I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to write here, as I sit down to this empty screen, eyes half closed, the monkey still up watching “Star Party” — aka the Dancing with the Stars finale.

Team Grey!

I just popped an oat-bran bagel in the toaster oven — probably my last for a long time as I embark on, yes, another diet. Well, not really a diet, more like a way of life. It worked this morning when I enjoyed my oatmeal-and-almond-milk-with-syrup-raisins-walnuts-and-cinnamon breakfast and the resulting stable moods and unexhausted energy level for hours.

“You’re very quiet today,” my co-worker remarked as she passed by my desk this morning. It’s because I didn’t have that blasted morning Starbucks soy-no-water-tazo-chai latté that makes me bounce off the walls every morning. “You really know how to have a drink,” the barista told me the other day as my dreaded order rolled off my tongue dreamily, effortlessly. “I know,” I said, drooling and shaking. “I know.” Gimmemychai….

But this afternoon was a big fat FAIL when the Rascal BEGGED to go to a bookstore — with a Starbucks in it. Danger! DANGER! BEEEP! BEEEP! Moods plummeted. Patience erupted. I believe I may have even roared at one point when I noticed the dishes in the dishwasher were clean. Don’t worry, the kids were out of earshot….

Betty White (the dog) is looking at me with a “what’s wrong with you?” look on her face. I think it’s because I’m not only watching Skating with the Stars, but I’m PVR’ing it, too. And one of the judges actually just said, “you have a spiffy personality.” That same judge’s name is Dick Button. And, woah, it’s time to announce each judge’s score, and the host(ess) calls his name out unnaturally seriously: “Dick. Button.” Josh just asked me if this show is a “spoof.” No. Not a spoof.

I was also quiet at the office today because my beautiful MARRRGE is very sick.

The fact that she only weighs six pounds, and is losing weight as I type this, has nothing to do with Betty White, as I, in denial, suspected, and everything to do with something called hyperthyroidism. Apparently it’s very common in cats. But I WILL NOT send her to that radiation centre they recommended — where people in full radiation garb and Darth Vader masks give her food and scoop her poop for a whole week and just maybe pet her wee head with giant gloves. She’s almost 15 years old. That would KILL HER. Plus, I keep thinking of that guy who died on 24 of radiation poisoning while trying to save the world. Awful. And do I really want a potentially radioactive cat in my home? She’s creepy enough already.

I just have to keep her comfortable and happy. I don’t need to cure her with anything that glows in the dark and requires total isolation and (did I mention?) serious money, and the Darth Vader masks. Thankfully, I managed to find a less freaky therapy that’s a little high maintenance, but relatively comfortable for MARRRGE (3 R’s) and affordable.

Now, I’m going to send you off with something funny…. Maybe you had to be there to find this funny, but I’ll go for it anyway.

As you may know, the Rascal has a favourite stuffed animal that he calls Doggy. There’s the background.

So this morning the Monkey was brushing her hair (“it’s gold now, Mama!) and marveling at the freshly-brushed softness. “TOUCH IT TOUCH IT IT’S SO SOFT TOUCH IT!” she insisted. When she got to the Rascal, she bent her head down and said:

“TOUCH IT. JUST TOUCH IT! Touch it and you’ll forget about Doggy!”

O.M.G. funny!?! I think it’s brilliant. You had to be there?

If it’s not funny, it’s a lesson for shampoo advertisers everywhere:

“Hair so soft you’ll forget about your binky….” Do you love it? You heard it here first, Gorgeouses! Hee!

NO, Josh, this is not a fake show. Skating with the Stars is, sadly, FOR REAL!

One more thing before I go to bed. I’ve been writing nonstop articles over at Todaysparent.com — hence the shortage of posts here. It’s been crazy! Also, be sure to look out for my two-page personal (“humour”) article in the January issue of Today’s Parent Magazine! Eek!

Love!

xo Haley-O

One problem with blogging is that people think they know you — I mean, the whole you — based on the posts you write. It’s happened before that people have made assumptions about me based on this blog. And while I now have no problem with that, it’s still not the whole truth. It’s all true, of course, yes! But you’ll never get the whole truth from twice-weekly, or even daily, blog posts. Or even seeing someone in real life, for that matter. People are sort of different every time you see them, don’t you think? I may dislike someone one day and LOVE them the next. Everything’s fragments.

