Category: ragdoll rambles

Bits And Pieces Of The Past

It’s been a busy Saturday. I got up early with my RRHB as he went off to work for about the hundredth weekend in a row (save for the last one when we were in NYC), watched Swingtown, which I’m enjoying more each week, ate some yoghurt, and decided it was now or never in terms of the gardening.

Wait. Does everyone know how much I hate gardening?

K.

So it’s me against the weeds that grow in between the gross patio stones on our front yard. The outside of the house will be the last to get fixed up and because I never see it when I’m inside and the renos are making me mental, I don’t usually bother with it. Like, at all. But today I was out there pulling all the weeds out and sweeping. And then I tackled some of the back where our neighbour had planted some vegetables. Seeing as I want to eat the lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes, I thought I had better do some weeding out there too. I lasted about an hour and a half, all tolled. By then I’d had enough.

Back inside to make some toast while I watched the bits of The Departed that I like. At which point I felt guilty for watching TV and started puttering.

Wait. Does everyone know that I love puttering?

I’ve been trying to search down some old writing to see if there’s any value in trying to finish the two serious books I started before the one that’s currently with my editor friend. But since I have only hard copies of everything, and they’re spread from here to who knows where, I went through piles of old writing today. Here are some things I discovered:

1. The clinical “our plan” notes from my shrink when I was bonkers about 10 years ago. They are awesome. From basic things like: “try to eat 3x/ day” to “if feeling very depressed, out of control, suicidal, etc, come to Emergency Department.” Can I just say that about 2 weeks later I took a whole pile of sleeping pills, not to kill myself, but simply because they had stopped working and I wanted nothing more than to sleep. It’s the craziest the prednisone has ever made me. Coupled with my own inner-wackiness, I am lucky to a) have survived and b) to have had a doctor that was kind enough to give me this plan that pretty much saved my sh*t at the time.

2. A note from Deborah who used to run Chicklit.com that says: “I thought you’d toss off a couple of pages, not sweat blood onto paper.” Aw. Oddly, I have no record of what I actually wrote to illicit such a reaction.

3. A really excellent map to my cottage.

4. A recipe for vegan banana blueberry muffins that I will give to Sam for Sadie.

5. “The Night, The Porch” by Mark Strand that contains these lines: “…why even now we seem to be waiting/For something whose appearance would be its vanishing…”

6. The photocopy of a print from Alciato’s Book of Emblems that represents Hope and Nemesis that says the two “are together at the same time upon our altars, clearly that you may not hope for that which is not lawful.”

7. A print-out of this article from the NY Times because it mentions my RRHB. I have to admit, I recycled this — there’s an online archive.

8. The “how to retire rich” article that our old VP from the Evil Empire photocopied and gave to everyone in the department before he set up a meeting with his insurance broker. He was an awesome boss. The article is full of things he’s underlined and notated. I wish I were lying.

9. The YES checklist. A 12-step program for writers and other bits of wisdom for scribes. And a note that Peter Mansbridge was born in Churchill, Manitoba and this quote: “I’ll never lie to you but don’t think that means I’m telling you the truth.” My take-home from a day-long writing seminar.

10. “Art,” Ken Kesey said, “is a lie in the service of the truth.” Don DeLillo: “Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer knows when he finally gets there. On one level the truth is the swing of the sentence, the beat and the poise, but down deeper it’s the integrity of the writer as he matches with the language.”

IMPAC Win

Quinn posted up a note this morning that Rawi Hage has won the IMPAC award. I only made it through three of the shortlisted books (too many challenges; too much travelling; very little reading) but DeNiro’s Game was one that I read and loved. It’s nice to see novels that were shortlisted for Canadian prizes, like the book I’m currently about 20 pages away from finishing, The Book of Negroes (which just won The Commonwealth Prize), go on to win international prizes. It’s not as if I’m writing a “here’s the trouble with the Giller” note or anything, but I’m glad that both DeNiro’s Game and The Book of Negroes will go on to find larger audiences as a result of the attention.

Posting has been sparse, life seems to be overwhelmingly busy these days. And we’re on the road again tomorrow, taking a family trip to NYC. Right now I feel like I’ve been travelling for months. And for those moments where I’m sitting behind my desk staring out the window thinking how nice it would be to have a job where I travelled even more, I’ll need to remember this feeling. The one where I just want to be home with a good book, my two working hands, and some time to get caught up on my writing.

One More Sleep

This time tomorrow night Sam and I will be on a plane and will by flying somewhere near the ocean. We are headed to Paris for Tina’s wedding. So far, I’m all packed (as much as I think I’m packed) and hideously behind in everything else. Our house is in a complete tip: there’s dust everywhere; my clothes are in piles all over the bedroom; and there’s a hairball on the cat’s bed that I’ve ignored for, um, three days now.

