See, a blogger is a kind of writer and lately I’ve been relying on pictures rather than my words to convey the goings on in my life and to be perfectly honest, even I find that bad form, especially when my blog here is so freaking b0rked that I can’t even format pictures properly. (I wish I knew why…I can format pictures within and around text, like a magazine, on my end, but when I go to publish, it loses all formatting. It’s been this way since the beginning, it’s extremely frustrating and I don’t know how to fix it.)
Anyway, I was going to do yet another post full of pictures from the Elmvale Maple Syrup Festival that happened on Saturday and which I attended, but fuck it, go look at the pictures yourself, I put them in a gallery for that express purpose. That’s not to say this post won’t contain some of those pictures, it’s just that it won’t contain all of them.
For some ungodly reason, I woke up at around 6am on Saturday and sat at the computer “doing stuff” (aka Twittering about being up at such an ungodly hour) until around 7 when I decided that I would go down to the Maple Syrup festival by myself and help my mom set up her booth. My family was still sleeping so going by myself was really my only option and by the look of the sky at the time, it appeared as though Mother Nature was going to unleash her hellacious fury all over our fine town so I figured my mom would appreciate the help in getting set up before that happened.
Now, let me be clear on some things here before we go any further. I have been working on my immersion therapy and re-learning how to do things that I forgot how to do in my agoraphobic state since the end of February. It may not seem like a big deal to anyone else that I was A) up at 6am, B) got showered and dressed by myself, C) made the decision to walk downtown by myself and D) actually follow through. This is progress that even my shrink would probably be surprised by. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it feels as though I’m finally waking up from a nightmare.
Well, my shower started waking people in the house up, primarily my 10-year-old daughter who was eager to get on the midway and suddenly, even though I was dressed and ready to go, I had to wait for her to get her shit together because she wanted to come with me. And she took FOREVER.
As she got ready, Mother Nature began to unleash her fury, completely negating my entire reason for wanting to go to the Maple Syrup Festival early, let alone at all. Usually this is an event I skip, but this was the first year my mom, who’s an artist by the way, had a booth in it and I knew her “new” boyfriend (of 3 years) who I haven’t met before was going to be there and it really was high time that I met this man.
So I waited and waited and waited for Madison to get her shit together and finally we both set out towards town under an umbrella as the world crashed down all around us. Now again, this is a major milestone. I went outside the house, more or less by myself, twice in the same week. I have no idea what’s gotten into me, maybe it’s just the weather, but it appears as though, once again, that I’m making progress.
But at the same time it all seems so meaningless. I’m the kind of person where if it’s not productive, it’s not worth doing, so while I see that walking down to the Maple Syrup Festival is a major milestone, I kind of don’t give a shit because so what? Did I enjoy the walk? No. Did I do anything productive on the walk like take pictures? No. Did I do anything productive once I got there? No. Did this benefit me in any way? No. Did it inconvenience me? Absolutely. The fact of the matter is, I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to go. I made myself go and I did so for the sake of other people. It’s difficult for me to see that as a success. (As an aside, holy fuck do I hate this keyboard.)
So anyway, we get to the Maple Syrup Festival, I find my mom’s booth and then…I stood around feeling like I was in the way while she and her boyfriend, John, wiped things off (the storm had passed by this point) and set things up. Then I sat around some more and made idle chit-chat with the two of them, took a few pictures, and absent-mindedly talked to my mom a bit about her website, which I created and should theoretically be maintaining because she can’t do it herself, except I don’t so it remains unmaintained. As this was all going on, people started to fill the streets and come by my mom’s booth and more than that, my mom’s booth was situated right in front of the community centre where the pancake breakfast was happening all day and there was a LONG LONG LONG line forming and everyone in that LONG LONG LONG line was looking into my mother’s booth and inadvertently at me.
People looking at me is something I’m not entirely comfortable with and is one of the reasons I stopped leaving the house in the first place. Now let me be clear about something here before I start sounding like a delicate flower here, I am currently undergoing immersion therapy, which means I’m supposed to be immersing myself in situations that make me uncomfortable like the situation above. At the same time, it’s not all crowds that make me uncomfortable or anxious and it’s not all people looking at me that makes my skin crawl, it’s only in places or situations where I don’t have a defined role. Sitting in my mom’s booth, I was just sitting there taking up space, whereas, at my art show in October I was “an artist”, I had a defined role, and thus the crowd and attention was more bearable.
