When I started blogging last summer, everything and anything seemed like a good blogging topic. A trip to the park, a conversation with T, a session with M and Michael, even frustration with blogster, itself. It was all fair game and I blogged constantly, sometimes posting two or three times in one day. It was almost like the cap on my brain had been opened, or at least loosened somewhat, and my thoughts and words were pouring out of me. It felt amazing to be writing again, even if it was just trivial nonsense or emotions fresh from my heart, without a moment to age before fingers hit keys and words were sent hurtling into cyber space for anyone to read.

I thrived on the feedback…the comments and emoticons and the new faces and stories I was meeting on-line. I loved writing something and reading someone else’s thoughts on the topic at the bottom of the page. It was a rush to see the number of visitors grow a little bit each day and I was perpetually checking my blog to see who had stopped by. I was also reading blogs like they were going out of style and adding people to my buddie’s list so that I wouldn’t have trouble finding them again. I read with anticipation each day and lived to find out, “what happened next”.

So why is that I am having such great difficulty finding something to write about these days? My posts are far and few between. I used to have a sentence float through my head…that’s how an article would start…and then I’d stew on it for a while until the words were my own and I felt confident tapping them out. One line is all it would take for an article to be born.

Now I struggle to find a word or two.

And while I really feel as though I * should * be blogging and while it isn’t for lack of stuff going on here in Janet Land, I still let the days pass without even logging onto mybloggers. I have managed to bang out two pretty shitacular posts about nothing since I returned to Canada over two weeks ago and even that has been a stretch.

And as for reading…well, I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t read anyone in those two weeks. Longer, actually, since I didn’t read while I was lost in America, either. So, more like three and a half weeks. Yikes.

I have no excuse. I really don’t. I am going to get back onto the blogging wagon, I swear to Dog!

So, um, what do you want to talk about?

Wanna talk about how the girls have learned how to play outside by themselves this summer so I am constantly hearing the side door open and close a thousand and two fucking times a day? It drives me mad, it does. There it goes again. Just as I type that. They also have a great tendency to come inside when their brother goes down for a nap. If he’s awake, they bug me to go outside. As soon as he goes down for the nap, I hear that blasted side door opening and closing again as both girls come meandering inside (there it goes again, I kid you not!), the breezeway messy and disgusting. Their new favorite game to play outside is grocery store. They take boxes out of the recycling bins and lay them out, around the breezeway. Then they take old strollers and pretend that they are shopping carts and they proceed to grocery shop together. That’s right…my kids play with garbage. Can’t get much more white trash than that, eh?

Wanna talk about how it’s not just that Don’s mother and sister aren’t “on our side” but rather that they actually * hate * me? His niece likes me, though. Course, she’s only fourteen and fourteen year old girls always like me. And she’s one of those super easy going kids that likes absolutely everyone. So, I’m not sure that she counts. But his Mom and sister…they hate me. They hate that I’m Canadian. A lot. They hate that I said I have no intention of moving to America because quite frankly, I don’t. I don’t have anything against Americans but I like Canada. And I’d like to know why it’s perfectly fine for an American to be patriotic as fuck but I’m not allowed. Explain that one to me, would you?

And while I’m looking for explanations, answer me this one:

Why is it perfectly acceptable to propose the idea of moving three small children far away from their father and their three grandmas and their three grandpas and their great grandma and their great grandpa, not to mention their aunts and cousins and uncles and extended family and family who were born out of friends but it’s NOT acceptable to propose the idea of one single, forty two year old man to move away from three people? Three * grown * people, I might add. Why is it alright to think that three small children should be ripped away from everything that has been stable in their lives, especially when their lives are in a somewhat unstable place but it’s unforgivable to expect two grown women to give up what they’ve decided is their fucked up stability?

Yeah. They hate me. A lot. And while my feelings aren’t hurt because quite frankly, I don’t have any emotional ties to them so they don’t have the power to hurt my feelings, my back is up just a smidge.

Wanna talk about the price of gas? Oh c’mon…I know you do!

Wanna talk about how our plans for the imminent future have been put on hold indefinitely? I don’t. So I’m tabling the topic for now.

Wanna talk about how some days I’m really good at rolling with it all? How some days I have this clear vision of what the fall holds for me and for my children and how other days I feel as though I’ve been turned upside down all over again and putting one foot in front of the other is a challenge?

