January cures

I’m slowly reading The Little Friend. It’s unfortunate that there doesn’t seem to be much time for reading these days. I know that a major part of the reason I managed to read 50 books last year was largely because of the first five months of the year in which I was taking the subway every day.  It makes me a little sad to think about all the reading I was doing over the holidays and how the only book I’ve managed to finish in the past couple of weeks was Deenie. But that’s modern life these days– overly scheduled busy-ness. I was reflecting this morning that for someone who prefers to be at home, I definitely seem to spend a lot of time out of the house…

But it’s a hard thing to complain about when I’m doing so many things I enjoy. I met with my writers group this week, which was immensely helpful not only for the insightful feedback but also for the deadline to produce something. Deadlines are a gift! If I can stay on track to produce a story or a chapter every month for the rest of the year, as per my 2014 resolutions, I will definitely be in good shape to finish one of the things I’m working on right now. It’s so exciting to look at a project and realize that you’re past the halfway point to a complete first draft.

The January Cure on Apartment Therapy is continuing to inspire me. I haven’t completed all the daily assignments (some aren’t really applicable…and some are TOO applicable/impossible right now, if you know what I mean), but I’ve done a few and have gone above and beyond on some of the others. I did a quick reorganization on my closet after I finally switched up my summer and winter wardrobes, and now that my hangers are full of things I haven’t looked at (much less worn) in months, I’ve got that impatient, tingly feeling that suggests I might be able to get rid of a few more things soon. I have too many skirts where the waistline is at my hips (why??) that I never feel good wearing anymore.  And though there is something nice about my thrifted cashmere sweaters (um, mostly that they are super soft lovely cashmere), none of them are cut to fit in contemporary or flattering ways. You’d think the fact that I paid $1 for each of them would make it easier to let them go, but I get so excited about bargains and thrifty finds that sometimes it actually makes it harder.

The other good thing about organizing my closet – even with the rushed, incomplete job I did – is remembering what clothes I have and actually wearing them. This is another good reason to try to thin things out: so that I can actually see what’s there. It has been a major help to have most of my dresses temporarily packed away because I have a lot of them. (With dresses, it is definitely harder to concede that there are too many. There are just enough!)

I’ve still been taking a photo every day, but at least half of them are pretty mediocre or random selfies. This one probably seems equally random, but it was a lovely breakfast prepared by my husband last weekend:

The most important meal...of the week

Yum!! In other news, I am really ready for this cold weather to be over. It's so stabby cold and sunny bright out there that it reminds of me of Winnipeg. I can hardly wait for it to be -16 tomorrow, which is rather a sad observation.

chalk paint and summer storms

This blog has been quiet of late, due partially to a (very) little bit of writing (hurray!) and idea-hatching and a vow to spend a little more time relaxing and being social.  Also, I've had two four-day weekends in a row, both of which I spent mostly away from the computer.  

I've lost track of most of what I was going to write about here, although one notable standout was almost getting hit by lightning last weekend.  We were out on our back porch, moving a painting project out of the way of a sudden impending downpour, and lightning struck the transformer on the closest pole to our apartment...less than 10 meters away.  It was like a bomb going off: a huge flash, sparks, smoke, and it felt like everything was shaking.  My husband's ears were still ringing hours later.  (He was closer.)  We lost power, but we went to a movie, and by the time we came back, it had been restored.  It was also a real neighbourhood occurance, as everyone milled around once the rain let up a bit and the scariest part of the storm had passed, to say, "Did you see that??"  

The painting project in question has also taken up a fair bit of time.  Here is a "Before" picture:

 A photo of our bargain hutch from the Kijiji listing ($80!)

A few weekends ago, we went on a quest to Pointe Claire to buy this special chalk paint that doesn't require any stripping or sanding before application.  (Just a coat of wax afterwards.)  I'm really happy with how it worked out...I only wish I had bought more paint because there are so many things I'd like to update!

We started with something small...a random wooden star decoration that I've had forever:

 The paint and the star.

(Also, if you look in the top right of the photo, you can see the

 I Heart Cheese graffiti tagger has struck in our alleyway. I much 

prefer "I Heart Cheese" to fellow tagger "Cobra Cock".)

Random blue star ready to be deployed.

Then on to something bigger...We started the hutch last weekend and finished it up last night.  The weather (perpetual intermittent rain) has made things difficult!  My husband did more of the painting, but we both did the waxing and the buffing.

D.fixing the cabinet door closing mechanism.

Finding enough room to paint on the deck was a bit of a jigsaw among the few remaining bins and boxes of smoky things we're still hoping to clean.

