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Going Blue, For The Sake Of A Child.

by zchamu on February 19, 2013

This weekend, I’ll be getting some blue hair to support the Make A Wish Foundation of Eastern Ontario. To support our team, click here. Or read on, to find out why we’re going blue and who it’s for.

Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

I used to think I remembered. I remembered being the youngest. I remembered trips and adventures. I remembered elementary school dramas. I remembered our pets and our family and the woods behind our house and living in my imagination, so much in my imagination.

Then I had a child. When I had a child, I really remembered. I remembered everything I had forgotten about being a child, because I saw it all in her. I remembered learning. I remembered how I thought everything I was learning new, WAS new, how that colour “turquoise” must have been just invented because I had never seen it before. I remembered the wonder of small things: of bugs and icicles, of frost on the windows and the magic of stories. I remember now how important the little things really were. And as I watch the memories form in my daughter, I realize how important they are. I know now that when I play her a song and she asks me to play it over and over and she learns the worlds and dances her little wiggly dance with her fingers pointed in the air, that song is becoming a part of her. And when she’s 24 or 44 or whatever and hears that song, I now know she’s going to be instantly 3 years old again and dancing with me in the living room, and now I know how precious that is.

This past weekend, we were at a Children’s Gala – a fundraiser for CHEO – and Cinderella was there. My girl’s favourite princess. She was not more than 2 metres from Cinderella the entire night. She danced with her, she hugged her, she cuddled her and wouldn’t leave her side. That was a special night for her, and a precious, precious memory for me.

This stuff… this stuff is so important. Memories are the things we build our lives on.

The Make A Wish Foundation is in the business of making sure that children and their families get good memories. They grant the wishes of seriously ill children – whether it’s a trip to Disney, to ride on a fire truck, to meet a real pony. These children have faced enormous struggles – hospitals and tests and procedures and illness – and in many cases, their futures are uncertain. The Make A Wish foundation changes their lives every single day by making sure these kids have amazing memories. But they can’t grant these wishes without the generosity of the community – of people like you.

This weekend, some friends and I are going blue. Our hair, to be exact. That’s right. Me and my overly-processed hair are going to go blue – at least some of it – all to raise money for the Make A Wish foundation of Eastern Ontario. And we’re doing this in honour of a little girl, a little girl who left too soon. She went to bed one night, and she didn’t wake up. She is now sadly, devastatingly, gone in body – but she lives on in memory, in the memories of her family and her friends, in the memories of wonderful trips, of adventures, of laughter, of dancing and of love.

I’m asking you to help us honour her memory. We’re raising money and going blue. Please donate. Join us to make a sick child’s dreams come true.

Electronic tax receipts will be issued for all eligible donations. Thank you in advance for your support.

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Sand Dunes And Sad Posts

by zchamu on January 17, 2013

One night just before Christmas, I had a dream.

In the dream I am back in my hometown, outside at my father’s house. I am standing on a sand dune that doesn’t actually exist, but this is a dream so work with me here. I’m standing on this sand dune with someone who used to be a friend, but I’m not so sure they’re a friend any more, not sure if they’ve been a friend for many years. Not sure I’ve been a friend either, to be fair. But either way, we’re standing on this sand dune and suddenly I realize that a sand dune isn’t all that stable and I think to myself, this can’t be safe, and I say to my friend that I think the sand dune could collapse, and just as I say it the dune gives way and I am swallowed by the sliding, disappearing sand and I’m suddenly buried, I can feel the tons of sand falling on me, entombing me alive under a pile that I could not possibly climb out of. And the sand stops moving, and it’s quiet and it’s silent, so silent, and I can’t move, and I try to pull in my arm or leg and I can’t, there is too much weight, too much sand on top of my body and and a dawning horror washes over me and I think, this is it. I’m going to suffocate, run out of air. This is how I am going to die.

Then I wake up.

I can’t shake it, this dream. I return to it every day, that feeling of terror and hopelessness and helplessness and fear and sadness. And every day, it’s with me as I read the news, learn of the dreadful ways in which people can destroy each other in an instant. It’s with me with every piece of unbearably sad news I hear. It’s been reinforced by the fact that it’s January and the days are short and cold; by the fact that we are in the middle of an enormous life transition; by the fact that I’m getting older and mortality is suddenly far less abstract than it once was.

