No, I haven’t seen Good Hair and I probably never will, out of sheer disinterest. Despite Nia Long being in it and being absolutely gorgeous (is it just me or did I just notice she’s beyond beautiful? Never wanted to look like someone else until I saw a picture of her and a recent picture of Kerry Washington. Dang. …Sorry. Back to the topic at hand.) I have heard primarily critical reviews/half-formed remarks from Black female viewers who seem to feel that it gives white girls the confirmation that we want to look like them and are envious and only feel pretty when we achieve that. A few paraphrases: “If something’s acceptable, you wouldn’t feel the need to alter it.” and “I can’t wait until Black women learn to value themselves.”

Um.

Having to make a statement about my self-worth with my hair?! Seriously? Everybody already realizes how much fake hair and processing goes into white girls’ hair (if they deign to even try), so why so defensive? You do you. If you stop reducing your appearance down to a statement, perhaps you’ll stop feeling minoritized? *shrug* All I know is I don’t have to prove to you that I love me, ya heard? *fingers tresses*

Love the Noisettes cover of "When You Were Young"

Love.

Saw her in a GAP ad, I think. Love her style.

*GASP*

Equality: The right to versatility.

Moving on to Things That Seem Not To Make Sense That Actually Do: I despise community predicated by color or “culture” (if you must). I don’t know that I’d ever join a group with Blackness as its unifying descriptor. And yet, if you look at my list of people with whom I’d want to be in a club, they have something in common. They’re intellectuals. Oh and they’re Black. Toni Morrison (should I have put her name somewhere in the middle to save face?), Henry Louis Gates Jr, Percival Everett…when I list the writers who have overwhelmingly overtaken my bookcase Wright and Baldwin and … okay I won’t write her name again. FINE. They not only hold a place, they hold a place that could not be held by someone without their experience, their wisdom, that could not come by way of having been born into cultural luxury (wherein you can be whatever you choose and remain independent knowing that nothing you say or do will be held against anyone else and vice versa, that you will not have to explain why you are not by nature someone else). So they had to be Black. But being Black was not enough. This seems simple and complicated at once. Their thoughts and work resonate with me not because I’m Black, but because of the other similarities that are experientially unique to having them and being Black. Blackness on its own tells me nothing, promises no solidarity or commonality – which the defiantly ignorant will misunderstand because it takes actual respect and consideration to acknowledge that finding out my “race” tells you nothing else about me. But if you share the same cultural heritage/experience AND a love of books and sociology and the same discerning for racial quagmires? Then I’m pretty sure we’re soul mates.

This could take a minute so you probably wanna sit down. So, as a Black American in a city well diverse and peopled with a multitude of dark-skinned people of African descent but few from my own land, there’s a phrase I keep hearing. From dark-skinned people. No one else. “Black Americans are so preoccupied with race.” Let me take a minute to break down this foolery.

Largely, it comes from the mouths of people who have no cultural reference. No idea what it means to be American, regardless of color or race. People unaware of how you could be what they consider wealthy or privileged and still be dissatisfied. It comes from the prejudice they experience being remarkably economic. As my girlfriend who lived in Paris recalls, there is nothing wrong with interracial dating and marriage and friendship. You don’t know there’s prejudice until you try to get a job, or an apartment. In the United States, we are all quite aware of the legal measures taken to discourage discrimination in the work place and to make it unprofitable. Does it still happen? Of course. But that could refer to one time out of a million, give or take. As a Black American woman – particularly one with a degree and post-graduate work and also, in case it matters, one from California – I have no fear of not being able to get a job based on my race. I have no reservations about whether or not I’ll be able to rent an apartment. This goes for every person in my family. They are employed – when they wanna be, in regard to my little brother. They are housed where they want to be. And no, I’m not referring to being within a centralized Black population. Despite the huge gap between the average income of white families and those of Black families (which is a result of an amalgamation of injustices, to which I will soon refer), the overriding fear is not will my family suffer abject poverty because of the color of our skin. (This is so complicated to discuss because the Black poverty line is very real and very discrediting to a supposedly educated and wealthy country.)

