Rugby Love

My spectacular rugby bruise one day and two days old. Hot right? I'm so proud of this thing, I show it off at practice.

Team Member

Women's Rugby, originally uploaded by kategottli.

I have joined a rugby team!

I am not a natural born exercise freak. I do not run. I never think "OK, I have an hour, I'll just go out for a bit and run." I spend much more time avoiding running. I once "went for a run" with a boyfriend. It ended up being an hour of me bitching at him about how much I hated it. My insides burned, my side hurted, my lungs wheezed. No thanks. And that thing, whatever it is, that allows someone to get up and run and not stop for extended periods of time, I don't have it. I have 30 seconds before that burning feeling makes me slow.

But, I know exercise is good for me, and I know that a commitment to a team has lit the fire under my ass before. So when some friends from university joined a summer club team with some friends from high school (small world, eh Canada?), I gave myself a push and showed up to practice. It just so happened my first practice was also a team bonding/goal setting meeting. Warm and fuzzy times? I couldn't just slip away after that.

It's been about a month now, of practices twice a week after long, of tiring days, of cold packs on shoulders and hips and head, of re-learning how to tackle, ruck, and hold the ball, and of laughter and new friendships, as well as renewal of old ones. It's been a lot of fun.

It's also been super frusterating. I am a self-psycher-outer (real thing? I think so). When I do it wrong, I feel my face turn red and I want to run away. Last night I forgot my mouthguard somewhere, and fought back angry tears as I stood watching drills, mentally kicking myself. On Saturday, in my second game, I missed a tackle and the girl scored. I miscalculated and they scored again. I want to be one of those fast, mean, hard-hitting girls on the field, who know what they're doing and run right through the competition. Even more I just want to successfully tackle someone. It's frustrating, and I know I should use it to hit harder next time, to run faster and push further, but often I just end up feeling more hesitant than before.

But even in those moments of pain, even when I get it wrong and so completely wrong everyone knows, even when my teammates pull me aside to remind me "run straight" "aim low" "get OUT of the way of the fly half" I know they are supporting me. If I could feel safe going hard and failing hard, it should be there, where I know my teammates will pick me back up and high five me. Even after I missed tackles and made mistakes this Saturday, my whole team cheered me on after the game, celebrating my first try (touchdown, basically) that had come earlier in the game. I was happy and they knew I was. I knew I needed to work on things, and I know they knew too. Hopefully they also know I will bust my butt to get it right next time.

Blink

Where did my week go? Seriously, where? It's already been 6 days since my last post. ACK. What is this? Come on, me, get it together.

I've been feeling totally exhausted all week. Last night was my first full night of sleep in many days, which felt so good. Wednesday was a very low point. Super sleepy and coming up on 24 hours of headache, my boss sent me home early. I spent the night lying in bed, watching bad TV, until the thunderstorm started (with ridiculous amounts of lightning! Did anyone see all the lightning?). Thunder makes me uncomfortable, so I called up Phil and sat on the porch, watching the storm roll through and feeling my nerves settle as we chatted. My sister came and sat with me. After it had mostly passed, we went to bed.

I had the headache of doom as the result of an elbow to the head at rugby practice. I came home on Tuesday and immediately applied ice packs, moving them in rotation from sore hip to shoulders to head. Hopefully I will kill it tonight!

Here is a video a friend sent along to me this week when I told her I was feeling down. As she predicted, I did get a good chuckle out of it. She and another friend from school are coming to visit, and I am very excited for a crew-union (that's a good play on the word reunion, right?).

I (heart) Typewriters

I think typewriters are so neat. Dismiss me as a tragic hipster, but I have loved them since I was a kid. I don't know why - it probably related to my love of words. And my love of old things. And my hipster tendancies too, perhaps.

Now, typerwriters are extra attractive because it's writing without a computer. Why is this good? No internet. No distractions, no YouTube, no Twitter, no Facebook. Sure, I could close the internet, but that doesn't last very long on papers, and is worse when I'm trying to be creative. I want one.

In fact, I think I have one. It's got a neat leather case and I bought it at a garage sale but, alas... no ink strip. I don't know where to get one, or how to install it. Or, for that matter, where the typewriter is.

Are there any typewriter enthusiasts out there who can help me out?


Photo: noobits on flickr

July Doldrums

Hey readers, sorry I've been so lame lately. I've been putting more effort into Hey Good Lookin', since it's a baby and needs more attention. Unfortunately, In A Jar became the cranky toddler.

Nothing super exciting has been happenning to me. I've been riding one of those lows lately. One of those, hate my body, hate my passions, hate my voice (literal and more figurative voice), and just generally wanting to crawl out of my skin and into someone else's. It's all cyclical, I think; I go through high points and low points, monthly, yearly, whatever. Blah. Anyway, the cycle will go up again, but until then, I just want to see friends and remind myself that the world is good, great even. Hey world: I'm open. Let's have fun things happen, k?