And then here is the part where I identify this for what it is: a garden variety depressive episode, triggered by That Motherfucking Asshole January and its Stupid Short Days And -20 and WTF Is With All This Snow, with a side dish of We Have A Lot Of Shit Going On. The identification of it does, in fact, make it a little easier; if I can get out of my own heavy head and recognize that my brain is just fucking with me, then I can snap out of it at least enough to tell it to go fuck itself right back and get on with things. Well, sort of. I can get my work done, get my kid to school and back, keep us fed. So you know, the bare minimum I guess. But the house is a disaster, I snap too easily and have no patience for anything or anyone, and commercials are making me cry.

So the fact that this dream, and everything else, is lingering with me isn’t so much a harbinger of actual doom as it is my brain lying to me, like Jenny says.

But still, acknowledging it isn’t making it go away. It’s making me realize that life isn’t exactly hopeless, true, but it’s not making it any easier to get out of bed in the morning or load the damn dishwasher. I’m like one of those commercials about depression where Very Sad People mope around in their Very Sad Homes, like in the one where the dog looks forlornly at their depressed owner and the owner can’t get out of the chair and the dog is all PLAY WITH ME PLAY WITH ME PLAY WITH ME and the owner is all, dude, this chair owns my ass right now. What I didn’t quite realize, though, is that the person in the chair not only can’t get out of the chair, they currently actively despise themselves for not being able to get out of the chair. They feel unbearably guilty about the fact that all the damn dog wants is to someone to throw the ball, how fucking useless are you, you can’t even throw the ball for the stupid dog, you suck as a dog owner and you suck at life.

They don’t put that part in the commercials. Probably the commercials are too short. That’s it.

How do you snap out of a sad funk? I need ideas. Because telling myself to snap out of it doesn’t seem to be doing it.

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#microsoftphone #holidayswap or, @zchamu sells out FOR GADGETRY

by zchamu on December 18, 2012

I’m trying out a Windows Phone.

If you read this blog, you know I rarely – in fact, I never – do paid reviews. Hell, I barely blog at the best of times, and most PR types worth their salt generally make a point of working with people who actually write things once in a while (not to mention working with people who don’t actively say things like this, heh.) So for me, actually committing to doing something for a client (in the first place) around Christmas when there’s piles of Stuff Going On was certainly brave, if uncharacteristic.

But I wanted to do this one, for two reasons:

1. I like toys.

2. It’s time for someone to shake up the smartphone world, and I wanted to see if this device was the one to do it.

I received it a couple of weeks back, right in time for life to completely explode. Business trips and holidays and work craziness and plenty of things have been going on, so I’ve had a very thorough chance to kick the tires on my new toy.

The screen is far larger than the iPhone, and I’m loving it. I thought at first it would be too big and awkward to use properly, but on the contrary: It’s much better. Angry Birds Star Wars is a cinch on this puppy.

The interface is fresh, with the colored blocks scheme a cinch to use. Within about 15 minutes, I figured out how to hook up my email and combine all my inboxes, had a bunch of apps downloaded, had my colour scheme and layout changed and had a bunch of photos taken. It’s also intuitive: I can put as many boxes as I like on the home screen (at least I haven’t been told to stop yet) and organize them however I want. (I can’t figure out how to get the rotation lock on so that I can read in bed, but I’m working on it.) I also love having active widgets on the screen – much more useful and informative.

The camera I’m finding particularly satisfying. Once I figured out how to use it, I realized it took really good, crisp, clear shots. I also like that I can control a bunch of stuff manually such as white balance and exposure.

It’s still early days for Microsoft in this smartphone game, and nowhere is it clearer than in their App store. It is decidedly sparsely populated – notably, I can’t get Instagram, Words with Friends or the official Starbucks app – and the apps that are there are less mature. This isn’t a flaw of the device or OS – it’s just a matter of time until third parties up their game on the Microsoft OS, the only question being how much. Still, this phone is really nice. Really, really nice. And if as many people pick it up as probably will, the app store will mature rapidly.

Overall: It’s a superfun little device. Stay tuned for Operation: Chocolate Bomb Cookies and other fun with the #microsoftphone #holidayswap.

So here’s the disclaimer: I got my hot little hands on a new Nokia Windows Phone all complimentary-like from the good folks at Microsoft Canada. I have been asked to write blog posts about my experience and I will be compensated for these posts. I think. Although as long as we’re disclosing things I haven’t actually read the contract so I might be getting paid in guacamole and nacho chips. Which come to think of it wouldn’t be that bad, but anyway. All opinions, experiences, assessments, bad jokes, screwups where I say the device does something wrong that then actually turns out to be user error and everything else are all my own.