So after sitting around for what seemed like forever, Blake and our son, Wes, showed up and we decided to go to Steelers, which was just down the street, for breakfast. This is yet another milestone: eating in public. Especially in an extremely crowded restaurant. It wasn’t so bad though, they seated us in the back which was mostly away from the rest of the patrons. So we ate, which was pretty uneventful and then we went back to my mom’s booth where I hung out again while Blake took the kids to the midway. (While I was feeling particularly brave on Saturday, there wasn’t a chance in hell I was dealing with screaming kids and the midway.)
My mom needed a pee break so we walked around some of the booths near the porta-potties while she smoked a cigarette which was such a strange experience. I turned 30 on March 1st and had made a pact with myself when I started smoking at 16 that I couldn’t smoke again after I was 30 and thus, I’ve successfully quit and unless something extremely disasterous happens, I shall remain smoke-free for the rest of my life. Part of quitting smoking though, was secluding myself from it completely and my mom having a cigarette on Saturday was the first smoke I’d come into contact with in almost 2 months. It’s funny how your senses work, I mean I didn’t expect it to bother me at all, but it was the worst smelling thing ever and the smoke kept blowing towards me and I could feel myself breathing it and it REALLY bothered me. In that moment I couldn’t believe that I’d done this idiotic thing myself for almost half my life. How did I not notice how vile it really was? How is that possible? And this was outside! I think if I was in a confined space with a smoker at this point, I probably wouldn’t be able to handle the stench or the tightening in my lungs I felt as I was inhaling the smoke second-hand. And to think, people PAY CRAZY AMOUNTS OF MONEY for this priviledge that’s disgusting, makes their teeth look gross AND is killing them. Wtf, are we all retarded?
Anyway, during our little walk, my mom bought me cotton candy and I waited for her to pee and then we went back to her booth where I sat around some more and made awkward small talk with John until Blake and Wes came back and informed me that the midway did, indeed, have Tiny Tom donuts which I absolutely live for.
For the uninitiated, Tiny Tom donuts are these itty bitty donuts that they make fresh right in the booth, which they then put in a paper bag and cover in flavoured sugar. I always go for the cinnamon, personally.

Soooooooooooo Blake and I went to the midway, leaving the kids at my mom’s booth, on a mission for Tiny Tom’s donuts for both myself, the kids and my mom and surprisingly I did okay even though the midway was a zoo. Then we brought the donuts back, cutting through several people’s yards as to avoid the crowd down the street to the arena where the midway was located, we ate, then I bought some maple syrup ($23 for a litre!) and then I decided to go home while Blake & the kids went to the midway again.
Yes, I walked home. All by myself. And when I got home, I slept.
When I woke up it was about 4pm and Blake & the kids were back. I screwed around on the internet for a bit and then asked Blake what he thought about a trip to Barrie for Starbucks since, y’know, we hadn’t spent enough money that day. So we all hopped in the car and off to Barrie we went.
Along the way I saw all kinds of things I’d love to photograph and show the world and I thought about winning the Cube and all the things I could do if I actually did win. Everything I saw reminded me of the Cube and the freedom that funny looking little car embodies to me.
Finally we got to Starbucks, I got my “vanilla milkshake thing with whipped cream” and Blake got…some kind of coffee concoction and off we went in search of the Nissan dealership just to see where it was, and if they were open, get a couple of Cube booklets. If you’re on Blake’s Twitter, you will have seen the picture of him humping the door, while I – uncharacteristically – took the classier route and took the picture I posted last night.
On our way out of Barrie, we (well…I) decided to stop by Shopper’s Drug Mart (which is a lot like the CVS chain y’all have in the US) where I bought myself some new makeup, new sunglasses (blue! w00t!) and a bunch of other crap. I figured if I was going to do this whole “leaving the house” thing more often, then I should probably make an effort in the makeup department every now and then and most of what I had at home is really old and the newer stuff I bought a couple of years ago was STOLEN by an ex-friend.
After Shopper’s it was getting pretty late, so we got Blake & the kids pizza and headed home. Then the kids went to bed and I don’t really remember what we did for the rest of the night. We probably dicked around on the internet and begged for votes for the Hypercube contest.
When it was time to go to bed though, I got pretty sad. Overall I had a good day, even though it was a busy, chaotic day completely outside of my routine, but the thing is, along with all of the other things I’m having to re-learn after being secluded and on a non-schedule for so long, I have to learn how to be happy. I’ve said it a million times before but when I was the happiest I’d ever been in my whole entire life, it turned out I was manic, psychotic and had to be hospitalized. So I get suspicious of happy feelings, happy feelings scare me.
But Blake reassured me that it was just a good day, that I wasn’t manic or even close to it and that it was okay to just be happy. So that’s what I did. And then I fell asleep.