From Writing This Book:
1. I am willing and able to put my creative work first, above all else. Even personal hygiene.
2. The numbers do not and cannot matter: word count, number of pages, your age, how long it's taking. All that matters is that you're writing.
3. The rituals work: gratitude, prayer, morning pages. It all works. Of course it does.
4. Hotel writing works, too. But next time, I resolve to write someplace sexier. And warmer. And with a pool.
4.5 And cabana boys.
5. Writing a book might mean having no social life for half a year. This frightens me.
6. Writing books is hard. But I also make things harder than necessary, so maybe writing books is really easy and I just did it wrong.
7. A lot of the bits I thought I'd throw away, I ended up using. Keep everything you write, just in case.
8. My ego is a fragile, monstrous thing.
9. Writing every single day is a good training/discipline thing, but isn't necessary. Creative work need time to brew and sections will refuse to come clear until they're good and ready. You can't force it.
10. Believe you are being led and you will never feel alone. Believe you are the only one doing the writing and you will have dark days of loneliness and despair.
11. The most incredible, supportive people in the entire world love me and have given me the space to do this, even though I have neglected them, been weird and freaky, begun to smell strangely and have forgotten how to sustain a normal conversation.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Day 123/Day 31: Happy Anniversary...I'm Leaving
Six years ago, on our second anniversary, my husband told me he was leaving. While he worked his way through a poorly rehearsed speech, looking down for dramatic effect, his nose began to bleed. Blood seeped through his fingers as he tried to stop the flow, getting all over the hardwood floor of our crappy rental apartment. I mopped it up with paper towel, the blood already sticky on the wood, leaving little paper towel bits I would have to go back over later. The floor dug into my knees as I wiped and thought: Maybe, because I'm the one who cleans up the blood, who will always clean up the blood, maybe you'll stay.
Two days before, we had run out of olive oil. We were olive oil savants, him and me. We knew the per-litre price of every brand in every grocery store in the city. We never paid more than $8.99. Never had to. Until two days before when he came home with $16.99 top-of-the-line oil. Now, of course, I know why. He'd be gone before I saw the bottom of the bottle. Long gone. Before I even cracked the seal.
That afternoon, I was at yoga, he packed a suitcase and left. I have no memory of that night, sleeping alone, or the next night, but I do remember waking up on December 31st because it was our anniversary. I opened my eyes afraid to move in case he had slipped back into his place in the middle of the night. In case that empty stillness in my guts wasn't permanent and in two seconds he'd roll over and say, all sleepy, "Angel."
I went to the cappuccino place across the street, our cappuccino place, and regretted it as soon as I walked in the door. "Where's your better half?" the gay Asian barista called across the empty store. "Sleeping in for once?" I stared at him, wondering if he knew something I didn't. If I should ask. I got my coffee and left.
I walked to my office. I called home as soon as I got there, panicking that he'd come back while I walked the fifteen blocks downtown. I counted the rings, feeling stupid for leaving the apartment, for jinxing it. I heard our voices on the machine, newlywed cheerful, leave us a message and we'll call you back. I called at least fifteen times before dialing his parents' number, hands shaking, blood hot in my neck.
"How are you?" his mother asked, sounding genuinely concerned. Your son is right now this second breaking my heart. Is what I didn't say. How do you think I am? I couldn't resist saying happy anniversary, though, when he got on the phone. I couldn't stop myself. Like licking an ice-cold flag pole.
That night, when he started to cry he said, "I'm sad for us." We'll be fine, I said. We'll be fine. We'll be fine. We'll be fine. And later, after the speech and the nosebleed and great cavern of silence that came next, I understood that we would be fine. Not we as in us. These two individual, separate members of the human race sitting here at 7:30 on New Year's Eve would be fine. In the existential sense of the word.
"You could be happier," he said. I'll give notice on this place, I thought.
And everyone else, in the days that followed, told me, "He'll be back." They said it with wrinkled pity foreheads. And they said it over and over and over. They said it like they'd discovered a new country or broken a record, but it was old news to me. I already knew he'd come back. On Valentine's Day. On my birthday. Next Wednesday. He'll be back. I knew.
I knew it until a German lady with a glass eye and a red windbreaker came to my office a year and a half later. She handed me papers that said we were divorced. That some judge had decided it at 3:23 in the afternoon a few weeks back. "You were hard to track down," the German lady said. I work a lot, I told her. He had estimated my income. Used my parents address for the forms. He got everything right, of course he did, and paid all the fees. Small price to pay.
That's it? I asked her, searching her face for clues. For that hint of a smile that means any second now, someone will jump out screaming candid camera or surprise or gotcha. "Unless you want to contest it," she said, her glass eye staring straight ahead, little zipper sounds coming from her windbreaker as she backed toward the door. I didn't know what that meant. I still don't.
Two days before, we had run out of olive oil. We were olive oil savants, him and me. We knew the per-litre price of every brand in every grocery store in the city. We never paid more than $8.99. Never had to. Until two days before when he came home with $16.99 top-of-the-line oil. Now, of course, I know why. He'd be gone before I saw the bottom of the bottle. Long gone. Before I even cracked the seal.
That afternoon, I was at yoga, he packed a suitcase and left. I have no memory of that night, sleeping alone, or the next night, but I do remember waking up on December 31st because it was our anniversary. I opened my eyes afraid to move in case he had slipped back into his place in the middle of the night. In case that empty stillness in my guts wasn't permanent and in two seconds he'd roll over and say, all sleepy, "Angel."
I went to the cappuccino place across the street, our cappuccino place, and regretted it as soon as I walked in the door. "Where's your better half?" the gay Asian barista called across the empty store. "Sleeping in for once?" I stared at him, wondering if he knew something I didn't. If I should ask. I got my coffee and left.
I walked to my office. I called home as soon as I got there, panicking that he'd come back while I walked the fifteen blocks downtown. I counted the rings, feeling stupid for leaving the apartment, for jinxing it. I heard our voices on the machine, newlywed cheerful, leave us a message and we'll call you back. I called at least fifteen times before dialing his parents' number, hands shaking, blood hot in my neck.
"How are you?" his mother asked, sounding genuinely concerned. Your son is right now this second breaking my heart. Is what I didn't say. How do you think I am? I couldn't resist saying happy anniversary, though, when he got on the phone. I couldn't stop myself. Like licking an ice-cold flag pole.
That night, when he started to cry he said, "I'm sad for us." We'll be fine, I said. We'll be fine. We'll be fine. We'll be fine. And later, after the speech and the nosebleed and great cavern of silence that came next, I understood that we would be fine. Not we as in us. These two individual, separate members of the human race sitting here at 7:30 on New Year's Eve would be fine. In the existential sense of the word.
"You could be happier," he said. I'll give notice on this place, I thought.
And everyone else, in the days that followed, told me, "He'll be back." They said it with wrinkled pity foreheads. And they said it over and over and over. They said it like they'd discovered a new country or broken a record, but it was old news to me. I already knew he'd come back. On Valentine's Day. On my birthday. Next Wednesday. He'll be back. I knew.
I knew it until a German lady with a glass eye and a red windbreaker came to my office a year and a half later. She handed me papers that said we were divorced. That some judge had decided it at 3:23 in the afternoon a few weeks back. "You were hard to track down," the German lady said. I work a lot, I told her. He had estimated my income. Used my parents address for the forms. He got everything right, of course he did, and paid all the fees. Small price to pay.
That's it? I asked her, searching her face for clues. For that hint of a smile that means any second now, someone will jump out screaming candid camera or surprise or gotcha. "Unless you want to contest it," she said, her glass eye staring straight ahead, little zipper sounds coming from her windbreaker as she backed toward the door. I didn't know what that meant. I still don't.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Day 122/Day 30: Does This Come With Extended Warranty?
And here we are at the end of the 30-Day Experiment. Which seems kind of silly since there's 31 days in December, but calling it a 31-Day Experiment seemed kind of off, so...
Regardless, I'm extending the experiment one more day. Then I can give you a massive year-end, book-end, science-project-end debrief...while preparing for the New Year's gathering I am hosting. Overachieve much?
Today was a big day. I'm deep in the end-of-project phase of my creative process. I can't find the link to the post where I outline my personal (agonizing) process in minute detail, but this phase goes a little something like this:
I CAN'T F*CKING SLEEP.
Seriously. I toss and turn and I'm vibrating with this excited/anxious energy like I just want to jump out of my skin and make a break for the finish line. The only reason I go to bed in the first place is because sleep is an essential part of my creative process. It's also essential for me to avoid turning into a snarling bitch.
Only I'm the opposite of a bitch right now. I've been walking around in a state of euphoria for the past two days. I'm singing in the mirror. I'm dancing in the kitchen and talking to the coffee maker. I'm a freaking loon.
Part of me thinks it's the lack of sleep. Another part of me thinks I'm in deep denial of secret fears that I've forgotten to write the entire middle part of the story and I haven't actually written a story but a terrible (and very long) Dadaist poem that scrapes the dark corners of my psychic viscera, but doesn't actually say anything.
I'm all for finding something like that out, but not now. Not yet. Not until I finish.
Regardless, I'm extending the experiment one more day. Then I can give you a massive year-end, book-end, science-project-end debrief...while preparing for the New Year's gathering I am hosting. Overachieve much?
Today was a big day. I'm deep in the end-of-project phase of my creative process. I can't find the link to the post where I outline my personal (agonizing) process in minute detail, but this phase goes a little something like this:
I CAN'T F*CKING SLEEP.
Seriously. I toss and turn and I'm vibrating with this excited/anxious energy like I just want to jump out of my skin and make a break for the finish line. The only reason I go to bed in the first place is because sleep is an essential part of my creative process. It's also essential for me to avoid turning into a snarling bitch.
Only I'm the opposite of a bitch right now. I've been walking around in a state of euphoria for the past two days. I'm singing in the mirror. I'm dancing in the kitchen and talking to the coffee maker. I'm a freaking loon.
Part of me thinks it's the lack of sleep. Another part of me thinks I'm in deep denial of secret fears that I've forgotten to write the entire middle part of the story and I haven't actually written a story but a terrible (and very long) Dadaist poem that scrapes the dark corners of my psychic viscera, but doesn't actually say anything.
I'm all for finding something like that out, but not now. Not yet. Not until I finish.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Day 121/Day 29: Almost Freaking There, Yo
Dudes. It's Day 29 of my big 30-Day Experiment. It's three days until the big First Draft Deadline. I'm in Canmore and the mountains are so pornographically beautiful, I can't stand it. Outside, there is a pack (gaggle? flock?) of coyotes howling and yattering at each other. I know I should be scared, but they sound so dorky and stupid that I'm laughing instead. Which is ironic because the mouse in the garage scared the hell out of me.
I have three chapters left in my book and three days left in my month. Think I can do it? Puh-lace your bets... Oh, and if anyone could suggest an ENDING, that would be great. But take your time. By tomorrow would be perfect, thanks.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking if I'm writing a memoir I should know how it ends. Because I lived it, right? Yeah, that's not how I roll. And I'm not sure if you've noticed, but life doesn't really hand you perfect movie endings most of the time. Mostly life hands you non-endings with zero in the Satisfying Closure department. People's last words to you are usually something like, "Watch out for that shopping cart." And then they drive off in their Ford Pintos, never to be seen again.
We can talk more about life's lack of satisfying closure on December 31st: Anniversary of my Ex-Husband's Inglorious Departure. Which, BEAUTIFULLY, will be the day I write my last chapter and finish my draft. In the meantime, I have some serious work to do. Jones out.
I have three chapters left in my book and three days left in my month. Think I can do it? Puh-lace your bets... Oh, and if anyone could suggest an ENDING, that would be great. But take your time. By tomorrow would be perfect, thanks.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking if I'm writing a memoir I should know how it ends. Because I lived it, right? Yeah, that's not how I roll. And I'm not sure if you've noticed, but life doesn't really hand you perfect movie endings most of the time. Mostly life hands you non-endings with zero in the Satisfying Closure department. People's last words to you are usually something like, "Watch out for that shopping cart." And then they drive off in their Ford Pintos, never to be seen again.
We can talk more about life's lack of satisfying closure on December 31st: Anniversary of my Ex-Husband's Inglorious Departure. Which, BEAUTIFULLY, will be the day I write my last chapter and finish my draft. In the meantime, I have some serious work to do. Jones out.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Day 120/Day 28: I'm Probably The Last To Know
Yesterday, surrounded by the quiet, darkening mountains, tucked into a tiny, warmly lit corner of the house, I realized I have no life whatsoever. In my urgency and panic to create a life filled with art, I have created a life filled, actually, with nothing in particular. Sure, I write a lot. But I do little else and soon, dear readers, even you will tire of reading about me washing the dishes and picking gnats out of Boyfriend's hair.
It was a size large wake-up call to sit down with my New Year's Resolutions and realize that I've missed the very point of being an artist: play. Creativity is doodling and wandering and pretending and imagining. Which I'll admit to doing on the page but certainly not off of it. Off the page, I'm just a sweatpant-clad chimp padding around my vinyl-sided cage between my feeding dish and the corner where I pee.
This suburban crucible may have been necessary for the intense creation of this book, I realize, but it's left me feeling a little shrunken and bland. And I found it interesting that in thinking about my NYRs, the only things I was clear on were my writing goals. As far as work is concerned, I've got a tractor beam on what I want. But the rest of my life is a bit grey.
So my NYR is simply to get a life, or create one. A life that involves interacting with other humans on a regular basis. One that makes it necessary to get dressed and put on eyeliner if not every day then most days of the week. A life filled with laughter, adventure and play. I want pleasant surprises and I have a feeling I have to leave the house in order to experience them.
Beyond that, I have come to another realization: I'm done with this city. It's a fine place and I've been here for the better part of twenty years, but I'm just not challenged or excited by it any more. When I think about leaving the house, there's nowhere I feel like going. When I think about getting a column or reading at an open mic, I don't want it to be here. I want a bigger pond, a grand adventure. A new environment to discover and create myself. What this means and where this means, I don't know.
Much of my NYR-writing process was discovering that I need to let go. I have been clamping down on the pieces of my life, trying to keep everything under control and only allowing one thing to change at a time. Well, I've ended up with something manageable but boring as hell. I have to let go into uncertainty and allow the things that want to change...to change. I have to test my assumptions about the way people and relationships will react.
I opened up The Artist's Way last night for the first time in months. Here is what I read: "The creative process is a process of surrender, not control."
Normally, NYRs give me that feeling of control. I have my list and I go about checking things off. But this year I have no list. I have a blindfold and a pin. I know the donkey's there, I just know it. But for now, I'm shuffling, hands stretched out and reaching, trying not to peek.
It was a size large wake-up call to sit down with my New Year's Resolutions and realize that I've missed the very point of being an artist: play. Creativity is doodling and wandering and pretending and imagining. Which I'll admit to doing on the page but certainly not off of it. Off the page, I'm just a sweatpant-clad chimp padding around my vinyl-sided cage between my feeding dish and the corner where I pee.
This suburban crucible may have been necessary for the intense creation of this book, I realize, but it's left me feeling a little shrunken and bland. And I found it interesting that in thinking about my NYRs, the only things I was clear on were my writing goals. As far as work is concerned, I've got a tractor beam on what I want. But the rest of my life is a bit grey.
So my NYR is simply to get a life, or create one. A life that involves interacting with other humans on a regular basis. One that makes it necessary to get dressed and put on eyeliner if not every day then most days of the week. A life filled with laughter, adventure and play. I want pleasant surprises and I have a feeling I have to leave the house in order to experience them.
