Month: April 2010

  • Spring Cleaning: the Frontpage

    We’re finishing up Personal Search and the new customized private home page…  part of our Spring Cleaning initiative.

    As part of that effort, we took a quick pass at cleaning up the frontpage!  We took into account a lot of the feedback we’ve gotten on the ideas tab and elsewhere: 

  • 10 Questions to Never Ask a Man

    I’m a curious gal, and I’ve made the mistake of asking some crazy questions. Here are 10 of my all-time favorite crazy questions that me or my friends have actually asked back in our Dating Dummy days: 

  • There’s Love Reflecting in my Eyes.

    The truth is, I’m scared. I’m terrified of commitment. I don’t know if it’s something I was born with, or something I gained by moving around so much. I don’t know. I’m not writing to pinpoint the reasons; I’m writing to pinpoint the consequences. To outline my choices and my different desires.

    I like you. I liked you at the beginning of all this, before we even started becoming close. And then somewhere along the line…I started having doubts. Chickening out. And it sucks because you deserve better than that. If I chicken out, then I not only hurt you, but I hurt myself in the end because this could be the real thing for all I know.

    But that’s just the thing… wouldn’t I know if it was the real thing?

  • Which Battle Is Worse?

    My oldest brother, you know, the one who will be deployed back to Iraq (for the FOURTH time) in less that two weeks… yeah, him. Well, he smokes cigarettes. A lot. I wouldn’t say he’s a chain smoker. But he’s definitely addicted to nicotine. I was thinking about him today and the fact that he’ll soon be heading to one of the most dangerous geographic locations on earth. As I ruminated over the various Iraq contingencies, the one thing that kept creeping up was the very real possibility that, outside of war, my battle-proven, war hero brother could easily die from smoking. 

  • Depression: What Not To Say

    It’s hard enough having depression. It’s harder when people don’t understand and judge you for it. Sometimes I don’t know whether they’re trying to help or just being insensitive, but here are some things you shouldn’t say to someone who has depression. 

  • Hoppy Easter from all of us at Xanga!

    I joked to my wife a few years ago about changing my last name to Xanga… she was supportive of the idea, which shows that she’s the best Xangan ever!

    Anyway she and I and the whole Xanga team would like to wish you all a Hoppy Easter!  And to express the idea visually, my wonderful wife asked me to hold up our 15 week old son while she took pictures of him dresed as the Easter bunny: 

  • A Blast From My Past

    It was summer, 1979. My first summer working at camp as one of its directors. I had never worked there as a counsellor, or anything else. I started close to the top. I had just turned 20.

    I had the physical presence to command respect, I am 6’2, and I sure had the voice for it. My voice is deep, and back then, before cigs and beer got to it to any degree, it was LOUD when I needed it to be. I was tough at first, softening up later as I got to know the staff. That is the only way it can work, start tough then you can soften because you have set the precedent.Try and start soft then toughen up….it won’t work. Trust me. Teachers take note.

    The third session was starting and I was giving my run through talk to a couple of cabin groups of the oldest boys.We had a new counsellor who I hadn’t met yet, he was there listening to me. He had a long walking stick in his hand. A couple of his kids starting fooling around not paying attention to me. I was about to blast them when suddenly his stick crashed down on one of the tables. “Listen Jokers” he said “when the man talks…you listen!”

    And a friendship was born. 

  • World Autism Awareness Day

    As I settle down from one of my most trying days as a mom with a child on the spectrum, I just saw a picture of the Empire State Building lit up in blue for World Autism Awareness Day.  It looks beautiful.

    I have a blue outfit picked out.  I have one for Ava as well.  We are sporting blue today.

    So we wear blue.  The Empire State Building is blue.  The city of Toronto will be blue.  The Sears Building will be blue.  Lots of buildings will be lit in blue.

    Then what?  

  • That Has How Many Calories??

    So the health reform bill passed on Sunday.  Cue the cheering, booing, applauding, and cussing.  However you may feel about the bill itself and its passage, were you aware that it included 2000 pages of text that basically required calorie counts to be posted on menus of any restaurants that has more than 20 outlets?  I certainly didn’t hear about this in the debates!  

  • “I shouldn’t have to press 1 for English!”

    Seriously?
    …
    …
    Seriously? This is perhaps THE dumbest thing to get mad about for a multitude of reasons.