Getting Comfortable In My New Mom Bod

The 6 weeks is over.

For those of you who don’t know, immediately after you have a baby you should have nothing go into your vagina for a while. It’s a time of rest and recovery. At the six week point, your OB does an exam to make sure everything is healing properly and internal organs are returning to their natural size, and you’re good to go.

So I can finally get back to my normal life. What I’m most excited about and I find most important is that now I can have sex again and exercise. I have to say I missed both very much and am happy to get back into it. (I think my partner could say the same!)

Of course, even though some things are returning to normal, I know it’s going to take some time to get my beach bod back and I have to be okay with how my body is now. I’ve tried on my old clothes and they don’t fit. My belly is almost as big as my butt, my legs are fattier than before and my chin is the smallest it’s ever been. Everything jiggles when I walk or run!

This is very different from my modelling days. The nice thing about not doing that anymore is that I don’t have pressure to get back to my old bod super quickly. But I have always maintained my body, always made sure that it was beach ready, and I want to get back to that level. And I will. While I’m working myself up, it’s important that I catch myself when I go to say something scathing to myself and maintain the faith that I will get back to a banging bod!

(I want to say that as long as you’re healthy and you exercise and you eat fairly well than whatever your natural weight is, it’s beautiful. I’m not trying to judge other people’s sizes here. But I’ve been super skinny for my whole life, so this extra weight is a bit of an adjustment.)

When I look in the mirror I try to focus on the things I do like. I’m really enjoying my huge boobs, and I keep telling myself that when I get my stomach back my body will be banging. I also love that my ass got bigger - though it definitely needs to be shaped and toned. I’m very excited about what I will look like after some time spent working out and not eating as much. Also I’ll be breast-feeding and that apparently helps to cut calories.

So I’m going to start going back to my Jeet Kune Do (martial arts) class and going to the gym whenever my baby and man will let me - of course, I can’t do anything anymore without their okay. I just need to keep telling myself I’ll get there. And I don’t know if this is the right way to do it, but I’m not going to set a goal or a date on when my body should be back to what it was. (In all honesty, I don’t think my hips will ever go back to what they were - which I’m happy about because I love my bigger butt). I know the big boobs won’t last forever, but the butt will, and I’m looking forward to working on it.

I’m sure I should enjoy this time in my life where my body is at its worst. And in a real way I can say it’s truly at its best because I did just gave birth, and that’s amazing.

And in the meantime, I’m going to be proud of my Mom Bod - big, small, or just right!

-Sarah

Getting Back On The Horse

Tomorrow will mark one month since my last shift at the restaurant. It’s been a relaxing month, but also a bit of a frustrating one. At first I was happy to have the time to relax, then I came down with a flu, and now I’m starting to feel cabin fever. This whole month has been a lot of lying around the house and not doing a whole lot of anything, and after a while that gets boring. The frustrating thing about being down is that I’m not so unwell that I can’t do anything – but when I do things, I get easily overtired. I can go to the bar, but after one beer I start to feel overstimulated. I can go for a walk, but that doesn’t feel especially productive. I can try to write, but after an hour I feel like I just want to lie down.

Last week, I finally got in to see a physiotherapist and then a psychologist to discuss the best way to go about getting back to normal. The physio in particular said some interesting things about how my brain is working. He described it as a car engine that’s worn down and isn’t getting enough gas. It still gets you where you need, but the performance isn’t optimal – when you slam on the gas pedal, it doesn’t reach top speed. He did some tests on me and concluded that while I’m over the worst of things physically, my brain is still a tick slow when it comes to processing, and the extra energy I’m expending is probably tiring me out.

Although he advised me not to dive back into work, in my boredom I’ve begun to putter around with writing a little bit more once again. I’m still not ready to tell any of my editors I can get back to the grind – or tackle this book project in its entirety – but I’ve at least sent out a few stories again. My thinking is that the best way to ramp up to full speed is to start small, with jobs that don’t have specific deadlines or come with a lot of pressure. When the inevitable rejections come back, I can simply file them away in an email folder and forget about them.

It’s productive, but it’s also disorienting. Sometimes hustling as a writer can feel like swimming in the middle of the ocean and searching for land. You know there’s eventually going to be land in almost any direction, but you have no idea where the closest patch of land is – or the best. There might be a tiny island just out of eyesight on one side, but an entire continent a mile in the opposite direction. Firing off stories and pitches for rejection, I’m casting about searching for my identity. Do I make my name in fiction? Sports? Does writing content anonymously for money help get this book published? (Probably not, but it might keep my bank account full until we can.)

None of the doctors I’ve consulted have told me to rush back to work. They say I need to focus on myself and how to get myself in the best place possible to be functional going forward. I agree in theory, but in practice it’s hard. I find myself growing bored and agitated. I don’t have a lot of discipline. I’m not really supposed to be drinking or playing sports, but I want to go out and shoot hoops and muck it up at the bar – just to do something. I’m understanding more and more those scenes in movies where the cancer patient breaks out of the hospital because, damn the doctor, he just wants to have fun again.

But at the same time, I have to find a way to step back and think about how to get better. I want to be able to write and work for a lot of years going forward. I have to figure out a way to throw all my energy into making this book the best book it can possibly be. And I know that actually focusing on things like diet and exercise is what will get me back to normal sooner. But old habits die hard…

On that note, I’m off to see the physio for a follow-up appointment.

-Simon

Learning About Leaps: How An App Saved My Sanity

This week has been one of my hardest yet as a mother. My partner had to leave for work for 4 days and I was left to take care of the baby mostly on my own (though my mother did come over and help me out for one of the days - thank God!). Teo was crying a lot all week and feeding and changing him didn’t seem to be soothing him at all. He wanted to be held all the time and he was eating A LOT. I had to be feeding him almost every hour, day or night, which meant that I wasn’t getting any sleep at all myself. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. It was so stressful and I started to feel like I was failing as a mom. He was just so fussy!

When my partner would call to check in on me I’d be in shambles, feeling like I just didn’t know what to do next. But thank God for one of my friends who gave birth three weeks before me. I finally messaged her to ask her if she’d gone through anything similar to what I was going through with Teo. She told me that it sounded like Teo was going through a leap and it was totally normal. Then she turned me on to an app which helps new mothers understand what’s going on with their newborns.

The app is called The Wonder Weeks and it’s based on a book by a doctor named Frans Plooij. There are apparently ten major leaps that take place in the first 20 months of birth as the baby grows and develops. Teo was going through the leap that takes place around week 5, when babies begin to see greater distances and develop a greater awareness of the world around them. Because of that mental development, he got crankier, started to eat more, and needed to be held more.

I entered Teo’s birth date in the app, and it gave me a sense of how long I should expect this leap to last and when to expect the next big leap for Teo. It has a calendar I can sync up with Teo’s next expected developmental step. It also showed me some cool videos so that I could better understand exactly what Teo was going through. The app also gave me some tips on how to manage Teo and some stimulating exercises that are best suited to a child going through that specific leap. It’s only been a few days and already the app has been heaven-sent.

I no longer feel like I’m failing as a mom. The app was only $3.99 and so far it’s been totally worth it! My partner came back and I felt like I could tell him I’d been successful as a parent while he was gone. I do have to say, though – there are a lot of apps out there which are just meant to take advantage of desperate and sleep-deprived new parents. They try to make a few quick bucks without offering anything of value. So far, I’ve only used apps which have been recommended to me by other girlfriends of mine with new kids, and so far, so good. This app has really helped to give me peace of mind!