I suppose it is the social aspect of racism that non-Americans don’t understand. That seems to be the part that doesn’t match their particular experience. (If ever anyone accused Americans of not understanding an experience outside of their own, they simply haven’t traveled enough to see that it’s not a western phenomenon.) If they had to choose between having friends and having money, they’d choose – and do choose – money. Which is why immigration will never cease to the US. You can – even if you’re paid peanuts – make more money than you’ve ever made at home. But does that mean that – as an actual citizen of this country, as an actual child of this house – I should be fine with being treated like the stepchild in my own home? Yes, it seems it is silly to worry over Michelle Obama being referred to as “tanned” by a dignitary. Who cares? Black Americans. Because we know what is means to be the best, to reach the top and still be reduced down to the color of your skin. Ask Henry Louis Gates. And don’t think we don’t have a thick skin, don’t think we don’t have to get over it, don’t think we’re not constantly called upon to be the bigger person. But suffice it to say, I’m American. I have a birth-rite. And I demand it. Tossing my island a few dollars for the privilege of relaxing in a tropical setting and eroticizing dark-skinned beauties will not satisfy me. I won’t take pleasure in living markedly below you, if only to live around you. I expect more and I won’t settle for less. And finally, I speak for myself. And no one else. Others who resemble me may choose to agree or disagree and I expect you to respect their choice.

I must say my friends were shocked to find that my own father was expelled from high school before he could graduate, had to leave his home and his family to get the degree he has because what the University of California was doing – accepting minority students by the dozens – was not common. That he was physically assaulted by police officers, demoted from his well-earned trade position for the son of someone else. These sentences mean nothing if you can’t imagine that this is your world, this is your life, and someone else has all the say. These are not grandparents being pistol-whipped in some dusty southern textbook. This is my father. I truly could not care less whether you think me “too preoccupied”. I simply understand that I deserve more. And I know that because I was taught that. Regardless of whether the message was meant for me.

Exhibit A -  I pity anyone who thinks this is good enough.

Extra credit:  Tyler Perry responds to Spike Lee’s criticism. Well, it’s not so much criticism as utter disdain, at least that’s the way I interpret use of the words “coonery and buffoonery”. Spike seems to feel that Tyler’s work is derivative and shoe-shufflingly embarrassing, what with the use of caricatures and stereotypes. Personally, I give a big “duh”. Tyler’s response? It’s intentional. I’m trying to speak to “these people” (which I take to mean: stereotypical ghettobirds?) about love and God (no comment. lots of comments.) because Hollywood ignores them. First of all. Hollywood does NOT ignore them. Who the hell else was supposed to watch White Chicks and Big Momma’s House and Soul Plane?! Black Hollywood does a GREAT job of pandering to the status quo. If anything “these people” are overfed! That’s because we’ve tried to parlay “these people” and their shenanigans into an aspect of CULTURE. I’m supposed to listen to the recitation of blatant sex acts because Jamie Foxx calls it R&B? If that’s all you have to offer, friend. Methinks not. Secondly, Tyler *deepbreath* could you possibly have been a tad clearer on to whom you were referring when you said “these people” because from a white American pov I could easily have assumed you meant all Black people. Just a few choice words woulda cleared that up for me. Thirdly. No. It isn’t Tyler’s fault if America chooses to (pretend to) believe that his movies represent Black life and the Black experience. We can’t keep censoring artists *ahem*somethingcaughtinmythroat*ahem* just because someone else is fool enough to take what they do and say and apply it to an entire color. AN ENTIRE COLOR, PEOPLE. GAWD, the foolery!

And okay – you definitely deserve a treat for meeting me all the way down here. Let us part with this.

BAM

Some songs are just not long enough and I end up listening to them in a loop for hours. And then have to dismiss them for a while because I’ve overplayed them. And then a few months later, we rejoin at a more reasonable pace. It’s so romantic.

