They say it’s my birthday, na-na-na-na-na-na. Truthy portraits by Evan, his first.

It was even more vivid than last time: the very day Ben stopped breastfeeding, some kind of hormonal veil lifted and I went from raving straightjacketed maniac to unshakable stepford wife.

The other night I said to Justin “You know what?” and he said “What?” and I said “I think I might be myself again. I think I might be back to normal.” and he said “Normal? What, you mean THIS wasn’t normal?” (sits upright in chair clutching imaginary safety bar)

“Tck-tck-tck-tck-tck-tck-tck-tck isn’t this lovely! tck-tck-tck-tck look at the view from up here! tck-tck-tck wait, what’s going on? tck-tck-tck what’s that peak up ahead? tck-tck-tck-aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!! UUUUUGHHH I NEED NEW PANTS WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIIIIIEEEEE!!! tck-tck-tck-tck-tck-tck oh phewph, thank god that’s over… WAAHGGGHHHUPSIDEDOWNAAAARRGGGHH!!”

I guess that means he’s relieved.

+++++

The end of breastfeeding marks the end of gestation, the sideways promotion of what I’d affectionately call a parasitic love. And yet another goodbye to the boy we left behind, the last of Liam's mark on me.

Summoning him can be like arriving at a summer home already warm with company. As soon as I walk up the driveway he yells she’s here! and runs to me through the scents of woodsmoke and cinnamon and mystic. He might embrace me eye-to-eye, gruff and scratchy and with his own stories and adventure. Or he might crawl to me with a dirty bum, grasp the hem of my jeans with sticky fists grinning broadly to say up! then wrap koala arms around my neck. No matter what his form he meets my eye so deliberately, as Ben does, and says in his own way hello again mama, I missed you, and look, look at all this.

Or I arrive to see grass grown to hay, windows boarded up for winter, mothballs and plastic sheets. I try the door just in case, call through the porch hello? are you here? and get no answer. It is not abandonment, just vacancy.

That’s how it is now. He is not with me. I don’t know where he is. Maybe his next, a place or calling that might give him the chance to run to me again in some way, just now and then, I hope.

+++++

1979. At the top of the paper, saved all these years by my parents:

WHAT I WILL BE WHEN I GROW UP.

First up, and most important, when you are six:  to be A TEENAGER. With CURLY HAIR. And mascara, and lipstick (a.k.a. FAST AND EASY).
 

Next, I would be a roller derby star. Of course. DUH. Apparently an Amish one.
 

In addition to all of the above, my life’s ambition? To be TANNED. sigh.
 

The last and final option was the only one in which it was acceptable to have straight hair. And I don’t even know how to say this, in case the publisher falls down a well and emerges with amnesia—but I'm told it’s going to happen, although it’s not what you might think. It’s an adventure novel for kids, and in about 18 months, it will be born.

(What you might think might happen too, if I can pull it together. We’ll see.)

!!!

The minivan is no more. Finally we decided to eat the loss (thousands) and trade it in, crippled by gas prices and emotional trauma and vanity. We bought the thing—the pentecostal retiree convention motorcoach, the Ferris-Beuller-endcredits schoolbus, the circa 1850s battleship—just over a year ago because we were going to have three children, and three children pushed us hopelessly into peoplemover territory.

We are once again Volkswagen people, our fifth. It’s sturdy-sexy and it smells right. It’s a standard. It is us. And we no longer require those guys in jumpsuits with the orange glowsticks to help us navigate underground parking garages.

As we drove away from the dealership Justin ya-hooed I’m not even looking back! as I turned in my seat to stare at its bulk, a brick shithouse in a lot full of German minxes, my eyes suddenly glassy. Thinking as I do with every step that leaves him further behind us goodbye my Liam, we wanted you.

++++++

The grasses are knee-high now around his blackened ruin, lupins and bramble spreading where there was once hissing smoke.

Now to be a wife again, a friend, a woman. To laugh and mean it.

++++++

FB | Message : night out

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Today at 8:23pm

So girls: I've been thinking lately how great it would be to get out. Not 'out' as in a barf-encrusted sweater and a trip for groceries, but 'out' as in a yummy dinner downtown and drinks, plentiful drinks, and TAXICABS (!!!) and maybe even a few bars—just a chance for a bunch of us to get polished up and whatever else may follow.