-Sarah

Hitting “Play” On Life (And Writing)

Rest is a dangerous thing. Everyone needs it, but how much do they really need it? At what point does “I’m resting” stop being a statement of fact and start being an excuse?

I’ve spent the past week (since my final shift at the burger joint) resting up. That means sleeping in till 1 or 2, rarely leaving the house except to walk around the neighbourhood, and not doing any writing. But it’s not as if I’m spending this time doing nothing. I’m reading some, I’m staying up to date on the latest sports scores, I’m eating. I even went to a baseball game on Tuesday and went out to the bar last night. Is this stuff better or worse for me than working? As I said to a doctor who called me from the concussion clinic earlier this week – “I’m improved and I’m functional – but I’m certainly not normal.” My head still gets a bit foggy if I stare at a screen too long, drink alcohol, or am surrounded by too much action. It’s a subtle thing – something that can be worked around for a while. But it still exhausts me.

The thing is, there are no goalposts. I'm a sports fan, and often over my years of watching sports I've watched as players struggled to return from injury. Someone will sprain a shoulder and the fans will be given a timeline of four-to-six weeks. After six weeks, fans will start clamouring for the player to come back, and then we'll find out that the recovery has stalled, that it's going to be at least another six weeks. And so it goes until the player finally returns months later. People get healthy when they get healthy; there are no hard and fast parameters when it comes to recovery.

So am I ready to start writing again? I certainly don’t feel like I’m able to take on a full slate, but I'm sure I could bang out an article or two if I took it slow. In trying to force myself to rest up, I'm almost compromising my ability to work. I feel like I’m waiting for the day when I’m going to wake up and feel like there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me, and now I’m realizing that that day may be months away. There’s a delicate balance to be struck between productivity and health. If I do nothing but rest, I feel lazy and unproductive. But if I throw myself into work, I feel unhealthy.

I sent an email to one of my editors today assuring her that I would be getting back to work “within the next couple of weeks.” But that’s, at best, a guess. The main thing at this point is that I don’t know whether putting the time and effort into writing every day has the potential to set me back, or whether engaging my mind will actually help me begin to feel more functional. One thing I have noticed is that sometimes going out and getting out of my head seems to be the best thing for me – as if all I need to do is laugh a little and relax and I’ll be fine. Maybe what I’m feeling is the effects of stress and lack of sleep over the past decade as much as it is a direct impact of the blow to the head.

All of which is to say, I don’t know when I’ll get back on the horse and start pushing this book again. My hope is that this month I can get my sleep cycle into rhythm and get back to writing every morning. Once that happens, I can gradually begin adding things to my plate.

Anyway, those are the goalposts - until they move again.

-Simon

The Beginning Of A New Journey

Well, it’s been a spring full of change and news around these parts, with a new baby for Sarah and health issues for me. Since my injury relapsed, I’ve been working but not writing much – partly on doctor’s orders, partly because it strains my brain to stare at a screen for too long and/or put the time into doing research, and partly because I’ve been generally quite lethargic. It hasn’t been a particularly fun couple of months, so I decided it was time to make a real change. Two weeks ago I put in my notice at my restaurant job. I worked my last day yesterday and am now officially free from my wage-slavery. The notion of total freedom is a pleasant one, but it’s also a little bit scary – especially in light of how unwell I’ve been feeling. Without a steady income, I’m going to need to rely on being able to get back on the horse and start writing before too long, and trying to make some money that way.

As much as I hoped that this would be an exciting time turning a new page in my life, as a worked through my last day yesterday I didn’t feel victorious or excited in the way that maybe I thought I would. I have a recollection of quitting my movie theatre job when I was 19 to go off to university and explore bigger and better things and feeling excited and expectant. Maybe it’s being in my thirties, but my last day yesterday had none of that unfettered joy. It was a day like any other – simply a day where I didn’t have to come back in tomorrow. Certainly I was looser and more relaxed than usual, but more than anything the feeling I have today is relief. I cut my chains, but I still need to find a way to make a living, and that’s no easy feat.

I was contacted by a concussion clinic today, so hopefully in the next few weeks I can rest up, learn to manage my symptoms, and begin to write again. I still have a serious article that I was trying to pitch before my symptoms worsened, and I do hope I can finish it up with a second interview of my subject and get it published somewhere notable. And even though I haven’t done any significant writing in at least a month, it’s kind of nice to look back and see how much I feel like I accomplished between November and February. I hope that without a 30-hour-a-week job to slog through, I can soon redouble my efforts on that front without burning myself out again.

I’m hungover and tired today, so my apologies if this post is a little more sombre than the title would suggest. Quitting my job to do what I love is a major step for me, and I’m especially looking forward to enjoying a full, free summer with all the time in the world to enjoy the weather, take in some local baseball games, and tie up all sorts of loose ends that get pushed aside by the daily grind. I look forward to doing some real cooking at home, to dusting off the bike outside and getting the tires fixed. In fact, even without trying, I can already feel a list of dozens of obligations beginning to fill my head. For now, I’m pushing them aside – R and R (and all the other Rs – relaxation, rehabilitation, recuperation) is far more important at this point. I feel like I need to focus on what’s important in life, and think about – and even dream on – the future. And it goes without saying that this book will be a major part of that process once I’m physically and mentally ready to focus my energies on something.

Working is a grind for anyone. But living is more important than working. I looked in the mirror one day and asked if my work-life balance was where I needed it to be – if I was working to live or living to work. And I concluded that I was living to work far too much for someone working at what, fundamentally, is a shitty service job. I had begun to feel trapped in a routine where my workplace had become my personal jail, but I finally realized that there was nothing keeping me cooped in my cell except for a misplaced sense of loyalty and the desire to see my bank account rise at the end of the month. And that simply wasn’t important to me anymore. My hope by freeing myself is that I can learn to live again - whatever that may mean.


-Simon

What To Expect When Expecting

The Mean Things People Say When You’re Nine Months Pregnant

Well, after nine months, it finally happened – I’m a Mom! Our new little boy Teo was born on March 15th and he’s healthy and happy.

The week before I gave birth I think I hit a breaking point. I felt huge. I only gained 45-50 pounds in total during my pregnancy but I have never been that big in my life so it was a huge adjustment. I was already feeling self-conscious about my size. (I would expect that all pregnant women feel that way – not only are you bigger around the waist, but everything else can swell up too, your hormones are out of whack, and just in general you don’t feel like your usual beautiful self.) And when people starting making fun of me for it, I just couldn't handle it.

For the most part I was pretty lucky as far as not being subjected to too much in the way of insults, but as I got bigger I did start to hear things slip out from people I know and love. In the last couple of months I found out that my baby was below average in size and that I would probably need to be induced to let him out early. When my doctor first told me that the baby was undersized, I asked if I needed to eat more or gain some weight, but he said of course not – he said I was healthy and the baby’s vitals were good, and that babies just sometimes come out small. But when I told my friends and family about this, they kept pestering me to eat more. And it really got to me – I felt like I needed to constantly defend myself and my eating habits, which was the last thing I wanted to be doing.

But there were other things people said to me that really bothered me too. Most of these were said in jest, or casually, with the implication that I “could take it” – but it doesn’t mean I liked it. They included things like:

You’re a monster now who just eats all the time. 

The person said that this was a joke and that they only said it because they knew I could take it. I was fine with it at the time, but this was only the first in a cavalcade of insulting jokes and snide comments.

Wow, I’ve never seen you so fat before, this is great! Let me get a picture.

