The first time it happened was at the Matt Mays show at the Shore Club in Hubbards. Defeaningly loud, but damn. Good, dirty stuff, ragged and authentic (I know, I've mentioned that night before. We don't get out much).

Ever been to a great show and gone all teen-bop on one particular band member (and instantly understood why musicians command such vast quantities of cho-cha)? That's what this was. But it wasn't Matt-magnetism, as cool as he is. It was his Number Two, the other guy on guitar and vocals and one-third of El Torpedo: Jarrett Murphy (so google tells me).

Here's what I should have been thinking:

Wow. He's hot. I'd buy him breakfast.

Instead, here's what I was thinking:

Wow. He's hot. I'd buy him breakfast. What if that was Evan, twenty years from now? I'd be so proud. I wonder if Evan will be that cool? I wonder if he'll still be scruffy? Not smelly-pothead scruffy. Irresistable scruffy. I wonder if he'll look that good in levi's? Will girls lust for him? I'll think they damn well should. Ahh, of course they will. But he'll be a gentleman (nice, but not too nice… ladies, you know what I mean). Imagine what a rush that would be to see my son up there on stage. I'd totally embarrass him. I'd be in the front row NO! No. No, I wouldn't. I'd sneak in the back and he'd never know I was there, watching him pull all kinds of rock star cho-cha.

His mother must be proud?!?? <forehead-slap>

Every few months, it happens again. Like yesterday: a random guy on the street. Always a little unkempt or fleecy, but in the way that you know he'd smell yummy up-close. He's somebody's son, I'll think. And it will make me smile.

Am I flooded with chick-heat? No. Vicarious mama-pride.

Yep, it's official: I am a female eunuch. And just so gosh-darned antsy to see what kind of person he turns out to be. I've got assumptions already. It can't be helped.

('Motorsport' enthusiasts and Clay Aiken fans, please skip ahead one paragraph)

Will Evan be a public nuisance on a two-stroke dirtbike? Hell no. Will he have a mountain bike? Hell yes. Will he enjoy Top 40 Radio in his pimped-out Pontiac Sunfire? Or will he listen to obscure bands (perhaps 20-year vintage El Torpedo) while he tinkers on a beloved truck? The latter. Will he be a powerboater or a sailor? That one's got to be obvious. Will he be generic, or will he have a spark in his eye? Spark. No doubt.

Yeah, I know. To imprint your own biases and expectations on your kids is to tempt disappointment. And it's silly, too. Like how I'd rather he play soccer than football. Why? Because. Most of the football guys I knew in high school were meatheads.

I'll let go when it's time. If you don't, you end up with kids who resent you (because they can plainly see that they didn't turn out the way you'd hoped).

I'll be filled-up with mama-pride no matter what. I'll watch him, thinking: he used to crawl under our duvet in the early-morning, order us to peel off his jammies, soft and naked, rattling off the names of all his trains and giggling, pointing at me, saying 'boo-beeees!' And I'll hardly believe it, that he is now the man who stands before me.

I'll just about burst.

Even if he does play football. <grimace>

Anyone else out there consumed with speculative identity-branding? What's yours going to be?

I wish I was something. Collected, resolute, strong-like-bear. Or uncollected, shaken, scared shitless. Either would point me towards a course of action. But I'm neither. I am blank. No matter what the mechanics, birth will be decided for me, on my behalf: because there are two.

I pause, wait to feel a sense of fight or flight.

But it is plain, ordinary quiet. Not peace, but quiet.

Birth mentors summon the spirits of goddess, eagle, owl: I summon Plastic Man from the Fantastic Four. Bendy brain, bendy belly, bendy heart. Able to twist and stretch, too slippery for the grip of panic, to the point where it is done and I am a mother of two babies. Two babies that bring me twice as far from birth being subject to what I’d prefer.

I'll do whatever you need me to do to keep you whole, to keep you nourished. Inside or outside, waited for or early-lifted. I'll stay light no matter what the flotsam and jetsam: tubes or boxes or surgical masks or machines that beep. Or perhaps nothing out of the ordinary but two.

I'll be light above it all, strong enough so that you feel the warmth of it and know that we’ll be alright.

