megfowler.com

is this old, you think?
i guess there are some wrinkles.
hand me that coffee.

Thanks Mom & Dad!

We’ll miss Quinn, but he was never so good at perfectly reflecting my nose in photos.

Meg: call the score

Dad: 4 - 0 Dallas

Meg: such a jerk!

Dad: Well you asked.

Meg: not for THAT!

Dad: you can’t handle the truth

Meg: you don’t KNOW the truth

Dad: I know all things

Meg: Okay, then who am I going to marry?

Dad: you can’t handle the truth hehe

1. THE BIGGEST LATTE OF ALL TIME. I know, I know, my need for these things is both ridiculous and kind of caloric, but that’s my addiction and I’m sticking by it. Sleep be damned!

2. 14 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Oh, how I love irony.

3. Willie Mitchell, so I can thank him for his “save” last night… and NO, STARS FANS, IT DIDN’T GO IN ALL THE WAY.

4. A masseuse. Erm, I would like them to get their hands on ME.

5. A giant bowl of fresh berries. Mmmm, berries.

6. A swimming pool all to myself. Maybe one of those ones with a disappearing edge that absurdly wealthy people have at their oceanfront homes. I would swim and swim and swim until I could not swim any more. Which is a long time. And then I would float. Which I can do pretty much forever.

7. The cute little Lacoste sport flats I saw in that store that were adorable yet stupidly expensive and would only be worthwhile to spend money on if they were FREE. Yes, I know what I just said.

8. French fries. I don’t know why.

9. The perfect springy raincoat-trenchy thing, which would probably look ridiculous on me because I don’t wear the right shoes. But nonetheless.

10. A puppy.

Part of living in the Internet age is having instant access to everything, all the time.

The latest news, your beloved friend 3000 miles away, the current weather in Dubai, your bank balance up to the minute, YouTube videos of your favourite childhood TV show, the song you heard on the radio this morning.

If you’re an information sponge like me, it’s easy to keep soaking up all the stimuli until you’re so full that if anything touches you, everything else you took in comes flowing back out in a muddy, jumbled mess.

I have so much to say, but no coherent way of saying any of it. Not because I don’t know what I think, and not because I don’t know how to write, but because my thoughts come together chaotically, more Pollack than Mondrian.

How does anyone make sense of this freaky world?

Still, my degree beat it into my head that I should build arguments from a single statement, and then frame my evidence around that central point — anything else would result in a cringing grade or acres of red pen scrawling “Relevance?”

Old habits die hard.

So here is the statement: Our only hope is softness.

Which sounds like madness, given that we’ve been taught to depend on hardness.

Steel frames hold up skyscrapers. Waves smash jagged cliffs that only give way in millimetres over time. Diamonds cut glass. Solid pavement skims underneath ton-heavy vehicles. Firm muscles keep us moving efficiently. Hard covers protect the pages of books. Calluses mark our heels.

Hard is safe, hard is protective, hard is stable, hard is powerful.

The victor is the one whose armor does not fail.

But soft is where we begin.

Suspended in warm fluid until we’re laid in our mothers’ arms, clothed in cotton to shield smooth new skin, kept religiously from edges that might cut.

We are carried and buffered and soothed until we are ready to be hard. To put on shoes with clacking soles. To fall down and get back up.

Then we put soft to the side and reserve it for touch, for the places we sleep, for the things closest to our bodies.

For anything else, though, hard is the rule. Hard is what will keep us alive. Hard is reality.

But do you ever feel like hard is all you ever get to be anymore? That you’ve lost any hope of soft?

When I see images of war, images of murder, images of hate, images of ignorance, images of suspicion — images of pure evil — my first response is a sort of fire up my spine and behind my eyes… a fire that melts me to liquid.

But then, like forged metal, I am thrust into ice cold water and made to firm up again, to move on, to do what I need to do to get through my day. After all, if I let myself soften for too long, there’s always a possibility that I won’t be able to solidify again.

And then what would happen?

I never find out.

I get it together and that’s that.

But the softness nags at me. I crave the warmth of feeling something that isn’t self-protection, that isn’t rational, that isn’t “coping.”

I know that feeling is born of love. I know that feeling means I can still be shocked. I know that feeling means I still believe in something other than nightmares. I know that feeling is what I need to reach for if I am ever going to do anything but look at the images and wait for the tears to sink back into my eyes.

I just equate it with weakness too much of the time, and then I don’t give in.

You have to toughen up to protect. You have to stay hard enough to shield yourself from anything that might come your way. You have to be strong to get anywhere or get anything done, right?

But that’s where my argument falls apart.

Because strong and hard are not the same thing.

Softness can be elasticity, too: the ability to bend and not break, to stretch as far as you need to go.