 I probably wasted too much of the purple accent paint inside the drawers. 

It turned out not to suit the spot we'd planned to put it, but we found an even better spot on the other side of the room.

Finished hutch!  I'm really happy with how it turned out.
(Though it needs to be levelled off to compensate for 
our sloping floor, and we still need to replace a pane 
of glass. I'd like to change the lower knobs eventually, too.)

We have a few more budget pieces we're hoping to paint, if the weather and our patience cooperates.  It's almost unbelievable that it's already July and it feels like the summer has barely started. 

On a non-chalk-paint front, some nice things have been happening with the book lately, too, but I think that will be a separate post...

Winter in April and what I'm reading

It is actually supposed to snow tomorrow.  Snow.  15-20 centimetres.  

In a way, I don’t mind.  I’ll be able to bundle up in my full winter gear and not feel bad about it.   It has been cold for days, but the worst kind of cold, where the weather forecasts have only prepared you for double-digits until the night before.  The forecast giveth, and the forecast taketh away.

I’ve been missing the simplicity and warmth of my black shearling boots.  I never thought I would miss winter boots, which I guess means my careful selection process and expended ($$$) funds were well worth it.  It’s possible that what is making me grumpiest about this changing weather is my general confusion about how to dress to stay warm enough on any given day without the ability to rely on a giant parka. I hate being cold.  It's April, after all.  There isn't supposed to be any more of this: 

 A photo by T. from our knitting weekend

Enough about the weather. 

Well, I wrote all that yesterday.  It has now snowed, stopped, started again, stopped, rained, and it is now a light hail, I think.  Oh well.
 
Yesterday I finished reading Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.  A super-quick and easy read that I enjoyed…perfect for the subway.  It didn’t really light a fire under me to start running, as it isn’t really that kind of book (though I sort of hoped it would be).  I can really only relate to that kind of striving when it comes to writing, or the occasional personal pet project.

I also recently finished reading Diana Athill’s Midsummer Night in the Workhouse.  I wish I had put down my thoughts about this collection right away, but it probably enough to say that I really enjoyed it.  The style and the social mores are very of the era (I don’t know this for a fact, but I have a feeling most of these were written many years ago), but the intellect and observation of the writer are profound.  It reminded me of the power of well-balanced explanation in fiction.  Writers are so frequently exhorted to “Show, Don’t Tell,” but there is plenty to be said for telling when it is artfully done and when what is being communicated is complex and unique.

Right now I’m reading The Dinner by Herman Koch, which, so far, is the perfect follow-up to Athill.

This weekend I really need to start preparing for a few upcoming events, even though just thinking about them makes me nervous.  And nervousness = avoidance mode.  Wish me luck.

To spite the weather, here's a cheery, spring-y photo of some yellow in the kitchen, including some beautiful tulips Z. gave me at my launch, which lasted and lasted.

Hope everyone is staying safe and warm with all this sleet and ice and snow all over!

nearly February, crazy weather

Well, the list for the Oscars is out and Midnight in Paris is on it, and somehow that’s the only one of the long list of movies up for Best Picture that I’ve seen --- even though I’ve seen a ton of movies this year, it feels like. Just not those ones yet.

Speaking of movies, my mother came by my office today and dropped off an early birthday present of a DVD player, as mine was on the fritz (where does that expression come from?*) for so long (after, admittedly, functioning perfectly between 2002-2010…a decent run in the world of electronics, I suppose) that I finally had to retire it altogether. (Although along with everything else I’ve “gotten rid of,” it continues to sit in a box near the door.) Along with a new-old large TV someone gave me recently, this heralds a new era of luxurious movie-watching at home on something other than a 10-inch screen. My mother was also kind enough to bring a can of Tim Horton’s coffee and a big package of gourmet jelly beans (already opened).** Somehow I’ve got birthday bounty, and I haven’t even started to think about my birthday yet. I can’t believe it’s almost February.

The weather these days is crazy. Snowstorms. Rainstorms. Bitter cold. More rain. Repeat. It turns out that even when rain is freakishly unseasonable and frankly alarming (hello global warming), and even hazardous (sidewalks and streets frosted with slick ice), I still like it. The warmth isn’t unwelcome either. It gives me that spring feeling even though I know it’s a lie. I wonder…if global warming really carries on in the dreadful way that has been predicted, will that spring feeling ever give way to one of impending doom, or will that sudden Canadian lightness-at-heart that arrives on a warm breeze simply coexist with the rational concern we’ll all be feeling? I think there may be a tiny bit of buried glee even as we slather on SPF 5000 in the middle of February.