I'm wondering just how late I can stay out. I'm hoping I'd be able to make it past 10:30. That would be EPIC!!

so... care to join me? I figured you might be tempted....?
xo Kate

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Reply at 8:30pm

OH I AM VERY TEMPTED!!!!
I may have to make it a full night and crash at K’s—she's away for the weekend, but I am sure she'll be up for it!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Today at 8:36pm

Oh goodie! ...I guess I'd need to crash somewhere too. I plan on being incapable of much else other than giggling and eating, so let’s make a night of it. yay!

K's going to get back from her weekend to find the two of us have invited ourselves for a sleepover. Where do city people go these days to drink and dance on the speakers? Where does it, you know, rain men?

Kidding.

Kind of.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Reply at 8:45pm

HAHAHAHA....no kidding, we'll find that place!!
I am sure she won't care if we crash there!! Plus then when we get up in the morning and enjoy R's fresh muffins and coffee... he set the standard last time I was there!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Today at 8:51pm

YES. This is so great. I'm going to have to find my way to Winners first though, see if they sell all-over body girdles. I'm determined to *not* look like a lesbian farmer as per usual.

although... if I try to not look like a lesbian farmer then I really will look like a cougar. must find happy middle ground.. must find happy middle ground...

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Reply at 8:53pm

you are too much!! ;o)
Yes I may have to pull out the spanx!!!! they do the trick!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Today at 9:02pm

Okay, that's what I need... I've seen them at Winners before but never the right size.

Christ. We’re totally cougars. Before we’ve even figured out where to go and when, we’ve already discussed the required maximum-support undergarments.

SexyGirl^TM : "…and, like, this is totally awesome, this book. It's 101 sealed envelopes, and you give one to your boyfriend every day, and he gets to open it and then you have to do whatever's inside. Like this one: 'Take one ice cube and one hot beverage. Put ice cube in mouth and…' "

(Mother #2 says meekly to no one in particular: every day?)

(Mother #6 snorts)

SexyGirl^TM :  "…here’s something, like, super-yummy. It's our exclusive Sambuca Girl lipgloss, and it comes in a cute little case that says DRINK 'TIL HE'S CUTE. Ha. Or there's always our Vanilla Surprise lipgloss, and it says I F*CKED YOUR BOYFRIEND. Ha ha."

(Baby #4 throws up)

(SexyGirl^TM hesitates, mumbles something about birth control)

SexyGirl^TM : "Now, something that's really important to remember when investing in a butt plug is to get one with a wide base, or else you could lose it, which would mean a trip to the emergency room, which would be, well, embarrassing."

(crickets chirping)

SexyGirl^TM : "…and here's the harness. It comes in purple and it's got built-in feathers, and it's for what we like to call 'Bend Over Boyfriend'." (waggles eyebrows meaningfully)

(Baby #7 farts twice)

(Baby #2 reaches, fascinated, for vibrating neon-green dildo with Wiggling Wabbit clitoral stimulator as three of nine mothers lunge simultaneously)

SexyGirl^TM : "Here's our Tingly Turn-On Motion Lotion. You just take a pea-sized amount and put it on your clitoris and it gets either hot or cold, depending on the person. I left some by the sink for all of you to try. I HIGHLY recommend it."

Fifteen minutes later, Mother #4 reappears from routine bathroom visit and feels conspicuous.

After every product SexyGirl^TM surveys the room and says with great authority, "I've tried it, and it's (sigh) AMAZING," or "I can promise you, you won't last long with this…" or "…and after it's rubbed in you can eat it, and it's MINTY."

We all stare blankly at this twenty-two year old with the dumbbell piercing through her tongue that makes her say "PENISHH" and "G-SHHPOT", mystified like we're at the zoo in front of some rare specimen of female except I can't figure out who's in the cage: us or her.

SexyGirl^TM retreats to the next room and as moms take discreet turns at purchasing, the air of collective "Oh Yeah, We Totally, Like, Already Do All This Stuff" is vaccuumed out of the room like WHSSSSSHHHT.

Mother #1:  "I've told him we can have sex, but the shirt stays on. There's NO WAY the shirt comes off. Or the bra. No way."

Mother #2:  "I had sex last night for the first time in four months. It felt weird, but by the time we were done I'd finished my grocery list in my head, and I usually fall asleep too fast to do that. It was great."

Mother #8:  "Before I had a kid I actually thought being milky would be kind of… sexy. Then I accidentally sprayed him in the face and changed my mind."

Mother #4:  "Why can't they make all pants like maternity pants? (room erupts into chorus of agreement) I mean, REALLY?"

Mother #9:  "What I'd like to know is why you can't buy lube in bulk, like at Costco, with a palette and a forklift."

