Day 91: Beep

I am addicted to my snooze button. I have been since I was a teenager and it's a filthy, filthy habit. I know. At my best, I only hit it once or twice. At my worst, I've run the snooze button down to a powder and slept through work/school/my wedding. At this point, after a good solid fifteen years of snoozin', it doesn't actually seem right to get up without pressing it. It feels like less than something.

There are various low-grade urban myths about snooze buttons. One is that the author of Ben Hur invented them. One is that every time you press it, you are left 30% more tired than if you didn't. And then there are seven billion theories as to why the snooze interval is nine minutes, none of which help you a) get any sleep or b) kick the habit.

Boyfriend does not use the snooze. Except when he has to get up at 6:00 on a Saturday to get to the pool by the godforsaken hour of 7:00.

The alarm clock is by my head. It's there for a reason: I use it every morning. We recently got a new clock because his old one sounded like some poor electronic animal was getting maimed and murdered every morning. I found it disturbing. We got a fancy alarm clock that fits your iPod and plays a happy morning playlist and allows you to start your day filled with joy and gratitude.

Only my iPod has found permanent residence in my gym bag. So we're back to the beeping. This newfangled clock has a symphony of beeps that builds from beep...beep...beep to BeeBeeBeep...BeeBeeBeep to BEEBEEBEEBEEBEEGETTHEEFFUPNOWBEEBEE, etc.

I have perfected the art of nailing that bad boy on the first or second beep. Even though I wear ear plugs. (Which is a whole other story that goes like this: "I don't snore." "Yes, you do.")

Boyfriend has perfected the art of sleeping through our neighbours' 3 a.m. Rock Band marathons and a woman who presses the snooze button seven times every morning.

So when it's his alarm, the following ritual must be observed:

beep...beepSLAM
(Nine minutes of semi-consciousness.)

beepSLAM
(Nine more minutes of semi-consciousness including the dim realization that I will have to let that thing beep until he hears it. Or smother him with a pillow.)

beep...beep...beep...beep
(I poke him.)

BeBeBeep...BeBeBeep
(I shake him hard enough that his head bounces off the pillow.)

BEEBEEBEEBEEBEEBEE
(He grunts, giving me indication that he is actually alive, albeit barely.)

He says: Fi' mo' minzzzzzzzzz...
(I press the snooze.)

And repeat until he quietly slips out of bed and tenderly kisses me on the forehead.

This morning was spectacular. We went through our Saturday morning ritual. Then, because I'm feeling guilty about not having worked on my book in several days, I reset the alarm for 7:30. I pressed snooze four times before turning it off and rolling over.

And then my cell phone alarm went off in the other room, forcing me to get up and start my day, exhausted and beep-ravaged. These things are land mines.

Only that's not the worst part. The worst part is Boyfriend's mother is staying with us. She, like a normal person, was probably looking forward to a nice, leisurely start to her weekend. Maybe she'd get up around nine-ish and pad down to the kitchen, smiling at the scent of fresh coffee. Maybe we'd have coffee together, smiling at each other over our steaming, fragrant cups before she trundled off, smiling. Instead, she was subjected to two hours of shrill, intermittent beeping loud enough to wake the dead. She'll probably never want to come back. She probably thinks I'm a bad fit for her son. She's probably telling him that right now. Stupid snooze button. Wrecked my life.

Day 90: Smells Like Three Months

Day 90 snuck up on me. Although it's not officially three months until the 1st. December is one of those months when your creative time and focus get threatened by things like every single person you know inexplicably needing to see you before Christmas. I'll still be alive after Christmas, you know. I'll still be here.

Feeling a little down today. I'm scared about my book. This has been happening a lot this month. I'm afraid of it and afraid of writing.

Today, I'm writing an audition for that depression project. I wrote a draft before Bill & Ted's Excellent Romantic Adventure, and even found time to tweak it while I was there. I'm in Jasper finishing it while Boyfriend works somewhere near Hinton.

Then we have a five-hour drive back homeward. These 'check-out' days always feel pressured. Maybe that's why I'm afraid, there's a pressure building and I don't know whether I can pull this all off. I feel like I should be further ahead than I am. Which is ridiculous because the measuring stick is in my head. I keep pulling arbitrary deadlines out of my ass and then getting crushed when I don't meet them. This book is coming on its own terms. Whether I like it or not.

There's also pressure to figure out other things, like how I'm going to sell my car in an economic downturn. Especially without snow tires. And if I don't sell my car, how I'm going to EAT in February. Let alone get back to Paris. But the weird thing is, I kind of don't care. It's not that I don't want to eat. I do. It's just that I need to finish the book. I need to. Everything else can wait.

Day 88 & 89: Mr. and Ms. Beckham

For the past 36 hours, I have been submerged, like drowning, in luxury at the Banff Springs Hotel. Two words: foie gras. Three more words (and an ampersand): Friends & Family Rate.

Boyfriend’s aunt works at the Banff Springs and his uncle is the Maitre d’/Sommelier at the Eden, a five diamond restaurant at The Rimrock. They are moving overseas and taking their discounts with them, so we thought we’d take advantage of the opportunity while it lasted. Boyfriend planned everything and it has amounted to a whirlwind romantic getaway of chick flick proportions.

Consider me wooed.

The spa at the Banff Springs is like the most luxurious water-based grown-up theme park on the planet. I have never felt more relaxed in my life. My biggest problem yesterday was deciding whether I should stay in the tub looking out over the Rockies or just have another glass of cucumber water and take a nap. We spent four hours there, doing laps between the mineral waterfall pools, the steam rooms, the aromatherapy sauna, the lounges with free cookies. We are kicking ourselves for not getting there at 6 a.m.

After marinating in spa deliciousness all afternoon, I went ahead and weighed myself for the first time since this raw business started. The spa scale told me I’d lost fifteen pounds. HAHAHAHAHA. No. I'm fairly certain it was one of those feel-good scales they buy at the same store as the feel-good hip-removing mirrors.

Both those items are essential, though, if you are about to sit down to a seven-course tasting menu at the Eden. Truffle oil, foie gras, Camembert ice cream, lobster and scallops. I'm serious. It was ridiculously rich, in the artery-clogging sense and the luxe-to-the-freaking-max sense. And also in the 'this is my grocery budget for a month' sense. For someone who has eaten nothing but salad in the past two months, it was like slipping into a parallel dimension made of butter. Which was a-ok with me.

