It’s A Long Road Home

I’ve been working now for two straight weeks. After two days in NYC and then two days spent at another conference, I’ve just returned from seven, count them, seven days at another work conference.

I’m beat.

Remember when I was blissfully unemployed and convinced I’d never find a job again? Yeah, if there was crow pie nearby, I’d eat some. Um, is that the right analogy?

The Work Conference Part Deux

So today I’m back at a work conference for an entire week. No internet access means no blogging for me. So here are five things I’m obsessed with at the moment:

1. Ethan Hawke. He’s not the world’s greatest actor, he dumped Uma Thurman (wha?), and he’s got those strange crooked teeth, but ever since I watched the heartbreaking and yet still uplifting Before Sunset months ago during my recovery, I can’t get him out of my head. He’s my superstar crush. I think too, because the film is set in Paris, and I’ll be going back there this summer, that it resonated even more for me. That tender place where youth finally transcends into adulthood, barely making a mark on how fast life goes by, it’s been months since I watched the movie, but I’m still thinking about it.

2. “Night Flares.” Greg MacPherson’s new album came out this month. The Rock and Roll Boyfriend had a copy that a friend burned for him, and his band is opening up for MacPherson’s Toronto record release on April 28th and I’m really looking forward to it.

3. Coronation Street. Look, I know we’re, like, a year behind the UK here in Canada, supposing the colonies aren’t allowed to be up-to-date on our “teley,” but the CBC has been showing two episodes in a row for the past two weeks and we’re all obsessed in this household. We all got teary when Todd said goodbye to his baby, and his storyline is so heartbreaking. Bah! Soap operas, who knew me and my snobby, artsy-fartsy mentality would be so obsessed?

4. Prep. The more I think about this novel, the more I realize I really, really liked it. Not just because it’s a fascinating example of teenage angst, but because of how the author Curtis Sittenfeld creates such a real character. Lee Fiora is so absolutely normal, but so heartbreakingly abnormal, that you can’t help but associate yourself with aspects of her life. Who hasn’t sat alone at a food court? Who hasn’t wished they could be a part of cool kids? Who hasn’t looked at themselves in the mirror and cursed their genes for making them so humbly average looking? Don’t let the cover fool you, it’s not a chick lit book, it’s a lovely combination of a coming-of-age tale mixed in with the aura of Catcher in the Rye and Toews’s A Complicated Kindness (as I said before).

5. Deadwood. The swearing (yes!), the traditional Western (yes!), the tragically flawed characters (yes!), the magnificent scripts (yes!) — all add up to this show soon overtaking The Wire as the best show on television. At my work conference over the past couple of days, I met a woman who said, “I don’t think there’s anything worth watching on television, at least not anything that I’d actually make a point of watching.” My heart broke at that instant because I think HBO has revolutionlized television, bringing aspects of BBC-inspired shorter, well-written, excellently performed and magnificently shot series to the forefront. Plus, Robin Weigert, who plays Calamity Jane, makes me howl — the whole diatribe about drinking and farting made me pee my pants.

Oh, and, of course, I’ve got to go away for a whole week and miss all the WB shows with new episodes. What happens with Ephram and his baby? Will Rory stay with Logan? How will Keith react to Dan’s meddling in his love life? So many questions, so little time for television viewing.

Shoes, oh, Shoes

I never learn my lesson. When we were in NYC last week I saw the greatest pair of shoes, but didn’t try them on and didn’t buy them. Then, I checked with the store here and they don’t have them. It’s a hard lesson to learn. The same thing happened when I was in London last year.

All the money books tell you not to buy something on instinct the first time you see it. But they don’t know how to help you deal with the shoe letdown. And not even Bluefly can cheer me up.

Ah, The Work Conference

Having a big fancy job doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s always full of big-fancy and exciting things during the day. I’ve just spent the past workday sitting in a conference about the “new face” of the publishing industry. It’s interesting, for sure, when it’s interesting — if you know what I mean — but when things like that are boring, my goodness are they booorrriiinnngggg.

I spend more time thinking about how smart people stay smart by attending lots of these things, but then I wonder if any jackass can become a motivational speaker just by setting up a web site and calling themselves so…

Anyway, on a more exciting note. I started my poetry class on Tuesday night. It’s always fun to start a class, and especially continuing education classes where people are there because they have a love for the subject matter. Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that the teacher is hot — like, totally, wish-he-was my poet boyfriend, smoking, drinking, walking stereotype of hot smart guy, hot.

Now I wish that my poems didn’t totally suck and that they weren’t so bloody self-involved. If anyone wants to read them and tell me otherwise (wink wink) let me know because I’m suffering from a crippling sense of self-doubt this week about everything in my writing life.

#21 – Can You Keep A Secret?

Oh, Sophie Kinsella, you are like popcorn, light and airy, able to finish quickly and easily, enjoyable but don’t stick around long. I read most of Can You Keep A Secret on the plane to NYC and the rest that night in my hotel, but forgot to include it yesterday.

