megfowler.com

A year of perfection or a lifetime of OK?

Act locally or think globally?

Seek love or let it happen to you?

Habitat for Humanity or PETA?

Conversational debater or peacemaker?

Avoid the news or immerse yourself in current events?

Social critic or status quo?

Love people or generally find them irritating?

Conservative or progressive?

Reason or passion?

The world is getting worse or is the same as it always was?

Change is possible or disaster is inevitable?

Motivated by excellence or motivated by survival?

Slave to your moods or fiercely in control?

Order or chaos?

Possessed by your vocation or possessed by your recreation?

Big picture or the details?

Drawn to light or drawn to darkness?

1. I trust Wikipedia WAY too much.

2. I am the natural enemy of iPods, even though I love them so.

3. I don’t like being ignored.

4. I would save approximately one jillion dollars every year if I subscribed to the magazines I love, instead of buying them every month.

5. Bitterness makes us typical. Hope makes us rare.

6. I only like shootouts when we win.

7. Finding music you love is a joy second only to finding someone you love.

8. Being easily embarrassed is the most effective way to end up embarrassed most of the time.

9. Nachos are only ever good for 15 minutes. Then it’s just a crapload of chips.

10. This week? Was a long one.

It’s Friday!

It’s not raining!

My coffee is fabulous! Theresa just brought me a latte! For no reason at all!

I’m leaving work early! I wish it was for a fun reason! Like going to play with baby chicks! Or baby ducks! Baby birds are awesome, unless they are still just beaks and eyes and tissue-skin with no feathers!

We’re going to go out for dinner tonight just because we can! We might use a coupon!

I’m ending all my sentences with exclamation points!

I’m trying really hard to be cheerful about certain other items that are occurring today, but it’s in my nature to fret about them. Just a little. Just enough to know I’m still alive and still OCD and still strong and still the kind of girl who gets her insides silently in a knot while smiling on the outside. (Or mostly smiling. Without teeth.)

Because I am.

You know it.

So, more questions, because my usual response to stress is, “Let’s think about something else! How are you?”

What’s the best song you’ve heard in the last month or so?
What’s the best thing you’ve eaten in the last month or so?
Who’s the most interesting person you’ve come across in the last month or so?
What’s the primary thought in your head as of late?

There. Answer those. Consider it your patriotic duty. And if you don’t live in my country, why NOT? That’s just silly.

Later, turtles.

P.S. Strange note: why do I keep wanting to call people “goat” lately?

I don’t even know what I mean by it.

You are such a goat! Why are you being such a goat! That man is a total goat! Gah, that email is such a goat email! Why be a goat when you can be nice! Meh, goat! Seriously, is there a need for this goat behaviour?

I honestly wonder about my brain all the time.

… are jumbled in my head, and I can’t get a single one of them to stay on my screen long enough for me to press the publish button. That drives me mad.

I can usually snap out my thoughts like a crisp sheet from a summer clothesline. But today, I can barely get them out of the basket and into the sun.

So, some questions:

1. Are you more engaged by sarcasm or gentility on the internet?
2. Do you believe your political views define you?
3. What makes someone worthy of a relationship?
4. Do you find it hard to get up in the morning?
5. Why am I such a chicken about going to the doctor? And why am I dreading tomorrow as a result?
6. What’s the last most beautiful thing you saw?
7. If you could meet any one person you don’t know, who would it be? Why?
8. Are you easy to love?

Just curious. And is anyone else craving KFC?

Weird.