Mother #3:  "When she said 'for two hours', was she for real?"

But then after she'd gone and we'd all unbuttoned our metaphorical flies for comfort one of the moms said, "You know, my husband, he's amazing. He does everything. He loves our baby so much. And he doesn't mind about the hiatus — or at least he says he doesn't. He's so patient. That's how I know we'll be ourselves again someday."

True love = that which transcends the temporary absence of vibrating butt plugs.

+++++++++

Usually, Evan tiptoes into our room in the morning and I open my eyes to see him standing there, nose to nose, whispering "MOMMY, MOMMY, ISSA WAKE-UP TIME!" but this morning I woke to squeals of "EASTOOBUNNY PWESENTS!!!" as he scampered away clutching a frilly, pink shopping bag.

I have never moved so fast before 7 AM.

It’s official. Bon, Thordora, Hannah, Mad and I have teamed up to host an informal drink-too-much-wine-and-stay-up-all-night-talking-out-our-asses gathering, a.k.a. Maritime BlogHer—or Blog'er if yer local—want to join us?

The invoking of the hallowed conference is entirely tongue-in-cheek—for expert panels, powerpoints, a hotel banquet and celebrity sightings, go to San Fransisco. For the best fish cakes in the entire universe—and maybe the odd bonfire or two—come to the village of Chester, Nova Scotia for the May 16-18 long weekend.

For transportation and B&B details, find us on Facebook (Maritime BlogHer ’08)—plans are still in the works. Drop me an email by the end of March if you’re keen, and we’ll help you get here. We’ve even got a few coming from as far as Toronto and New England—so don’t be shy, and bring your own marshmallows.

Kate: C’mere. I’ve got a secret.
Evan: A SECRET!?!?!
(trips over sock feet, runs to me squealing)
Kate: Hurry up, close close close.
Evan: YES?!?! WHAT IS IT?
Kate: (whispers in ear) Tonight, a lion will be born in Africa.
Evan: (gasps)

This age is manic, lows and highs, both him and my degree of tolerance. Early-morning cuddles, tub-tinkling, family dance parties. Hearing him talk to himself. Watching his face light up in delighted surprise. Swelling with pride at how he swaggers through the world with all the easy confidence of Ferris Bueller.

Flash-forward thirty seconds.

He talks back and yells defiantly BECAUSE I WANT TO! and escalates without warning from that to floor-flailing, spectacle-making. I am an unending stream of threats and bribes, bribes and threats, alternating like mixing dry and wet for crazy cake. A hundred times a day I transform from pied piper to shushing, snapping, scowling, growling battleaxe.

"BWAAA HA HA! Ben is AWAKE!"

And presto-bingo, dammit.

But then in the rearview mirror he grins, and I am high.

++++++

These days, I’m drawn to FLAT BELLY FAST! 447 WAYS TO LOOK GREAT – INSTANTLY! 60-SECOND TOTAL HEALTH FIXES! SEE HOW YOUR SEX LIFE STACKS UP! BELLY-BUSTER BLOWOUT! like a magpie.

Aware distantly that it’s all insidious old-skool magazine bullshit but overcome with "OMG, like, I can EAT my way to washboard abs? WHERE DO I SIGN UP?"

So I did.

"Any history of heart disease?"
"No."
"Diabetes?"
"No."
"Seizures?"
"No"
"Okay, we’re almost done. Can you tell me the last time you felt happy?"
(silence)
"I mean, when was the last time you felt content, and slept well, and didn’t have anxiety issues like breathing difficulties or mood swings?"
(laughs)

I joined a gym.

And when I did the incessantly perky girl at the front desk smiled kindly and asked, "And what would the family of squirrels that lives in the fold of your c-section scar prefer? Step aerobics or freeweights?"

I'm just hoping it will feel so decadent to have time to myself that the fact that it's exercise will go unnoticed by my brain.

See, I was born in the Chinese Year of the Banana Slug. Me and exercise? Oil and water. But driving Evan to playschool three times a week brings me halfway there. And they look after Ben. And there are classes and workshops and extremely motivating packs of snarling rottweilers personal trainers.

Even if it takes effort thanks to the declined metabolism and gravity of 34 years and three mostly-gestated children, I just want to walk tall again.

Progress so far—

1) Noted: you can’t breathe and suck in your pooch at the same time.

(to be continued...)

I look at the stats now and then to see who’s coming from where, a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.

