snapshot

"'cause there's no place that I could be without you
It's too far to discard the life I once knew
Honestly, all the weather and storms I bring
Are just a picture of my needs
'cause when I think of you as mine
And allow myself with time
To lead into the life we want
I feel loved, honestly
I feel loved, this honestly"
[Zwan, "Honestly"]

I'm sitting at my computer desk.  Liza-Ann is at work, teaching a course for CIC Officers.  Olivia is in Corner Brook with her father.  Anthony is away for 10 days on a militia job.  The remix version of the latest Nine Inch Nails album is on the stereo, and the electric fireplace is slowly bringing the room back up to a reasonable temperature.  I just finished my "sk8r boi" breakfast sandwich, which I made while cutting carrots to go with the whole chicken I'm about to cook later.  In two days I leave to fly to Ottawa to spend a week with my best friend Geoff, and the timing couldn't be better, as I desperately need to get away from work.  My Facebook status says "sometimes feels like he's polishing brass", in a vague reference to a quote from Fight Club, in an even more vague reference to my feelings about my job of late.

And we all know why I'm here, in front of the computer, writing.  Nancy phoned earlier.  She always does.  She knows I remember.  I know she does.  She asked if I still don't work, and the answer was yes, though this is the first year I actually thought I might.  There's a document that I'm supposed to have ready for tomorrow - just a page - but I need answers before I can write it and I didn't have those answers yesterday.  This morning I logged into my Email to check for them and hesitated before I hit the enter key.  That keystroke represented the first time in 15 years I've worked on the 2nd of March, even if it was for the 30 seconds it took to check my mail.  I wondered if it was somehow disrespectful of me.  I decided that if I was wrong, and there was some other place from which she was able to gaze down upon me, my mother would understand.

I started above, by writing the mundane facts of the day because they actually say pretty much everything one would need to know.  There's my life right now, in a nutshell.

My housework is already done.  I did it yesterday.  I suppose I might still do a little more, some laundry perhaps, to help Liza-Ann since her weekend is pretty hectic and I'm just sitting home by myself.  I don't actually want to do additional housework, mind you, but I know I haven't been a smiling face of late, with all the stress of work and such, and Liza-Ann has been doing all she can to keep things together and help me relax.  I love her.  I hope she can understand that sometimes, my head is just a very busy place, and that while nothing a friend can do will make that stop, I do appreciate the effort and it does make things better, if only a little bit.  I made her a dozen origami roses for Valentines a few weeks ago.  I hope to make another dozen for her mother as Mother's Day approaches.  I think our moms would have gotten along.

I'm getting a lot better with Olivia.  Being a decent step-dad requires skills and patience, both of which I feel I often lack, but I'd like to think I'm improving.  She and I get along well.  She's at a delightful age.  She's developing a great sense of humor.  She's slowly approaching an age where I'll be able to teach her things.  The enormity of what I'd like to impart on her - not textbook knowledge, but valuable worldly knowledge - could just about fill the grand canyon.  At the same time I realize that she's an arrow and I just an archer, if that, and that most of these things she'll actually need to learn for herself in due time anyway, but it won't stop me from trying, or from enjoying the journey.

Nancy and Kerry got married.  I look forward to developing more of a relationship with Kerry and Simon and Jane.  I like "married-Nancy".  She's happier.  She deserves to be happy and I'm glad she's finally found it.  Olivia is starting to develop a relationship with Ben.  She actually asks to go visit him now, which is great.  She finds him entertaining and he loves an audience, so despite the differences in age, I guess it works out.

Mom would have made a delightful grandmother.  She loved children.