In honour of Valentine’s Day:

THINGS I HATE

Artificial watermelon flavour
Gunky aquariums
When people use their cell phones like walkie talkies, complete with the BEEP
The price of books
Tim Allen movies
Overuse of the term “edgy” to describe anyone or anything
When people don’t know the difference between being honest and being an asshole
When I don’t know the difference between being honest and being an asshole
The sound of speakers buzzing from too much bass
Overly warm bedrooms
“Party” used as a verb
Throat-clearing to get someone’s attention: “Eh -EHM!”
The vast majority of reunion tours
The absence of lists
Oppressive humidity
Most movie reviews
Having my grammar corrected
The ongoing lameness of the trash talking in my hockey pool
Political condescension
Patchy wireless connections
The taste of Diet Coke
Sarcasm without end
People who smell inordinately much like flowers
Frappuccino/Ice Cap/Moolatte oil-based fluffy coffee drinks
Not being trusted
The celebration of unkindness
Kiefer Sutherland films
Joe Francis, always and forever
Losing my view at work to rampant construction
The smell of burnt plastic
When people ask more than four questions during a movie
Blisters on my feet
Going to the doctor
My sinuses
Cliffhangers

A turkey breast sub.
A pedicure.
No more headache.
To sing really loudly for a full hour in a place where no one else can hear me.
The biggest latte known to man.
The biggest blueberry muffin known to man. And not one of those oily Costco things, either.
Fresh SugarBath Sugar Lemon shower gel. So I can smell like a Lemonhead.
To avoid the sight of carnations the entire day.
To make a baby laugh really, really hard.
To find a book that I can’t put down.

On February 14th, 1970, a gangly 23-year-old and a green-eyed 19-year-old were married in a church in Burnaby. The bridesmaids wore pink. The roses were red. He only weighed 123 pounds.

Their reception was at Frank Baker’s restaurant in West Van. The salad was, by all accounts, excellent.

Their honeymoon was a weekend in Seattle. They only ate at Denny’s, because he was nervous to eat anywhere else. It’s hard to say if this is why he only weighed 123 pounds.

Shortly after they were married, they set off for Texas, where he would attend seminary, and she would eventually give birth to a pretty baby who didn’t like having food on his face.

They headed to their first church in Saskatchewan a couple of years later, and completed their family with a baby girl in 1974. She didn’t so much mind the food on her face. Or yelling random things from her crib when she got bored.

Countless moves, churches, jobs and challenges have come up since, and they’ve faced each one together.

He has been a minister and a musician for more than 35 years, but he has also been everything from an English professor to a cop to a hockey referee.

She is a designer, artist, and seamstress now, but she has also been everything from an art teacher to a caterer to the person who painted the sides of the buses.

They are fairly different people, with different personalities and different talents and different ways of dealing and different favourite flavours of ice cream.

They agree on their commitment, the way they adore their kids, their faith, their politics, the value of British comedy, the vacation potential of the Oregon Coast, and the intrinsic magic of Chinese takeout. And a thousand other things, of course.

They disagree about how one should handle traffic stress, the way email should be punctuated, and whether or not shirts really need to go to the drycleaners. And a thousand other things, of course.

But they are, above all else, still very much in love.

They are my mom and dad.

And as of tomorrow — or today, depending on your time zone — they will have been married 37 years.

37 years.

That’s a rare and amazing thing in this world, where people hurt one other and leave one other and devalue one another… just because they can.

My parents are what it looks like to live out your vows every single day.

So.

To you two:

I hope someone will one day love me the way you love one another. I’m proud of you in more ways than I can express, even when you drive me absolutely bonkers.

You are a joy, a hope and a blessing… not to mention two of the funniest people I know.

May you have another 37 years of nudging each other awake in front of the TV.

I love you.

Okay, you win.

I’m officially admitting I’m clueless and goofy and difficult and cranky and kooky and I don’t understand you at all.

I think I tried to pretend I “got” you for a long time, mostly because I had fun being with you and liked some of the things you liked and appreciated that you eschewed drama and enjoyed hot wings and were so very, very nice for me to look at and touch.

I don’t get you, though. Not that this has stopped me from wanting to be around you.

Honestly, some of you have been the best friends I’ve ever had. Ever will have. That I still have.