Beyond that, I have come to another realization: I'm done with this city. It's a fine place and I've been here for the better part of twenty years, but I'm just not challenged or excited by it any more. When I think about leaving the house, there's nowhere I feel like going. When I think about getting a column or reading at an open mic, I don't want it to be here. I want a bigger pond, a grand adventure. A new environment to discover and create myself. What this means and where this means, I don't know.
Much of my NYR-writing process was discovering that I need to let go. I have been clamping down on the pieces of my life, trying to keep everything under control and only allowing one thing to change at a time. Well, I've ended up with something manageable but boring as hell. I have to let go into uncertainty and allow the things that want to change...to change. I have to test my assumptions about the way people and relationships will react.
I opened up The Artist's Way last night for the first time in months. Here is what I read: "The creative process is a process of surrender, not control."
Normally, NYRs give me that feeling of control. I have my list and I go about checking things off. But this year I have no list. I have a blindfold and a pin. I know the donkey's there, I just know it. But for now, I'm shuffling, hands stretched out and reaching, trying not to peek.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Day 119/Day 27: New Moon Resolutions
Keeping my head above water here after three flat tires in a week, the Christmas Gong Show, my second-ever Catholic mass, having houseguests, eating gravy-soaked poison for three days straight and accepting the fact that writing one sentence for my book on Christmas Day is my version of a Christmas Miracle.
But rather than regale you with stories including Like A Farting Dog In A Car or The Most Depressing Afternoon Of The Year, I want to tell you that this year, you should be making your New Year's Resolutions today (the 27th) than waiting until December 31st. Or the 1st for those of you who like your resolutions hungover and reeking of gin.
It's the first day of the new moon and I'm not pulling this out of my butt, my favourite kooky astrologer said so. I'm not embarrassed to tell you there was a period of my life in which all my decisions were made based on my horoscope and I would refuse to be friends with people based on their atrological signs. (No Aries allowed, sorry.) I've relaxed this stance some, having found several other woo woo methodologies for structuring my life and having successfully purged my life of people born between March 21 and April 19. (Wink.)
I am super huge on New Year's Resolutions (NYR). I'm all about them, actually. Any opportunity to take stock and make plans for future awesomeness should be maximized, in my opinion. I love New Year so much, I hold a second celebration on my birthday in July. It's my Semi-Annual Self-Awareness Sale!
This year's NYR will be focusing on how to make life more delicious. Even though 2008 included the realizing of the Big Dream of my life, I didn't have a lot of fun. April in Paris RAWKED, but the rest of 2008 was characterized by me making life much more difficult than it needed to be. Which, if I were a consumer product, might be an appropriate tag line. Learning Things The Hard Way Since 1976.
My goals for 2009 include laughing more, looking/feeling hotter, getting paid to do something I love and spending more time with people I think are cool. These are the kinds of goals a person can get excited about. Lose 10 lbs? Blech. Boring. My advice is to make goals that you think are so effing spectacular you can't wait for January 1st to get going on them. Only I have to wait until New Year's Day because I've got a freaking book to finish and five days to do it. Gaaaaa!
But rather than regale you with stories including Like A Farting Dog In A Car or The Most Depressing Afternoon Of The Year, I want to tell you that this year, you should be making your New Year's Resolutions today (the 27th) than waiting until December 31st. Or the 1st for those of you who like your resolutions hungover and reeking of gin.
It's the first day of the new moon and I'm not pulling this out of my butt, my favourite kooky astrologer said so. I'm not embarrassed to tell you there was a period of my life in which all my decisions were made based on my horoscope and I would refuse to be friends with people based on their atrological signs. (No Aries allowed, sorry.) I've relaxed this stance some, having found several other woo woo methodologies for structuring my life and having successfully purged my life of people born between March 21 and April 19. (Wink.)
I am super huge on New Year's Resolutions (NYR). I'm all about them, actually. Any opportunity to take stock and make plans for future awesomeness should be maximized, in my opinion. I love New Year so much, I hold a second celebration on my birthday in July. It's my Semi-Annual Self-Awareness Sale!
This year's NYR will be focusing on how to make life more delicious. Even though 2008 included the realizing of the Big Dream of my life, I didn't have a lot of fun. April in Paris RAWKED, but the rest of 2008 was characterized by me making life much more difficult than it needed to be. Which, if I were a consumer product, might be an appropriate tag line. Learning Things The Hard Way Since 1976.
My goals for 2009 include laughing more, looking/feeling hotter, getting paid to do something I love and spending more time with people I think are cool. These are the kinds of goals a person can get excited about. Lose 10 lbs? Blech. Boring. My advice is to make goals that you think are so effing spectacular you can't wait for January 1st to get going on them. Only I have to wait until New Year's Day because I've got a freaking book to finish and five days to do it. Gaaaaa!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Day 116/Day 24: Meh-heh-hairrrry Christmas!
When you work from home and wearing anything besides sweatpants is the exception rather than the norm, Christmas tends to sneak up on you. In the office-job days, I was surrounded by piles of Christmas chocolate and cookies, not to mention overwhelmed by party invitations as awesome as the Hyatt hotel's massive bash and as bizarre as Southcentre mall's.
Speaking of malls, I am pleased to report I haven't been in one this holiday season. Actually, I haven't been in one since I left for Paris.
My decision to avoid malls like the plague is partly due to the anti-stuff rant I went on at the beginning of the month, which was a lot about how blind consumerism is wrecking the world and a little about how my artist-year budget didn't really include Christmas shopping. I only had one mall-based item in my plan, a Lululemon running toque for Boyfriend because he keeps stealing mine and has an extraordinarily sweaty head. But I bailed on that idea altogether when I saw the traffic backed up three kilometres past the parking lot.
So I got creative. And now that I'm officially finished my gifting, I can say that I did rather well on the non-consumer front. The only non-recyclable items I purchased were a couple of gift cards and the only other tangible products were two books and a couple of mason jars – all of which can be re-used. This year's gifts were all from the heart, mostly homemade and offer a good mix of creativity, humour and practicality.
All of my gifts could also fit into a single shoe box if space was an issue. And they are also fairly aerodynamic if the recipients needed to reduce wind resistance for any reason. They are light enough that a person could run for their lives and still take their gift along with them, should they deem them that sentimentally valuable.
I can't tell you what they are, though, until after Christmas. But I can tell you I made excellent use of ye olde iTunes, the spectacular templates included with my word processing software and Google images. Now that I'm done, I can see about a hundred even MORE creative and less spendy things I could have done. But that's how it works. You get all spazzy about Christmas because OMG it's December 22nd and you haven't done anything so you run around Chapters and Starbucks and go freaking nuts with their mesmerizing "gift packs" and well-merchandized miscelany. I know, I get it. But if you just calm down and think about what you're good at and what makes you you, then you end up with some interesting ideas that are going to move your relationships forward.
Okay, I'll tell you one gift, but only because there is NO WAY he'll read this blog before Christmas...or ever for that matter. For Boyfriend's dad, a golf fanatic who I've heard speak maybe seven words in the past two-and-a-half years, I made a CD of guided golf visualizations, found on iTunes. I also made a card reading: Let's Bond. I put a bunch of James Bond photos on it and wrote that I wanted to get to know him better.
It's a multiple choice gift with several options:
a) A round of golf. (I don't play golf, which I reminded him, meaning that he'd likely hate me by hole #3 so we might be better off at the driving range.)
b) Lunch and a glass of wine.
c) A morning run followed by a coffee or breakfast.
d) An afternoon sipping mint tea and talking about our feelings. Followed by pedicures and romantic comedies.
e) A luxury all-inclusive family holiday to Mexico. (Please book by December 24, 2008.)
So. You see what I mean. Some of those "options" are ridiculous and some I hope he doesn't choose, i.e. the golf, but the thought of going for a run and having breakfast? Me likey. I'll offer to make the eggs but then tell him that he makes the world's best omelettes (he does) and we'll go from there. Maybe he'll teach me his secret technique. Bingo bango bond-o.
Speaking of malls, I am pleased to report I haven't been in one this holiday season. Actually, I haven't been in one since I left for Paris.
My decision to avoid malls like the plague is partly due to the anti-stuff rant I went on at the beginning of the month, which was a lot about how blind consumerism is wrecking the world and a little about how my artist-year budget didn't really include Christmas shopping. I only had one mall-based item in my plan, a Lululemon running toque for Boyfriend because he keeps stealing mine and has an extraordinarily sweaty head. But I bailed on that idea altogether when I saw the traffic backed up three kilometres past the parking lot.
So I got creative. And now that I'm officially finished my gifting, I can say that I did rather well on the non-consumer front. The only non-recyclable items I purchased were a couple of gift cards and the only other tangible products were two books and a couple of mason jars – all of which can be re-used. This year's gifts were all from the heart, mostly homemade and offer a good mix of creativity, humour and practicality.
All of my gifts could also fit into a single shoe box if space was an issue. And they are also fairly aerodynamic if the recipients needed to reduce wind resistance for any reason. They are light enough that a person could run for their lives and still take their gift along with them, should they deem them that sentimentally valuable.
I can't tell you what they are, though, until after Christmas. But I can tell you I made excellent use of ye olde iTunes, the spectacular templates included with my word processing software and Google images. Now that I'm done, I can see about a hundred even MORE creative and less spendy things I could have done. But that's how it works. You get all spazzy about Christmas because OMG it's December 22nd and you haven't done anything so you run around Chapters and Starbucks and go freaking nuts with their mesmerizing "gift packs" and well-merchandized miscelany. I know, I get it. But if you just calm down and think about what you're good at and what makes you you, then you end up with some interesting ideas that are going to move your relationships forward.
Okay, I'll tell you one gift, but only because there is NO WAY he'll read this blog before Christmas...or ever for that matter. For Boyfriend's dad, a golf fanatic who I've heard speak maybe seven words in the past two-and-a-half years, I made a CD of guided golf visualizations, found on iTunes. I also made a card reading: Let's Bond. I put a bunch of James Bond photos on it and wrote that I wanted to get to know him better.
It's a multiple choice gift with several options:
a) A round of golf. (I don't play golf, which I reminded him, meaning that he'd likely hate me by hole #3 so we might be better off at the driving range.)
b) Lunch and a glass of wine.
c) A morning run followed by a coffee or breakfast.
d) An afternoon sipping mint tea and talking about our feelings. Followed by pedicures and romantic comedies.
e) A luxury all-inclusive family holiday to Mexico. (Please book by December 24, 2008.)
So. You see what I mean. Some of those "options" are ridiculous and some I hope he doesn't choose, i.e. the golf, but the thought of going for a run and having breakfast? Me likey. I'll offer to make the eggs but then tell him that he makes the world's best omelettes (he does) and we'll go from there. Maybe he'll teach me his secret technique. Bingo bango bond-o.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Day 115/Day 23: Best Unconfirmed Christmas Present Of All Time
Back in the summer when I was morose pretty much all of the time, going through some kind of Paris hangover slash end-of-the-dream grieving process in which I rejected all aspects of my life...I went to the doctor for a check-up.
My doctor went to med school with my mom. She is the only family friend who sees me naked on an annual basis.
This year as she listened to my heartbeat and asked me to breathe in and hold, I started sobbing. So rather than check for heart murmurs, she spent the rest of the appointment handing me Kleenex. After a particularly snot-nosed soliloquy about how I didn't know what to do now that I was back from Paris and I felt trapped and I wanted adventure and blah blah so confused blah, she said,"You want to write and travel." And I stared at her while she snapped my folder shut and stood up. "Do that," she said, nodding once and leaving me in stunned silence.
It really was that simple. That was exactly what I wanted. A few weeks later, I attended the week-long residency in Banff. Not exactly exotic, but writing and traveling nonetheless. And then I spent the entire fall season driving to microscopic podunk Alberta towns while Boyfriend worked in the field and I holed up in hotel rooms to write.
So, the need to be specific comes to mind at this juncture. Because Cold Lake was NOT what I had in mind when I imagined myself writing and traveling. However, it is kind of neat to realize that I did get if not what I wanted, at least what I asked for.
Recently, I've started to think about traveling further afield. I've been making moves towards returning to Paris to write the second draft of my novel/memoir. I've started lobbing emails to Craig's List roommate ads and shopping around for plane tickets. But I've had trouble actually committing to anything solid. This is partly because I haven't sold my car yet and therefore technically have no effing money whatsoever, but there is something else. Something vague that I can't put my finger on just yet.
And in one of these moments of vagueness late last week, an email popped into my inbox with the mouthwatering subject line: Got Your Passport Handy? Inside was a message from an old colleague telling me that he realized I was on my way to Gay Paree, but there was this little project that he thought I'd be great for. It's a photo/story documentary to be shown in galleries in which I would travel with a photographer to document the impact of clean water projects on the people of Haiti, Zambia and India.
Let me just repeat that: Haiti. Zambia. India.
Aw hell, one more time:
VOODOO-TASTIC HAITI
ZAMBIA-AS-IN-AFRICA
INDIA (MY SECRET COUNTRY CRUSH)
Can you freaking IMAGINE?! Of course, my family members are shrieking as they read this, thinking I'm going to die in Haitian militia cross-fire or get bombed in the Mumbai airport. And of course, I don't actually know what my chances of getting chosen are because the project leader is off until January 5th. But the very existence of a project this incredible – not to mention the possibility of being involved with it myself – makes my stomach do flip-flops.
Not to mention the absolute RANDOMNESS of receiving a gift like that in my inbox. I mean, Viagra ads, you expect. Opportunities to travel the world and write, you don't. But what the hell, maybe you should.
My doctor went to med school with my mom. She is the only family friend who sees me naked on an annual basis.
This year as she listened to my heartbeat and asked me to breathe in and hold, I started sobbing. So rather than check for heart murmurs, she spent the rest of the appointment handing me Kleenex. After a particularly snot-nosed soliloquy about how I didn't know what to do now that I was back from Paris and I felt trapped and I wanted adventure and blah blah so confused blah, she said,"You want to write and travel." And I stared at her while she snapped my folder shut and stood up. "Do that," she said, nodding once and leaving me in stunned silence.
It really was that simple. That was exactly what I wanted. A few weeks later, I attended the week-long residency in Banff. Not exactly exotic, but writing and traveling nonetheless. And then I spent the entire fall season driving to microscopic podunk Alberta towns while Boyfriend worked in the field and I holed up in hotel rooms to write.
So, the need to be specific comes to mind at this juncture. Because Cold Lake was NOT what I had in mind when I imagined myself writing and traveling. However, it is kind of neat to realize that I did get if not what I wanted, at least what I asked for.
Recently, I've started to think about traveling further afield. I've been making moves towards returning to Paris to write the second draft of my novel/memoir. I've started lobbing emails to Craig's List roommate ads and shopping around for plane tickets. But I've had trouble actually committing to anything solid. This is partly because I haven't sold my car yet and therefore technically have no effing money whatsoever, but there is something else. Something vague that I can't put my finger on just yet.
And in one of these moments of vagueness late last week, an email popped into my inbox with the mouthwatering subject line: Got Your Passport Handy? Inside was a message from an old colleague telling me that he realized I was on my way to Gay Paree, but there was this little project that he thought I'd be great for. It's a photo/story documentary to be shown in galleries in which I would travel with a photographer to document the impact of clean water projects on the people of Haiti, Zambia and India.
Let me just repeat that: Haiti. Zambia. India.