This person took a picture which ended up on Instagram. It bothered me, but again, I tried to brush it off. After all, I was only a few days away from giving birth.

How does it feel to be a whale?

This hurt, but I realized that this person was only re-purposing words that had come out of my own mouth. The way this made me feel was a harsh reminder that if you’re having body issues, you shouldn’t use hurtful words to describe yourself because then that will make other people think that it’s appropriate to throw those words back in your face.

I don’t want another child with you because you didn’t exercise while you were pregnant.

I’m sure you can guess who said this last – and in his defense, he was grumpy and tired when he said it. My partner has been an amazing support system throughout my pregnancy, during labour and after the birth of young Teo. I couldn’t do any of it without him. But anyone who’s been in a serious relationship will understand that sometimes bad things get said in stressful situations, and when this got said it actually made me cry. It just felt like at that point in my pregnancy everything that was being said around me was really mean or hurtful. The thing was, I was going to AquaFit throughout my pregnancy – which is at least some form of exercise. So it also wasn't entirely fair.

In general, I can take a joke better than most. The things said to me in my state were peanuts compared to the things that some pregnant women have to put up with. But in general as a society I think we need to be more mindful of pregnant women everywhere. Every woman is different, but it just makes sense to be nice and respectful to a woman who is going through the process of making a whole new person inside of her. Anyway, I’ve now given birth and it was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced – the hardest thing I have ever done or ever will do. (Maybe that’s a topic for our next blog post?)

SHOW SOME RESPECT!

-Sarah

When Life Intervenes

About four months ago - it was a few days after Halloween - I slipped trying to change the temperature in the shower. I tried to grab onto the curtain as I fell, but it came down with me, and on the way down my head slammed into the bathroom counter. I didn’t hit my head so hard that I blacked out, but I did hit it fully flush. In the moments afterwards, I immediately thought, “Shit. That’s exactly the kind of innocuous injury that could turn out to have major complications.” My brother and two of my aunts have had significant concussions in the last few years, and it seemed like I was destined to be next on the list. 

After I fell, I felt dazed – not pained, but confused enough that when I sat down to start writing a few minutes later I could tell that something wasn’t right. I went to the doctor, and as the week progressed and I continued to feel discombobulated, I went back to the doctor a week later. She acknowledged that I might have suffered a minor concussion.

Concussion symptoms are weird, and hard to describe to someone who hasn’t gone through them. There was no real pain for me (aside from the very occasional pinch). Mainly there was exhaustion and the feeling of a pounding hole in my head – like my thoughts weren’t completely coherent. That’s not to say I couldn’t formulate sentences or understand things, but rather that there was some kind of a gap in my thought process. I was like a computer that still worked fine in spurts but was incredibly laggy and needed a restart every 2 hours. For about nine days I rested up, mostly avoiding the internet and work. When I did go into work, I wore thick clip-on shades to shut out the industrial lighting at my job, and occasionally earplugs to block out the music, conversation, banging doors and utensils – essentially, all the sounds that inevitably come from working in the kitchen. Once I hit my head, it was like my sensory register was turned up to 11 – all the little sights and sounds that I had spent years learning how to block out were coming at me like they were blaring out of movie theatre speakers.

I basically spent a week in bed with the lights out. About nine or ten days after my initial concussion, I got up and tried to take a walk around the neighbourhood at about 9 in the evening. To my surprise, it went well. I wore the shades to shut out car headlights, but other than that I had no real difficulty handling the sights and sounds that come with being in the city at night. It felt good to finally leave my bedroom and experience the world again. Over the following week, I gradually worked myself up to full speed again. By the end of November I felt essentially normal. I still carried the shades to work, but I didn’t wear them. I could watch basketball games without any concern about aggravating my brain. And most of all, I could write again.

Feeling fully recovered, I started to ramp up my workload. I started writing for a Raptors site. I wrote a number of articles in a row for a clickbait site, in order to get a payout reward for writing so many in such a short span. After that, I began hunting around for more writing work. I was focused on building my resume up, all while working four days a week at my restaurant job. I felt newly refreshed, and I put pressure on myself to try to achieve as much as I possibly could as a writer in the shortest possible time frame. And it worked for a while. I learned how to handle multiple assignments a week. I planned my time around writing. I’ve never been a particularly organized person, but my weekly schedule became more regimented.

But then one day about three weeks ago I got to a Thursday morning (which was my first shift of the week – I work in an industry where Thurs-Sun shifts are the norm). I realized that I was feeling more tired than usual. I turned my girlfriend and said, “I’m exhausted. I think I really need to take it easy this weekend.” She pointed out that if I was serious about taking it easy, I shouldn’t be working. I shrugged the comment off, figuring that doing my best to not overly strain myself that weekend would be sufficient. I could rest on Monday. I got through my four days, but by Sunday I was absolutely burnt out. I was asked to stay a couple of hours extra on Sunday to close the store, and I realized I simply couldn’t do it. My head was getting all muddled up. I was too tired to do anything – even the most basic tasks at work. I started making mistakes on the line – little mistakes, like skipping a burger or missing a modification on an order. The other supervisor agreed to close for me and I left early – still thinking that a bit of rest was all I needed.

I rested for three days, but by Wednesday I knew something was wrong – I couldn’t go into work. So it was back to the doctor, and another week spent resting, almost as if the concussion had returned full force. My head began throbbing in exactly the same way it had when I had my initial concussion – just waves of exhaustion and confusion pouring over me. At one point we ordered food for delivery and the trip from the couch to the front door to collect the food was so exhausting that by the time I got back to the living room I needed to lie down. Staring at a computer screen for longer than 5 minutes was overwhelming. After a week, I still felt messed up, so I returned to the doctor and explained my situation. She agreed that I’d been overdoing it, and simply needed to stop working so hard. In short, she told me that I would need to choose between my writing work and the restaurant job that pays the bills, at least in the short term.

Since that doctor visit, I’m feeling a lot better. I’m starting to watch my basketball games instead of listen to them again. I can check the internet when I need to. I’m no longer curled on the couch with my head in my hands. In other words, I’m functional. But I’m still not normal. I still get home from work at 2 AM and sleep till noon. I still need to take fifteen minutes to relax every few hours. I haven’t watched a single movie in probably a month. Going forward, I’ve scaled back my writing commitments – informing two of the sites that I was writing for that I needed to take an indefinite hiatus. Another site I plan to return to tomorrow, but only with a very reduced workload. If there’s anything I’ve learned from the past few months, it’s that head injuries are nothing to take lightly.

Between Sarah’s baby, and my head injury, the progress on this book certainly isn’t what either of us expected it to be a year ago – or even six months ago. Life comes at you fast. Goals are great, but sometimes real life gets in the way, and between both of our physical situations, I don’t think either of us are in a position to push as hard as we’d like on this book right now. But Sleeping With The Material World is our child and it will persevere even if its parents neglect it. We will get this book finished…eventually.

-Simon

Dating Diary: Just Friends

As soon as class guy walked into his first class a few minutes late I was hooked. This guy was sexy, with a great body and beautiful hair and skin. Once I got to know him a little more I was all in. He was only 20, so about ten years younger than me (which made me feel like a bit of a cradle robber) but in every other way he seemed perfect. He was funny, highly intelligent, and a gentleman. He had a good job and home, great friends, and a sense of style. We started hanging out outside of class and it seemed like he liked the same music and food as me. Things were going somewhere.