* According to various online sources, nobody knows for sure. Surprising!
**Recommendation: do not look at the ingredients on a package of gourmet jelly beans. (Shellac…plus two kinds of wax.)

how to make it into the acknowledgements

On the worst, last day of last month's heat wave, my friend J invited me over for a work date. I'd mentioned how I was finding it really hard to write and she told me she'd bought a second air conditioner for her apartment and that I ought to come over. She's working on her Ph.D. thesis (pure brilliance on Heidegger*), and has her own routines and preferences, as well as probably a pretty good sense of my writing quirks, no doubt due to me droning on and on about them now and again in the form of some sort of complaint.

Her invitation went something like this: "Do you prefer a desk or a couch? I've changed the sheets on my bed, so you can have a nap! I'll make us lunch and tea and cool drinks all day long! Here's the wireless password! I don't like music when I work, so it will be quiet. Is that okay?" (Is that okay? Can I kiss you?)

It can't always be easy to be friends with a writer. I have certain anti-social tendencies. I don't always like talking on the phone. (Not a hard and fast rule, by any means, but I've gotten out of the habit of making calls. When I sit down to use the landline at home, I usually catch myself dialing "9" first.) My friendships have adapted. We text. We email. We go on Google chat.

When the writing is going badly, I usually start to feel down and guilty and drop off the map. I miss everyone, but I don't know how to reach out when it feels like every little thing I'm doing is taking me away from the writing and I'm too miserable about it to have anything interesting to say. I'm grateful to know people who don't take this personally (or who can forgive or overlook this awful habit). I'm grateful, too, to have friends who can ask how the novel is going and be satisfied (and not visibly surprised) to receive the same answer, or variations on the same answer, ten times in a row.

I have friends who are writers, too, of course. We write a LOT of emails, then we get together when we can and drink and talk for four hours at a time. Once a month or thereabouts. Sometimes longer.

I've been feeling really lucky lately for the people in my life. I feel like they put up with me, and they prop me up. They inspire me, too. Trying to be a better friend is something that makes it onto my list of resolutions year after year.

J., naturally, was as good as her word. Her apartment was a cool paradise. She made incredible, unearthly food (yummy spicy rice and dumplings), endless tea, and fascinating refreshing tonics involving lime juice and rosewater. We sat and worked quietly (and sometimes talked), as her boyfriend generously left us to our own devices, and I made some critical headway in reading over my manuscript after a lot of days in a row of heat-induced mind mush.

* I have only a passing familiarity with Heidegger, and I haven't read her thesis, but I am assured of its brilliance nonetheless. And I'm certain that when I do read it, I'll find out everything I need to know about the big H.

cool down and emptiness

The weather has finally cooled down here, which means a respite from tiny summer dresses back into comfy long jeans and t-shirts. It's always exciting, initially, when it's warm enough for those flirty sundresses, but I feel more like myself, somehow, when I can wear a minimum, modest amount of clothing of the sort in which I could easily undertake any of a range of possible, improbable tasks: dish washing! ditch digging! apartment fleeing! spontaneous dance partying! And truth be told, I can't remember the last time I did any writing in a rose-patterned tea dress. Jeans it is! All the cool things get done in jeans.

The heat wave also stalled me out on what I have been wishfully referring to as my "fast novel project." The concept? Write a fast novel. Sounds good, right? Well, easier said than done. (Duh, you say. To which I say, touché.) Working from a set of deadlines dubbed the "nerd grid," I've been trying to quickly turn out some pages of a novel I've had in mind, while remaining accountable to my two friends who initiated the exchange with each other in order to stay motivated through the editing progress of their own manuscripts. Deadlines are a gift, and I was (still am!) really excited about their stimulating possibilities. But absolutely no writing could get done in my apartment at 42 degrees Celsius with my one sad, whirring fan. Maybe this is not unrelated to my point about jeans above. Sitting around in fever heat in the politest alternative to underwear one can scrounge up does not inspire literary genius, or even say, a couple of average sentences, which is what I more reasonably strive for, in general. I did manage to do a bit of editing on my existing novel-in-progress, but that's it. But the problem about arbitrary, self-imposed deadlines is that once you breeze by one, it's very hard to re-conjure your existential faith in the rest of them. But we'll see.

The other problem with writing right now is that -- for prose, anyway, in my own limited experience -- one really has to be calm to write. And I'm not calm. I think a state of not calm is a great one for dreaming things up, for getting excited about a million different projects, for thinking up beginnings and endings and complications, but it is not ideal for that discipline of sitting back down (and down and down and down again) at the computer. That requires its own special kind of...I almost want to say emptiness, in which you can find enough stillness and space to let the story come on its own and fill you up.