Last month, Jonathan and I went to visit his family in Scotland. In preparation for this, in April I churned my way through a heavy and long biography of Mary, Queen of Scots. As a result, the one place I really wanted to visit was Holyroodhouse Palace, where Mary witnessed a brutal murder and got married twice (out of 3 times). However, the current queen was in residence so we couldn’t get in.

For consolation, while driving to Edinburgh for a couple of days, we decided to stop by Lochleven, a castle on an island considered a much less important landmark in Mary’s life. It was there that she was imprisoned for a year, was forced to abdicate and miscarried twins. She eventually escaped by charming two of the castle staff into helping her commandeer a rowboat, sabotage the other boats and get away.

To get to Lochleven, we had to drive through the tiny village of Kinross, constantly thinking we were lost before finding another tiny sign for the hidden castle. Eventually we got to the shores of a lake, with hardly anything to indicate we had found our way. A ferryman in a small motorboat waited patiently for his next fare. It was really exciting to have found a bit of history that wasn’t completely overrun with tour buses and souvenirs. Lochleven showed nothing of its importance as it stood humbly in the distance.

When we got there, we had the run of the island and castle, all to ourselves. We stood in the room where Mary lost her twins, saw the window from where she bitterly watched fireworks celebrating her infant son’s coronation, following her forced abdication. She would never see him again, and he would be raised by her enemies.

I’ll visit Holyroodhouse next time I go to Scotland, but I doubt it will be as exciting as this impromptu visit. As is often the case when travelling, the unforeseen events that throw you off the planned path always lead to the best discoveries.

Jonathan’s stuff arrived yesterday. After spending the night on a red-eye back from California, not in my bed, I came home to a bit of a discouraging scene. Our newly-cleaned living room was a fiasco of boxes, guitars, bicycles and an inquisitive Boston terrier. I soon warmed to the idea, when I realized I now had a spanking new set of pots and pans, an XBOX 360, great cooking knives, and a whole new library of books, games and CDs. The stuff also gave my place the distinctive Scotsmontonian smell, and Jonathan was excited about finally being fully moved in. We happily chose forks and editions.

Then, this morning, after my first sleep in 48 hours, I found out that Jonathan’s alarm clock plays Mission Impossible, the loud rendition. Nine desperate snooze-minutes later, it tried a different tactic and blasted me with the A-Team theme.

I think the Human Rights Charter says I’m allowed to take a hammer to it, right? If not, maybe I can get Amnesty people to write their local congressman on my behalf…

The Scotsmontonian Jonathan permanently settled in Montreal on Saturday, ending our routine of red-eye Edmonton weekends, webcam conversations and calling cards. So far, he’s found out the wonders of Jeopardy!, Comet is getting daytime walks, we’re painting our now-joint office in pop-art fluorescent green and turquoise, and our biggest argument has been about what key to play a Belle and Sebastian song in. Oh, and I’m to discontinue my practice of reading in bed, because “God, that’s so domestic”.

I hope he doesn’t clue in too soon that tidying the house, picking up the groceries and making dinner while I work might possibly be construed as “domestic” by some. Domestic or no, it’s really good to be à deux.

I’ve lately been looking for a pair of pink shoes to complete my outfit for an upcoming wedding. As I was going from store to store yesterday, I remembered a day in the 80s when I decided pink was too mainstream for me, and threw out all the pink items in my wardrobe. That day, the garbage truck could have been labelled Au Coton.

I’d have puked in indignation if I’d known then that I’d someday be searching for pink heels to go with a pink-with-white-polka-dots Bardot scarf. Ah, to be a teenager in search of identity. Things were so black and white then. Pink out, gray in. I don’t even think the coolness factor of going to a wedding in Scotland would have compensated in my tragically prejudiced 16-year-old mind.

I’m not completely free of constraints, however. To complicate matters, the Scotsmontonian, who has surprisingly few opinions about clothing in general, has issued a strict fatwa against open-toed shoes, his ultimate turn-off, thereby prohibiting most of what’s in stores these days.

I have so much more fun now than when I was 16.

In 8 days, the Scotsmontonian will move to Montreal, into my heretofore bachelorette pad with me and my heretofore life-mate, Comet.

Forced inside by the weather, we spent his last visit in an unquestionably domestic manner, measuring walls, planning Ikea purchases for the extra stuff he’d be bringing, and choosing colors to repaint some rooms. Despite the fact that he’ll have some time off, it was really important to me that we both be involved in assembling the not-even-purchased-yet furniture, and in putting the not-yet-chosen-paint on the walls.