Today is my RRHB’s birthday too. We celebrated on the weekend with dinner at this amazing restaurant down the street from us called Foxley. The meal was honestly spectacular. So much so that he was still raving about it the next day when we were wandering around the antique shop near Aberfoyle (I definitely should have bought the lamp) on Saturday. Then we stopped by my parents house for dinner. My ridiculously generous stepmother was cleaning our her closet and decided to loan me her gorgeous Louis V. for the foreseeable future (poorly lit and pictured above). How delicious!

Now almost a whole other week has passed and I can’t believe this time tomorrow I’ll be on my way to another continent. Thank goodness the dress I ordered online to wear to the wedding a) arrived and b) fits. Whew.

Okay! Back to packing and I’ll be back in 10 days. If we find an internet cafe, I’ll try to update, but chances are I’ll be offline and unable to understand a French keyboard.

A Not-Quite There Poem

I’ve been going through old writing today and picking up threads of stories that I had always meant to finish. Just typed an email to a friend saying that now that I’ve finished one book I honestly think that I’ll be able to finish another and another. But perhaps the sunshine and free time are making me a bit euphoric. Here’s an old poem that I’ve been rewriting this afternoon.

Churchill

He pulls me away, with
a voice that equals your own,
strips you clean,
and leaves me knowing
incomparable middle class suffering.

Stands there with a strength
that comes from foreign places,
with names I can’t countdown,
places in the mine, places
where I have not yet spent time.

The next one had a reedy voice,
shiny shoes, short tie, lively banjo.
I couldn’t get that song out
of my head, enduring
train ride, a long walk, a whistle.

The fitness in his hands,
cracked, scared, calloused,
that when they touched me,
bear me to run away, a place
by the river, sweater that wasn’t mine.

Tired Tuesday Twitters

So, I’ve become mildly obsessed with Twitter. It’s so fun! But it’s also kind of addictive. I absolutely love the little updates. But perhaps because I’m wicked tired today (I haven’t slept since Sunday night) the whole online world is blurring into one giant fuzzy mess.

Baby steps, right? 4 AM came close to breaking my brain in half after many, many hours of reading, drinking tea, reading some more, closing the light, lying there panicked and awake, until I finally decided just to get up. And while I threw up this morning because I was so tired my whole body was upset, I did manage to get the bits of the manuscript revised enough that I’m only mildly embarrassed to give it to my friend in editorial. She’s going to do substantive edits, and then I’m going to rewrite the whole book for the second time. I figure that’ll take me until the end of the summer (if all goes according to plan) and then by the fall I’ll start preparing myself for the rejection that’ll come along with trying to find an agent.

The book is still kind of a mess. There are big problems with it but for now I need someone else’s eyes and mind to look at it as a whole and tell me where to go next. Even now, I’m amazed I’m still typing.

Saturday Morning Redux

I woke up too early (6:23 AM). Checked email. Took my needle. Went back to bed. Felt bad for my RRHB who had to go to work. Let the cat in. Spoke to my father. Finished the book. Pet the cat. Put my hair up. Drank some water. Ate some cereal. Will now do chores. Write. Go babysit at 5 PM. Hang out with my nephew. Worry about whether or not my eyes are infected. Read stories. Play. Bedtime. Watch a movie. Come home. Then, Sunday.

The Struggle Of The Everyday March To Nowhere

This morning it was impossible to get out of bed. Last night it was impossible to concentrate. If I didn’t know better I’d say I was having a bad disease day, but since the WG is in remission, I can’t blame it. Which is too bad, considering I blame the disease for a lot — like it’s another person living inside of me that I can point a finger at and shout: “This, this is all YOUR fault and what are you going to do about it!”

I’ve been complaining (skip forward those of you who could care less) a lot about being tired. The Super Fancy Disease Doctor has ruled out the disease as the cause. Excellent, yes, but now what? The kidney doctor has always said it’s just a modern-day plague. My family doctor (my my it’s a lot of opinions, isn’t it?) says it’s probably the panic that’s making me feel so tired. Putting your body through all that flight/fight stuff, the pain in my chest, the constant nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach, means that you’re exhausted by the end of each day. And am I ever feeling it this week.

So far this week I’ve managed two pages of edits and with the two-thirds of my manuscript still to go, I’m already a full week past my deadline. But last night I wanted to burn (virtually) the entire project. Don’t worry, I won’t, but the urge to press delete and just get on with my life, accept the fact that I’ll never publish the damn thing, was great. It was either that or quit my job because I certainly can’t do two things at once and this giant split down the centre of my being is perhaps a little overwhelming.

Also, my hip hurts.

Blah complain blah tired blah frustrated blah de freaking blah.

Okay. Now that it’s out of my system maybe I just need to go home and have a nap.