But as things progressed, I started sleeping over at his house a lot and we still didn’t do the deed. I started wondering if there was something wrong. Finally, on one of my visits, we tried. And I have to say that either the guy had a problem getting up or he was on roids or something, because it didn’t go well. I wondered if maybe he just wasn’t attracted to me.

We stayed up late that night and the next day I was working a double shift at work and his friend was coming from out of town to visit him. Since we were both busy, we didn’t talk – which is fine. I don’t necessarily need to talk to a guy I’m seeing casually every day. (But at the same time, when he didn’t call me I felt like he wasn’t that into me; it would have been nice for him to let me know he had a great time.) By the following day I had decided that I didn’t want to sleep with him again, so I would just call him and say that I just wanted to be friends. 

But I was awkward about the sexual problems and I didn’t want to bring them up, so I came up with what I thought was a smooth way to wriggle out of it. I figured I’d use him not calling the next day as an excuse. In the end, it was a stupid decision – it just made me look crazy. He wasn’t even mad about being just friends, but he kept trying to explain why he was too busy to call. The thing was, I didn’t actually care, so I told him not to worry about it – we’d just hang out next time we saw each other in class. The class rolled around, and we left together as usual. As we were walking, he turned to me.

“I just wanted to explain why I didn’t call. I knew you were working all day, and I was going to that show with my friend. I knew we’d talk to each other again…”

“Look,” I finally said. “That wasn’t the real reason. I don’t really care if a guy calls me the next day. The reason I told you that is because I didn’t enjoy the sex the other night.”

“Oh,” he said.

“So, just friends?”

“Just friends, okay.”

He didn’t ask any more questions and we went our separate ways. A few days later, I started wondering if I’d made a mistake. The guy seemed perfect in every way except in the sack. I messaged him saying I wanted to give it one more shot. Maybe our problems that first night had been a one-off, and there was more to him than that. He said he wasn’t really interested, that he’d moved onto seeing other people. I told him so had I, and we left it at that.

The most awkward thing was seeing him in class afterwards. We totally stopped hanging out as friends and for a while he avoided me like the plague. It made class super weird and made me realize why they say it’s not a good idea to hook up with anyone you’ll have to see every day afterwards if it fucks up. The weirdest thing of all is that after the class ended he started texting me looking for a quick fuck. I kept turning him down, but he kept asking even as I went through other boyfriends and changed phone numbers. Finally I told him I was pregnant and he backed off.

I don’t know what the lesson is here – maybe it’s to be careful what you ask for. Just because someone seems great at first doesn't mean they're right for you.

Exercising With Other Moms-To-Be

When I got pregnant, I was doing a martial arts class a couple of times a week and working out on top of that. My class was in Jeet Kune Do, a type of martial arts which involves a lot of takedowns, kicks, punches, and sometimes sticks and knives. I would often come home with bruises on my legs and arms. So when I got pregnant, my OB told me I couldn’t do Jeet Kune Do anymore, because the contact was risky for the baby. Around the time I stopped, I generally became extremely tired and seemingly lost all motivation to work out. I was working a lot of hours at work and I was just blah. I began to fall into a rut where I wasn’t participating in any physical activity at all.

The fact that my partner could still go to class and I couldn’t grated on me. I started to get depressed, and jealousy and hormones took over. I realized that I needed to be doing something – just lying at home feeling pathetic wasn’t my thing. One of my pregnant girlfriends told me she was doing Aquafit and I was welcome to join her for a class. I wasn’t convinced at first, but I figured I’d try one class and see what it was all about.

The first half hour of my first class was just a discussion about pregnancy and after-birth topics, and I learned a lot about what to think about when a baby is coming into your life. After the talk we all headed downstairs to the pool and spent an hour doing some exercises. Afterwards, I felt relieved and like I’d accomplished something. Because the whole class was geared towards pregnancy and after birth, I learned a lot. Being around other pregnant women who could understand what I was going through was such a nice change from my everyday life, and pretty soon I was a regular at the class.

Of course, as my body grew, my two-piece bathing suit kept shrinking. Fortunately, I’m small enough that I didn’t grow out of it entirely, It just started to look a little weird – I didn’t have to go out and buy a pregnancy bathing suit (maternity clothes are expensive!).

Whether it’s Aquafit or something slightly different, I’d recommend some kind of communal exercise like this to all moms-to-be. There are lots of reasons for that, but here are just a few:

1. It’s nice to be around other women experiencing the same thing as you 
2. You can make friends 
3. It’s good for you physically 
4. It’s good for you mentally
5. Learning how other moms-to-be are planning ahead can help you make your own choices when it comes to the baby 
6. It’s a refreshing break from work and home life 
7. It’s a time to spend bonding with the baby, even though it’s still growing inside of you 

Being pregnant slows you down a lot – you’re literally carrying around a huge weight inside of you, after all. But while that may be an easy excuse to do nothing, that doesn’t mean that it’s healthy to just lie around the house. Staying physically active is important for a pregnant body.

Dating Diary: Norton the Non-Communicator

It started on OkCupid. I matched with a guy who I’ll refer to as Norton, because he vaguely reminded me of Edward Norton. He seemed strange, mysterious, sexy, and intelligent, plus he was Irish. I have Irish heritage, so I’m always drawn to the Irishmen. After some back and forth on the site over a few weeks, I finally gave him my number and we planned to go out on two dates.

At the time I was dealing with some private family stress, and as I was struggling with that, I got sick. The stress brought it on. I had a serious infection and ended up spending some time in the hospital. I was completely out of commission for a week. Once I recovered from the infection, I got sick for another two weeks, and then I discovered I needed to get my wisdom teeth removed. After a month straight of being laid up in bed, this guy Norton was the last thing on my mind, but we kept chatting through the app as I recovered. I felt like through the sickness I was releasing all of the toxins – all of my negativity that had built up over time. It was awful, but it was also cleansing.

I wound up cancelling both of our original dates. Norton said he wasn’t going to ask me out again because a) I kept cancelling and b) I looked like a snob in my profile pic. (I don’t think I’m a snob!) I felt bad so I invited him out the following Saturday. We met at a French place I knew that had a broad menu and was kind of a bar – it was a good spot because we couldn’t decide if we were meeting for drinks, apps, or dinner. I wasn’t hungry so I ordered a fruit salad and a drink, and he ordered a huge piece of meat. (I was worried that he would think I’m one of those girls who doesn’t eat because of how thin I am. But really I just wasn’t hungry.)

The conversation went well – he gradually progressed from being a bit standoffish to opening up and telling me some things about himself. (Must have been the alcohol.) He told me his roommate was moving out. The night went great and we ended up back at his place. I told him casually during the course of our conversation that I was interested in going on a trip to the state of Goa. Later in the evening he flat-out stated that I was going to move in with him and then he was going to come with me to Goa. I told him he was nuts to say that on a first date, but at the same time I was tickled that he’d suggested it. It made me think that he really liked me. We didn’t end up sleeping together – he was too drunk – but I left his place at five in the morning feeling like things had gone really well.

I was busy with work the next day but we ended up on meeting on Monday. I went over to his place and we watched a few episodes of Sherlock. He lived near my work in the downtown core, and it was easier to go to his house than to go home or invite him over. Then on Tuesday we went out again. We had a drink on a beautiful rooftop patio and then went to a movie where I discovered he had a weird thing for Rachel McAdams. He told me that they worked out at the same gym, had had a couple of conversations, and that she even hired him to clean her basement once. The whole thing seemed kind of weird – people get really weird about celebrities. His obsession with Rachel McAdams should have been a bit of a red flag.

