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I actually wrote more than that but I haven’t transferred it from handwriting into Scrivener so that will come later.

Second day no light in bathroom. Landlord informed, waiting on electrician or whoever they think is cheap enough to be allowed to do the work.

 

I’ve been here since noon

In a couple of minutes they’ll call the flight and I’ll find out if I’ve been sitting here like a fucking idiot for no good reason for the last day. Fort St John is not a fun place to fly to on passes.  PAUL WANTS TO TAKE THE SKYTRAIN HOME.  On April 4.  With no Compass card. My feelings are simple.  He can do what he likes, although with no Compass card he’s not likely to get far, as I laboriously explained to him.  I’m going home in a cab; it’s hours after my normal bedtime and I have hours to go before somebody offers up a bed for me.

later….

Home.  What a fucking waste of a day.  Three flights came and went and I’m not going to FSJ unless somebody pays for my return flight.

Some man was shot dead a few blocks from here.  I don’t think I want to live on this planet any more.

 

 

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Jeff was very kindly taking me out to breakfast and I had some kind of nerve spasm.  I was practically sobbing as I left the restaurant the pain was so piercing. I took Robax and applied heat and got almost immediate relief.  If I’m still feeling better in half an hour perhaps we can continue our aborted food schlep.

Saturday I spent the day over at Mike’s being incredibly lazy. Much talking, many insights.

There is a non-zero chance I will be in Victoria within the next two weeks.  There is a smaller chance I’ll be going to FSJ with Paul, since his cousin has broken something and is recovering in hospital up there and could probably use some company. WHOOPS I’M LEAVING IN TWO HOURS back Thursday ish this week.

I keep flashing on Alex signing mORE MORE MORE in the swing.  It is so lovely to see him talking.

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Off to Metrotown today.  Keith has two jobs now, one of which involves close acquaintance with fish, and the other is actually in his field (optician – even edging stuff!!!.)  To celebrate (yay!) I am taking him to Metrotown (boo!) where we are going to walk around (yay!) and I’m going to spend money (boo!) so that he can refresh his wardrobe. After all he’s tall, slender and goodlooking, so let’s see if we can get him into something in colours and fabrics which suit him.

Yesterday Katie and Alex came over, and Jeff and I met her in the park at the end of the street. Alex laughed in delight at the swings, at the kitty (he petted Margot very gently for a toddler) and is now old enough to pull the ball launch and get it consistently onto the playing field. I think it’s fairly clear he will be a fourth generation pinball aficionado. Jeff went on the swings too because you can’t get too old for that.

Still not much verbiage, but he signs constantly.  MORE MORE MORE at the swings (Katie warned me, he could go all day.) ALL GONE to the sandbox when we left. BYE with a kiss for grandma as he left.

Really not feeling the writing today, so I will do something else useful until Keith shows up.

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I love Buster even when he decants 2 inch chunks of yard debris into my bed.  Sigh. This was his kitten video this am.

Writing progress continues in the teeth of everything & all of it. Seeing Katie and Alex today.  Walking down to New West to see my friend.

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Sorry it seems I’m running backwards, but the interview with Michel and Farah was a non-starter of a scene even though I really like it and may cannibalize it later.

Spent the day yesterday colouring, writing a very small amount, eating cookies and watching tv. And getting a job interview, for Wednesday. Best prospect since Patricia lined me up for a job interview.

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Although the count doesn’t look like it, I wrote 1100 words yesterday, did two loads of laundry, took the bus down to the Quay to see little Alex and Katie.  Katie left me alone with him for a while for a bathroom break.  Without speech he demanded a closer inspection of the train then parked on the track.  We went to inspect it, and he took my hand with no demur. When we got there I said, “When the train starts moving again it’s going to make a lot of noise which you may not enjoy.” He stuck his little hand up like a flag and demanded to recross the street, where it occurred to him that his mother had once again abandoned him to strangers and he grizzled and grizzled until she came back.

We walked to the kids’ submarine and back and then I did a quick SCHNACKS run to the Safeway at New West Station.

The arthritis flare in my left index finger joint is preventing me from practicing mandolin for longer than about 10 minutes at a time, which I’m really hating.

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May he perish in obscurity and poverty, far far from here.  That’s all I’m going to say about Jian Ghomeshi.

I got $40 off today’s Spud delivery.  It will make it extra specially yummy.

Saw Force Awakens, finally, and loved it. All this has happened before, and all this will happen again, and if it happens again now, you will be drawn up in it.

I got a new bathing suit yesterday.  I now feel like I can go back out in public; the green one made me look like a mistake in post processing and the blue one was so sheer it was quite lewd.

Since I have nothing else polite to say, I’ll stop.

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Still not grinding quite as hard as I need to finish this book, but oh well.

I never go swimming with Paul any more but I haven’t told him that the real reason is because my fave bathing suit is too small and the bathing suit that fits me has become too sheer to wear in public.  So today I’m off to get a bathing suit.

No writing progress but lots of churning thoughts

Yet Moar Takeaways from VWF2016.

Passion for a project is the storyteller’s greatest gift. Assemble a team that feels the same way you do about it. It’s not about the meal ticket, that has nothing to do with what you deserve for how hard you’ve worked. It’s about what you learn and who you work with on the way to “Project complete, Project launched” which immediately turns into “Quoi de neuf?” “Et aprs?” Other people sigh and dream. YOU MAKE.

The webseries community is generous and open and hardworking and collaborative and very quick on the uptake.

Once you have a product, you can have merch. Merch extends the reach of the series and provides a revenue stream. When Bernie Su talked about the merch sales for Lizzie Bennet Diaries you could hear all the oxygen leave the room as everybody looked at the numbers, and then the cumulative, adorable plop plop plop noise as many jaws cascaded down into laps.

There are metric crapstacks of tiny, cumulative and potentially career-stalling IP issues around what you’re doing so don’t make a project without legal advice. In Canada, there ARE NO FAIR USE LAWS and assuming that you can do what American webartistes do – that is a road strewn with take down notices and having all your carefully selected music go up the flue. This includes getting proper releases from all the friends who supplied music at no charge, since if they die their estate can sue. As a part time anarchist and full time irritated person I feel the amount of legal crap you have to put up to make webcontent in Canada is flat out unconscionable.

I have ideas for two webseries, Doing Poly Badly and Permaculture in Vancouver. Other ideas have occurred but those two I think have the tight niche appeal that is relatively easy to research. I also want to produce Allegra’s Rant of the Week, which is basically me sitting down after two beers and going all splodey on the week’s worth of news, local, national and international. At least the music will be mine so one less hurdle in the race toward respectability.

My brain is still spinning, but I have never been so pumped for my own writing project, which I hope, once it makes it onto the page, will be realized in screen media format.