like it like that

And then there are the things that I like.

Things like really tacky songs (who knew a song could be tacky?). I submit to you for consideration Fire Burning by Shaun Kingston. God, that song rocks.

Maybe I like to dance with my girls if their dad isn't home after supper. By my girls I refer to my girls, one is 2 and one is 5, and after supper/before bed can be a make it or break it hour for us. I find that a good ole fashioned dance party, replete with some very loud Black Eyed Peas, turns our getting on each others nerves-ness around.

And maybe sometimes I like to read Danielle Steele at bedtime. Yup.

I like to take Wednesdays off work because really, who needs to work 5 days in a row. That just seems ridiculous to me.

I also like getting my eyebrows waxed. I mean not just so that I look better, which I do, I have very strong brows and they become wild and beast-like without proper maintenance. I mean, I like lying on the bed, having someone fuss over me, and entering a dreamlike state for 15 minutes interrupted only by hot wax and burning skin. When you have kids this really is a treat, trust me.

I like black nailpolish on my fingernails because I think it looks really sexy and not at all Goth. If it looked Goth I wouldn't like it.

I like singing along to the radio in my car. I also like letting people in if they are stuck in traffic, and I've had the opportunity to test that one out a lot this summer as half of the bridge is closed for construction. I always imagine that the person I let in was one moment away from a really bad day and I just turned it around for them.

I like going to yoga every day at lunch. If, as I so often say, I ruled the world it would be mandatory for everyone everywhere to go to yoga everyday.

I like picking my children up from daycare. Nothing beats that. Nothing.

I like writing again. Writing about things that aren't for work. Just to write. I like that a lot. I like being back at it.

Bright side of the moon

I grew up in Regina, Saskatchewan which when you are young feels like the middle of nowhere (and that is a bad thing) and when you are older feels like the middle of nowhere (and that is a good thing).

We played behind our house in the field, catching frogs in the culvert where the water would a foot or so deep. Although you wouldn’t believe it now, it feels like the entire time I was growing up there was a drought there was lots of talk about the poor farmers and the grasshoppers. I have still a personal hatred for grasshoppers, and one of my most vivid memories is being outside after supper wearing my pajamas with a watermelon on the front of them and feeling something on my ribcage. When I looked down there was an enormous grasshopper looking up at me. I felt as though I lost my mind for a few minutes. That led to my brothers putting grasshoppers under the door while I was in the bathroom so I would have to wait until my father came home from work to pick the lock and get the grasshopper.

But this isn’t about grasshoppers.I can’t imagine now letting my girls fish for tadpoles in a small body of water, the world has changed just enough that I see too many things going wrong with that, but perhaps they could scoop around in the small stagnant body of water in our backyard that was a pond with a fountain and fish when we moved into our new home. Along with an inability to let my children go the summers have gone and now instead of heat we have rain and humidity and everyone carries an umbrella. When I was little we didn’t have umbrellas because it was too windy when it rained and they always turned inside out. So now I carry an umbrella in my purse and I keep my children close and take a jacket to work in July in case it cools off like it tends to.

I wanted to be the editor of McLeans and although that is off the table I imagine that at some point sooner than later I will have a published novel and another on the way and the ideas that keep me awake at night, writing swirling sentences in my head will be put to rest at paper. Kind of like an exorcism; until the words are on paper they exist endlessly in my brain, floating and bumping into one another and generally making me crazy. Just a little crazy, enough to cause some sleepless nights, but not enough for certification. Ah, I’ve always believed that creative people walk a very fine line between what we call mental illness and quirky, although I do like to stay on the bright side of the moon.I also wanted to write for a living and although currently it seems as though I am wading through molasses to get there I am one.step.close.every day. I’m at one of those points in life where it fluctuates wildly between warp speed and small-town slowdown; where for a few minutes it feels like time is rushing madly like a river and then suddenly I relax and get some perspective and hey, wait a minute, it’s all going to be just fine.

Just fine.

Hello

Is there anybody out there?

Welcome back to me. It's like I'm throwing myself a party. A little early, all the (hm, was going to say shit but am not clear on the rules I had for self on use of profanity etc.)

Let's try that again.

Welcome back to me. I like that even better the second time, it's sort of like I was away somewhere glamorous and I'm being welcomed back to my real life. Which is also very glamorous, of course.

It is a little early, the shit that hit the fan is not all done but it's done enough that I can see the light and hallelujah and all that and damn it, I missed writing.