And still you come back here and you read, I guess, the truth of this moment. And how much do I love you for that? Because it does get lonely behind this screen sometimes.

So today I give you A BUNCH of truth fragments in one post, and then maybe I can take the rest of the week off because I am tired. That’s probably the whole truth right there. If you see me in real life, go right ahead and assume I AM TIRED.

Checkit!

1. At the end of my much-interrupted 6am yoga practice this morning, I lay down in savasana (or corpse pose), and Rascal stood over me and asked, “Mama, are you dead?”

2. He also asked if he could lie on my back while I was in a seated forward bend — nose to knees. I let him, of course. And he’s a feather. I felt nothing.

3. The Monkey is obsessed with Netflix’s preview of The Swan Princess, which is basically this song….

I’m telling you, plunk your kids down in front of that video, show them how to make it play again, and go make dinner, or read a novel (the whole thing), shave your legs…. You deserve a break.

4. Rascal says “rorot” instead of “forgot.” And he says it a lot — reminding me never-too-often of him….

Rrrrroobydoobydoo!

5. He also calls my Macbook a “puter” (pronounced “pewdah.”)

6. Because 2 cats and a dog aren’t enough, we’ve adopted a new member of the family. Meet “Pixie Hollow”:

7. I may only be blogging here once or twice a week, but I’m blogging over HERE up to FOUR TIMES A DAY, sometimes even in a British accent.

8. I only APPEAR outgoing. I’m very very shy and uncomfortable at blogging events……

9. The Monkey’s been obsessed with drawing hair lately…. (Click to enlarge.)

10. Speaking of hair…, the Rascal wants his hair cut. But I say “no,” because there’s nothing like 3-year-old bed head. There just isn’t….

11. Betty White is apparently a very long dog. This jacket is size MEDIUM. She’s a tiny dog — there’s no way I’m getting her a large….

12. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. He…completes me….

Love!

xo Haley-O

Imagine if I could wake up at 6am everyday, do yoga everyday, cook healthy food everyday, drink herbal tea instead of Starbucks’ chai cracké every day…. Is it possible?

I live every day in the aimless shadow of this perfection. So let’s figure out what’s going on here, what’s actually attainable, and what I might be like, what I might look like, if I could possibly live this near-perfect lifestyle. Because what I might be like, or what I might look like, is in part (I think) what I’m afraid of.

Emotions aside, there are three obvious things to think about now that enough is officially enough:

A) I can do this. People do this. It’s possible. Anything’s possible, they say — except maybe somersaulting all the way around the world. In the air. With your feet behind your head. And your eyes crossed.

B) All the constant striving has to stop. Either just do it, or stop striving and accept things as they are (which won’t work because this just isn’t healthy, or the way I want to live, and enough is enough, and more about that over in the kitchen).

C) This striving is actually who I am. A Virgo. Quintessential. Perfectionista. Which means I’m constantly disappointed in myself because no one can be a perfect mother or person — but certainly clean eating and an hour of yoga a day and a dog that doesn’t jet down the street every time you open the front door is a kind of achievable perfection, no?

So I think what we need is A+B+C. I accept that I’m a perfectionist. But I can’t keep beating myself up all the time and giving up on things I want in this short, precious life. Yet I know this one thing I want for myself (and ultimately for my loved ones) is attainable. As my brillers yoga teacher told me, and as @lindseyjay kindly reminds me every day, “I can have this if I want it.”

As I write this, my little guy’s sticking his fingers on either side of my mouth, and streeeetching — you see why I only blog once a week now, sighh…. No longer the perfect every-day blogger I once was. Is everything FAIL? WAH! Wah wah. I know.

So I have a new focus, and hopefully this will do the trick. COMMITMENT. Eureka!

It’s not: “Should I or shouldn’t I have that chai fa-ri-ckin latte?” Instead it’s: “How committed am I right now?” If I find my level of commitment is 3 out of 10, I need to take a few breaths, conjure up an image in my mind of Jennifer Aniston in a bikini (at 40!), and raise it to 5, and then to 8, 10, 11, and drive right on by the seductive green sign.