Seven courses meant seven wines. Plus the champagne I had before dinner. I think Boyfriend and I had a fabulous conversation, but I can’t remember a word of it. I am very stupid today. Very, very stupid. I woke up at 3 a.m., peeling my lips off my teeth, feeling like someone poured an entire salt shaker down my throat, chased that with a forty of vodka, then kicked me in the head and ran away.

So. Worth. It.

This is the kind of stuff celebrities do all the time. This is the stuff they take for granted and get bored of. It’s really hard to say whether I want to be rich enough that getting bored of this is even a remote possibility or to stay poor enough for it to blow my freaking mind. Tough call.

Day 87: Google As God

I counted the effing words. Why do I do this? It's NEVER where I want it to be. Never ever ever. And it sends me into a three-day spiral of impending doom, a lack of personal hygiene and hours-long internet job searches. It's when I start looking at postings for junior editorial jobs at Oilman Weekly that I give my head a shake.

But it takes much longer to actually get back on track. I counted words on Sunday and this morning I pressed snooze five times, hoping to fall into a wrinkle in the space-time continuum somewhere between the third and fourth snooze and never wake up. But that didn't happen and here I am. Facing the page.

Have I told you that when I get like this, Google becomes a sort of pagan god or oracle? Seriously. When I'm blender-drinked in the head, I will type my problems into Google. A few years ago, it was "Will I ever find love again?" Maudlin, I know. Now it's "Does anyone publish novellas or am I just f*cking fooling myself?"

My pilgrimages to the God of Google usually help. Although sometimes they open up little scary rabbit holes labeled Seven Hundred More Literary Journals To Add To Your Ever-Growing List. My Bookmarks folder is overflowing with lit magazines that I've told myself I can't even look at until I have a first draft of this book done.

And so. I'm off. Back to standing naked in front of the mirror.

Oh, P.S. Report on depressed teenager project. A second, unrelated person called me up and told me they thought of me for this project. So I must be meant to do it. I've been asked to audition for the job by writing one section on spec. Which section? Consciousness. I have to teach teenagers about consciousness. Maybe THAT'S why I was too scared to get out of bed this morning.

Day 86: Reply All

Dear Divorcees,
It was a cute idea to send the anthology around so all of us could sign it and then present it to our editor. Twenty-seven authors all over the world. Even Finland! It's just like us eager-to-please divorcees to think up a cute idea like that. Just like us to go overboard with international air mail coupons and a chain-letter book signing that will take months and a small miracle to pull off.

If that's not abandonment issues working themselves out, I don't know what is. I guess we still feel like we need to justify ourselves. Maybe we should get team t-shirts made. It's not like I haven't thought about that.

The t-shirts would look great at the Ask Me About My Divorce PARTIES you'd like us to plan! Little rah-rah campfire gatherings that sound a lot like 12-step groups...only with more wine. We'll potluck the appies and sit around and talk about divorce, you know, really open up. I just hope the ones who got big settlements aren't resented by the ones who didn't. That would really mess up the party dynamic. I also hope the single moms don't bring their kids. It's not that I don't like kids. Or single moms. It's just hard to have a conversation.

So anyway, Divorcees, these ideas are so great and cute, but I just wanted to talk to you about one thing. It's a niggly little thing about the Reply All button. I know you're all eager to let everyone know how 'in' you are for these ideas. All eager to be a part of it and make sure the other ladies know where you stand. (Abandonment issues again?) Communication is important, our divorces taught us that much. But really, who was going to say no? Which of us desperate-for-love divorcees was going to single herself out like that? We've been single long enough.

But, listen ladies, there's twenty-seven of us. And if I receive another Reply All email saying nothing useful, just "I'm in!" or "Cheers!" or "Looking forward to reading everyone's essays!" If I see another exclamation point. Because, really girls, this cutesy signed-by-everyone idea isn't going to happen organically. One person needs to organize it and I nominate the gal who started this whole mess.

Who, bless her heart, filled my inbox with exclamation points from all over the world. Who, as the pointless emails keep streaming in unabated, has probably realized the estrogen-fueled monster she's created and is hiding at the bottom of a quart of Haagen Dazs right now, crying because she screwed it up AGAIN and how could she do that to OTHER DIVORCEES of all people – we've already been through so much. Now this poor girl is going to need more therapy than she's already had. Look at her: regressing on the floor by the freezer, rocking back and forth, covered in Cinnamon Dulce de Leche.

I'd love to help, I really would. I'd give anything to shut this down. To get you panting, acceptance-starved divorcees to back away from the inbox with your hands where I can see them. To ask you to spend your time doing something useful, like writing about your childhoods for instance. But I can't email you all directly – we don't need a planet covered in Cinnamon Dulce de Leche and resurfaced rejection. I'm sure as hell not pressing Reply All.

Day 85: Horse Latitudes

Maybe it's the oscillating effects of this remedy I'm on. Maybe it's the cold wind or the meeting I forgot I have on Tuesday. Maybe it's the fact that I'm at that horrible two-thirds point of this book and it's a hard final push to the end. I know I have to keep going, but GAWD. I'd rather go sit on a beach. Half the people I know are doing that this week.

And then there's Salad & Smoothie Purgatory, a feeling of culinary ennui so profound that I'd rather not eat at all than choke down another banana/mango/zucchini. Last night, after eating my body weight in homemade guacamole (yes, it's raw), I decided to cook a couple of those trendy Omega-3 eggs. One of them tasted like fish. I'm serious. I imagined these raggedy-ass chickens chowing down on ground up fish bones which immediately led to picturing all the Chicken McNugget urban legends you hear about beaks poking up through the tender "white meat" and I almost puked.

Maybe this is what they mean when they say you can't go home again.

Maybe this is what Dr. Ka-POW meant by 'a sense of inevitability.'

Once you've crossed over, whether it's going raw, coming out or finishing your novel, life just ain't the same anymore. It's a new set of rules. Your old life is gone and the new one awaits, no matter how hard you resist or how much you wish you could take it all with you like some sort of security blanket.

I've been thinking about my divorce a lot lately. Getting accepted into the anthology has meant almost a dozen emails beginning with the greeting 'Dear Divorcees.' I had forgotten that means me. I'd also forgotten that first year when all I wanted was my life back. My horrible, joyless, empty life. It sounds strange, but I think it's all-too human. Pain was my comfort zone, and I wanted it back: its predictability, its safety, its familiarity.

And now, almost six years later, I find myself grieving the loss of another Dis-comfort Zone. Only my life has changed so much, I couldn't pinpoint any particulars, beyond a general lack of consciousness. I was sleeping. And now I'm awake.

Drea always says once you know something, you can't un-know it.