Aw hell, one more time:
VOODOO-TASTIC HAITI
ZAMBIA-AS-IN-AFRICA
INDIA (MY SECRET COUNTRY CRUSH)
Can you freaking IMAGINE?! Of course, my family members are shrieking as they read this, thinking I'm going to die in Haitian militia cross-fire or get bombed in the Mumbai airport. And of course, I don't actually know what my chances of getting chosen are because the project leader is off until January 5th. But the very existence of a project this incredible – not to mention the possibility of being involved with it myself – makes my stomach do flip-flops.
Not to mention the absolute RANDOMNESS of receiving a gift like that in my inbox. I mean, Viagra ads, you expect. Opportunities to travel the world and write, you don't. But what the hell, maybe you should.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Day 113/Day 21: Crazymaker
I just had an Ultimate Fighting Challenge cage match with a bona fide crazymaker. Here is how Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way) describes crazymakers: They are storm centres. They break deals and destroy schedules. They expect special treatment. They spend your time and your money. They discount your reality. They are expert blamers. They set people up against each other. They hate order. They do all these things...and then they deny it.
This reads like a checklist for what just happened.
I did not write yesterday. For the first time in this 30-day experiment. Which is exactly what crazymakers do. They draw you into drama and keep you from your creative work. They make you feel like a terrible person who ruined Christmas. You spend more time grappling with your own mind and ego about who is right/wrong/good/bad than you do working or enjoying your own life.
It is an impossible situation and a colossal waste of time and energy. There can be no winner. Unless you consider sweeping up the shattered rubble of your self-esteem a good time.
So the only thing to do is stay grounded in yourself and let the crazymaker go make crazy someplace else. Even if it means living with the label of Meanest Person On The Planet for the rest of your life. Perhaps I'll get myself a t-shirt made. A tight, shiny one. With tassels.
Incidentally, I did NOT stay grounded. I broke into little pieces and bawled for two days straight. And then I decided to move to Dubai. After I was finished with that, I had a long, hot shower and did a guided meditation on loving-kindness. Then, someone came to test drive my car (which represents six more months of living as an artist) and now I'm sitting down to work.
Now that I've stopped crying I can look back on the past two days and see that the madness was all self-induced. Why? Because I let myself get hooked in. I didn't have to accept the crazymaker's invitation to chaos, but I did. I let it affect me and my work. I let it shatter my self-esteem and make me forget all the good things I am and do.
But the strange positive in all this is, because I ruined Christmas (maybe that's what my t-shirt should say), the crazymaker has left town, leaving me the time and space to do my work. I may be the Meanie of the Year, but I might actually have a peaceful holiday. Life, as I like to say, is a series of trade-offs.
This reads like a checklist for what just happened.
I did not write yesterday. For the first time in this 30-day experiment. Which is exactly what crazymakers do. They draw you into drama and keep you from your creative work. They make you feel like a terrible person who ruined Christmas. You spend more time grappling with your own mind and ego about who is right/wrong/good/bad than you do working or enjoying your own life.
It is an impossible situation and a colossal waste of time and energy. There can be no winner. Unless you consider sweeping up the shattered rubble of your self-esteem a good time.
So the only thing to do is stay grounded in yourself and let the crazymaker go make crazy someplace else. Even if it means living with the label of Meanest Person On The Planet for the rest of your life. Perhaps I'll get myself a t-shirt made. A tight, shiny one. With tassels.
Incidentally, I did NOT stay grounded. I broke into little pieces and bawled for two days straight. And then I decided to move to Dubai. After I was finished with that, I had a long, hot shower and did a guided meditation on loving-kindness. Then, someone came to test drive my car (which represents six more months of living as an artist) and now I'm sitting down to work.
Now that I've stopped crying I can look back on the past two days and see that the madness was all self-induced. Why? Because I let myself get hooked in. I didn't have to accept the crazymaker's invitation to chaos, but I did. I let it affect me and my work. I let it shatter my self-esteem and make me forget all the good things I am and do.
But the strange positive in all this is, because I ruined Christmas (maybe that's what my t-shirt should say), the crazymaker has left town, leaving me the time and space to do my work. I may be the Meanie of the Year, but I might actually have a peaceful holiday. Life, as I like to say, is a series of trade-offs.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Day 111/Day 19: Running for my Life
Yesterday, it was something like minus-22 when the cabin fever hit point critical. I pulled on my insulated running tights – the ones I got a year after my divorce, when I started running. Those tights are five years old now; they've seen a lot of winters and a lot of miles. I doubled up the layers on top and borrowed a face mask from my mom's collection of warm clothing, most of which contains a wadded-up Kleenex or six. Then I headed out into the icy afternoon.
The cold took awhile to hit me. In fact, it hadn't penetrated the clinging layer of room temperature by the time I passed my neighbour halfway down the street. He was dressed like he was going hunting on Mount Everest, piled with goosedown and camouflage. He was so layered up, he looked twice his actual size.
"Pretty committed runner," he called as I passed, giving me the wide-eyed look that says 'You're crazy.' I said I didn't know how committed I actually was. "Who knows how far I'll get," I called out before trudging off in the cold-squeak snow.
It wasn't long before my eyelashes froze and the stray curls turned white with frost. I passed silent construction sites and frozen cars until I made it to the fire road that led to my favourite path through the forest. I love this path, heading southeast and away from all the houses and condos, deep into the forest, toward the canyon at Cougar Creek.
I haven't been on this path for awhile. I mostly avoided it in the fall when the bears were still low in the mountains. Two years ago, a woman got killed out here, running just like I was, and the thought of a mauling really takes the joy out of it. I went up there only once this year, stopping at the place where the path turns south to look at the map. As I stood there, I got that creepy feeling. The feeling of being watched, and I heard a crack somewhere behind me. I bolted, sprinting all the way home, my lungs burning in my chest.
But yesterday, I decided to try it, running into the cold, clear silence in between the trees. If there's a place that looks like peace feels, this is it. The only sound is your feet and your breath. The light was still good, but I was getting pretty cold by the time I got to the trail map. I turned back toward home, feeling the icy sting on my legs start to burn.
In my running glory days, minus-22 was nothing. Most runners have their cut-off points, the temperature at which they refuse to go outside. Either I was brave or nuts during those first two years, but I didn't have a cut-off. I'd run no matter what, packing on the layers and venturing out, even in 30-below or colder. I was driven by something larger and perhaps warmer: the need to stay moving through big grief. Cold weather couldn't faze me. In fact, nothing could.
On my way back home, I thought about my neighbour's comment again and I laughed. No longer could I be mistaken for a committed runner. Now, I'll not go running at any flimsy excuse, instead of the other way around. I was still smiling when a woman in an SUV pulled up beside me and rolled down the window.
"There was a cougar back there on the fire road," she said, giving me that same 'You're crazy' look Mr. Camouflage had a half hour before. "Been three sightings around here in the past day or so." I'm a pretty committed runner, I thought, waving as she pulled away. I picked up the pace and headed home.
The cold took awhile to hit me. In fact, it hadn't penetrated the clinging layer of room temperature by the time I passed my neighbour halfway down the street. He was dressed like he was going hunting on Mount Everest, piled with goosedown and camouflage. He was so layered up, he looked twice his actual size.
"Pretty committed runner," he called as I passed, giving me the wide-eyed look that says 'You're crazy.' I said I didn't know how committed I actually was. "Who knows how far I'll get," I called out before trudging off in the cold-squeak snow.
It wasn't long before my eyelashes froze and the stray curls turned white with frost. I passed silent construction sites and frozen cars until I made it to the fire road that led to my favourite path through the forest. I love this path, heading southeast and away from all the houses and condos, deep into the forest, toward the canyon at Cougar Creek.
I haven't been on this path for awhile. I mostly avoided it in the fall when the bears were still low in the mountains. Two years ago, a woman got killed out here, running just like I was, and the thought of a mauling really takes the joy out of it. I went up there only once this year, stopping at the place where the path turns south to look at the map. As I stood there, I got that creepy feeling. The feeling of being watched, and I heard a crack somewhere behind me. I bolted, sprinting all the way home, my lungs burning in my chest.
But yesterday, I decided to try it, running into the cold, clear silence in between the trees. If there's a place that looks like peace feels, this is it. The only sound is your feet and your breath. The light was still good, but I was getting pretty cold by the time I got to the trail map. I turned back toward home, feeling the icy sting on my legs start to burn.
In my running glory days, minus-22 was nothing. Most runners have their cut-off points, the temperature at which they refuse to go outside. Either I was brave or nuts during those first two years, but I didn't have a cut-off. I'd run no matter what, packing on the layers and venturing out, even in 30-below or colder. I was driven by something larger and perhaps warmer: the need to stay moving through big grief. Cold weather couldn't faze me. In fact, nothing could.
On my way back home, I thought about my neighbour's comment again and I laughed. No longer could I be mistaken for a committed runner. Now, I'll not go running at any flimsy excuse, instead of the other way around. I was still smiling when a woman in an SUV pulled up beside me and rolled down the window.
"There was a cougar back there on the fire road," she said, giving me that same 'You're crazy' look Mr. Camouflage had a half hour before. "Been three sightings around here in the past day or so." I'm a pretty committed runner, I thought, waving as she pulled away. I picked up the pace and headed home.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Day 110/Day 18: Holiday Landmines
My sister showed up three days early, driving in from Saskatchewan on Wednesday night because her best friend's baby decided December 16th sounded nicer than the 22nd as far as birthdays go. You can't blame the kid for wanting to be born, but that seven-pound-ten-ounce bundle of joy has really made things complicated.
I drove to Canmore yesterday, chanting mantras and affirmations the whole drive up, talking myself off the ledge of being behind in my work and getting positively giddy about having two whole solitary days in the mountains to write. I eased up the hill, down our snowy street and opened the garage door. There, in the bowels of a house that's sat stone-silent and empty for four months, was my sister's car.
I stared at it, baffled, as the front door opened and a small dog spilled out. Through my confusion, I understood this creature to be my sister's new puppy. A dog I wasn't sure if she actually bought because we don't really talk much. Not enough to keep track of what's going on in each other's lives. Not enough to know that she was in town, and in the house, early.
She started talking as soon as I got out of my car. "We were just getting ready for a run," she said as though I was expected all along and just in time to join them. Of all the first sentences to choose, this was one of the strangest, starting halfway through a conversation and explaining nothing whatsoever about their unexpected presence. I felt like I'd walked into a sit-com mid-scene without knowing my role or my lines. I was expected to improv, I think, to jump into the thick of it and say something like, "I'll see about the pie." Or, "So I said forget it."
My sister and I may share genetic material, but barring that, we're two completely different species. I, for example, believe in greetings.
To be fair, my sister and brother-in-law weren't expecting me either, so she was probably doing the best she could to normalize her own shock. I was not so graceful. The first word out of my mouth when I saw her car was, "Shit."
But after that, I did my best to engage in the kind of small talk that didn't draw attention to my crushing disappointment and despair. I was devastated that my sacred writing space – for which I have no official ownership – had been invaded. I, like their new puppy, felt like pissing in all the corners. It took all the energy I had to wag my tail and be nice.
They went for their run and as soon as they closed the door behind them, I started to cry, bawling into the phone with Boyfriend, who reminded me that it wasn't their fault the kid came out early and I could always get back into the car and come home.
It wasn't that they showed up early or that we now had to negotiate the awkwardness of people who should know each other but don't. What I couldn't seem to get past was the fact my hour-long session of affirmations appeared not to have worked. It was like the Universe rejected my application. Like the take-out window of the heavens gave me chicken when I had clearly ordered steak. Something had gotten seriously lost in translation between expectation and reality. I pictured God holding his belly on a pillowy cloud, laughing so hard juice came out His holy nose.
All I could do was take a deep breath, look skyward and say, "Verrrrry funny."
I drove to Canmore yesterday, chanting mantras and affirmations the whole drive up, talking myself off the ledge of being behind in my work and getting positively giddy about having two whole solitary days in the mountains to write. I eased up the hill, down our snowy street and opened the garage door. There, in the bowels of a house that's sat stone-silent and empty for four months, was my sister's car.
I stared at it, baffled, as the front door opened and a small dog spilled out. Through my confusion, I understood this creature to be my sister's new puppy. A dog I wasn't sure if she actually bought because we don't really talk much. Not enough to keep track of what's going on in each other's lives. Not enough to know that she was in town, and in the house, early.
She started talking as soon as I got out of my car. "We were just getting ready for a run," she said as though I was expected all along and just in time to join them. Of all the first sentences to choose, this was one of the strangest, starting halfway through a conversation and explaining nothing whatsoever about their unexpected presence. I felt like I'd walked into a sit-com mid-scene without knowing my role or my lines. I was expected to improv, I think, to jump into the thick of it and say something like, "I'll see about the pie." Or, "So I said forget it."
My sister and I may share genetic material, but barring that, we're two completely different species. I, for example, believe in greetings.
To be fair, my sister and brother-in-law weren't expecting me either, so she was probably doing the best she could to normalize her own shock. I was not so graceful. The first word out of my mouth when I saw her car was, "Shit."
But after that, I did my best to engage in the kind of small talk that didn't draw attention to my crushing disappointment and despair. I was devastated that my sacred writing space – for which I have no official ownership – had been invaded. I, like their new puppy, felt like pissing in all the corners. It took all the energy I had to wag my tail and be nice.
They went for their run and as soon as they closed the door behind them, I started to cry, bawling into the phone with Boyfriend, who reminded me that it wasn't their fault the kid came out early and I could always get back into the car and come home.
It wasn't that they showed up early or that we now had to negotiate the awkwardness of people who should know each other but don't. What I couldn't seem to get past was the fact my hour-long session of affirmations appeared not to have worked. It was like the Universe rejected my application. Like the take-out window of the heavens gave me chicken when I had clearly ordered steak. Something had gotten seriously lost in translation between expectation and reality. I pictured God holding his belly on a pillowy cloud, laughing so hard juice came out His holy nose.
All I could do was take a deep breath, look skyward and say, "Verrrrry funny."
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Day 108/Day 16: World's Greatest Stalker
Yesterday afternoon, after grinding on Chapter 6 for four or five hours, the phone rang. Someone in Boyfriend's family was having the kind of meltdown, Category 5 Bad Effing Day that a certain writer we know used to experience on a weekly (or daily) basis.
This person needed our help. So we jumped in the car and drove to Banff, where she lives. Boyfriend and I "slept" on her couch and are now crack-addled and half-insane from lack of sleep.
I am also facing a day where I didn't complete yesterday's chapter (FAIL) and have overprogrammed the schedule with a lunch-date with Grandpa and Canmore With A Two-Year-Old for the next day and a half (EPIC FAIL BEYOND ALL HOPE OF RECOVERY). The idea of 'falling behind' is such a drastic understatement, I can't even begin. Nor can I face the raping and pillaging of my writing space – raping and pillaging of my own doing.
Sometimes being a good Samaritan is a very bad idea.
But it's hard to beat myself up too much, having had such a lovely time in Banff (despite that mockery of sleep) and looking forward to time with people I love. It's also hard to process the fact that the Eyeshot editor FOUND Sunday's blog post in which I extolled his editorial virtues and emailed me at 4:43 a.m. to follow up and futher explain.
I just got a free writing lesson from the editor of a journal in which Zadie Smith (White Teeth, ridiculously famous) was not only a contributor but his illustrative example.
He'd been Googling 'Eyeshot rejections' and found his way to me. The writing assessment I gave myself on Sunday was on the completely wrong track, by the way. It's not sensationalism I need to be working on, it's subtlety. Form, craft, narrative nuance. You know, the nuts n' bolts of good writing. He sent me to an essay by the divine Miss Smith published in the New Yorker to make clear his comments about my work.
