hey, we're already in the third week of 2021!

nope, i didn't post an end-of-2020 entry, nor a hopes-for-2021 entry because, really, if the saga of 2020 taught us anything, it's that the world as we know it is often totally inexplicable, and usually has its own weird and wild agenda. "best laid plans..." and all that.

so, instead, here's an update on the state of affairs with me at the moment!

* i have not yet begun rewriting the screenplay i finished in december. i'm letting it stew for a bit. instead, inspired by a passing comment from a friend of mine, i started to reread old screenplays i'd written back when i was writing them regularly. there are five completed screenplays, each one rewritten at least a few times (one underwent more than 20 rewrites!)... and you know what? some of them are pretty good. i wrote them anywhere from 13 to 25 years ago, and i think i was a much better screenwriter back then. it just proves that spending time working specific writing muscles pays off... and those muscles *will* atrophy (and churn out terrible screenplays) if left unused long enough.

* amongst the old screenplays, i also found an outline -- which i wrote but have absolutely no recollection of writing! -- for a spec script for a long-gone sitcom called Less Than Perfect. the series ran on ABC for a few seasons in the early 2000s. (as an aside, i just now discovered TONS of full episodes have been uploaded on YouTube!) i never wrote the actual script, and it would be useless now (since any specs need to be for series currently airing), but holy crap. that outline was excellent. and i rarely if ever say anything like that about my own work. i read it and thought, "wait... *i* wrote this?!?! ME?????" i did. no memory of doing so, but i wrote it.

* further to the discoveries-amid-the-scripts discoveries, i also found a few notes from a woman who was one of my network-PR contacts at ABC when i worked at the entertainment magazine. she was great and fun, and always happy to shoot extra scripts (for ABC shows) my way so i could read them and learn. i hadn't thought of this woman in years and years, but finding the notes made me wonder whatever happened to her. so, like anyone else these days, i googled. turns out, she's now a very fancy, very accomplished production executive at VH1, and has created a number of successful TV series. 

* all of the above pieces of my life's puzzle made me realize a few things. firstly, that despite wondering whether i should bother with screenwriting at this point in my life of just resign myself to marketing copy for the next 15 years, i actually *can* write stuff -- fiction stuff, screenplay stuff -- that isn't awful. i also remembered a conversation i had decades ago with another friend (also a successful TV writer/producer in L.A.), during which she asked me why i wanted to write movies when TV series were a much better bet. i remember her saying that TV writers have much more control, and the satisfaction is much more immediate, since films take years to get made while a TV script you write could be on the air and seen by millions within a couple of months... sometimes even less than that. and, after going through these piles of old writing, i realized how much hard work i'd put in all those years and years ago, only to seemingly abandon it all.

* SO. instead of rewriting the terrible screenplay (which i'll do eventually), i'm going to turn one of my other film ideas into a TV-pilot script instead. it's an idea that i thought could work either way, as a movie or limited series, and everything i've read of late indicates that TV is the way to go at the moment. the wealth of streaming services alone have opened up countless doors for writers, especially women writers. so, why not see if i can get something made for the small screen instead of the big one? as such, a spec pilot will next on the to-write agenda, and i'm hoping i can have a first draft done by the end of february. 

* in other news, gracie is bored. really bored. this is not good. bored cats can develop behavioural issues, such as excessive grooming (yup) or excessive sleeping (check!), and they can get fat and depressed. i'm trying to figure out what i can do to get her more engaged and entertained, but -- despite a number of different approaches (gleaned from numerous "what to do if your cat is bored" articles) -- have been unsuccessful so far. 