We had lunch again on Wednesday before I went to work, but then I started to notice something weird about the way that he was texting me. It was like he didn’t want to keep seeing me, but was texting me just for fun. We would talk back and forth throughout the day, but he didn’t answer my texts when I got off work. When I told him that, he denied it. He said he was already asleep by the time I finished up at work.

I invited him to a keg party on Friday. One of my girlfriends was throwing it for her brother who was going to be leaving to go touring across Canada and I wanted to bring Norton as my date. Before the party we went for Italian food and I made it clear that I was still talking to other guys because we weren’t official or anything yet. He didn’t like that and said he was jealous. At some point he admitted that he’d only had one serious relationship in the past. He seemed to be a little bit off in the way he thought about things, like he wasn't totally there. I think looking back that maybe he had Aspergers’ or something.

I think he enjoyed himself at the party, but it was a bit weird for me to be going to a kegger. I hadn’t been to one in years, I walked Norton home and took a cab back to my place. I was a bit annoyed that he had never attempted to venture into the west end where I lived. The next day we were planning our first official sleepover, and he made a big deal about popcorn. He said he had to get some and then asked me if I had any. When I got to his place he had to run out and buy some because neither of us had any popcorn. It was totally ridiculous. Then he promised me breakfast in the morning.

We didn’t do it that night – it was my time of the month and I didn’t want to do anything. The next morning I woke up before he did and asked him if he had any tea. He said he didn’t. I told him I had to go, and he walked me to the bus stop. I still hadn’t eaten anything and now I had no time to eat any breakfast, so I just grabbed some shitty Starbucks on the way to work. It wasn’t great.

I texted him a few times over the next couple of days, but our schedules didn’t line up so we didn’t see each other. On the following Monday I had my surgery for my wisdom teeth, and Norton asked if I wanted him to come over on Monday night for emotional support. I knew I was going to need some help, but my Mom was coming over to take care of me so I told him I’d be fine. I didn’t want him to see me all drugged up and swollen. The surgery was very unpleasant and my mouth bled for about three days afterwards. It’s not an experience I would recommend to anyone. As I lay in bed recovering, with my Mom taking care of me, I got all sorts of messages from friends and other guys who were flirting with me, all wishing me well. But nothing from Norton. Finally I messaged him to ask how his day was going. I was upset – I had thought he really liked me.

This is the reason you're single and why you've only had one serious relationship, I told him.

I said that I wanted to be with someone who showed me he could fit me into his life, not one that just says he wants me in his life. It takes effort to make a relationship work – a guy has to cater to a girls’ needs sometimes. He told me he had been golfing all day and went to dinner afterwards with work friends and was too busy to text me. It didn’t seem good enough. I was done with him.

It was a good-bye fight, an I’m-going-to-move-on-with-my-life fight, but that wasn’t quite the end of Norton. In the end he won me back and we started dating for real. I even moved in with him for a few months. But after a while, the Aspergers and the inability to communicate just got to be too much. I broke it off with him and found my own condo downtown.

Dating Diary: The Perfect Pickup Goes Sideways

This was probably one of my weirdest pickups ever.

The story starts by me taking a Thursday mid-shift. Normally I worked nights, but on this day I swapped it for a shift that ended at 9 PM, which worked out perfectly because I wanted to go to a Second City party that night (I was taking improv classes there). Once I finished up at work I headed straight to Second City, sat down at the last remaining seat at the packed bar and ordered a drink called a Moscow Mule (a vodka and ginger beer cocktail). The Moscow Mule is my favourite drink – if I had a choice, I’d never drink anything else. I hadn’t seen anyone from the party yet, but I thought maybe I was a bit early. I texted my friend and found out that I’d gotten the date wrong – the party was the following Thursday. 

I thought: well I have NOT EVER drank in a bar by myself, but since I already ordered my drink I might as well finish it. As I sipped it, two separate guys came over and tried to hit on me. I basically shooed them off. After the second guy left, the guy sitting next to me eating and watching the baseball game turned to me and said, “I’ve counted two so far.”

“What?”

"Two guys trying to pick you up in the first ten minutes since you sat down - that's pretty good."

He was tall, maybe 200 pounds, with curly dark hair, a nice smile and steel blue eyes, and dressed in a suit. He ordered a Moscow Mule - my drink - and started chatting with me. Apparently he had just gotten off work and lived across the street. He was a designer, and just so cute and smart and funny. He seemed a little insecure, which just made him seem available. It seemed like we liked a lot of the same things. In the back of my mind, I was thinking, this guy is so perfect it’s cray. He told me he had squash in the morning and then he said he should make sure to grab my number before he forgot. Once we traded digits, it was like bang. The Jays game ended and he quickly downed his drink, paid for both bills and ran off. I was left sitting by myself at the bar, thinking what the fuck just happened?

I wasn’t planning to text him the next day. Like, who knows what that was? But at some point in the afternoon he texted asking if I wanted to grab a drink on Friday night. I had to work but I agreed to meet him afterwards. So at midnight on Friday he picked me up in an Uber and took me to a bar that had live music. He told me it was his favourite spot. I had to pay for the drinks because he wasn’t carrying cash on him. (Totally fine.) Then we went to a super-nice bar where we sat and gabbed till close and he covered the bill.

We went back to his place. It was sort of empty - not a lot of furniture in the living area. Definitely a guy's place. He offered me a joint. I turned it down but hung with him on the balcony while he toked. He was playing all sorts of music and it was all the same things I loved. It all felt so comfortable. We watched videos, listened to music that moved our souls, and just sat together. Eventually he asked me if I wanted to watch a movie with him in bed and I said yes. After we turned it on we starting making out. Everything was going great, but at some point I had to pump the brakes. I realized I wasn’t ready to sleep over or sleep with him yet. I told him I had to go. He didn't seem super thrilled about it, but he walked me to the door. As he showed me out, I got a bit of a rude, sarcastic vibe from him. He sort of half-jokingly shoved me out of his apartment at the last minute. It seemed weird at the time but I didn't think too much of it.

The next day I texted him and he asked me when I was done work because we had to finish watching the movie. I told him, and again he came to pick me up in an Uber. We went back to his place and chilled again. He got stoned again and I just hung out as he showed me some of his artwork and some various videos online. I don’t think we actually watched the movie we’d started the night before. I went up to his bed again, but it was late and we were both tired so nothing happened between us. As I lay there, he wrapped himself around me like he had to hold me tight. He was like a bear protecting me. I couldn’t leave the bed. He rained light kisses on my neck and the whole experience was just so sweet and charming.

The next morning shortly after I woke up I had to leave for class. He was still wrapped up around me and asked me to stay a little longer. We started chatting, and then he said if we didn’t have sex now it would never happen. I thought he was joking. I had to get to class. I got up, kissed him on the forehead and teasingly said, “then it’s never, my friend.”

As I was leaving, I called up “bye” from the main floor and got back a gruff response like, “yeah, we’ll talk later.” It seemed weird but I shrugged it off at the time. Later in the day I texted him with a joke I thought was funny. He didn’t respond. I waited for a while and just…nothing. He was gonzo - a ghost.

I was left wondering what I'd done wrong. I felt like I was terrible at dating. Was he really just after one thing all along? Our two nights together had seemed so sweet and lovely, and then it was like - no sex, I'm out. I know now that it was selfishness on his part but at the time I spent a lot of time wondering if it was something I had done that had ruined it. 

Time passed, I saw some other people, moved on, and almost completely forgot about him. Then one day I was bartending at work when a familiar face sat down and ordered a drink. 