Sometimes we should slow down but we don’t. If anyone ever found out we needed a moment, our reputation would be ruined. Except maybe everyone already knew you were human but you.

Talking to myself. How embarrassing.

So, this is kinda about links. Because…yep.

Judge refuses to marry interracial couple. Yes, you’ve probably heard about this Louisiana judge who doesn’t marry interracial couples because he believes mixed kids are brought into a cruel world in which they will have an unfair existence. To which, I can only say:

Whoops.

Who wouldn’t pity that kid? For more people being like, what the drizzle, see Cafferty Files. In which someone reminds us that yeah, one guy did this. It’s not a statement on the country or even his state. It’s just – duh, racism needs no multiplicity of supporters to remain alive and continue ruining people’s day. Me, personally? This sort of thing makes me happy. Hear me out! It’s kinda like schadenfreude. Like. I get satisfaction from someone making a fool of themselves. I honestly don’t understand why this would upset people. It’s just something you relay at the water hole and then spend about two or so minutes going, “Wow. He’s sad. OMG, these strawberries are diVINE.” Which reminds me. Dang, Jaffa (ie the produce store on Chemin Queen Mary) – those strawberries were diVINE. DIvine. DIVINE.

Balloon Boy Family – rest assured these people do not actually exist. They are imaginary. No one is really like this. Shame still exists. Take heart.

My new best friend – And yours, as well. So aside from the recoil factor of like eleven in that photo, I am posting this for a study on how we have – as a society – adopted the concept of speaking in gamer lingo and programming jargon. I couldn’t be prouder.

And I may well have used that title before, people, because – let’s be real – Latifah has been pissed off more than a few times in the four years I’ve been blogging here or on Myspace. (We’re clear on me referring to myself as Latifah, no?) So, first things first, before I get to the “anger” – no one wanted to help me but I found a way anyway! HAH! I can now force you to listen to the songs I like. Which is to say that instead of asking you to go somewhere and find it yourself, I will just put it here, right there in the corner… and you can be a buttface and not turn it on or you can be an American hero – assuming you’re in America because why else would you be reading this oh-so-American brand of retardation, which isn’t to call America retarded but rather to say that I am most definitely a product of America and am retarded. …Ahem. It’s easier if you just turn on the song now.

So Latifah’s short list of unacceptable offenses: (a) since leaving the United States – and I’ve really only gone up to the attic – I’ve gotten some pretty strange banner ads. Such as the one saying I can “win” a green card and go to the US. … Is there … some sort of raffle. ‘Cause I’m pretty sure a few Americans would be pretty pissed off if that’s the way immigration really works. I mean, Canada let me drive in with a packed U-haul and a dog but … that’s just because my whole family’s hot. Mostly Ezra. Anyway, I’m gonna need somebody to get on that whole disabling of said banners, kthanxby.

(B) The point at which I start having dreams in which Jon Gosselin appears, it’s getting a little crazy. Okay, maybe it was my fault for reading about how my girl, Nancy Grace, chomped on his manhood but seriously, when Dream Jon starts attacking my parenting by asking who’s with my son when he’s at school – which…is just retarded. And hurtful, because the administration has already made perfectly clear that I am not allowed to even hang around the entrance for six hours. But on the real, I did think it was pretty lametastic how he NOW seems to be able to open his mouth and defend his estranged wife, after letting her be raked over the coals when he was originally photographed with another woman. Because (a) you truly know their marriage because they’re on TV and (b) what sick woman ever accuses another of “deserving” her husband’s alleged infidelity? Right. Welcome to morality. And said defense was really just to draw comparisons with how “and now I’m being made to look bad by only showing one side”. Yeah. Now you get it. GET OUT OF MY DREAMS. And stay outta my car, too.

And just so you can end your day feeling good about your life. Please try to wrap your head around this. And know that death is the only real option here.

Oh, I’m overwhelmed. I can’t believe I didn’t already tell you this, what with my involuntary (and rather loud) questioning of reality all the way home.