I was still writing, for work and all that, birthday cards and postcards and repondez s'il vous plait and grocery lists (I said glamorous; that may have been a lie) and cheques and cheques and cheques....perhaps I shouldn't get into that because I can feel my breathing getting all tight again. That is likely just the bronchitis, but I'll avoid that cheque talk for now.

I'm all over the map, I know. My fingernails used to ache for a couple of months when I put on those gel nails. The ones where you go into a little sweatshop type room every two weeks and spend what I considered a very painful hour or so (I know - obviously I was not a mother at that point - who has an hour to do that sort of thing anymore?) and I would come out with these funny little nails that I just loved. However. In the middle of the night I would wake up and I swear that my real nails were screaming at me to get.those.awful.things.off.we.can't.BREATHE. So I did, and really I was much happier once I could use my hands again instead of having to get other people to do pretty much anything that required use of my hands.

Point? Yes, the point. For the last few months, since I have not been here I have felt like that. Like my fingers and whatever small spot it is in my brain that finds it imperative that I am writing was waking me up and screaming. Screaming for whatever peace it is that this brings me.

It became so bad that I was writing constantly in my head. I'd get into the elevator at work (yes, many things are new and so I will have to apprise you of them but have patience I'll get to it the work of which I speak takes some energy and more time and so my time is eked out in small parcels, very little of which currently goes to me) but anyways when I get into the elevator at work or go to put the diaper on the baby or fill up the water table so that someone can shoot someone else in the eye with water and everybody can cry I was doing it all in Sentences in my head. Like:

"As Carolina filled up the glass [water table] of the sunburned tourist [sunblocked child wearing a hat] she wondered if he always fought with his wife like this [will she EVER get along with her sister?]"

Or I would imagine these ridiculous lives of these women wearing such strange clothes on the 10th floor. What is it about the 10th floor of my building? I mean really, how is it possible that they all wear such weird things? At some point, if I am ever not late for work I must stop on that floor and get out and see just what exactly is going on. Given my ability to be consistent if nothing else, however, it is highly unlikely that I will ever be not late.

I have faded out, my burst was short and probably not that sweet but oh so necessary. Again, with all the formality deserved on this occasion, I would like to welcome me back.

Welcome.

And a sharp turn off the path

This might be a good thing, I'm thinking. Of late (perhaps of always?) this blog has been devoted to, ahem, the lesser. Ranting, raving, and the ridiculous the headliners, and often a good dose of as-far-from real important as as could be.

I have these two people in my life. People. I have to highlight that word, because it's only recently struck me that they are people, not mini-me's or mini-already-exisitings.

At five it's pretty darn apparent that she is her own person. Listing off all the lessons she takes and/or will take, I got to basketball. Basketball has always been a sort of given, as it's her dad's passion. Plus she's nearly my height.

"Basketball?" Her little nose wrinkled and her forehead creased. "I'm not playing basketball, mummy." There are times when her voice is firm and sure, and this was one of them. "I'm going to play golf."

Golf? Golf? Who knew.

We are not golfers. Oh for sure, we have an expensive men's set, along with expensive additions and boxes of pristine white golf balls. Golf shirts in size XXXL, won as doorprizes. I even worked summers at a golf course in high school. But we are not golfers.

The little one is mad for books right now, and when I say mad I'm quite sure it wouldn't be an exaggeration to hint at froth at the mouth. She sits next to me now, with her mullet hair pulled back in a ponytail and her face determined as she flips through the pages, hunting for babies, dogs, and Dora.

"Gook! Gook!" She turns around and backs toward me, bum out in a half crouch, ready to plunk down on my lap. "Go. Go." Her voice is commanding, the way a second child must be in order to get their own attention.

We walked outside after dinner tonight. There are still piles of snow everywhere but the frigid has lifted and now it's just frosty. Cold and all, plus a glass of red on top of the Tylenol yellow pills made me feel all warm and fuzzy. Little one on the toboggan and Miss Five walking beside, we enjoyed the fact that at after six it was still light out.

We've made it. Spring is coming.

[at which point readers hear full course of "Hallelujah"]

Mother-effing cold

I fought the cold and the cold won. Bastard.

I was so sure I could kick it. I used my neti faithfully, doubled up on the Progressive Vitamin C, and went to bed early. That's not totally true, but I did watch Pineapple Express which I thought was going to totally suck and I laughed out loud many times throughout. Rather odd, my husband thought perhaps I was drunk and perhaps I was, but it was still funny. Point being that I thought laughing was good for the immune system.

