Tag: the body

  • I could be anything

    If you could be anything, what would it be? “Anything?” she said. “Sure. Anything.” hmm… famous, beautiful, rich, immortal, a whale, a dolphin, a famous movie star… “I’ve got it!” she said. “So soon?” “So soon, so obvious.” “Well then, oh clever one, what will it be?” “Complete.” *** “And,” he said, after a pause…

  • Losing My Head

    I don’t know about where you are, but around here we have a saying, “She’d lose her head if it weren’t attached.” It is (I fear) applied to people like me, those of us who are wont to put things down where we are standing and then wander around for half an hour saying, “Where’d…

  • Entering the Fallow Time

    It is a blustery day in Cape Breton. The river is dark and capped with waves, the sky is dark and a not-quite uniform grey. The leaves are starting to turn, and we are down to the final few days in the garden, in a race to get the greenhouse covered before it is Too…

  • Talking Vaginas

    Oddly enough, this post is not the G-rated stuff of my normal daily routine. Please consider yourself warned. Although it’s almost entirely about acting, not sex. I went back onstage this week after a near-14-year hiatus. And what did I use to get my acting chops back in gear? Did I, perchance, go out for…

  • The Ecstasy of the Dance

    … and then, halfway through the evening, the dance floor cleared. And I found myself hovering at the edge of an empty floor, with a great DJ and some hot music, and I finally didn’t care. I didn’t care who was watching, I didn’t care if I could do it, I didn’t care that I…

  • Tummy Tucks

    The tummy. Flatten your tummy. Get rid of belly fat. Get the abs you’ve always dreamed of. With this one magic secret. And if that doesn’t work, And you’ve gone the way of the 10,000 sit ups and One thousand and one pilates classes And yoga just isn’t doing it for you, And neither did…

  • Something Scary Every Day

    I hear that you should do something that scares you every day. I don’t know who says this, but I hear it. This has been a good month for that; I started sending out freelance articles, offered a rewrite when the first one was rejected instead of wallowing in self-doubt, sent off a proposal for…

  • Breast Feeding, Formula and Risk Analysis

    The choice between formula and starvation is a no-brainer. I had an inadequate milk supply. I did. Yes, I tried that. I tried that, too. With my first baby, I saw, oh… something like 17 doctors, lactation consultants, and midwives, including Dr. Jack Newman (the guru of Canadian breastfeeding). There were herbs, and pumps, and…

  • Maura Kelly is Wrong

    On the off chance that you haven’t seen the controversy over at Marie Claire, Maura Kelly came out with a truly appalling, distressing, and honest piece of writing this week. She doesn’t like looking at fat people. She really, really doesn’t like looking at fat people kissing one another. And she compares being overweight to…

  • Making noise

    The consequence of keeping your mouth shut is that you never get to meet the people that you agree with. A lot of us keep our mouths shut a lot of the time. You might never guess it from the number of fringe-dwellers that have started to speak up out here, but a lot of…

  • Book review: Diabetes Rising

    Diabetes Rising by Dan Hurley (Kaplan Publishing, January 2010) Let’s start this way: I picked this book up at random at the public library yesterday morning and finished it at 2 o’clock this afternoon, even though we had a ‘home sick’ day today. There might have been Backyardigans involved in the rapid read. I will…

  • Control that Lawn!

    My day today included a scythe, a push mower, and the digging of garden beds by hand. I also made a REAL pound cake: butter, sugar, eggs, flour, one pound of each. I added a pinch of salt to the flour and a splash of lemon juice. No baking powder – it wasn’t invented yet…