OKAY. So I’m walking Ezzie home from school last week with Joshie. We’re not three houses past the school steps when we see three boys/young men “playing basketball”. For the most part, they’re reenacting whatever just happened and arguing about its legality. So the two deeply entrenched in rule debate could be anywhere from like 19 to my age. I’ve. Lost the ability to gauge young people’s ages beyond 19 in men, and beyond 21 in women. So yeah, between 19 and – okay – like 23. So anyway. One of them looks like a handsome kid, what you’d expect from someone who cares about their appearance and is reasonably indoctrinated in hipster culture, but not to an annoying degree. The kid he’s playing is wearing what looks like an informal variation of the academy uniform – just the polo, loose and some darkish slacks. Which is when I start wondering, how old is this huge kid? There’s another kid who’s noticeably younger and also in uniform. So, there’s a basketball hoop – of course – that is taking up the entire width of the sidewalk and is also not something on which I’d expect to find grown behind boys playing. It wasn’t brightly colored but it certainly looked like it was related to Ezra’s playschool hoop.

They can’t figure out/agree on whether the guy with the ball is allowed to flagrantly jump into his opponent. The guy with the ball is the slightly sloppier dark haired boy. He’s also the one who apparently doesn’t know that dribbling is something of an integral component of the game and is arguing that you don’t have to “always” dribble.

They can’t seem to play the game for these disputes. Finally – and keep in mind, I’ve just walked off the sidewalk to pass them, admittedly smirking over the conversation and hilarity of these boys not knowing how to play basketball – the “big” boy says, “Well then, let’s ask a brother!”

LET’S. ASK. A BROTHER.

O_O

I am dying of holycrap,degrassi,didyoureallyjustsaythatoutloud?! I could not help throwing my eyes back to him – at which point I realized that he had beautiful aqua eyes and tanned skin and he looked like a gorgeous portly Israeli boy. And then – caught in my stare – he said, “Well, let’s look it up.”

I kid you not.

Best day. Ever. I can’t even explain. No, I was not mad, that’s not why I involuntarily threw him a glare. It was literally the … okay, break down. First of all, two non-American, sure-let’s-say-White boys playing basketball (poorly) want to find a “brother” to ask for help. Secondly, he didn’t say Black guy. He said brother. I heart his retarded little self. It’s like I’ve fallen into an 80s movie where the White guy has learned to fistbump and doesn’t realize that his cultural dependence on the lone ethnic dude might come off as a my being here for your entertainment. To which I’m not entirely comparing his comment but, wow. That was special. That was a special moment we shared. I hope he’s outside when I pick up Ezzie today. I wanna tell him that I called my brothers and they totally broke down the mechanics of BASKETBALL, WHICH ISN’T WIDELY TELEVISED OR PLAYED BY GRADE SCHOOL CHILDREN THE WORLD OVER.

I die. But at least I’ll leave a beautiful corpse.

This is Tayari’s fault. (I told you. Someone must be blamed. And procrastination is getting tired of my verbal abuse.) Do I journal? This question – and again NOT because of procrastination – made me all warm and gooey inside (Andy, don’t you say a word). I started thinking about those two boxes packed away either under the bed or in the staircase closet…the one American Eagle shoebox that fits the journals from age nine to roughly four years ago (minus the computer journals – which are on my external hard drive)…and the beautiful box Auntie-Mom gave me sometime last year, which holds the “modern” journals.

<time lapse>

Okay, if you understood the inhuman effort Josh put into organizing all of our belongings in this small apartment (I’d say tiny but. I still remember our first apartment in Capitola.) you’d realize how ridiculously epic this is. I pretended I was willing to go unpack the closet to find these two boxes and came out after – I don’t know – thirteen seconds. So, long story short, I have pictures. And they really are necessary for this entry!

So, as I was saying – they’re broken up into two collections apart from the computer group. The first would be what I’d refer to as the insignificant ones, housed here to the left. The second is the treasure trove below it, and I’m sure the difference in priority is clearly represented.

