Solitary Spinster

Let me introduce myself.

I am a daughter, a sister, and an aunt. I am the third eldest of nine, split between two families. My family consists of two sisters, one brother, two half-brothers and three half-sisters. I am an aunt and a great-aunt. I have twenty nieces and nephews. These include full nieces & nephews, half-nieces & nephews and step-nieces & nephews. I also have a great- niece and three great-nephews.

I am old. Okay, technically middle-aged. I turned forty-eight on my birthday in the Spring of 2008.

Grey at the temples. Why is this distinguished on a man but not on a woman?

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I am single. I guess, technically, I am divorced.

I am a feminist. A “Helen Reddy I am Woman” feminist. There are those who would consider me a radical feminist – but they would be wrong. There are a couple of blog posts just in this paragraph alone.

I am a bookworm. A word worshipper. I read around three books a week, ten magazines a month and I write. I read everything, anything – song lyrics, fiction, non-fiction, picture books, young adult books, poetry, newspapers etc. – but only in English as this is the only language I know. I’m waiting to master English before I move on to a second (or third) language.

I’ve lived in Calgary, Banff, Canmore, & Medicine Hat in Alberta; Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Weyburn, & small-town Saskatchewan and Montreal, Quebec. I’ve seen most of Canada from Vancouver Island to Montreal. I’ve been as far north as La Ronge, SK. I want to go East and to the Far North (Yellowknife, Dawson City). I’ve touched a toe into the United States- want to go to San Francisco & Disneyland & Broadway. The last time I was overseas I was a babe-in-arms – only London haunts my dreams and maybe Loch Ness. I miss Montreal the most because of the connections I made there. It’s where I went back to university in my thirties and it’s where I grew up the most.

I was born at the tail end of the baby boom (1960 – I remember the young Elvis how handsome he was), came of age during the 1970s (bought the very first issue of Ms. magazine at thirteen) and became a working adult during the boom of the 1980s (I worked in childcare & was poor). I never even considered, growing up, that I would live and work and grow into the millennium.

I’m using a pen name, a pseudonym, because I want to explore and talk about all of me (all of us, all of it)! The blood, guts, tears and sex that make up life. But I don’t want to hurt or embarrass the people I care about.

This is part of my first blog post, the full post can be read at http://solitaryspinster.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/hello/.