I’ve joked about it in the past, but it really does rattle me how in tune she can be with my inner-most thoughts.

Emailing with a friend, without any speech or pictorial evidence, she will bust out that she misses the friend’s daughter. The phone rings and me, barely having said hello, will be accosted to talk to the person on the phone, by name. I’ll think, ‘hey, maybe we should go on an adventure. Get out of the ordinary and take the ferry to Bowen Island for the day and just walk around, exploring the beach,’ and despite that she was previously immersed in the word of saving baby animals with Diego, she will ask if we can go on a boat.

It’s trippy, in the least.

Two nights ago, I sat here and composed an email to her father that included a paragraph about her abrupt lack of interest in his activities while he was away from her. See, before, she’d asked for him nearly everyday, and then weeks ago, it just stopped. If she was angry with me previously, she asked for him, and she stopped doing that; if she woke up to a day where we had no plans set in stone, she asked if we would see him, and that stopped too. She’d gotten on his time-clock, where only weekends, when the buzzer announced his arrival, meant it was time for Daddy to be around.

Fucking murphy’s law.

Yesterday morning, I woke up earlier than I usually do, prepared to make what I assumed would be a tough day – likely with his reaction to the email – good. And she was so in tune, it seems, that she’s regressed to wanting him all the time, to every conversation including his name, and to excitement about all of the plans he’s apparently made with her.

A life of three-year-old fantasies, rubbed in my face, as the reality of this shitty situation crashes down on me. And I smile and say, “really? And what will you do at the farm/zoo/toy store/aquarium?” as I’m stuck with the thought that it’s not going to happen anytime soon, and that I can’t take that daydream away from her.

And then, the tantrums that started yesterday, as if she was punishing me. Yes, I know that I’m looking for proof of self-blamability, but, my god, yesterday was hard. Hard to hold her tight without squeezing her and asking pointedly ‘what the hell is the matter with you?‘, hard to accept the strikes toward me and the pinching and shrieking. There were time-outs for the first time in ages, and I felt guilty for that, too – for my lack of patience and my inability to completely give myself over to the granola side and see her acting out as what it is.

My daughter, she’s fucking psychic.

Then there was today, when I finally eased myself into bed to sleep at four am, she ran out, fast fast fast, from hers, asking to cuddle. I don’t know who needed it more, but I haven’t slept so well with her in the bed ever before, her fingers entwined in my hair, and her legs bent 90 degrees against the spot that ached most when she was being born.

She woke me up late, as if knowing that this day would be a sleep-deprived one – got herself breakfast and put together some puzzles in the silence of her own bedroom while I nightmared ten feet from her about poisonous tarantulas the size of my hand priming to bite her and me, with only a barren broom handle to kill them with.

And when she did wake me, it wasn’t with the usual demands for food and bathroom accompanyment, it was with three books for me to read as she climbed into the bed and told me that my hair was beautiful.

When it was nearly noon, and our plans cemented for the day, I lay there reading my own book, listless and feeling the talons of sleep creeping across my eyes again, and again, she crept into the bed to caress my back and ask for more love. She was giving it to me, 1000% more than she has, maybe ever.

After friends left, an afternoon snack was dispensed of and she had organized what she wanted to do for some quiet time, I returned to the bed, to my book, to the sleeping fingers and I nodded, once more waking when she crawled in with me again.

Today was filled with so much loving, as if she knew that yesterday I was so hurt by this mental connection she has with me. And for that I’m thankful.

But I’m also further guilted by it, because today, she attempted to take care of me, and really, isn’t that what this has all been about? Her getting to be a normal kid, with normal parents, and normal concerns and activities? She shouldn’t be taking care of me, at all. I should have a stronger spine, that doesn’t wilt so easily when staggering down the hard road.

I spent most of the weekend working, writing my way into carpel tunnel, so as to guarantee our financial success for another week or two, and I have more work to do, to definitely take care of weeks two and three, but week four is up in the air, and besides that, I’m stuck.

I’m so glued to knowing the logistics and feeling the guilt. I’m unwaveringly confident that something positive has to come out of this, in comparison to all of the negative that could have come out of continuing the way things were, but I can’t move from this place of grief.