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A Big Deal About Wimpiness.

by zchamu on November 1, 2012

I’ve decided to start publishing some of my drafts. I have dozens if not hundreds of posts written in draft that I never quite finished, wanted to tweak, didn’t hit publish. I’m going to start digging some of these out and putting them under the harsh light of day. I originally wrote this in December of 2011.

Three weeks ago, I fell down. I slipped and fell on a perfectly dry floor. The entire weight of my upper body rushed to the floor and slammed on to the heel of my right hand. It hurt. In that instant, the pain was blinding. Had I been alone, I would have immediately unleashed a long torrent of foul language and writhed on the floor til the pain subsided somewhat. But my 2 year old daughter was in the room, and I didn’t want to scare her. She stood in front of me saying, “Mama fall down!” I swallowed my desire to freak out. I sat up and put a grimace on my face, faking that everything was fine as the pain slowly morphed in to a solid, pulsating throb.

The moment I fell, the first thing I did after I landed was wiggle my fingers, because I’d always heard that if it’s “broken”, then you can’t move it. My fingers moved. It wasn’t broken. Right? But it sure felt like something was up. As my wrist swelled and my hand turned an unpleasant shade of grey, I headed to the ER.

Xrays showed no fracture, which was good. But the doctor casted it anyway, because apparently some of the bones in your wrist like to punk you and not actually show up as broken until you’ve gone along your merry way for a few weeks, by which time you’ve screwed it permanently with all that breakdancing. So casted it was. And while it was a pain in the ass, I was relieved he casted it.

Because I’m always afraid I’m making a big deal about nothing.

When I was a kid, I used to fake being sick a lot. Partially because I actually *had* been sick a lot, and in some ways I liked it when I was sick, because I got to lay around and watch TV and sleep instead of go to school and actually interact with people. (Some things never change.) And then even when I wasn’t sick, I knew there were some days I just didn’t feel like getting out of bed and so I’d fake being sick, and it worked a lot of the time. Then my dad busted me and I couldn’t play that one anymore.

As I got older, the “sick” morphed in to “maybe there’s something wrong that will be kind of cool.” It started when I had a strange pain in my knee for a while that actually was something, but then it went away. Yet I pretended to still have something wrong with my knee for a good year, because for some reason I can’t entirely explain right now having something visibly “wrong” was cool. It brought some kind of cachet, some kind of attention. People asked what was wrong and gave sympathy, and I liked that.

I see it now in an entirely different light, of course. Now I’m embarrassed about my junior hypochondria and pretty much want to slap my 14 year old self silly. And I’ve swung the opposite way: I pretty much have to be dying before I’ll go to the doctor for myself for anything. Finally at some point in my mid-30s, getting more and more conscious of my own mortality, I went. Just to get a few things checked, all preventative like. And then something happened that reinforced my wimpy-ass shame.

I went for a colonoscopy. I’ll spare you most of the details except those that are relevant to the story: It hurt. It hurt a whole motherfucking lot. During the procedure they give you valium and some kind of painkiller, and I expected not to feel anything. I felt a lot. And none of it was benign or pleasant. I asked for a second dose of painkillers, the pain was so awful. Even after the extra drugs, it still hurt so much that I apparently asked the doctor to stop mid-procedure. I don’t remember this, because I was so doped up. (Important To Note: doped up with twice the usual amount of drugs, and still feeling pain.) Afterwards, the doctor – she who we will in future refer to as BitchFace – told me that she stopped the procedure “at my request” and dismissed me from her office. I found out later that she wrote in my file that I have a “low pain tolerance”. Which I thought was a terrible and completely unnecessary thing to say in a patient’s file – I mean, seriously, to what end? – but still. It stuck with me.

I was a wimp. A crybaby. Can’t take a little pain. Not tough. Weak. Even the doctor said so.

Then I got pregnant, and oh, was I insufferably gung-ho. I wanted a med-free childbirth. I wanted no interventions. I had lots of noble reasons – not wanting to expose my baby to unnecessary drugs, not wanting to interfere with labour. But the upshot really was? I wanted to get through something painful without being a wimp, for once.

Then I hit labour and I was contracting for days on end and not dilating and I couldn’t take it anymore and ended up getting an induction because I was miserable then that failed and I ended up having a c-section.

And the little voice said it again. I took the meds because I was weak.

If I had been able to take more, I would have made it through. If I had only held out, everything would have been fine. I would have won at giving birth naturally. For once in my life, I wouldn’t have been a wimp.

But I didn’t make it. Medically Confirmed Wimp it was. What she wrote in my file was all true.