Maybe this sudden new focus, new urgency, explains why I’ve been dreaming constantly about this guy….

…and seeing him and elephants elephants elephants everywhere. Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles. How awesomely fitting.

I think it’s time.

No. It’s time.

It’s time for a rebirth. Not of the old, pre-motherhood me — who was skinny and fit and driven and self-obsessed — but of a new healthier me who just so happens to set a better example for her children and maybe even for others, too.

So it’s on. Starting (necessarily, I think) with a cleanse. The Fall Fast begins…………NOW, with the famous Feel Good Guru of Toronto. Who’s with me?

And it’s on. Yoga six mornings a week — with a break on Saturdays and Moon Days — as the Yoga Guru prescribed. No need for aerobics. Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga is crazy rigorous. Though it’s so much more than a workout…. How committed are you?

Join me for a complexion-clearing, calorie-buring green smoothie? Cheers!

And now the Rascal’s calling me “Hayay.” He still can’t fully pronounce those L’s. Haley. Hmm. Who’s that? Who will that be (or look like) if I attain this attainable goal? Time to find out again. Not scary at all.

Love!

xo Haley-O

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrring!

[I hand the phone to Rascal and press the "on" button.]

Papa’shere (my dad): Hello? hello?

Rascal: Hi, Papa!

Papa’shere: Hi, Rascal, How are you?

Rascal: Good.

Papa’shere: What are you doing?

Rascal: I paying six an yaddahs by moysewf! [Trans. "I'm playing Snakes and Ladders by myself!"]

I’m swimming in what seems like a never-ending, black-with-purple-swirls sea of chaos. Everything from my childcare situation to the major celebrity mom I’m interviewing first thing Thursday (totally scared) morning in a Yorkville hotel room, to a whole mass of other confusions that I can’t get into right now partly because my eyes are glazing over and partly because your eyes would glaze over.

To navigate the purplish swirly sea of chaos I’m spinning in (dizzy), I have yoga. Except that I started bawling in yoga the other day. Well, after my teacher David Robson talked to me about why I find myself on the verge of tears after assisted twists. Something about my Samskaras, which I’m still trying to find time to research…. He tried to explain it to me, but I was trying to keep the tears from streaming and the lips from quivering embarrassingly. When he got to the “eating” part, though — something about “everything from our something-something to our experiences to our something-something to what we eat,” DING! — the lip got out of control. The tears at least waited until after he compassionately squeezed my arm and returned to the yoga class. Streamed and streamed, mixed pretty with the purple.

THIS:

He’s watching me…!

While I’m working at the office all morning, someone’s thinking of me. He’s thinking of me. He’s thinking about me doing yoga. He’s painting me doing yoga. My HEART!

She’s on the table again. She thinks she’s a cat. But she’s sorely mistaken. She’s a Maltese. With a massive underbite that makes it hard for her to pick food up sometimes. When she’s not on top of the table, she’s downstairs burying her (vegetarian) bone in the cat litter. She comes out of the litter with a white nose. It’s terribly unhealthy, and I’m slightly anxious about her lungs. Ahh, anxiety. Samskara. Also, if she has to poop while we’re still sleeping or when she’s alone in the house, she’ll sometimes do it in the beside the cats’ litter box. Poor thing is so confused.

Just like her mama.

Love.

xo Haley-O

I’ve been out since 8am. Up since 6am. I’m tired. Not just the physical kind of tired. Emotional. Mother tired.

I feel like I’m going to collapse if I have to wipe another bum, make another meal, slice another pear, peel anther carrot, pick up another toy, answer another command. “Mama. I need you, Mama! MAMA!”

We went to synagogue for the Simchat Torah celebration this evening.

I haven’t been religious in a long time. For a minute there I got chills. Community. Celebration. My old synagogue where I was Bat mitzvahed, married…. Fahklempt. The same exact Rabbi and Cantor that married and Bat Miztvahed me leading the celebration. A taste of joy. Until I get another freshly-made flag in the face.

“Are you ok?” my mother asks.

“Are you ok?” Josh asks.

“I’m fine.” I didn’t ask why they asked. And no one really wants to hear about tired.