And then this person, who has officially bought the Beyond The Call Of Duty t-shirt, apologized if his email came across as stalkerish. As far as I'm concerned, he can stalk me any day of the week. Christmas came early for Miz Jones. And I will now work triple-extra-hard to get my work up to snuff and in his journal. And really, as far as I'm concerned, this is the best day ever. Despite that mockery of sleep.
This person needed our help. So we jumped in the car and drove to Banff, where she lives. Boyfriend and I "slept" on her couch and are now crack-addled and half-insane from lack of sleep.
I am also facing a day where I didn't complete yesterday's chapter (FAIL) and have overprogrammed the schedule with a lunch-date with Grandpa and Canmore With A Two-Year-Old for the next day and a half (EPIC FAIL BEYOND ALL HOPE OF RECOVERY). The idea of 'falling behind' is such a drastic understatement, I can't even begin. Nor can I face the raping and pillaging of my writing space – raping and pillaging of my own doing.
Sometimes being a good Samaritan is a very bad idea.
But it's hard to beat myself up too much, having had such a lovely time in Banff (despite that mockery of sleep) and looking forward to time with people I love. It's also hard to process the fact that the Eyeshot editor FOUND Sunday's blog post in which I extolled his editorial virtues and emailed me at 4:43 a.m. to follow up and futher explain.
I just got a free writing lesson from the editor of a journal in which Zadie Smith (White Teeth, ridiculously famous) was not only a contributor but his illustrative example.
He'd been Googling 'Eyeshot rejections' and found his way to me. The writing assessment I gave myself on Sunday was on the completely wrong track, by the way. It's not sensationalism I need to be working on, it's subtlety. Form, craft, narrative nuance. You know, the nuts n' bolts of good writing. He sent me to an essay by the divine Miss Smith published in the New Yorker to make clear his comments about my work.
And then this person, who has officially bought the Beyond The Call Of Duty t-shirt, apologized if his email came across as stalkerish. As far as I'm concerned, he can stalk me any day of the week. Christmas came early for Miz Jones. And I will now work triple-extra-hard to get my work up to snuff and in his journal. And really, as far as I'm concerned, this is the best day ever. Despite that mockery of sleep.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Day 107/Day 15: Checkpoint Charlie
It's halfway through my 30-day experiment. Thought it warranted a check-in, even though I breezed past the 100-day milestone on my 365-day experiment without comment. P'raps I'll double up.
30-Day 'Commitments' Experiment
Have learned a lot in the first 15 days of Do It Right December. I've kept my commitment of writing new material every day and have maintained the chapter-a-day intensity this week with the exception of yesterday. But that was because on Friday I did a chapter and a half, plus wrote a short piece for submission, making it a 12-hour-straight writing day. Very productive, but also very stupid. This is the equivalent of sprinting out of the gates for a marathon and then expecting to finish strong. Saturday, I was so burnt I couldn't think straight. Sunday I felt better, but was grumpy and fearful about falling behind. Lesson learned.
My commitment to the practices that work: morning pages, gratitude, meditation tapes, etc. has been fairly good. Morning pages are rock solid and are extremely helpful in focusing my thoughts and energy on the chapter at hand. The other woo woo stuff has been up and down and I appear to have lost that Drink The Kool-Aid positivity I had at the beginning of the month. A brutal full moon and run-in with PMS might have impacted it, but I'm going to have to press reset on that one and c'mon get happy once again.
Health-wise, I've relaxed the raw food focus and am back down to about 50-70% raw. I'm not sure what this is about, but I'm not uncomfortable with it. I'm still eating well, just not hard-core. I've also had trouble getting to the gym every day, which I've noticed is the first thing to go when I get really focused on my writing. Boyfriend has been swimming early mornings three days per week, and I've started to join him. Swimming leaves me feeling better than any other workout, so I'm going to continue with it. Even though it means getting up at 5:30 am.
Year-Long Experiment
As far as An Artist for One Year (a.k.a. Just One Year a.k.a. JOY), I truly feel like I've transformed. I don't know if it was the homeopathic remedy that did it. Or if it was the simple act of writing every day. Or if it was some kind of three-month gestation period, but I've passed through some sort of portal. I feel like I fought myself for the first 90 days and then, rather suddenly, stopped. This reminds me of training for Ironman when I did the same thing. I self-sabotaged for three or four months, then I quit the tantrums and got down to business.
It helps that my draft is almost complete, I'm sure. I'm a little nervous that every book I write will be this agonizing, but mostly I'm just trying to stay focused on finishing this one.
Everything in my year-long plan has taken longer than I expected. I was convinced I'd have this book cracked off in a couple months max and I'm now looking at five months for a first draft. This is probably far more realistic and measuring myself against arbitrary timelines is, I've learned, a demoralizing thing to do. It takes however long it takes. It's a humbling lesson, but one I needed to learn.
But there is a balance between something taking longer than you thought and you not working hard enough on it. I tend towards fear-based paralysis and apathy sometimes, which I frequently interpret as laziness. This 30-day experiment has taught me how important it is to do the groundwork to clear away the fear FIRST and then gently press through any junk that comes up while I'm working. During Ironman, I used to say that my training started the day before with what I ate and drank and how much sleep I got. I have a similar feeling with this: I need to prepare for the work (morning pages, meditation, sleep) in order for the work to be good.
As I expected, the actual nuts and bolts of my year-long plan have revealed themselves to me gradually. While they are similar to the play-by-play I laid out in August, my plan is now to complete this draft by the end of the month, then let it sit while I focus on other things. I suspect I'll be fatigued and will need to fill the creative well. How I do that is yet to be determined. I'll be revising draft #2 of the book while in Paris next spring, assuming the plans and money all come together for that.
And my next writing project will be a collection of short funny pieces, based on the style and voice I've developed thanks to this blog. My hope is that working on short pieces will be less emotionally ravaging than the book and I can work on getting them published as I finish them, which will hopefully create a feeling of career momentum, which I'm not feeling right now.
I may not be feeling the momentum, but I am feeling the progress. I've learned a ton about myself and my process. And I'm no longer afraid to be a writer. I'm looking forward to the submission process for this book and the short pieces, and while it's still early days, I don't fear rejection. I see it as a part of the process and a way to gather more information about myself and the publications I'm targeting. For someone who let the possibility of rejection stop her from writing a word for ten years, this is frickin' huge. Onward.
30-Day 'Commitments' Experiment
Have learned a lot in the first 15 days of Do It Right December. I've kept my commitment of writing new material every day and have maintained the chapter-a-day intensity this week with the exception of yesterday. But that was because on Friday I did a chapter and a half, plus wrote a short piece for submission, making it a 12-hour-straight writing day. Very productive, but also very stupid. This is the equivalent of sprinting out of the gates for a marathon and then expecting to finish strong. Saturday, I was so burnt I couldn't think straight. Sunday I felt better, but was grumpy and fearful about falling behind. Lesson learned.
My commitment to the practices that work: morning pages, gratitude, meditation tapes, etc. has been fairly good. Morning pages are rock solid and are extremely helpful in focusing my thoughts and energy on the chapter at hand. The other woo woo stuff has been up and down and I appear to have lost that Drink The Kool-Aid positivity I had at the beginning of the month. A brutal full moon and run-in with PMS might have impacted it, but I'm going to have to press reset on that one and c'mon get happy once again.
Health-wise, I've relaxed the raw food focus and am back down to about 50-70% raw. I'm not sure what this is about, but I'm not uncomfortable with it. I'm still eating well, just not hard-core. I've also had trouble getting to the gym every day, which I've noticed is the first thing to go when I get really focused on my writing. Boyfriend has been swimming early mornings three days per week, and I've started to join him. Swimming leaves me feeling better than any other workout, so I'm going to continue with it. Even though it means getting up at 5:30 am.
Year-Long Experiment
As far as An Artist for One Year (a.k.a. Just One Year a.k.a. JOY), I truly feel like I've transformed. I don't know if it was the homeopathic remedy that did it. Or if it was the simple act of writing every day. Or if it was some kind of three-month gestation period, but I've passed through some sort of portal. I feel like I fought myself for the first 90 days and then, rather suddenly, stopped. This reminds me of training for Ironman when I did the same thing. I self-sabotaged for three or four months, then I quit the tantrums and got down to business.
It helps that my draft is almost complete, I'm sure. I'm a little nervous that every book I write will be this agonizing, but mostly I'm just trying to stay focused on finishing this one.
Everything in my year-long plan has taken longer than I expected. I was convinced I'd have this book cracked off in a couple months max and I'm now looking at five months for a first draft. This is probably far more realistic and measuring myself against arbitrary timelines is, I've learned, a demoralizing thing to do. It takes however long it takes. It's a humbling lesson, but one I needed to learn.
But there is a balance between something taking longer than you thought and you not working hard enough on it. I tend towards fear-based paralysis and apathy sometimes, which I frequently interpret as laziness. This 30-day experiment has taught me how important it is to do the groundwork to clear away the fear FIRST and then gently press through any junk that comes up while I'm working. During Ironman, I used to say that my training started the day before with what I ate and drank and how much sleep I got. I have a similar feeling with this: I need to prepare for the work (morning pages, meditation, sleep) in order for the work to be good.
As I expected, the actual nuts and bolts of my year-long plan have revealed themselves to me gradually. While they are similar to the play-by-play I laid out in August, my plan is now to complete this draft by the end of the month, then let it sit while I focus on other things. I suspect I'll be fatigued and will need to fill the creative well. How I do that is yet to be determined. I'll be revising draft #2 of the book while in Paris next spring, assuming the plans and money all come together for that.
And my next writing project will be a collection of short funny pieces, based on the style and voice I've developed thanks to this blog. My hope is that working on short pieces will be less emotionally ravaging than the book and I can work on getting them published as I finish them, which will hopefully create a feeling of career momentum, which I'm not feeling right now.
I may not be feeling the momentum, but I am feeling the progress. I've learned a ton about myself and my process. And I'm no longer afraid to be a writer. I'm looking forward to the submission process for this book and the short pieces, and while it's still early days, I don't fear rejection. I see it as a part of the process and a way to gather more information about myself and the publications I'm targeting. For someone who let the possibility of rejection stop her from writing a word for ten years, this is frickin' huge. Onward.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Day 106/Day 14: Perfectly Clean But Horribly Stained
"Truth isn't always beauty, but the hunger for it is." - Nadine Gordimer
I posted the Bacon Strip piece as a work-in-progress for an anthology about laundry. The subtitle of the anthology is something like 'Women, Wash and Words' and eventually I want to move away from these Ladies Home Literary Journal type venues for my work, but there's just so much opportunity there.
That, and I wasn't sure I had a single story about laundry in me. So, it was a good writing challenge. There's another house looking for stories about music...I also don't know I have any stories about that. Except maybe the time in junior high when we all went to the 2 Live Crew concert with the new girl from Louisiana. We were the youngest and whitest girls there by far and were lucky we didn't end up raped, killed or sold to the Russian mob. Louisiana Girl's parents drove us all home and let us take a lap of Third Avenue so we could get a good look at the hookers. We counted twenty-two that night. I was thirteen.
But back to my underpants.
I loved writing the story, but was concerned it'd be 'too much' for a book with 'Women' in the subtitle. It's not the kind of piece you'd see in Chicken Soup for the Housewife's Soul. On a whim, after I sent it to the laundry people, I submitted it to Eyeshot, an online journal I want into so bad I can taste it. (They were the ones who gave me the best rejection of my life.)
Woke up this morning to find this:
"Hi - thanks for sending this lovely, clear-as-clean-undies, thong song of a submission. It's maybe just not exactly the sort of thing I'm looking to post. This could almost be an article in a magazine, maybe, but I guess I'm looking for things that would never be considered acceptable opposite an advertisement featuring a nearly naked, very sexually satisfied model trying to sell chocolate-covered mothballs. By which I mean, I just woke up and am not making much sense, but I thank you for sending this, it reads well, it should have no trouble finding a home, just that it maybe makes too much sense for a room at La Casa Eyeshot."
This may sound a little S&M, but this guy gives good rejection. Including the 'Thanks again' sign-off, he thanked me three times. And much like my first Eyeshot rejection, this is more of an encouragement than a PFO.
BUT. He brings up my fundamental creative dilemma and personal writing nemesis.
Yes, I wrote a whole piece about stained panties, which in some circles would be considered brave and/or edgy. Yes, my grandmother, mother and Boyfriend's mother (all of whom read this blog) probably cringed and are trying to scrub the image out of their minds forever. Yes, it may be too much for Martha Stewart Living Magazine.
But it's too tame for Eyeshot.
The beauty of this blog is that I practice the art of storytelling every day. I try things out. I post works-in-progress. I push my own comfort zone abut what I'm willing to expose. Sometimes more gracefully than others.
But that thong was the tip of the iceberg.
I have a deep drive to muck around with those things we gloss over in polite conversation. The whitewashing and lying we all do to appear Okay or Normal. The things we're all hiding. The things we leave out.
When I was in Paris, Dana told me I'd have to kill my parents. That self-censorship was death to an artist. At the time, even the thought of writing something 'not nice' meant doubling up on the Xanax for a few days. But I moved past it and started telling the truth about lady parts, mole hair and midgets, letting the chips fall where they may.
So, I passed Level One. And now I'm at the next border. On one side lies all the writing I'd show my mother (I've already gone too far for Dad). Across the line is the kind of writing that currently gives me a stomach ache to think about – writing that refuses to pull the punch, that is unflinchingly true. That I may not feel good about showing anyone...other than the editors of marginal lit journals, that is.
It's not about hurting people or keeping things from them. It's the difference between making things comfortable and telling the whole, dripping, stinking truth. I'm beginning to believe this is what separates entertainment from art.
It would be one hell of a lot easier if I called what I write Fiction. Then we could all laugh together at cocktail parties because, hey, I made it all up. But what I write isn't fiction, it's stuff that really happened to me and to people I know. It's very, very close. So close you can taste it.
Dana also said: Sometimes you have to give up one part of yourself to discover another. I thought she meant breaking up with Boyfriend and moving to Paris, but I'm wondering if it's more subtle than that.
I have to give up making things comfortable, making other people feel okay. If I want to tell the truth about the things we're all hiding, that work has to begin with me. I am not the character I act out at dinner parties and in polite small talk. There is so much more to it than that. More horror, sure, but more beauty, more complexity, more paradox.
Maybe this the long way to say Reader Beware. Maybe this is my version of an apology in advance. Maybe this is a cord-cutting, a funeral. I don't know. But I'm on the border now. You may not know when I cross over.
I posted the Bacon Strip piece as a work-in-progress for an anthology about laundry. The subtitle of the anthology is something like 'Women, Wash and Words' and eventually I want to move away from these Ladies Home Literary Journal type venues for my work, but there's just so much opportunity there.
That, and I wasn't sure I had a single story about laundry in me. So, it was a good writing challenge. There's another house looking for stories about music...I also don't know I have any stories about that. Except maybe the time in junior high when we all went to the 2 Live Crew concert with the new girl from Louisiana. We were the youngest and whitest girls there by far and were lucky we didn't end up raped, killed or sold to the Russian mob. Louisiana Girl's parents drove us all home and let us take a lap of Third Avenue so we could get a good look at the hookers. We counted twenty-two that night. I was thirteen.
But back to my underpants.
I loved writing the story, but was concerned it'd be 'too much' for a book with 'Women' in the subtitle. It's not the kind of piece you'd see in Chicken Soup for the Housewife's Soul. On a whim, after I sent it to the laundry people, I submitted it to Eyeshot, an online journal I want into so bad I can taste it. (They were the ones who gave me the best rejection of my life.)
