Month: May 2015

church meeting

We put together the themes for worship services next church year, and then had a really interesting conversation about livestreaming our services.  I had an awesome time, although getting there practically ran me through a sieve.  AND parking at condominiums SUCKS.

Now I don’t want to go to church this morning!!! I feel like I already gave at the office.  I will anyway, if I can figure out what to wear and have a shower and like that.

167 words yesterday, 360 words so far this morning.  I fleshed out the Michel and the Nonna squib, and have been adding to the Pharos and Theo sections.

Mike called me twice from Wreck Beach during the meeting.  As much as I would have loved to, I think my time was better spent where I was.

Meeting with financial advisor tomorrow, second interview in the afternoon.  I sure hope those clauses end up being connected in real life.

A bit of writing

SO DISAPPOINTED in Mad Max, yes I already said that

232 words yesterday.  It was emotionally satisfying to be writing again. A cop gets a nutshot, so that was fun.

Chronic Tacos does not make as nice a sopa de tortilla as Pamola.  Srsly. I got takeout and will finish it here, but Chronic doesn’t make their own broth, unless my tongue has completely yielded up differentiating home style from bottled.

SO GLAD I got to the lawn before the landpeer got here to police up the flower beds.  Bert sat in the shade in his wheelchair while Kim worked.  Kim’s over 70 herself now.

Temporarily done with the churchy project. I’ve been asked to go to the Worship services meeting on Saturday and I think I will go, it will be a good group and for a number of reasons people who’ve been quite active can’t be so anymore.  I’ve been on the committee when Lutina was chair (the good old days) and I’m not doing much at church since it’s hard for me to do the coffee when I can’t stand for a couple of hours with my symphisis all hissy.  I still do homilies when asked.

I don’t think mOm has seen this – check out page 11 of this pdf from Beacon. There I am singing two years ago (with a balloon tied to my mandolin).

And we come upon a time of death

We are come upon a time of death, a time when Mortality scales up and lays out everything at once.  In your life, it is a news of a death of someone close, and then another, and then another, and then your facebook feed is full of deaths of friends of friends, people you’ve shared a meal with, people who are a voice and a way of seeing things and not merely a statistic.

People I love from church are already diagnosed and dying at home.  Now we have news of more, another elder, again, cancer. We have our protocols and our way of dealing with it.

In our church, we sometimes delegate another to take our calls when the first stinging news hits, how like grit in a high wind. We can’t take the deluge of calls.  Someone we love steps in.

There has been a lot of death in my life lately, but I’m not sorry for any of the dead.  I’m sorry for the grieving and the dying, and I’m very sorry for myself, for feeling these things more than I should.  When the feeling doesn’t turn to action, it’s sounding brass all the **** over again.  I can grieve in service or I can stay quiet.

So I will admit that I’m sad, and that I have reason to be so, but I will also say that having snerted my little snert into the hem of my thankfully washable dress, I will try to write a funny scene, hopefully full of delicious slapstick and horrified parents.  I can’t be of service, but I may at some point entertain.

Also, Mad Max is not all that great a movie.  I’d give it a solid B+, although there are some indelible images in it.

Welcome to your chronic ailment

If I exercise I can manage pain but what I have is permanent.  I am not interested in a steroid injection in my hinge so no treatment except self-directed physio.

Here is the sheet music for In the Lineup for the Ferry, since the work continues even when in the mood I’m in, which is close to indescribable.  It is at least a pleasant day and I made myself a yummy smoothie (blueberries, peaches and strawberries) instead of coffee this morning.  With coffee cream, yo.

In the lineup for the ferry

In the lineup for the ferry midi

Then I’m going to take Jeff to Chronic Tacos for lunch and then Mad Max Fury Road.

 

 

 

Woke up at 1:30

I have been passing wind continuously for 90 minutes.  My abdomen makes noises – “borborygmus” – so loud my whole bed frame shakes. A couple of minutes later, spectacular, long, windy choruses free themselves from my body. There is no pain, no high exhaust gas temperature, no stench.  Just LOTS OF GAS AND NOISE.

’bout one hundred words yesterday.  I’m feeling sessile.

Also, people keep dying. Somebody I was in an APA with 20 years ago (Morgan) has passed away.  She was close to people I really like and I haz a bit of a sad as a result. She told the most wonderful stories.

On the plus side…. It was lovely to talk to Chipper and Tammy on the phone yesterday.

 

Interview and writing

The interview went well enough, and it seems a pleasant place to work. I was quite sore when I got back but it is a completely manageable commute (although it feels super weird to be going to the same old station as I did when I was working at Xantrex).

I wrote about 100 words yesterday.

Keith came over and we watched Big Trouble in Little China, which is about one quarter of an awesome movie and whose design elements never quite gell properly.  Still, very entertaining, and rather different from other movies made in 1986.

Score! mOm and Jeff and I are watching Grace and Frankie at about the same rate, which is like the first time we’ve been at the same stage of watching a show in like, forever.  She adores all the leads, as do we.

I wish the sun would come out… what a difference it makes!

Facebook seems to be down.  Hope it stays that way.

Got a wonderful and welcome email from Donna about the circumstances of the Circle Dinner being cancelled.  I am so heartened by her kindness in taking the trouble to let us know.  My thoughts are with David and I am thinking with gratitude of his health care providers, who really went above and beyond.

And now, to return to work on the novel or something like it.