I’ve lost a best friend, even if it was only for part of the time; a lover, even if it was never consistent or trustable; a future, even if the promises and maybes were always cast aside so easily; a father for my daughter, for at least as long as it takes him to fight to become one; a certain amount of self-respect, because I always felt good about myself for just rolling with the punches, instead of being one of those alienating women.

So much. Gone. In a day, it seems like.

And if this were me a year ago, I would starve, drink, fuck or spend my way out if it, but I’m not doing those things anymore. Instead, I’ve been left with these bullshit neurotic reactions called feelings that I can’t shut off. So pardon me, but I’d like to go back to bed, now.

Once I send it, I can’t undo it, and it’s potential damage could be huge. It could mean financial disaster for us, this month. It could mean that my daughter never sees her father again. It could mean that he shows up at my door, angry, drunk and needing vilification. It could mean going to court, with a list of his offenses, dragging his name and self-esteem through the mud to get a judge to see that at this point in time, he’s unfit to be more of a parent than an alcoholic.

I’ve been putting off writing it all day, finally getting down to it when I knew not doing so would cost me more, in lost work time, in emotional pain.

Today, I sent her off for her last visit with him and didn’t tell either of them, and I carefully planned to have an email waiting for him tomorrow morning, stripping him of his visitation, as soon as he woke up.

By doing so, I will have given someone an extreme case of the Mondays.

I know that I shouldn’t feel guilty, and that I’m doing the right thing and I didn’t race into this decision whatsoever. It’s been all of her life that his drinking has been an issue, and that her well-being has been at risk. But, the guilt-feeling, extreme-moralist in me can’t help but feel like I’m about to ruin his life.

Note, I didn’t say that he has.

Why yes, I will be attending Al-Anon meetings. Why do you ask?

Ultimately, it comes down to this: I don’t want Zoë to grow up like me. I don’t want her to think that if someone’s nice to you part of the time, then they love you, and if when they’re drinking they’re nicer, you should just accept it. I don’t want her to not be able to trust people and lovers, to never give herself over to another person, because she’s aware all too well what happens when they decide not to be there, anymore. I don’t want her to pick up a bottle and see salvation, healing for every moment when she thought that she wasn’t enough, or for the anxiety she feels, or the abandonment she faces even when she’s not alone.

Basically, the goal is is preserve this for as long as I possibly can.

Even if it comes at a great cost to me, and to him. She doesn’t owe us anything, and we owe her the world. I have the clarity of that mantra – I know that without giving her everything that I can, she’ll miss out on something (and still might) – but he doesn’t. And I can’t try to teach him anymore, when it puts a tariff on her emotional well-being.

Which is probably why we ate them for breakfast. And why I finished off the batch, only two days after they were baked.

Based on a recipe from this book (affiliate link), I tweaked it a little to make the batter less dry (to compensate for the gluten-free flour), added a little extra of this and that, and still ended up with way too much. I suggest halving the recipe’s ingredients, and enjoying with sweet tea.

2 bananas, mashed
3/4 c. apple sauce
3/4 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
2 1/2 c. flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose)
2 1/2 c. rolled oat flakes (I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Rolled Oats)
1/4 t. xanthan gum
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. baking soda
1 c. raisins
1/2 c. vegan chocolate chips (try finding fair-trade certified, for extra tasty karma)

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Mix together the bananas, applesauce, sugar, and vanilla in a small bowl. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, mix together all dry ingredients except for the raisins and chocolate chips.
4. Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture, mixing together well, then add in the raisins and chocolate chips and mix again until just blended well.
5. After lining or lightly oiling it, drop spoon-fulls on a cookie sheet.
6. Bake for 12-15.

Makes at least a dozen huge-ass cookies.

The spot on the xray is glaring, bright white, angrily testifying the treatment to follow. I’m sad for what’s been sapped, for this ache that will only get worse through excise. Can I get a morphine drip, please? This feels like iodine, swabbing down sternum, rattling my cage.