Woke up this morning to find this:
"Hi - thanks for sending this lovely, clear-as-clean-undies, thong song of a submission. It's maybe just not exactly the sort of thing I'm looking to post. This could almost be an article in a magazine, maybe, but I guess I'm looking for things that would never be considered acceptable opposite an advertisement featuring a nearly naked, very sexually satisfied model trying to sell chocolate-covered mothballs. By which I mean, I just woke up and am not making much sense, but I thank you for sending this, it reads well, it should have no trouble finding a home, just that it maybe makes too much sense for a room at La Casa Eyeshot."
This may sound a little S&M, but this guy gives good rejection. Including the 'Thanks again' sign-off, he thanked me three times. And much like my first Eyeshot rejection, this is more of an encouragement than a PFO.
BUT. He brings up my fundamental creative dilemma and personal writing nemesis.
Yes, I wrote a whole piece about stained panties, which in some circles would be considered brave and/or edgy. Yes, my grandmother, mother and Boyfriend's mother (all of whom read this blog) probably cringed and are trying to scrub the image out of their minds forever. Yes, it may be too much for Martha Stewart Living Magazine.
But it's too tame for Eyeshot.
The beauty of this blog is that I practice the art of storytelling every day. I try things out. I post works-in-progress. I push my own comfort zone abut what I'm willing to expose. Sometimes more gracefully than others.
But that thong was the tip of the iceberg.
I have a deep drive to muck around with those things we gloss over in polite conversation. The whitewashing and lying we all do to appear Okay or Normal. The things we're all hiding. The things we leave out.
When I was in Paris, Dana told me I'd have to kill my parents. That self-censorship was death to an artist. At the time, even the thought of writing something 'not nice' meant doubling up on the Xanax for a few days. But I moved past it and started telling the truth about lady parts, mole hair and midgets, letting the chips fall where they may.
So, I passed Level One. And now I'm at the next border. On one side lies all the writing I'd show my mother (I've already gone too far for Dad). Across the line is the kind of writing that currently gives me a stomach ache to think about – writing that refuses to pull the punch, that is unflinchingly true. That I may not feel good about showing anyone...other than the editors of marginal lit journals, that is.
It's not about hurting people or keeping things from them. It's the difference between making things comfortable and telling the whole, dripping, stinking truth. I'm beginning to believe this is what separates entertainment from art.
It would be one hell of a lot easier if I called what I write Fiction. Then we could all laugh together at cocktail parties because, hey, I made it all up. But what I write isn't fiction, it's stuff that really happened to me and to people I know. It's very, very close. So close you can taste it.
Dana also said: Sometimes you have to give up one part of yourself to discover another. I thought she meant breaking up with Boyfriend and moving to Paris, but I'm wondering if it's more subtle than that.
I have to give up making things comfortable, making other people feel okay. If I want to tell the truth about the things we're all hiding, that work has to begin with me. I am not the character I act out at dinner parties and in polite small talk. There is so much more to it than that. More horror, sure, but more beauty, more complexity, more paradox.
Maybe this the long way to say Reader Beware. Maybe this is my version of an apology in advance. Maybe this is a cord-cutting, a funeral. I don't know. But I'm on the border now. You may not know when I cross over.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Day 105/Day 13: Making Time
I don't know why this baby-sized irritant stuck in my brain, but it has now formed a worm-hole straight to the heart of my White Molten Rage centre and I need to go on a petite rant.
A couple of weeks ago, someone congratulated me on getting my piece accepted into the anthology. Then they said something about how great it was that I have time to write. Yes, it is great, but let's examine this closely, shall we?
This Person seems to think a band of sneaky faeries dropped a whole bunch of gift-wrapped Time on my doorstep one night.
This pisses me off to no end. I have no more time than anyone else. It's like the money thing, which I will rant about later. Although unlike money (which is the second most popular 'I can't live the life I want' excuse), everyone is allotted the same amount of time. Twenty-four hours in each and every day.
What you do with your time is your choice.
If you want to off-load the responsibility for why you aren't writing with a line like 'I don't have time,' you go ahead and do that. But don't be naive and think that I somehow won the Time lottery and have extra hours in the bank somewhere.
I choose to use my time to write. This Other Person chooses to use it for things that are not writing. Good for us. Let's move on.
Money. Again, this is a choice. I have chosen to use my money to live as an artist. In fact, that gift-wrapped Time those faeries dropped off? I BOUGHT IT. I use my money to buy myself time in the form of basic life expenses: housing, transportation, food – and very little else. The more money I have, the more months I get to write full-time and begin my career.
Much like I don't spend time on things that aren't writing, I'm not interested in spending my money on things that don't buy me time as an artist. I have no interest in constantly upgrading my entire collection of material possessions (home, car, clothing, electronics). I have no interest in going to a lot of restaurants and bars (where a bottle of wine costs at least double what it is in a store).
Life is a series of trade-offs. You trade your time for money. You trade your money for time. That's how it works. There are no elves or faeries or magical formulas. There are only the choices you make.
I know this is really ranty and tough love-y, but I was one of those 'I don't have time or money' people, too. Those excuses robbed me of a lot of years. But, once I understood, it was very freeing.
I don't care if my clothing is out of style or if people don't like homemade Christmas gifts. I'm finishing my first novel – something I've wanted my entire life. I would rather have that than a new sweater or someone's approval. As far as I'm concerned, I'm getting the better end of the deal. And so could you. If that is what you choose.
A couple of weeks ago, someone congratulated me on getting my piece accepted into the anthology. Then they said something about how great it was that I have time to write. Yes, it is great, but let's examine this closely, shall we?
This Person seems to think a band of sneaky faeries dropped a whole bunch of gift-wrapped Time on my doorstep one night.
This pisses me off to no end. I have no more time than anyone else. It's like the money thing, which I will rant about later. Although unlike money (which is the second most popular 'I can't live the life I want' excuse), everyone is allotted the same amount of time. Twenty-four hours in each and every day.
What you do with your time is your choice.
If you want to off-load the responsibility for why you aren't writing with a line like 'I don't have time,' you go ahead and do that. But don't be naive and think that I somehow won the Time lottery and have extra hours in the bank somewhere.
I choose to use my time to write. This Other Person chooses to use it for things that are not writing. Good for us. Let's move on.
Money. Again, this is a choice. I have chosen to use my money to live as an artist. In fact, that gift-wrapped Time those faeries dropped off? I BOUGHT IT. I use my money to buy myself time in the form of basic life expenses: housing, transportation, food – and very little else. The more money I have, the more months I get to write full-time and begin my career.
Much like I don't spend time on things that aren't writing, I'm not interested in spending my money on things that don't buy me time as an artist. I have no interest in constantly upgrading my entire collection of material possessions (home, car, clothing, electronics). I have no interest in going to a lot of restaurants and bars (where a bottle of wine costs at least double what it is in a store).
Life is a series of trade-offs. You trade your time for money. You trade your money for time. That's how it works. There are no elves or faeries or magical formulas. There are only the choices you make.
I know this is really ranty and tough love-y, but I was one of those 'I don't have time or money' people, too. Those excuses robbed me of a lot of years. But, once I understood, it was very freeing.
I don't care if my clothing is out of style or if people don't like homemade Christmas gifts. I'm finishing my first novel – something I've wanted my entire life. I would rather have that than a new sweater or someone's approval. As far as I'm concerned, I'm getting the better end of the deal. And so could you. If that is what you choose.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Day 104/Day 12: Better Known As Bacon Strip
I don’t have anything against laundry, but I also don’t throw my skivvies out the way women’s magazines tell me I should. Cosmopolitan says I must toss every pair with even the whisper of a hole. Purge those panties, girls, in case the hunk of your dreams arrives, unexpected.
It’s like the old wives tale about wearing clean underwear whenever you leave the house. I could get hit by a bus or spontaneously combust and God knows rescue workers won't be distracted enough by my charred and blackened remains. God knows my undies should be pristine.
My mother never told me or my sisters that. We wear our knickers ‘til they unravel from our asses, 'til they look like tattered bandages from WWI trench warfare, we don’t care. Maybe this is our family secret: wearing underpants long past propriety. Maybe I shouldn't tell you this and reveal our familial inability to let things go. Maybe laundry just isn’t as powerful as that.
I was training hard that summer, fitting workouts in wherever I could: a swim before work, a lunchtime jog, a two-hour ride before falling, exhausted, into bed. Every day, I’d schlep to work, backpack stuffed with crumpled cycling clothes, a wet bathing suit or sweat-damp running shorts. I got used to whipping my civilian clothes off and my workout clothes on, like some kind of superhero in training, changing in back corners and basement bathrooms.
Copywriter-turned-triathlete was a chaotic double life; it wasn’t surprising there was fallout. One afternoon, as I bolted from the office to my next sweat-based experience, a pair of underwear got lost in the shuffle.
I arrived to work the next morning to find a plastic grocery bag on my desk with a paper towel inside. I lifted the towel to discover my escapee underpants. They must have fallen out of my overstuffed backpack, onto the floor of our open-concept office. I didn’t notice, but I feared one of my co-workers did. I went into a fugue state of denial and shock, praying that the nighttime cleaning staff had got to them first, somehow intuiting by psychic vibration that my desk was the correct place to leave them.
The rogue underclothing in the bag was a white thong. And when I say ‘white’ I mean it was probably that way when I bought it. But at this point, the waistband was pretty much the only part that wasn’t stained beyond repair.
I’m not one of those women who keeps track of her period. I just go about my life and let the drips fall where they may. And while it would be better to have my bodily functions cross-referenced with my monthly undergarment schedule, I’ve accepted that things in the panty department will occasionally get ugly. But that doesn’t mean I want an audience.
However, after my initial shock, the Day of the Thong progressed relatively normally. Until I dropped in on the web design guys. This particular department was a kind of in-house fraternity where belching was acceptable in response to a question and hot sauce was a food group. Entering their domain was always something of a risk.
“Good morning, Bacon Strip,” Matt smirked as I walked into the room.
“Lookin' sizzlin', Bacon Strip,” Ryan echoed, not looking up from his screen.
I stared at them blankly before backing away. I didn’t know what bacon strip meant, but I knew it wasn’t good. I hurried back to my desk to do some research. I had a feeling Merriam-Webster wouldn’t be any help, so I went straight to the Urban Dictionary, past ‘bacon ring’ and ‘bacon slit’ to: “The remnants of an improper arse wiping, as left on your underwear.”
“Yo, Bacon Strip,” another voice came from behind me as I sunk down in my chair. Besides being the only person in the office not to know that this charming term meant, it was far too late to call in sick.
Gradually, as our entire twenty-five person staff dropped by my office just to say hello, I pieced together the rest of the story:
Eva, unassuming production artist, happened upon the offending panties first. Inexplicably, she asked Paul – graphic designer and office nutjob – if they were his. Paul was weird, but not women’s panties weird. Regardless, he wasn’t about to let an opportunity like this pass by.
“This is like CSI,” he said to Eva before retrieving a ruler and his Nikon. My panties had turned into a crime scene. The thong was photographed from several angles as per proper Forensics procedure, and subsequently uploaded to the office file server for further high-resolution investigation. If the means for DNA testing were available in an ad agency, I’m sure he would have done that, too.
When the evidence was properly catalogued, the problem lay in disposal. I can just see Eva tittering and dancing around, all giddy at the idea of touching someone else’s dirty panties. I can just see her poking them with the ruler, hoisting them up and squealing when they tumbled back down to the floor.
There was no way to say, “They’re clean, just horribly stained,” and have anybody accept that. My only option was to stay quiet and weather it out. The mocking lasted about a week before moving on to something and someone else. Nicole’s madcap divorce or David’s hilarious-yet-terminal illness. It’s not personal, it's the way those kinds of places are.
I still wear that thong now, years later, washing it diligently every week. Those stains are badges of honor. Rust-coloured bandages from fights that no longer happen in trenches or mud-bogged battlefields or even desert waste. The battle to feel okay, day in and day out. Maybe the old wives were right: proper stain removal is critical if you’re walking into harm’s way. Maybe being clean is no longer enough. No amount of bleach or hot water could ever hide them: my war wounds, my spilled blood. Stains, lying there on the floor, exposed for everyone to see. Those things laundry can never wash away.
It’s like the old wives tale about wearing clean underwear whenever you leave the house. I could get hit by a bus or spontaneously combust and God knows rescue workers won't be distracted enough by my charred and blackened remains. God knows my undies should be pristine.
My mother never told me or my sisters that. We wear our knickers ‘til they unravel from our asses, 'til they look like tattered bandages from WWI trench warfare, we don’t care. Maybe this is our family secret: wearing underpants long past propriety. Maybe I shouldn't tell you this and reveal our familial inability to let things go. Maybe laundry just isn’t as powerful as that.
I was training hard that summer, fitting workouts in wherever I could: a swim before work, a lunchtime jog, a two-hour ride before falling, exhausted, into bed. Every day, I’d schlep to work, backpack stuffed with crumpled cycling clothes, a wet bathing suit or sweat-damp running shorts. I got used to whipping my civilian clothes off and my workout clothes on, like some kind of superhero in training, changing in back corners and basement bathrooms.
Copywriter-turned-triathlete was a chaotic double life; it wasn’t surprising there was fallout. One afternoon, as I bolted from the office to my next sweat-based experience, a pair of underwear got lost in the shuffle.
I arrived to work the next morning to find a plastic grocery bag on my desk with a paper towel inside. I lifted the towel to discover my escapee underpants. They must have fallen out of my overstuffed backpack, onto the floor of our open-concept office. I didn’t notice, but I feared one of my co-workers did. I went into a fugue state of denial and shock, praying that the nighttime cleaning staff had got to them first, somehow intuiting by psychic vibration that my desk was the correct place to leave them.
The rogue underclothing in the bag was a white thong. And when I say ‘white’ I mean it was probably that way when I bought it. But at this point, the waistband was pretty much the only part that wasn’t stained beyond repair.
I’m not one of those women who keeps track of her period. I just go about my life and let the drips fall where they may. And while it would be better to have my bodily functions cross-referenced with my monthly undergarment schedule, I’ve accepted that things in the panty department will occasionally get ugly. But that doesn’t mean I want an audience.
However, after my initial shock, the Day of the Thong progressed relatively normally. Until I dropped in on the web design guys. This particular department was a kind of in-house fraternity where belching was acceptable in response to a question and hot sauce was a food group. Entering their domain was always something of a risk.
“Good morning, Bacon Strip,” Matt smirked as I walked into the room.
“Lookin' sizzlin', Bacon Strip,” Ryan echoed, not looking up from his screen.
I stared at them blankly before backing away. I didn’t know what bacon strip meant, but I knew it wasn’t good. I hurried back to my desk to do some research. I had a feeling Merriam-Webster wouldn’t be any help, so I went straight to the Urban Dictionary, past ‘bacon ring’ and ‘bacon slit’ to: “The remnants of an improper arse wiping, as left on your underwear.”
“Yo, Bacon Strip,” another voice came from behind me as I sunk down in my chair. Besides being the only person in the office not to know that this charming term meant, it was far too late to call in sick.
Gradually, as our entire twenty-five person staff dropped by my office just to say hello, I pieced together the rest of the story:
Eva, unassuming production artist, happened upon the offending panties first. Inexplicably, she asked Paul – graphic designer and office nutjob – if they were his. Paul was weird, but not women’s panties weird. Regardless, he wasn’t about to let an opportunity like this pass by.
“This is like CSI,” he said to Eva before retrieving a ruler and his Nikon. My panties had turned into a crime scene. The thong was photographed from several angles as per proper Forensics procedure, and subsequently uploaded to the office file server for further high-resolution investigation. If the means for DNA testing were available in an ad agency, I’m sure he would have done that, too.