Sitting in the second-floor manager’s office, peering through a one-way window overlooking the grocery store, watching as shoppers wander in, pick stuff up, squeeze it, put it back, contemplate what looks good and what’s limp, pay, leave.

Yesterday somebody in Plano, Texas spent seven minutes and thirty seven seconds reading through from the boys’ birth to Liam’s last day, every post. It happens from time to time and I don’t mind, not at all, but I’m compelled to reach out and touch you on the shoulder so you swing around so I can say Hey, hang on, who are you? That was my life, and it happened to me, and I can hardly believe it. What are you doing now, after that seven minutes and thirty-seven seconds? Are you watching American Idol, or did you flip over to eBay or Perez Hilton, or did you go to poke around in the fridge? Can I be you for a while?

Maybe I’m envious that browsers get to leave the store when they feel like the offerings are more bitter than sweet, close the laptop and think to themselves Phewph. Yikes. I’m gonna go make some popcorn.

You’re walking through the parking lot and I’m chasing after you yelling But you know that I cry, and you know about Liam, and you know about the pumping rooms and what the doctors said and about the canoe trip with his ashes, and where the heck is Plano, Texas, anyway? Doesn’t this strike you as kinda weird? Wait! Come back!

I don’t know what I want from you, the play-by-play recapper. You’re welcome, absolutely.

It’s just that the Interweb, it’s a weird place. And keeping a public journal is even weirder. It saved me, and yet there’s the nagging sensation of airing what’s sacred. Exchange and intimacy, both one-way.

At least it pays well.

+++++++++

Ben turned nine months old yesterday, or six months old by full-term reckoning. His feet are finally big enough for newborn Robeez.

When he wakes up at night I giggle with him when I should be remote and unengaging for the sake of sleep. I can’t resist.

+++++++++

When does it go away, the pining for the past or the hunger for some bigger, better, shinier future? Someday, sooner than I realize, Evan will stop asking me to cuddle and Ben will shrink in the passenger seat when I drop him off at school in my bathrobe.

And I think then, it won’t matter that I once wore shoes like this.

It won’t feel like such a shock, compared to the country life of a stay-at-home-mama—the absence of a swanky, hip job, an office with one brick wall and vanilla steamers and swanky, hipster colleagues and dinner parties and weekend mountain epics. Not measured against the shock of my children having grown to belong more to themselves than to me.

They’ll roll their eyes and I’ll shrug and say What’s so bad about socks with sandals? No one wants cold toes.

Life moves on whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestionably. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one—even those moments spent wearing elastic-waisted 'comfy pants' with three-day-old sweet potato baby vomit on them.*

 (*slightly edited with apologies to Henry Miller)

+++++++++

Shout out to Plano: Really, honestly, cross-my-heart—you are welcome here, and browsers and drifters and skimmers of all sorts.

Blogging can be tricky in the same way email can be, translating the intended tone of voice. This post came off as more melancholy than I'd intended, and more big-brothery too. Sometimes the stats jump out at you, that's all. And it's surreal to see how long it takes, to the second, for someone to absorb the most profound time of your life.

But that's okay. It's just a blog. Popcorn is allowed, so long as you pass the bag around.

Some funk. And not the welcome kind, the kind that makes you break out in a cold sweat. In no order:

Mother
Wife
Woman
Writer
Entrepreneur
Cook
Vegetarian

Failing grades across the board. And that doesn't even include what I’d like to be — only what I am, at this moment (at 10-12% effectiveness). That doesn't even include able to climb half-flight of stairs without collapsing like a heap of boneless jello.

In a compromise and experiment after two no-meat weeks I ate salmon, the most inoffensive slab I could muster, and now I'm having f*$%ing fish burps and it's totally disgusting. Every foodstuff I attempt to wrestle into supper immediately takes on the properties of rubber, primal goo or post-bomb fallout shelter. I stand in front of the open fridge with a ten-mile stare, watching as good-intentioned packs of tofu grow fur, bereft of mojo. Not that I want meat: I don't. Surprisingly so. I want a personal chef is what I want.

The only words I'm able to string together — all day long — is "Hang on <offspring name>, I'll be right there! Two seconds!" which, come to think of it, is a lie 90% of the time.

This despite Justin still being on paternity leave, and being fully involved, and being from another planet, the planet upon which every man is ten times a normal earth man in competence. Which translates into If-Kate-Cannot-Do-This-And-Stay-Sane- Despite-Co-Parenting-With-a-Saintlike-Alien-She-Can- In-No-Way-Manage-By-Herself.