I’m scrubbing in, but my hand doesn’t feel any cleaner, and I can’t stop myself – I keep looking at the phone on the wall, waiting for the call saying scans were mixed up

(I don’t mean that, I wouldn’t wish this purgatory on anyone)

that malignancy was someone else’s

(couldn’t we just use radiation? I’ll puke for weeks on chemo, if that’s what it takes. Maybe my hair will fall out and grow back in, straight and soft and lively, and we’ll be in remission)

that it was just a persistent cough

(it hurts to breathe)

.

It’s not angiosarcoma, but it feels like a stage-three diagnosis.

I’m going under, counting myself backwards from 10

which might be going forward, if you really think about it – who’s to say?

but all this mask is giving me are ketamine dreams of what if and never more.

* I don’t have cancer, yo. I’m being artsy or morbid or metaphorical or poetic or something.

Discovery Health’s Radical Parenting episode.

Disclosure: I didn’t watch the show, and a lot of my point of view has been surmised from posts reviewing the show, like this one.

I’m getting really tired of the constant labelling. What purpose does media serve, other than to create divisions, by using the word radical in reference to allowing a child of any gender to ignore the stereotypical gender roles and their denominating colours of pink and blue? How is global thought furthered by calling early potty trainers or elimination communicators extremists? Natural learners aren’t deviants, at all – they’re people who believe in learning, as most parents do.

These are all practices that are embraced and considered natural for parents to engage in, in most countries of the world. But for some reason, our little sector of the planet feels the need to cast about judgments and throw stones.

I breastfed until my daughter was done. She chose, not me. We started potty training when she showed initiative toward it – not sooner, because we didn’t have the communication (nor I the patience) in place for EC. If the media thinks that holding your baby over a pot to pee is militant, they should examine any other culture wherein wealth isn’t as prevalent or wasted. If ‘allowing’ boys to play with dolls and girls to wear blue while embracing their inner GI Joe is revolutionary, then I have to ask at a decibel-level just under a yell, why?

Why is that something to allow in the first place – it’s creative play. Creative play is shown, studies over, to create compassionate, open-minded and intelligent youth.

What do people who do consider this leftist see as the risk of allowing it? The stereotype, a homosexual child? A gender-confused one? Will little Billy will end up wanting to be Jill at 24 and you’ll be able to look way back in his history and remember how he baked cookies with mom?

It’s bullshit, narrow-minded, and as far as I’m concerned, a few minor rungs short of spreading hatred. It’s the media’s equivalent of us vs. them, normal vs. wrong, sane vs. unbalanced.

This kind of stuff is largely why I stopped following a lot of media – why I don’t have cable TV, read the newspaper or listen to the radio – the fear tactics, the creative labelling, and the need to put a title on every single little thing so that millions upon millions of people can all fit into little boxes that, ultimately, a corporation has created for them.

One of the first philosophical conversations my father and I ever had – and we had a lot, because even with the rest of it, we were able to talk for hours about nearly anything logic-based – was what was right and wrong. How that was determined. How do most know what’s ethically right? Or how to raise children? Or that 2+3=5?

Because it’s been deemed so, by a large group, adopted as a general rule, and taken in as a permanent scripture (whether that means biblically, or in a textbook).

Once upon a time, there was no universe, and that’s what people knew was right. A hundred years later, people could laugh at the naiveté.

Better example: How do you know that cigarettes are bad for you? Well, millions of people will tell you so if you ask (and often, if you don’t ask, too. Thanks, fuckers), and lots of those people are doctors, who’ve read or conducted studies and treated patients with various cigarette-caused disease. But less than a century ago, cigarettes were not only not bad for you, they were good for you for various reasons, not the least of which being that they helped you relieve stress during times of war.

But I digress, sort of. The point was to say that we live in a society wherein every moment seems to be throwing new information at us, and it gets hard to know which is the right fact of the moment. Whether soy will give you cancer or lower your cholesterol; whether you can trust a brand to use ethical trade/investment/sales practices; and whether (this was the real piss off, to me) unschoolers have children running around at all hours of the day, unwashed, without discipline, eating tons of doughnuts and ice cream, drinking soda like it’s all that’s left on Earth, playing video games and getting their educations from the trips to the grocery store.