You can't go back to the way things were because the way things were no longer exists. You have to move forward. And you do that by staying still. All these paradoxes, but it's true. When you're feeling pain, boredom or confusion, you can't run from it. You can't hide. The only way out is through. The way forward is stillness. It's not here yet, the clarity, the sense of purpose, but it's coming.

"Never give up. This may be your moment for a miracle." - Greg Anderson

Day 83: Homeopathological

I am on the coolest remedy right now. If you don't know about homeopathics, I'll probably make a total hack of it. But it's basically woo woo meets science and, therefore, I frickin' love it.

Homeopathic remedies are super-diluted forms of minerals or plants – so dilute only the vibration, or memory, of the substance remains. Drea or my friend Erin (who owns the clinic) would probably describe it better, but how I think about it is this: The remedy has a certain vibration and we respond to that vibration on a deep, energetic level, and then manifest changes on a physical one. (If you've watched What The Bleep Do We Know?! and paid attention to the section on Dr. Masaru Emoto you know what I'm talking about.)

I went to see Dr. Pow – his real name, as in Ka-POW! – because I hadn't seen him in a long, long time and Drea told me the clinic just received a bunch of new remedies specifically for artists. I sat down with Dr. Ka-POW, high-fived him for drinking a green smoothie and looked at his crazy new chart.

The chart classifies the elements on the periodic table into several series, representing different life themes (self-worth, relationships, creativity) and various stages of those themes, from early development through maturity and decline.

The silver series is all about creativity, art and science – a no-brainer for yours truly. The challenge was to figure out what stage I fit into. The early stage remedies dealt with fear and self-doubt. Been there, done that. And the peak stages were about mastery and success. That ain't me, babe. Yet.

We determined I was at Stage 6: a period of oscillating between fear and a sense of inevitability. I have to finish this book, but I'm afraid to...and back and forth. People at this stage know exactly what needs to be done, but there is anxiety about doing it. We know that our work will be good, but we're fearful of the yucky middle bits until it is. The remedy is Molybdenum and, if all goes well, it will help me put fear aside and get on with the work.

Within moments of taking it, I got a rush of clarity about a scene I was struggling with. I felt calm and happy, confident that I would be able to write it the way it needed to be written. I got home and wrote a hilarious bit about a woman losing her lesbian virginity, obsessing all the while over her unwaxed bikini line.

I had a great night with Boyfriend, talking, laughing and enjoying his company – rather than questioning every single moment as though it was an omen for future events. It's embarrassing that I do this, but I do. If our senses of humour aren't jiving one night, I'll take that to mean we don't understand each other and never will. It's neurotic and I do it pretty much every day with my writing and my relationships. Not last night. I was in the moment and enjoying whatever happened without fear and overanalysis.

You skeptics are shaking your heads and screaming PLACEBO at the computer screen. I can hear you. (Hi Mom!) And maybe it is all in my head. But, seriously, what isn't all in your head? The idea of aligning my vibrations with my work and purpose makes me happy down to my electrons. And besides, I wrote a scene involving the words "Seventies bush." This is my brain on Molybdenum. God help us all.

Day 82.5: Single, White Loser

I read this blog. I read it every day. This woman is famous on the blogosphere (where IS that, exactly?) and I am frequently jealous of her success. Although I probably wouldn't feel that way if I got fired because of my online rantings. Which is partly why she's famous.

Yesterday she announced her pregnancy via a photograph of her dog with a positive pregnancy test balanced on his nose. Cute, right? Understated, right? Right.

I am deeply embarrassed by the rush and range of emotions I felt: Thrilled. Envious. Shocked. Weepy-happy. Betrayed. Envious (again).

Let me underline the fact that this is like reading Us Weekly and discovering that Angelina Jolie is popping out another genetically perfect specimen. Except I (irrationally) feel like I know the Blog Woman, whose name is Heather, personally. And so do the 2500 people who left congratulatory comments. Along with the hundreds of thousands of people who read her blog every day, but didn't comment feeling, probably, that 2500 comments pretty much summed everything up just fine.

I can't help but wish that she just would have picked up the phone and told me about this personally.

Which makes me coo coo for Cocoa Puffs, I realize that.

So there's the irrational feelings of betrayal. The jealousy feelings are not, I repeat NOT, about her being preggo. I do not want to be preggo. I am, however, jealous of seven months of kick ass content involving daily vomiting, sore boobs and an ever-expanding ass, all of which makes for good self-deprecating comedy. It also means small city's worth of regular readers will be salivating with anticipation over the next I-puked-at-Walmart story.

Not that I want public vomiting for MYSELF. I don't. Nor would I pursue it just to attract more readers.

I will, however, post photos of semi-naked sports heroes to attract more readers.

(Such as Kelly Slater, shown here glistening shirtless in the Hawaiian sun....with a massive growth on his head.)

Day 82: Good News Sports Fans

I'm getting published, yo. Got the acceptance letter yesterday. My essay about divorce is officially being included in the anthology titled Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On. This was the essay that I spent seventeen hours toiling over way back in August. The essay that now when I read it, I think, 'Meh, I could do better.' Only I promise I won't think that any more and I'll just enjoy this lovely moment.

Isn't this moment lovely? Lovely, yes.

It's being pre-sold on Amazon.com, but it doesn't show the cover yet, which is a close-up of a woman's chest. She's wearing a badge that says Ask Me About My Divorce, kind of like those Ask Us About Dollar Daze badges from cheesy department stores. It'll be out in June 2009.

I also got an email from my new editor at Avenue. He says my obsession story looks great and I don't have to make any major changes. And I got two more rejections to add to my list. Only I don't call them rejections any more. I call them Passes. Sounds more positive. I'm working towards a hundred. I'm only at seven.

One of the passes yesterday was from Bitch Magazine. I was sad, but mostly because I want the word Bitch on my resume. It really should be there, don't you think?

Day 81: Belly-Flopping Off the Wagon

Ugh. UGH. I am the guinea pig of a self-inflicted science experiment called Cooked Food Makes You Suck. For the past two days I have belly-flopped spectacularly off the raw food wagon. I'm not even sure I can write a coherent post because my brain feels like a drunk ham sloshing in my skull. That's what I said: a drunk ham.

I didn't even have a good reason for it. It was like one of those Wednesday afternoon runaways in first-year university when you find yourself playing cards in the pub between classes and then BOOM it's 5pm and you're hammered, hanging off the toilet. It's like that, only with BBQ chips.

Drea and I have agreed that chips are the exception. Which makes no health-sense whatsoever, but we have this mutual love for Miss Vickie's Lime & Black Pepper chips. Don't try them. You'll love them. We've agreed that if one of our jerkfaced partners is cruel enough to bring these things into our homes, we will punish them by eating the chips. I don't get the logic either.