“I feel like I know you,” I said.

“Yeah, I met you at the Second City bar,” he said.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, suddenly recognizing him. All the feelings I had pent up from that week suddenly came rushing back. I felt myself losing control and I'm sure my face turned a fire-engine red. “And you never messaged me again.”

After I said that, I had to get someone else to cover the bar for me until he left. It was upsetting. I felt a bit used. Like all that niceness we had built up had been for nothing – in the end he was only after one thing. Thinking back, I remember how unfurnished his house was. I've seen other guys who were just as single-minded, and it seems looking back like they always had totally vacant houses. It makes me wonder if that’s a red flag when it comes to guys. Like maybe empty houses mean empty hearts? Maybe sometimes the guys who don't have enough love for themselves to turn a house into a home are the ones who aren't capable of having a relationship in the first place.

But who knows?

Life Changes

2016 was probably one of the worst years I ever had. I moved in with a boyfriend and it turned out to be one of the worst decisions I ever made. Before moving in with him, I was in a nice condo downtown with a job where I made decent money and lived with my dog that I loved. I loved living downtown as a single female because it allowed me to be social and I felt extremely healthy. My ex lived very far out of the city and I had to quit my job to move in with him. Once I got there, he stopped talking to me for two days and told me I couldn’t drive his car like he had promised I could. He had asked me to move in, but once I did he transformed into a completely different person. He became very controlling and a complete douchebag. The stress of the relationship brought back my smoking habit, which I had kicked 6 years before, and I almost completely stopped sleeping. I was only there for about two months before I moved out one day while he was out at work - I just couldn’t handle him at all. 

I moved back in with my mother. I knew I had to make some changes. My whole life was upside down. I ended up joining a martial arts class. I had recently started therapy and I knew that I needed some physical exercise - a nice place to release things and learn something new.

It was at that class that I met my current boyfriend. At the time he was secretly going through a separation with his wife. When I met him I figured he was married and therefore did not make any effort in pursuing him (not that I make that much effort at pursuing anyone). But I was so attracted to him. If I’d known, I probably would have chased after him from the jump. He was pretty closed off in class, but any time that I got to spar with him I was happy to do so and slowly I began to learn a tiny bit about him. As time went on, I began to have feelings, but his separation was still a secret and no one in the class knew that he wasn’t happy in his old relationship. So for a while I kept my mouth shut.

Fast-forward to now. Things have changed! I have a (semi-)new relationship with a wonderful person whom I love very much. He truly is what I’ve been looking for all these years - with some added, let’s say, quirks (that are for the most part tolerable). I know he thinks the same about me. Our relationship has been pretty much a whirlwind since it started. As soon as we both realized that we liked each other we basically started dating immediately. We quickly found out that we have a lot in common and we have a lot of fun together. I feel like he teaches me something every day.

We had only been dating for a few months when - surprise! - I got pregnant. I have never been pregnant nor have I ever even had a scare with pregnancy. And I have not always used birth control. In all honesty, I thought I might not be able to have children. But I guess when things are meant to be, they’re meant to be.

When we first found out we were pregnant, we both freaked out. We were both in severe shock. He was still going through a divorce and I was still trying to get my life back together. But I didn’t for one second think I didn’t want the baby. I did, however, have the thought: how the fuck are we going to do this? I told my boyfriend if he wasn’t ready to have a child or spend his life with me then that was okay and I would do this alone because I understood it was my choice to keep the child. Although he was unsure at the beginning the more we both thought about it the more exciting it became. Within the first year of our relationship we had to discuss massive future plans, like how many children we wanted. The least fun of all the talks was finances. We had to talk about if we were going to live together, where we would raise a child, did we want to get married, and all the fun things that come along with a long-term relationship. The only difference was we had only been together for a few months. I had only met his parents once! It almost seemed similar to a arranged marriage (but who am kidding? I have no idea what that would be like). In the end, we decided to be together for what we hope is life, and raise this little bundle of joy as a family.

Am I scared? Yes! These are all huge life changes and they’re kind of coming on a whim. As for being a Mom, I have to say I’m excited and a little nervous but I feel like I’ll be good at it. Don’t get me wrong - my mother did the best she could and so did my father. But I learned a lot about what not to do from them. I am generally a pretty down-to-earth, fun, responsible person - at least right now (keyword: now. We’ll see if that changes once the baby arrives.) I’m also, like my boyfriend, a jack-of-all-trades. We both know a lot about many different things and are talented in many different ways. So I hope that we can raise a child well.

I do have to say I’m afraid of giving birth, though. That scares me the most - the pregnancy not so much, the being a mother not so much. But the splitting open and everything coming out including the baby is scary. I just hope it goes by fast and it’s quick. I also hope my boyfriend is there for it because he travels for work and I would like him to witness it.

As for my career or going back to school, I’m not too sure. I know I want this book to be published and that’s all I’ll be working on for myself for this next year pretty intensely. School I would still love to do but I have to see if that’s an option in a couple years, or if I even want to go that route again.

I’m holding on with faith and love, and I can only hope it all works out. I know this will be the thing I work hardest on and not ever give up on.

New Year's Resolutions - Simon

Happy New Year, readers! (And Merry Christmas as well since we didn’t put a post up last week. We were too busy eating turkey and opening presents!) For today, Sarah and I thought we wouldn’t focus so much on the book, but rather would devote a double-post to discussing our hopes, goals and dreams for 2018. This post discusses Simon's New Year's Resolutions. Here's Sarah's.

***

I took a little bit of a different tack with this exercise than Sarah did. Instead of focusing on improving my internal, personal well-bring, I focused a little more on concrete goals. These are things that I think I can get done this year.

1. I want find a steady writing gig. I currently have this blog which I edit and two other websites I contribute to. One is unpaid and the other pays okay, but not reliably. By the end of this year I would like to find a second reliable paid contract (or, y’know, an actual full-time job would be great!). My goal is to be self-sufficient and have time to work at honing my craft every day, as well as building a profile that allows me to further my writing career, and... 
2. I hope to quit my restaurant job. I have been thinking about quitting my job in the restaurant industry for a while, but I never knew how to support myself enough to actually consider doing it. Just from the writing work I’ve picked up in the last few months, I’ve started to see a light at the end of that tunnel. I certainly haven’t made enough to support myself full-time yet, but I feel like I’m finally in a position to start saving a few pennies for when I’m ready to take that leap.
3. I want to get this book in the hands of a publisher. Sarah’s been working on this book for several years, but this New Year marks the the third calendar year where I’m involved with this project. Even if we’re unable to get this book on shelves by the end of 2018, by the end of the year I’d like to find a publisher who is willing to work with us as we build this book up. My goal is to build a profile and contact list to the point where I can engage with publishers and get this book serious consideration.
4. I want to eat better. I’ve been working in the dregs of the restaurant industry for the last seven years – flipping burgers at low-end fast-casual chains. Scraping things together to make ends meet means I’ve taken full advantage of my employee meals, which is good on my wallet but not so great on my body, since it means eating way too many hamburgers and fries. Since my girlfriend moved in this past year, we’ve been making an effort to cook at home and eat healthy, and I would like to continue moving towards a semi-healthy lifestyle in 2018. (This seems exactly like one of those New Year’s resolutions that everyone has and breaks within a month, but I think with the changes in my lifestyle it’s attainable, especially if/as I move away from the restaurant industry.) 
5. I want to spend more time with friends. One of the consequences of living in another province (British Columbia) for eight years in my 20s and then working nights for the three years since I’ve been back in Toronto is that I’ve lost touch with a lot of old friends. Some of this is just growing up and drifting away from people, some of it is my lack of a social life to begin with, but a lot of it is just being to busy to fit people in. I hope that potentially freeing up my nights from work will allow me to make time for friends on a regular basis - whether it’s hitting the bars once in a while, playing some poker home games, or just being free on weekends to see my friends’ kids.