It can be insulation that keeps coldness from penetrating to the core.

It can be a shock absorbing surface that takes hit after hit after hit and yet stays pliable to protect.

And that’s what I want to become.

I don’t want to look away from things that are horrible because they make me want to break inside. I want to look and figure out how to help or how to move forward or what to do.

I don’t want to make excuses about acting or not acting because something is dire or far away or long-term or perpetual. I want to figure out big ways and small ways to do something anyway, even if it ends up being annoying or awkward or right on the edge of hopeless.

I don’t want to reduce lives to numbers and risk-reward ratios and “collateral damage.” I want to believe that helping one person is enough reason to wade into the fray.

I don’t want to forget how to grieve because I believe I might forget how to care at the same time.

Softness is always going to feel like a risk.

Elastics snap. Insulation develops holes. Shock absorbers have their limits.

The shit just keeps coming and keeps coming and there are a million or billion things wrong with our world at any given point. Not to mention the thousand and two things that are roiling around inside of my own soul, threatening to pull me under if I dive in.

I don’t know how to fix most of it. Any of it, at times. I feel helpless more often than I can express.

But I have come to the terrifying and beautiful conclusion that this world is due my softness.

And that’s what it will get until I’m gone.

Thinking of the students and families at Virginia Tech right now. How do you even begin to express how awful this is?

If you do, please pray.

My latte tastes like soap. Has that ever happened to you?

Update: New one on the way! Thanks, Theresa!

Hey! Hi! How are you?

Good?

Oh, awesome.

I’m so glad YOU’RE doing well, BECAUSE MY FACE IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE.

Okay, not really, but it’s a tightrope of medication and obscure routine I’m walking on a daily basis, trying desperately to avoid giant puffball eyes and the sensation of needles stabling at my nose and the Cleveland Dam of post-nasal drip.

Reactine? Check.

Claritin? Check.

Both “extra strength”? Oh baby, yes.

Advil Cold and Sinus Plus? As needed.

Handfuls of vitamins? Check.

Enough water to leave me permanently tethered to the bathroom? Check.

Weird nasal spray that leaves the inside of my nose feeling like I coated it with non-stick cooking spray? Check.

Sore neck from sleeping at an exact 48.7 degree angle? Woo!

I feel like I should just become the Writer in the Bubble and be done with it (can you have conjugal bubble visits?)

I’ve had you since I was barely into my teens, allergies, and I’m definitely getting tired of the routine.

While I’m thankful that you didn’t choose me to be allergic to the always sneaky Peanut or the red and deadly Strawberry or even the vague and threatening Pets, I’m not sure that you needed to give me a reaction to EVERY DAMN PLANT THAT GROWS ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME, FOR ANY REASON.

And mold. Because heaven knows, Vancouver doesn’t have ANY of that.

I know things could be much worse. Instead of looking like someone punched me repeatedly in the face, I could have my tongue swell up and strangle me. Instead of constantly having to have a Kleenex in hand to mop my face, I could have crazy hives shaped like West Virginia all over my back.

Or, you know, I could die.

But these allergies aren’t about to kill me anytime soon, I know (unless I somehow DO get non-stick cooking spray in my nasal passages.)

That doesn’t mean I enjoy seeing through tiny slits in my face, or sounding like Alfalfa.

If you could lay off a little this week, that would be AMAZING.

Or, you know, try not causing my nose to drip on my own shirt while I sit next to Attractive Bald Guy on the bus.

Again, that is.

Thanks so much,

Meg

1. I really enjoy double digits.

2. Thursday is a good day for a birthday, because not only do you get THAT day for your birthday fun, but you get Friday and the whole weekend after that to celebrate. Way better than a Monday.

3. Apparently, it makes me the same age as Alanis, Posh Spice, Kate Moss AND Ryan Seacrest. Ack.

4. If you add 3 and 3, that makes 6… which is exactly the number of espresso shots I require to think in the mornings. This will help me remember.

5. 32 was a minor wash.

6. Apparently, I’m in my “prime.”

7. The Canucks cannot POSSIBLY lose the Stanley Cup Playoffs on my birthday this year.

8. When my mother was 33, she had a 13 year old and a 9 year old. If she wanted to go out, she needed to pay a babysitter. With all the money I’m saving, I’ll be rich beyond belief by age 34.

9. For a short time, there is less than a 50-year age gap between me and my ideal man… Paul Newman.

10. You don’t have to show your age on Facebook.

1. Houseguests.
2. Playoffs.
3. Crazyass fatigue.
4. Certainly not stupid Facebook, noooo.
5. Mad busyness.

Don’t worry, all you sweet emailers. I’m just fine!

And I will do much better this week.