Day 61: No Seriously, Don't

Okay. So...I looked down. Right after writing my post, I went to the library to pick up a book and proceeded to have a Stage 5 meltdown in my car. I was in flapping, screaming free fall in the parking lot of the Calgary Public Library. It was not pretty.

I called Drea and bawled into her ear about how nothing has any meaning any more and I don't know what the point or purpose is and I'm floating in the middle of a vast ocean of nothingness and I don't understand anything. She said she felt the same way yesterday.

She also said there's a homeopathic remedy that might work. I asked her if it involved horse tranquilizers and an all-inclusive vacation to a padded room.

I said I keep thinking it's PMS and she said, 'Didn't you have that last week?' And I said, 'I have it every week.' But then the seed of doubt was planted and if you know me, you know that a seed of doubt grows into a forest of drama in about six seconds. So I ended up doing a freaking pregnancy test. (I DON'T KNOW!) It was negative.

And then I took my meltdown on home to share it with Boyfriend, who told me that the point of life is to be happy. And I stared at him with a snotty, red, disgusting face and said that sounds very nice but how the burning inferno of hell do I do that? 'That,' he said with a smile, 'is the hard part.' And then he told me to take a bath. Which, what with all the peeing on a stick and snotfaced bawling, seemed like a really good idea.

While in the bath, I listened to a podcast I downloaded the other day when I thought I was facing a 9-hour Greyhound ride home from Cold Lake. It's on A Course In Miracles – woo woo stuff I'd read about somewhere. God, love, forgiveness, meaning of life. That sort of thing.

Lesson #1? 'Nothing I see means anything.'

GREAT.

Then we moved on to 'I don't understand anything.' And despite not seeing anything resembling a miracle, I started getting the feeling that this stuff was kind of right on. Because I don't understand anything. And once we got to 'These thoughts don't mean anything,' I was downright calm. I don't know whether it was the sinus-clearing Eucalyptus bath gel or the soothing sensation of my Earthy illusions being stripped away that made me feel better, but things started making more sense. In a 'nothing means anything or makes any sense' kind of way.

I got out of the bath and went downstairs. I gave Boyfriend a hug. He was happy to see that Shrieking Existential Crisis Victim was gone and Melanie had returned. We made lunch.

Day 60: Don't Look Down

Yesterday, leaving Cold Lake, we listened to a country song where an 18-year-old girl escapes her family and small town life with some guy in a white pick-up truck. It was a pretty song, but somewhere in the second chorus, I got a weird feeling. It wasn't wondering why rural teens seem to require pick-up trucks as getaway cars. It was that I'd forgotten who I was.

I was sitting in a moving vehicle, next to someone I know (and who supposedly knows me), but I felt completely disconnected and cut off. The person called Melanie stopped existing and not in a Zen meditation renouncing-of-the-ego way. More like waking up, strapped to a lab table yelling, 'Who am I? Where am I? How the hell did I end up here?'

Maybe Cold Lake is to blame.

Before, when I had a job, I had a place to go every day. A place where, when I walked in the door, people validated my existence with words like, "Good morning" and "How are you?" People looked me in the eye. People said my name and required my services. Even when I quit my job to work freelance, there was validation. Cheques to cash. Plays to rehearse. Coffees to share.

Now? There's nothing. A bizarre no-man's-land of cheap hotels, duffel bags and gas station pit stops. Normally I find it freeing and adventurous. Yesterday, I was terrified.

I felt like Wile E. Coyote when he runs off the cliff and there's that moment when he stops in mid-air and you know he's about to look down and when he looks down, he falls. It's the rule of cartoons. And in the moment of suspension and stillness in the air, even he knows he's about to look down. He's compelled by forces greater than him. The Animators, I guess.

My mid-air moment yesterday wasn't from running off any cliffs. It was a stupid, sad country song about a girl taking off in the middle of the night. I got this feeling that I am completely alone. Isolated and unfastened. Floating in mid-air with sharp rocks waiting below. And if I look down, I'm fucked.

Only I'm not Wile E. Coyote, I'm a person people used to call Melanie. And while I don't have Animators drawing my every frame, I supposedly have something guiding me. Something I haven't relied on lately. Or been grateful for. Something that could be as made-up as all those things I thought validated my existence.

Right now, that force, that animating God force, is keeping me here, perfectly still and floating in space. I'm terrified up here, but that force is trying to speak to me through the rising panic and that weird compulsion to get it over with and dash myself into the rocks. There's a pounding in my ears and I feel like any minute I'm going to start clawing the air, desperate, reaching for solid ground. I'm trying hard to stay still and stay up here. If I breathe a little, maybe I can make it out. Hear that voice through the fear and the panic and forgetting who I am. It's speaking to me, yelling, even. Screaming: Don't. Look. Down.

Day 59: Deadlines and Supercans

I'm still in Cold Lake, juggling three deadlines and my new neighbours who sit in their room smoking and swearing – with their door open – all the live long day.

When making my slightly-arbitrary-but-relatively-well-thought-out first draft deadline I didn't consider two other deadlines: the grant I'm applying for and the CBC Literary Awards, which all of us Banff-people kind of agreed to enter.

And it's a seven-hour drive home from Cold Lake, which we may be doing today or tomorrow. So things are a little hectic. One must prioritize.

Back to the major breach in hotel etiquette happening across the hall. This flop house posing as a hotel has been a bit of a trial from the get-go. While providing hours of entertainment in the form of midnight arrests and Northern Alberta prostitutes, the general crappiness of this place is getting a little old.

The "gym" is a sad, stained room full of yesterday's fitness novelties such as the Nordic Track and Bowflex, all of which are broken. With the exception of an exercise bike equipped with strange handles that pump back and forth as you pedal, forcing you into an embarrassing and unwanted upper body workout. I shudder to think what is soaked into the scummy shag carpet – underneath the turd-like clods of dirt. Also, it smells disconcertingly of smoke.

The whole joint smells like smoke, actually. The front desk staff try to beat back the reek of cigarettes with an eye-watering "aromatherapy" candle whose flavour must be Noxious Cheap Perfume. This, when blended with the smoke, creates the pervasive scent of Floozie. Appropriate, I think.

But these new neighbours take the frickin' cake. As far as I can tell, all this couple does is sit in their room drinking Supercans, chainsmoking Du Maurier Kings and nattering at each other. They keep their door open so they don't suffocate – sharing their admirable lifestyle choices with the rest of us.

They talk so loudly, Boyfriend resorted to ear plugs in order to get any work done. "Why not ask them to shut the door?" you might ask. Because we are non-confrontational morons, that's why. It's pathetic, but we let these yahoos fill our lives with second-hand smoke and terrible grammar all day long.

Ruining our chances of winning the 2008 Martyr Of The Year award, one of Boyfriend's crew mates decided to help us out. The five-foot-nothing 18-year-old scrapper stomped down the hall and slammed their door shut on our behalf. This passive-aggressive approach led to an awkward hallway confrontation and The Trailer Park People calling the front desk to complain.

Let's review: they bitched about someone closing their door, while we got lung cancer and had foam nubbins hanging out our ears for a day and a half.

Day 58: Desperately Seeking Swivel

There's a researcher in Oregon who specializes in kids with imaginary friends. In the past few years, she's expanded her research in another direction: authors. She did a study with fifty authors, looking at the exact phenomenon I'm trying to bring to life in my book – fictional characters coming to life on their own.

There's an 'ism' for it: the illusion of independent agency. A name that takes the fun right out of it. But the fact of the matter is, these characters function in the same way as an imaginary friend with their own thoughts and feelings and actions. So, when your parents told you you were too old for one, they were dead wrong.

Only I never had an imaginary friend. So, I started mining my childhood, looking for a precedent for having an intense emotional relationship with someone who isn't there.

As a kid, I played pretend a lot. A lot of dress-up and a lot of pretend. We had this Winnie-the-Pooh toy box full of my parents' old clothing. Wild denim wrap skirts, polyester scarves, this awesome Saturday Night Fever dress, all slinky and mauve. Crazy high heeled shoes.