Then there’s that constant swell of low-grade anxiety…. Are the kids safe? Did they eat well today? Was I attentive enough? Maybe I shouldn’t have snapped at the dog food incident. I get tired.

We’re on our way home from the synagogue. I’m texting myself this blog post. We still have to feed and bathe the kids. And then the guys are coming over for poker at our house tonight — a plan that I only learned about this afternoon. Apparently our house was a last resort.

And I’m tired.

Tomorrow I have yoga at 6:30 am. And I’ll float and I’ll sweat it all out and enjoy the silence.

The silence.

Love.
xo Haley-O
Sent from Haley-O’s BlackBerry

I had an aha moment as I was walking down the hallway at work the other day on a little scenic route past Flare Magazine‘s steamers, stylists and clothing racks — the novelty of which remains untarnished, especially because I’m a huge fan of MTV’s….

On the recommendation of Caroline Dupont and Oprah, I’ve been reading Geneen Roth‘s bestselling book Women, Food and God: an Unexpected Path to Almost Everything.

The book came so highly recommended that I just had to make sense of it. And I’ve been working really hard to apply the great lessons in this book to my life; but, in the meantime, I’ve been eating when I’m not hungry and, mostly, the wrong foods. It made sense to me that one’s relationship with food could be, as the subtitle of the book says, “An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything,” but only theoretically. I couldn’t quite pin down how it could apply to me practically.

But here’s the thing. You know how I’ve been waking up 2 hours early every day to do my rigorous Ashtanga yoga practice — sweating it out on the mat and pacifying the Rascal, pushing couches out of my face while in shoulderstand (seriously), or tearing growling, screaming cats and dog away from each other while trying to breathe deep, long ujayii breaths in forward bend? Well, you know, some things just don’t work. As much as I wanted to do everything right, to practice real, authentic yoga every single morning except Saturdays and “moon days”, it just wasn’t feasible. Waking myself up every morning to basically restrict myself for 2 hours was doing harm. And it was causing me to lose control in other areas. I was eating more. Running to Starbucks a sweaty mess, straight from the hot studio. Can I please have a grande soy no-water tazo chai? *glargh*

It was the food, that dang chai addiction, that showed me what’s really going on with me. A sweet, cinnamony looking glass….

Walking down that long hallway past the pretty people and posters and amazing clothes, I realized: The more I restrict myself the more out of control my diet gets.

So the yoga was getting too hard. Too forced. Everything, motherhood, was getting too hard. Too forced. And the old ways were coming back: the TIRED, the chai lattes, the cookies…the cookies.

Then I realized, just as I passed the fashion rack — AHA! The “doorway” that Geneen Roth talks about isn’t that one eating meltdown. No. It’s the patterns. The fall after fall after fall off the wagon. When do they happen? What’s going on when I fall?

When I eat poorly — really poorly — it MEANS I’M RESTRICTING MYSELF TOO MUCH. It means it’s time for a break. Time to crawl back into my shell and give myself permission to rest.

REST.

So, instead of trapping myself on the mat for two hours first thing in the morning, I’m waking up a little later and going for a walk with Betty White. I’m taking the kids for hikes, which are usually colossal epic FAILS (for another blog post), but beautiful….

I’m going to the yoga studio (two yoga studios — one for rigor and one for…rest) to practice when I can, and fitting fun yoga into some afternoons. It’s healthier for my kids to see me actually enjoying this healthy passion of mine, rather than struggling to get through it.

My eating is the key. The “doorway.” It tells me when I fall into those patterns of restriction, when I’m being too hard on myself, when I need to take a break, sit back, and enjoy life…. Enjoy life. #Concept.

So, as Roth recommends (read it!), I’m going back to my body, becoming aware of my breath and giving myself permission to chill. Oh, man, PERMISSION. Allowing Permission herself to melt over me like a like warm glinting maple syrup….. Mmmmm, syrup…. I don’t have to do anything. Anything. I don’t even have to please you right now….

But, love….

Tonight I made a lentil soup and this fabulous green bean dish (recipe to come). I tasted everything, and I felt something warm and bright and ray-like in my belly — happiness?

