Category: ragdoll rambles

We’re heading up to the cottage for the very last time of the season. It’s bittersweet. I always regret leaving because there’s a part of me that feels like it’s home up there, and it’s hard for me to sometimes admit that so much time has passed.

That life moves so quickly.

That time can feel painfully long or painfully short, and still be exactly the same physical distance between one point to the next.

Things I did today:

1. Bought a pair of super-cute silver shoes for a work function. (I went,. I felt uncomfortable, but was excited to see our company win a prestigious award for some terribly hard work and some ridiculously creative thinking).

2. The reason why I’m still up has everything to do with Friday Night Lights. First off, why in heaven’s name does Matt kiss every girl he comes into contact with, and then apologize. At least Saucy Caretaker got in the car before he could possibly do that mumbling thing he does. Aw. And my favourite line, “Don’t you whisper-yell at me. Don’t you whisper-yell at me.”

3. I’ve been reading and loving Late Nights on Air. More to follow.

4. Vacation is bliss.

5. Why do people on television wear so much makeup in bed?

6. There’s drywall on some parts of our new walls. Drywall makes everything better.

7. Smoking Aces is a very disturbing movie. Perhaps I should have picked something a little more light-hearted to watch in my final vacationing hours.

8. Wireless internet is fun.

9. I am sure that I might be the only viewer of Men in Trees that recognizes Jerome from North fo 60. He’s kind of playing a version of the same character. But that’s okay. The show just quoted Kierkegaard.

10. Riggins is still hot. Homeless, but hot.

10.5 I am trying to convince my RRHB to get back to the city in time to go and see Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead.

The strength of the Canadian dollar continues to cause havoc in the book buying industry. Indigo just let their feelings be know via press release yesterday. I’m not going to lie, when I was in NYC I considered buying a truckload of books that I knew very well I could get in Canada because they were so much cheaper. But then I’d have to carry them and it was a very small plane.

When you can see that a TP (like my copy of The Gathering) is a full $4.00 cheaper ($14.00 vs $18.00), it’s a little upsetting, but when you think about how hard it is for businesses to change, and imagine that there’s no way anyone in the industry could have predicted this would happen so quickly, I tend not to worry about it. It’s only $4.00 and Ben McNally’s worth it.

Yet, it’s not just the fact that I can buy cheaper clothes from JCrew or be annoyed that there’s huge disparity in big ticket items like, well, cars. It’s more the idea that things in general are just worth so much less in the US, and that’s now going to bleed into the way we think about consumption as well. Do we really need all the things we buy? And will we really all run out and buy 10 new cars just because the market’s forcing them to be far less expensive?

I can’t answer those questions. All I can say is that I was a little upset yesterday when I cashed one of my advance cheques and actually lost money for the first time in the history of my relationship with my wonderful publisher. It’s a shame that in a sense we’re watching a civilization in a kind of decline when it comes to the United States. I wonder if that’s what the rest of the world felt like when British colonialism started to crumble? Maybe I’m mistaken, and making huge sweeping generalizations, but perhaps the people on a global scale need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and figure out what’s really important. Maybe the American “Have it All At Any Cost” Dream might just need to be reimagined? Who knows. I’m waxing philosophical for no reason other than the fact that I look out a beautiful glass window on the changing trees in Toronto every morning and wish that it’ll be there for the next generation of girls who have to sit here and contemplate before attending a meeting.

Ragdolls are, by their very nature, social beings. They flit, sometimes flirt with either gender just because it’s fun, and chat; they love to chat. They were admonished on almost every single report card for being too chatty. So, if there’s one thing that brings a ragdoll down, it’s loneliness. And while I’ve been talking a lot about this to other people in my life, and as this blog isn’t really of the confessionary sort (see Scarbie, who remains far better at baring her soul than I do), I don’t normally go into too much detail about my personal life.

You never know who might be reading, right?

But today, today I feel the need to share. I’ve got a great work life, don’t get me wrong, but as I left a place where I was constantly surrounded by people I could chat with, people I could goof around with and people I could, well, feel like I’m friends with, I’m feeling a little out of sorts at my new job. It hasn’t really been that long and it’s really not why you’re at work, and I don’t have a negative thing to say about a single person I work with, as they are all lovely, lovely people, it’s just been a long time since I was the ‘new girl.’

High school was particularly traumatic if only because I lost my mom at the beginning of it and simply didn’t recover by the end of it. I caught the crazy disease, and things were slightly insane with my father. So, I decided to go far away to university. Not another province, but as far away as I could get within reason. What a mistake! With the exception of my cousin, again, who is lovely and who saved me more times than I can count when we were at school, I had no friends. I cried a lot, felt strange and awkward, and did a lot of listening to moody music and walking around in combat boots. It’s not until right now that I’ve figured out it’s because I was probably lonely.

That’s another thing about ragdolls: they’re sometimes a bit slow to get to the point.

Here I am again feeling a bit glum, a bit down in the dumps, and I think I’ve put my finger on it: I’m lonely. I miss having a buddy to go to lunch with or grab a cup of tea with, all of those things you do at work with your work friends. I’m sure it’s just a phase, and in a couple of weeks I’ll have turned it all around and found my place here, but for right now, I’m feeling a little like the grade eight girl at the dance who’s standing by herself in the corner rocking back and forth to “Somebody.”

And I don’t expect a chorus of “awwws” (as such from the Smiling Otter’s Writing Group last night) because it’s really not THAT big a deal, it’s just kind of hard when you’d love to talk to someone other than yourself.

Heh.

Yesterday we had a busy time of it as I sped through the day high on the first good night’s sleep I’d had in what felt like weeks. (It’s all lost today though as I barely fell asleep before midnight, tossed, turned, and then woke up at 6 AM without a chance of falling back into slumber). I read a book, got some blogging done, did some homework, read part of the book for my next Harlequin assignment, and then we raced up to Bolton for our niece’s second birthday.

And oh my goodness is she ever cute at two, loving being the centre of attention, she played, cajoled, laughed, and squealed, and said the cutest thing, like, ever. Toward the end of the party, she piped up from her caked-covered high chair and said, “I’d like some coffee.”

Heh.

The leaves are starting to change, and when we came back from the movies last night, there was a definitive chill in the air. The leaves are all changing and falling in piles on the sidewalk, and I’ve almost accepted that summer is truly and definitely over.

That doesn’t mean I won’t miss it, though.

So I’ve been working on this super-long story for about one full year now. Pretty much all last summer and through to this fall, so maybe that’s more like eighteen months. I find that I write so much more in warmer weather that perhaps it’s a sign we need to finish up this house and move to different climes.

I hesitate to call it a book, especially considering that I never finish anything, I don’t want to jinx myself when I’m so far along with one project and have started another bit of school to try and keep my focus.

But I’m struggling because I can write until my fingers want to fall off, typing has never been a problem, and still be unsatisfied with all the bits of the work that I’ve done. Which means I usually abandon the longish stories before they’re really anything other than half-done and start something else.

Cycle meet perpetuity.

So while I’m not 100% at the jump ship stage, I can feel myself keening slowly in that direction. I wrote a short story in class that I quite like and want to clean up for submission, and I’ve got another longish story idea buzzing about in my head.

I feel like a Carrie Bradshaw moment: “How do you know when to stop or when to keep going? Are we all just waiting for the right last words?”

But more importantly, how do I keep going and get to the finish line?