It really feels like for both Sarah and I, 2018 is a year of growth and new beginnings. Here’s to a healthy, happy, successful New Year!

-Simon

My Life: Then and Now

Modelling is not a normal job. I don’t think you could really even call it a job. As a model I was wild and free and caught in the cycle of loving/hating the fashion industry. I had no commitments other than to be beautiful and to show up to jobs and countries. I made pretty great money, travelled all over the world, stayed in (mostly) nice places, got to (or was made to) socialize with the VIPs in the cities I was visiting. I was around beauty in every way. It’s like most high school movies where the geeky girl gets accepted into the cool crowd and then feels like a million bucks, then while enjoying the natural high of being a “someone" gets swept up into it and begins to change her outlook on life. I started seeing the world in a different way. I started thinking I could actually become someone. It was doable.

But looking back, I realize I was living a bit of a lie. When you get greedy and only start thinking of the money, it clouds your judgement. My life seemed so grand but in a way it all felt so superficial. Eventually reality hits. Currently I’m working at a job that pays very little money, where I wear a horrible uniform and get dirty everyday driving and cleaning trucks. It has great benefits but that’s about it. It’s so different from the glamorous life I had before. Now when I’m cleaning up shit (literally, sometimes), it feels like I really could only go up from here. I’m at such a low point career-wise. It is in no way to do with my career aspirations and is not even close to anything I’m interested in. But sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Maybe that’s growing up.

I’m six-and-a-half months pregnant. That might not sound like too far along, but believe me - it’s a lot of work growing a child inside you! My new (and hopefully forever) life partner and I have started a committed relationship. I have never really been in one before this - or even wanted to be, if I’m being completely honest. He truly is everything I have been looking for. You really do need to kiss a lot of toads before getting your Prince. I thank God everyday for him and my new family. I’m also doing an online course for financial accounting (which I completely should not have done at this moment in time since I already have too much stuff going on). My exam is tomorrow and I hope to God I pass. That’s not to mention that I am working on finishing this book and keeping up with this blog.

My life now is a total 360. I’ve transformed from this immature, wild, young female into a committed mom-to-be. We just moved into a new place to prepare for our new child. It feels like I have been unpacking for weeks. I have been organizing a baby shower as well. It has been a lot of work, but my mom and best girlfriend have been helping as well. All in all it’s been tough. I never have time to just chill at home. It’s such a huge change from my old life where I could relax when I needed and was able to sleep in at least twice a week. That never happens anymore. Do I wish sometimes I could just get up and leave it all behind? Yes. I miss the way that back then I was able to just pick up and leave the moment I didn’t like my situation. But then I think there’s no way I want to leave this family I’m starting to create. This - this - is what I have so desperately wanted my whole life. In a way this is what I was searching for during all those years of globetrotting. For my whole life, I have been praying for a family and then success. In that order.

Now I have faith. That’s the only advice I can give to anyone else out there - just have faith and work your ass off. Don’t stop till you get there - wherever your “there” is - and then enjoy the hell out it!


-Sarah

Dating Diary: The Angry Artist

Here’s another doozy of a dating story. You can’t make this shit up.

A friend I worked with named Peter had some art done by a local tattoo artist. I saw the tat after he got it done and immediately fell in love with it. Peter told me that the guy who did it was amazing and super chill and down to earth. He told me he was Asian and had tattoos all over the place and hinted that I might really like the guy. I do have a soft spot for Asian guys and tats, but when I first went to see him I was more interested in getting some of his art.

At first, I emailed him to ask about getting something done, but I didn’t hear anything back I added him on Instagram and thoughtlessly liked a bunch of his posts. Like I said, he was an amazing artist, and I wasn’t even thinking about the fact that he could see who was liking his stuff. He added me back and suddenly I noticed that he was liking a bunch of my posts.

“Is this a liking contest?” he messaged me.

I told him I loved his art and had emailed him about a job. We set up an appointment and I went into his studio for a quick look and to set up the actual appointment. In between the meeting and the appointment we texted back and forth a bunch. It was mostly just about the artwork but I tried to flirt with him a bit. He was a hottie.

On the day of my appointment we hung out for about three hours, just talking about everything. I thought that he was fun and interesting and seemed to be into all the same things as me. I was totally into him. I thought we had connected and was waiting for him to ask me out, but he didn’t say anything that day. Over the next couple of days we texted back and forth. I told him I was very intuitive and he asked what I was thinking.

“I think you want to ask me something but you’re holding yourself back,” I replied.

“Wow. UR Psychic.”

“Look if you want to ask me out just do it.”

“I don’t know. U might think I’m boring LOL. Lemme sleep on it.”

“Fine, whatever,” I said. But I was thinking, Are you kidding me?  He certainly wasn’t boring, but that whole exchange was a bit of a red flag that he was a bit weird. I waited all day the next day to hear something and then in the evening I finally texted him something like, “if your heart is telling you you should then you should.” He got the message and finally asked me out.

Our first date was probably the best date I have ever had. We had brunch at a lovely little place that my friend had recommended and then went to the valley by Old Mill subway station and watched the salmon migrating upstream for about five hours. We didn’t kiss, but the whole experience was amazing.

Over the next few weeks the guy was just such a sweetheart. I had had a few too many bad experiences and had resolved to try and wait a month before I slept with anyone. With this guy, it was easy to play it off as inconvenient at first because my Mom was staying with me at the time and he still lived with his parents while he saved up for a studio, so a “sleepover” would have been awkward. Most guys seemed to give up and leave long before we had made it a month, but this guy just stuck around. I enjoyed hanging out with him tons. He was so affectionate, loving, friendly, chilled, and easy going. Just lovely. He only texted me which caused a few misunderstandings because I like guys to call me as well. But he was great. With everything going so well, after the first couple of weeks it was getting hard for me not to sleep with him and hard to explain why I wanted to wait. Even though a month isn’t that long, in the modern world it feels like a lifetime, especially for men.

Finally it happened. We had made it about a month so I went to bed with him and the first time it…wasn’t that great. It was fine, but there was nothing memorable or exciting about it. The second time, though, was different. The tender guy I had been falling for turned into a completely different person. He went at me like a jackhammer, smacked me in the face, and called me dirty names. He tried to strangle me and talked way – WAY – too much throughout the entire thing. I let him finish and thought – nope.

I didn’t say anything about how I felt immediately but a few days later I brought it up over text. (I had wanted to talk it over in person but he didn’t want to wait until we met up.) I told him that I didn’t like it like that, and that girls who did probably think about sex differently than me. I even suggested that maybe the girls who do have had some sexual abuse in their lives (I’m not saying that they necessarily have, but that was my personal opinion at the time). And even if I had been willing to go along with some of what he did, he needed to bring it into our relationship way slower – one thing at a time – and warn me in advance about what kind of stuff he was going to be pulling out. Even then, I don’t know if I would have been into it. But at least I would have been willing to try rather than noping the fuck out.

After I told him all of that, he told me he was super embarrassed and sorry. He told me his last girlfriend had been into some crazy shit and he had transferred it over to me. He told me he could go along with whatever I liked. But I’m not like that. I don’t want to direct the whole process when I’m in bed with someone. I’ve never had to do that and I didn’t really want to start.