I remember a serious lip-synch-to-Madonna phase. Also dressing my sisters up for photo shoots, trying to turn six-year-old girls into supermodels. In grade school, I created a serialized soap opera with my friends. We performed one episode every week to the class. For some reason I always played a bimbo from the Bronx.

Obviously there's stuff here – creating characters and dramas, acting them out. But I wanted more. I emailed my mom and asked her about my childhood. This is always a good thing to do as a writer – call people up and ask them things whether it's about your own childhood or how a two-stroke engine works.

My mom wrote back with this song she used to sing to us: 'Oh, the girls of France, well they like to wiggle dance.' I'd forgotten about this. Interesting, given my penchant for performing (a.k.a. wiggle dancing) and for France. Maybe I can use this someplace. My mom made up a lot of songs, including such classics as: 'Melanie's my little girl, Melanie's my little swirl.' Only you have to say girl and swirl like gir-rul and swi-rul...two syllables.

One email opened up a huge closet full of memories. But it also contained a mystery: The Case of the Swively Lady. "Remember her?" my mom wrote. Nope, I don't. I have no recollection of a Swively Lady. And now mom's on a three-day train ride to Adelaide – so I can't ask her.

Who is the Swively Lady? Where has she gone?

Does she hold the key to my memoir? What if my whole book rests on her swively, wiggly shoulders? I've asked both sisters. I've put an ad in the paper. I've got a call in to Oprah, CNN and the Missing Persons people. But please Internet, please. If you know the whereabouts of the Swively Lady, call me immediately!

Day 57: Midnight Breakthrough

This past week has been a real grind in the writing department. And also in the living department. I was hoping this hippy diet would lead to 24-7 world-peace bliss, but instead I'm getting my butt kicked by PMS. My experience of which is: everything stinks all the time, unless it's covered in chocolate sauce.

Besides that, the fridge in our hotel room rattles all day and makes me homicidal.

My posts have been shorter lately, too. I'm trying to conserve energy for this last push to the finish line. And also because I've been creatively fearful. This whole week has been full of self-doubt and confusion about the story: where it's headed, whether that's the right direction.

I've been doing lots of reading. Have read four graphic memoirs and a book of essays about faith by Anne Lamott. I've also re-read sections of her book on writing called Bird by Bird. In both books, she talks about getting quiet when times are tough, whether it's spiritually tough or creatively tough.

Because those two things are intimately connected. And in both cases, running around, tearing your hair and screaming like a banshee is not going to help. Although it's hard to get quiet when a hormonal monster has overtaken your body in some sort of demonic possession.

But I've been trying. Sometimes I've not done well and I've wandered the ugly streets of Cold Lake, crying and thinking the world is a dark, scary place. Other times, I've been gentle and calm, drawing myself bubble baths and having faith everything will be alright. But, for five days, I've been waiting. The writing lurches along, and I know that at least one full day's work needs to be thrown out. That it's taken me somewhere I don't want to go and no amount of shoehorning will get that piece to fit. That's okay. I'll let that go.

Last night, I accidentally left the heavy drape open a crack and the highway lights were coming in. Long moving lines of light shifting on the wall. I watched them and let my focus go soft and fuzzy. I think this is why people get such great ideas at night: their minds are relaxed. That irritating and pointless chatter we endure all day quiets down and finally the important stuff can be heard.

And after five days of waiting and being afraid, clarity came. As it does. As it always does, but I get so scared and think the magic won't work this time. That this is when the well dries up and I'll have to get a job sorting fish heads because my writing days are done.

I now think that's what getting quiet is really about: filling the well. It's stopping all the output for a little while and asking you to take baths and walks. To feed yourself nourishing food and delicious books. To stop doing and start being. To listen.

The solutions that came to me at midnight, watching the highway lights on the wall, were simple. Deceptively simple and almost obvious. But that's how it always is: we run around making things more complicated than they need to be, forcing things, getting more stressed and more frustrated and no nearer to a solution. When if we just stop and sit very still, for as long as it takes, eventually we see the answer that was there all along.

Day 56: Cold Lake Still Life

I ventured through the sub-zero, gale force winds to downtown Cold Lake, stopping in to the bookstore to warm up. There, I found an exhaustive section on crystals and chakras, but nothing actually readable. I couldn't figure out the shelf organization: crappy pulp fiction was in the same section as prize-winning literature – but only prize-winning literature that had been endorsed by Oprah. Also, they'd forgotten to order any authors with names beginning with T. There was, however, an entire section explicitly dedicated to Christmas books. I left baffled and empty-handed.

I sat in the coffee-shop for awhile, sipping a dark roast and eavesdropping on a first date. They were both in their late thirties or early forties. She had obviously put in some effort – a flattering shirt and some makeup. But it couldn't hide the fact she was balding. He looked as though life had been none too kind. She looked anywhere but his eyes. I wanted them to like each other, but I'm not sure they did.

Once they left, two teenage girls sat down. One ate a brownie while the other worked her way through a pile of lottery tickets. As she scraped off the coloured foil of the Scratch n' Win, she said, "My mom wasn't sick until the second trimester. I've been okay so far, so I'll probably be the same." She brushed the foil bits off the table and looked at her friend. "What are you wearing to grad?"

Day 55: Hookers n' Blow

Well, hookers and crack, actually. Which is what the 50-year-old man down the hall from us was into the other night.

The scene began with the hotel manager waking half of us up with his yelling and screaming. A small sample: "This sh*t does not happen in my hotel. F*ck that! You can f*ck her and do your crack somewhere else."

It's rare that your noisy hotel neighbour turns out to be the manager.

Boyfriend wouldn't let me venture out into the hallway for a better look. Something about "it's not safe." So we stared through the peephole at all kinds of nothing. Protective men. Hmph.

But luckily, our windows overlook the scenic highway and the scenic front entrance. Where an unmarked police car was waiting. I brushed my teeth and looked out the window. The hooker came out and saw me watching. We made eye contact and had a little moment where she was a downward spiraler and I was a bourgeois peeper. Boyfriend scolded me on my bad spying technique.

The john came out afterward and another cop car pulled up. He got frisked and questioned and put into the car. It was depressing to see how old he was. And how young the girl was. But besides dark themes of societal and moral decay, it was really entertaining. You don't see this stuff at the Fairmont, that's for sure.

Day 54: Inside The Mind Of A Writer

I can see six, no seven, grey hairs. Why do they put mirrors in front of hotel room desks? Do visiting executives need to preen while they crunch numbers? Who am I fooling – there are no visiting executives in Cold Lake. I wonder how much dust is in this drape. I wonder how much toe jam is in this carpet. I wonder how much spooge...stop it.

Okay. Writing. I'm a writer. Today, I'm writing about Charlie and how she gave me the silent treatment for a week. And how that reminds me of the early stages of dating when you aren't sure if you're dating or just friends. Which is hilarious because why on Earth would two single adults be just friends? Answer: to get in each other's pants. Maybe I should buy some hair dye and deal with those greys right now.

What brand did I get last time? And is there any guarantee that I won't turn myself into Elvira Queen of the Dead again? My face is looking pale. If I get famous, I'll need a nose job. Everyone in Hollywood has a thin nose. They've surgically altered the standard of beauty. Although, I wouldn't even think about nose jobs had I not written those plastic surgery books. Ignorance is bliss. So is caffeine. Maybe another coffee would help things. I am a better person on coffee.

My grandmother asked me about the raw food thing. I wonder if she's acting as a spy for my parents. My parents would hate me eating this way. They would tell me to drink milk. They've been doing that all my life, like milk is the solution to all my problems. I'm on my death bed impaled by a rusting metal pole – here Mel, have a glass of ice-cold milk. I'm a homeless, failed artist living in a cardboard box – don't worry, a glass of milk will do the trick. Why am I worrying? They're across the international date line for Christ's sake. Fuck. Charlie. Silent treatment.