2000 word day

Finished the chapter on Kima’s pregnancy yesterday, and wrote a really weird little squib about Michel and his time in Montréal.

At the last minute of the the children in the story crawled up and said, “But wait there’s more!” and it will all feed in to the rest of the plot, so I’m happy.  And there are parts of it that are surpassing weird, and a couple of really funny lines.

But I feel weird today.  When I’m writing really hard I feel altered. Not bad, just not quite seated in the detent, ifn you know what I mean.

“Baroque kitchen sink feminist sf with hard sf pretentions”.  Still trying to work on the perfect phrase to get people to want to read it.

 

Words yesterday, words today

I’ve already made wordcount (over 1000) today, so now I’m thinking about working on churchy business and making something for the Circle Dinner tonight.  Sue’s going to give me a lift.

And that’s about all.  I had a lovely time with Katie and Alex and Jessica and Ellie at the Quay yesterday, but she hasn’t sent me the pics yet…. sadface.

Also, VERY SORE from yesterday’s walk. Five more days until I see the specialist.

I have a job interview on Monday.

Non compliance

This is a new device for people like me, non compliant CPAP users.  No thanks, even if I didn’t actually use it last night I’ll stick with the CPAP that hydrates the air.

I believe I wrote 1007 words yesterday, but my counter went a little bloopy, so maybe it was only half that.  Bhwa.

Skytrain tracks caught fire this morning, so things are going to be dripping with slow for the commute. Line’s shut between Joyce and Waterfront, what a cluster.

Back to the saltmines.  I am trying to get started on a chapter that needs way more research than I have the energy for right now.

More non-compliance, this time from the Mayor of Burnaby. Go Derek.

WHO launches a program to catch the next big outbreak.

This is the kind of news item that really fires up the mystery writer hiding under my sf writer.

DADBODS ARE A THING.  Full disclosure.  Long about a million years ago, I was walking through the CNE grounds with Lois and Ruth (erstwhile Sisses-in-Common-law) we saw a lovely young man of about 20 rocking chiselled everything.  I turned to the ladies and said, “I dunno ’bout you, but I just can’t find a man super attractive these days unless he’s got a tiny bit of a gut.”  They both turned to me and burst out laughing.

 

the casting game

Of course, having designed the books to be turned into a tv series (well, I did, right from the outset and if not a tv series then some other form of episodic televised joy), I get to play the casting game.

George.  I have not run across the actor who could play George. Andrew Scott is fairly close to him in body type, shape and sizewise, but he’s not quite eastern European looking enough. Think a more hooked nose and higher cheekbones.

Kima.  Kima would mostly be a voiced character.  Some skinny young thing who’s a dancer could play her on the rare occasions (mostly in the first book) that she’s bipedal.

Michel.  Ditto, alas.  If he ever settles on an appearance he could be played by a Big Scary Bald Black Dude, since that’s the human form he likes best, kinda.

Raven.  Unknown Canadian actor. She’s fat, so it would be a plum role for a qualified lassie.  (No older than 25).

Jesse.  Unknown actor from anywhere, since his physical qualifications are going to be tough. (Jesse is big, tall, dirty blond, pumps iron and does not take steroids). Jesse’s the same age as Raven, give or take three months.

Grandmother.  Sue Sparlin. After seeing my friend in Lost in Yonkers, playing the evil old grandmother, I went, yup, that’s her (both for the performance and for her grip on the accent).  I know for a fact that she would be deliciously narcissistic and crunchily fun, and she would be able to portray confusion and dismay with more than enough style. Photo credit her daughter Aura McKay.

Avtar, Winnie and the Tornado: All unknown actors. Avtar is subcontinent extraction (and furry), Winnie is Chinese and Caucasian, and the Tornado is (obvs) a loud and interesting blend.  Vancouver is a town full of marriages and liaisons between every ethnicity on earth, so I thought it would be good to show one.

Brendan: Just about any competent actor in his 30’s could manage Brendan, but a 9/10ths scale model of Chris Pratt with the gut back on and some acne pitting would do the job.

Ruby, either Michelle Thrush or Columpa Bobb.

Gwen the publicist.  Maggie Gyllenhall. Hands down.

Farah Jalali.  Well of COURSE I WANT ARCHIE PANJABI but I think Rekha Sharma (who played the assistant in BSG and is a local) would do better than well. Actually now I think of it she’d be awesome.

 

892 words yesterday .4 hours. 319 words today so far.

I went downstairs, Jeff’s watching F1, and I say “Monaco?” because I like guessing which track it is before I sit down, and I was right.  First, you look for the palm trees…. then you look at the architecture.

SUMMER

It is Suddenly Summer after a long spring.  It wasn’t forecast, but Vancouver got the May 2-4 weekend we’ve been longing for.  Normally, we have overcast in May.  This weekend was rilly glorious.

No cpap, no writing.  I did get the disgusting hell hole that was the front hall where the litter pan was mucked out, ran some laundry (and used the line to dry, yay!) and hacked away at The King Will Never Die (the BB King memorial song, which is, as frikking usual, morphing away from me into something else.)

Jeff took me to brekkie.

The agent for the landpeer comes over this morning and we re-up on our lease.  And why not, they aren’t raising our rent, which in Vancouver is better than winning a lottery because then all your friends and relatives aren’t bugging you for cash, but you still have more in your pocket.

Time to go make three days of wordcount.