Unschoolers aren’t anarchists. Unschoolers believe in natural education. Period. Just like any other kind of parent, homeschooler, afterschooler, Montessori-embracer, et al, Unschoolers want their children to learn, and to be successful and happy while doing it. Unschooling, just like any (and more) of the other education types I just listed, has a variety of differing practices.

I refuse to be boxed in with a label this show has created that denotes I might practice (what I consider to be just short of) neglect.

As parents, we’re responsible for the health and welfare of our children – I think we can all agree on that. This means, and here’s where some Unschoolers’ practices don’t jive with mine, that we have to look at a five year old and know he’s not emotionally prepared to decide whether to bathe at all. That the seven year old might not be the best person to make choices all the time about their diet. That some children, regardless of age might be able to express tiredness when they are tired, and therefore are capable of going without a set bedtime, but others will stretch themselves past the point of exhaustion, through to insomnia. And so, as parents, it’s our right to ensure that our kids aren’t dirty, on the path to diabetes and 42 cavities, and over-tired all the time. Even if we’re Unschoolers.

What this show did in (what I’m assuming was) an hour is create for viewers a picture of what Unschooling looks like. What they might have taken in is a dirty child, hopped up on sugar, extremely adverse to logic or self-discipline. Or, they could have seen parents that entrusted their children with their own lives. My gut tells me that those who are already versed in Unschooling might have had less judgment, but that’s an assumption.

But here’s the thing: they’re kids, man. They have to grow up a little bit, before they have the neural pathways to even be able to comprehend long-term results, such as malnutrition, tooth decay, diabetes, obesity, illiteracy, long-term  sleep deprivation, dehydration, or inactivity.

Unschooling, to me, is quite simple. It’s the dismissal of an education system that was originally created to encourage drone-like behaviour for times of industrial growth. In Prussia. It’s believing that learning takes place during other hours, not just from 9 to 3, Monday to Friday. It’s saying, ‘hey, my kid can’t sit in a chair for 35 minutes, never mind a few hours until lunch time, but if he gets to run around, he learns about stuff twice as fast. So we’re going to a field to talk about geography.’ It’s providing extreme amounts of support and independence to your children, letting them pursue their own interests, but guiding them toward the tools to gain more knowledge in them. It’s allowing them opportunity and encouraging them to take it and run with it as far as they want to.

It’s why, for the people who do think so, I’m considered intelligent. My inherent ability to hyper-focus on a subject that I’m interested in and educate myself, using a variety of mediums that I know work for me, has given me a pseudo-graduate level of knowledge in a few areas. It’s not because I’m wicked smart, it’s because the opportunity and interest coincide. That’s natural learning, in a nutshell.

It’s why Microsoft exists.

Okay. Before you start hating on Bill, listen to the point.

MS used to be a really damn respected brand, and it was built from one little dude’s brain. (Incidentally, I think Stevie’s story is similar, but I’m not positive.) Bill was a nerd. Bill like computer stuff – what he had access to – so he bartered for more access, in his own time, and started living and breathing the things. Because he was Unschooling himself. His parents allowed him to stay out all hours, knowing he was safe in a gigantic room with a gigantic computer, because they saw the passion he had and the speciality he was amassing.

Get back in the Delorian, and we have Microsoft. And a once-veritable monopoly.

Had Bill’s parents assumed that what he was taking in school was enough, that a bedtime was to be enforced, or that he wasn’t to be trusted with all of this free time, you might not get to use Windows 7 or Vista. I know how sad you’d be, then.

After all of these words, I’ve convoluted (and proved) the initial message: media, like in tonight’s show, is too focused on classing people, which leads to people judging other people.

Some, after watching the show, are now thinking ew, Unschooling, and I’m sitting here going, ‘No! That’s not Unschooling! That’s Unparenting!’.

103 days.

That’s how long it’s been since I’ve had a drink. More than a sip. That’s how long it’s been that I’ve considered myself sober.

I don’t think I’ve ever, really, written about being an alcoholic. I’ve written about drinking. About substituting drugs or men with booze. About partying when I was younger. About my ex. I haven’t written – but my archives are too long and self-indulgent a thing for me to confirm this, so I could be wrong – that I am one.