When the evidence was properly catalogued, the problem lay in disposal. I can just see Eva tittering and dancing around, all giddy at the idea of touching someone else’s dirty panties. I can just see her poking them with the ruler, hoisting them up and squealing when they tumbled back down to the floor.
There was no way to say, “They’re clean, just horribly stained,” and have anybody accept that. My only option was to stay quiet and weather it out. The mocking lasted about a week before moving on to something and someone else. Nicole’s madcap divorce or David’s hilarious-yet-terminal illness. It’s not personal, it's the way those kinds of places are.
I still wear that thong now, years later, washing it diligently every week. Those stains are badges of honor. Rust-coloured bandages from fights that no longer happen in trenches or mud-bogged battlefields or even desert waste. The battle to feel okay, day in and day out. Maybe the old wives were right: proper stain removal is critical if you’re walking into harm’s way. Maybe being clean is no longer enough. No amount of bleach or hot water could ever hide them: my war wounds, my spilled blood. Stains, lying there on the floor, exposed for everyone to see. Those things laundry can never wash away.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Day 103/Day 11: Making Progress
A couple of days ago, I realized I was at that point. The shit or get off the pot point. If I want to get this book finished, I need to step it up. Who has the luxury of working for an hour and spending the rest of the day examining blackheads in the mirror?
Not that I was doing that, but still.
There's a certain work ethic that goes along with kicking ass in life. And it goes with a commitment to finishing things, rather than leaving them half-done and half-assed. Rather than leaving them for later or for someone else. There's no way around this. Nor should there be.
I realized the number of chapters I had was pretty much the same as the number of days left in the month. Which means finishing a chapter a day if I want to get this bad bitch done on time.
A chapter a day.
Sounds intimidating and it is.
I've only done two, but so far, so good. Because even though every day feels like I'm starting from scratch, I've actually done one hell of a lot of work on this thing. My chapters are farther along than I thought and I'm mostly filling in, fleshing out and pulling things together. Part of me would actually call what I'm working on a Second Draft. But the part that's wary of putting the cart before the horse is calling it a Diligent First.
This is very, very exciting, but I'm feeling cautious right now. I'm only just starting and there are fifteen-plus chapters to go. There's a good chance I'll finish this and hate it. But still, these past two days have been affirming.
It felt like I hadn't gotten anywhere in the past four months. I'd look up and it would seem like I hadn't moved, stuck in the same formless quicksand I started with. And now, I see the forward progress and it's moving faster than I thought, but I don't want to jinx it, so I'm trying not to notice.
I really hope I remember this. I hope I remember it's worth it to do the work little by little, chipping away at things day by day. That it doesn't seem like anything is happening and then all of a sudden, it is.
And I don't know if this is connected, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is: Paris has started calling me again. I was beginning to get worried. I thought we might actually no longer be friends because the silence there was deafening. But we're friends. She's calling. She's telling me I was only in the city for a month last time and have since lost a lot of the detail. I've forgotten the smells. The push and pull of connection and alienation. The way language can exhaust you.
She says for my second draft I need to come back and pay closer attention. Notice the things I couldn't see when I was blinded by that first flush. By trying to keep afloat. She says, Come back and let yourself drown. Remember what it's like, only this time, push it further.
Not that I was doing that, but still.
There's a certain work ethic that goes along with kicking ass in life. And it goes with a commitment to finishing things, rather than leaving them half-done and half-assed. Rather than leaving them for later or for someone else. There's no way around this. Nor should there be.
I realized the number of chapters I had was pretty much the same as the number of days left in the month. Which means finishing a chapter a day if I want to get this bad bitch done on time.
A chapter a day.
Sounds intimidating and it is.
I've only done two, but so far, so good. Because even though every day feels like I'm starting from scratch, I've actually done one hell of a lot of work on this thing. My chapters are farther along than I thought and I'm mostly filling in, fleshing out and pulling things together. Part of me would actually call what I'm working on a Second Draft. But the part that's wary of putting the cart before the horse is calling it a Diligent First.
This is very, very exciting, but I'm feeling cautious right now. I'm only just starting and there are fifteen-plus chapters to go. There's a good chance I'll finish this and hate it. But still, these past two days have been affirming.
It felt like I hadn't gotten anywhere in the past four months. I'd look up and it would seem like I hadn't moved, stuck in the same formless quicksand I started with. And now, I see the forward progress and it's moving faster than I thought, but I don't want to jinx it, so I'm trying not to notice.
I really hope I remember this. I hope I remember it's worth it to do the work little by little, chipping away at things day by day. That it doesn't seem like anything is happening and then all of a sudden, it is.
And I don't know if this is connected, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is: Paris has started calling me again. I was beginning to get worried. I thought we might actually no longer be friends because the silence there was deafening. But we're friends. She's calling. She's telling me I was only in the city for a month last time and have since lost a lot of the detail. I've forgotten the smells. The push and pull of connection and alienation. The way language can exhaust you.
She says for my second draft I need to come back and pay closer attention. Notice the things I couldn't see when I was blinded by that first flush. By trying to keep afloat. She says, Come back and let yourself drown. Remember what it's like, only this time, push it further.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Day 102.3: Don't Mess with Texas Breakfast
Okay, I know I said you need to earn the right to post recipes on your blog by giving loud, painful birth to something, but I just had the most kick-ass breakfast of all time and need to share the culinary love.
Bowl o' Bad Ass
1/4 c. oats (soak them in warm water for about an hour, then drain)
1 apple, grated
Handful raw almonds, cashews, hazelnuts
Handful shredded, unsweetened coconut
Raisins or dried cranberries if you want
Dash of cinnamon
Several glugs of almond milk (vanilla flavour for best, most deliciousest results)
Stir and enjoy. Just TRY to have a bad day after eating that.
Bowl o' Bad Ass
1/4 c. oats (soak them in warm water for about an hour, then drain)
1 apple, grated
Handful raw almonds, cashews, hazelnuts
Handful shredded, unsweetened coconut
Raisins or dried cranberries if you want
Dash of cinnamon
Several glugs of almond milk (vanilla flavour for best, most deliciousest results)
Stir and enjoy. Just TRY to have a bad day after eating that.
Day 102/Day 10: Sweatin' in the Suburbs
The first person who caught my eye was this large, hairy man who, on first glance, seemed quite fit despite his obvious fur issue. But a second look proved me devastatingly wrong. He was that kind of buff that isn't buff at all, it's just fat. Well, fat-ish. His man-boobs were surprisingly well-shaped and could easily be mistaken for pecs. Just like his facial hair line could have been mistaken for a chin. But no one could mistake the hairy, black abyss of his butt crack as he did three sets of squats.
The trouble with the gym is there is always someone fitter than you, so the things that convince you you're hot at home really don't work here at all. I can see why people don't go. There's this one ripped runner lady who is my gym nemesis for this reason. I'm feeling all good and then she walks in: 50 years old, shredded abs, legs carved out of wood. I want to kill her.
So I know how hairy guy felt when Big Muscle Guy came over to chat. BMG is frickin' HUGE. Not fake steroid huge, just I-spend-an-annoying-amount-of-time-in-the-gym huge. Raw egg smoothie huge. He was the Alpha dog of the weight floor today. His version of peeing the corners was talking to every guy in the joint and flexing in their faces. He appreciated being watched by the people on the bikes and treadmills and if someone hadn't noticed His Hugeness, he would stare at you until you felt eyes burning into your brain and did.
Impervious to the BMG was Old School Homo, a dashing character complete with a fake tan, Navy tattoo, well-groomed mustache and skin-tight, shorty short bike shorts. The only thing missing was a sparkly I Heart San Francisco t-shirt. BMG gave him a wide berth.
And then he walked in...
Or someone who looked exactly like him. Which is rare in the 'burbs. Good-looking people don't usually venture that far away from the centre of attention.
Unfortunately for me, Suburban McSteamy came in just as I was finishing up. I only had time to watch him to one warm-up set. Where he bench pressed my body weight.
Suddenly I wanted to pee in the corners just like Sir Musclehead. I checked out my competition. There was an old broad whose mask of misery told me she was at the gym on doctor's orders. She looked like she smoked a long time. Let's face it, she still does. I figured I could take her.
But I was outnumbered by those irritating girls in their mid-twenties – you know the kind – invariably adorned with engagement rings, blond highlights and Lululemon pants, doing embarrassing workouts from women's magazines that always seem to involve random jumping or strange acts with the rubber tubing. Girls like that are unpredictable. They're liable to start Tae Bo-ing or Boxercizing or busting out moves they learned at Bikini Boot Camp. It's not worth it. I cut my losses and left.
The trouble with the gym is there is always someone fitter than you, so the things that convince you you're hot at home really don't work here at all. I can see why people don't go. There's this one ripped runner lady who is my gym nemesis for this reason. I'm feeling all good and then she walks in: 50 years old, shredded abs, legs carved out of wood. I want to kill her.
So I know how hairy guy felt when Big Muscle Guy came over to chat. BMG is frickin' HUGE. Not fake steroid huge, just I-spend-an-annoying-amount-of-time-in-the-gym huge. Raw egg smoothie huge. He was the Alpha dog of the weight floor today. His version of peeing the corners was talking to every guy in the joint and flexing in their faces. He appreciated being watched by the people on the bikes and treadmills and if someone hadn't noticed His Hugeness, he would stare at you until you felt eyes burning into your brain and did.
Impervious to the BMG was Old School Homo, a dashing character complete with a fake tan, Navy tattoo, well-groomed mustache and skin-tight, shorty short bike shorts. The only thing missing was a sparkly I Heart San Francisco t-shirt. BMG gave him a wide berth.
And then he walked in...Or someone who looked exactly like him. Which is rare in the 'burbs. Good-looking people don't usually venture that far away from the centre of attention.
Unfortunately for me, Suburban McSteamy came in just as I was finishing up. I only had time to watch him to one warm-up set. Where he bench pressed my body weight.
Suddenly I wanted to pee in the corners just like Sir Musclehead. I checked out my competition. There was an old broad whose mask of misery told me she was at the gym on doctor's orders. She looked like she smoked a long time. Let's face it, she still does. I figured I could take her.
But I was outnumbered by those irritating girls in their mid-twenties – you know the kind – invariably adorned with engagement rings, blond highlights and Lululemon pants, doing embarrassing workouts from women's magazines that always seem to involve random jumping or strange acts with the rubber tubing. Girls like that are unpredictable. They're liable to start Tae Bo-ing or Boxercizing or busting out moves they learned at Bikini Boot Camp. It's not worth it. I cut my losses and left.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Day 101/Day 9: F**K December
I know it. Y'all told me. You said, "Girl, you's crazy. Ain't no way you gon' write eveyday in D'cember. Ain't. No. Way." And I said, "You quit your mean-mouthin' and get off on to school." And you hollered over your shoulder that I's goin' nowhere in life anyways and you dint need me nohow.Yesterday, I literally wrote one sentence. It was eleven-something at night. I was in my pajamas, teeth all brushed, ear plugs hanging out of my ears. I squinted into my computer screen and squeezed out one measly sentence to get it in under the wire. Wanna know the sentence? "I knew I should be worried about my grandmother, but for some reason, my rank on the need-to-know list concerned me more." Not bad.
The I NEED TO SEE YOU BY CHRISTMAS OR I'LL DIE frenzy has begun and because I am a weak-willed people-pleaser the last five days have been pockmarked with coffee dates, wine drinking and Rock Band Play-offs (which was actually okay because I secretly want to be a singer and that's my only outlet right now). I have managed to write every day despite my fractured creative time and zapped concentration. Some days are better than others and none were as pathetic as last night. But it's only going to get harder between now and Christmas, which means something's gotta give.
So today, I said no. To my best friend and person who really deserves my time more than most people on this planet. I said no to her and her family coming up to Canmore. I simply can't get any work done with a two-year-old running around. You mothers who can? Incredible. Unbelievable, actually. Either you medicate your children or you have an underground personal-sized concrete bunker the comes with a matching nanny. Don't lie to me.
I'm also thinking that it's time to unleash the patented power sentence, five words capable of stopping any would-be time vampire in their gothy tracks: I'm chasing down a dream. I've written about this before. This sentence was my Get Out Of Beers Free card for the entire Ironman year. "I know it's Christmas, but I'm chasing down a dream." No one can dispute that without coming across as a big-fat saboteur or malignant guilt-tripper. At least not if they read this blog. (New Year's Resolution #1: Get More Readers.)
Monday, December 8, 2008
Day 100/Day 8: The Quicker Sealer-Upper
Boyfriend and I differ in many, many ways not the least of which is our approach to purchasing necessary items such as, say, plastic food wrap. I spend as little as possible on the stuff, opting for the generic no-name brand for $1.29. You know, the kind that doesn't actually cling to anything and just kind of lays over top of the bowl, blown off by the mildest of fridge breezes, leaving your pungent bowl contents to flavour the entire fridge while drying out into a hard, inedible crust.
In order to source the origins of this tendency, it is necessary to describe my mother's joy last Christmas over finding a cheaper brand of whitening toothpaste to put alongside new (cheap) toothbrushes in our Christmas stockings. "It's cheaper than Sensodyne," she crowed. Even I couldn't help but wonder, "Yes, but does it work?"
But in the case of the dysfunctional plastic wrap, I'm still digging in my heels. It irritates me that I must purchase brand name wrap in order to get any clinging power.
Enter Boyfriend. Whose purchasing philosophy is the exact opposite of mine: buy the absolute best, no matter what it costs. He says he gets this tendency from his father, but all I know is, I am now the regular user of the most powerful plastic food wrap in the history of mankind. The kind of wrap that will be excavated from time capsules in 150 years not only because it is impervious to biodegrading forces, but because of its myriad of uses. I'm talking about Glad Press n' Seal.
It's basically a 70-foot long plastic sticker. Some genius at Glad, after congratulating himself on the drawstring garbage bag, said to himself: I need to expand my horizons. And then he went ahead and put sticky stuff of the back of the plastic wrap so it actually sticks. "I'm just doing my part for humanity," the inventor of the patented Griptex formula would later say in interviews.
Even I can't deny the raw sealing power of Glad Press n' Seal. This morning, the box was still lying on the counter when I turned on the kettle for tea. For the first time, I noticed a series of illustrations along one side of the box under the trilingual title: So Many Uses/Usages multiples/Puede darle tantos usos.
In the first illustration, We The Customer are treated to some typical ways to use our multipurpose sealing wrap: it can cover bowls or Tupperware® containers for which we've lost the lids...again. But it also demonstrates a new and exciting way to use your Glad Press n' Seal! To hermetically seal Romaine lettuce! Don't limit yourself to just one piece of sticky plastic – use two to form a tight resealable lettuce cocoon. Who cares if it means throwing away the perfectly good bag you bought the lettuce in? Throw that bag OUT and lock the freshness IN, I always say.
The next illustration shows what kind of mad fun we can get up to when we take Glad Press n' Seal on a picnic. Observe the individually portioned and airtight vacuum sealed peaches. Perfect for life in space. Observe the fried chicken dinner accompanied by frozen peas, mashed potatoes and gravy. Don't you feel like you're in the 50s? Or receiving your daily delivery from Meals On Wheels?
The third illustration is where things get a little weird. There are drawings of individually wrapped bottles of shampoo, and an airtight toothbrush/toothpaste set. It appears freshness knows no bounds. Next to the space toiletries, there is a manly-looking workbench adorned with gloves, garden shears and a spray can cleverly labeled Oil. The workbench is covered in, you guessed it, Glad Press n' Seal. I am baffled by this one. I don't know many men who would submit to a Saran wrapping of their workbench. Saran wrap on their girlfriends? Yes. On their workbenches? No. I suppose an overzealous Glad Press n' Seal fan could wrap their sofa in it, though. Those plastic couch covers never seem cling, do they?