Right. Now, as I was saying, I have the journals since my first one. And I still remember the day I got it. Our Town & Country minivan had to go in for something and we went for a walk while we were waiting. At whatever store we entered, I saw this and fell in love. I’d never had a journal other than those thin, coil-bound perfectly square notebooks we were given for free-write in elementary school – which was equally personal proclamations of love for some boy or another and a story ridiculously long for my age and ridiculously plagiarized from Anne of Green Gables. Except my story was set in Nova Scotia! (Still haven’t gotten to Halifax, by the way, but then I’ve only been in Montreal for a month.)

And this is it. My first journal. My godmother had a fascination for bears and I had a fascination with being called Keepsake by my godfather – a nickname I’ve missed since he passed away – so it was a natural compulsion, I guess. The funny thing about this one is that I made myself rewrite sloppy entries. So sometimes I had to write something down and only had a crayon (even though nine years old seems kinda old for that foolishness) and would reenter the text below it in more legible writing with a pen or pencil.

Okay, so there are some abandoned ones missing in this collection, come to think of it. People started giving me journals when they realized my obsessive writing. I’d try to write in them and usually discard them when I disliked the thickness of the paper, the cover (my play cousin gave me one covered in Tazmanian Devil toons once) … I was also a bit discriminating about what I wrote in. Which – of course – doesn’t mean anyone else would have wanted the ones I liked. I’m pretty sure I outgrew this Hello Kitty brand long before it was finished. I loved the color and texture of the paper. It reminded me of Dances w/ Wolves. O_O But it cost so much and I saved up so long to get it (having an obsession with this adorable doggy and buying anything from lollipops to printer paper to a mug I still drink out of to have his little face on something more)… I guess my needs in a journal were not impressed enough to stave off boredom.

And no. There is no shame in my game. I loved me some Backstreet Boys. I actually spent my Twirp (ie. Sadie Hawkins) money on a bunch of BSB stuff instead of buying the shirts I was headed to purchase. Thankfully, I didn’t care. Hah. Yeah, in place of those more expensive shirts, I bought myself a load of groupie swag, including the shirt I wore to said dance aaaand my date was less than enthusiastic about wearing a Spice Girls shirt to “match” me. Again. I cared not. It was all about my precious, precious Backstreet Boys.

Then there were my two more romantic journals from high school, both of which actually came before that senior year purchase. The coil bound one was the first for me of its kind and I absolutely loved being able to have such unbridled space. As much as I loved the one on the bottom – and I mean lurved it, people – I couldn’t help wondering if I’d give up the beautiful binding for the freedom of a coil or twenty.

Lordy, lord. Through most of college I wrote in a computer journal – though the senior year BSB journal made it there with me. I know that when I was pregnant with Ezra and in the months after he was born – when Josh was always working and I was writing Anagnorises and staring down at my quiet boy or taking my then-puppy downstairs where I had to go with him into the grass to potty because he was afraid of the dark – I was writing like mad in my computer journal. I remember making the mistake of watching The Butterfly Effect a week after coming home from delivering Ezra and the end traumatizing me (not that I hadn’t been sick to my stomach already). So, it would seem that I didn’t start writing in a tangible journal again until Bangor in 2005.

And these, then, would be the Welsh ones. The small purple one came first – which I bought on High street at WHSmith and first wrote in while sitting in the Bible Gardens. Aaand the guys doing scaffolding on the “cathedral” were catcalling me. Nice. I remember the immediate infatuation and devotion to blank pages from that moment on. I have since not written in a lined journal and I never shall again, mes amis. The cover was brushed and the size was romantic. Loved it. Until I found the one next to it in a shop on the isle of Anglesey. Slate gray – though you can’t really tell and it’s gotten a smidge darker – and wide. Ella Fitzgerald was playing when I bought it and I’d just come from watching swans glide in the moat. Love. I’ll have to go back and do Bangor all over again. Anticipating that we’d be there for several years, I didn’t take nearly enough pictures.