You are two! I have to be fierce for you, but not fighting-fierce. Plastic Man fierce. Nonplussed. Is stubbornly calm a contradiction in terms? I want to define it. I want to be buoyant, not merely joyous-buoyant but literally, unsinkably buoyant. So that all I need do is go limp, kick a little, before currents and physics pull us up to the air, for you.

a c-section would be:

pulling and tugging
flat
restraints
straps
cut
immobile
I would be a subject, object, case

It is unnatural
(the body is not supposed to open there)

At least I am still pristine, unopened
I thought, having narrowly escaped.

…but did I? Evan’s birth was:

pulling and tugging
flat
restraints
straps
cut
immobile
I was a subject, object, case

It was under duress
(it wasn’t supposed to be that way)

but on the same day there was also

relief
laughter
unconditional love
surrender
lime popsicles
kindness
strawberries
the sensation of a hot shower and reams of blood, strangely pleasing to watch it swirl down the drain, washing away the spectacle, to be me again. Heaven to be standing on shaky, phantom legs in steam and wet heat and half-darkness.

and it was over
and a baby-burrito stirred
and onto other things.

where did all that come from?
me.

Thanks to Brooke , Leigh , Jeanette and Marybeth , that strange new breed of never-met but intimately known friends. You've prompted and inspired me to contemplate the upcoming gong show with respect and spirit and pride and possibility. Lord, how these women glow. They make me want to bring something bigger than 'just one day' to this birth, no matter how it happens. They've got me lit. Thank you, fantastic four.

I leave tomorrow morning, just in time for the sky to clear. Vancouver's weather has had the same dampening effect as pregnancy — with the landscape sopping wet and the belly increasingly cumbersome, I've been relegated to office hallways, wholesome bedtimes and tall glasses of homo milk.

I got a glimpse of the mountains as I flew in, heart catching in my throat, and another as the clouds lifted just before dark tonight. The ground is a sponge, and every excursion is an umbrella-toting, puddle-hopping dash. I'm told these days have capped a two-week downpour. Even the locals are complaining, the radio glutted with talk of imminent mudslides and north shore evacuations.

When I was here last June, it was glorious. A five-day trip felt like two weeks, packed with reunions and dinners and adventures and I-never-want-to-forget-how-this-feels photo ops. This time was a head-down slosh through the rain, wincing at long walks from meeting to meeting in lovely dainty shoes, contemplating the potential sciatica I'm nursing more than the lifestyle we miss. This time, five days have felt more like two days… worthwhile and appreciated, but a relative blur of limitations and restraint.

You know the scene in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation where Clark Griswald proudly emerges from the kitchen with the Christmas turkey? He places it on the table, bulbous and glistening, and presses the point of the knife into a breast to start the ritual of carving. The bird then implodes in a whoosh of overcooked steam, dehydrated to a crisp.

I am the turkey.

I cup it, hold it in, will it to stop stretching, to slow down. People glance sideways at me and say, "Oh look, maternal sweetness.. she's caressing her belly without realizing she's doing it… how sweet... quick, someone go exhume Norman Rockwell so that we can capture this…"

But they don't realize: I HAVE to hold it in. If I don't, it’s going to pop like a too-taut balloon and it's going to be, like, TOTALLY grody, and YOU will have to clean it up.

I have had the same conversation 1,276 times every day with every person I've met, from corporate VPs to café baristas:

• No, I haven't just eaten too much.
• July 26.
• Yes, quite a while still to go.
• Yes, only five months along.
• Because there's two.
• <insert jaw-drops and mouth-claps>
• <hush falls over room, small crowd gathers>
• Yes, I'm "going to have my hands full!"
• No, I didn't "plan it this way."
• Yes, twins are in my family but they have no bearing on me because mine are identical and identicals are a random egg-split and only fraternal twins can be genetic because that's multiple eggs released in one cycle and the trait of being an egg-rich woman comes from the women in your line and there aren't any twins on my maternal side.
• (OR No, twins don't run in my family.)
• No, I didn't take drugs.
• <insert incredulous stare, as though I MUST have done SOMETHING to make this happen other than playing too much ordinary hide-the-pickle)
• No, I don't know if I'm going to need a c-section.
• No, it's not really up to me.
• No, this isn't my first pregnancy.
• <insert incredulous stare #2>
• He'll be two-and-a-half when they arrive.
• Yes, we're having all-boys.
• <insert incredulous stare #3>
• Yes, I'm "going to have my hands full!"
• Yes, we'll have three under three. Thanks for reminding me.
• Yes, we'll need so very many diapers indeed. Thanks for reminding me.
• Thanks (for saying I look nice despite the... the... you know. <insert hand-gesture offered towards general trunk region>)

