Category: ragdoll rambles

Keep Feeling Procrastination

I’ve got a cold so my head is totally foggy. Even though I should be writing now, I’m trolling the internet and making myself kind of sick. I watched an awful video, and not even by accident, of poor Brad Pitt trying to go to McDonald’s with his kids. And as disgusted with the whole thing that I was (I could only watch about a minute), I kept thinking to myself, “but I’m still clicking on it…”

For the last few years I’ve flirted with giving up internet gossip and find myself, embarrassed and ashamed, typing in http://socialitelife.com at work in a spare moment or two between meetings just to give myself some sort of mental health holiday. Well, no more — I know it’s all holier than thou and kind of sanctimonious, but who really cares of Brad Pitt’s taking his kids to McDonald’s? Why does it deserve some sort of hallelujah chorus from all the kids around with their cell phones and snapping pictures — how would that be to live your life everyday, in your own home, ransacked by hungry vultures all vying to do you harm in a small way. And then I click on it and justify the whole existence of the awful market, by paying the advertisers and refusing to ignore the dirty business entirely.

So that’s my number one New Year’s Revolution: Stop reading celebrity gossip. I highly doubt I’ll be able to avoid it entirely, but maybe I can get back to the ragdoll of years passed, the one who would only use the web for good. Ha! Does she even exist anymore? Trails of her lost in cyberspace where she used to track down literary journals to send poetry and stories to, who wrote for great sites, and who wanted more than anything to write books of her own?

Let’s find that girl again this year, shall we?

And here’s what got me started on the whole Brad Pitt tangent anyway. An article I wrote for work about movie tie-ins is up on the homepage of MSN today. I read about 50 pages of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and even though I didn’t finish the book, I was enjoying it. I simply got swept away by something else.

Spare Time

Yesterday I wrapped the last of the presents, cleaned the house and got in some groceries to tide us over for the next few crazy days. My RRHB has been out of the house for the last eight days working, and he would have been at the job again today if he hadn’t have woken up with the unbearable sickness that knocked me out ten days or so ago. Poor baby. Popsicles and rest for him.

I can honestly say that I’ve never been this organized before a holiday before. Usually we’re both so busy and so crammed full of to-do lists that we’re shopping right until the last moment and manically running around to get everything done. Not this year. We did the majority of the shopping three weeks ago and I finished everything off last week after work, and now with the wrapping done, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.

A flurry of blog posts, catching up on my other blog reading, listening to truly glorious music on Studio Sparks and generally arranging my thoughts before heading out to my parents, sans the very ill RRHB, tonight. Spare time is truly a blessing.

Now if I could only open the file that shouts: “How about you work on your novel?”

Happy Christmas all!

Good Grief

Certainly hasn’t been the weekend I expected. We went to see Christine Fellows on Friday at the Music Gallery, and it was a lovely show, as always. I took my needle, and then we went to bed, nothing unusual, right? Until about 4 AM when I woke up and was so very sick that I proceeded to throw up once every forty-five minutes to an hour until about 2 PM the next day.

I’m still not 100% better.

It’s been years since I’ve been that sick. Sure, the occasional cold or lung infection, no biggie, I can handle it, but drop down fever so you can’t even leave your bed and feel woozy to the point you can barely stand up barfing up all kinds of gross things in your stomach, well, that’s not a way to spend the holiday season.

So, we’re quarantined.

Which is okay because it’s a snow day. And who doesn’t love a snow day? At least today I can read, I couldn’t even do that yesterday. I finished Jennifer McMahon’s new book Island of Lost Girls (#79), which comes out in May 2008, so I don’t want to say too much except I liked it, and it reminded me a lot of Laura Lippman’s What the Dead Know.

And now I have to go back to bed.

Sigh.

TRH Updates – December Madness

There are reasons why I hate starting every post with, “Goodness, I am so busy I barely have time to sleep these days.” Firstly, it’s boring, no one cares how busy I am. In fact, I don’t even care, and I’m the one living this manic life. Secondly, being swamped with work doesn’t count as almost every single person I know professionally and personally is in the same boat. Thirdly, I miss the comments, the emails, and frankly, the love, that I get from my blog and when I don’t post, I don’t get anything back. After all, you get back what you put out in the world, right?

So, I apologize in advance for the brief list-post detailing what’s gone on in the past few weeks. I know it’s just not the same.

1. Sales conference sucked up a good chunk of my life in the last couple weeks. However, it introduced me to Tim Winton, an Australian writer who has written a beautiful, lyrical and utterly compelling novel called Breath that I devoured in a 24-hour period (#77). It’s not coming out until next year so I won’t go into too much detail except to say that I would urge anyone and everyone to pick up his book of short stories The Turning and let me know what they think. It’s the book that’s top of my list now.

2. Another book I read before conference made me think that the subject matter of stories doesn’t matter as long as the telling is compelling. (Am I rapping? Take it to the break! Yeah.). The Art of Racing in the Rain (#78) has a dog for a protagonist. A dog obsessed with race car driving. Do you think that deterred me? No, it did not — it’s a charming, engaging and sweet book that proves, much like Friday Night Lights, the power is in the storytelling and not the subject matter. This is an interesting lesson so late in life.