And lately, I've been feeling so good. Like SO GOOD. Clear, energized, creative. My writing has kicked up to another level. I'm focused. No mood swings. No procrastination. Since going 100% raw two weeks ago, I am a better version of myself.

So I celebrated with half a Family Size bag of Old Dutch.

You know what a yard sale is? Not the 4 CDs for $1.00 kind of yard sale, the kind on the ski hill when some dude takes a wrong turn down a black diamond run and his skis, poles, gloves and body parts get splattered all over the hill. That's me.

I pressed snooze ten times this morning. TEN. I'm not sure it's safe for me to operate a motor vehicle. If how I feel is a metaphor for how my writing will be today, it's going to be stupid, dull and insipid. How did I live this way before? Not that I regularly had three-course Old Dutch dinner parties, but still. Pressing snooze used to be a significant part of my lifestyle.

It didn't start with the Family Size, you know. It started with an innocuous dinner of chicken and rice two nights ago. My standard pre-Raw dinner. No big deal, right? But that's like taking the first drink. One drink leads to two – because, hey, you can handle it – and suddenly you're in a Vegas hotel doing body shots from a stripper's cleavage before burying your face in a silver platter of cocaine. I know how this works.

Okay. Deep breath. This is the part where we forgive ourselves for relapsing. Where we get our asses to a 12-step meeting. And where we get back on the horse. Wagon. Salad. Whatever.

Day 80: I Can Dish It Out, But...

He does the dishes like he's finishing a marathon, scrubbing with great gusto, breathing heavily, dropping the cutlery, polished and gleaming with a flourish on the countertop, before doing the victory lap of wiping down the counters. He's a quiet man, so there isn't a big show, but there is a distinct energy about him. And that energy says, "Yessssss."

It's a thrill to see him do the dishes and I usually can't bear to tell him that tomorrow there will be another batch and this marathon effort will need to be repeated by somebody. Probably me. I do dishes like an old arthritic farmer does his chores: daily, doggedly and complaining the whole way. But if I'm complaining, it's because this is all his fault.

When I was single, I could let them go for a week, piling in the sink like a teetering science experiment eventually requiring a Hazmat suit and an entire bottle of Palmolive. I've had an aversion to dishes for years and years. Everyone in my family remembers the six-month-old cappuccino excavated from my teenage basement bedroom in 1994.

But getting together with a man who likes things just so has altered my internal slob DNA and now I can't handle a messy kitchen past noon the following day. I've accused him of being anal, but I'm not entirely sure that's it. He's a programmer, working with pages and pages of code, forming patterns and database files, organizing data into tiny, well-labeled boxes. I believe his house is just en external manifestation of that. How else could you explain a drawer containing nothing but matching black Kitchen-Aid utensils?

Somewhere along the way, I internalized the fact that respecting him included respecting (even fearing) his kitchen. I have been reformed in the areas of dish-washing and not-dropping-stuff-on-the-hardwood-floor, which is something coming from a family where rinsing a lasagna pan and tossing it, crusted cheese and all, into the drying rack was good enough. Where shattered plates were followed with 'Opa!' for good measure.

When we first got together, he examined each dish as I washed, sending those with spots back to my side of the sink. In his mind, if you were going to clean the thing, you might as well clean it right. Never mind that we'd be eating the same meal off it two days later. Never mind that.

Eventually I caught the clean dish obsession, although I think it was more about achievement and approval than a genuine love of spotless glasses. We settled into comfortable domestic roles: me washing, him drying. But after a few months, he abandoned his post, leaving the counter full of dripping dishes to dry overnight. Leaving me to obsess over the relative grease-fighting merits of Dawn or Sunlight on my own. Our natures had switched, my dish-doing apathy absorbing into him, his obsession into me. Since then, once every week or two, I guilt him into washing like some bourgeois housewife and he does, with the kind of enthusiasm that screams, 'I am off the hook!'

But there is no off the hook when it comes to dishes, or most things in life for that matter. It's a conveyor belt overflowing with fingerprinted glasses or crumby bread boards and there's always another pile waiting.

I've considered keeping track, presenting him a with spreadsheet, the facts laid out in black and white. In little boxes, just how he likes things. But that would make me That Girl. The girl who keeps track of things like gas mileage and grocery bills, who says you owe her $3.72 for popcorn at the movies. The kind of girl who makes a chore schedule and picks fights about the petty things. Petty things like the dishes.

It's probably a good thing this is all I have to complain about. All the big concepts like Is He A Good Person? or Does He Love Me? are a-ok. My problems are pretty much narrowed down to the kitchen sink. And maybe it's human nature to let that one thing drive you halfway to Crazytown. Maybe it's a sign of perfectionism or that I'll never be truly happy. I don't know.

Yesterday, in the afternoon, we did them together and my solo act became that sweet duet. But after dinner, when the pristine counter was crowded yet again with crusted plates and greasy bowls, when I stood at the entrance to the kitchen sighing with the resigned feeling that things never seem to really change, when he rambled off to shuffle tiny bits of data into tiny, metaphorical folders he said, "Don't worry about these. I'll get them in the morning."

Day 79: This Is Your Brain On Richard Simmons

Making creative headway is a glorious feeling. You're in the moment and flowing, feeling positive about everything in your life. But then there's that don't-look-down moment when you think things are going too well and this joyous bliss can't last and the second you say something idiotic like that, well, poof. Pop goes your rose-coloured world.

Fear, anxiety, here we are again. It's not crippling, but it's the kind that keeps you pinned to your bed harder than a snooze-button overdose. The kind where, if you let it mess with you, leads to thoughts about changing your hair colour or maybe even breast size. Certainly not conducive to blissed-out creative flow states.

So, what do we do?

The six-steps-to-being-in-the-moment type articles you read in magazines will tell you to breathe. Take deep breaths, they'll say. Exhale your worries. I think that's rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. When your head is nattering at you like a half-drunk sister-in-law, deep breathing or any other kind of meditation exercise is just going to make it worse. Your mind has already become a toxic wasteland and these articles recommend you go ahead and hang out in a hostile environment. That's it, just ignore the gunshots and bloodcurdling screams. Breathe.

I've come to believe that the best way out of your head in a hurry is narcotics. You could try that ten-year-old package of NeoCitran, a bottle or two of Benadryl or a host of other household chemicals. But those may leave you feeling a little underproductive and although my recreational drug of choice is still NyQuil Cold & Sinus, the best way I've found to get the evil stepsister to shut the hell up is to feed her the soothing opiate of exercise-induced endorphins.

