This is Jules, first of two cuddly companions until Sunday. He’s the fatso who, as soon as I get up, hauls his massive bottom over to where I was and occupies the space until I return and move him. A thing which must be done with a crane.

I have to feed and water him and Zidane twice daily.

Routine, what a beautiful thing it is to me.

Laurence and me were discussing how very much we appreciate this in our lives. You can see it so clearly in the order and placement of our products in our homes, even.

Like a skin routine. I finally and fully integrated a morning and an evening routine into my life – a ‘beauty’ one, though I’m not at all on board with this word. It’s more a ‘keeping my skin as healthy as possible’ routine now that I am about to hit 45.

Once in a while, I would buy a nice product and get excited, but very quickly regress to water and hand-cream. I think that a part of this was because I hate the emphasis placed on women to look younger, as equally as I hate the amount of money women spend on keeping this youthfulness, as though it is the only measure of beauty. Somehwhere along the way, in eschewing the ‘beauty routine’, I ignored how important it is to simply take care of the skin in which we live, and that we show.

Sidebar re the beauty industry targeting women: I support a woman’s choice to do what she needs to fit into a world that is constantly telling us we are not qualified / pretty / young / skinny enough. We are up against wild constructs of unnatural expectations, and we are all entitled to choose whatever tools we need to fight them.

Apart from the skin health routine, I have also integrated a study (books, Duolingo, and French television shows and news), a reading, and a writing routine.

Being outside of work, there is no routine, and I am clearly a woman who likes structure. Lists and checkboxes are my kink, it seems.

More than anything, it brings order, which I need and love.

For the longest time, I fought this. I thought it was somehow sexier and cooler to fly by the seat of my pants until I found myself, like a woman with some kind of unseemly rash, trying to take the flying pants off as fast as possible.

No thanks.

I’ll take order and structure all day, everyday; gravity is highly underrated.

Today, I am grateful for:
1. Shaika, the little café down the street from home in Montreal. This is where I am studying during the days; everyone primarily speaks French, which permits me to eavesdrop, while I enjoy excellent food and tops coffee.
2. The Netflix series The Bodyguard, which I am watching in French. I am two episodes away from the finale, and am obsessed. Please let there be a second season, though about what I can’t possibly imagine.
3. The sound of children playing in the street, well into evening.

Montreal | Day 280 | September 6, 2019

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