Author: Allegra

wrote about 150 words yesterday, did a couple of loads of laundry and ran the dishwasher and went for a walk and did a small shop but other than that it was kind of a nothingburger day

Deer Lake Park is beautiful as always, but I cannot seem to shake the brown study.

I need to go for another walk… the walls are not my friends right now.

go give your dirty mind a bath as one of Leon Uris’ characters once remarked. I am going to have to have a painful and hopefully brief convo with a non-family member about a matter which will impact, uh, stuff that’s impactful. It’ll probably go better than I imagine will be case at the moment but I hate conflict of any kind and that’s why my bed seems like such a particularly lovely spot to park. A lot. Mind you I can write and make phone calls in bed so maybe it’s not so bad? I don’t know. I’m feeling it and hating it and wish I could be over doing it and dealing with the outcome, even if it’s —

what?

What would happen if this person stopped speaking to me? I voluntarily stopped speaking to somebody this past week and I felt terrible about it (briefly — let me be clear — briefly.) But if THIS PERSON stopped speaking to me I’d turn my face to the wall for a couple of days.

And then I’d get up and be nicer to the people I had left. I guess that’s all I could do. I just can’t. I can’t do that conversation right now.  I’m happy right now and I want to stay that way for a while. Editing with Jeff was FUN I LOVED IT.

There were three people of colour in that room yesterday. All the presenters were white, and all of them were women. Festivities opened with an acknowledgment of Musqueam land.

They mentioned the UBC MFA program about a hundred times, as if it was some kind of talisman for getting a book advance.  On the basis of what I see regarding Canadian publishing, they may fucking well be right.

There was some good advice and parts were interesting, but it was almost completely and nearly totally an expensive waste of time with 1.5 hours of transit on either end.

It seems obvious the traditional pipelines for books and publishing are collapsing slash drying up.

I’m still going to try to find an agent, but honestly I have even less faith in that now than I did before.  Upsun is too niche.  I know it and I’m going to suck it up. Nothing happened in that room to make me want to stop writing.

Crashed at Mike’s Friday; dinner was leftovers given the Mike spin and it was really really tasty; breakfast, which was closer to lunch, was mixed veggies at Mr. Ho (we walked, and that was wonderful.) It was a really glorious day.

Henleys are great but they tend to be warm. I’m thinking of customizing the two I bought to make them more form fitting and buying mediums in future.

When we got to Desi Turka for Keith’s birthday celebration, we were shy Keith’s boss, Jeff and Mike, all of whom had other plans, so it was just the five of us.  I love interacting with Alex.  He says the most hilarious things and he’s an affectionate little dickens.  I asked him (when I took him for a run so his mama could eat) if he wanted to watch the car wash and he said yes. The woman washing her car in the stall I had him perched in front of burst out laughing when she saw his little face over the concrete wall.

Today I’m here.

So probably not much writing.

Keith’s birthday today.  Honestly, the last year went by like nuthin’.

I could assemble a nice family oriented rant about it, but all I’m gonna say is that Paul and I, with help from Keith’s basic temperament and other relatives, managed to raise a decent human being.  That’s an okay feeling.

Word count for yesterday topped 900. Things progress. This scene is a phone call from space.

Paul just called, we’re going to head out to walk and possibly eat.  Hope it’s pho.

The person referred to as LTGW on this blog and I are no longer on speaking terms. It all happened by text. People who love me are aware of the circumstances and I’m doing okay, but this has sort of been brewing for the last three weeks. I dislike tossing a decade-long friend aside, but there was a really stark mismatch between our needs and interests, plus he stopped wanting to see me IRL, which is what allows you to stay entrained as friends. I’d been keeping track of our interactions for the last six months and becoming increasingly sad and disaffected.

At least we didn’t ghost each other, I fucking hate that.

When I say ‘I’m doing okay’ I mean to say that I’m really pissy and disappointed and butthurt. But… this too shall pass, and along with it (I piously hope) any idea that I could ever change a goddamned thing about my friends. A friend is kind of a whole person package deal. She is what she is, he are what he are, they be what they be.

