The twins I nanny have taken on the arduous task of learning to eat with a spoon and fork instead of their hands. I’ve been drilling them with the stab and scoop combo, we’ve tried both hands just in case one’s a lefty and we’ve explored lots of other techniques. Even if the food gets on the utensil it makes it to their mouths with a 67% success rate. The remaining 33% of the time they are utterly frustrated, as anyone would be. They’re freaking hungry, damn it!

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One of my awesome, new soul sisters (this is what I affectionately call like-minded female friends who are into all the awareness work I’m into) invited me to a spring equinox gong sound bath tonight. I’m actually still kind of buzzed from it. I was so altered after the experience I took the train downtown by mistake and just wound up walking most of the way home.

Neither of us had participated in an event like this and had no idea what to expect. Basically, it was facilitated by a gong master who was an older man with long white hair and a long white beard. He looks just like how you would expect a gong master to look. Tonight they were graduating their first class of gong students and this was their final presentation.

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As part of this dating fast I’ve taken detailed stock of my dating history like a detective collecting clues to solve the great mystery. I’m trying to figure out some kind of common thread or pattern.

There are some obvious similarities. For instance, every guy I’ve dated since 2004 (yikes) is a musician and passionate about music. Almost every person was pursuing music professionally in some format or another. Even if it  wasn’t their primary income it was their primary passion.

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We all know the feeling when you discover for the first time that someone you were in a relationship has a new partner. It’s just yucky. At least it usually is for me. Kinda like a punch to the gut and this surge of panic courses through me.

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The mother of the seven-year-old girl I nanny (Amanda) wrote a deeply moving entry on their family’s blog that provides updates for close friends and family. She described a conversation she had with her daughter about cancer. The entry was so well written and describes her daughter’s loss of innocents due to her father having this illness in such an eloquent way it moved me to tears.

At one point Amanda told her mother that she knew that cancer kills some people. When her mother asked if she was scared about that, Amanda replied, “Not anymore.” Since it was an unexpected response her mother said, “Not anymore?” and Amanda replied, “I’m not her anymore.”

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I’m really sad today. Most days I’m pretty strong and hold my own, but today I can’t help but see the pain and weariness on those around me - people I deeply love and care about - and I can’t quite hold it together and tightly as usual.

The father of the family who employs me is having his third craniotomy Monday about a month after his last one. When he got out of the previous surgery everything came up roses. It wasn’t a reoccurrence, there was no increased vision damage (as they operate on his occipital lobe) and the surgery ran as smoothly as possible.

However, no one really celebrated.

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