I drive a MINIVAN.

Ben has become the anti-swinger and doesn't want to be put down, EVER, and he could reduce even the most rabid La Lecher into suckmastic spasms with his bionic barracuda latch. I can fold my nipples into f*&#ing origami. Right now they are flying fu&*$ing canada goose christmas ornaments.

I don't even have time to empty the dishwasher, let alone accomplish anything noteworthy for the rest of my f*&$ing life.

This makes me cranky.

Crankier still because I've got no right, because one of my babies died, and one of my babies lived.

I remember being told in the NICU that it was likely that Liam and Ben may never get the hang of breastfeeding. I remember standing with so much plastic between us, aching to have them scrabbling and pawing at me. And now having lost one of them, and having discovered that the other is quite the cheerful sadist, I am denied license to be exasperated as every other mother. The only response available to me is serenity, or else I'm an ungrateful twit.

And you know what I can't stand? Being so damn predictable, so generic. That I'm writing this post on this blog. This post that every stay-at-home mother-slash-blogger writes at some point: Where did my life go? What have I become? The days and weeks are passing and I'm going to be forty someday and THEN WHAT? I actually know somebody who was a guest on the f*&*ing Oprah Winfrey show, and not for being a shoplifting, gender-bending compulsive hoarder, but for doing something really amazing, and she has a personal brand and TV show and book deal, and she's at least five years younger than me, and I can't even empty the f*&$ing dishwasher.

But instead of spending every stolen moment perfecting fusion energy or selling my screenplay or saving Africa or training for the Olympics I am here, blogging about how I've got no time for outer space or Hollywood or the Congo or Vancouver in 2010.

I feel like this is it: like nothing bigger than this is ever going to happen to me. This is the height of what I'll ever be, within the four walls of this house. And I panic, because I'm not even doing any of 'this' particularly well.

How dare I want more, when I should just be thankful for these two living sons, and this one steadfast husband?

Or maybe it's just the f*&%ing mastitis.

We sit with wooly socks, red wine and frozen aero bars, feet tucked up under us, talking about our babies and boobs and lust and irrelevance, venting at the gulf between how we see ourselves (fully rendered) and how we are seen by the world (matron-breeder-minivan driver).

Unfair, so unfair it is. It takes at least thirty years and career success and pregnancies and kids to feel confident, compelling, worthy of interest — at least it did, for me — and now, catching a glimpse in a plate-glass window, JEEBUS CRIPES. I look like I've been sucker punched. I am Trainspotting. I need Stacy and Clinton to drag me kicking and screaming from the 'Young Trendsetters' department. I'm a stringy, flaccid, overstuffed sausage. Winter's here and it's hiking boots and long johns for the next six months. I'd be, like, TOTALLY the hottest she-male sheep herder ever seen in the whole Orkneys.

I know what you mean, commented Jana on Flickr. I can store loose change in my pores.

YES! Thank you, Jana-With-The-Gorgeous-Profile-Picture. Thank you for knowing I'm not merely fishing to be told otherwise. I'm just tired and cranky and my clothes don't fit and I've been castrated by a baby and I was just told second-hand about a compliment six years late and all I can think of is that if I passed him on the street now, he'd probably wrinkle up his nose and say, "Pheewph! What's that smell?"

When we're feeling our most ashen grey, our most worn out, the fantasy is not necessarily limbo parties at all-inclusive resorts or glycolic facial peels or accidentally getting in the way of a rampage of bearded Vikings. It's stiletto kitten heels and a pair of Spanx, out on the town with girls, feeling swishy and indulgent, pretending for one night that we're the hottest things in the room. Faking it until we make it. Group therapy by estrogen immersion.

Gawd. Just writing that made my Kate Skin Suit tighten by a half-inch all over.

++++++++

I remember arriving at a bar one night in 1994 or so and thinking damn, we're never going to find them in this crowd. Then remembering hang on, Lauranne's here! Easy peasy.

From a higher perch I spotted her, a human combine harvester on the dance floor, clearing a swath through the mob with wicked enthusiasm. This girl, she wears her heart tied around her forehead like a bandana.

She is going to be my friend FOREVER.

Those were our university days. Now we sit together at the Charlottetown Farmers' Market as she wipes smears of chocolate from her son's cheek, all business.

I can't stop staring at her. Is this really us? We are mothers. Happy as we are, all we want to be is that and more.

++++++++

Then there was Bon, the second destination of me and my baby's twizzler-fuelled roadtrip to the Island.