A couple of days later, my ex had a few insights for me, having recently helped someone move in. He said he’d felt decidedly masculine and able, putting up shelves and using tools, “very different from how I was used to feeling around you”.

Makes you think, doesn’t it. Am I castrating my guy by usurping his traditional position of handiman-in-chief? I know I feel like a domestic goddess when I pull off a roasted leg of lamb, so why not allow him his satisfaction too? Why not allow him his Y-chromosome-given right to feeling like a rugged provider, having assembled the DIKTAD, the BONDE and the BILLY while I’m at work? Then the more I thought about it, the more I saw the advantages to me. Call me a control freak, but up until then it hadn’t occurred to me that coming home to things being done - and done not by me - was a good thing. A Scotsman wants to do my housework, and I’m fighting it. What am I, stupid?

It’s a process, you know. And I’m sure that starting in 8 days, there will a lot more processes in motion.

- So if you do an action TO someone, you add “le” before the verb. For example, I watch him is Je le regarde.

- Ok, so… “I tell him” is “Je le dis”.

- Uh, no, it’s “Je lui dis”

- Ok but I do the action of telling TO him.

- Hm. “Le” in “Je le dis” refers to what you say, not whom you say it to.

- …

- Hey! Let me show you that sneezing panda on YouTube!

 (Damn you wordpress!!!! How can I do carriage returns in this editor???)

I’ve been helping the Scotsmontonian to learn French for the past little while, and diligent as we are in our lessons, I’m constantly confronted to the fact that I speak Québécois. I’m always finding myself telling him “Yes, that’s correct, but we don’t really say that here, only in France”. In the French course we’re doing, they talk about Pressing and Pastis, instead of nettoyeur and vinier. I was concerned he’d learn the European French and not understand people here.

Then yesterday, Comet was begging for some leftover eggs and I heard him say to her, “You cheeky buggerr. Didn’t you get your fill with that mère-guys?” and I burst out laughing. There’s nothing cuter than a Scotsman inadvertently saying Merguez with a Québec accent.

 

I can finally come out and say it, the Scotsmontonian is to become a Scotstréaler before long. He is interviewing all over town this week, in the hopes of landing a decent gig, we’re selecting which one of our spatulas and toasters we’ll keep in our shared household, and he’s learning French. We’re standing on the springboard of full coupledom, counting down the weeks.

At work, I’m in full pre-production. This means we’re laying the groundwork of our new game, researching everything we’ll need, developing every tool, answering every question required to build the game. It means pushing hard to get as many things tested as possible before starting to make the game. Soon it will be time to start, and we have to be ready once that happens.

At the gym, I’m doing an intense program with a trainer for the upcoming running season. Doggedly putting in the time, five weeks down, seven to go, I don’t get to see the effects until May. Just plug away until it’s time to race, and hope it all pays off.

Generally, life feels like a rehearsal right now.

I’ve been reading a lot of history recently, and it’s caused me lose pretty much any faith in god I had left. This isn’t a good thing. I believe it’s a more meaningful, less lonely world if there’s something else out there, but I can’t make myself believe in it if I don’t.

At my family Christmas dinner, an aunt asked me how I’d been, and I had the ill-advised impulse to launch into a born-again agnostic rant in response. To my surprise, despite the horrible timing, everyone was quite open to my views.

Douglas Adams says about religion,

“If someone votes for a party that you don’t agree with, you’re free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. … But on the other hand, if somebody says ‘I mustn’t move a light switch on a Saturday’, you say ‘I respect that.’”

Well, it seemed that agnosticism had also reached that status of unimpeachable opinion, at least in my family.

Half an hour later, the conversation turned from God to Céline. Bolstered by the previous open discussion (and wine?), I was candid about my views on the diva. Sure, she’s extremely talented and… uh… thin? but I can’t help but be embarrassed as a French Canadian whenever I watch an interview with her, because she comes off as a flake at the best of times, and a complete moron at the worst.

That’s all it took for the golden gates of open debate and mutually respectful exchange to slam shut. Tears shone in my aunt’s angry eyes as she defended the songstress, so vehemently and emotionally that I left the house to wish the neighbors a good yule. As I crossed the cold street and felt the tension dissipate, I made a mental note on future family party etiquette. God touchable, Céline not.

In this year of environmental wake-up calls, T wrapped my gift in reused paper and plastic and still managed to make it look attractive.

(It was Stefie Shock’s new album, Les Vendredis).