I’ve talked about being bipolar, and the drinking that came with it – because it made the high reach superhero-heights. Being depressed and the self-medicating of it – because it soothed the lack of soul. Being free for the first time from the child that had been under my watchful eyes for nearly a year and a half and overdoing it. About replacing food with alcohol – it keeps you warm, while starvation makes you cold. I might have even mentioned that I first learned how to make myself throw up with a few pounds of cheap vodka.

But never this.

I’ve been every kind of drunk there is. I’ve woken up and finished off the bottle from the night before, looked in the fridge and found more for breakfast; I’ve been the person who could (and would) drink you under the table; the girl who got the giggles after a rye and coke; the one who refused to drink beer; the one who polished off a 12-pack and then walked to the liquor store; I’ve stashed mickies in the toilet tank, in a large-sized Ziploc, and only drank from it when the shower was running (I took a lot more showers, then); I’ve sat, at some points, and drank half a bottle of bitch beer in two seconds and then savoured the rest over an hour, enjoying getting slammed by the buzz, all at once; I’ve waited until Zoë was tucked in, kissed her forehead, told her I loved her, and walked to the fridge with a dish towel so that I could silently open the single drink I would allow myself.

I remember my first drink, my last drink, and some of the drinks in between. I remember the fights and the fucking and the smeared eyeliner that was left the next morning as proof. I remember sitting in the bottom of a tub and crying because all I wanted was a drink, and I couldn’t because I was pregnant and had been lecturing the ex about his drinking. I remember puking all over myself, and multiple hangovers that lasted for days, and that time I did that thing that I’m still ashamed of, and alcohol poisoning. I remember stating clearly to my father when I was eight that I would never drink, do drugs or smoke. I didn’t keep that promise for very long after that, in the way that grown-up years seem to pass so much faster.

I was an alcoholic the first time I intentionally drank. Cocaine, heroin, cigarettes (once upon a time) could all be annexed so easily, but knowing booze so intimately, it being knitted right into my DNA, made me done-for.

Anorexics have weird eating patterns. That seems like an understatement, but what I mean to say is that if you really observe an anorexic during a meal, you’ll notice little habits and rituals they must go through. A big time fun one is the measuring or counting of food. Have you ever counted out 100 no-name brand (plain) cheerios and then made them last for an entire day, from morning to night? I have.

I’ve drank like that, too: measured out specific amounts, with specific time frames. Because if you only drink the equivalent of a third of a shot every hour, it doesn’t count. Especially if you drink it out of a medicine dropper. I’ve denied myself the urge to drink. Not because it was a problem, but because it had more calories, and because anorexia imprints you with the need to do without things that make you happy, healthy or sane.

When I’ve quit drinking before, it’s been because I was growing someone, or I was eating away at myself.

Now, it’s been 103 days. And I could go through so many differing stereotypes of what it’s been like, or what’s changed, or how hard or easy it’s seemed. I could be strong, and project myself as someone owning this beast I’ve caged for all of those squares on the calendar. I could lie, outright, and tell you that when I walk past the liquor store with Zoë, as we do nearly every day, I don’t think about walking in, running my fingertips over a bottle of vodka and telling myself that I don’t have a problem.

But I don’t lie. And that would be quite a feat of self-betrayal, to join in the same rally-cry that the ex has used.

“I’m not falling down, I get my shit taken care of, I have work, I have a place to live, and my kid is happy. I don’t have a problem, you do.”

Yeah, buddy, you’re right. I do. And I stopped feeding it 103 days ago. When will you?

You can find more of my 52-week Photo Project here.

I have these cookbooks.

In actuality, I have a lot of books with recipes in them, and a lot of bookmarks saved on my computer. I rarely, if ever use them. And if I do, it’s never to the T – I always have to change something because I think I’m that awesome of a chef, apparently because of food allergies, and now, our new-found vegan practices.

The thing of it is: I’ve known a lot of people who didn’t consider themselves very good cooks, because they couldn’t follow a recipe and make it look like the photo in the book, or because they couldn’t say, “Self, let’s make a cake!” and just pull out ingredients, willy-nilly.