*Typing* I looked around the cafe, hoping Charlie was sulking in one of the corners, avoiding my gaze but ready and waiting to reprimand me for my delusions of grandeur, my crimes of character, my eyelash-batting naivete. It had occurred to me that my eloquent, "It's bigger than you," might have been ever-so-slightly misconstrued as hurtful and minimizing. What hadn't occurred to me was the silent treatment.

That sounds good. I would never say 'misconstrued' in real life. Nor would I say 'crimes of character' but that works on several levels, so... Is that the housekeeping staff? I should have put out the Do Not Disturb thing. Now they're going to knock and I'm in sweatpants and they'll think I'm lazy or coming off drugs. I'm not lazy, I'm hungry. I could eat a mountain of chocolate. Chocolate's not raw. Fuck raw. Fuck the word raw. Couldn't they come up with a more inviting name? Living food, maybe? I should become a raw food expert. I could do seminars. I've always wanted to do seminars.

Sixty-six words. That's all? God. It's almost eleven. My back hurts. I need a massage. I can't afford a massage. I can't afford anything. What am I thinking trying to be a writer when the world is falling down? What am I thinking trying to be a writer when I've only written 66 words by 11 o'clock?

*Typing* I could never be a lesbian. Women are too fucking moody.

That's good. Clever. But possibly offensive. Am I homophobic? My wrist hurts. I think I'm getting carpal tunnel. My writing career is over before it even started. I'm going to have to work in a fish factory sorting fish heads. Who told me that I could eat the fish eyes? Was it Dad? Probably. And cheeks. Trout cheeks. More of a novelty than an actual meal. Although, right now I'd take trout cheeks over another fucking salad.

Day 53: Fear & Loathing in Cold Lake, Alberta

It is one week to my self-imposed first draft deadline. I have decided to take a detail – word count – and obsess over it to the point of paralysis. I think my book is too short. Well, I know it. And I am locked in mortal combat with that mean inside-my-head voice that is telling me my book will never, ever, ever sell.

I'm just going to talk myself off the ledge here for a moment, okay?

Paris was only one month. Lots of funny stuff happened, sure, but not THAT much funny stuff. Unless I do a godawful 20-page background dump of where I grew up and what my mom used to pack in my lunch (2 pieces Wonder Bread, 1 piece bologna, love note on napkin addressed to Munchkin), there is a finite pool of material to draw from.

Facilitator Bill would say, "Make stuff up." He'd say make up scenes and events and push the writing further. That I can decide if it's nonfiction or fiction later. That none of those things matter right now.

For example, this book I'm writing is begging for a lesbian love scene. Begging. For. It. I did not have a lesbian encounter while I was in Paris. Nor did I witness one. (Boyfriend will be glad to hear this.) But I've got a naive Canadian girl hanging around with worldly gay women in Paris. The Canadian girl is coming of age – as an artist (and probably as a woman in various ways). She HAS to lose her virginity at some point.

Okay, see, this already helped. Obsession never works. You just spin your mental wheels and get nothing done. A fearful mantra of 'too short, too short, too short' is not going to help me. Exploring what the story needs in order to be delicious DOES help me.

Did I mention I'm in Cold Lake? I've never been this far north before. Which isn't saying much, but I stare at every person I come across here and whisper, "Why?" Although I will say, we passed some wetlands on the way up here – so beautiful they made my heart hurt. But this hotel? Not beautiful. It has maroon carpet. I want you to think of one circumstance in life when maroon carpet is a good idea.

Day 52: Oprah is Lame

What with all the hoopla in my lady parts, I forgot to tell you that Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, the brain lady I told you about, was on Oprah yesterday. (Thanks Ashley for the heads-up!)

Only it kind of sucked. Because Oprah only talks about what she's interested in, not what I'm interested in.

Oprah was interested in how people need to be responsible for the energy they bring to you. And then she made some joke about how her staff really needs to learn this ha ha ha. Now don't get me wrong. Taking responsibility for the vibe you bring to the world is a good take-home message, but there are some other major spiritual insights Dr. Taylor articulated that trump a pissy production assistant's energetic demeanor.

Oprah, darling, you appear to be missing the big picture. (Which is located in your right brain, just so you know.) Taylor has figured out how to access FREAKING NIRVANA in really simple, practical ways and you are rehashing the Golden Rule? Come on.

And then she went ahead and let Dr. No Chin Oz teach 7.4 million viewers about what happens in the brain during a stroke. Forgive me, but wouldn't Dr. Bolte Tayor, a Ph.D. neuroanatomist, be able to do that just fine? Probably even better because she owns a chin?

Luckily(?), Oprah interviewed Dr. Taylor in a four-part webcast that is part of something she calls her Soul Series. Oprah says the word SOUL like she's trying to invade yours. Meh. Forget Oprah. Go check out Jill's TED Talk instead. Or better yet, read her book, My Stroke of Insight. Honestly, I think Chapter Four could be the most important spiritual text I've read all year.

Here's something interesting, her now-New-York-Times-bestselling book was originally self-published on Lulu.com, the oft-mocked weird sister of publishing. Look at the crazy things that happen when you surrender your ego for the sake of enlightenment!

Day 51: Report on Junk

Hello Sports Fans. I know. It's been too long since you've gotten a play-by-play of what's happening in my lady bits. Girl parts. Junk. Nether regions. Undercarriage. Cervical All-Stars AAA Pro-League Association of America.

In a nutshell, things are looking good Down There. I've healed up like a champ and Dr. Best couldn't see any baddies on the surface. She took some samples from ye olde birth canal and the results will back in three to four weeks.

In other frightening news, I saw the pathology from my surgery. YIKES. I dodged a freaking bullet, people. My cerv was knock-knock-knockin' on Cancer's door, yo.

Hey, remember that time when I didn't want to get surgery? Ha!

So anyway, I'm feeling good. Like giddy. Relieved. I feel like I felt in junior high when they were doing construction in the school and the dudes working were really hung over or maybe it was the vibration of hundreds of adolescents during class change, but they let this huge pallet of cinder block and 2x4s fall off the scaffolding.

Two inches from my head.

Melsie had to walk that one off for awhile. As I sat there, breathing into a paper bag on the stairway to Bio class, I had this jittery, holy-effing-shit feeling in my legs and a light, buzzy sensation in my chest. That? Is how I feel right now. In a really good way.

Day 50: Whaa? Day 50?!

It's Day 50 of my Artist For One Year journey. A.k.a. Just One Year. A.k.a. JOY. It's also Day 20 of the Great Raw Food Experiment. And the day of my follow-up colposcopy test after my cervical surgery did not get clear margins on my pre-cancerous tissue. Today we see if the wee baddies are still lurking.

It's one hell of a Monday.

But I've realized something. My emotional/psychological/spiritual state can't depend on outcomes. I can't be reactionary and blown about by every wind. Because there have been a lot of funky winds these days. Y'know, malignant consumerism, political apathy, financial collapse, things like that. Any sane person would pull up artistic stakes and look for a nice, stable full-time job selling bunkers and start stuffing their dollars under the mattress.

But, that ain't me, babe. So here we are, Day 50. Not being reactionary. Which is why I started the raw food experiment three weeks before my test. Because I know me. And I have a feeling at about noon today, I'm going to stop talking and go into a state of protective silence. And my body is going to become a foreign country for which I don't have the right papers or passport and the customs guys won't speak English out of spite and I'll stand in a lot of line-ups with sweaty B.O. people.

So it will be good to know that the old bod has three weeks of glorious, living food vibrating within it, transforming it, like faith. It's also good to know I have 50 days of creative work under my belt. (More actually, because my unofficial launch of this project was August 1, a month earlier.) Eighty days of creation. That feels good. That makes a person want to keep going.

