Sun 6 Nov 2005
12:37pm

I am SO overdue for a haircut that I wear my glasses on top of my head to keep my bangs out of my eyes. My appointment yesterday, which Karen had to remind me of anyway, was cancelled when my stylist’s son broke a limb and she had to take him to the city to be doctored.

Everett and I then went to town instead and spent about three hours shopping. He needed new winter boots; I bought him a lined, hooded jacket (plaid of course; he loves plaid, just like my mom did). Then we picked up wieners, buns, frozen french fries and the ice cream cake he’d requested for his birthday (alas, the camera batteries needed recharging when we went to take a picture of him with the cake’s “Oh no! You’re a teenager!” emblazoned in icing across the top, and 13 lit candles), and came home to have the kids next door, and their parents, over for a little party.

I had to open up the trunk in the porch to find the journal containing 1992’s entries, before I could post that birth excerpt yesterday. Seeing that trunk full of old diaries, I wondered once more what is the point of hanging onto them all, especially when we are so space-challenged in this house and who is ever going to take an interest in them anyway and not only that, but there are things in there that I’m sure my sons would really rather not read about! These are personal journals, highly graphic at times; I don’t mince words when I talk to myself. And there are bitchinesses and fleetingly negative judgments of people I love, who, if they were to read such things after I was dead and gone, might be hurt. They might feel those were my final and most deeply felt thoughts about them, when that is definitely not the case. I tend to write out my frustrations, not my admirations. That has changed considerably over the years, but still, I don’t usually write when I’m enraptured about my life and the people in it. That’s when I just sit and bask!

But I asked Everett if he’d like to read his birth story and he did, and much more, and was delighted. He enjoyed it enough to read many excerpts aloud. One of them was this, written while I was in the hospital hostel after his birth in order to remain near him, and after Mom had offered to come from BC and stay with Emil at home:

“Gord’s comment to his friends: ‘I can’t wait till Kathy’s mom gets here. She cooks so good, and she doesn’t nag or bitch at me!’ ”