There are other ways to score endorphins, like having sex or laughing, but at seven in the morning it must be said that (a) very little is funny, (b) no one is sexy and (c) that tattooed kid on the corner selling eight-balls of the stuff doesn't start work until ten.

Exercise takes your mind off whatever is stressing you out by drawing your attention to the burning, ripping sensation in your thighs or the fat man wearing multi-coloured Spandex pants. I recommend working out in suburban gyms where your self-esteem won't be pummeled by the Lululemon-clad porn stars inner-city gyms hire to make you work harder. They are paid to have fat-free asses, look you up and down and laugh a little as they crank the elliptical up to 11.

You could listen to the terrible classic rock they pump in, but the only people who actually like that crap are serving time for petty theft and drunk-and-disorderlies. Better that you create your own ridiculously motivating playlist including songs like 'What A Feeling' from the Flashdance soundtrack or perhaps 'Straight Outta Compton' by NWA.*

It doesn't take long for the endorphins to kick in, but I will warn you exercise can be addictive. If you're not careful, you'll end up becoming one of those perky Fitness Is Fun people. My mother turned into one of those and we had her committed. She now teaches aerobics at the Happydale Home for the Mentally Infirm. She's doing well, thanks for asking.

Regardless, after getting all drunk on endorphins, I recommend grabbing a cup of strong coffee and hitting the shower (where ideas live). Remember this easy equation: Endorphins + Caffeine + Oxygen to the brain = Happiness, Productivity and Size 4 Pants.


*Jones Ink is not responsible for spontaneous fits of jazz hands or gang-related violence. Use at your own risk. Please consult a physician or psychic hotline before beginning an exercise program.

Day 77: Validation Across the Nation

In that magical way that everything you need sometimes arrives unbidden, in the past three days I've come across three incredibly validating articles. Two of them happen to be about late bloomers and the other looks at creativity and depression.

The stuff on late bloomers was the most encouraging and it must be said that a thirty-two year old would be hard-pressed to call themselves a late bloomer in the world of literature, but I'm working on a theory that a marker of my generation is that all of us think we're late. We've all constructed a life checklist with items like Get Married and Start Meaningful Career and each of these items is date-stamped with an age like 25 or 30. I don't know where we've pulled these numbers from, perhaps our parents' lives, expectations or some amalgamation of cultural influences like Beverly Hills 90210, but most of the people I talk to in my age group think they are five to seven years behind.

The first article on late bloomers is from Psychology Today and this link only shows you a snippet, but the beautiful point of the article is this: we are now living 30 years longer than we did a century ago. "In light of our extended life span, it's worth confronting the very notion of late blooming to ask: late for what?" I think all of us should put a sign above our desks reading just that: LATE FOR WHAT?!

And then you follow that little confection up with a meatier take from The New Yorker that digs deep into cultural assumptions that if you haven't become famous by Lindsay Lohan's age (whatever that is) then it ain't gonna happen. The piece, written by Malcolm Gladwell – the Tipping Point guy – also goes into the different work styles of prodigies vs. late bloomers. Prodigies tend to work 'conceptually', puking out works of genius in one furious rush. Jonathan Safran Foer spent a total of three days in the village where his debut, award-winning novel, Everything is Illuminated, was set. He wrote the book's 300 pages in ten weeks. He was 19. Ben Fountain, age 48, traveled to Haiti over thirty times and spent years on his book, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara. Fountain worked 'experimentally', enduring false starts, endless re-drafting and periods of dark frustration.

A story like Safran Foer's makes for better magazine copy and I'm wondering if that's why we tend to hear more about the prodigies and the I-wrote-it-in-four-minutes people. And, I'm not going to lie to you, a fresh-faced young person looks better in photos. (Which is really why I want to get famous sooner rather than saggier.)

I'm also wondering if these "conceptual" people have become the measuring stick that us "experimental" people measure ourselves against. Gladwell writes: "On the road to great achievement, the late bloomer will resemble a failure." Yikes. Sounds depressing, but it does make me feel better about the fact that I'm working on the third attempt at this book and really, one should hang on to the 'on the road to great achievement' part anyway.

Speaking of depressing, the third article I found was one looking at depression and creativity. It's not a shocker they are connected. We hear stories of mad or suicidal artists all the live long day. But this study looked at the effect of self-reflective rumination on creativity and depression. Here's the full meal deal, but the Reader's Digest is this: artists (especially writers) who engage in self-reflective rumination, that is contemplation or reflection that can transform to brooding, are more likely to get depressed, but they are also more likely to be creatively productive. Ruminating on your emotions, memories, life events produces lots and lots of ideas, but it can also make you sad. AHA! Aha. Aha. Know thyself. Anything that makes me feel less crazy about being crazy is a good thing.

Day 76: Hotel Hacking

Yesterday was pretty much a perfect day. I was up at six drinking a green smoothie and kissing Boyfriend goodbye. I posted my blog and then hit the gym for an hour-or-so workout that involved bicep curls. Nothing makes a girl feel like kicking ass more than bicep curls, I tell you what.

About 9 am, I sat down to write. The words poured forth like Niagara Falls. I was practically laughing all day. I took a break to brave the gale-force winds and picked up this month's Psychology Today, which I read cover to cover.

Boyfriend returned and in a spectacular display of brand fidelity, watched TSN on TV and loaded up TSN.com on his laptop. While I was noticing how handsome Brett Favre is (shown here endorsing the Bowflex Home Exercise System TM), Boyfriend was noticing some rogue computers on the network.


Being Mac users we totally take our network security for granted, but hotels are a beehive of unprotected PC activity. Within one quarter of football, we had access to no less than six computers.

To illustrate a point and because we have no morals whatsoever, we tried to get in one. It was as easy as opening a folder, which revealed a treasure trove of terrible music and terrible movies with the exception of The Rolling Stone Greatest 500 Songs of All Time, a collection which I had unsuccessfully tried to illegally download a few months ago. Here she was, ripe for the picking.

I felt a flash of guilt because although I lack morals, I have a very loud conscience that bitches and complains every time I cross lines like these. But Boyfriend made the point that this dude got these songs for free so why shouldn't we. And then a different hot football player came on the screen to distract me: Matt Cassel, replacement QB for the New England Patriots (shown here with a massive growth on his head).


Tell me readers, is re-stealing as tacky as re-gifting? I say yes. Regardless, I now have several of the greatest songs of all time and one of the worst movies of all time, Hancock.