Someone I'd never met but already knew, both of us having walked the same hospital hallways, her before me.

We have earned the fortitude to bear the sight of each other, each of us medusa.

Did you get that, too? I ask her. People ask you about what happened like they're doing a community service, because they are good samaritans, because they want you to know they care about you. Then you look over and they're gripping the arms of the chair white-knuckled, and staring at their shoes, and you realize that to them, you are nightmare incarnate. And you love them for trying, and give them a piece of it gently so they feel like they did the right thing, because they did, but you're still so alone, and you can hardly believe that you lived through this thing that makes others think they wouldn't (even though they would).

Did you get that, too?

She looks at me glassy-eyed, smiling, and I feel that way you feel when you're outside in a blizzard and come upon a small cabin nestled in the woods, windows glowing gold with warmth and light. A glow that says there is heat here, and nourishment, and solace, and lemon tart.

We don't need to talk about our lost boys but we must. We giggle at the macabre and scorn the clichés and become weepy at the everyday. She could unicycle around her living room juggling flaming bowling pins and soothe me just by existing.

Magic. Sweet female communion, and we are not alone.

There he was, a flash. We all gasped and pointed, delighted shrieks peppering the deck of the old boat. One thousand pounds of iridescent silver, a beast that slipped through the water like silk despite itself.

Look! I yelled, squinting to penetrate the glare to the depths. Look at his fins - they're YELLOW!

Duh, said my brother-in-law. YELLOW-FIN-TUNA.

Right. Well, yes. Fair enough. But still so unexpected, his back neatly trimmed with a row of dragon spikes of highlighter neon. Cresting and diving, ravaging a school of trapped mackerel. They darted in panicked unison, imminent consumption rippling through them from one to the next.

The graceful predator unknowingly stalked in turn by a team of hundred year-old dories anchoring and tightening the encircling net, hand over hand.

+++++++

I stand there in the grocery aisle with a can in my hand, $2.29, suddenly uncomfortable.

+++++++

Finally one fisherman hollered to the others Hup! and from one dory to another a loaded rifle was hastily passed. It's quickest, they'd told us in preparation for the harvesting. To harvest, a gentler verb.

The great fish breathed, his shining heft now pressed up against wooden ribs. One shot, my throat constricted in some instinct and into the water drained electric red, life. And he was then one thousand pounds and $40,000 of Tokyo-bound food.

In years past they plucked tuna from this bay like apples from a basket, dozens at a time. Life Magazine came here in the 1960s to document the bounty from the public wharf in front of what is now my parents' house and in grainy black and white, men posed stiff-backed, solemnly proud atop mountains of silver flesh.

Now, inexplicably, the tuna have retreated offshore. The lone fish we witnessed a few years ago marked the first in a long time - a celebrated local event. I remember being exhilarated, honoured to see such a glorious creature.

The fact that it got shot was forcibly diminished.

+++++++

I've always eaten meat. Heck, I wake up by dunking my face into a vat of chilled bacon grease. The slab of protein on my plate is beef, not cow. Tenderloin, not pig. Necessary semantics.

I've always admired vegetarians in the same distant, mystified way I've admired mountaineers or extreme spelunkers or Dick Proenneke. You are admirable, and interesting, and likeable, but kinda KOOKY. Thinking kooky in fascinated and affectionate defense, thinking you are most certainly from a different planet.

Thinking I could never do that.

Confronted by the history of what's on my plate, that someone had to do my dirty work. Birthed and penned and processed and canned in factory and laboratory-style.

Confronted by a desire to have more respect for life and death, ours and theirs and his.

Confronted by the simple facts of what's healthy, imagining what it would feel like to be free of meat's bodily slug trail.

Then locked-in cultural hardwiring. HA! Not gonna happen.

Like coming out or finding God I'm feeling open to something new, unsure of what it all means. Prepared for the family to take the piss out of me at first opportunity. Don't know that I'm particularly capable of living sans-sausage. Don't know that I'm wealthy or knowledgeable or driven enough to do it properly. Don't know that I can make something called tempeh edible. At least not without a whole lotta ketchup.

But damn, folks. I'm inspired. Not to be righteous, nor smug, nor to McDemonize. Just for health, for starters.

It may not be for me. It may be vegetarian-lite. It may be vegetarian Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays minus Christmas and Thanksgiving.

Perhaps a transitional label... wait, I've got it. Fairweatherish, newleafitarian cheesyeggism. 'Cause until I'm savvy enough to turn tofu, we're going to be up to our elbows in quiche.