I can only imagine what life will be like when they get here — we'll be mobbed everywhere we go. We'll be The Beatles. I'll have to turn Goth and dye my hair black and get tattoos and scowl, look unsavoury enough to offset the world's curiosity.

It's already a spectacle. A chance for folk to revel in their own bullet-dodging prowess. It's got the entertainment value of the Point Pleasant Park Annual Polar Bear Swim, during which dozens of completely deranged gee-golly-shucksers storm into Halifax Harbour for a winter swim (ill-advised in mid-summer, let alone in mid-January). You watch with a smile on your face, bemused at someone else's bravado-slash-idiocy, tingling with cosy warmth in your fortuitously-chosen puffy down jacket.

That's the right word: bemused. Ha! Twins. Check it out. Yikes! Can you imagine how shrunken that guy's cubes must be right now? Ha!

A mixed blessing, I think, to have landed in Vancouver when it was on hiatus. Maybe she spared me, my mistress, by not answering the door when she had on her acne-treatment face mask and a grubby old houserobe. Maybe she decided I'd be best off not seeing her that way, in the interest of keeping the fantasy intact. She didn't answer my knocks, hoping I'd figure she was out on the town, swinging. And I walk away with a shrug, thinking I'll try again some other time.

Like maybe ooohh, in say, 2026. If The Rabble lets me.

I'm in Vancouver again, a relatively spontaneous business trip (translation: "If you want me there at all in the next ten years, make it NOW 'cuz I am going to EXPLODE and then I will never be seen out in public again because I will be TRAPPED under a rabble of TINY, HUNGRY, CLAMOURING, PURPLE-FACED BEASTS!").

(Preface: I really, really, really miss my boys)

Paradise. I slept in this morning until 8 AM (which, by Halifax time, is noon) and was woken up to the sounds of my 3-year-old niece scrabbling at the door, asking me if it was really true that there were babies playing a soccer match in my belly (I told her this last night, and apparently it stuck).

I said No, not this morning — this morning they’re boxers-in-training, warming up at my kidneys like this: ga-diggity-diggity-diggity-diggity. Ooof!

Last night I dreamed that I had triplets, that the mastermind had hidden from the ultrasound. He was the third boy, the Klingon with the cloaking device. He came out last and went BOO! and I jumped. I woke up distressed, the dream seeping into wakefulness, convinced it would be true. Tonight it will be quadruplets.

Everything is so green and lush, saturated. It's my city, but I am rootless in it. I fly overhead and see all the arteries.. Granville Street, Broadway. There's the beach we used to launch our kayaks from, the cliffs overlooking my favourite doughnut shop in Deep Cove, the mountain, our Cypress… we snowmobiled to the peak, blinded by wind and snow, straight up the steepness after-hours with tents and beer for new years' eve. You know those memories that imprint on you so strongly, you can close your eyes and be there, instantly? I can still hear the deafening growl of the engine, smell the fuel and feel the vibration, feel the blizzard spitting on my face, soaked to the skin, look behind to see Justin trailing behind at the end of a rope like a water-skier.

My city, steeped in ten years' worth of thick, rich memories. But I don't own it anymore. It is a homestead that I built with my bare hands, occupied and interpreted by someone else.

I am gifted now with four days. Sitting here in this uber-hip Yaletown office with its brick walls and matching uber-hip people, cobblestones and thai restaurants and yoga babes with teensy bag-dogs and dumpsters all mingling outside. Nowhere to be except friends to see. Delicious, steamy goodness.