And the final two in this category: My very first Roma Lussa (laying) and my shared, engagement journal (standing). Of course, these were purchased like five or so years apart, since the burgundy one was something Josh and I wrote in leading up to our wedding and then, throughout the early months of marriage. There’s a picture of the praying hands in the front cover and something about leaving the rest to God. Which is exactly what you do when you get married.

The Roma Lussa raped my senses when I passed it in *cough*Borders*cough*. And I swear I’ll never purchase anything from there again until they publicly apologize for their bookstore ghettos. But it literally made me dream of it until Joshua went and bought it despite my mourning over not wanting to spend that kind of money on a journal. I. Have another one – which is my present journal, but I didn’t buy it! So, it’s all good. And I’ll never go back, did I mention. It’s a bible, people. It’s unlined, it’s by Cavallini & Co. The pages are handwoven and the edges are marbled. The entire thing is handmade. It’s decadent. It’s arousing in every way possible. *Gush* I want to go write in it, but first I have to show you the marbled edges on the two I own.

I heart. The next one I’ll be needing is this burnt orange color and, believe me, they get even more gorgeous with age. The oils in my hands have turned them even richer colors.

I heart. These tomes.

And finally – because I am entirely indulgent tonight – here are the two writing journals I use, in which I “sketch” and investigate when I need to write long hand. I have cured the basic problem with Composition Books, you shall see.

Oh, maybe you can’t see. It’s lots and lots of reinforced tape along the binding. And please don’t put too much emphasis on the fact that I have purchased one moleskine in my life. It will probably never happen again, but the thickness of the page works well for practicing calligraphy…which I haven’t used it for but that is a good justification.

And that, children, is why Bethany didn’t finish editing in time for the Bellwether deadline!

I could give you cryptic updates – so as not to disclose my literal home address even by way of surrounding landmarks – but I think we’d both be better served by reading another entry from The Self-Publishing Review. I left a comment. So should you. This blog is fast becoming the wind beneath my wings.

My son: “Dad, it’s not lib-ary, it’s libRARY.”

*wipes tear* That’s my boy!!

Things that happened on Saturday, September 12th

I meant to get right to work after I napped and ate (some rather Welsh pizza and wings, an adjective which here means: tasted not as I at first hoped or imagined) and watched The Simpsons Movie, of course, but then I carried my bathroom book out into the living room and forgot to stop reading Anansi Boys for a while. Now, I am a rather discriminate reader. Not counting the books I flatly refuse to place in the proper bookshelf (most of which are Dave Duncan or the Left Behind series Josh wouldn’t even finish), two shelves are fiction and four large ones are nonfiction and sociological, for the most part. And yes, Toni Morrison takes up as much space as she possibly can, given the number of books she’s published. And, I’ll admit, one of her nonfiction takes up a thin sliver on the second shelf. So, aside from what I thought to be rather poor back cover copy and a smuggish picture, I pretty much assumed Neil Gaiman was going to be right up there with Dean Koontz and other airport tripe. And when I say tripe, understand that I literally liken such wretchedness to spruced up and supposedly edible intestines. But then I laughed. And couldn’t stop smiling, or at least smirking, amused by my own admission that I wasn’t going to stop reading it. And I even liked the way I can’t deny when I like something – so much so that I ended up demanding why Josh didn’t immediately like the book. (The answer is, as always, because it isn’t Ender’s Game.) So you have to understand that I’m not reading it to procrastinate, or at least not for that sole purpose. At this point, I’ve read enough of it in one sitting that I have to give my brain time to dispense with Mr. Gaiman’s language before I head back to a scene that is markedly not dryly witty and charmingly absurd.

And that smuggish picture on the back? Well, suffice it to say, after describing the fiancée’s mother as a skinny Eartha Kitt (which I assume, among other things, is a nod to her animated character in The Emperor’s New Groove) and mentioning how said fiancée arrived at the protagonist’s flat with a jug of hair mayonnaise – it’s growing on me.

Things that happened on Sunday, the 13th

Ezra’s behbeh – which is the little girl who lives with him in the box he fits into – is named Mossamonay…or however you spell that. It’s a name that Lake apparently loves. “She belongs in the box with me,” he’s explaining. O_O

He has now become bored with his father’s reading aloud of “Metamorphosis” – which he requested – and is singing through the living room and hallway.

