Your Canada Reads! update: Wednesday, they voted Margaret Laurence’s Stone Angel (which I read when I was sixteen and didn’t enjoy; it disturbed me, although I have enjoyed other Margaret Laurence works) off the list in Wednesday. Yesterday, they voted off Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance (which I have not read, and intend to very soon). What they end up with for the first ever national book club will be very, very interesting…

Ceri reports that Coca-Cola will be releasing a new flavour in May. You guessed it: Vanilla Coke! Woo-hoo! It’s coming out mid-May in the USA, and up here in the True North Strong And Free sometime later. I foresee a strike force crossing the border to grab some, because heck, I certainly don’t want to wait…

My only problem is, whatever will I do with that bottle of vanilla schnaaps in the cupboard?

Well, I did it – my applications for English and Humanities teaching positions for the Dawson Cont. Ed. summer session have been handed in. The girl who took my envelopes even said “good luck”. I have a good feeling about this. If you could all cross your fingers (or your toes or your eyes or whatever you do) to help me along in this, I’d appreciate it. (At this point, the scene near the end of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone where Ron bellows, “ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?” at Hermione comes to mind, for some strange reason…)

Heck, I’m just impressed that I went ahead and did it. I’m quite good at rationalising the status quo in my life. I like being safe. So this action of actually going out and asking for reference letters, doing the C.V. and taking it in to Human Resources (in person too!) is a huge step for me. I think it’s because I’m looking at this as being an investment in making a better kind of safe status quo. If I have to be in retail, the shop where I work is the best place to be, but there’s a whole other world of career out there.

Plus, I took the 104 bus into town, so I got to see what the route looked like in reverse. I even said to myself, “Self, this is the bus you’ll be taking into work once you get the job and have, say, a ten o’clock class.” (Accentuate the positive!)

Whew!

Now, I wait…

Do you know what the CBC is doing for Canada Book Day? They’re running a Canada Reads! project hosted by Mary Walsh. The question: “Is it possible to find a single book that captures the imagination of an entire country?” The thesis of the project is simple: five notable Canadians get together, each recommending a Canadian book of their choice which they believe all of Canada should read. There’s a daily debate between these guests, moderated by Walsh, and each day one book is voted off the list leaving a single book at the end, to be announced on Canada Book Day, April 23. This will be the book that Canada Reads.

The gests are pretty diverse: Kim Campbell, our first (and only, so far) female Prime Minister, who is defending A Handmaid’s Tale by Maraget Atwood; speculative fiction author Nalo Hopkinson, who is defending George Elliott Clarke’s poetry collection Whylah Falls; Leon Rooke, novelist, story story author, and widely published, defending Margaret Laurence’s Stone Angel; Megan Follows, actor, who is defending Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance; and Steven Page, co-founder and lead singer of the Barenaked Ladies, is arguing for In The Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje.

Tough choice!

The debates are terrific – they’re seriously arguing the pros and cons of each book, the themes, the meanings, the strengths and weaknesses. They’re all terribly good books, and the guests are having difficulty choosing one to vote off.

You can vote for your favourite work of Canadian literature too – check out the Canada Reads! website and click on the People’s Choice – Cast Your Vote link. I must go into the library room and try to decide on which Robertson Davies book or Timothy Findley book to vote on. Then there’s always the L.M. Montgomery oeuvre, and Jane Urquhart’s Away… damn…

Well, here we are: a typical Montreal summer day, and it’s only mid-April. You can feel the water hanging in mid-air, and my hair is frizzing. Ah, summer. Two and half weeks ago we had two feet of snow fall. Only in Montreal!

Neat things I�ve done lately (other than take a new bus home):

Picked up the new Mediaeval Baebes album, The Rose. In my opinion, their finest collection to date. Yes, I have my tickets to the concert here on May 3rd. Found a nifty article on the Baebes “coming out” as Pagan, too. This surprises me not at all.

Watched the third season finale of Buffy. Wow. My convocations were nowhere near that exciting. Joss Whedon really took the old clich� of �graduation is a rite of passage� to extremes, didn�t he.