In the past year, I've spent more time than I'd like to admit topless in front of a mirror. Always one of two scenarios: either in a fit of despair, trying to rationalize the massive gulf between the perky sweetness that my brain remembers and the half-deflated water balloons that my eyes see — or, more recently, grinning from ear to ear and contemplating just how vain it would be to put on a gauzy white t-shirt, hose myself down and take a video in slow-motion soft focus for posterity.

At this very moment, I'll have you know, they're nothing short of blindingly spectacular. For me, anyway. I am a bawdy serving wench, overstuffed and lascivious — enough so that my bosom holds it own without being totally eclipsed by my belly. Which is saying something.

Alas, they're not really mine. They're theirs. Primed for a greater purpose than mere ooglitude. Once these boys decide they prefer sweet potato and blueberries to my titti-fruiti, I will wake up one morning with a chest that's about as lively as a pair of geriatric jellyfish after a swedish massage and a toke.

I used to have a love-love relationship with my boobs (if you can't tan, have pin-straight hair and are socially stunted, you may as well be proud of your neat 'n tidies). Then came breastfeeding, magical and convenient and all things good. Then it ended, bittersweet.

And in the space of a heartbeat they deflated with a great pphhhhhhsssht!

Late last summer, I embarked on a relentless search. I set up camp in an *actual* lingerie store (as opposed to digging through outlet bins for random odds at 40-60% off) and tried just about every size until… until… AAAAHHHH! and the angels came down from heaven in the form of a full gospel chorus with Oprah, Goddess of Personal Transformation, at their lead. Before the commercial break I had just enough time to twirl, and rotate to display the lack of back fat and chicken cutlets, and insist with teary eyes that THIS BRA was going to change EVERYTHING, make me into Me again. <applause>

I floated out of the store with a half-dozen beauties in my newly-discovered, locked-and-loaded size and threw out every other undergarment I owned.

It was a revelation. The fact that looks could be deceiving was a fine enough compromise for me. For a few precious months, the girls and I came to an unsettled but reliable ceasefire. And then.... ba-da-bing... pregnant. And today BUSTing out of two cups up, sashay/waddling to and fro and relishing in every catcall (from my two-year-old).

I must believe in this: the bulk of the deflation happened with child number one. Nursing twins? Bah. 95% of the phhhhhhsssht! has already taken place.

(Do it, I dare you: say the word 'deluded' and I will personally come to your house and use my belly to smush you into the wall like a bug.)

To sleep soundly, I turn to a variety of self-affirmations on the topic (while ravishingly clutching my newfound bazongas, as temporary as they may be):

• Gravity spares no woman (Pamela Anderson excepted). Breastfeeding simply triggers what is an inevitable process.
• Puppies don't discriminate as to who gives them love. They take joy in whomever is handy. Likewise: our men. Women are a lot harder on ourselves than they are. Uncomplicated instincts point them to appreciate titties, jugs and funbags of all shapes and sizes and quirks — even more so the ones that are legally theirs. Besides — the sensible ones, smirking at their own receding hairlines and increasingly fuzzy backs, are contentedly oblivious to the minor physical foibles of the woman they love.
• There are a lot of well-loved, wonky boobies out there. Round, symmetrical and pert is not the norm. Ours may be a little less than what they were pre-motherhood, and we may despair at that post-pregnancy "I-am-an-alien-and-my-human-female-suit-is-a-half-size-too-big" feeling. But regardless of all that, we can still fight back to some semblance of peace and satisfaction with our physical, feminine selves. Can't we?

(Do it, I dare you: say the word 'deluded' and I will personally come to your house and use my belly to smush you into the wall like a bug.)

Dinglehoffer. Twig 'n berries. Wedding tackle. Meat 'n two veg.

What do you call it (when it’s two years old, that is)?

The other day, after sitting transfixed for his daily Japanese-style brainwashing, Evan the pantless wonder spent an hour playing with his potty. As soon as he sat on it I could see that physics and velocity were not in our favour — should he pee, it would shoot directly forward all over his legs and onto the floor.

"Evan, see what we do? You sit down, and tuck in your pizzle, and then… psssss!"