Ezra just threw his Diego blanket over Phineas and then called him “stylish”.

Things that happened a reasonable time ago

And I’m guessing I never got around to blogging about how Ezra’s first trip to Disneyland went much the same way the rest of his life goes: people told him that they loved him. Within fifteen minutes of entering the park on day one. It started with Alice. For him he – understandably – has an undying affection. Thankfully, she was in every parade and he got to see her a lot. But then Tinkerbell spent a ridiculously long time with him…at one point sitting on the ground to tell him the story of Captain Hook. This is after about ten minutes with her and Rosetta learning to hop the way he hops. And until another parent who’d been patiently waiting with their less gorgeous child came and started to make a fuss. I should mention that we just went to the Education dept office to hand in some paperwork for grad scholarships and three other women who were NOT charged with helping us came over and interviewed Ezra for about twenty minutes, during which they told him he was too mature to be five, that he’d be famous one day, that he should already be modeling and after which they begged him to come again and insisted that he try and understand how much he’d improved their day. O_O. I don’t know. I just make ‘em.

I want to tell you all about the work I’ve been doing! But I shan’t. Later, I swear!

Sooo, last night (meaning this was written August 12th and abandoned until now) we finally got a half-hearted reference to my weekend trip to Montreal (this is pretty hilarious since we’ve since moved there). Now to summarize three days at Disneyland in much the same detail.

We went to Disneyland.

Done.

Juuuust Kidding. But first! Let me give you a preview of where we are presently. So, as I write this, a U-Haul sits, 98% packed and ready, in the driveway to chariot us to our new home. Allow me to clarify two things: By chariot, I mean, impossibly small cabin shared by two adults, a child and a beagle. By home, I mean the city in which we will reside. Though we don’t have to cross a sea this time, we do have to cross our entire home nation and have no signed lease. I know where I’m living and if it gets messed up, watch the news. Wait for it.

So clean, when it all began...

And can we get out of this totally confusing time warp where we’re referring to the past/present/vortex all at once? We are in September now! I shall refer to all past occurrences as though from September! (Don’t….ask….) Anyway, so that picture above? Yeah, that’s where we lived for five-ish days, notwithstanding the two wonderful nights at Aunt Patsy and Aunt Mary’s, respectively. By the end, that thing was covered in dog hair, three-inch-thick musk and spilled almonds, discarded water bottles, pillows covered in spittle… Man, how I do not miss that truck. But I do wanna show you a few snapshots of what it was like crossing the US of A in it.

Aaaand some more inserts from The Drive.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Which...was pretty anticlimactic

It’s 12:20am and we’re at the Tunnel to Canada, preparing to go to the Duty Free store to exchange money. The woman in the booth here can only do $200? Whatever. Josh has promised me that this time tomorrow I’ll be putting my feet up in my own place. Good thing for him, God’s the one who has to deliver on that. We’re @ the Ammex Detroit Duty Free … is that the entire name? Guess so. I can see him walking around in front of the door and it’s making me nervous, criminals frequenting the border as they do. At least I’ve got Phineas here in the car to protect me; Josh has no fit beagle to guard him!

So the chic who couldn’t make the exchange the first time? Josh said she had an Eastern European accent. So I’m just like…we let immigrants work the border? O_o

11:53pm
Last night was pretty unreal (again) at the border/customs. I say again because I remember finally getting to Wales (which, btw, was much easier!) and really understanding that I had no other home. Now, we’re doing something much more “scary”: we’ve driven over 3000 miles with a fixed amount of money (which is never enough) and all of our belongings to …nowhere. We have no home destination as we did before. There will be no tumultuous flight and immediate rest in a bed that’s already assembled and prepared. We will get there, try to rent an apartment as out of towners with only one month’s rent (in cash) and two months later this month, praying that the Lord has already made the way ahead of us and that our financial capacity letter will suffice. If we make it that far. We couldn’t put off paying the $125CAD for the study permit at customs. But – on the other hand – we didn’t have to do the dog import stuff (though I spent $64USD in case we did!) and on most of the tolls, we weren’t charged according to our axles and were spared ten dollars at least once. Why’s it so hard to trust God when you know what He’s done before?! “I think this is quite a mystery.”