I don't recall if I've ever cooked a whole chicken before, excepting the "beer-butt" chickens on the BBQ.  I think maybe once.  I decided a few weeks ago that cooking a chicken dinner was a part of the minimum requirement of being able to say "I cook".  I'm not sure why, except that I guess it somehow represented the quintessential "family dinner".  In spite of all the other things I cook, I somehow felt that without a whole chicken popping out of an oven, I'm somehow "not qualified" to say "I can cook".  Besides the carrots au gratin, I plan to make maple-glazed sweet potatoes and parsnip as well - with bacon if it thaws in time - and hopefully some decent stuffing with savory and onion.  I'll baste the chicken in an herb mixture made with olive oil (some really good Christine Cushing stuff), thyme, oregano, and garlic powder.  Liza-Ann won't actually be home for supper, so it probably seems like an awful lot of work for a supper I'll eat by myself, but one of the original motivations behind the chicken was to have something to bring Dad.  Liza-Ann and I pick up his groceries each weekend, and drop off some meals.  I prefer to bring him home-cooked stuff when possible, and sometimes even make particular meals with him in mind.  We haven't had him in for supper, but plan to after I return from Ottawa.  I've spent my life keeping a certain distance between my friends and my father, as though he was somehow our secret shame, even though he's never done anything of which I feel we should be ashamed.  I guess that says a lot more about me than about him.  In any case, Liza-Ann is not afraid of him.  In fact, what little relationship I do have with Dad is made much stronger by Liza-Ann's encouragement.  It's not that I don't love him.  I just have a very hard time dealing with him sometimes.  At times he's like a child, but I can't deal with him as I would a child.  It can be very frustrating.  I try to remind myself sometimes what his life must have been like.  I think it would make an excellent screenplay, actually, to write a story from the perspective of a hebephrenic.  I remind myself what his life must be like so that I can feel compassionate instead of angry (with thanks to the Dali Lama for that valuable life-lesson) but it can't change my gut reaction when I'm trying to do his grocery list and he insists on standing an inch away from me.  He's getting old.  It pains me to hear him wheeze and know he doesn't have much longer in this world.  His girlfriend died recently, and his sister-in-law has been unwell.  I think she represents the last of his generation.  He's the sole survivor of his many siblings now, but I think he's always thought of her like a sister.  I dread the day she dies; I know his heart will break.

I look forward to Anthony moving out and us having the house to ourselves more, and to having an Office with the computer in it.  It's not that I don't like Anthony; he's a good guy.  But I want us to have the place to ourselves and have room for storage, etc.  I've become very domesticated over the last few years, taking a great deal more comfort in living in a nice house and doing what I can to make it better.  I look forward to making a home with Liza-Ann when we buy a new house some time in the next few years, and I'm working hard at paying down my debts and starting some savings in order to do just that.  Liza-Ann worries that when Anthony moves out I'll spend too much time in the office and not as much downstairs with her and Olivia as I should.  She already brought it up, and while I resent feeling like I've been accused of something I haven't even done yet, I realize her fear is a reasonable one.  I've been making more of an effort lately to step away from the computer a bit in the evenings and interact more with her and Olivia, even if only briefly.  I don't know if she's even noticed, but that's irrelevant.  I want to break bad habits and make better ones.  That's the point.

Lately, in telling or reminding people I'm going to visit Geoff, I find myself having to explain or defend that decision, which annoys me.  I wanted to take a break in the middle of winter, to fight off those mid-winter blues I get every year, and since I miss Geoff, Liza-Ann suggested it would be a good way to take that break.  I thought it was a good idea and I planned it.  Not much more to say, really, except I find people saying "why Ottawa?" and "why now?"  I guess the fact that I didn't plan a break with Liza-Ann may be throwing them off.  We plan to take a "staycation" later this year together.  Things are fine with us, thank you very much.  I look forward to unwinding with Geoff.  We have no big plans, but I know there'll be some sitting and talking, and that's the part I look forward to the most.  I still feel closer to Geoff than any of my other friends, despite the physical distance.  I hope we'll both still feel that way sitting in a living room together and be able to open up like we often did when we lived together.  I need that kind of friendship.  Geoff's someone whom I don't know that my mother would ever have really gotten to know well or ever would have really understood, but I know that she'd have seen him reflected in my eyes, known he was good for me, and accepted him for that if nothing else.  She was wise that way.  She understood it's not always about what you want, but what's best.

After rounds and rounds of layoffs, I only just dug up my resume and cover letter a few days ago, though I still haven't updated them yet.  It wasn't until recent events that I finally began to feel like the end was looming in sight.  I like my job, and I'm good at it, but I also know that one of my biggest weaknesses is my naivety, so perhaps it's time I began to explore my options.  I just remembered that I also really must get off my ass and start taking driving lessons soon.  I still have my permit in my wallet upstairs but haven't been behind the wheel in over a decade.

Well, Liza-Ann just came in.  I could sit and continue typing while she gets things sorted, but I'd rather spend what time I can with her before she has to run out again, even if it's just puttering around behind her while she changes and prepare to head out again.  I enjoy spending time with her.  My mother would have too.