Love!

xo Haley-O

Rascal said the weirdest thing to me the other day from the backseat of the car. It was too weird, too funny, too sacred to pull over the car (screeeeeech) and tweet.

I’m driving. I’m driving. And all of a sudden I hear a quiet voice in the backseat. Before I tell you what this quiet voice said, let me remind you that he’s TWO AND A HALF.

So, I’m driving. I’m driving. And all of a sudden I hear a quiet voice in the backseat, just loud enough to pierce through his sister’s dialogue with her doll:

“Mama,” he said, “AM I WEIRD?”

“Am I weird?”

“Am I weird?”

It sounded more like “weewd,” for the record, but I heard it.

“Am I weird, Mama?”

If I were a different kind of blogger, or maybe if I were feeling less tired, less sick (this cold…), I’d sit here analyzing it. I’d contemplate its origins, possibilities. I mean, I’ve always thought I had to censor my little weight preoccupation for my daughter’s sake — but never my weird….

Am I weird? Yes. A lot less weird than I used to be, alas. But I still have my quirks. I have a dog named Betty White (who could really use a groom, now that you mention it — she’s booked for next week)….

I’m not into tarot cards anymore, but I do love crystals. I really really love crystals. I’m usually wearing one on my neck or carrying one in my pocket. I’m not quite as advanced as Spencer Pratt or anything….

But I love my crystals. And to calm the storm that is Rascal’s general state of mind lately — with the constant crying and screaming — I got myself a really pretty pink quartz necklace, and I got him an agate dragon skin stone….

Don’t laugh! He loves it….

If he’s wearing it, I tell him to hold it up and say “DRAGON WARRIOR” when I sense him slipping into tantrums. Recently, though, he replaced the crystal with a giant triceratops doll that he loves….

…He loves to jump around with it, saying, “ribbit. ribbit. ribbit.” Weird?!

I’m not who you thought I was, now, am I? I might just be more than a little weird for you. A total Internet kook! But, sadly, it feels like my quirks have all but vanished in my extreme busy-ness and the emotional storms of toddlerhood. Aside from The Crystals, I pretty much go to work, come home, play with my son, pick up his sister from camp, make dinner, work some more, read in bed and go to sleep.

Then I wake up disgustingly early, and I practice yoga for 2 hours….Weird? Or just crazy? Or the smartest, most normal thing one could ever do to keep up with life without totally losing oneself, or even one’s weird, in the busy-ness, in speeding time (so fast — have you noticed?).

As for my son? I don’t know where the question — “Mama, am I weird?” — came from. And I’m not going to analyze it. I’m simply going to bask in the weirdness of it. And keep laughing.

Love!

xo Haley-O

Once we have reached the desired end, we think, we will turn back to purify and consecrate the means. Once the war we’re fighting for peace is won, then the generals will become saints, the burned children will proclaim in the heaven that their suffering is well repaid, the poisoned forests will turn green again. Once we have peace, we say, or abundance or justice or truth, or comfort, everything will be right. Well, it’s an old dream.

It’s a vicious illusion. For the discipline of ends is no discipline at all. The end is preserved in the means; a desirable end may forever perish in the wrong means. Hope lives in the means, not in the end. Art does not survive in its revelations, or agriculture in its products, or craftsmanship in its artifacts, or civilization in its monuments, or faith in its relics.

– Wendell Berry

Forgive me, Gorgeouses, for I hath ingested NO CHAI LATTES in two whole days. In fact, I have not had a stitch of sugar, nor a drop of caffeine.

Forgive me, Gorgeouses, for I hath exhaustion, anger and frustration — all the usual “evil” emotions that come-out-come-out with detoxification, with withdrawal.

Forgive me, Gorgeouses, for I hath posted LONG QUOTE (above) that I totally want you to read. It came to me today via iPod, via him, as usual. Which wouldn’t be such a big deal, if I didn’t ALSO get an email from her with a similar message — reminding me not to focus so much on “goals,” dietary and otherwise, but instead to make “one self-supportive choice at a time”:

What prevents you from doing things for yourself is not a lack of goals or intentions as you probably know. What would it be like to simply be kind to yourself? To rest, to eat nourishing food, to take your body out for some fresh air and movement, to allow yourself to feel your emotions, to make space for quiet time, to pray…? To trust that wholeness is already here, and not something you have to create or find? (Email, Caroline Dupont)

To think, I’d get such similar messages in two days — two days sans chai latte. So I’m DONE with GOALS, the “old dream,” “vicious illusion.” We are now, officially, all about the means (even though this, too, can become a goal if taken too seriously). It’s like a total sea change for someone as goal-oriented as I am — my entire life.