The problem started when Justin heard me call it a pizzle. It’s just what came out.

"You can’t call it that!" he protested, with much more generalized male offense than I expected.

"Why?” I said. “What would you call it?"

"Wee-wee," he said. "Or pee-pee. Anything else and he’ll get teased as soon as the other kids hear him say it."

On behalf of all females, accused as we are of having overly complicated natures, I say this: WTF?!?!

On what planet is pizzle worse than wee-wee? A wee-wee gets sand kicked in its face. A pizzle has a snarky comeback. A wee-wee whines. A pizzle does cool party tricks.

The only thing that’s for certain: I’m not a fan of p-nis. The word, that is.

(I suppose my current gestational state exempts me from the 'not a fan of p-nis' category. Sorry mom, I couldn’t resist. Don't print this one out for Gram.)

The word.. it's just too stuffy. Too prissy. I don’t want a replacement because it makes me squeamish — I want a replacement because 'p-nis' doesn’t reflect how I’d like Evan to perceive his body. In my mind, a healthy sense of self requires a little humour, lightness, silliness. We all have digglers and danglers and foibles, and we're damned if we can't laugh at them. If I had a daughter (sigh), you’d never catch me using the word 'v-gina'. I'd teach her the official name eventually, of course, but we’d come up with something more colourful for everyday use. Cho-cha, perhaps. Kit-cat. Anything but what shows up in snufty textbooks.

It’s sacred because it’s yours, and it’s a gift, and it’s private. On those counts, I couldn’t be any more solemn. But why call them 'testes' when you can call them.. when you can call them…

(Pardon me a moment. He’s just in the kitchen. I don’t know these things.)

"What did you call them, when you were a kid? If the front bit’s a wee-wee, what’s the under-bits?"

"Uhhh…"

"Or are the under-bits kind of unimportant, since they’re not a part of daily operation?"

<sighs affectedly> "You’re not writing a post about this, are you?"

Too often, the Internet makes me want to live off the grid.

For how it amplifies the moronic and the false. For the addictive, dump ‘n run validation it gives people who would otherwise, mercifully, be ignored. In real life we suffer consequences for sinking to ‘HUHUH eww doggy she got 2 go she fugly bee-atch 2 lol!!!’. Karmic justice awaits the crass and the ignorant, holding them back in life. But online, anonymity frees the collective to be as stunted as it wants to be.

I know. It’s against the whole point to be elitist. I have a voice here that I wouldn’t otherwise have, to express things that may seem like pointless drivel to many. Who am I to say ‘fugly bee-atch lol!!!’ doesn’t serve a purpose, somewhere, for someone?

In concept, it’s the ultimate democracy. Don’t like it? Don’t look at it. The hallmark of the free countries of the world. Except that on the Internet, what you’d rather not witness is piss in the pool.

All mixed up: knowing that Evan will wander through a world populated with such a vast underbelly, fearing it. Then resenting that fear, not wanting to buy into it. Then there’s sweetness, gathering places, sparkling discoveries, via the same pipe.

Ahhh! I love this. A bewitching, interactive story devised in Czechoslovakia that hooked me one sick-in-bed afternoon, me the vehement anti-gamer. The home of Cookie, a truly original, super-hip take on family life. A hysterical, kitschy Japanese potty-training video that made Evan want to eat his lunch sitting on his newly discovered peepee-poopoo. Mocky, Canadian indie funkmaster and Prince of a new generation. Babylegs. Babylegs! They will be mine. Oh yes: they will be mine. Uglydolls: likewise. Ivor the Engine, an obscure but priceless Welsh cartoon series from decades ago that is on constant standby in our household. Better geeks than I know there is more to life than mere del.icio.us tags, but I’m steadfastly in love with this online version of the closet of my brain. And there's digger-ballet, the big, fat doobie of the toddler set.

On the Internet, bullshit floats. But complaining about it makes me feel like an old hag, shaking my fist and yelling at all the stupid punks skateboarding past my house. All we can do is revel in the nuggets of gold we dig out of the vastness, share them vociferously and do our best to not judge humanity by one unfortunate thread on Salon.