Did I just age myself, using the phrase ‘willy-nilly’?

I can’t do either of those very well, either. I can follow a recipe and it’ll probably look different than in the book, and I can throw together some ingredients to make a soup or sauce or dressing or dip, but nothing so chef-defining as a baked good.

I need guidelines for that shit.

I also need guidelines for the beginning of vegan cooking, because as much as I like to think that I know everything about nutrition, combining gluten-free, dairy-free, protein and calcium-rich food stuffs in my head is libel to cause something to blow.

Enter those cookbooks I have.

Tonight’s dinner had two functions: chase away the cold bug that Zoë and I seem to have picked up, and use up some of the veggies I’ve got in the crisper. Because I don’t wanna be sick, and I might have embraced one-too-many a produce sale in the past week.

Can you say home-made veggie stock and pasta sauce?

Based on the recipe from La Dolce Vegan! Vegan Livin’ Made Easy*, here’s the recipe:

2 medium leeks, sliced (white and pale green parts only)
2 T. olive oil (I used extra virgin. Hah.)
2 medium potatoes, cubed (I used one white and one Yukon gold)
2 c. vegetable stock (I used Campbell’s, but I’ll try it again soon with home-made)
1/4 t. salt and ground black pepper, each (I used sea salt and fresh black peppercorns)
1/2 c. cold coconut milk
Dried dill weed, to garnish

1. Sauté the leeks until they become transparent in half the oil over medium heat.
2. Add the rest of the oil and the potatoes, continue sautéing for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent sticking.
3. Add remaining ingredients, except the coconut milk, and bring to a boil.
4. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, until potatoes are done.
5. Using a hand blender or food processor, blend the soup until smooth, adding 1/4 cup of coconut milk at a time.
6. Garnish with a few sprinkles of dried dill weed.

Serves two, heartily.

* Affiliate link

Time to lighten up a bit. Like, by giving you prizes.

What kind?

How about the easiest, funniest book about food, diet and eating that you’ll ever read, that’s guaranteed to loosen your belt, lessen your spending and cleanse your karma.

Not good enough? There’s also a $150 gift card up for grabs from one of my sponsors, SkinCareRx. That’s to spend on, like, anything. Not that I think you need anything. You’re gorgeous.

Okay, fine. Want something else, then? How about you tell me what you want. Because you can choose between cash, a slice of my dignity, or something, say, Olympic (to a dollar value of $50) {the Olympic option costs me both money and dignity, so it’s like, twice the prize}.

For details, how tos and fine print, check out after the jump.

Enter to win a $150 Gift Card
from SkinCareRx.com

I have to admit, I don’t indulge my skin much. I should – it’s been telling me for years to take better care of it – and it shows. I’ve got crow’s feet, smile lines, freckles, moles, ’sun spots’, broken blood vessels, dry patches, flaking, and get rashes as easily as a newborn’s butt. Did I mention that it’s thin, like onion-thin, and besides death-pale, transparent? Oh, yeah. Finding a vein or a capillary isn’t tough on me.

I used to take better care of it. I used to get gifts when Stargirl visited Israel and I’d stretch out all of the Ahava products and walk around, touching my soft, clear cheeks. Then I had a baby, and all things hygiene went to hell. Also, Stargirl stopped going to Israel every year. And it never occurred to me that Ahava might, a decade after I started using their line, have started selling online, or might even, gasp, retail in Canada.

PCA Skin doesn’t ship to Canada, which is a damn shame because the hidden product junkie inside of me (that loves their cruelty-free ethics) would like to take a hit of their Purifying Mask and come down with eyeXcellence. Which you could totally do, if you won the $150 gift card (though you’re really not obligated to go with PCA Skin’s line).

By 11:59p.m. on March 15th (that’s PST, eh?), do the following stuff, for a grand total of eleven (11) entries – or be lazy and only do one or two (that’s what I would do, and I will totally still respect you in the morning). But, uh, leave me a comment for each entry, please. I’m old, and I have ADD. And you wouldn’t want me to lose track of your entries because Wordpress’ trackback informer was out to lunch for my blog only, would you?