Even if the world seems like it's falling apart and my body is a foreign country. Maybe this is the antidote to all of that. Maybe creative living, in its most broad and basic definition, is what will carry us through this strange pre-apocalyptic time. Because, have you noticed? The so-called safe-bets aren't safe anymore. The plan didn't work. The American Dream led to financial breakdown. Wonderbread causes cancer. Laundry detergent, hairspray and SUVs are poisoning the earth.

The Way We've Always Done Things isn't working. It's okay. We don't have to cry and scream and panic. We need to be creative now. And smart. We have to think for ourselves, read between the tag lines, create new systems of meaning that may bear no resemblance to the way things were. This is mine: living in the moment as much as possible, writing/creating/imagining every day, eating natural, living food, moving my body in the outdoors, studying artists, thinkers and spiritual masters, making simple, conscious choices, gathering loving people around me and loving them as best I can. What's yours?

Day 49: Keeping it at Bay

This is an insipid blog post. It's one of those contents-of-my-cereal-bowl posts that should have been left on the pages of my journal. If I had been keeping up with my journal. Which I haven't.

I'm in Canmore. And I'm feeling guilty. An annoying, vague-yet-pervasive mist of guilt twisting in my guts. Things I haven't done and should have. Things I forgot to do and am paying for. Things I know I need to do, but am paralyzed and somehow unable.

Things like laundry, VISA bills, returning phone calls. Things that every self-sufficient grown-up in the world has to do and seems to be able to do without too much trouble. Seriously, am I the only person in the world who dreads their own voicemail? For whom online banking is something that requires mental preparation and emotional fortitude in the form of six casual shots of rye?

Maybe it's this house. It has a high-powered internal magnet that sucks out my will to leave the house and function in the world. Maybe it was watching a Charlie Kaufman film before noon. Maybe this is all detox symptoms or manifestations of fear about tomorrow's test. Maybe I just need coffee.

Probably, what I really need to do is shut up and write. Okay. I'll do that.

Day 48: Busting Conventions

I'm in a very wild place in my book. I'm working towards an October 31st deadline for the first draft – did I tell you that already? Anyhow, we're coming down to the crunch and things are getting interesting.

I'm moving into territory that I haven't seen covered much before. I'm turning my screenplay characters into memoir characters – letting the people I made up come to life as much as Dana the Artist or Curly the Harmonica guy. Which is fun and exciting, but how the hell do I do that when these people are basically my imaginary friends? "Okay Reader, now that I've got you believing I'm absolutely sane and credible, I'm gonna go ahead and listen to the voices in my head."

It's been a challenge.

So far, I've been relying on Heroes. The most exciting aspect of this TV series is watching regular people discover they have extraordinary powers. The discovery happens in fits and starts and their mastery over their abilities unfolds over time. This stuff does not fall into the realm of Normal Everyday Occurrences, but it is completely believable in the context of the show. I'm trying to achieve the same effect with my book.

The process of learning about your characters is a gradual one. But, I believe anyway, the character exists fully formed in your imagination. So, I've got fully formed characters lurking around in my imagination, only I can't see them clearly.

How I get to see them clearly is a process beginning with arbitrary decisions and assumptions based on superficial characteristics – I arbitrarily give Charlie tattoos therefore she is this kind of person. And then Tattoed Charlie runs around acting out lame tattooed-person cliches, which blows and I start hating her a little.

Then, in order to create something deeper than a superficial cliche, I give her thoughts and feelings. Only they are my thoughts and feelings, not hers. I start imposing my worldview on her, telling her what to think and how to react. People don't tend to enjoy this, so she tells me to suck it, and those aren't tattoos, actually, they're scars.

Then, out of nowhere, she goes and does something wild that I would never have thought of in a million years. She becomes this fascinating, self-sufficient creature who blows my fricking mind every time she speaks. And all I want to do is hang out with her and see what she does next. I have a crush on her now. I'm smitten.

And then eventually I realize I can't control her and why would I want to anyhow. I finally allow her to be exactly who and how she is. And somehow that's the key to understanding and loving her.

It's like any other relationship, really.

Day 47: Full-Of-It Friday

As a special Friday treat, I have let my attention deficit disorder out to play. It's a buffet of blathering. A carnival of cuckoo. A festival of fuckwittage. Bon appetit.

Material Girl
I just got my windshield replaced on the Subaru. Some angels replaced my brake pads, too, so my car has never been in better shape. And now I'm gonna turn around and sell it. Because that is the crux of my Get The Hell Back To Gay Paree plan, if you recall. Only as I drove it back from the autoglass place, I got my first pangs of remorse. "But wait," the voices of Attachment To Material Possessions cried. "Who will you be if you don't drive a sporty Subaru? This car makes you cooler!" Maybe the new owner will give me visitation rights.

Star F*cker
I haven't had a crush on a Hollywood celebrity since Robert Downey Jr. went back to rehab. But right now, I am dealing with a debilitating obsession with the dude who plays Peter Petrelli on Heros. Look at this face. Swoon.


And guess what show Boyfriend suggested we watch next?


Aspiring Mommyblogger Seeking Stud Horse
Have we heard of mommyblogging yet? Moms who blog get big web traffic and big bucks, I tell you what. I am insanely jealous of them. If I had exploding poopy diapers to write about, you bet your first-born I'd be doing it. All those funny things kids say?! God, you wouldn't need an ounce of creativity.

Girls Gone Raw
Is the title for sure, but I can't decide if it should be a graphic novel or an erotic cookbook. Votes?

Teen Love
I am so glad I'm not a teenager. So. So. So. Glad. We were surrounded by them at Starbucks today. They were all hormonal and fighting for a place in the world in futile ways like talking really loud or not making room for little old ladies with walkers. And no matter how badass they thought they were, they still looked like skinny-necked kids with zits and braces and noses they haven't grown into. Tough break.

Random Fact
In Columbia, you can be fined up to $90,000 for gossiping. The fun part would be finding out who turned you in.

I Know One Fart Joke
Bet you're dying to hear it.

I Heart Hippy Communes
I don't know if it was voting Green that did this to me, but I'm loving the idea of communal living/working spaces right now. Wouldn't it be so great to have an apartment complex full of artists and writers and raw foodists? And we would all gather in the evenings and eat lentil loaf and listen to Rafael's new song? And we could collaborate and watch each other's children and sprout chick peas. The only real trouble would come if Isaac the painter got into the absinthe again and we end up scraping his anti-Laetitia sentiments off the front door. That and the animal sex noises from when he and Laetitia make up.

Star F*cker, The Sequel
It's only fair. Here's Boyfriend's top pick. Not that I'm worried. My ass looks exactly like Jessica Alba's.

Day 46: Detoxing Out My Neck

I've been secretly eating raw for two weeks. I didn't want to make a big deal about it on here because people who think raw veganism is a total joke would be all like, "Mel! Raw veganism is a total joke." And then you'd tie me up and shove Hamburger Helper down my throat and I'd die of cancer on the spot. So I've been secretive. Sue me.

And I'm not a raw vegan. It's just that I had another one of Auntie Mel's Home-Grown Epiphanies mixed with the fact that it was 20 days before my next cervical inspection and so I thought I'd give this a try. Twenty days of raw vegetables never hurt no one. You can quote me on that. But please don't come pissing and moaning about calcium and protein, m'kay? I'm a big girl and I'm all over it like a fat kid on a Smartie.

God, I miss Smarties.

Now that the truth is out, let's talk about detoxing – a full body toxic evacuation process that occurs when you eat nothing but healthy stuff. Them toxins have to go somewhere, so they come out through every excretory orifice they can find. Some folks call this a healing crisis. I think that scares me.

Anyhoo. Here are the symptoms we're following:

• Pimple-tastic breakouts, most of which have erupted on my neck, which my dear friend Drea calls "neckne" as in acne-of-the-neck. She's smarter than me and has never has a zit in her life as far as I can tell, the bitch. Luckily the weather's gone chilly and I've been wearing nothing but turtlenecks and scarves.
• Mood swings so sudden they make my head spin. And you're all like, isn't that just normal for you, Jones? And I'm like, shut the hell up.
  
