I swear I'm not just being bad or procrastinating or unable to write. I'm just SO DAMN BUSY! Trying to write a novel in the same month I have to account for every trip out of Canada in the last nine years, and documentation to prove it, along with having to explain all of my social ties to Canada, and working late at least a couple of nights every week mean that I'm just not on top of anything. But more writing will follow!

Halloween's Almost Here!

Blech! Spider web to the face. Gross, and completely appropriate for Halloween. Thin, sticky threads are matted in my eyebrows. The now-homeless spider had better not be nearby.

A centaur gallops up to my door before I can clean myself up and get inside.

"Trick-or-Treat!"

"Sorry kid, I don't do candy."

"But I said 'Trick-or-Treat.' That means you have to give me something."

"No it doesn't. There's no Halloween contract I signed. No law makes me. Go away now."

"Okay. But if you don't give me a treat then I get to play a trick on you."

Damn. The kid knows the history. A few years ago I wouldn't have expected it, but now that there's Wikipedia I guess I should know better.

"Good luck with that, little guy," I tell him as I slip through the door and close it in his face. I'll just have to be prepared for an egg in the mailbox or some t.p. in the morning. But I don't want to deal with anyone anymore tonight.

I'm so tired that I can barely stumble into bed before falling asleep.

Man, this morning I feel icky. All sticky and cotton-mouthed. I can hardly move. WTF? It's like I've woken up in a Kafka story to find myself in a giant spider web.

That little brat!




This is another product of Word Whips. I don't know how they have prompts that almost always work for me and almost no one else does.

An Opinion vs. an Argument

I've had a few conversations with various people recently where we have differences of opinion and I can't decide if we're actually arguing or just have different views. I used to be a very argumentative person and have worked to change that and mellow out, but how do I balance that with expressing that I have the right to disagree?

The second challenge for me has been that after these conversations I'll find out that he person I was talking to used incorrect evidence to make a point or I'll remember something to support one of my points that wasn't believed. I've just been letting it go, but it's frustrating because I want to say, "See, I  am perfectly justified in having this opinion. I'm not saying you're wrong, but you don't get to say I'm wrong either." I need to find a non-argumentative way to follow up on previous conversations. Or to not care about what other people think.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

One of my previous posts was "how does your family do turkey" and at the time my family doing turkey was having a friend prepare it. But since then, I've actually cooked a couple of darn good turkeys. So I can proudly say that I cook my own birds now, thank you very much. Remember, there's no point in being intimidated by something you might want to try.

Old people can be cool

A little while ago we went on a tour of Vancouver because it was advertised as a free community bus tour with stories about the city. Everyone else on the tour was at least a decade older than us. At first I felt silly, but watching all these older people actually talk to each other and introduce themselves to us made me feel like actually young people should be more open and outgoing.

Then a few nights later we went to hear a co-worker's dad's band play at the local Legion. As soon as the set began a group of middle-aged and older people started dancing. They were so unselfconsious and obviously enjoying themselves that it made me think again that maybe my generation has really missed out on something by being so unfriendly.

But then someone pointed out that maybe these guys were like us when they were young and they've just gotten less self-conscious with age. I hope so because otherwise we have a lonely future to look forward to.

Venice

As I step out of the train station bright, clear light washes over me. This is the lightest light I've ever seen. No heaviness to it like desert light, or filter like Vancouver light through the clouds.

The second thing I notice is the crowd. Rivers of people, tourists and sellers, wind across my field of view.

And there's the water, just beyond the crowd! My first glimpse of this famous water, after so many years of imagining. The big bridge to the left will take me across it, into the heart of this magical city.

I had heard there wasn't much life left here, that all that remains is a manufactured illusion of what used to be. But I can feel the history seeping through to the present. The spirit is here, even if the magic is waning.

The walk to our hotel is punctuated with pictures- I want to capture my first sight of a tiny alley, the first boat-filled canal, the flower boxes on the shuttered windows. My dreams haven't been crushed but are bursting with happiness.


That was a Word Whip timed writing on my first impression of Venice. It was the city I was most excited to visit on our honeymoon and tied with Paris for my favorite place on the trip. Some highlights:

 

This is the first small canal I saw and I made Derek stop so we could get a picture of it.