I can remember harmony sung during a million long drives, and thousands of hockey games watched and shouted at, and late-night walks through the crisp, diamond-y snow, and hundreds of goofy phone calls about nothing and for no reason, and that one time we tossed bits of banana at raccoons down below the balcony.

I am thankful that you remembered my drink order at Starbucks, that you gave hugs in which there was no “pat pat pat” on the back, that you did the two-step with me at the wedding where we knew no one, that you bought the blue shirt I pointed at, that you stood with me in the pantry and screamed in frustration at the ceiling, that you cried when when we were parked in front of the train station with nothing left to say except, “It’s going to be okay.”

Then there are the others.

The much smaller group of you that have made my heart feel as though it were dipped in gasoline and set on the BBQ to flame up like the Olympic torch. Or at least rubbed down with Tiger Balm. For months.

You have this power over me, and though I’ve tried to figure out the how or why and pull patterns from the crazy quilt of crushes and infatuations and unabashed hopes, I don’t know how you do it. Or why I let you.

All I know is that I when I feel it, it’s the best and worst thing in the world.

The best, because I am good at falling and lighting up like Las Vegas and becoming a pheromone-laden dervish.

The worst, because it leaves a terrible little pile of ash in the middle of my chest when the fire goes out.

You turn me into a spewer of metaphors, a maker of playlists, a neurotic ball of contradictions and wishes, and nothing like the girl I want to be in a relationship.

You know the one, that girl… she plays it cool, she stands up straight, she makes your friends laugh, she knows when to wink, she keeps things in perspective, she does not wear sticky lip gloss, she does not scoff at your gift of teddy bear or cheerful mug, and she has the internal gauge that says, “This does not work!”

She does not write passive-aggressive emails or texts, she does not emote with her hands, she does not trip over air, she does not blame you for her next big man mistake, and she does not — oh, this is key — believe it can work when all signs indicate otherwise.

She knows when her BBQ heart is still medium rare, and she takes it OFF the damn grill.

I’m not this bright. Which you know. I’m the type left sweeping up the aforementioned ashes and wondering where I might find a meaningful spot to sprinkle them.

And maybe plant a tree.

I know.

But.

I love you so very, very much, despite all of this.

I love you from your crooked, receeding hairlines to your Adam’s apple to your strong shoulders to your tiny little love handles to your long, hairy legs that seem to tan almost , all the way down to your weird feet — feet that you are self-conscious about for no good reason.

I love the veins on your forearms and the size of your hands. I love your stubble at six o’clock, not five, because it just seems more committed. I love that you look like your dad but have the good nose from your mom’s side. I love that you floss obsessively and that your gums show that you care.

I love you from the depths of your trivia memory and conviction about which kind of takeout is best, to the heights of your passion for obscure CDs and in-jokes and gadgets and women who may or may not be me.

I love you for the way your family has shaped you and messed you up.

I love you for the way women have shaped you and messed you up.

I love you for the odd but perfect things that make you emotional and the way my emotions leave you blank sometimes.

I love you for making fun of me when it was the right thing to do, and for your shock when it wasn’t and I smacked you in the forehead.

I love you for walking away when that’s what I deserved.

I love you for coming back because that’s what we both deserved.

I even love you for staying away forever because that’s what was needed.

I love you because that is how I am wired and the panel is inaccessible to wire cutters. Or sledgehammers. Or wrecking balls.

I am stuck with this, with you.

So, Happy Valentine’s Day tomorrow, you ridiculous creatures. I don’t have a particular one of you to stuff with chocolate and marinate steaks for and implant with telepathic messages of “No carnations! No carnations!” straight to the center of your brain.

But all y’all are lovely. Stand up straight and own it.

Yours always,

Meg

1. Go here.
2. Click on “Launch Site”.
3. Click on “Music” on the window that comes up.
4. Listen to “Thinking of You”.
5. Go buy it immediately on iTunes or get the album. Like RIGHT THEN. Trust me on this.

See? That wasn’t so hard.