• Fatigue, which is funny because on the other side of this Detox Symptom No-Man's-Land is the Garden of Energy Eden according to raw foodist propaganda literature handed to me by the skinny guy in sunglasses who has been lurking outside my house since I started this experiment.
• Paranoia. Nah, kidding.
• Green and noxious gas such that I've been banished to the spare room. Boyfriend told me he's even LESS likely to ever eat a vegetable in his adult life if THIS is what happens.
• A confusing and unpredictable pooping experience that has me backed up for miles one day and regular-as-in-hourly the next. Too much info? Meh. Deal with it.
  

Zits, mood swings, fatigue? I'm a teenager again! Maybe this is what they mean by fruits and veg having anti-aging capabilities.

Most of my resources tell me that detox symptoms only last a couple of days. But I have a feeling The Weekend Of Mashed Potatoes set me back a bit, which is prolonging the experience. So. Not. Worth. It.

I can't wait for all this detox business to be done with so I can emerge dewy, glowing and healthy. And blonde with big boobs and a permanent tan and no cellulite and a California zip code and perfect teeth and constant (but not irritating) happiness. Because that is what happens when you eat raw food.

Day 45: Why Women Live Longer Than Men

It's like pulling teeth to get good old Boyfriend to come grocery shopping with me. Not because he's a chore-shirker, but because he can survive for days on three stale breadsticks. I cannot. I suffer from acute and terminal Bitch Hunger – the kind of hunger when your blood sugar drops below the point of friendliness, passing surliness and grumpiness on its way to balls-out homicidal mania.

I don't eat breadsticks. Or Melba toasts, which fall into the same petrified wood food category as breadsticks. Or plain, dry cereal because the milk ran out three days ago. I eat things with expiry dates. Things that grew out of the ground, not in a petri dish. And lately, I ONLY eat things that grow out of the ground because I'm all raw-happy (and I have my follow-up colposcopy next week).

Which makes the drastic dietary differences between the love of my life and me all the more obvious as one half of the cart fills up with white food and the other half fills up with rainbow food.

At least he's taken to calling it Cancer Bread. And when I browsed the green tea he asked, "Is green tea the only kind that doesn't have cancer in it?" I love him.

And I was thinking about how when people meet him and eventually it comes out that he doesn't eat vegetables or fruit (besides orange juice and ketchup) they all gasp, "You don't eat vegetables?!" And I know the women are thinking, "HE'S GONNA FRICKIN' DIE!" And the men are thinking, "She lets you get away with not eating vegetables? Dude!"

Because I would wager that my boyfriend is the same as any other man. Except he's one billion times stubborner. And I don't DO ultimatums, guilt trips or any other pussy whipping activity on principle. Even when it could save his life.

So I looked up why women live longer. It's because between the ages of 15 and 24, boys are drag racing flaming sports cars while ingesting several pounds of amphetamines chased with grape-flavoured wine coolers. And if that doesn't get 'em then we all just wait patiently until age 65 when the heart attack does.

The menfolk are reckless bad-asses whether it's racing cars or avoiding broccoli.

And what are the women doing while the men are being all sexy and rebellious? Suffering quietly in the corner with things like osteoporosis and diabetes. Here's an uplifting quote: "While men die from their diseases, women live with them." We are such MARTYRS! Vegetable-eating, pussy-whipping, low-bone-density, bitch-hungry martyrs. I don't know which is worse.

Day 44: Time Warps

I've been thinking a lot about Time these days. Right now, I'm conscious of two aspects of time at play. Once sense is about staying present and attentive to this exact moment in time. The other is about the fact that this moment is constantly shifting and changing – it's temporary.

First, staying present. That is, not freaking out about the future, not whingeing about the past, just keeping your attention on what is actually going on right now. If you are cleaning brushes, you aren't worrying about how the actual painting went today (past) or fretting about whether your work will sell (future). You are just cleaning brushes.

In my case, I'm writing the story of Signor Producer today. That is my task and nothing more. I don't need to go get an agent, revise Chapter Three, buy my Booker Prize award ceremony dress, nothing. I just need to write this one story.

One thing will lead to another. Which brings us to the fluidity of time.

Right now, I'm deep in the Creation Phase. I am writing this book, creating these stories from scratch and facing down the frightening Blank Page every morning. During this creation stage, I need a lot of isolation. I need big unbroken chunks of time to write. Too much social time pisses me off. I resent everyone who dares call me to interrupt my creative flow and God help you if you ask me for something. During this stage, I could resent the sun if I tried.

This part of my process will likely be very different from the Revision Stage. But, if this moment is reality, it's difficult not to get "stuck" in time and believe this is who you are – an antisocial and extremely resentful person.

It's difficult to keep the past and future out of your present. And it's difficult to let the present moment go.

Maybe that antisocial person is not who I am, but when.

I think I just blew my own mind a little bit.

In summary. All we have is this moment, but this too shall pass. Although we need to keep our attention firmly in the present, we can't cling to it, because it is constantly moving. We need both: presence and flexibility. I may be a militant art-freak right now, but so what? I'll be something else in a minute. A Vegas showgirl perhaps.

Day 43: Catholicism Almost Killed Me

Well, not Catholicism as a religion, but as a culture that produces massive Irish Catholic families. Massiver than massive. Dine in shifts massive. Take a number massive. Hello My Name Is Massive.

Spent the weekend with Boyfriend's people in Edmonton for Thanksgiving. My people are flung all over the damn world, so I figured this would be the best way to score some pumpkin pie while getting a little family fix. Only my "fix" was more like an overdose. Not because they're bad people – they are the opposite of bad people in fact – it's just that THEY'RE FREAKING EVERYWHERE.

Especially the bathroom.

Every time I tried to go to the john, it was full of someone. I'd make my way to the downstairs bathroom. But it was occupied, too. I wandered back and forth, from bathroom to bathroom, meeting new people as I went. On every leg of my journey, someone offered me a drink. Because they're good hosts and wanted me to feel comfortable in a clearly overwhelming family scenario. And the best way to do that is to drink. Heavily. Only a drink was the LAST thing I wanted because I was about to pee my pants.

I was seconds from getting into the upstairs can when the three-year-old on the toilet (who neglected to close the door) had a bodily malfunction of some kind involving the emergency invasion of his mother, who brought along a garden hose and a new pair of pants.

I crossed my legs and pretended to look at some of the art on the walls while wondering if that boy's mom had an extra pair of pants for me. Or at least a diaper. It's okay if you wet yourself when you're three years old. Not so much if you're thirty-two.

The kid's pee-mergency eventually got cleared up, but I was still in Code Yellow. I must have blinked because someone else had slipped into the bathroom before I turned around. Or maybe that person was just really smart and hid in the bathroom cupboard while Mom was powerwashing her kid.

Meanwhile, one of Boyfriend's cousins was showing off his new fiancee. Who was showing off her ring. They were both wearing green shirts and I wasn't sure if they were trying out wedding colours or just getting a jump on Advanced Matching Tracksuit Wearing, which most people don't attempt until five or ten years into marriage.

All Boyfriend had to show off was his girlfriend's atrociously distended bladder.

Because by that time, fourteen members of the Hugest Family In History had offered or given or refilled my drink. My abdomen poked out so far I looked seven months pregnant. Which I sensed would raise a few eyebrows among Boyfriend's family members.

Not wanting to make an even worse first impression than I already had by autistically pacing back and forth, knocking on bathroom doors, I hid my pregnant bladder under the dinner table and stared longingly out the window at the dog who ran around the yard, happily peeing wherever he went.

Day 41: Decide There Is A Solution

Things have been hell for my best friend lately. She's exhausted. Depleted. Spent. Empty. Which for a woman this joyful, generous and loving is a very bad place to be.

