It happens often enough that I suffer from penis envy, discussions of penetration and hip thrusts leave me feeling all too distinctly that no matter what I strap to my waist to feel that shift of balance, I'll never know how it really feels.
Last night was a whole new envy of maleness, as the Troll stripped off his shirt to splash through the street to join Mr. Pyke in his heroics.
See, it was shaping up to be one of those desperately wonderful evenings, curled up on couches discussing play parties and poor vanilla victims, tearing into meat sticks to make up for the afternoon's protein burn in my muscles.
Talk turned a little overly Montreal-centric and Mr. Pyke wandered out the door to go stare at the storm I'd just driven through and when we finally finished our comparisons of memories of who'd slept with who and who ended up in which city, we wandered out to find the porch conspicuously free of Pykitude.
A quick glance out back and the backyard door was still locked from the inside, and then illumination dawned on the Troll and he was stripping off clothing and shouting "I know where he is!" and pointing to the far corner of the street.
Ever swift on the uptake I was still trying to figure out why Dave would just wander off like that with a guest in the house when I realized
this doesn't look right
that little white car at the corner is up to the door handles in water
Hey wait, I can't see the sidewalk all the way up the hill to the house
And then suddenly I was desperate to strip my own shirt off.
Except that I can't, I've been forbidden by the homeowner hisself to not streak in his neighbourhood
and since I've done the hypothermic conditions thing far too many times
I ran in for two layers of fleece to keep the warm water in, topped it with a waterproof shell, and belly-flopped down to the lowest part of where Claude meets Merrick and dug into the trenches.
And for a while there I was afraid that we'd never get the one under the car clear, and for a while I thought it was raining harder (except that the real reason that my glasses were soaked is because I kept dipping my head in) and for a while there when the Troll asked "where's the city, anyway?"
I suddenly became desperate to call someone, not 911 but maybe the operator and ask for help, please help
and this morning and all the more so after reading Mr. Pyke's and Trollboy's takes on the evening I realized just why I was so desperate to make noise, to get attention, to ring doorbells and tell people what we were doing.
I wanted the attention, gratitude somehow, and that's wrong. So wrong. We were up to our knees and elbows and chins in cold, cold rain, fighting elements, fighting for our streets and doing something so wonderfully pure, and there I was tarnishing it, wanting attention, wanting recognition for what I'd done.
A sure sign that right now my ego is craving attention, and part of that makes me needier than I want to be and than I have been in very many years, and part of it is making me wonder what I can change in my environment - because if I'm acting needy, perhaps it really is because I have needs that are not being met.
In any case, there was a point in which the drain that I found was perma-clear and without any leaves heading towards it, and where the Troll's drain across the street was doing pretty good, and the sidewalks were becoming a wavery visible beneath bare inches of water.
We sent Mr. Pyke in to start the tea and bent our heads and bodies to that infamous white car and the grill beneath it.
Time moved. My climbing-sore arms moved. Handfuls of leaves were hurled behind us mimicking every Looney Tunes mole or badger ever scribbled across a page.
Then there was a Great Sucking Noise and suddenly the sidewalk was there and the car tires were there and the street was there and these massive piles of leaves were flat-stuck to the ground and Mr. Pyke was in his white bathrobe on the front stoop waving us inside.
I dallied a few moments longer reaching for that mass of leaves that I could feel with the very tips of my fingers, pushing other piles aside, making sure the drain was going to stay a drain.
Someone yelled at me for not having the sense to come in out of the rain, and then we were on the porch, bedraggled and laughing and wet and hugging and I could smell the rain on everyone and smell everyone in the rain and
then we were inside with clothes in the dryer and tea in our laps and suddenly our private heroics really were heroics.
Suddenly the adventure was perfect, something utterly new, something immense, and something good -- I did good, despite my fifteen minutes of wanting to have ruined it for the sake of getting attention.
And when the eighteen layers came off? I was momentarily topless and wet, albeit inside, and still utterly envious of the opposite sex, but really
all things considered, it wasn't that big a deal.
This weekend I ran and shopped and hugged and spent time outside, learned to play pool and found a necklace to make me feel less naked and vulnerable.
This weekend I climbed and laughed and ran into large dozens of people in the streets, I hugged Maria and I hugged a young lady who left bemused at my shower of affection.
Today I spoke to Cfoo who put warmth into one of my insecure places, today I spoke to Seb and Sophie who are showing up in Canada next week, and spending a couple of days chez nous/moi/Dave (still a little unclear) and today I got car insurance that costs three times as much but proves that I am partway to conquering this place.
If only because the first step is getting firmly acquainted With the idea that I'm here.
I'm here. And last night I made my first difference.