2:44pm
This truck smells more like Ezra’s feet than Ezra’s feet.

3:38pm
For the fifteen minutes that my phone had a network connection and could be used, I called the real estate agent – who informed me that the place was rented late last week…

Wednesday, September 2, 2009
10:54am
We’ve just spent our first morning in our new place. Nothing will ever compare to finishing your bed frame, putting the mattresses up and opening new linen. I was literally salivating while we made the bed. While in Wales, we arrived and were able to go straight to bed, there is something quite lovely about eventually getting into your own bed with linen and comforter of your choosing. It reminds me how I brought my own bed stuffs when I went to the hospital to deliver Ezra.

Anyway, after spending about an hour at the landlord’s house in Outremont (Ana, prepare to salivate) sitting at a long table with him and two agents to sign a RENTAL LEASE for what just isn’t very much money (insert: who does this?! Do we do this anywhere in the states for a freakin’ apartment rental?), our lovely real estate agent, Mirna, took us for ice cream where she used to go with her father. Yes, you read that correctly. The day before she’d tried to take us for pizza after we looked at the apartment even though we knew she had an appointment and needed to run errands. She gave the landlord her card, if anything happens. ?! She’s pretty much a Godsend. Seriously, we basically know everything about her family, who now know everything there is to know about us and Ezra. So for our first full day in Montreal – where we have even fewer people than when we went to Wales – to have a friend/mother-type was a pleasant surprise. “You have to lock your doors, everyday!” “Don’t take your eyes off of Ezra, not for a second!” “I find (which is one of her sayings) that people are very friendly and there are also the kids who are on drugs and you can’t hang your purse behind you when you’re walking.” “You have to put Ezra in school even if it’s preschool so he can speak with other children, it’s not even a question (which is another of her sayings).” You’d think we were coming here from some small town in the Midwest. Yes, we lock our doors in California, Mirna. Yes, we hold our son’s hand when we’re walking. Yes, we make complete stops at the stop signs, Mirna.

O.M.G. These children are walking past on the street above with their teacher and are trying to sing, “Alouette”. There are the occasion words amid the baby sounds and drawn out vowels. Cutest. Sound. Ever.

We have an appointment @ the bank today and then hopefully, we’ll take the u-haul back and also go to Ezra’s school or the appropriate district office.

Sometime in the first week of September, 2009
6:51pm
Still no hot water. We love our new place but the chic who moved out did zero cleaning and also showed up unexpectedly, basically forced herself in on me (Josh and Ezra were out to the store) and let Phineas out. Yeah. Anyway, she’s from India and didn’t have the same standard of cleanliness as others. Point is, the floors are lovely but dirty, dusty (Josh had to pull out the washer and dryer from their closet because there was a mound of trash on either side) and we’re walking around with tar colored feet bottoms and washing our feet equals hypothermia and now we’re gonna try some old-school water-boilin’.

Monday is Labor Day so we’ll go to Ezra’s school district on Tuesday and hopefully he’ll be in school on Wednesday.

9:10pm
So the first boiling didn’t go so well, since Josh tried to dump it into the tub and three pots of scalding water rather quickly slipped around the tub stop to my dismay. When it was Ezzie’s turn, I boiled another pot, put Ezra in the sink and put some in with him, using the rest with a wash cloth to clean him. Too bad I can’t fit. I’d love a hot bath right now. Why, no hot water. So we can feel colonial, that’s why.

Present

So, the moral of the story is: this place is even better than the one I visited when I came to Montreal last month. We’re pinching ourselves everyday because the rent is almost half what we’ve been used to. C’est incroyable, for seriousment.  And, of course, of course, more later.