The question of whether we could make it work simmered for a few days. Finally I asked him straight out, “Is that what you’re into or not?”

He got angry and defensive, and I realized things would never work between us. A few days later we officially ended it. I never slept with him again, because I just didn’t think that I would enjoy it. We’re still friends and I think he’s a great guy and an incredibly talented artist. I don’t hold any of it against him. 

But sometimes two people are just incompatible…

-Sarah

Beijing Memories

I love this photo.

This was taken less than a week after I ran out on my last international agency in China. In this shot we’re on the elevator on the way to the club to go party with the 2008 Olympians. I was chilling with the Jackass boys and two BMX riders after we had all finished up the Gumball 3000. The “Masters of Dirt” hat I’m wearing is the logo for one of the BMX companies.

It had all started the previous Saturday night, when my friend Min in Shanghai invited a bunch of the girls up to a huge party in a fancy hotel. Min told me it was a party for the Gumball but I had no idea what that even meant. He assured me that the party would be packed with celebrities and that they needed some hotties there. So I asked my 5 roommates (all beautiful models) if they wanted to come. Of course they came – I always knew where the fab parties were. When we got there, there was free booze and free food everywhere. The girls and I stayed all night, then went back to the penthouse and partied till the next morning. One of the hot guys I had met asked me if I wanted to stay with them and travel to Beijing. I told him yes. Then I called the agency and told them I was cutting my contract. I was sick of my agency and the scene in China and just needed a change, but more than anything I was just down to have a good time. Thinking back now, it just reminds me how wild and fun I used to be. It’s not that I can’t have fun now, but I’m more grown up. In my teens and twenties I did whatever I wanted, and got paid. Life was easygoing and carefree.

So I joined the Gumball. The Gumball is enormous car rally that takes place somewhere in the world every year. Thousands of cars and drivers drive thousands of miles just to have a good time and enjoy their toys. It attracts the wealthy, the famous, and anyone who is crazy about cars. The cars in the main rally itself are absolutely gorgeous. In 2008, the Gumball was lined up with the Olympics, winding up in Beijing just in time for the Games. I had really only hitched onto the last leg of the trip.

Fast-forward to this picture. The hottie who had convinced me to run out had already left Beijing, since he was a writer for GQ and had other things to do now that the Gumball had reached its destination. One of the Jackass cameraman, a guy named Teatree, invited me and Miles, the main BMX rider I was hooked up with, to come into town to eat something with him and some British girl. It was probably one of my favourite nights in Asia. We went on an Asian Gondola and rode around a river. We went and smoked sheesha at some side street make shift “restaurant”. Then we ended up in this club somewhere where all the Olympians were hanging out. It was probably best that I had no idea who anyone was because then I wasn’t going crazy about meeting any of them. I had no idea who they were. We partied all night.

Later, Miles, the British girl, Teatree and I were all drinking and Miles put his head down and went to sleep. The British girl was basically gone, her eyes looking all different ways, and me and Teatree were left to chat. He was living in LA but was from New York. He was Jewish and Russian, loved his family, and came across as so funny and sexy but not in your typical way. We stayed there chatting and drinking for a few hours with our dates ‘under the table.’ Teatree was a skateboarder who started his career off as a cameraman for skateboard videos. He moved on to shooting for ‘Jackass.’ He was charming but so not my usual type and a little older then me. We hit it off, and after this meeting we dated on and off, though it never went anywhere. Twice I told him how I felt and twice he turned me down. He only truly wanted me around when he was lonely. From time to time he would fly me out to wherever he was and we would end up stuck to each other’s hip, as they say. Then I would go home, and we would go back to being just friends again.

This photo was the beginning of the end of the fun times. My agency was super pissed at me, and had contacted my mother agency to tell them that I’d disappeared and was on drugs (neither of which were true, though I had left with zero notice). My mother agency was calling my mom to make sure I was okay, and now every other day I was on the phone with my mother reassuring her I was fine and just with friends. By that time the modelling agency in Shanghai had taken all my belongings and brought them to the office under lock and key, including my passport and lap top. They threatened that they would keep everything and not let me leave China. But I was too busy having the time of my life with these millionaires to care.

A few days later, the parties dried up and people started to leave Beijing and I had to go back and clean up the mess I’d created. The train home from Beijing to Shanghai was one of the worst experiences of my life. There were four small beds in each cubby. This train was infested with mold and I’m deathly allergic to it. The train ride is only about five hours long but I thought I was going to die. My throat started to close up, my eyes were foggy and my ears were completely plugged. So much phlegm was coming out of my nose and mouth. I would choke on it at times and have to cough it up and spit it out in a tissue. When I got to the point where I thought I couldn’t take any more my stop was next. I ran off the train and my symptoms instantly disappeared. I was so relieved.

Now: the agency. I knew it was going to be bad. The agency had my laptop, my suitcase of clothing, and my passport all locked up in a massive vault. I still have no idea why they had a bank-sized vault in the agency. They refused to give me any of it back until I reimbursed them for the flight monies they said I owed them for flying me out to China in the first place. I told them I did not want to stay there anymore. I wanted out. But I didn’t have the money.

I sat in the waiting area for while. Finally the owner of the agency arrived and told me to come into their boardroom. He yelled at me for about an hour. He told me I was twenty-three years old and I was acting like a child. He had never had any model do such a thing. Then he told me that I was worth nothing because I was female. I was crying but told him that I was going home this week. He said no, I wasn’t going anywhere until we figured out about what I owed him.

That day I ended up leaving without any of my belongings, only getting them back much later with help from my mother agency and an assurance that I would never work in China again. Even though this was basically the end of my modelling career, I don't regret my decisions at all. It was such an amazing experience and I still talk to some of the people I met on my Gumball trip.

-Sarah

6 Major Mistakes I Made As A Model

Back in our very first post we outlined some tips for surviving in the modelling industry. In this post I’ll discuss some of the mistakes I made as a young model that could have been avoided if I’d followed some of those tips:

1) I never kept track of my jobs and agency expenses.

After my contract was done in South Korea I came home with way less money than I should have. The agency ended up charging me for a bunch of extras, including the rent on my apartment after they had told the group of us to move into a bigger and more expensive place. When I went there, they had a set amount (flat rate) that they paid out for the type of jobs that they were offering and they pocketed the rest. At the time I didn’t want to be a pain but in retrospect I should have asked to see the receipts and demanded fair payment. If I’d been smart, I would have insisted on altering the contract to state that I would be paid the full amount that the client paid the agency, minus the 20% agency fee and minor expenses. Instead, I let the people who had the most to gain from ripping me off control my finances.

In general, I should have tracked all my jobs so when payment came up I knew exactly what I was owed. I should have budgeted expenses before even stepping foot in the city I was working in, just to know how much I needed to leave available for emergencies. I trusted my mother agency to have my back and while they were my rock, on the road it’s important to be your own accountant and always watch every dollar that comes in and goes out. Models are in a difficult spot - forced to put so much trust in other people in such an untrustworthy industry.

2) I partied too much, and didn’t focus enough on the jobs, castings or career in general.

Sometimes while I was getting my makeup done for a job and I had to shut my eyelids while they put on eye shadow, I would literally fall asleep in the chair. The makeup artists were very nice about it and never made it seem like a problem - they were probably used to it - but I shouldn’t have been doing that. I should have enjoyed being there and not rushed everything. I should have had more respect and appreciation for the job and the career.