1. Earn one (1) entry: Become a fan of SkinCareRx.com on Facebook
2. Earn one (1) entry: Follow @skincarerx1 on Twitter
3. Earn two (2) entries: Tweet “I just entered to win a $150 gift card from SkinCareRx.com @zoeyjane http://bit.ly/bmV2qv“
4. Earn seven (7) Entries: by posting at least 100 words about this giveaway and the PCA Skin care line, linking back to this giveaway and to PCA Skin.

The winner will be notified by email and/or twitter on the evening of March 16th so that they can plan their St Paddy’s drinking accordingly, knowing that they could be getting a magical serum to erase all of the barley, hops and green dye damage for free. Plus I’ll update this post. Because information is power and name-dropping link-love is awesome.

Win Michael Pollan’s newest, Food Rules*

This book isn’t The Omnivore’s Dilemma* or In Defense of Food*. It’s concise, clear, unscientific, without meanderings or interviews with farmers. It’s funny at some points, and definitely sarcastic at others. Best of all, it’s simple. There’s none of that ‘Avoid soy this week because it’s been linked to…’ crap that media outlets, doctors, other diet books and Oprah will tell you. This is all about keeping eating simple and yourself healthy and sane. Did I mention that it’s less than 150 pages and full of white space? It took me 37 minutes to read it, I shit you not. It’s yours.

If.

You leave me a comment, letting me know a single thing you’d really like to work on about the way or type of foods your family eats. This is not an opportunity for you to talk about your hips, ladies – this is one sentence (or more, feel free) about your household’s relationship with food or treatment of meals, etc.

This one closes on March 8th, so you’ve got multiple days (and multiple entries, if you like – why stop at just one comment?) to nab a new book that will get you through the next swim lesson, school pick-up line, or mandatory Thursday night sex session a brief bout of insomnia.

The winner’ll be announced on March 9th, here, there, everywhere.

Win whatever the eff you want

This baby’s got a shorter deadline. You’ve got the weekend, until I get out of bed on Monday morning (you can usually figure between 9:30 and 11am, PST) {yes, my kid really does let me sleep that late sometimes} to leave me a comment -  each one counts as an entry – telling me what you really really want.

Do you want cash (you better have Paypal, then)? A contribution to charity in your name? How about control over my dignity, by getting to command me to do something on the blog (please, no nudity – no one wants to see that)? Do you really just want some damn Olympic 2010 mascot stuffies or maple syrup? You’ve got until Monday morning to tell me (as many times as you like) what you want. The only rule is that I can’t commit to more than 50 bones. There’s rent to be paid, and quinoa to be bought at Whole Foods, okay?

The winner will be announced and notified on Monday evening slash early Tuesday morning.

All winners must provide a correct email address for notification, and will be selected via random number generator.

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Disclaimer: I was not awarded anything extra for these contests, despite SkinCareRX.com being a current sponsor of Mommy is Moody.

Now, with all due respect to his friends here in Vancouver, and his family and loved ones, who I’m sure are feeling the worst pain they’ve felt in a long time, I’m going to say something that I’m sure 99% of you will disagree with, and the 1% that doesn’t, will probably stay silent about…

I don’t have a problem with suicide.

Yes, it’s a selfish act, usually not fully necessary, and always hurtful toward the people who a depressed (or sick) person is loved by, but it’s a human right.

I also, since I’m going out on a limb here (bye, remaining two readers), don’t have a problem with pre-arranged, full-faculties-based euthanasia.

Here’s the thing about suicide.

When people are really in the thick of it, when they’ve planned and fantasized and all they can think of to find peace is ending it, that’s what they have. It doesn’t matter that there’s a mom and a dad, they’re in constant pain. It doesn’t matter that people tell them they’re loved, because they’re unlovable. That doesn’t get erased because they choose to pick up the phone and call a 1-800 number, or a crisis line – not if it’s a serious, in-your-guts-cancer of the soul.

