Filling in some blanks.

I’ve had an issue in recent years with writing anything too personal on this blog. It has always lacked the reckless candor of dooce (obviously the reason why I am not paying rent with the proceeds), from which, although I still admire it, I think I have moved further and further away in the years I have been writing here.
The longer I persist in maintaining it (how much longer exactly?) – despite my recent tendency to lapse into silence – the more I censor myself. This is something I have touched on before, and the censorship only increases as people move in and out of my life. I think about writing something, and then I think of all the people who might read it and I think, Ack! No! I can’t put that on the internet!
I’ve been looking back over this year’s posts – I inevitably become introspective when the New Year looms ever closer, don’t you? And I think it’s possible that if you came across this website and read it without actually knowing me, or what’s really going on in my life, that a lot of things would be completely lost on you. You might even have missed the part where TM went from being my roommate to being the love of my life (can’t believe I missed out on those ratings right?). He’s still often the main character here, but my anecdotes centre on him more because I spend all my time with him rather than because I like to gush about him. Don’t get me wrong, there is gushing aplenty to be done, but a) I’m not actually sure how comfortable he’d be with that and b) you might be surprised how many people in the world can resent a person just because she’s happy.

This is all, too, the reason I was going to skate around talking about the following. But as I was sitting here, going over my analytics, wondering why in god’s name anyone actually bothers to come back here ever, and trying to think about what I should write to justify my loyal readership of *gasp* 11 people, I thought, dammit, time to give my life some credit for being interesting. Time to stop hinting at it. Stuff DOES happen to me beyond falling in ditches, working, and riding on public transit.
Also, talking about this is made way easier by the fact that my Aunt Marie totally outed our announcement on Facebook, so there can’t be anyone left in the Western world who hasn’t already figured it out:
On the 17^th of October, TM and I sprawled out on the bed after work in our gym clothes and decided to get married. Everyone wants to know “how it happened” exactly, and all I’ve been able to say is that we talked about it. We talked it through, and figured it out. Which probably sounds more analytical than romantic to you, but I for one have never had a more perfect, joyous conversation in my life. It was filled with smiles and laughter and the wonderful reassurance that we are, as ever, on exactly the same page, thinking the same things, and working away in our obsessive brains on exactly the right way to articulate them. It was very us, and as I think we find constantly in each other, exactly what it needed to be.

Resent away! There are times when I couldn’t blame you : )

The other side of the world

I have lived in a lot of different places in the world. Until this past year, though, I had never lived in a different area of Canada. I hadn't realized the extent to which, although this is a different part of the same country, it is also a different part of the world. I guess that's what happens when your country is almost 10 million kilometres square.
Did you know, for instance, that two thirds of all firework-related injuries in the country occur in BC? Did you know that 90% of those injuries occur around Halloween? Living in Vancouver on October 31st is not unlike being in Germany at New Year's. What with the crazy dressed-up people shooting roman candles at random and each other. Richmond has even instituted firework displays for Halloween to try to discourage people from buying fireworks (illegally, I might add) for their children.
When I commented that this was a bit bizarre in the lunch room this week, I was met with bemused stares. OF COURSE you set off fireworks at Halloween. That's what the day is FOR isn't it? I mean, WHAT ELSE would you do? Throw pumpkins around or something? Fireworks are a time-honoured Halloween tradition. All the Hallows? They TOTALLLY used fireworks. It's been around forever.
It's just, you know, the rest of the world doesn't know that.