Read a lot. I�m noticing that I�m rarely in the midst of a book when I blog; this stems from the fact that I read fast. Books I have read: Child of the Prophecy, the third book in the Juliet Marillier’s Sevenwaters trilogy. Not as good as the earlier two; explores the theme of family and belonging in a different way, and didn�t have as likeable a main character. In fact, I found myself getting a bit exasperated with her. Yes, yes, you moan because your grandmother has you completely under her control � ever wonder why she�s so intent on keeping you there? Maybe because you threaten her? Get past the limp and stand up for yourself! The ending was a little too pat, as well. A Pilgrim In Ireland by Frances Greenslade: a very good first-hand narration of her solo trip to Ireland to search for roots, and the feeling of unbelonging that rose up to stop her. Where does a Canadian belong when we feel like intruders in our own land, and exiles from the land of our ancestors? I also finished Tea With the Black Dragon, a lovely little tale of history and innate magic transcending time and death (sort of).

CURRENTLY READING:

Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope. The first chapter is designed to not make you want to read the book. I am convinced of this. It’s not very portable, either; two and a half inches thick will make it difficult to slip in my purse while going to work.

You may have noticed that I�ve been rather silent these past few days.

Darn right! I told myself I wasn�t going to sit at my computer all weekend, since it was so beautiful, and since I sit at a computer all week. I’m very proud of myself: apart from a short trip here to check email on Sunday morning, I didn�t touch it.

Then yesterday, after my hiatus from surfing and typing, I checked the on-line job postings for summer teaching positions at the local CEGEPs like I�m supposed to do every day. Eep! They�re up! They�ve been up for four days and I hadn�t been checking!

Well, my stomach sank and I panicked. Job postings only go up for a week; you have to have your application in by the end or you�ve missed it. The deadline is this Friday. After telling myself that it�s an essential step towards submitting applications for fall teaching positions, and taking a walk to clear my head, I was ready. By the end of the day I�d retooled my C.V. (again), written a short cover letter, and asked for a reference letter from someone with whom I�m currently freelance teaching. I�ll expand the cover letter to point out how suitable I am and how appropriate this freelance teaching is, then drop it off on Thursday on my lunch break. Then they�ll fall in love with my C.V., call me for an interview, and offer me a job.

I�ve been psyching myself up for this for a couple of months now. I don�t think I ever expected it to actually happen, for some reason.

Why does change have to be so difficult?

I just got in! I did something very exciting today: I took a new bus home.

I love taking new buses. I like seeing where they go, how they get to the end of their journey. I enjoy finding new ways to get from there to here. So today, I left work at 5 on the dot to walk to Atwater and catch the 104, which MLG informed me stops two blocks away from my apartment building.

It does. It did. I�m home, without having had to descend into the depths of the subway, switch cars, and stand on the packed 105 on a day as beautiful as this one.

One simple bus. I�m thrilled.

On the other hand, I still have to bus-metro-metro in the mornings because the 104 passes here at either 8.40 or 9.31 AM. Twenty or twenty-five minutes in to the city, and wow, look I�m either really, really early or just a bit late.

The quick and easy trip home on a Friday after a long week is quite the gift, though. Hurrah! Let the weekend begin!

Sigh. Wake up – can’t talk. Growl and gurgle at cats until some semblance of vocal production returns.

I discovered, to my immense annoyance, as I was proof-reading another contract last night, that we have no corrector fluid. No Liquid Paper. No corrector tape. Anywhere. I deliberately hid the corrector tape from my klepto-like husband who walks off with supplies and loses them somewhere (probably the same place my cat hides pretty sparkly things she finds), and he apparently found it because it’s not there any more.

Why is this a Bad Thing? This is a Bad Thing because I was given hard copy to edit. In future, I will make a photocopy and scribble on that, because I obviously can’t be trusted with an original. At least, not after an eleven-hour day in retail.

I will go to work early and make use of the corrector fluid there. Ha.