I appreciate that people come back from being suicidal and after unsuccessful attempts. That’s valiant and the effort it takes is something we should all be proud of, and our loved ones (and we) should celebrate every. single. day. they’re blessed with our presence (and the ability to tread above ground), because it could have not been.

That’s not what I’m addressing. I’m not thinking in terms of gray – I’m speaking of the people who have, for a large portion of their existence, so that it’s become all they know and there is no way to unknow it, terminal depression. I’m talking about the people who genuinely wish they’d never been born, who can only associate their life with hurting others, who see no possible respite, whatsoever from the darkness.

We all have a right to govern how we treat our own bodies. I have no right to tell you that the McDonalds, Jack Daniels, sunshine and an SUV is a form of slow suicide and that you should seek out help, immediately. But I can encourage you to find new ways of coping, yeah.

When someone commits suicide, there’s always this cloud of shame over it. This, ‘aw, that’s too bad. Best thoughts for their family and loved ones‘ that cloaks the simple message that I think we all neglect to note in such a situation: this person is no longer in pain.

When a friend’s grandfather passes away of cancer, what do you say to them? I’m sorry for your loss. Do you need to talk? And eventually, when it’s not insensitive, He’s not in any pain, anymore.

Psychological pain can be the worst kind of sensation a human has to deal with – trust me, if you don’t know it, already. There is no ‘not alone’ when you’re in the dark, in your own head; there’s no opiates that can dull it all forever (without being an accidental form of suicide); you can’t wake up one morning and decide that you’ll change, say the right things at the therapist’s and take the right pills and poof!

Deep psychological pain – the kind that drives a person to the really, serious, planning, no-going-back, happy-once-the-decision’s-made suicides – takes forever to work through. And when living with it has been all of the effort someone could muster for the last six months, year, decade, or lifetime, then fine, I hereby grant them the right to say, “fuck off. I don’t want to try anymore.”

I know how insensitive this post is. I know how too soon. I know there are tons of people who will never ever ever in a million years agree with me. And that’s fine. That’s your opinion. But here’s mine, in a nutshell: his friends and family are heartbroken, but he’s not anymore. His friends and family were heartbroken, while watching him feel broken all of the time, and now that’s over with. He didn’t hurt anyone intentionally, even if his actions did, ultimately, and from what I can surmise, he was very private (and respectful) about his method. What I’m saying is, ‘That’s awful,’ about his depression, not his solution to it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that none of my four attempts were successful, and I’m 99.98% sure that I will never make another attempt at suicide because I’m confident that it would ruin my daughter and that must never ever ever happen. Oh, and I’m happy and not suicidal. But. And this is a huge but.

If I get cancer, or another terminal disease, I reserve the right to party for as long as I can, and celebrate my life, and then end it on my own terms.

That was my father’s plan, originally – but he was so in the thick of denial about his impending death, he didn’t have the chance to do much more than refill prescriptions before he was in a hospice. Four days later, he was in a coma. Three after that, he died, in an incredible amount of pain, with fear and feeling humiliated. There wasn’t anything I, or anyone, could really do at the hospice to ease that pain for him, except for the one statement I could push out to the nurse after he told me that he was scared, “Put him out. Max his ativan and opioids. Bring him as close to it as you legally can, so he doesn’t have to go through anything, anymore.” And they did. And I was thankful on his behalf.

Cancer. It’s an ugly word that people associate with hair loss and chemo, radiation and pink ribbons. It kills, it causes people to rally, it’s like every other person you know has been touched by it. What’s cancer, besides a fucking asshole? It’s cells that grow abnormally. Fast, where they’re not supposed to, virulently. They take over.

What’s clinical depression? It’s a neurons that fire abnormally. Too fast, not enough, sinisterly. A product of nature or nurture or both, neurotransmitters spread like wildfire or forget themselves and rarely come out to play. It’s like every person you know has been touched by it.

I know it’s not the same, and that I might have offended a whole other group by drawing a parallel between the big C and the still-often-whispered little d – but to me, the similarity is clear and strong. No one wants cancer, and it eats you from the inside out, unless you can stop it; no one wants to be depressed, and it eats you from the inside, so there is no out anymore, unless you can stop it.

Sometimes, suicide is the only way to stop it.