I'm also feeling politics-jaded. Not only did the city council vote yes on the awful Lansdown plan (urban voted no, rural yes; most of the time on the discussion was devoted to accomodating the developpers... I'm going to stop before I start fuming), BUT ALSO the government has made the long-form census optional, taking the legs out of any data it gathers. As Jeffrey Simpson wrote in his column the other day:

"When it comes to a tiny minority of citizens being required to fill out the long
census form, the Conservatives say this requirement invades privacy and should
be abolished, another example of ideology trumping good policy."

I just feel like the people who are supposed to be working for me are ruining my country and my neighbourhood.

Sorry for the downer, team. Write me about nice things in the comments, if you'd like. Or tell me what you think of this census shenanigans. Or write a haiku! (Delightful haikus over at my friend Saf's blog).

Photo: via imagespark

Hey Good Lookin' blog

OK, it's been a couple weeks... I guess it's time for my new blog to be introduced for real.

I have recently started writing a fashion blog called Hey Good Lookin'. Some of the astute among you may have already found the link I stashed in the sidebar when I started it. I'm having a lot of fun with it, and it's even making me more excited about this blog, now that I feel like each have a focus, and two different interests of mine have their own spaces.


If you have any questions or comments about the new blog (or this old one!) you can email me at inajarblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

"Springbreak of the Blogosphere"

Blog Out Loud Ottawa was, once again, a big success! There was laughter, awws, beer, and even a bra flash (quickly to become BOLO legend, yes?). I loved seeing and meeting lots of fun people and I've picked up a couple blogs I will definitely start following!

I'm hoping to snag some pics once various people upload them (for example, the super talented Milan), but in the mean time, you will have to use your imaginations.

The room was packed with bloggers, mostly ladies. Can I just say that everyone was dressed fabulously? Seriously. We Ottawa bloggers are an attractive bunch, just sayin. I especially liked Megan and Jennifer as pseudo-twins in cute black and white print summer dresses. Fave dress of the night goes to Nadine.

I hope my reading went OK - I was in the last chunk and by the time I got up on stage, my nervousness and the beer I'd ingested took over. (Last year, I was not old enough to drink beer at the event... strange thought. The beer was great). I got some laughs, which I will take as a positive, and my dress didn't fall down, something I was mildly worried about. Let's call it a win, shall we?

Oh, and I double-checked the story I told last night about Evelyn Waugh** - it's true! Wiki it yourself if you don't believe me. And no, I didn't go insert it in there this morning to make it true.

If you want, you can go back and read the post I read. I am a bus creeper, it's true.

Milan posted about his fave reads, and I agree with them all; check 'em out here.

* The title is from a comment Maven made on the BOLO site. I liked it.
** Evelyn Waugh's wife's name was also Evelyn (Ee-vuh-lin). To tell them apart, their friends called them "She-Evelyn" and "He-Evelyn". Cute, right?

"Who needs toast?"

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail - in the Daily Miscellany column.

"In Seed magazine, reviewer Eric Michael Johnson writes: “For the husband and wife team Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha in their new book Sex At Dawn … there is little doubt that human beings are an exceedingly sexual species. As an example they detail how in 1902 the first home-use vibrator was patented and approved for domestic use in the United States. Fifteen years later, there were more vibrators than toasters in American homes.” "

Those turn of the century ladies had it right. Vibrators > Toaster. Really, which one make mom happier? Easy choice, isn't it...

Mariposa turns 50

The Mariposa Music Festival of Orillia is celebrating 50 years by putting its archives online! All sorts of amazing people have stopped by the folk festival, Bob Dylan to Raffi (as he was starting out). Also? My dad and his band. He performed there in 1970, and the archives include pictures of him at a workshop that year! These are fantastic. They capture the time and my dad looks so cool.

He's the one with the banjo and the mutton chops.

BOLO Wednesday

I will be reading at BOLO on Wednesday*! Come on down to Irene's pub at 7 pm and stick around - I'm near the end. I'm excited to meet any and all of you.

Check out the website to see the lineup (or to read the super nice things Lynn wrote about me - thanks!)

*not friday as I previously tricked Elizabeth of And Go into thinking. Sorry!

Weekend of Awesome

YOU GUYS! I just had the best weekend ever. Phil showed up from New Brunswick and surprised me. When he knocked on the door and I opened it, he was holding a red gerber daisy... he'd sent me eleven on our anniversary the week before. Cute, right? I almost fainted.

He's been in cahoots with my family and my friends to surprise me! I feel so lucky and blessed to have such amazing people in my life who want to make me feel special.

For Canada Day we went and saw the queen on the Hill - actually saw her! And then Phil joined in my plans with my friends and I to go and see Dessa Darling at Montreal Jazz Fest, which was amazing. (Video of her singing Hallelujah here).

Friday we shopped up Montreal and spent Saturday and Sunday relaxing, holding hands and looking goofily at each other. Now he's gone back home, but this time the separation is shorter. Only five weeks until he's back in Ottawa and we embark on an exciting adventure for us: dating and living in the same city. I am so much looking forward to that.

I had pictures to go with this post, but the uploader isn't working... Boo.