Today is a struggling day.

Wanna talk about Don meeting my parents? Go ahead and get your ice skates…hell did freeze over! But it’s true. We were planning on taking the kids to Barry’s Bay (I’ve given up on calling everything by a fake name at this point…), which is a town almost an hour away from us that is full of aging hippies. It’s a cool, little spot with some neat shops and a killer main street sidewalk that’s great for strolling on. Anyway, we were going to take the kids there for the day. To get to Barry’s Bay, you almost have to pass my parent’s house. And while we were planning the day, I suddenly thought it would be a good idea to call them and ask to drop by so that they could meet Don and Don could meet them.

So I called and left a message and felt really strange about the whole thing. Then my mom called back and was acting pretty cool about it so we stopped in. We had a visit and while it was all very surreal, it was also just fine. Like it fit somehow. It fit so well that we met them at the beach near their house the next day and spent the day with them. How fucking nuts is that?!

But it’s done wonders, let me tell you. Now I can freely talk about Don, at least to some degree, to both my mom and my dad. My mom feels like she’s been let back into the loop and my dad does, too and that means that they’ve suddenly become way more supportive. They’ve started taking the kids places. We’ve started hanging out on the weekends when Rock is gone away. And my mom has asked me repeatedly to come over to their place on some evening to have a visit.

For some reason, now I feel better in this general kind of way. Like my parents have met Don so it doesn’t matter what happens next. Like now that they’ve met him, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.

Funny that, eh?

Wanna talk about how I really, really, REALLY thought that I was pregnant this month? I’m not. Don’t worry. But it was six shades of scary, let me tell you.

Wanna talk about how I tried a Coolatta thingie from Dunkin’ Donuts while I was visiting Don and how worked up I was about the whole thing, * especially * since they came so highly recommended from AJ and how they are the exact same thing as an Iced Cappuccino from Tim Horton’s? It was still really good but a little disappointing.

Wanna talk about my new tattoo? I got it a week ago Wednesday. It’s a female figure on my right arm. It started out as knots in a piece of wood in my basement, I kid you not. The knots always looked like a woman with her arms outstretched, reaching for the sky and I thought it would be a pretty cool tattoo. So I took the wood in and the talented artist at the Doghouse fine tuned it a little and then buzzed it into my skin. I love it. She’s right where she should be and my new plans are to build on her until the whole arm is finished. It could years at the rate I’m going. Damn this fucking poverty.

Wanna talk about facebook? How I’m having a new love affair with it because I’ve been so neglecting my blog. (Don’t worry, Mel…I haven’t forgotten about you and our thread. I’ll be back to it soon, I promise. I just want to do it justice, you know?). So, with that said, if you’re on facebook, feel free to e-mail me for my real last name…great addicts stick together, right?

Wanna talk about Vermont? Specifically, St. Alban’s, Vermont? We stayed over there one night one our road trip back to Ontario. Lovely little town full of the most mellow people * ever *. I’ve never encountered such easy going folks in all my life! I cut several people off in traffic, completely accidentally because I was lost and there wasn’t a horn to be heard, nor a finger waved in the air. They actually slowed down a little bit and backed off! It was eerie! They also stop in the middle of the street to let you jaywalk! And back up at crosswalks so that you have enough room. It was madness, let me tell you. It actually started to get to me, which is sad, isn’t it? That the lack of crankiness in a town makes me uneasy?

Wanna talk about the Cadillac motel that we had to stay at because Don hadn’t called ahead to reserve a room at one of other, non-creepy hotels before we left and they were all full? Oh dear God, it was an experience, to say the least! No clock in the room, the furniture I’m * sure * was from a closed up funeral parlour and it was all just scattered around the room, with no rhyme or reason to it. It smelled funny, looked funny and everyone was right out of a bad movie. There were several guys par-taying it up outside our room at some kind of makeshift covering all night and Don wouldn’t let me go outside alone to smoke. He made me leave the door open and he would hold one crutch in his hand the whole time in case I got attacked. I’m not kidding. We should really have taken some pictures. But the truly strange thing was that it was one of the very best sleeps I’ve had in a really long time. The bed was insanely comfortable.

Wanna talk about how as creepy as that place was, I would give just about anything to be back there, wrapped up in Don’s arms, my nostrils full of that weird scent and my feet entangled in the blankets?

Me, either.