Her challenges can be broken into two categories: money and philosophy. Money is beyond tight for her and her husband. Last week, they couldn't pay for diapers. This week they can pay for diapers, but every other cent will be going towards business obligations from a past life.

But, my best friend refuses to let financial desperation compromise her beliefs – beliefs which include environmental consciousness, spiritual integrity, responsible health and attentive parenting.

Right now, it feels like a Catch-22: she needs to work, but she's adverse to farming her daughter off to day care. Besides childcare costs $15 an hour – what she makes at her part-time job. It doesn't feel like there is a solution. And the status quo is sucking the life out of her.

If you met this woman, you'd know that's a crime against humanity.

This summer, the Summer of my Discontent, I was trapped in misery. My current situation wasn't working for me, but I couldn't see a way out. I started going under. I was headed for a relapse of depression. Until the day I decided that wasn't an option.

I chose not to get depressed, so I believed there had to be another solution. A solution which didn't involve compromising myself or my beliefs. Committing to my creative work became that solution. How to finance it was the next problem. Again, I decided there had to be a solution. I prayed and affirmed, asking the universe for the exact dollar amount I would need to make this happen. In literally no time, a solution presented itself: sell my car. It was a solution that felt very simple, even easy, and it lined right up with my beliefs.

The answer was there all along, but my habitual way of looking at my life prevented me from seeing it. All I needed was a shift in perception. But I couldn't get that shift until I got very clear and very specific about what I needed. And until I let go of the emotion around the problem and released both my resistance and my need to control.

I believe there is a solution for my friend's dilemma – for any dilemma. The solution is there, waiting for you to stop trying to control the process. Let go of the fear. Decide there is a solution. Ask for exactly what you need. Let it find you.

Day 40: Hotel Living

There is nothing simpler than a life that takes place in one room. For a writer deep in the creative process, it's gold. While Boyfriend works in the field from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m., I enjoy a languid expanse of creative time, interrupted only by people who bustle in and clean my "house" every single day, supplying fresh towels and fresh coffee. My phone doesn't ring. There are no social obligations. There is a treadmill and sometimes a pool. I write, I read, I sleep. It's glorious.

During writing breaks, I wander down to the lobby to make small talk with the front desk women, who I am usually best friends with by the time I check out. Each hotel chain has a different brand of front desk woman. At the Coast Hotel, they were in their early-60s with short, white coifs and golf shirts. The Quality Inn's brand is early-20s, highlighted, curling ironed and heavily mascara-ed.

Late mornings, I get anxious anticipating the knock at the door, followed by the singsongy, "Housekeeping!" so I throw my stuff in a bag and preemptively get out of the way. I assess the character of the city as I seek further caffeination.

The character of Lethbridge is For Lease Call 1-800-333-9275. There are more empty storefronts than full ones. Even the downtown movie theatre is silent and dark. Despite a desperate need for vitality on ground level, there is a fancy steak house silently overlooking the city from fifty feet up in a giant, bizarrely shaped water tower. It's like an ominous Alberta Beef skyscraper.

The best coffee shop in Lethbridge is the Round St. Cafe. It smells of homemade baking and proudly displays a massive selection of flavoured syrups, as though that proves their coffee shop cred. I bet those bottles have been there since the mid-90s when exotically flavoured lattes were hip. Back then, it made perfect sense to stock seven hundred types of syrup. "Dude, Mulberry. Trust me, order a case. So hot right now."

Yesterday, I made the fatal error of sitting next to an expectant-looking man with glasses. I knew immediately he was the type to strike up overly friendly coffee shop conversation with anyone who sat near. Like the guy in Calgary that asked me how I liked my "Apple Mac" as a lead-in to the play-by-play of his entire personal computing history. Or the man in Canmore who looked over my shoulder to see what I was working on and then began offering his opinions on it.

In order to avoid interactions such as these, I've learned to adopt the kind of facial expression that says, 'If you so much as glance in my general direction, red-hot laser beams will shoot out of my eyes and melt your brain.'

But it wasn't me Glasses Man was waiting for – it was a bland corporate stooge middle management type in a windbreaker. Within seconds, I realized Glasses was more of a problem than I'd imagined. Glasses was a loudtalker. The kind of person who seems to think that what they are saying is interesting enough for the entire planet to hear.

I couldn't tell if this was a job interview or a New York Times interview, but Glasses was pulling out all the stops. He broadcasted his resume and "25 years of expertise" to the entire cafe. He screamed things like Quarterly Strategic Objectives, Existential, Stratification and Mileu to the four corners of the earth, while Windbreaker Stooge oohed and aahed.

Mileu? COME ON. Under what circumstances would anyone need to say Mileu in Lethbridge, Alberta? And seriously, did he not know an adjective besides Strategic? I began to think he was a politician with too much time on his hands. That his misguided campaign strategy was to meet his aide in cafes and talk really loudly about himself so his mulberry-latte-sipping constituents would hear him and think he was amazing. All I knew is if he said Mileu one more time, he would not only lose my vote but he'd ensure his brain ended up in a steaming grey puddle on the floor.

Day 39: Right Place, Right Time

So far only a few votes for the working title of my book. Paris Is My Girlfriend is in the lead with The Midget, The Dyke & The Doorknob close behind. I've also received some feedback like, "Doorknob? Huh?" and some title suggestions like French Immersion, What Would Jesus Write? and Je Ne Sais Quoi. Thanks guys! Keep it coming!

Meanwhile, back at the grindstone, things are coming together. I'm days away from a shitty first draft. Only it's not going to be as bad as some of my other first drafts, like the weird and upsetting novel I wrote two years ago during NaNoWriMo. No, friends, this draft has structure, direction, a clear style...and vast, gaping holes in the narrative. It's going to be the best shitty first draft I've ever written. Yessss.

Hey, you know those moments when things seem to coalesce in a really powerful, meaningful way? Like everything you've done, said, read or heard has been for this exact reason, only you didn't know it until this exact moment? That happened yesterday.

And it was because of that obsession article. Last week, I was stressed that the article was taking me off track and off task – stealing attention and energy from my book. But the opposite happened: I learned things from writing that article that have already made my writing better. In other words, I needed to write that article in order to finish my book.

Lessons from Obsession:

• There's a difference between an external/superficial motivation for doing something and an internal/spiritual one. Take a hard look at why you're doing what you're doing. Are you more concerned with end point or are you fully engaged in the process?
• "We are human beings, not human doings." - Dr. Stephanie Mason
• The left brain is the doing brain. The right brain is the being brain. (This is from the stroke memoir I read during the research process of the article.) You access the right brain by releasing the controlling/managing/fearful thoughts of the left brain and surrendering to the present moment.
• Unpleasant feelings like fear, anger and self-doubt are chemicals that will pass out of your bloodstream within 90 seconds. If you stay present and let them pass. If you choose to hook in to the related thought patterns, though, you'll make yourself miserable.
  
• "We move forward faster by being still." - Cathy Yost
• If you stay present and release the need to know everything or control the process, you will actually get more accomplished. Not in a vague woo woo way, but in a tangible 'words on the page' way.

So, I put all these facts together yesterday and applied them to my working process. Holy. Freaking. Dinah. Only, I'm trying not to get too Eureka! about the whole thing because I tend to go too far and think I've mastered the secrets of the Universe. Which leads to the Universe smiting me and my egotistical rantings with a debilitating dose of self-doubt and terrible writing. Best to stay humble and awe-filled.

What I "did" was simple: I stopped doing. I quit freaking out about how I'm not as far along as I wanted to be. I stopped fretting about word count, making progress, submitting short pieces, being a good writer, getting published. Everything. I remained calm. I remained present. All I had to do was write one piece of the puzzle. That's all. The rest takes care of itself.

If my attention wandered, I gently brought it back, just like every meditation tape in the world says. 'Finish this piece,' I told myself. 'That's all you have to do.' I just kept guiding myself back to the present moment and focused on completing the task at hand.