One self-supporting choice at a time.

Am I wrong? Or, could many of us use this beautiful, sage reminder?

Tomorrow is Josh and my 7th wedding anniversary. SEVENTH. Will I have a chai latte? Probably. Because if I don’t, I might be as miserable as I was today….

Or I may make the ostensibly more self-supporting choice and have a cleansing swamp smoothie…. Or or OR…, maybe for tomorrow — my SEVENTH anniversary — cake and chai lattes are self-supporting, and definitely spouse-supporting, choices?

For our anniversary tomorrow, Josh and I are taking a staycation. My parents are bravely taking the kids all day and overnight, AND they set us up in a five-star hotel in the heart of downtown Toronto — breakfast and a “special package” included! We are going to relax, enjoy, savour, indulge, hold hands, see ALICE IN WONDERLAND in 3D….

So, anyway, yes, I’m taking all the sage advice that came barreling in, welcomed, these past couple of days.  I’m thinking about my exhausting, habitual, annoying goal-making — a habit that’s even stronger, to think, than the chai latte. Without creating another goal, I’m going to simply recognize this goal-making energy, the striving, reaching, the insatiable aiming high, and to gently rein it in, rein myself back….

Kind of like this blog….

Forgive me Gorgeouses, for I don’t always know why I blog here. And I do think about this often. I don’t know where this blog’s going, for how long, to what end…. And that’s finally okay. I may lose readers and gain readers, as the game goes. Yet I plow on. To no end. With no goal.

And, so, I. I put away the arrows. I stand on this ground. Being with what’s here. Like it, or not.

Love!

xo Haley-O

P.S.: Check Cheaty Goodies for a sweeeeet GIVEAWAY. Best facial in GTA, you could win — or fabulous products for the rest of you (Canada, US and beyond)!

As you may have noticed in my last post, I’m on a bit of a spiritual kick. And, I know, that doesn’t explain a thing about WHAT THE HELL that post was, but that’s the point (or the non-point). Maybe “spiritual” isn’t the right word. And hopefully this isn’t a “kick.” Because, as I said in that last post, I’m happy — happy not trying to be happy. Because trying to be happy presupposes that I’m not happy. And if I step outside my bumbling brain for a bit and look at things as they are, I’m damn happy. Yeeaahh.

“Spiritual” is definitely not the right word either. I’ve sort of been-there-done-that, and it didn’t stick. It was definitely a “kick.” I don’t even really care if the psychic across the road from the big bookstore I frequent is really psychic or not, or even if I have a “spirit guide,” and what his name is, or if my dead cat is communicating with me when I’m sleeping. Because, at least for me, it doesn’t matter. Matter.

Regular yoga practice is teaching me this. How good practicing yoga makes me feel doesn’t matter. Matter. What matters is what’s here, what’s clear. My cat sitting on my lap, purring, now turning to me with stinky wet kisses, the click-clicking of the keys under my fingertips, my daughter upstairs serenading her dad: “it’s not my fault, the police gave me a ticket once because it’s not catching up to you, na-na-na-na-na” (#wtf?). Time passes quickly, and I’m done squandering my life.

So there are things to let go of. Me, the clinger. Addictions, fears, desires, anxieties. This doesn’t mean I plan on repressing or transcending these things, or never-ever-having-a-Starbucks-soy-no-water-tazo-chai-ever-again-EVER. It just means watching, noticing, observing the patterns, the wanting, the cravings — human stuff that we all get sucked into, stuck in. Not caring where it all comes from or why.

This is all a little something I’m learning from him (ignore the old caption — try)…

…and through him (who happens to have been my best friend when I was around 4-6 years old — so, kind of kismet)…

One day, I’ll have the guts to go to Michael Stone’s studio, maybe take a class, maybe let him know the impact he’s had on my life and, so, the lives around me….