Derek in the first narrow street we walked through on the way to the hotel

 

 This is where we ended up if we turned right instead of left when leaving the hotel.

Once we got out of the walls around the hotel, this was our view.

 We had a couple of beautiful full moons.

 The Grand Canal from our gondola ride

 There was a buskers festival on!

 The Doge's Palace and city from the campanile

 After not going to any concerts in Paris, Prague or Vienna, we decided to go to hear some Vivaldi played by musicians in period costume.

 I tried to imagine which of the deserted islands would be the best place to hide a carousel as in The Thief Lord.

 The island of Burano has strict rules about painting buildings. Charming little place.

 

We tried to look happy on our last morning, but we really didn't want to leave.

Another Drive-by Posting

We went skating tonight because Derek has new skates to break in and there were a couple of little kids who were AMAZING! One looked like he was about five and was a better skater than I'll ever be. It's just weird to me to see kids growing up proficient in things I was only vaguely aware existed at that age.

I have way too much stuff to do right now - I'm not sure it's humanly possible to get everything done that I should- so blogging will have to suffer. At least my day had a highlight, which is that I don't have to switch offices tomorrow as I had anticipated and so I get to keep my view:

 

You can't tell in this from this picture, but I can see the ocean between the buildings and therefore have a better view than the lawyers. The little things like that help in life :)

April showers bring May flowers, but this year our flowers are being attacked by something. This poor tulip was lying broken in the dirt, so I put it in my bathroom bud vase and it's much happier there.

 Even though our garden isn't at its best right now, friends' gardens are looking good:

 

This isn't a good picture because it was so sunny, but those little star-shaped flowers are one of my favorites. This was the first time I've seen them in white- they're usually purple, which I love. If I ever need ground cover, I'm planting some purple stars.

Saturday crafting

I spent most of yesterday making my wedding cake topper and a sundress. I've always been crafty, but I still feel thrilled watching something go from raw materials to a finished project.

The dress is the most ambitious thing I've ever sewn and it had intimidated me for years - I bought the pattern and fabric back in like 2006 and really wanted the dress, but I was too scared of screwing up to tackle it on my own. My friend Elva came over to help me and patiently told me how to undo the little mistakes I made. It still needs a zipper, but I think this dress looks fantastic!

The cake topper isn't finished either because it needs to be painted, but the shape is good and I'm looking forward to seeing it on top of my beautiful wedding cake and being able to say I did it (again,  with much-appreciated help from Elva). I guess I won't know if I like the results until my wedding day, but so far I find the DIY wedding very satisfying. Even if everything isn't perfect on the day, everything has a story and meaning behind it.

Want to write, but so tired. Would have earlier, but it was so beautiful outside I went for a long walk instead. It's frustrating that being busy at work can sap so much from my non-work life. Any suggestions on decreasing the work-related brain drain are most welcome.

Sometimes I hate that I was raised to be responsible. Working hard is hard work and it means I can't just do whatever I want. This weekend I'm passing up a fun trip because I should save money for upcoming expenses and I need to work on my super-exciting taxes, car repairs, and hotel reservations. If I weren't so mature I would quit my job and rack up thousands of dollars in credit card debt while convincing someone to support me for the rest of my life.

The worst part is knowing that I have it good and really have very little to complain about because all those irresponsible people are going to be jealous when I've retired young and am living most of my dreams. (I've pretty much given up on the private island though because I don't feel like earning enough to pay for that).

The book The Thief Lord has a theme of childhood verses adulthood and which is preferable. At the end of the edition I read there's an interview with author Cornelia Funke where they ask if she would rather be an adult or child. She says being an adult is better and I've never been able to completely understand that. I know some people have rough childhoods, but I have a lot of trouble believing adulthood is really so great.

What do you think?

Landscape Changes

I blogged about some of the pleasant changes that come with spring, but some unwelcome changes to the landscape are also taking place. A number of stores and cafes that I like in local neighborhoods have recently closed or are closing. Almost an entire blocked that I've frequented since moving to Vancouver is being replaced with condos. I'm happy to see more homes in Kits, but why do they have to drive out such good businesses? I know that change is inevitable, but in cases like this it still always makes me sad.