I finished the section and felt calm, satisfied and energized. I understood completely what is meant by 'getting out of your own way.' And then in the afternoon, I checked in with my outline. I am further along then I thought. I'm not behind...I'm ahead.

Day 38: (Working) Title Match

On my drive down to Lethbridge in southern Alberta, as I battled Mach 10 winds blasting across the prairie landscape, I decided it's time for a title. I'm going to be applying for a grant and soliciting letters of support and I figure they can't all be for a project titled Paris Memoir X. Or maybe they can.

That's up to you.

Because dear readers, you get a say in the working title of my charming, irreverent, wildly funny memoir!

Vote early. Vote often. Some are ridiculous. Some are not. Some I think are a total joke, but who knows, you might like them the best. Any of these could include some kind of explanatory subtitle like 'A Creative Coming of Age Story' or 'How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the French.'

Maybe you like the feel of one, but the words don't seem quite right. Maybe you want one word from one and one from the other. Maybe you think I should go back to the drawing board for (Working) Title Match Round 2. It's a choose your own title adventure!

Got a better idea? Send it along! I'll dedicate the book to you. And possibly name my first-born child after you.

Who I Was in Paris

Henry Miller Makes Me Mad

Me, Myself and Paris

The Midget, The Dyke & The Doorknob

Rite of Paris

Fully Clothed at the Moulin Rouge

Paris Is My Girlfriend

First Daft

Paris Memoir X

Post your comments here (and spark a feisty debate!) or email me at titlematch at melaniejones dot ca. May the best title win!

Day 37: Behold the Bag Lady

I live out of a bag. It's an Investors Group promotional duffel bag that I've had for four-ish years. Navy blue. I'd say it fits about a week's worth of stuff in it, but that's what I wanted to talk to you about. My concept of "stuff" has seriously shifted because I live out of a bag.

This bag has been my closet since mid-July, when I started leaving town a lot. I went to BC three or four times this summer, driving back and forth and back along Highway 1. In between my trips, I didn't unpack. I just washed what was dirty, repacked and left again. The month of September, I think I was at home for maybe a week total. I'm leaving again today.

One thing I don't stress about is what I'm going to wear. My options are so limited that it doesn't matter. It's like a private school uniform only it's a striped t-shirt and jeans. I would probably be okay with even less clothing. But I packed that bag three months ago and haven't made it to the bottom to see what's there. I wonder how small I could go.

The only problem with wearing a uniform is when it gets dirty. I try to push that as long as I can. So my Standard Issue jeans can stand up and walk themselves to the washing machine by the time I give in. It's probably not sexy, but I don't care. Stuff is losing its hold on me.

The things that take the most room are toiletries (not travel size) and my hair dryer, which I take along because I have curly hair. It has a big, round diffuser on the end so I don't end up looking like the Jackson 5. It's worth it to me to carry this hair dryer. It's not worth it to carry another pair of pants.

All these travels over the past three months haven't been holidays or vacations. I've just been on the move, trying out new spaces and scenes. Places to stay open up for me magically. I've only paid for one. I think I'm supposed to loosen my ties. Let go of my stuff. Think about what I really need in life and what is extraneous baggage.

There's a song the Be Good Tanyas sing and the chorus goes, 'Keep it light enough to travel.' Over and over again. When I hear that song, I feel lighter. And I feel like traveling. Getting back on the highway with my life in one bag. I think I might just do that. I'm already packed.

Day 36: Left to Right

Read a memoir yesterday written by a neuroanatomist, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, who survived a major stroke at the age of 37. As a brain anatomist, she was in the incredible position of knowing exactly which parts of her brain were being affected by the stroke as it was happening.

The stroke happened in the left side of her brain, affecting her language, mathematics, speech and movement centres. But as her left brain deteriorated, her right brain took over. Her right brain experience was essentially a spiritual experience. While blood flooded the left side of her head, she was in a state that most Buddhists would call Nirvana.

It took her eight years to fully recover, and she did fully recover because she knew and understood the brain's incredible plasticity. But during her recovery process, she was able to pick and choose which left brain functions she wanted back and which she didn't.

The left brain is the "doing" brain. It is the centre of individuality and ego. The right is the "being" brain. It is the seat of connection and empathy. One part of Dr. Taylor's left brain that was damaged gave her awareness of where her body ends and the rest of the world begins. For several years, her body felt like a liquid instead of a solid – and she literally felt at one with everything else in the universe.

In a creative process, the opposing forces we grapple with the most tend to be the analytical/judgmental mind and a state of creative flow. Turns out, this is our left and right brains duking it out.

Yesterday, I got an inspired idea. My gut (right brain) said, "Graphic memoir!" I was inspired, excited, full of possibility. But, almost immediately the analysis/judgment (left brain) took over and I was on the Internet researching. As I compiled a list of famous and seminal graphic memoirs to take a look at, the voice of self-doubt (left brain 'storytelling' centre) crept in, telling me that only illustrators can make graphic novels, not writers. I ended up feeling pretty negative about the whole thing (left brain again) and losing my sense of the here and now (right brain).

Our society values the left brain way more highly than the right. A lot of the time, the underutilized right brain sits meekly by as the strong and powerful left brain bosses us around. Accessing the right brain and all its glorious gifts is a matter of stilling the chatter of the left brain. Being aware of which side is responsible for what really helps. So does realizing that negativity and judgment aren't character flaws, they are left brain characteristics that probably have something to do with keeping us safe from danger.

Here's another fact I love: the physiological experience of emotions like fear or anger are flushed out of your body in 90 seconds. After 90 seconds, it becomes your choice whether you continue to hook in to that negative emotion (left brain) or remain attentive to the present moment (right brain).

Spiritual texts always tell you that Nirvana, bliss and inner peace is always available to you. That has always seemed really abstract and esoteric. I get it now. Bliss really is all in your head. It's just a little to the right.

Save the Cheerleader

Know the TV show Heroes? With the partly compelling, partly over-the-top commercials that end in the annoying tag line, "Save the cheerleader, save the world?" I've successfully ignored it for two seasons. Until last night.

I have a chip on my shoulder about TV. In general, I think it's stupid. I think watching it is stupid. This probably comes from being a kid with working parents who watched TV instead of doing things like homework and got yelled at regularly when the working parents came home. It also comes from the fact that I really love books and think more people should read them.

And most TV is total crap. Except when it's not and you get addicted for the next five to ten 'seasons' of your life because you need to know whether McDreamy will eventually wake the hell up and quit messing around with that high-maintenance, squinty-eyed moron.

Trouble with not watching any TV is I get completely out of the pop-culture loop, which as a writer means I'm missing out not only on what people are drawn to (and by "people," I mean people who might want to buy my books one day), but I'm also missing out on what people are making. And by "people" I mean the artists who are creating popular culture in the form of TV series. Well, some are artists. Some are hacks.

And all of this is a really, really long preamble to say: Heroes effing rocks.

Dude. They aren't just heroes, they are superheroes. This show is basically ten heroes' journeys unfolding over time. It's research! The show draws heavily from comic books, which are fascinating to me in my work right now.

In fact, over the past few weeks, I've considered re-doing my entire book in a graphic novel format, turning myself and the other characters in my story into a comic book heroes and villains. Last night, I started wondering what my superpower would be. Which was a dinner-table conversation I started with my group in Banff. I asked fifty-year-old women and seventy-year-old men about their superpowers. (The women all said their power would be something about world peace and ending hunger. To which I screamed, "This isn't a beauty pageant, ladies!")

Regardless, in my woo woo way of looking at things, Heroes coming into my life right now is really interesting to me. It affirms a creative direction that has been tugging at my intuition for a while now. What happens next? No clue. I wish my superpower was precognition.

Sweet Day

Thursday night, I emceed the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association's launch of Read Alberta Magazines Month. They gave me a t-shirt, a microphone and free reign for two and a half hours. It was guh-lorious. Something about putting a mic in my hand makes funny stuff just surge into my head...and out of my mouth.