Don’t worry, I’m still loving The Real Housewives. Just dancing more to the beat of my own drummer. And maybe even to a little Alicia Keys, because…

…because that’s what my girls are playing because we’re going to NYC — Blogher ’10 — this summer with a whole bunch of other fabulous people whom I genuinely love. Come with us!? God help me, my family’s coming, too! But they’ll be staying with Josh’s sister and husband in Brooklyn. Yes, it will be quite the roadtrip. And I expect to overhear many a backseat conversation, such as this little nugget from today:

TANGENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All that matters: my amazing family, good friends, authenticity (but not the cliche kind), the world, this earth, “this ground.” What doesn’t matter: “big bloggers,” stats, twitter followers, fame, what-if’s, what so-and-so thinks of how my kid behaved in the restaurant, or what so-and-so thinks of what I’m wearing (again)…. None of it matters. Too much squandering. Squandering.

So, basically, while I’m not going to give up squandering altogether (you’d have to PAY me to give up Housewives right now, and, hmmm, twitter), I’m a little more focused on what matters, on what’s real, here, and now, on this earth.

One more tweet for the road – because it came out of nowhere last week and is, dare I say, très apropos….

It’s about being here and now and balanced within an extremely unbalanced society, ecology, economy, etc., etc….

Kind of like this wonderful boy, my blog friend (and fellow T-Dot book clubber) Sandra Diaz‘s eight-year-old son Zachary, raising thousands of dollars for assaulted women, and volunteering any way he can for other important charities. He was honoured at Disney on Ice the other night. That’s yoga — as opposed to “blissing out” in hot pink lululemons. I got to take a picture….

Though it’s a fabulous workout and great for the nervous system, the heart of yoga is in the here and now. In not escaping but being present and active anywhere that you’re needed. Most people don’t realize it. Most people don’t realize how enlightening it is to really be in the here and now — through yoga, meditation, and even just reading (maybe even a blog post?) about it.

Bottom line in 140 characters or less? I don’t care about small stuff anymore. Dunzo. (Okay more than 140 characters.) I will continue to wear my flaws on my sleeve. But I’ll let them be. I’ll go with the flow and focus on what matters. Really matters.

It’s a work in progress…, of course.

People ask me about yoga and yoga books/dvds all the time. So, basically: Michael’s books (he has three of them now) — Cheaty RECOMMENDS.

Love!

xo Haley-O

“Oh, I’m sorry! My name’s Nick. I’m a reporter out here in Santa Monica, and I just finished up an interview with Julia [Child] for our paper out here.”

I was really going to have to get my phone number unlisted.

“I’d like to get your thoughts on some things. Because I asked her about you, and frankly, she was kind of a pill about it. Is this a bad time?”

“Oh. No. It’s fine.”

When I hung up the phone five minutes later, I felt numb.

…I sat on the couch beside Eric…. “That was a reporter from California. He just interviewed Julia. He asked her about me. She hates me.” I giggled, like I do in these breathless situations. ”She thinks I’m not respectful or not serious or something.”

…Eric put his arm over my shoulder. “What is she, ninety?”

“Ninety-One,” I sniffled.

“See? She probably doesn’t have the first idea what a blog is.“

…”I don’t know. Maybe she thinks I’m taking advantage or I’m — I’m not –” I was taken surprise by a sudden rush of tears. “I thought I was — I’m sorry if I –”

And then abruptly I was wailing….

–Julie Powell, Julie and Julia, pp. 333-334

So there was a Simon Fraser University Masters thesis written extensively about me and seven other “mommybloggers” (grrr…). I heard about it yesterday, of all places, when I was sitting at Podcamp TO, listening to a panel discussion, of all things, about what happens when social media goes wrong. My heart started pounding when I heard — my face turned beat red, palms sweating, hands shaking.

I’m used to people responding to my individual posts in the comments, on twitter, even on email. I’m definitely not used to someone reading my blog from start to finish, making gross assumptions based on posts here and there, and then publishing these gross assumptions and frustrating misreadings in a thesis — both offline and on — and not telling me about it, even after the fact.