Ouch The Light

Much needed fun with old cronies from the place where I used to work led to a much later evening than I had anticipated. Which meant a slow start this morning but a revived outlook in terms of getting over the loneliness at work or maybe just ignoring it all together because I always expect it to be like it was, and it never will be. But isn’t that always the case. Many new music suggestions with only beer memory and all I can remember is that the one half of Uncle Tupelo that became Wilco means there’s another half out there that is apparently much, much better.

I’ve been reading poetry all week (Airstream Land Yacht) by Ken Babstock. Poetry and travel mean stopping in funny places to write. Like the middle of the street, halfway between University Left and Right, to make sure I caught this bit of something (or nothing, depending on how you look at it):

9:18 AM Dundas 505

A sturdy man sets his
coffee down on the floor
of the streetcar,
bravely flaunting his
knowledge of an
equation I fail to master
the teetering
balance of iron and gravity,
the dancing hips of the
machine en route
to deliver him, now awake
and alert, to a same-time,
same-day destination.

This morning. I am glad
to be late with time
still left to kill.

I think I have discovered that after I finish a big project I like to write poetry. Who’d a thunk? Another in a long list of embarrassing confessions I make here: I am now wearing a giant, over-sized Tom Green sweatshirt. One should never internet shop when one is a band widow on a reduced amount of sleep and under a deadline. But now that it’s here, I do have to wear it, or else suffer the consequences.

EDITED TO ADD: The band is called Son Volt. Whew. That’s one less thing to remember.

What 4AM Looks Like From The Inside Of My Eyeballs

Nada Surf coupled with a decaffeinated latte (it’s all it takes) should keep me awake at least until the end of the workday when I will collapse into a lack-of-sleep lump in front of the television.

My deadline highlights the word “dead” if I keep going at this pace; the panic from knowing that I’m nowhere near finishing my edits and the fact that have trumped the “May 1st” from coast to coast is coming back to haunt me. Four weeks and only 80 pages and I have been working, I have. Tonight is the last night before I give away the book to the three other people in my so-called creative group (which is distinct from my writer’s group in that it includes a supremely talented artist) tomorrow. Commas will be the death of me. So will run on sentences and a change in narrative voice. I want the m/s to hum like the guitar line in “Hi-Speed Soul.” I want my friends to enjoy reading the book as much as I love the drum line in “Slow Nerve Action,” but I’m afraid the book’s more cobbled together at this point than anything else. And staying up until well past the witching hour didn’t help.

It’s hard to shut off your brain once it starts down a creative path that goes something like this:

1. I’ve always hated the title I attached to the book from the beginning. It felt bland and kind of meaningless and I’ve sat through enough publishing-type meetings to know that titles change all the time. Editors change titles too, make suggestions, and often improve what the writer has come up with.

2. Along comes Poetry Month. And catching up with Melanie’s lovely blog where she posted this wicked poem that caught my attention. Hallelujah! A new title is born. And yes, I’ve already phrased my thank you should the book ever, ever be published.

3. But then last night I was reading and rereading the poem and I came upon a whole new structure for the book that will solve all kinds of chronological poems. See, brain, not turning off, and had to crawl out of bed to write it all down. The time I started: 12:30 AM.

4. Also, it’s lovely to welcome someone home that you love, which meant that my schedule for the last week, work, home, cat-tending, quick dinner, editing, ragdoll-tv, was blown away. In a good way, meant that I started working late, ate even later, and went to bed well beyond my normal time. For a girl who has always had trouble sleeping, all that adds up to disaster. Oh, and the organic brownies at 10 PM didn’t help. But they are so good. So good.

5. Fast forward to 2:30 AM and I’m still writing, soundless because I didn’t want to wake up my RRHB who was sleeping in his own bed for the first time in a week. NOTE: the music quest has gone really, really well. So far, I’ve downloaded some Brian Eno that I quite like, added some world music (Ali Farke Toure), and of course, my new obsession, Nada Surf. NOTE REDUX: My RRHB openly mocked the fact that everyone on this earth has heard of this band except me. Keep the suggestions coming, I love them. It’s good to give Wilco a rest every now and again.

6. Now I’m finally back in bed but it’s 3:30 AM, just the time when Willie Pep wakes up and decides it’s time for him to go outside. Walking on my head, walking on my legs, half-settling on my chest, and I’m out of bed again drinking Sleepytime tea and reading Huckleberry Finn.

7. 4 AM looks and sounds an awful lot like the three hours preceding it. Fluffy duvet, warm socks tucked into jogging pants, lots of deep breaths and I fall asleep finally until 6:55 AM. Now, I can barely keep myself propped up on my desk, but the book is definitely better for it.

Gosh, I’ve been making a lot of lists lately. TK momentarily, a review of DeNiro’s Game, which I loved.