It feels like spring!

It would be normal to think that after 8 and a half years in Canada I might be used to the weather, but it would also be incorrect. In some ways the longer I'm up here the more it gets to me. People around me will celebrate a weekend like the one we just had with sunshine and jacket-free weather for four days in a row as a marvel. I feel entitled to that at the end of March and beginning of April and throughout the rest of the spring and summer.

The only advantage to being in Canada in the spring is that going so long with so many things looking dead makes all the blooming currently underway much more appreciable and appreciated. I love all the color and flowers in our garden and the cherry trees all over the city. We were on Vancouver Island for the weekend and it's the only part of Canada with better weather than Vancouver so the plants there were even happier. Combined with the later sunsets, this weather means I'll be spending a lot more time outside.

Yesterday was my fifth anniversary of dating Derek. As we were talking in the morning about the last five years and what a long time five years is, I remembered UNICEF's statistic that millions of children around the world die before their fifth birthday every year. In 2010 they estimated that 22,000 children under five die daily while the estimate for 2011 was about 6,900,000 deaths under age five. It seems wrong that many children don't get to live as long as we've been dating, so I'm going to ask everyone to consider making a donation at some point to a charity that supports child development or sign a petition if you come across one to increase child healthcare or simply think about how lucky we are to take for granted that we'll be born and live to adulthood.

A year ago I left for a ten day trip to Israel. It was quite different from what I was expecting - more beautiful and less crowded than I'd thought. It hadn't been super high up on the list of places I want to see, but had a great opportunity to go so I took it. Highlight pictures:

  

Jerusalem

 An ibex in Ein Gedi park

Hyrax also live in Ein Gedi

Camel ride

 The cat enjoys having a square in Tzfat all to itself

The view from the top of Mesada. There's so much rock and so little else!

 The Dead Sea

 That's Syria over there

One year later, I'm very glad I went. I shouldn't have been surprised since I'm American, but I wasn't expecting so many different attitudes and viewpoints from the people I met on politics and all the complexity of the Middle East. A good lesson to remember when reading or hearing about the "opinions" of people in any country.

Euphonious Advice

Another Word Whips prompt product for you today. I tried to use only words from a list of words Lemony Snicket thinks are euphonious:

Remember wisdom when you find it
Lament the malodorous and leave it behind
Mondays and November should be dealt with swiftly
Numerous monumental moments will occur - wonder at them
Let lovely lilac lullabies  linger
Volunteer mindful literature and minimal worry
Revamp, reroute, renew
Relive the whimsical
Live long

Happy Day

Yesterday was World Happiness Day and I wanted to post something to celebrate, but it wasn't a very happy day so I decided not to be a downer. In addition to general blahness, I found out about a couple of people passing away and although I can't really say I knew either, neither of them were old and the circumstances were unfortunate.

Today has been much nicer. There was sunshine and good news and to top it all off it's the birthday of three of my favorite people (plus someone else who's not bad). Better a late celebration than none.

I don't know why I never posted my thoughts below. Maybe it was because I get shy about voicing my opinions sometimes. Some people I know wouldn't believe that about me, but, as I've said, I often feel more comfortable living by example than getting vocal. I have no problem blabbing on about issues to those close to me, but in public I tend to be fairly reserved.

 From last June:

Glad to see that many of the people who left comments on this article agree with me. I found the comment that most women would only go without makeup when home with the flu really offensive. Why don't some women wear makeup? For some of us at least, it's because we know we're gorgeous enough without it. There's also the belief that I can spend my time on something more productive than painting my face. As long as people maintain hygiene and positive self-presentation, I think there are far more important things than beautification.

The Way Things are Looking

 I flew home to California a few weeks ago for a good friend's wedding and the day after I got back I came down with a terrible eye infection. The good news is that it didn't and won't affect my vision, but the bad news is that I'm stuck wearing glasses for the next few months. I've never been able to wear glasses because as soon as I needed vision correction I got contacts and every time I tried to wear glasses I'd get terrible headaches and be extremely grumpy and other, unrelated bad things tended to happen as well. But now I have no choice, so I bought new glasses that were carefully selected and measured to cause as little unpleasantness for my head as possible:

I've posted this picture because I realized that many people who've known me my whole life have never seen me in glasses. I'm pretty sure one of my grandmas hasn't even seen me wear them. But this is what I'll look like for the next little while.