Now, it's not totally mind-boggling that someone would have pirated music and video in their Share With The Entire World Or At Least This Hotel file. But this guy also had photos. BE YE WARNED. He appeared to be some sort of arachno-paleantologist. There were pictures of fossilized spinal columns and massive tarantulas crawling all over his friends. Interesting hobby. And then there was a photo of a kid, which is when the thing clicked in my brain that we needed to shut this party right on down.

But Boyfriend kept clicking folders. "What are you looking for? Pornography?" I asked dryly, even though I am seventeen times more likely to look for porn than he is. And right on cue, up popped an extreme close-up of the biggest, juiciest, gravity-impacted breasts I have ever seen in my life. Outside of the locker room. Gaaa! ROSE TATTOO!

Please PC users. Please. For the sake of those of us with weak senses of right and wrong. Increase the security on your machine. God.

Day 75: Get What You Need

Yesterday, I had this strange, almost-habitual reaction while beginning to pack for Pincher Creek. At first I chalked it up to the fact that no matter what time we agree to leave, Boyfriend is ready an hour and a half later. And rather than flow and adapt to this reality, I throw a fit every single time. And I recite this really convincing internal monologue about how he doesn't respect my time or me or puppies or babies.

Only he was on time yesterday.

But I was still surly. I had the Death Glare turned up to eleven and was looking for a target. I found it at Starbucks Shawnessy. The place where everything they could screw up, they did. The punk behind the register had that teenaged affliction where, no matter what his actual job was, he was more interested in determining whether or not I was f*ckable. I wasn't. They were also out of soy milk. I opted for decaf, but they didn't have any made. Then they screwed up Boyfriend's latte and poured my decaf before it was finished brewing in an effort to get rid of us, so my bitterness manifested itself externally in my crap coffee.

I was pissed. Which is when I saw the full moon.

Normally that explains away any bad mood or feeling of minor-league angst. Usually, Drea calls me up or I call her and whoever made the call says, "Full moon." And the other responds with, "Makes sense." But this time, I was not placated by seeing that fat-yet-heavenly body hanging low in the sky. Because I'm in Pincher Creek to write Chapter 10 and I don't have time for bad moons on the rise.

I started chanting affirmations, which, even though the words were lovely and positive, probably sounded more like swearing under my breath. I couldn't get into them. And I had an irrational hate-on for Boyfriend. And the pressure was mounting in my guts because I really, really, really need a good writing day. I need it bad. And it felt like the whole universe was conspiring against me, that I'd never get my book written, that I'd have to work at Starbucks and that hormonal jackass from Shawnessy would end up being my boss, the kind of guy who just happens to walk behind you every time you bend over.

We got to the hotel, which was amazingly perfect, especially compared to the Cold Lake gong show. We had a lovely dinner involving a fennel citrus pomegranate salad. We watched a couple episodes of Lost. We got ready for bed.

"I need a good writing day," I said to Boyfriend as we brushed our teeth.
"Then you'll have one," he said.
"But I was so grumpy today."
"You had exactly the day you needed to have."
"If you say so, Yoda."

I snuggled down into the crisp, white hotel sheets. I closed my eyes and felt myself relax. I tried my affirmations a couple more times, but then I realized something. Chapter 10 is all about disconnection and discord in relationships. About that feeling of being trapped in a small space with someone you suddenly realize doesn't know you at all and that emptiness that opens up like a vaccuum in your guts. Sucking all the love out.

Affirmations weren't the preparation I needed to write Chapter 10. Discord was. Boyfriend was right. I had exactly the day I needed to have.

Day 74: Panty Hose and Remembrance

I spent Remembrance Day with my grandfather, Major Wm. Douglas Schofield, a veteran of WWII. My dad says he's 94, but I thought he was more like 96. So we'll meet in the middle and call him 95. I made a photo album of my day with him. You can see it here. Click on the thumbnails for the full caption experience.

I've been conscious of spending time with Gramps lately. Partly because he is getting more frail, partly because he's the only family I've got here right now and partly because I've become conscious of how much I take the people in my life for granted. I'm sure it's human nature and everyone understands that everyone else is busy, but that doesn't quite cut it with me anymore. If I'm going to get conscious in one area of my life, I need to be conscious in all areas. It's like my friend Cathy says: How you do one thing is how you do everything.

So, I went to my grandfather's seniors residence for their Remembrance Day service. Only I've been having a breakthrough in my creative work, a burst of energy that is desperate to get out of my head and onto the page, so I was running late. I power-ironed some dress pants and a sweater, but having eaten nothing but raw fruit and veg for the past six weeks, the pants and sweater looked all baggy and bulky. Us raw food hippies are not beyond vanity and bulky simply wouldn't do.

I opted for my sure-fire, knock 'em dead Little Black Dress (LBD). Which I haven't worn in three years so it smelled a little musty, but musty trumps bulky and that's why God invented Febreeze and perfume.

Wearing a dress in winter means wearing tights. I have two pair: black, opaque, perfect for LBD. Only I'm not much of a dress-wearer and therefore not a hose-wearer either and last week I cut one pair into pieces for sprouting grains and beans in my kitchen. The left toe of my stockings is draining sprouts as I write. I'm thinking of straining nut milk with the right one this afternoon.

Sprouting and straining seemed like a practical use of hose to me. Until I discovered a hole in the crotch of my only wearable pair. It was a small hole and I supposed I should be happy that it wasn't in the middle of the leg with a great big run up the side. A person can handle a crotch hole.

Only when I pulled them up, there was a gentle tearing sound and my very manageable small hole suddenly became substantially larger. I considered putting a pair of underwear on over the tights to cover the hole. Or maybe bike shorts. But, again, the bulk. I was desperately late by that time anyhow, so I slipped on my heels and ran out the door.

Any time I moved, the hole got slightly bigger and by the time I'd climbed into and out of my car, run half a block and kissed Grandpa hello, I was sporting what amounted a pair of crotchless panty hose.

Veterans Day is a rather somber day and this was a rather somber event involving people who have probably never left the house with gaping crotch holes. I resolved to hide in the back and drape my coat over my knees for the entire morning. But alas. My grandfather is one of only three vets in the place. He was seated in a position of honour at the front, facing everyone else. They were all so thrilled that Famous Doug's granddaughter was there, they wanted me to sit beside him.

Despite my protests, Grandpa kindly offered to take the modesty-and-dignity-shield formerly known as my coat. I thanked him and sat down, focusing my gaze on the display of white crosses cut out of styrofoam and tugging at my skirt. I said a prayer involving bad vision for the people in the front row and squeezed my thighs together until they shook. For forty-five minutes. I got teary at one point and I'm not sure if it was from emotion or from feeling the burn. After the service, people lined up to shake my grandfather's hand. Many of them also wanted to meet me. They pressed their hands into mine, saying, 'It's lovely to meet you' and making all sorts of meaningful eye contact. The kind of eye contact that I'm trying not to think too hard about today.

