A big cardboard chunk of my childhood just arrived in the mail

So who wants to play?

If you really really loved me

You'd buy me a plush facehugger for Christmas.

my yoga is tougher than your yoga

So I've been taking yoga classes, along with the Smoot. I don't know what she does during her lesson, which is just before mine, but she come out all radiant and smiley. When I come out of mine, I'm sweaty, trembling and on the verge of throwing up.

I tried and tried...

...but I just couldn't come up with a witty remark about Argentina and crying.

(un)AWARE

I should feel bad about the fact that AWARE, Singapore's premiere women's advocacy group, has been eaten hollow by a group of Dobon-esque fundamentalist militants. And I do. But I also think they brought it on themselves.

There are two main points that I can't get past. First, that the old guard could allow it to happen. That's just plain complacency. If they got blindsided, it's because they weren't paying attention to their own membership.

Second, and this will be an unpopular opinion, I think the very fact that AWARE is a women's advocacy group is a weaknes that lends itself to just such exploitation. It's too damned general. Over half the people in the world (and Singapore) happen to be women. And guess what? When an organization purports to represent such a large population, there are bound to be some inside that population who disagree - vehemently - with the aims and goals of that organization. In this case, fundamentalist Chistians who don't like the idea of lesbianism, abortion, divorce, and/or women working outside the home.

I've always had a problem with organizations whose reach exceeds their grasp. When you presume to speak for everyone, when you presume to speak for an entire group or classification of people rather than as an advocate for a particular belief, it smacks of hubris, however well intended. And sooner or later hubris attracts assault.

Couple hubris with complacency, and you get the current AWARE debacle.

pain

Once you've injured your back, it takes very little to re-injure it -- you lean over the sink to brush your teeth or you sit on the edge of the bed and prepare to pull on your socks and bam, a twinge turns into a shriek of pain faster than you can think to stop whatever innocuous motion you'd just started and will never now complete.

I was leaning on the bathroom sink, towelling myself off, and I coughed. Not a racking cough. Not a tuberculosis lung-wringer. Just a cough. The white-hot pain preceded the spasm by a fraction of a fraction of a second. I managed to get one hand on the edge of the sink, which was the only thing that saved me from falling to the floor like a suddenly de-stringed puppet.

I managed to get dressed, get the son to school and the wife to work. I managed to make it to work myself, and sit through two meetings. But every time I had to make the transition from sitting to standing, standing to sitting, the pain was so intense that, for a moment, I would almost completely lose my sense of self. There was the pain, and somebody's remorseless decision that the meat that is my physical self would go from sitting to standing, or vice versa, but it had nothing to do with me. The only recognizable shred of me during that moment of agony was a faint wisp of embarrassment at the thought of collapsing to the floor in a public place, and the even fainter intellectual puzzle of how I would ever make it to my feet again once I was prone.

But it was a bystander's concern.

Today it's much better. I have to take my time walking anywhere, and be very careful sitting and standing, but my body is my own, and my pain is well within human boundaries. The thing that sticks with me, though, is how pain, something so intimately in and of the body, could force such a dislocation of the physical experience.

Notes from the homefront

So Some People are having issues concerning our domestic situation. All that cooking, cleaning, child-minding and washing being done by the pale male rather than the more brown, more woman person could get on anyone's nerves, sure enough.

She's pretty good about taking out the trash, though. I'll give her that.

For myself, I don't really mind sweeping the floor, washing the dishes and the clothes, or cooking the meals. Especially the last. At least that way I have only myself to blame if my dinner is unpalateable. Speaking of which, last night I made steak - Montreal style marinated, with blue cheese topping (good idea from Expat's son Nathaniel) and sauteed mushroom, roasted potatoes, corn and french onion soup complete with croutons.

Ah, what a wilderness she wanders in!

Reminds me, Expat invited me to Sunday brunch at the Ritz Carlton. As I was preparing to leave, the Wife decided to make good on her long-standing promise to the Son to bake a chocolate cake. When actually confronted with the Betty Crocker box and the prospect of having to manipulate dials and such on the oven in the kitchen, her nerve fled and I was prevailed upon to uh, 'help'.

"How do you use the oven?"

"Turn it on at the wall, then turn this knob so and that knob thus. What temperature?"

"Uh..."

Check the box. "375 Fahrenheit. What's that in Celcius?"

"Uh..."

Check on the internet. "About 170. Turn this knob to 170."

"But the cake is not ready to put in yet."

"You have to preheat the oven. When this light goes off, the oven is hot enough."

"Uh..."

"Here's the bowl, the water, the vegetable oil, the eggs. Here's the pan. Here's how you grease the pan. Here's how you put all the ingredients in the mixing bowl. Here's how you stir the ingredients. Here's how the ingredients look after you stir them. Here's how you pour the mix into the pan. Here's the timer. When it goes off, poke the cake with a toothpick -- yes, here are the toothpicks. If the toothpick comes out clean, the cake is ready. Take it out of the oven and let it cool for ten minutes. Then put the frosting on. Yes, a cake needs frosting. Yes, I believe you actually can spread the frosting, perhaps by using this spready thing you use when you spread your butter on your toast. No, I can't wait till the cake is done, Expat is waiting."

At least I didn't have to tell her to turn off the oven. When it comes to turning things off, she's a champ.

She never did get to the frosting.