I went deeper into the Press n' Seal world to discover there is an active PnS community, one that shares ideas for even MORE uses of this miracle product. Susan from Penbrooke Pines, FL uses it to to protect the pages of her favourite cookbooks from splatters. Kelsey from Rochester, NY thinks it makes an ideal frosting dispenser. Vicky from Middletown, MD keeps her dog's liver treats(?) in it when they go on walks.
There is a whole world out there I know nothing about. There are adventures to be had. New things to discover. Sure, one of these people probably has Grandma Press n' Sealed for freshness in the basement, but there are literally 1000s of uses – WHO KNOWS WHAT IS POSSIBLE?
This message was brought to you by The Glad Products Company, proud sponsor of living your dreams.
In order to source the origins of this tendency, it is necessary to describe my mother's joy last Christmas over finding a cheaper brand of whitening toothpaste to put alongside new (cheap) toothbrushes in our Christmas stockings. "It's cheaper than Sensodyne," she crowed. Even I couldn't help but wonder, "Yes, but does it work?"
But in the case of the dysfunctional plastic wrap, I'm still digging in my heels. It irritates me that I must purchase brand name wrap in order to get any clinging power.
Enter Boyfriend. Whose purchasing philosophy is the exact opposite of mine: buy the absolute best, no matter what it costs. He says he gets this tendency from his father, but all I know is, I am now the regular user of the most powerful plastic food wrap in the history of mankind. The kind of wrap that will be excavated from time capsules in 150 years not only because it is impervious to biodegrading forces, but because of its myriad of uses. I'm talking about Glad Press n' Seal.
It's basically a 70-foot long plastic sticker. Some genius at Glad, after congratulating himself on the drawstring garbage bag, said to himself: I need to expand my horizons. And then he went ahead and put sticky stuff of the back of the plastic wrap so it actually sticks. "I'm just doing my part for humanity," the inventor of the patented Griptex formula would later say in interviews.
Even I can't deny the raw sealing power of Glad Press n' Seal. This morning, the box was still lying on the counter when I turned on the kettle for tea. For the first time, I noticed a series of illustrations along one side of the box under the trilingual title: So Many Uses/Usages multiples/Puede darle tantos usos.
In the first illustration, We The Customer are treated to some typical ways to use our multipurpose sealing wrap: it can cover bowls or Tupperware® containers for which we've lost the lids...again. But it also demonstrates a new and exciting way to use your Glad Press n' Seal! To hermetically seal Romaine lettuce! Don't limit yourself to just one piece of sticky plastic – use two to form a tight resealable lettuce cocoon. Who cares if it means throwing away the perfectly good bag you bought the lettuce in? Throw that bag OUT and lock the freshness IN, I always say.
The next illustration shows what kind of mad fun we can get up to when we take Glad Press n' Seal on a picnic. Observe the individually portioned and airtight vacuum sealed peaches. Perfect for life in space. Observe the fried chicken dinner accompanied by frozen peas, mashed potatoes and gravy. Don't you feel like you're in the 50s? Or receiving your daily delivery from Meals On Wheels?
The third illustration is where things get a little weird. There are drawings of individually wrapped bottles of shampoo, and an airtight toothbrush/toothpaste set. It appears freshness knows no bounds. Next to the space toiletries, there is a manly-looking workbench adorned with gloves, garden shears and a spray can cleverly labeled Oil. The workbench is covered in, you guessed it, Glad Press n' Seal. I am baffled by this one. I don't know many men who would submit to a Saran wrapping of their workbench. Saran wrap on their girlfriends? Yes. On their workbenches? No. I suppose an overzealous Glad Press n' Seal fan could wrap their sofa in it, though. Those plastic couch covers never seem cling, do they?
I went deeper into the Press n' Seal world to discover there is an active PnS community, one that shares ideas for even MORE uses of this miracle product. Susan from Penbrooke Pines, FL uses it to to protect the pages of her favourite cookbooks from splatters. Kelsey from Rochester, NY thinks it makes an ideal frosting dispenser. Vicky from Middletown, MD keeps her dog's liver treats(?) in it when they go on walks.
There is a whole world out there I know nothing about. There are adventures to be had. New things to discover. Sure, one of these people probably has Grandma Press n' Sealed for freshness in the basement, but there are literally 1000s of uses – WHO KNOWS WHAT IS POSSIBLE?
This message was brought to you by The Glad Products Company, proud sponsor of living your dreams.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Day 98/Day 6: Make $1000s Working From Home!!!
I don't know why, but in a fit of unfounded financial panic which may or may not be related to a rare planetary shift not experienced since 726 B.C., I signed up to be one of those people who does online surveys for money.
I regretted it as soon as I did it. And now, every day without fail, my inbox is pummeled with more spam than I could have ever imagined possible. There are 250 messages in my spam folder right now. I am afraid to look in there.
I had this misguided notion that doing web surveys would be funny. I thought I would enjoy the feeling of paying for groceries by answering a bunch of questions like: Do you shave your legs? Armpits? How frequently? Do you experience in-grown hairs?
To be fair, online survey-taking is quite the industry. I bet a million stay-at-home-moms do this, filling their PayPal accounts with $0.75 here and $0.50 there. Because that's how much a survey pays you. If you're lucky. Some of them offer you a discount on their products or $20 in coupons in lieu of real payment. Others make you pay $16 to register and then give you $20 back.
All of them force you to sign up and register with a name, email and mailing address, ensuring you a mountain of junk mail every week for the next seven hundred years. Boyfriend and, oh I don't know, THE EARTH would love that.
Junk mail is relentless. It's like termites or mice or herpes. I've been getting crap from MNBA credit card for two years. I called them and told them to take my name off the list and they told me it can take up to nine months for the mail to stop. That was a year ago. It's still coming. Seriously, if I haven't signed up for your stupid credit card after reading the first 500 letters, why would I sign up for it now?
I'm also on some kind of list for CIBC customer satisfaction surveys. I think it's because I was bored or slightly drunk one time and I agreed to take the survey. Which means I have the word SUCKER permanently written beside my phone number on their call sheets. Either that or CIBC really cares about customer service. They call me every month.
Much like online surveys, phone surveys are a bad idea. The bored, underpaid call centre employees are paid to tell you it will take five minutes, but they keep you on the phone for half an hour, chanting "Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, Excellent" until you are in a kind of coma or trance.
A word of advice? Don't ever go below Very Good when taking a telephone survey. Honesty in this case is a bad idea because it just opens up a whole series of other questions. Why don't you find our mortgage service Very Good or Excellent? What can we do to improve your rating to Very Good or Excellent? Have your feelings changed on our mortgage services or have you always felt this way? Did you meet another more attractive mortage service? Would you agree to attend counselling sessions in order for you and mortgage services to improve your relationship? Why or why not? Have you forgotten that mortgage services stood by you when your credit was pretty mediocre and when you missed that one payment one time? Do you think your negative feelings are really fair given your own track record? Maybe you should take a look at yourself before blaming everyone else for your problems – do you need a moment to think about that?
I regretted it as soon as I did it. And now, every day without fail, my inbox is pummeled with more spam than I could have ever imagined possible. There are 250 messages in my spam folder right now. I am afraid to look in there.
I had this misguided notion that doing web surveys would be funny. I thought I would enjoy the feeling of paying for groceries by answering a bunch of questions like: Do you shave your legs? Armpits? How frequently? Do you experience in-grown hairs?
To be fair, online survey-taking is quite the industry. I bet a million stay-at-home-moms do this, filling their PayPal accounts with $0.75 here and $0.50 there. Because that's how much a survey pays you. If you're lucky. Some of them offer you a discount on their products or $20 in coupons in lieu of real payment. Others make you pay $16 to register and then give you $20 back.
All of them force you to sign up and register with a name, email and mailing address, ensuring you a mountain of junk mail every week for the next seven hundred years. Boyfriend and, oh I don't know, THE EARTH would love that.
Junk mail is relentless. It's like termites or mice or herpes. I've been getting crap from MNBA credit card for two years. I called them and told them to take my name off the list and they told me it can take up to nine months for the mail to stop. That was a year ago. It's still coming. Seriously, if I haven't signed up for your stupid credit card after reading the first 500 letters, why would I sign up for it now?
I'm also on some kind of list for CIBC customer satisfaction surveys. I think it's because I was bored or slightly drunk one time and I agreed to take the survey. Which means I have the word SUCKER permanently written beside my phone number on their call sheets. Either that or CIBC really cares about customer service. They call me every month.
Much like online surveys, phone surveys are a bad idea. The bored, underpaid call centre employees are paid to tell you it will take five minutes, but they keep you on the phone for half an hour, chanting "Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, Excellent" until you are in a kind of coma or trance.
A word of advice? Don't ever go below Very Good when taking a telephone survey. Honesty in this case is a bad idea because it just opens up a whole series of other questions. Why don't you find our mortgage service Very Good or Excellent? What can we do to improve your rating to Very Good or Excellent? Have your feelings changed on our mortgage services or have you always felt this way? Did you meet another more attractive mortage service? Would you agree to attend counselling sessions in order for you and mortgage services to improve your relationship? Why or why not? Have you forgotten that mortgage services stood by you when your credit was pretty mediocre and when you missed that one payment one time? Do you think your negative feelings are really fair given your own track record? Maybe you should take a look at yourself before blaming everyone else for your problems – do you need a moment to think about that?
Friday, December 5, 2008
Day 97/Day 5: Homeopathological Part Deux
That crazy remedy I took three whatever weeks ago? Rocks. You Placebo People are going to be screaming at everything I write, so maybe y'all should just go ahead and not read this post. Seriously. Don't bother. I'm going deep into the woo woo and I don't care who knows it.
I took the first dose two weeks ago and felt AWESOME for the first day and then it was a roller coaster extravaganza bouncing between super-focused days and paralyzing self-doubt days. Which pretty much sums up the last three months of my life and was supposedly the remedy working through my system.
System = WORKED.
But then, I had the commitment idea. Which the Placebo People would say was a coincidence, but I say is breaking on through to the other side. Because I've actually done what I said I'm going to do. I haven't let fear derail me once. (For five measly days, say the Placebos. I know.)
I took the second dose yesterday and I feel even better. I'm talking FOCUS. I'm talking CONFIDENCE. I'm talking WOO WOO MEDITATION TAPES AND WRITING. Like you wouldn't believe. We are effing JAMMIN' here. The Big Fear is gone and if it comes up, I just stick on a five minute podcast that reminds me fear isn't real, it's an illusion with a pan flute soundtrack. And all is well.
Maybe you think I'm tempting fate by being all cocky. Maybe I think so too, but it's like that first blush of teen love when you want to sing it from the rooftops and so I am. Internet? I'm in love. With writing. And with this bad ass remedy. And honestly? The whole damn world.
The commitment insight was the first awesome thing. But I had another one today. See, I keep thinking about training for another marathon or getting back into triathlon or going back to Paris, hoping these things from my past will bring me the clarity I seek NOW. My insight today was, "Dude, those things are in the PAST. They served very specific purposes. In. The. Past. This is today." It's a whole different ball game. The reality of living my dream has shifted. There is no longer any 'ifs' – it's happening. I am living and working as a full-time artist. My only questions are the 'hows' and 'whens' of whatever's happening next.
There is a distinct possibility that the second draft of this book will be best written in Gay Paree. If that's the case – I'm on a plane in a heartbeat. There is also a distinct possibility that my next project/book will require me to live in a raw food commune in California for three months. Or volunteer at an orphanage in India. If so, I'm on a plane there instead.
I am not the arbiter of dreams. I am the seeker. The student. She does what she's told, and that's that.
There have been various gateways marking the beginnings of extremely important periods in my life: my divorce, my first marathon, Ironman, Paris. I am moving towards the next gateway, I can feel it. Only I can't quite see it clearly. I don't know where it will take me. And perhaps I'm not yet ready. There is still work to be done. The book will be completed. The commitments will be honoured. All I can do is keep writing, stay calm and wait for the signs.
I took the first dose two weeks ago and felt AWESOME for the first day and then it was a roller coaster extravaganza bouncing between super-focused days and paralyzing self-doubt days. Which pretty much sums up the last three months of my life and was supposedly the remedy working through my system.
System = WORKED.
But then, I had the commitment idea. Which the Placebo People would say was a coincidence, but I say is breaking on through to the other side. Because I've actually done what I said I'm going to do. I haven't let fear derail me once. (For five measly days, say the Placebos. I know.)
I took the second dose yesterday and I feel even better. I'm talking FOCUS. I'm talking CONFIDENCE. I'm talking WOO WOO MEDITATION TAPES AND WRITING. Like you wouldn't believe. We are effing JAMMIN' here. The Big Fear is gone and if it comes up, I just stick on a five minute podcast that reminds me fear isn't real, it's an illusion with a pan flute soundtrack. And all is well.
Maybe you think I'm tempting fate by being all cocky. Maybe I think so too, but it's like that first blush of teen love when you want to sing it from the rooftops and so I am. Internet? I'm in love. With writing. And with this bad ass remedy. And honestly? The whole damn world.
The commitment insight was the first awesome thing. But I had another one today. See, I keep thinking about training for another marathon or getting back into triathlon or going back to Paris, hoping these things from my past will bring me the clarity I seek NOW. My insight today was, "Dude, those things are in the PAST. They served very specific purposes. In. The. Past. This is today." It's a whole different ball game. The reality of living my dream has shifted. There is no longer any 'ifs' – it's happening. I am living and working as a full-time artist. My only questions are the 'hows' and 'whens' of whatever's happening next.
There is a distinct possibility that the second draft of this book will be best written in Gay Paree. If that's the case – I'm on a plane in a heartbeat. There is also a distinct possibility that my next project/book will require me to live in a raw food commune in California for three months. Or volunteer at an orphanage in India. If so, I'm on a plane there instead.
I am not the arbiter of dreams. I am the seeker. The student. She does what she's told, and that's that.
There have been various gateways marking the beginnings of extremely important periods in my life: my divorce, my first marathon, Ironman, Paris. I am moving towards the next gateway, I can feel it. Only I can't quite see it clearly. I don't know where it will take me. And perhaps I'm not yet ready. There is still work to be done. The book will be completed. The commitments will be honoured. All I can do is keep writing, stay calm and wait for the signs.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Day 96/Day 4: Recipe for Happiness
1/4 cup Grand Marnier1/4 cup Tequila
1 whole orange
1 whole lime
1 whole lemon
1/3 cup agave syrup
A whole bunch of ice
Peel the fruit. Toss everything into the blender and let 'er rip. Pour into festive margarita glasses, put on a tacky Hawaiian shirt and dance around like an idiot singing Bob Marley songs.
Special thanks to Chef Teal who did NOT give me permission to publish this on the interweb. I hope to God she doesn't read this. Or that she's drunk when she does.
I've frequently been tempted to post raw recipes on here, but have held off because that's a little too Mommyblogger for me. I believe you need to earn the right to post recipes and stain removal strategies by giving loud, long, painful birth to something.
Speaking of long, painful births*, Drea and Family drove up here with Boyfriend last night. Lola, a.k.a. The Kid, a.k.a. Midget, a.k.a. Smidge, a.k.a. Wiggles McNibbs, a.k.a. Drea's almost-two-year-old daughter, demanded we go outside today. Even though it was 16-below not counting the wind. We froze our balls off. Miss McNibbs complained less than the adults, probably because it was her (very bad) idea. But when she was done, she started screaming in that little kid way that says IT IS YOUR FAULT I HAVE HYPOTHERMIA AND WILL NOW DIE.