Day GET BACK TO WORK DAY

Hi Internet. I've been avoiding you. Not really, but kind of. It's been an interesting week. I think I've been transitioning to some kind of next level, but like going through the birth canal, it's dark and narrow and airless and there's not a lot of time to chit-chat.

It's been one of those weeks when you can really see causal relationships – one thing is leading to another in a really clear, almost magical way. There have been several examples of this, but one was my sister coming to visit.

I have two sisters and the more we create our own lives, the more it becomes apparent that we are drastically different human beings. One has an ever-expanding wardrobe of brand-name fashions, brand-name appliances and brand-name cars, while the other breaks out in hives when she enters a mall parking lot. The uber-consumer and the anti-consumer.

The uber-consumer came to stay with me. She is a pediatrician and has embraced Western Medicine as The Truth. I have not. And the irony of me going through a medical experience and using non-traditional methods to heal myself with her IN MY HOUSE has not been lost on me.

I had a great internal debate about hiding my Girls Gone Raw lifestyle in the closet while she was here this weekend. I also had concerns that I'd be swayed by the presence of candy, chips and whatever comfort food time bombs they'd fill my home with. Temptation is a slippery slope especially when it's covered in chocolate sauce.

So I decided to be open about my new diet. I wasn't hard-line or militant – I just said I was trying to eat a metric ton of fruits and veggies every day. I think she expected a plate full of broccoli spears like I did at first. And lucky for me, it inspired curiosity, not suspicion. So, I prepared my sister and brother-in-law a pornographic raw dinner of zucchini pasta and a new mind-blowing marinara sauce, with the most delicious banana ice cream known to mankind for dessert. My sister's assessment? Raw rawks.

Rather than use my sister's visit as an excuse to eat chips and chocolate and descend into my lower self – the self that is driven by desire and ego and impulse – I used it as an opportunity to rise. I have eaten 100% raw for four days now and I have literally never felt better in my life. And now I'm wondering: had she not been here would I have gone 100%? Before this weekend I was sitting at 75%, still eating hormone-filled chicken breasts and nutritionless white rice. For some reason, she was the catalyst that took me to the next level – even though I assumed I would go downhill.

This past week has been filled with events and ideas that, at first blush, appear to be distractions, booby traps set to throw me off course and keep me from moving forward to my goals. I've had to really go inside myself, hunker down and get conscious about my decisions. But something is changing in me. And the impulse to sink down into avoidance is no longer cutting it. These so-called distractions are actually calls to rise. Crossroads giving me the option to lift myself up and keep moving forward.

Day 69: Transformation

Humans are built for transformation, down to our cells. Every cell in my body is being continually replaced. I listened to one podcast the other day that likened it to a continual resurrection. We get a whole new liver in something like three months. Our skin is new every week. We are in constant transformation, but we spend most of the time completely oblivious to the processes going on within us. Oblivious and unappreciative, actually.

Most times when you look at your body it's to criticize it or tell it that it's getting old. You look at the saddlebags that weren't there five years ago. Or the grey hairs. The sagging bits. You scold your body for letting you down. And while you were watching daytime television and pinching that roll of flab, your bod just finished off a whole new spinal column. I bet our bodies sit there and think, 'You're welcome, jackass. What have you done for me lately?'

I bet God says the same thing. It's like that joke about the drowning man. A ship comes by and offers to help. He says, 'No thanks. God'll save me.' Another ship comes by and offers to help. 'No thanks. God'll save me.' Eventually, after passing up a third ship, he drowns. Up in heaven, he storms over to God and says, 'Why didn't you save me?' God says, 'I sent three ships to rescue you, what more do you want?'

We look at disease and aging and, oh say, violent mood swings as things that happen to us. But, there's a certain aspect of choice when it comes to this or any transformation. What are my cells re-creating themselves with? The raw materials I give them. Food, for example. You are what you eat, but not in a stupid Food Guide tag line way. In a really fundamental, energetic way. Thoughts are another energetic fuel. You are what you think, too.

Your cells are artists. You give them their supplies and they create. Same with your whole life – your relationships, your home, your job – it's an artwork of your creation.

I get to rebuild myself and my life every single day. In fact, that's my job: to create the lived experience I want. Lately, I've beeen building with too much stress. I've been screaming at suppliers and asking my team of worker bees to hustle, hustle, hustle! So. I've started making different choices. I've decided to get calm. To get grateful. To understand that all of this is a process and it's my job to trust it. To go inward for answers. To feed my body and mind the fuel it needs to heal and thrive. To add more love every single day. And to understand that things are happening for a reason and a purpose.

Day 67: Happy Pills

So, I get my flunk-in-the-junk results and I get a little grumpy and then it gradually dawns on me that I am contributing to my health problems by being a massive and annoying stress case. And the thing I'm stressing about is something that is supposed to be joyful, a.k.a. LIVING MY FREAKING DREAM. Duh.

I have to chill out. I get it. So, I make the commitment to relax. I go to the gym. I listen to woo woo tapes. I make nice dinners. I read nice books. I trust my book will tell me what it needs. I remember the concept of gratitude. I pray for guidance while making carrot, apple, beet juice. Y'know. That sort of thing.

And the next day, the good Lord spoke unto me. In the form of an email from an acquaintance who needs help on a project. It's a web and video project for teenagers. Using spirituality to help them deal with depression.

Let me just check if this is up my alley...

Depression? Check. Spirituality? Check. Attitude problems, zits and a distrust of most adults? Check. If I could have invented a project to help other people while helping myself, this would be it.

Giving the love works. A couple of months ago when I was feeling especially down, I went through my cell phone and texted 'I love you' to ten people. Within minutes, my inbox was full of 'I love you too' messages. Which was not why I did it, but you get my point. You get what you give, brothers and sisters.

And if all goes well, I'm about to give you some hilarious stories of a neurotic, people-pleasing writer trying to make friends with surly, reticent teenagers. No, no wait...surly, reticent teenagers WITH DEPRESSION. Stay frickin' tuned.

Day 66: The Results Are In

The Democrats won in the U.S. The Republicans won in my cervix. Well, they're leading anyhow. Got the call late in the afternoon that I still have baddies lurking in my lady parts. "Low-grade dysplasia," which is better than high-grade and it could be worse and all that optimistic la-la crap. But the fact of the matter is, I've been going through this women's health gong show a little bit too long for my taste.