Besides, who am I to talk? Justin and I are watching Borat right now, and had to pause it from laughing so hard. Particularly when he pronounces to a southern dinner party, “Ahh, my sister, after three year she turn fifteen, and her vagine hang like sleeve of wizard.”

(Why hello there, underbelly! You know I love you.)

Comrades: got any gold to share? Stuff you lust for? Everyday haunts? Do the disenfranchised a favour. Pass it on.

Yesterday I ambled through the satellite universe during Evan’s nap and screeched to a halt on the Discovery Channel’s ‘Multiple Mayhem!’ (yes, the title of the feature included the exclamation mark).

Woohoo! I thought. Jackpot! Who doesn’t want a little mayhem?

And I sat in front of it for a moment, open-mouthed, contemplating lanugo and guck and stirruped legs and green masks and the all-round, miraculous freakitude of two babies entering the world.

Then I dosed myself with Rescue Remedy and Nestle Quik and changed the channel, unable to connect the dots of personal inevitability.

I am on this train and I cannot get off. But I wonder.. what will they look like? Will they be dark, like Justin? God, I still can’t believe it. It’s a They.

And then it settles on me, like it does sometimes out of the blue: hunger to smell them, see them tangled up in each other. I read a flash of another twin mama who peeks in on hers as they sleep head-to-feet, one sucking on the big toe of the other. And the warm, gushy pop! of anticipation bursts in my heart, for a flash, unencumbered by the burden of logistics. Which shocks the living vernix right out of me.

Last night I dreamed my babies were born too soon. They were from another planet. They had acorns for knees, and elastic legs, and didn’t cry. I stared at them and they stared at me with the giant, almond-shaped eyes widely reported by abductees. They knew everything there is to know. Then I woke up.

They kick, roll, stretch. I know when they’re sleeping. Oh yeah, I recall. There are people inside there. And suddenly I am the alien.

The string cheese says ‘simulated cheddar flavour’, a moment of grocery store desperation. They are individually wrapped, and the plastic makes a lovely ssscccchwick sound as it’s torn open. Tastes like salty rubbery nothingness. Likely contains petroleum by-product and xanthan gum: the cheese of the proletariat. And now of my son, who started out on cave-aged swiss gruyere. How the mighty fall when the mightier whine!

(The corn puffs say ‘organic’: ticket to redemption.)

This is what your brain looks like on hormones.

You see them, right? The signs on every minivan you pass: FREE PERSONALITY TEST! .. and you’re tempted. It’s only a harmless little quiz, right? And you’ve got a few spare minutes.

(This will be the dawn of your enlightenment.)

I’m happy to report that less than a week and just one grocery trip post-purchase, Justin and I have both earned Operating Thetan status in the cult of the minivan, and are now on a passionate crusade to welcome reformed apostates into the church’s embrace.

We know you’re out there. Folding one and all into sleek sedans and sporty wagons and chunky-cool SUVs, masters of the arts of denial and child-origami. Despite the telltale diaper stash, doorframe-knocking noggins and body contortioning midget-wrestling episodes, the presence of children is almost totally negated by the mountain bike racks. Admirably resistant you are, clinging to your hipness like the captain of the winning team panting in a post-game interview: I guess we just wanted it more than the other guys.

We know you because we were you. In its infinite wisdom, the church fast-tracked our Thetan levels due to our former membership and ease of infiltration among the That-Will-Never-Be-Us transportational collective (closely associated, not coincidentally, with the We-Would-Never-Have-Three-Kids life planning collective). Following is our crusade directive, as granted by the cult higher power:

• Those with ONE child = minivan not quantifiably necessary (distant target)
• Those with TWO children = minivan exponentially more necessary, excessively luxurious (denial stage: requires heavy indoctrination)
• Those with THREE+ children = minivan unquestionably necessary (therapy stage: assist in the assimilation of reluctant converts)

If you are not happy in life, we can help you find out why. Or, if you *think* you are happy in life, we can help you find out that you, in fact, are not. Not until you too open the door to your vehicle WITH A BUTTON. The World Dominatory Church of The Minivan extends this warm invitation to you. Resistance is futile.