It's raining concrete

Oh my, it has been a while. As the days get warmer, longer, and brighter, I find myself much less inclined to write here. Quite the paradox, as I have so much more going on in my life, and therefore much more to say. Probably it is the surfeit of feelings and information which makes me avoid writing. I'll be doing something and think that it would make a good theme for a blog entry, but when you have a weekend and week like I've had, it's best to just let it all out in one bout.

First off, I went to Unitarian Universalist church. I bit the bullet, put Ender in the infant care with what seemed to be two lovely women (one a volunteer and the other the 'constant care provider') while holding back tears as I watched Ender play, staring at three other children who were about five or six months older than him like they were creatures from another planet. I probably was a little distracted from the service because of this first experience with daycare. The service itself was ok, everyone in the congregation was super friendly and seemed very involved, which is more than I can say about some Protestant churches I've been to. It was the day before International Women's Day, and therefore the service was planned and run by women from the congregation. I especially enjoyed one part where about six women of ages ranging from seventy-five to twenty-five gave a two sentence long statement about when they 'became feminists'. Some were funny, others sad. There was also a drum circle to begin and finish the service. Overall, it was quite enjoyable. We stuck around to look at the pamphlet table for coffee hour, spoke to a woman at the welcome table, and then left. No one really approached us to talk, and I think probably the best way to meet people is probably in smaller groups that are organized by the church. I'm not sure yet whether I'll go back. My only dislike: hymnals. Ugh. I think that all the singing in church might very well be detracting from its appeal to the younger generations because singing in church makes me feel terribly uncomfortable. I just don't like it, I don't think anyone else likes it (with a few exceptions, of course) and I don't see the point in it. Singing does not make me feel spiritual. It makes me feel tone deaf.

Mike seemed to enjoy his UU experience. I think that the idea of a church without God is still sinking in for him. What that means exactly is different for each person. I mean, for some Unitarians there is definitely a God (capital G), whereas for others (such as myself) it is entirely about community, a celebration of our collective humanity and an attempt to find closeness in a sterile world. I think I will go back, now that I write this. I want to see the minister do an actual sermon, though.

After church, we went to go see Mike's parents. They were planning a cruise they are going on with some friends of theirs through the Greek Isles and then through to Venice. It sounds amazing. Personally, my ideal cruise would be from New York to Iceland to Denmark. I think the icebergs would be amazing, and what an ideal way to travel with a baby! No airplanes! Heaven.

So then the next day, Monday, the weather was still gorgeous, so we went out for a walk. Near our house they are doing major construction to remove a bridge. This involves the vibratory setting of concrete, which Mike explained to me, but I wasn't really listening (sorry sweetie!) and it is apparently a very messy process. I'm still not clear on why they were setting concrete when they are removing a bridge, but that's besides the point. When they do this, they set up a tarp so that concrete bric-a-brac doesn't fall on unsuspecting pedestrians below. However, this unsuspecting pedestrian was not so lucky. I felt something wet on my head and I looked at the closest construction worker.

"There's shit raining from the sky."

"Yeah," he nodded, "They're setting concrete." As though this were the most normal thing in the world. So normally, in fact, that Mike, Ender and I continued walking down the street.

I looked at Mike. He looked at me. We realised that both of us were covered in concrete liquid. It was very disgusting, humiliating, and I was very upset. We went back to the construction worker, who hadn't noticed how badly we had been hit when he first talked to us, but was nice enough to call the foreman. The foreman was clearly afraid of being sued. It was very dangerous, and they're damn lucky it didn't hit my kid. However, I wasn't hurt, Ender wasn't hurt, and I was happy enough to have them pay for me to get a new sweater. I am not a litigous person, despite what others may expect. An ability to independently sort out conflict is part of what makes this country great.

It was a very nice sweater, a Bench sweater, for you fashionistas, and not cheap. I went to Bench to get a new one, but my sweater was out of season and all of the teeny-tiny cartigans were a little too tight, a little too young, and way too branded. I hate having a logo across my ass, it isn't classy and it's not going to be remembered fondly in ten years, I guarantee you. I picked a sweater I didn't like, paid for it and kept the reciept for the construction guys. I am returning it tomorrow to buy something I actually like.

Did you know, my closet is ten billion shades of grey, from dove white to pigeon grey to crows black? There is no colour, and there is a lot of herringbone and stripes. I'm not sure when this happened, but it was definitely post childbirth. I think I'm subconciously trying to mask my hips and belly. Dieting has commenced as of today, and I think I did fairly well. Go me.

Well that's a dent in my story, dear reader. More soon.

Listen here, you, I used to be somebody.

I feel like I'm becoming stupid. Dumb-er. Umm..you know. Less intelligent. There was a time when my brain, as well as my intellect, was a fine-tuned machine. I knew what I knew, and I knew it inside out and backwards. I was looking through some old sociology papers of mine. Here is an abstract (read: short summary) of a paper that I wrote at one point in time:

Abstract: Brainwashing has long been a controversial notion in understanding religious conversion. In this paper, I utilize Foucault’s notion of bio-power in identifying brainwashing as a form of medicalized social control over human bodies and minds. Discourses created by government agencies, psychologists, and the media have all contributed to understanding the adherents of new religious movements, pejoratively termed ‘cults’, as brainwashed and mentally ill. The counter-hegemonic manner in which some adherents new religious movements live their lives frequently defies the ‘common sense’ of normative societal practices, making them prime targets for social control, as they represent bodies which have failed their purpose in society. Due to some of the lost legitimacy of brainwashing discourses, child abuse accusations are growing as the new stigmatizing force against these groups. In both cases, discourses on the ‘truth’ of the danger of new religious movements are utilized as justification for intervention and control. Conceptualizing brainwashing as a form of bio-power brings to light the political forces and discourses which frame new religious movements negatively. In identifying widely unseen forms of control, there is greater potential for new religious movement members to be seen as individuals with full agentic capacity and rich religious experience.