Even though I felt like ass yesterday I went to yoga and that part of the day was awesome. [If you can, go back and re-read that sentence and sing the "awesome" part because that's how it's supposed to read. Awe-some, like that.]

I'm going to drag myself to Mysore tonight but I have no expectations whatsoever that I will a) be able to breathe through my nose and b) enjoy headstand.

In hopes of a brief nap while the baby was down I allowed the five year old to do my hair. This involves her getting out all my "product," as she calls it, and spraying copious amounts in and then patting it down and complimenting me on my very "smooth" hair.

It was only after I realized one of the products she used was an aloe vera after sun skin care, but no mind. It washed out.

If we weren't mostly strangers I would post the photo of me, nine or ten (perhaps eleven) months preggo with the second, in July, with incredibly high humidity (in my city that rhymes with fun we don't normally have humidity so I don't know how to describe it other than ridiculous) when I let the child do my hair and then put makeup on me. A few of you have seen it, and hopefully still love me. For those who haven't I don't think it would be good for our relationship.

On little sleep, less time, and not much going on

I live in Small City, Canada; you may also know it as the one that rhymes with a female body part. One of the awkward about living in a small city is the potential for run-ins everywhere you go.

[Aside: at least my city rhymes with something fun and not poop.]

You know what I hate? When you see someone out of the corner of your eye and they do that thing where they pretend not to see you.

[Another Aside: I'd like to know who coined "corner of your eye" because it makes so little sense.]

Of course, let me stress that this rarely happens to me. Rarely so little it's practicalynon-existent...everyone always wants to see me. That's the old metaphor, as in, "her voice was dripping sarcasm." Ah, metaphors.

I wish there could be a moratorium on awkward moments like this. I hereby add this to my list. If I Ruled the World people would be required to smile and nod if they saw a person they know. None of this duck and run stuff, no eye contact avoidance, and leave off on the looking around at obviously non-interesting stuff. Lame, lame, lame.

I don't propose that we have long, drawn out conversations, no, nothing like that.

[Another Aside: my mother would NOT like the above sentence. On the cover of my manuscript, underneath the fake quote from Maeve Binchy saying that it is a lovely book and I am a great writer, my mother wrote "with way too many commas." Since she read it she has become obsessed with commas, even to the point of cutting articles out of the paper that have what I like to think of as trailing sentences, full to the brim with commas.]

But in the interests of common courtesy, I submit that it is easier to smile and nod than pretend a vapid ignorance of the person two feet to your left. Much less energy.

I'm interested in the comma issue, though.

Let's try that again.

I'm interested in the comma issue though.

This brings me back to those long discussions with Tyler the English teacher and the use of "too."

Are commas a personalized stylistic punctuation choice? How much is dictated by decree of some manual? How much is up to the writer?

Ciao.

Literary and commercial fiction

I don't typically do this but this particular post called out to me. Readers who don't care about fanciful writing questions should come back tomorrow for the basic slush.

First, one must link to this blog where Lady Glamis of The Innocent Flower asks the question:

Question For the Day: What does the word "literary" mean to you? How much of it do you include in your own work? And if you do, do you feel that you are choosing a smaller target audience?

Ah, good question. It's like you dove into my head.

Literary, to me, means writing the way I wish I could write. Let me try to explain, because this is tricky.

See, I love many authors. Danielle Steele and Maeve Binchy for my lazy afternoons on the beach (these come about once every three years, but I still appreciate them). I also love P.D. James, Ruth Rendell, Yann Martel - etc. etc. etc.

The difference is that I view the commercial fiction as the easy fiction. Easy to write, easy to read. Literary takes time. Each sentence is perfect. It tells a story in a way that is more than like two friends talking over a cuppa. There are layers, perhaps.

I love both kinds. Kind of like I love both my children, even though they are different. However, and this is the crux of it all, while I like to write literary and I know that I can, I tend to write commercial because it is easy. I vision my life as playing out something like this: while I am busybusy with the children and this NEVERENDINGINFERNALEFFINGRENOVATION I will write my easy commercial fiction. To say it's easy means it just flows off the end of the fingers; the stories never stop, and if I had the time and the energy I would probably write all day long.

Once life is....word choice is key here...once life is manageable, easier, simple, oozing time...once that happens I will write where I must take my time. Where I put much effort into it. Where I may write a page or two and that will be exhausting.

Each of these are a whole different creative for me. I love them both, I can only do one at a time.

And that is okay with me.