I woke up Friday morning and my book – which has felt like an undigested lump in my gut since the end of Banff – became crystal clear. Then Dana the Artist called to add more encouragement to the pile. And then I went to see Life Coach Cathy, who helped me clarify something really exciting.

You know my extroversion/creativity challenge? LCC thinks it's more about having a forum for my voice. That it wasn't necessarily being around a bunch of people that thrilled me Thursday night. It was having a microphone and a performance opportunity. That the act of verbally expressing myself opened the creative flow within me, and boom, the next morning my book came clear.

Maybe I need a radio show. Or a podcast. David Sedaris launched his writing career with weekly radio essays. And Dana thinks I need a column somewhere. A national column. Maybe I can blend the two ideas somehow...

Anyhow. My Fabulous Friday kept on a-rockin' when I put on my sneakers and went for a run. Not five minutes into it, I got an Big Ass Inspired Idea, the seed of which came from this woman, who took the early shift of emceedom on Thursday night.

And then, I ran past the World's Most Awesome Old Man. If the lead singer of AC/DC was 70 years old, this is what he'd look like. Pure white pageboy haircut, topped with the newsboy hat. Massive bushy 'stache. Super loud Burmuda shorts. Old man sneakers with white socks pulled way up. I'm talking hottie. He was seriously rocking out to his Walkman, groovin' along the pathway. When I passed him, he checked me out, pursing his lips and nodding at me in rhythm. If his nod had a sound effect, it would be, "Hawwwwwlriiiiight."

Shh. Don't Tell Boyfriend

I was charmed, deeply charmed, by the raw deliciousness from Tuesday night. I think it was the fact that, from what I can see anyway, raw cuisine consists of throwing stuff into a blender and flicking the switch. This kind of noncooking, I can do.

For the past two days I've been drinking almost all of my food. Peach, mango, orange smoothies. Weirdly experimental veggie soups. Blenderized pasta sauce (where the "pasta" is grated raw carrot).

Stuff from the blender is basically pre-digested if you think about it. And I have. Because if I was eating all this raw stuff whole or in salads, it would be Fartapalooza over here. Speaking of which, I learned a random fact yesterday: a moose produces as much methane gas as a small town. Moose are bad for the environment. And raw broccoli is usually bad for my environment.

At the raw dinner party we had some delicious walnut spread. I wanted to try it and called Drea for the recipe. Drea told me that she usually just wings it. I decided to wing it, too. Recipes are for losers.

Famous. Last. Words.

I've avoided making hummus in my life for one reason – it always gets clumpy and clogs up the blender/food processor. Walnut spread is the same. Even though I soaked the nuts for seven hours. Even though I put the lemon juice and olive oil in first so there would be liquid in the bottom. Even though I visualized the whole walnut spread deal unfolding perfectly.

I flicked the switch and there was an initial splattering of walnut bits followed by that extra-high-pitched sound when the blender gets stuck. I stopped it. I opened the lid. I smushed everything down to the bottom again. I flicked the switch. Same deal.

After seven tries, I added almond milk. Nuts + Nuts = Good. Right? It wasn't until after I'd splashed it in that I noticed the cane sugar in the ingredients. Walnut spread isn't supposed to be sweet. But it isn't supposed to be chunky either, so what the hell.

The God of Smoothness was not smiling on me and the almond milk did all kinds of NOTHING and I was frustrated with the stopping and the scraping and the re-starting, so I thought I'd open the lid and do the thing where you carefully push the goo down into the blades while the blender is going.

Did I mention I was using Boyfriend's $400 KichenAid Sex Machine Ferrari-Motor Blender? Have you met Boyfriend? The guy who will not talk to me for a day if I drop something and make a dent in his gorgeous dark-stained hardwood floor?

Obviously the spoon idea was a bad one. And karma kicked my ass immediately because I didn't even get the damn spoon down there before the blender vomited chunky walnut spread all over me and Boyfriend's beautiful kitchen.

Walnut puke was in my hair, on the floor, on the counter, on the cupboards. And not just "on" the cupboards. All the way up to the ceiling. Some even made it into the dining room. The spray radius of this blender was effing phenomenal.

Because my life is my life, I was sure Boyfriend was going to walk in at exactly that moment and divorce me on sight. So I speed-wiped the entire kitchen to remove the evidence before booking a one-way ticket to Western Siberia. I think I got it all. But please Internet? Please don't tell him, okay?

The Extroverted Writer

Yesterday, following a series of Messages From The Universe (MFTU), I had a moment of clarity. Or rather, a moment of common freaking sense.

I was chit-chatting with my friend and fellow writer, Stephen Reese, one of the smartest and most rigorously self-aware people I know. He mentioned the challenge of managing his extroversion and his creative work. This blew my mind. I don't know why I'd never thought about it in these terms before. And now that I am, it seems kind of obvious.

I am an extrovert. (Duh.) Extroverts get their energy from other people and stimuli. If we're alone too long, we tend to 'fade.' No wonder I go coo-coo when I'm by my lonesome. But as a writer, I need large, unbroken periods of time alone to do my creative work. Appointments and meetings fracture my focus and concentration. It gives my writing time a yucky pressured feeling.

I need isolation to create. But at a certain point, it depletes me. It's a frickin' conundrum!

I have a feeling introverted writers have an easier go of it.

Stephen (he is SO not a Steve) has determined that a not-too-creatively-demanding full-time job is his best solution. One that surrounds him with people he really likes and allows him to conserve his creative energy, so that when he goes home to work on his novel, he's got gas in the tank.

I have never been able to "do" the full-time job well. Maybe it's my overachieving gene or my penchant for office gossip, but I rarely conserve energy at work. Mostly, I get wrapped up in "being productive" and decide to take on seven freelance projects on the side and host weekly dinner parties for ten. And then I wonder why I'm not getting my novel written.

Except for during Ironman year. When I was training, I was totally focused. My job was just where I went from nine to five. It was fun, the people were nice, I didn't work very hard. And when the clock hit 5:00, I was off to live my dream. I was actually charging my batteries at the office all day, not running them down.

So, I'm I running off to find a full-time job? No. But this question warrants serious further investigation. Any ideas or suggestions are more than welcome.

Raw and Uncut

Last night Boyfriend and I attended a raw dinner party. It was Drea's birthday and her hubs wanted to surprise her. For Drea, who is hard core about food, this was basically her dream birthday surprise. For Boyfriend, the meat-itarian, it was the seventh layer of hell.

Mr. Raw has a video production company and we gathered in the downtown loft his company uses for offices. His wife runs cooking classes out of the space too, so we crowded around the massive granite island and enjoyed the sweet sound of Mrs. Raw blending whole fruit margaritas. Drea, Mr. Raw and me chit-chatted about video production, Drea's documentary and how Mr. Raw started in the biz.

Turns out Mr. Raw worked on a little-known television extravaganza made by the university TV station called 2100 University Drive. It was our version of Beverly Hills 90210. I was in it. I played a drama queen and my role basically consisted of having an operatic on-screen orgasm. It was...mortifying. I've blocked it out.

The show went nowhere, but this is the second time I've re-met someone from it. Our Dating Dame cameraman worked on it. And now Mr. Raw. Who turns to Drea and says, "Our friend Matt worked on it, too." Drea and I burst out laughing.

Mr. Raw starts holding court, telling stories about this guy with his head up his ass who never returns his phone calls. "Our friend Matt" who acts in terrible beer commercials. And who created a strange alter ego – an Eminem-looking guy with fake tattoos and a diamond earring – and made video art that just looked like screensavers. I laugh along and tell Mr. Raw that I was there at the birth of the alter ego.

"Oh," he says, laughing. "So, you know our friend Matt."

I stare at him. "Our friend Matt? Is my ex-husband."

Mr. Raw's eyes widen and snap immediately to Boyfriend. Drea and I shriek with laughter. Mrs. Raw serves us more vegetables. And Boyfriend asks if there's any bread.