As soon as we heard, Boyfriend bundled me in the car and took me to a movie. We had a glass of wine and watched the election for a bit beforehand and that made me happy. The movie also made me happy: Tell No One, a French thriller set in Paris. They went right by my house in one of the car chase scenes. It was cool.

They want me back for more tests in six months, which puts us in April. They made me an appointment for April 20. I took it. I don't know what this does to Paris, but I don't know my ass from Page 9 right now either, so give me a minute and I'll get back to you.

I'm going to keep going with this Raw business. Boyfriend and I also agree that the stress levels need to come down. I cannot keep this I'm-a-walking-mood-swing thing going. Green smoothies and tai chi class, here I come. God. I'm turning into one of those cancer people. If you see me wearing baggy purple hemp clothing or rubbing crystals obsessively or swaying rapturously to pan flute music, wrestle me to the ground and slap me, okay? Promise?

Off for an anti-oxidant, phyto-nutrient, alkaline-inducing blender drink, laced heavily with 150 proof.

Day 65: All Hail The Left Brain

Facilitator Bill from Banff told us that once we'd written 40,000 words, we'd know what we were dealing with. We all laughed, thinking he was a silly old man of questionable intelligence who really ought to retire. And here I sit, after days of creative darkness, after swinging between euphoric inspiration and the desire to abandon the project entirely, after squeezing 45,000 words from my ravaged, pockmarked mind – and I know exactly what I'm dealing with.

For the past week or so, I've been creatively despondent. My book was going nowhere. After 180 pages of writing by feel, I stalled out. I had told the story I wanted to tell, but it lay lifeless on the page and only brushed the surface of characters who are way too interesting to gloss over. I was at a loss.

Way back in July, my dad gave me a book on writing by Elizabeth George, a bestselling crime writer who is so left-brained I thought I was reading a book on tax law. She had some good things to say about character and plot, but her method was so anal retentive, I threw her book across the room, forgot all her insights and resumed the right-brain hippy dance I've been doing for three months.

Oh my sweet darlings. When the student is ready, the teacher re-appears.

I picked up the book, unfortunately titled Write Away, last night. Dear old Liz advised me to go back to the characters – their desires, their core needs. To address conflict – because all of us want different things at different times and that's why it's so damn hard to get along. And to let the conflict gradually build to an explosive and inevitable climax. She said if your story's stalled out, you've played your hand too soon.

In other words Writing 101.

And a perfect project for my poor, unappreciated left brain. With some right brain preparation, of course. I started with character work – first-person free-association writing, trying to uncover my characters desires, needs, questions and baggage. Then I slept on it, allowing it all to brew in my subconscious until this morning after my creativity-stimulating, cellulite-diminishing workout.

And then, I unleashed the Left. I opened a blank spreadsheet file – whaaa? – and gave each character a column, crafting a main plot and several subplots, all focused on desire and conflict, allowing one event to lead to the next, building to a big finish. By noon, I'd transformed my 45,000 words into a structured, planned novel.

With great, gaping holes to fill.

But I have a plan. A map. A destination and a means of getting there. I'm going to try my damnedest to use Stephen's slow n' steady approach. Mostly because these weekly existential crises are tiring me out. No longer shall I channel Virginia Woolf! (She said, tempting fate. Little did she know, her next mood swing was waiting, lurking, preparing to strike...)

Day 64: The Power of Patience

Patience is a character trait I severely lack. I'm a run-before-you-walk girl. A dive-in-head-first girl. Shoot first, ask questions later. That type of deal. Sometimes, as in the case of me choosing Ironman as my first triathlon, it works out. Other times, like marrying the narcissistic meanie, it doesn't.

My friend Stephen is a patient man.

When he decided to write a sci fi/fantasy novel, he told himself it would take three years. One to plan, one to write, one to revise. At least I think that's what he said. My brain shorted out after hearing the words "three years." He's a smartie though, and despite this idea going against every fibre of my high-strung, I-want-it-now personality, his slow-and-steady method makes a lot of sense.

I've had this insane sense of urgency since I was 26 – a feeling of being perpetually late for life, whether it's professionally, personally, financially or spiritually. It started when Narcissistic Meanie left and I began to feel that, between divorce and depression, I lost a good five years of productive, functioning life. Now, don't get me wrong, there was also a feeling of almost-weepy relief and euphoria. A sense that I got to start life over and make the whole thing up any way I wanted.

But living every day as though it were my last combined with feeling five to seven years late turned me into Oprah on amphetamines. It was like my personal psychic carny turned up the Def Leppard and yelled, 'Anybody wanna go fasssstah?'

Any meaningful personal experience I could think of I did: running marathons, traveling to Europe, volunteering with inner city children, finding spirituality, taking French class, making a personal financial plan, attending wine tastings, changing jobs, changing jobs, changing jobs.

I've been in a state of full-on A.D.D. since 2002.

For six years, I've been trying to "catch up," but I'm no longer sure what I'm trying to catch up to. Or why. It's not like there's some universal life check-list with names and dates attached to things like Have Children, Experience Inner Peace or Achieve Multiple Orgasm While Suspended On A Trapeze.

Whatever bucket list you're working towards is one you made up. One you are holding yourself to. And possibly driving yourself crazy over.

The more I 'do,' the more un-done I feel. I think I'm being tested right now – asked to give up the illusion that I'm in control of what's happening here and let go. Because every time I try to manhandle the process and push my own agenda, I get my ass kicked by the carny. I don't know if all those things on my list will get done. I don't know if this year (or this life) will happen the way I thought. The universe doesn't give a damn about my timelines or my urgency or my big, fancy plan. It's unfolding perfectly in its own time, and with a Def Leppard soundtrack to boot. So I should probably relax and enjoy the ride.

Day 62: Only So Much

When a girl has three deadlines landing on the same day, she has to prioritize. When she booked four social events on the days leading up to that deadline, she has to give her head a shake. I can't even blame that on Cold Lake-inspired desperation. It was just bad planning and too much lead time, leading to 'I'm sure it's fine' calendar stacking. Bad move.

Regardless. The grant is in the mail. This was essential. The CBC lit competition is being addressed right now. And there is much to say about the first draft of this book. Too much to say when I'm on deadline.

FYI, this is the first day of NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo. Two stupidly named 'quantity over quality' writing challenges. NaBloPoMo – post on your blog every day for a month. NaNoWriMo – write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Not that 50,000 words makes a novel. As I found out with my book. Ugh. Nothing. I'm fine.

Off to CBC it up and then fall over on my face.