Why oh why do I enjoy reading books that are like movies on the page these days? It’s the whole chick lit genre that’s got me so stumped. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here for the record: I’m convinced chick lit is the Harlequin of my generation. I read these books the same way my mother read romance novels: quickly and efficiently, where all the plots blend into one, where all the media/publishing/magazine jobs blur and all the characters, unlike Lee from Prep, are hidden beauties, and all the men are gorgeous and rich, of course. Where does this life exist?

Let’s start a faction to write real chick lit, oh, wait, it already exists, doesn’t it? In the voices of Toews and others who don’t see romance as a means of escaping the fact that you still need a plot that you can’t poke a hole the size of an elephant through and character development for a novel to, well, be a bloody novel.

The 50 Book Challenge: #s 17-20

So I’m up to what, 20 now for the year? I finished The Second Summer of the Sisterhood and Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood. Ann Brashares books are like the WB, only on the page. They’re full of angst ridden but spicy teenagers who are strong willed and independent, but still tender and troubled. Perfect for a girl who can’t seem to focus on the television but really misses One Tree Hill. Highly recommended girlie reading; I can’t wait for the movie — honestly.

I also finished J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello, which I felt was not one of his better books. Coetzee’s one of my favourite writers. One of the writers where I’ll only read one of his books every couple of years because I’m afraid of running out and if I don’t have his words in my life, it’s just not the same. But this book was too heady, told from a very strange perspective and in a very odd manner — not that his books have ever had a straight forward sense of narrative, but I just couldn’t get into it at all.

Finally, I read a fabulous book yesterday called Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. It’s a book that’s doing gangbusters in the US, but I don’t know if the buzz has carried its way up here yet or not. In tone it’s kind of like Catcher in the Rye or, more recently, A Complicated Kindness, but it’s not as well-written as Toews novel. It’s an engaging story about a complex yet perfectly ordinary girl who pushes herself to attend boarding school. It’s a coming of age tale that haunts you after you’ve finished reading, but only because you know some daft Hollywood producer’s going to come along and decide they’ll make a movie out of it and fail miserably.

The Rock Weekend

So this past weekend the Rock and Roll Boyfriend played in a series of shows with The Weakerthans, where he’s an auxillary member. So after a fabulous time spending two days in NYC, I dove right into a Band Girlfriend weekend of lots of shows, lots of loud music and even more beer (well, not that much beer because I’m on lots of meds for the disease).

The Constantines are the Canadian rock band — while The Weakerthans will always be the love of my life; the Cons are equated to that awesome drunk sex you have at the end of a long, great night with the really hot boy you’ve had a crush on forever.

I managed to drag my tired ass to all three night shows: Thursday, Friday and Saturday, even though by the end I was pretty sure my bronchitis was back and I was dead sick by Sunday afternoon.

There’s something about a rock and roll show the way everything can be just right: they’ll play your favourite song; the beer will be cold enough and stay cold; the people will all be happy to be there and no one will be obnoxious; and that good feeling stays with you forever. Well, at least until the next morning when you’ve got a wicked hangover and have decided you’re dying because your chest is infected once again and you’re mad because the disease is controlling your life instead of the other way around.

Oh, and did I mention that all of my rock and roll crushes now begin with the letter “W”? The keyboard player from the Cons with his twist-tie legs and boundless energy is named Will; and the lead singer from Cuff the Duke, scrawny and penniless with a new record coming out in the next couple months is Wayne. Ah, to be ten years younger and not an old rock widow with grey hair and too much cellulite on her ass.

NY Frame of Mind

Talk about the whirlwind. I left Wednesday morning at 5.08 AM, got back Thursday evening at 9.30 PM, and spent almost 36 glorious hours in New York City. We stayed at Flatotel, which my friend Wing Chun informed me, was where they filmed the first season of America’s Next Top Model. The room was amazing. The hotel was right in midtown Manhattan within walking distance of Times Square, and how amazing is it just to drive past the East River on the FDR (is that right?) with the sun shining, with the windows of the yellow cab rolled down, with the sights of the traffic floating in and out of the lanes like sea gulls on Lake Ontario, and with the idea that for just a moment, walking with the group of people from the NY office, that people might mistake me for a native New Yorker.

We spent most of Wednesday in meetings, and then raced in a cab downtown to buy tickets from the half-price ticket booth for a Broadway show, which may seem utterly tourist of us, but hell, it’s the Great White Way people? We ended up seeing Twyla Tharp’s Movin’ Out, which unlike Momma Mia, is all dance; no cheesy dialogue and no corny storylines made to fit into the music. Instead, Billy Joel’s music seems to fit seemlessly because the choreography is so good. I was really hesitant to see it, but was absolutely amazed it was so moving.

I spent the first years of my life dancing, and did it all through high school; and when I see it there in such a perfect form (the musical is a magical blend of modern, jazz, ballet and Broadway dance) that it makes my heart ache just a little bit for sore toes and knees and thighs and hard work and sweat and all kinds of other good stuff.

After the show, we went to Jamba Juice, and then to sleep at the hotel. The next day I managed to squeeze in some shopping at J Crew (yee-haa!). And then bam! we’re back on a plane and back in Toronto. And the weather was ten degrees cooler, which made me miss NYC even more.