At first I was furious. And I definitely (over)reacted on twitter:

I got really upset that The Thesis wasn’t in fact about the “works” themselves or the genre of blogging, as indicated in The Thesis’ abstract, and that, rather, it was about our lives, our income, whether or not we love that our children are away (for 2.5 hours, hello) at preschool, and so on. When Danigirl sent me the abstract (which was all I could see for hours until I got home to open the pdf file that contained The Thesis), I was a little flattered and excited. To be studied in the context of Bakhtin’s Dialogic, for example, and to be categorized as “Canadian Women’s Literature,” was so cool. Bring it on!

But, when I opened the document and searched my name…, I was floored. All those assumptions about all sorts of irrelevant stuff. It hurt. Bad.

I think the thing that bothered me most was when The Thesis writer suggested that I may have contrived how I started blogging in the first place. I told the world that Ali Martell introduced me to blogging when the Monkey was 8 months old, and that’s the truth — no questions asked. But, according to The Thesis writer, I “contrived” this bit in order to appear flippy and erratic or whatever. In another post, she ingeniously discovers, I mention that Jennifer Lawrence, who happens to be the author of the blog MUBAR (which no longer exists), helped me out when I was clinically depressed while pregnant with the Monkey. (And, by the way, an article was written about my prenatal depression and published in some major psychiatry journal — APA? — and, you betcha, the author asked my permission even though they used an alias and I’d never find it in a million years!). Yes, Jen Lawrence helped me, but it was OVER THE PHONE. I didn’t know she had a blog, or what a blog was.

Why does this bother me? Because it’s an insult to my integrity as a blogger. SURE, I might exaggerate things — for entertainment’s sake — here and there, and less so these days. But I would never flat-out lie. I would never “contrive” something. To me, that’s the ultimate insult to a blogger.

Somewhere, way out yonder in the internet ether, there’s a great old email conversation in which Ali reveals to me, “I HAVE A BLOG,” and to which I reply, “WHAT’S A BLOG???”

Anyway.

Whatever. I’m really okay now. I’m flattered that I’m in an MA thesis, even though the reading of “me” is false and unflattering for the most part. As you can see on twitter, I felt beyond violated and uncomfortable when I first read the thesis. But, I haven’t looked at it since, and I’ll never look at it again — and I feel better. And I can laugh at the broad assumptions, as I’ve also done on twitter:

And, this one….

Oops, how’d that tweet get there? (Disclosure: CONTRIVED.)

Here, see I can make light of The Thesis writer’s totally unfounded statement that I am the most “affluent” of all the bloggers (if she only knew!?):

Should the student have contacted me? It would have been the nice and, I think, scholarly thing to do.

Do I blame the student? Do I “hate” her SORT OF like Julia Child hated Julia Powell? No. I’ve done a Master’s Thesis, and I know how difficult that can be on several levels. This writer wrote the thesis in 2008. She’s obviously young, likely not a mother. There I go assuming, though….

As with all controversies surrounding “mommyblogging,”  people are now taking the opportunity to troll thoughtful posts on the subject and preach about the ethics of “mommyblogging.” We’re putting ourselves and our kids out there for scrutiny and misinterpretation, so apparently we should just suck it up, not react, and just plain expect this. But, surely we’re allowed to “giggle” or “wail.” On twitter?

Know what happened to me today? I went to Starbucks (shut it — I’m not affluent — I got a card for Valentine’s Day). Rascal and I sat beside a woman who was typing on her mini laptop. When she got up to leave, she said:

You know, I’ve been watching you, and you’re a wonderful mother. I see the way you talk to him and look at him, the way he looks at you. And I don’t see that all the time, unfortunately. It’s amazing to watch you. And I’m a therapist….

That compliment, that observation of ME, was so beautiful and so welcomed given my current frustration. And, so often, my readers and fellow bloggers, whether in comments, twitter, or email, make me feel THAT good with their genuine, caring feedback and friendship.

You can’t read a blog and claim to know the writer. As I stated several days ago on twitter,

You can’t judge a blogger by his or her blog. It’s not a novel. It’s its own genre. One absolutely worth exploring at an academic level.

If you’d like to see a copy of The Thesis, just contact me — which is easy to do for the record….

Love!

xo Haley-O