 Burners – This Girl

     Now what are you waiting for?  

Slugging from the Jug

     My family were milk fiends.

     It was commonplace for our father to come home from work with an empty lunch bag and a four-litre bag of milk, no questions necessary.  There were six of us under one roof at the time, and we drank milk with a frenzy that made our fingernails shine with calcium stains.  It didn’t matter whether it was breakfast (cereal, though never in coffee; that’s just weird, that’s what cream’s for), lunch (sandwiches and a bottle of milk with a big old ice pack), dinner (meat, vegetables, starch, milk) or snack time (chips or homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with milk, respectfully), milk was always well represented.  In-between meals and especially in the middle of the night, with a quiet house and the sole light beaming from a full fridge, there were always jug slugs, and I’m sorry to say these were exactly what they sounded like.

     If you caught someone slugging from the jug, you had a free pass to give them a smack and sound outraged, but we all did it, this delicious hypocrisy, and we all habitually screwed over the next person who needed milk next by leaving about a teaspoon in the jug which my Mum always had to change, (though she got us back by the ruby-red lipstick marks on the edge of the bag in a small yet poignant protest of maternal duty).

     I know it’s gross, and I’d like to say I’ve stopped.

     A former co-worker of mine, a charming man named Duke, once chastised me for drinking milk as a grown woman, scorning it as “the tit-juice of some other land beast,” and I laughed because he was right and because that was the most ribald thing I’d heard in a while.  While I could fleetingly grasp at a concept that suggests a missing comfort in my infancy, bolstered by the slugging of the jug, I’d rather not complicate simple joys in seeking to justify a guilty pleasure that I’ve little intention of stopping.

     Recently, I dropped my son off at my Mum’s for an overnight, and helped myself to some leftover pork lo mein from a container in the fridge.

     “Are you going to put that on a plate?”  She asked me, incensed.

     “Have you stopped slugging from the jug?”

     My Dad has ceased drinking milk entirely, and tries to flog both chocolate and white off on me after my other siblings have been over to visit, but I prefer my milk in stolen sips in the middle-of-the-night, on a cold tiled floor, in-between dreams.

Re: Recycling

     I am in a near-perpetual state of dismissing the tickle to Crusade for Change (and a bouquet of contradictory thoughts, besides).

     If I watch a documentary about the bleaching coral reefs, I am one fantasized click away from flying myself down to Hawaii to stand on tourist-ridden street corners, handing out pamphlets on climate change, and urging people to regard our oceans by rethinking their sunscreen choices.

     If there’s a blitz being done on human trafficking in my city, I’m educating myself on how our youth are being lured, and how to recognize the quickly-shutting courtship window; I’m imagining running a post-trauma support circle using bibliotherapy, reinstalling a sense of agency for lost girls forced to become women too quickly, closing down the temptation to suffer shame as sin and encouraging them to take control of their bodies and minds once again.

     I will not watch movies made on the meat industry because I do not want to give up meat at the moment, and I know that probably makes me a bad person and I may very well be (albeit an honest one), but I’m just not willing to make that commitment, yet (especially considering my current occupation serving at a steakhouse, where it’s beef and butter and onions all day and all night and I love it so).  I know that the global meat model is unsustainable, but I’m just not ready to fight for an alternative, yet.

     Ever the perfectionist, the old “if you’re gonna do it, do it right” idiom often holds my coattails and steers me towards humbler, more accessible shores.

     One of the ways in which I delude myself into thinking I’m helping our global condition, is through my avid, well-intentioned recycling; property management for our rental unit doesn’t accommodate “green bin” use, in an effort to control pests, and I’ve used disposable diapers since Beanz’ birth, because ew otherwise, but I do recycle, goddamn it.

     Contradictions, mhmmm.

     I take pulpy, crusty condiment bottles like ketchup and containers holding meagre remnants of slimy spinach, soap them clean, dry them in the dish drainer, and make the 7-minute-long trek to the blue bins outside to see them safely off to their next incarnation.  Once, in my effort to recycle living in a one-bedroom on the Danforth, arms laden with cardboard and empty grapefruit Perrier bottles, my belly out to eternity being eight plus months pregnant, I fell off my fire escape trying to descend the stairs to get to the recycling bin; I was given bandages by a nice shopkeeper, spent the next four hours in triage (baby was bonny, thankfully), and eventually showed up two hours late to my own baby shower, because of course this was the day of my baby shower.

     I don’t know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but it may be paved with black plastic (which is not recyclable, by-the-way, did you know that?):
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/how-toronto-is-fighting-to-keep-your-recycling-garbage-free/article35599355/