And then I found something out. It turns out that BitchFace, the evil colonoscopy doctor, was not exactly what we call “benign” or “neutral” in her assessment of me. In fact, my pain was her fault. A story in the news brought many of her former patients together online, frightened that she’d exposed us to life-threatening diseases by not properly cleaning her equipment between procedures. And as we talked to each other, I discovered: She was well known for being brutal during procedures. Brutal. And I use that word to its full meaning: Ruthless, cruel. Not gentle: Harsh, rough while wielding equipment in to human orifices while patients were conscious. I heard story after story from former patients, about how they never had any problems getting procedures from other doctors, but they had horrible, frightening, demeaning experiences when they were in her care. Painful and dehumanizing. And then, to a person, she’d mock them for complaining about pain.

Then I started to wonder. I started to question the label of Wimp I had so readily accepted. Was she wrong? Did I have a normal pain tolerance? Was SHE the problem? Is it possible that I’m not a wimp? Am I normal? Was my c-section possibly not the wimpy-assed cop out I believed it was? Was it maybe, possibly, medically necessary?

So then I fell and it hurt and the doctor casted me and said it could very well be broken even though the Xray was clean and I was relieved. Ridiculous, right? Relieved. Despite the fact that I had potentially broken my wrist. Despite the fact the cast was a pain in the ass. Because if it was broken it meant that something had actually happened, something that was worth complaining about, something I wasn’t wimping out of. I Hurt, And I Hurt For A Reason Instead Of My Bullshit Attention Seeking Wimpiness.

Then, of course, I went in last week for a follow up and it wasn’t broken, and of course I’m happy I don’t need to be in a cast for six more weeks, but then the little voice piped up in my head again. Of course it wasn’t broken. You just can’t take a little normal pain. You and your Delicate Disposition. You always make a fuss over nothing. I want that voice to shut up, to stop echoing in my head. I should be relieved. And I am. But the voice, it won’t shut up. And I hate it. My wrist is throbbing as I type, probably the result of two weeks’ immobilization more than anything real wrong with it. And I refuse to go back to the doctor again. Because I refuse to indulge my wimpiness.

Because I don’t want to be a wimp.

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Important Postscript: This post was originally written in December of 2011. My wrist ached through Christmas, but I continued to ignore it. The Xrays had said I was FINE. So I was Fine. Never mind the pain. I was fine.

Then in January of 2012, a month later, my phone started ringing – the hospital, the orthopedic surgeon, my family doctor. A radiologist had been reviewing my films, and they needed to talk to me urgently.

I went to the hospital, where the surgeon sheepishly told me that my wrist had, in fact, been broken. A hairline fracture in the radius that looked like nothing to the doctor but that a radiologist filing my xrays had caught. We re-xrayed it and sure enough, he could see the scar tissue in the bone. Broken. Broken all along.

Despite not being casted, it had healed properly.

And I wasn’t a wimp after all.

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On The Occasion Of Their 40th Birthday

October 29, 2012

I am older than CTV Canada AM. I’m not telling you how much older. But what I do remember is this. I remember Helen Hutchinson and brown bowl cut on my TV set every morning – the same haircut I had and probably my mother had too. I remember Norm Perry’s angular face and laughing [...]

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Somewhere In Between

October 24, 2012

Once I got back in to my car and started it, I felt it melting away. I wasn’t sure if I was sinking back in to a dream or waking up from one. The previous 4 days had felt hyper-real, extra crystal clear reality. Like some kinds of drugs people have told me about. Sharp [...]

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Oh No! I Got What I Wanted!

September 10, 2012

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My 13 Year Old Self’s Dream

March 21, 2012

I’ve thought often lately about how my 42 year old self has, at times, been living my 13 year old self’s dream. It happened last August when I was walking along the path in front of the vast concrete hulk of the San Diego Convention Centre, leaving one fabulous party and heading to another. I [...]

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The Potty Is My Alamo.

March 15, 2012

I am pretty sure I’m doing this potty training thing wrong. I mean, I think I know “how” to do it “right”, or at least “right” by various wise people’s definitions. When one has a toddler who does not know that feces go in to the toilet instead of in their trousers, one must show [...]

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I’m not having lunch alone.

February 29, 2012

Yes, I’m at the restaurant by myself. I’m sitting alone at a booth for two, nary another human being within twenty feet, munching on calamari and staring at my phone. You may think I’m sad and pathetic. And perhaps you’re not wrong. But one thing I am not? Is alone. I’m having lunch with Robin, [...]