The Fam left about an hour ago and can I just say? I have really lame kid stamina. I keep trying. One day an untapped well of energy to open up and suddenly I will be able to play chase-me-around-the-kitchen for three hours, followed by a 90-minute aerobic peek-a-boo session. But right now, she starts yelling and I go into a state of catatonia, rocking back and forth and grinding my teeth.
Consequently, I'm knackered. And, once again, my ovaries have packed their cute little matching suitcases and hightailed it to sunny Mazatalan where they are knocking back a couple of those fruity margaritas and talking about timeshares.
* A reference that will make sense to no one except those who know Drea and the legend of The Four Day Labour. Lola, weighing barely five pounds, took four full days to get her skinny ass out here into the world. It was...epic. Every time her husband suggests they have more kids, Drea laughs in his face.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Day 95 or Day 3 Depending on Who's Counting
I'm on Day 3 of the big 30-day Write Like The Wind challenge. So far, so good. Except for the meltdown on the morning of Day 1. But we all expected that didn't we? What's a Mel Jones Monday without one?The key to disarming that was a combination of Boyfriend talking me off the ledge and me writing a Gratitude List. These bad boys are pretty self-explanatory (it's a LIST of what you're GRATEFUL for) and it's a very powerful tool. If you are in a negative, snarky, everything-sucks mood, a G.L. will switch your brain into Glass Half Full mode within five minutes.
I realized something last night. Or rather, I remembered it. The universe responds to the energy you give it. It doesn't look at you moping through your work, whining about word count and send a million-dollar publishing contract. No-ho-ho. BUT. If you knock back a cup of Glass Half Full mind and work your butt off all day, the universe rewards you. If you prove to the universe that you want this and are willing to do what it takes, THAT'S when doors begin to open and new opportunities start to show up.
That's kind of what this 30-day thing is all about. I know that when I frame my outlook in a certain way, using gratitude lists and morning pages and woo woo meditation tapes, good things happen. I feel happy, confident and on my own side. If I let those things slide in my life, I feel like I'm doggy paddling for breath.
Why do we let those things slide? I have no idea. Probably fear of ecstatic, blissful happiness with hundred dollar bills on top. You know, the usual.
Listen, Internet? I'm really hoping I don't slide into some month-long self-help monologue of mind-control and sickening positivity. If I do, you'll tell me, right? You'll write me friendly shut-the-hell-up emails and send little mailbox bombs. You'll prank call me at 2 a.m. and egg my car, right? Especially because it's cold now and the slime will freeze onto my windshield in an impervious frozen egg batter. You'd do that for a friend. Right?
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Day 94: A Christmas Rant
I don't deal with the holiday season until December 1st. Some of my best and dearest friends are the type of people who have their shopping done by Canadian Thanksgiving, but I think they're as crazy as Boyfriend who hits the mall on December 24th every year without fail.
But this isn't about Xmas shopping. This is about un-shopping. Because the Universe happened to drop a little link in my lap to an online video called The Story of Stuff. Do the world a favour and watch it. Here's the jaw-dropper: 90% of the crap you bring into your house leaves your house via garbage bags. NINETY PERCENT. Stuff? Is stupid.
If things go as planned, you will watch the video and think twice before buying that EZ Chopper 2 Vegetable Slicer for all your family and friends. Or the Disney-themed chip-n-dip serving dish. Or the 'I Have One Nerve Left & Yer Gettin' On It' coffee mug. Although that would actually be appropriate.
To quote a line from the absolutely TERRIBLE mid-90s remake of Sabrina: "More isn't always better, Linus. Sometimes it's just more." Just because some marketing schmuck packaged a half pound of gourmet coffee with some dark chocolate and a French Press in a cutesy red box doesn't mean you have to buy it. Trust me, I WAS that marketing schmuck. I SOLD you that cutesy red box.
I swear this isn't just a drunken beauty pageant message or a passive aggressive 'I'm poor' preamble to a mass email entitled: Don't Send Stuff, Send Money! (Although that's not a terrible idea...) This is a challenge to you to be creative. Don't bail on the whole season of giving concept. It's a great brand! Giving is beautiful. Giving scary-looking 3-for-$10 bath bombs that will definitely be re-gifted? Not beautiful.
Boyfriend has this wee picture frame he keeps in the bathroom that reads: 'The most valuable gift you can give is time.' Do not ask me why this is in the bathroom. Regardless, it's something to think about. What if you gave your loved ones time? Maybe you give them time with you. Maybe the gift is NOT spending time with you...maybe it's time for themselves when you take the kid for once and leave them the hell alone.*
Last year, I gave people experiences. We gave my sister/bro-in-law a river cruise and a couple of coffees. This is also known as a romantic afternoon. I gave my other sister a treasure map of 17th Avenue, marking pit stops for coffee and lunch on the day-long adventure we'd have together. Boyfriend is a big fan of the coupons. Like: "This entitles the bearer to one 30 minute massage with no complaining about how much my back hurts from giving you this amateur massage." One year, I got a whole PILE of coupons, everything from iTunes downloads to dinners to haircuts...although he shaves his head, so I passed on those.
The stuff-addicts might call these kinds of gifts cop-outs. I say giving stuff is a cop-out. Forcing me to fill up landfills with drug store perfumes is a cop-out. The $7.99 spice rack that was sitting by the cash register at Wal-Mart when an image of my face flashed through your brain is a cop-out. Seriously. Since when does a spice rack connect deeply with who I am as a person? Do you know for sure that I rack my spices? What if I prefer them out of sight because I'm shy about my massive turmeric usage? Maybe I'm concealing my role in an elaborate Nicuraguan vanilla smuggling ring. Did you even THINK of the lives that were at stake when you bought that thing?
Take that $7.99 and buy us lattes some Wednesday in January. Your gift could be letting me talk about myself for an hour. I would love that. Share a pitcher of terrible beer with me in a place where we can throw peanut shells on the floor and play CCR on the jukebox. Buy me some time, but please, don't buy me stuff.
* This subliminal message was brought to Janice's husband by her friends at the Today, Paris blog. To send a similar shot to the man-parts, please call us at 1-888-LOW-BLOW now! Service charges and marital consequences may apply.)
But this isn't about Xmas shopping. This is about un-shopping. Because the Universe happened to drop a little link in my lap to an online video called The Story of Stuff. Do the world a favour and watch it. Here's the jaw-dropper: 90% of the crap you bring into your house leaves your house via garbage bags. NINETY PERCENT. Stuff? Is stupid.
If things go as planned, you will watch the video and think twice before buying that EZ Chopper 2 Vegetable Slicer for all your family and friends. Or the Disney-themed chip-n-dip serving dish. Or the 'I Have One Nerve Left & Yer Gettin' On It' coffee mug. Although that would actually be appropriate.
To quote a line from the absolutely TERRIBLE mid-90s remake of Sabrina: "More isn't always better, Linus. Sometimes it's just more." Just because some marketing schmuck packaged a half pound of gourmet coffee with some dark chocolate and a French Press in a cutesy red box doesn't mean you have to buy it. Trust me, I WAS that marketing schmuck. I SOLD you that cutesy red box.
I swear this isn't just a drunken beauty pageant message or a passive aggressive 'I'm poor' preamble to a mass email entitled: Don't Send Stuff, Send Money! (Although that's not a terrible idea...) This is a challenge to you to be creative. Don't bail on the whole season of giving concept. It's a great brand! Giving is beautiful. Giving scary-looking 3-for-$10 bath bombs that will definitely be re-gifted? Not beautiful.
Boyfriend has this wee picture frame he keeps in the bathroom that reads: 'The most valuable gift you can give is time.' Do not ask me why this is in the bathroom. Regardless, it's something to think about. What if you gave your loved ones time? Maybe you give them time with you. Maybe the gift is NOT spending time with you...maybe it's time for themselves when you take the kid for once and leave them the hell alone.*
Last year, I gave people experiences. We gave my sister/bro-in-law a river cruise and a couple of coffees. This is also known as a romantic afternoon. I gave my other sister a treasure map of 17th Avenue, marking pit stops for coffee and lunch on the day-long adventure we'd have together. Boyfriend is a big fan of the coupons. Like: "This entitles the bearer to one 30 minute massage with no complaining about how much my back hurts from giving you this amateur massage." One year, I got a whole PILE of coupons, everything from iTunes downloads to dinners to haircuts...although he shaves his head, so I passed on those.
The stuff-addicts might call these kinds of gifts cop-outs. I say giving stuff is a cop-out. Forcing me to fill up landfills with drug store perfumes is a cop-out. The $7.99 spice rack that was sitting by the cash register at Wal-Mart when an image of my face flashed through your brain is a cop-out. Seriously. Since when does a spice rack connect deeply with who I am as a person? Do you know for sure that I rack my spices? What if I prefer them out of sight because I'm shy about my massive turmeric usage? Maybe I'm concealing my role in an elaborate Nicuraguan vanilla smuggling ring. Did you even THINK of the lives that were at stake when you bought that thing?
Take that $7.99 and buy us lattes some Wednesday in January. Your gift could be letting me talk about myself for an hour. I would love that. Share a pitcher of terrible beer with me in a place where we can throw peanut shells on the floor and play CCR on the jukebox. Buy me some time, but please, don't buy me stuff.
* This subliminal message was brought to Janice's husband by her friends at the Today, Paris blog. To send a similar shot to the man-parts, please call us at 1-888-LOW-BLOW now! Service charges and marital consequences may apply.)
Monday, December 1, 2008
Day 93.5: Manifest Destiny
I knew it. I told you she would post about puke and she did. It only took eleven days to manifest the greatest blog jealousy of my life: the Dooce morning sickness post. It also includes mention of rogue hair growth. Damn her.
Although, if you believe in the Law of Attraction and/or subjective reality, I CREATED this. Her puke post is MY FAULT! Argh.
Maybe I'll consume an entire jar of peanut butter with an olive oil chaser and manifest my own puke post.
Mmm. No need. I just typed "puke" into Google images. Stopped that line of thinking in its tracks. Click here if you dare.
Although, if you believe in the Law of Attraction and/or subjective reality, I CREATED this. Her puke post is MY FAULT! Argh.
Maybe I'll consume an entire jar of peanut butter with an olive oil chaser and manifest my own puke post.
Mmm. No need. I just typed "puke" into Google images. Stopped that line of thinking in its tracks. Click here if you dare.
Day 93: Making Commitments
I flipped through this relationship book in the library several months ago. It talked about the trouble with commitment of the 'I promise to love you through absolutely everything that happens until I am dead' variety.
I have trouble with that one, too.
This book advocated making 'process commitments' as opposed to 'outcome commitments.' So rather than making sweeping promises you may or may not be able to keep (or control), you'd commit to things you can control, like telling the truth or keeping your agreements.
This kind of commitment I can handle.
Although this obviously applies to relationships, I'm not thinking about those right now. I'm thinking about writing.
I've been so obsessed with outcome that my process has not been very fun lately. I've lost steam and feel behind and the whole thing seems really daunting. Which makes it hard to get anything done. So here, today, on the Internet, I shall make some new commitments.
I'm going to commit to a 30-day trial of these new behaviours as a bit of a science experiment. At the end of 30 days, I'll evaluate what worked and what sucked. This 30-day trial idea is inspired by Steve Pavlina, a dude who uses himself as a guinea pig almost constantly. (Do your best to ignore the fact that his eyes are WAY too close together, giving him a seriously creepy countenance.)
So...my commitments.
I commit to writing new material for my book every day for 30 days. I'm not going to get fussy about word count because it makes me seriously crazy. In fact, I may decide not to look at word count at all. We'll see. This commitment is mostly about the fact that chipping away at something is the key to getting it done (and hopefully not getting intimidated, daunted and paralyzed).
I re-commit to using the confidence-boosting behaviours that work for me. These are behaviours that I've used in the past that have really helped, but for one reason or another, I've dropped. Some, I commit to using daily: gratitude lists, guided meditation podcasts, Morning Pages, prayer/meditation before bed. Others are one-offs or as-neededs: little pep-talk Post-It notes all over the place, watching inspirational movies, having bubble baths. This commitment is about setting myself up for success by developing a positive, clear mindset. It's also a commitment to re-setting my mind when fear and self-doubt threaten rather than getting sucked in.
I commit to my health by eating really well, getting enough sleep and exercising regularly. Again, cultivating that joyful body-mind vibe and setting myself up for success.
As you can see, these commitments are not exactly earth-shattering. They are mostly recycled, actually. Some are things that really worked for me in other contexts, like Ironman training for example, and others, like writing a little every day, are things I've been trying to do, but have been vague about and have therefore allowed myself to get distracted.
Basically, I am committing to my creativity 100% for 30 days. I know what I need to do to succeed, I'm just making the commitment to doing it. I'm committing to staying on track and not letting fear, self-doubt and self-destructive behaviours throw me off. I know December is notoriously a gong show of Christmas season time-suckage, but what am I going to do, wait until January? I don't think so. Game. On.
I have trouble with that one, too.
This book advocated making 'process commitments' as opposed to 'outcome commitments.' So rather than making sweeping promises you may or may not be able to keep (or control), you'd commit to things you can control, like telling the truth or keeping your agreements.
This kind of commitment I can handle.
Although this obviously applies to relationships, I'm not thinking about those right now. I'm thinking about writing.
I've been so obsessed with outcome that my process has not been very fun lately. I've lost steam and feel behind and the whole thing seems really daunting. Which makes it hard to get anything done. So here, today, on the Internet, I shall make some new commitments.
I'm going to commit to a 30-day trial of these new behaviours as a bit of a science experiment. At the end of 30 days, I'll evaluate what worked and what sucked. This 30-day trial idea is inspired by Steve Pavlina, a dude who uses himself as a guinea pig almost constantly. (Do your best to ignore the fact that his eyes are WAY too close together, giving him a seriously creepy countenance.)
So...my commitments.
I commit to writing new material for my book every day for 30 days. I'm not going to get fussy about word count because it makes me seriously crazy. In fact, I may decide not to look at word count at all. We'll see. This commitment is mostly about the fact that chipping away at something is the key to getting it done (and hopefully not getting intimidated, daunted and paralyzed).
I re-commit to using the confidence-boosting behaviours that work for me. These are behaviours that I've used in the past that have really helped, but for one reason or another, I've dropped. Some, I commit to using daily: gratitude lists, guided meditation podcasts, Morning Pages, prayer/meditation before bed. Others are one-offs or as-neededs: little pep-talk Post-It notes all over the place, watching inspirational movies, having bubble baths. This commitment is about setting myself up for success by developing a positive, clear mindset. It's also a commitment to re-setting my mind when fear and self-doubt threaten rather than getting sucked in.
I commit to my health by eating really well, getting enough sleep and exercising regularly. Again, cultivating that joyful body-mind vibe and setting myself up for success.
As you can see, these commitments are not exactly earth-shattering. They are mostly recycled, actually. Some are things that really worked for me in other contexts, like Ironman training for example, and others, like writing a little every day, are things I've been trying to do, but have been vague about and have therefore allowed myself to get distracted.
Basically, I am committing to my creativity 100% for 30 days. I know what I need to do to succeed, I'm just making the commitment to doing it. I'm committing to staying on track and not letting fear, self-doubt and self-destructive behaviours throw me off. I know December is notoriously a gong show of Christmas season time-suckage, but what am I going to do, wait until January? I don't think so. Game. On.
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