…is not going here. I just learned that I did not get paid for the last days of my work at (the Company I Ain’t Naming until it’s in my interest). I could go for a fucking hour about how they were ignorant douchebags with delusions of competence, but meh. I emailed the chief wackdoodle and imagine I’ll get a reply in a couple of days. Nothing’s stopping me from going back to the office with a skunk under my arm, but no, not yet.

It’s only a thousand dollars, after all.

Fortunately, the writing is going. I may not include this interview in the final novel, but I’m going to have fun doing it, mostly because Jesse is a very fun playground character.

250 words so far this morning on HOTM. I am fuelled by tea and chocolate ice cream, evil creature that I am.

I sure do. I had evidence of it yesterday, and of course I can’t talk about it. But it was real, intense and fleeting. Also, in parts, stupefyingly howlarious.

Not hilarious was the news that Mike’s taking me and Cassidy to Bob Dylan on the 25th. (HOLY SHIT U2 AND BOB DYLAN IN A TWO MONTH SPAN).

So today I’m def feeling the love. Katie and Alex are settled in at Poppa’s place (featuring UNGA KEEF), the family buffet made it here alive and life is okay, BETTER than okay actually.

More edits, and then UPSUN will be done.

I got Alex by myself for three whole house the day before yesterday and it was amazingly…. tiring.

I’m continuing to work on the Alex Jumping song. The expression on his face when I start to sing it is worth a bucket of gold.

He finally got to play Xenon for as long as he wanted to, which was at least half an hour. He used to be scared of it but now he loves it. I took video of him playing but the file’s so big I haven’t been able to email it anywhere, I’m probably going to have to stick it on Google drive or something.

I also took him out to the park and pushed him almost as much as he wanted in the swings and got an idea for a poem while I was pushing him.

Jeff and I are going to be working on final cuts and then posting Upsun. I’d be more excited if my eyelids weren’t stuck shut.

Stellar meal at Mike’s last night, cod with smashed potatoes and onions and bok choi. NOMz.

Not much writing… I’m sort of in a strange mood.

My most important interaction with him was getting him back onto the sofa when he partially fell off it in his sleep (feet down, like a sensible chap). Packed 7 boxes for Sue, which sounds trivial, but they were knickknacks, so kinda not.

Paul was apparently a true champ yesterday. I got to help with the last move so I dodge this one, works for me, this is viz Katie’s move. Frequent moves are horrible.

I did shit and wrote words yesterday but mostly what I did was wander around in the sun, bedazzled. Thirty years from now that’s the glint I want, the sun that finally penetrated my flesh and got into my bones after this stupid winter, which only just felt like it stopped. That is the remembrance. That and thinking I’d lost my sunglasses when they were on my head, and oh my.

about 100 words on HOTM. It’s okay, I’m thinking about Lara and her mom in the background.

IT WAS AN ALEX DAY YESTERDAY. Katie’s moved in, temporarily, with her papa. Paul barbecued halal chicken and it was so clucking good it would BLOW YOUR MIND. Watching Keith play with Alex filled my heart up. Walked back home with Paul, laughing and talking as one does when one has had a family evening. Hour and a half on the phone with a friend as well… it’s always lovely when you don’t run out of things to talk about, but sleep impinged…

I was terrified (bowels loosening scared) by a noise around the house this morning and it was just a flicker banging on the roof right above my window.

Took out the trash, with Jeff being gone and all, it won’t take itself out. There’s a joke in there somewhere, maybe.

One of my favourite actors just put up a website for the first time and the bio section is so cute, so incredibly cute. He fell in love with his wife when he was sixteen, and he’s in his forties now, so when he says “I wish I’d fallen in love with her earlier” it just makes you think about things like … well I think about my fOlks, who’ve said similar things. Happily married people make me happy, cause there’s just so damned little of it.

Something nice happened to me that I can’t talk about. I am very lucky in my friends.

The family buffet is going to live here for a while; it means rearranging the LR somewhat.

I’ve written 2500 words today, but don’t worry, there’s some HOTM in there.