Ummm...what? Genius, that's what.

I couldn't write like that now if I had all the time in the world. So what changed? For one, I am no longer immersed in academic culture. At one point in time, approximately the time that I wrote the above paper, I hadn't read a novel in over five months. My reading, which took up two hours of my day every day, was entirely composed of academic papers. I was filled with an urgency of importance. What I was writing mattered and everyone needed to read it. Except, no one did. No one, except other sociologists knew what I was talking about. It was baffling. I tried to explain the import of what I was doing. That religious minorities were being consistently marginalized. Anyone who was listening had their own 'pet' cause. No one wanted to adopt mine.

Three years later and still, no one cares. For some reason, even though I claimed I read that academic literature because I found it interesting, I no longer read it anymore. Maybe it's for lack of having anyone to talk to about it. I really miss having my brain work in overdrive, my heart pounding as someone concludes their argument and then the three seconds of silence as they await my retort.

Academia is the only form of competition I appreciate. Everything else is too sweaty and smells of India rubber.

So I suppose I shouldn't complain the way I do about my completely useless fifty thousand dollar education. You know, the education that sucked away 5 prime years of my life into abject poverty so that I could be a secretary post-graduation? It had its benefits. I'm sure if I hadn't of gone, I would have been consumed by the idea that my life was in some way incomplete. I'm like that. I tend to focus on the tiny missed stitches, rather than the fabric of life. I like to think of it as being detail/goal oriented. I'm horrified by the idea that I will wake up one day, an incomplete person, too old to fix what I find lacking. I'm glad I went to university. I enjoyed the hell out of it. I just wish that what it gave me wasn't so fleeting.

My sense of confidence in my brain, the ability to articulate my feelings with a rational backing, is all gone. It's something that I don't think most people realise (I know I didn't) that your academic field, no matter how immersed you are in it at the moment, no matter if you live and breathe it, is just like a language. If you don't use it, it's gone. I no longer talk sociology, and I miss its adjectives, its way of wrapping everything up in a neat little package and at the same time blowing it to smithereens. But it, like the toys of my childhood, needs to be left behind. It is a part of my former self, rather than my present. It was an adult decision, realising that I needed to do concrete things with my life to be happy, rather than resting in the realm of the abstract, where the only risks I took were using Foucault as a theoretical framework for religious persecution. Since then, I've birthed a person through my body. I've promised myself to not one, but two people, for the rest of my life. I may feel stupid sometimes, but I always feel important.

Raw Milk

Today Mike and Ender and I had a proper English tea, with homemade scones, double devon cream and jam. Devon cream is a pasteurized approximation of clotted cream, which I had in York when I went to England and is the greatest thing ever. I would describe it as one step down from butter (milkfat wise) and one step up from whipped cream. You spread it on the sweet, biscuity scone and top it with some rasberry jam and it has this creamy delightful flavour. The Devon cream, which I purchased from Global Cheese in Kensington market, was very good. Not quite as good as the stuff I had in Europe though. Which got me thinking. None of the dairy products that I've had in Canada have quite compared to those that I've had in Europe. From the butter on my toast to the cream in my coffee, European milk just tastes better. And that's because a lot of it isn't pasteurized. Not pasteurized? You say. Well then it must be unhealthy! Indeed, 'raw milk' as it's called, is not good for those with compromised immune systems, or children, but it would seem people have been happily consuming it in many parts of the world for hundreds of years. And the reason that it's not recommended is based on the possibility that the milk is bad, not a certainty. As some raw milk advocates say, it's more work to keep cows healthy enough for healthy unpasteurized milk.

I also had unpasteurized milk when I was staying with the Twelve Tribes (lovely people, and I'll say more about them in a later post) during my masters thesis research on new religious movements. They had bought a cow to provide milk to the whole community. They made their own yogurt out of it, as well as drank it with mate and it was wonderful. They weren't allowed to serve it in their shop, however, due to Canadian milk law.

For more information on the raw milk debacle of late here in Canada, click here.

So I would like to make my own, proper clotted cream with it's delicate palatability, and for that it would seem I need to buy a share in a cow. Let it be so. Updates on this quest to follow.

According to the babyhawk website, my baby carrier is about to ship! Soon I'll be trucking around the city again with my baby like a free woman. I'm starting to get really cabin feverish. While this has been the easiest winter in recent memory, I still am antsy for the warm weather to return. And me, without a full time job, it's just extra sweet. I've already promised my little man that we will spend most of our time in the park, sun on our faces, grass between our toes. He'll be walking then (!) and I'll probably get rid of this doughy winter flesh simply by running after him.

I've been implementing a few steps in improving Ender's sleep, or rather, his transition into sleep. After reading a few books on the subject, even cosleeping advocates seem to agree that a bedtime routine is reassuring and healthy for children. Sometimes their days can be so chaotic and different that a little bit of familiarty really helps them wind down. I still remember coming home from a birthday party when I was 8 and being jerked out of sleep every five minutes due to half sleep hallucinations that I was still involved in a water pistol fight. So now our routine involves sitting in some warm water in the sink for about five minutes, getting toweled off and put in pj's and a fresh diaper, reading a story, and then nursing to sleep. So far it has been working fabulously, and Ender seems to think it's peachy keen. He's teething at the moment, so anything that keeps him calm and confident that the world isn't ending is a good thing.

Well, I guess that's all my friends. Nicoliosis out.