Category: Writing

attendees Trent, Jim, Hal (and his spectacular gluten free southern style peach cobbler which was outeffinstanding, Cassidy, Joe (and his SPITBALL GUN), Jean, Keith and Paul. Not everybody was there all the time. The sun came out after a grey day, when things got underway.

It was lovely. Eat Drink Talk Laugh. Finally everybody left except me Mike and Jim, and we sang and played, and then Jim got a mischievous look and we sang my partay song “An Evening of Serious Drinking” and then I crashed. Mike’s sleeping in the basement.

The outside is tidied already; the inside shouldn’t take too long. Keith volunteered to help clean up today, isn’t that sweet of him? Anyway, today looks wonderful.

It’s four-something in the morning, a little note.

 

The day sign is the Ten of Pentacles. Little happy dance. In a minute the shoving of the furniture for the party will commence. I have to make a list.

Looking forward to seeing the folks tonight!

Katie and Alex and Paul are off to Edmonton. I hope she has a healing trip and much laughter and fun with her friend Julie.

Keith said that he’s never been happier, since Alex moved in.

Katie and Keith are getting along really well. Paul’s in his glory.

This is my new favourite picture.

I’ve put on ten pounds since I stopped working. Time to run around a bit more.

I feel much better. Seeing Alex (his little head on my lap as he watches tv; his busy little feet as he crashes his ‘car’ into various objects in his Poppa’s back yard) makes me unreasonably happy. Seeing Katie getting ready to go visit a friend in Edmonton for a week. Hearing Keith say that he’s never been this happy in his adult life (after having a toddler move in with him, what does that say to you). Hearing Katie say “Notice how clean the place is” and me giggling.

Things that hurt quit hurting. Seeing Katie happy.  Something’s been missing for ten years.

Seeing Keith and Katie so mutually supportive. I’m crying on the inside, because you never know, right?

Sunrise at the Aerie yesterday – I should have been writing or editing and played computer games instead, lazy sod. Lovely lunch at Mr. Ho. Very lazy day, apart from the walk to see the kids (Paul’s in Seattle).  I think now my tank is filled back up I can work.

 

Lamb dinner at the 6th Street Grill last night.

Maybe 100 words. I need to understand that it’s EDITING TIME NOT WRITING TIME.

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.