Category Archives: Words Words Words

Time

I slept really well last night, and woke up to discover that it was 6.58 AM, and HRH’s alarm hadn’t gone off. It actually hadn’t not gone off, it was set for the proper time, but when our power went out yesterday morning and I reset the clocks, I remember making sure that I set it to the AM time. Although now I have a nibbling suspicion that when I went back to check it, I reset it again to the opposite of what it was, assuming that I had forgotten to do so in the first place.

All’s well, though; HRH woke up just fine, got ready and left in twenty minutes, plenty of time to pick up his passenger at 7.30. I made tea and brought the Sense & Sensibility Screenplay to bed with me, read it from start to finish, and then Emma Thompson’s simply killing film diaries which follow it. The only film I ever worked on was lots of waiting about and not knowing what was happening next, cutting lines left right and centre, and bagels (don’t ask), with no fun or chumminess at all. When I’d done reading I felt like popping in the Pride & Prejudice DVDs, although that would cut severely into the writing jam this afternoon.

It’s the last writing jam for a while, as most of us are here and there over the summer, and one will be working a six-month contract as of any day now. We ought to come up with goals or schedules and check up on one another anyway. E-mail each other work, and such.

Difficult to remember that I’m flying out to Hamilton on Thursday afternoon. I ought to put neon asterisks around the note on the calendar.

Those Who Know

Thanks to a meeting last night, everyone’s back on an even keel, on the same page, and there were even visual aids provided by HRH, who sketched neat little cars and drew people inside them as we worked out transportation to our annual spiritual retreat down in Pennsylvania.

Oh, and the Second Cup’s frozen hot chocolate? Delectable. You can actually taste real chocolate. I might skip the whipped cream on top next time, although after drinking the rest of the deliciousness the whipped cream ended up at the bottom, flavoured with the remaining chocolate. I’ll have to be in a decadent mood to order the whipped cream again. The drink itself, though — a definite winner. And what do you know, there’s a Second Cup only ten minutes away from me…

Autumn, the Human Barometer

Over the past twenty-four hours I have been driven slowly mad by the changing air pressure as mirrored by my sinus cavities.

Dear gods, yes — the pressure outside changes as the mini-fronts come through, an ice-pick suddenly appears digging deep into my cranium from one of the many lovely little sinus chambers. I often don’t realise it until I find myself attempting to curl my fingers through my skin and into said sinus cavity to release the pressure. Yesterday, I moved inside and outside my in-laws’ house a dozen times seeking relief as the pressure subtly shifted by a kPa or two.

They grilled shrimp for my birthday. Wasn’t that a wonderful treat? And they gave me a lovely leatherbound blank book, with a nifty red owl bookmark that will travel with me to Toronto later this week.

My newfound need for naps illustrates how miserable sleeping at night in Montreal has become, now that it’s summer again. HRH put the air conditioner in, but I still seem to sleep better in the afternoons. I also attribute my odd need to sleep so much to a reflection of how mentally exhausted I am after producing a polished book in ten weeks.

I’ve read two books since I finished the manuscript: Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Ancestors of Avalon by Diana Paxson (which was only so-so; I should have waited for the trade paperback), and The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (which was absolutely marvellous magical realism). I’m halfway through Rebecca Wells’ Little Altars Everywhere at the moment, which is possibly even better than Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (although equally disturbing in places). Today I’ll finish two book reviews and send them off to the magazine for which I write them.

Words for thought, from t!‘s interview with the Suffix9 zine:
“Regrets are for people who don’t understand their present beauty.”

Civil Right, Civic Duty

I have exercised my civil right and performed my duty as a citizen, and I have voted. Was anyone else surprised to find names they’d never seen before on their ballot? There were nine parties listed on mine, four of which I’d never even known existed in my riding.

It’s such a small thing – unfolding a piece of paper, picking up a small unassuming pencil, making an X in a white circle, and refolding it. So calm, as opposed to the emotional responses that watching political speechs evokes.

Speaking of emotional — if I have to deal with one more crisis arising from people assuming things, I will slice my wrists open or something equally inane.