On a happier note, spring is in the air and I'm looking forward to this being my view again as I walk to the bus:

The Ides of March

Since today is rather significant in Roman history, I've decided to share a few of my favorite quotes in Latin. I took Latin in high school and I haven't lost quite everything I learned.

"Amor tussisque non celaverunt." (Love and a caugh can't be hidden.) I've always liked this one because it's fun to say and so true that people can almost always tell when someone is in love.

"Nemo repente fuit turpissimus." (No one was ever very wicked suddenly.)

"Nunc bibendum est." (Now we must drink.") The gerundive with est indicates duty, obligation, or necessity, which is why we MUST drink. TGIF.

I feel all worldly and happening today. This afternoon I was listening to CBC Radio 2 because that's what I listen to at work since part of the day is classical music, which is good to work to, and the rest of the day they play lots of Canadian music, which I feel like I should be exposed to because I'm in Canada. The DJ did a whole bit on how John Mann from Spirit of the West is very funny and is randomly in the pilot of Battlestar Galactica. He's also married to someone I know from work and is always very nice, so I got to be like "Yay! National radio is talking about someone I know(ish)."

Tonight I worked at an author event for Meg Tilly, whose name I didn't immediately recognize, which made me feel bad because I almost always have at least a vague notion of who an author is if they're getting an event. But she's movie star who's connected to a few famous people in addition to being an author, and she's also a great speaker. Listening to her was lovely, and she was very open to answering all kinds of questions. If you ever get a chance to go see her, I highly recommend it. I also don't feel bad for not knowing who she was before the event, because a friend of hers told me she prefers that to being all famous.

Inspiration Strikes Again

My fiance's best friend Beth has been doing all kinds of cool things for the past few months and writing about them here. I hadn't really read her blog for a while because I've been getting the life updates straight from Beth, but tonight I was feeling a little blah and decided it would be a good way to procrastinate on all those annoying things I don't want to do even though I should. This line she wrote resonated with me:

"My hope has always been that what I write will inspire others to find solutions within themselves to the problems nagging at them".*
 
Helping people enjoy life more has been a major goal of mine for the past few years, but I've always felt it's a long-term goal. I'm still pretty young, inexperience, and sheltered by luck. Who am I to tell people what's good or better? Yet I feel that I've been collecting a lot of useful information that some other people might also find helpful. I've briefly considered looking into becoming a life coach or inspirational speaker or something along those lines, but none of that felt right. I've always believed that it's better to set an example than dictate.

So I'm going to start setting that example. The first step is to finally get back to blogging regularly. In order to do that I'm going to let myself post whatever I feel like and not only things that are "good" or so rough that I don't care if they're any good because I know I'll clean them up later. I need to practice writing and since I've never been prolific I need to practice any way I can, as much as possible. This will also help me write more fiction for the writing career I'm trying to build because if I feel like I have to update on progress then I'll have to make some progress.

Hold me to this please people! Follow-through has never been my strong point. I'm interested in doing so many things that if I start slacking on something I rarely notice immediately because something else takes its place. On the other hand, with my history I feel like I can be proud I'm not abandoning this blog after almost three years of not doing what I initially intended.


*Look at me using my period outside the quotation marks like a Canadian! Never fear Americans who are judging my grammar, you're allowed to do that up here.


On a completely unrelated note, I just read a reference to American Girl Dolls costing $110. When I wanted one in elementary school they were $81 (or $83 - even if I can't remember the exact price, you know I must have looked at that catalog a lot to remember approximately how much they were 20 years ago). So I decided to check out the American Girl website and see what's happening in the American Girl universe now. Oh man! I knew some of the original characters had been retired, but it's down to just Molly and Addy! Why Molly? I only know one person who liked Molly. Molly's not bad, but Kirsten, Samantha and Felicity were WAY more popular. And the new book covers! And 1974 is not historical! Okay, it is to little girls today, but not like 1774! Even if my Samantha doll is a knock-off, she's going to be treasured forever. And now I definitely can never give those books away because if I have a daughter she will only read the classic editions and not those new ugly things.