3. Zesty and I went to go see Atonement. I think she had a greater emotional response to the film than I did, having read the book and remembering how heartbreaking the story ends up being. It’s a beautiful movie with an interesting soundtrack, and I think James McAvoy is simply delicious, but on the whole I’d give it a solid B, maybe moving on to B+ in certain parts. There’s a scene when Robbie’s at Dunkirk filmed in one long, gorgeous shot that truly brings home the destructive, debilitating experience for British soldiers in the Second World War. With none of the Hollywood-style American touches of huge explosions, instead showing a choir of rag-tag men battle weary and broken who are singing, the film takes a totally different point of view than that which we’re used to in terms of exploring the war.

4. Awww, Enchanted. I was so glad that Tara was home for a whirlwind weekend that we got to see this film together. It was the perfect girlie movie. Amy Adams is delightful, and will probably get nominated for an Oscar. I can take or leave McDreamy. You get the feeling that his giant head wobbles a bit from walking around with all that hairy ego.

5. Dirty Dancing: The Stage Show? So not worth the money. The Evil Empire (where we were all employed three years ago, before half of us were unceremoniously fired) Ladies and I got together for a lovely pub dinner and set out to get our hearts broken by Baby. Only it never happened. Because the show is awful. Not even good-bad like Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights which was awesomely bad, and hilarious. The stage show truly sucks, despite its lovely art direction: the dialogue is painful, the performances beyond wooden, and the leads don’t sing. In a musical. And there’s no dirty dancing except one very small part at the beginning. Trust me, it’s not worth it, even for the laughter factor (we cackled through the entire performance). It’s troublesome because we were laughing at the actors and not with them, which is never a good thing.

So that’s about it in terms of my latest cultural indulgences. Lots more to come in terms of reading challenges, my top 10 books of 2007, my top 10 movies, and all kinds of other delightful lists that I adore making. And I promise, more regular updates.

Wonder Redux

I emerged from the boardroom momentarily to get a cup of tea yesterday. We’ve been in sales conference since Sunday. Sitting, listening, laughing, joking, learning, and being overwhelmed by the sheer size of the jobs ahead of us for the next year.

When I came into my cube the hawk was soaring so close to my window that I saw the whole spread of his wings. It’s as if he knew I’d been looking out for him ever since his impressive dive last week. He flew by at the one moment I had in my day to actually see him simply to remind me there’s a whole world moving at a pace entirely different then the click of a PowerPoint presentation.

A List…Of Things Left At Home:

1. Wallet. Luckily, I had five dollars in my bag, which meant I could still have lunch.

2. Friday Night Lights for Sam.

3. Homemade muffin baked by my RRHB.

4. TTC tokens. See above. Lunch cost $3.00, which means I’ve got two dollars and some pennies to take the subway home.

5. The part of my brain that remembers things. Even when set out the night before (see #2) so one wouldn’t forget them.

Canada Reads

Goodness, is it just me, or is the Canada Reads list this year somewhat uninspired? I love both Timothy Findley (and I count Not Wanted on the Voyage among my all-time favourite books) and Mavis Gallant, but I’d have to say that the majority of Canada may have already read both of those authors? For my money, I’d love to see Icefields win, as it’s the only title on the list that I read and thought, ‘now that’s an interesting choice.’ And, it’s not often that I link over to the Q&Q, but they’ve kind of hit the nail on the head with the opening sentence, “There’s a distinct last-century feel to the next Canada Reads lineup, which CBC Radio unveils today.”

Wonder

Right now, they’re playing some beautiful music on the CBC, something about the beginning of Advent, and I haven’t the faintest idea what the recording is. Not that it’s even that relevant, because the sky is clear from the 20th floor, and there are birds outside floating, as if to the music, with one soaring eagle (I think) who dove at just the right moment before the chorus came in and the pigeons scattered around. It’s almost as if the soundtrack from inside my earphones reached up and outside reminding me that life goes on every day in simply magical ways if I just take the time to look up from my desk.

NY Times Notable Books

I was blogging over at Savvy Reader this morning about the NY Times Notable Books list. A few years ago, I printed off the list and tried to read every single book on it, but got stalled somewhere around the first five. But that’s not to say that there aren’t wonderful books on the list, just that I, once again, got sidetracked by something shiny before truly getting through the before-blogs-even-existed challenge.

But this year, without even trying, I’ve already read quite a few of the titles (The Gathering, Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, Mothers and Sons, On Chesil Beach, and Out Stealing Horses). And there are quite a few books on the list that are currently sitting on my bedside table waiting for some attention, and I love that there are so many literary biographies on the nonfiction list.

I’ve decided I’m going to do my own top 10 list of books that I’ve read this year, but I probably won’t get to it until the beginning of January, as I’ll be counting the very last pages that get read towards my end of year goal.

‘Tis The Season

The weather might bless us with the first snow of the season tonight. While I’m not a huge fan of winter, I love the first snow. It’s so pretty and white and, well, seasonal. But it also starts me thinking that my life might simply get even busier once next week ends. It’s already booked up with a couple of parties, a reading, a Broadway-style show, a celebration, a lovely rock show with Christine Fellows on December 14th (if you’re not doing anything, please come, it’s at the Music Gallery, and she’s so brilliant), and that little family celebration called Christmas.

Gack!

I’ve already had to pause yoga until the new year because I’ll be missing three upcoming classes and there’s no point in paying if I can’t even get there.

How to remain sane? Now, that’s the real challenge.