* i haven't decided whether i'm going to continue the photo blog while we continue to be in lockdown. i'm not sure there's much point, creatively. i've grown bored taking photos on my walks because it's the same series of routes, past the same houses and stores and trees, day in and day out, and i don't want to keep reeeeeeaching to find something halfway worth photographing. i haven't been to downtown toronto since march 2020. haven't used public transit since then, either. my world has grown somewhat small, and i find increasingly challenging (not in a good way) to create interesting shots. plus, we're now entering the greyest time of year here. so, we'll see.

a shot in the arm

is it just me, or is all the current news coverage of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the U.S. and canada making anyone else a teeny bit apprehensive?

i feel a bit like we're all in some kind of disaster movie, and we're at the part of the story when it *seems* like a rescue is imminent... only to discover that, newp, it's a false alarm and things are about to get even worse.

over the past few days, on every single news broadcast, cameras and reporters have been excitedly covering every second of the journey of these vaccines from their manufacturing plant to the four corners of the continent. they're talking about "finally" getting the vaccines, and how this will "finally" help everyone get back to "normal." everyone seems to be behaving as though once this vaccine is out, the pandemic will be but a distant memory. "we're SAVED!" seems to be the subtext to every enthusiastic report.

to say a lot of people have put every single egg in this vaccine basket is not really an understatement.

and it's all makes me want to yell, "tone it down! don't jinx it!"

YB works for a hospital network, and all staff received word about when and how they will be vaccinated. thing is, this pfizer vaccine is ridiculously unstable -- the conditions under which it must be stored are extreme... and extremely precise. if the temperatures are just a teeny bit off or if something happens during transport or if you just look at the syringe the wrong way, POOF. the vaccine is rendered useless. and, YB pointed out, there's absolutely no way to know if the vaccine you're getting has been stored and transported 100% correctly 100% of the time. (some of the other vaccines in development, by comparison, don't require such stringent conditions.)

so... what if your dose isn't effective? how will you (or your doctor or nurse or whomever) know?

i also get antsy when i see all the senior citizens and frontline workers getting vaccinated. i know the vaccine has been tested, but i can't seem to let go of the nagging sense that the testing, and everything else associated with this unprecedented efficiency, was rushed.

what if something was missed? what if there are long-term -- or even not-that-long-term negative side effects? trials only began a few months ago, so what if all those senior citizens and frontline workers suffer some kind of unforeseen complications six months from now?

look, i see a lot of movies, and i fully realize my brain (coupled with my anxiety) sometimes works cinematically and overly dramatically. i can conjure up worst-case scenarios like nobody's business. and i'm definitely pro-vax -- i get my flu shot every year, and will be getting a COVID vaccination when it's available to me.

i just hope we can all look back on this a year from now, five years from now, 20 years from now, and think, "PHEW!" and "yay!" not "oops!" and "YIKES!"

yep, i'm still here!

 

::: flipping on the lights, brushing away the cobwebs :::

oh, hello! lest anyone think i'd fallen into a ditch somewhere, i'm still here. it's been a somewhat chaotic month and a half or so, and blogging -- in words or in photos -- kept falling lower and lower on my priority list. every day, i'd think, "TODAY! today i'll go catch up on the blogging!", only to have the day end, and to find myself laying in bed thinking, "argh! okay, TOMORROW! tomorrow i'll go catch up on the blogging!"

the dust has finally settled. i updated the photo blog a few days ago and here, then, is a bit of a recap of where i've been and what i've been doing.

• for most of october and november, i was working on condo-board-related stuff. primarily: planning and executing our building's first-ever virtual AGM, which was a huuuuge, stressful task that had me working six, seven, eight hours a day, for MANY days during those two months. keep in mind, board directors are volunteers -- we don't get paid for the work we do. so, my full-time board work netted me exactly zero dollars in revenue. 

i was running the entire event, handling all the behind-the-scenes operations, preparing instructions, training myself on the platform and making sure all the owners knew how to participate. much of the success/failure of the AGM rested on my shoulders, so i did everything i could to ensure it would run smoothly. thankfully, despite a slew of serious "uh oh, we might have to cancel this"-level technical glitches on the day of the AGM (which were caused by the company providing the platform, but nonetheless resulted in me literally stress-sweating right through TWO T-shirts over the course of about four hours that afternoon), it went okay. we had a very good turnout despite the advanced age and tech-unsavviness of many of our owners, and post-AGM participant surveys indicate most people thought it was a success. I AM SO GLAD IT'S OVER, THOUGH. it ate up SOOOOOO much of my time and energy for about eight weeks, and finishing it was a massive relief.

• in related news, the condo-board workload i've endured since about august has me seriously considering stepping down from the board when my term expires in november 2021. it's just too much, and as much as i want to participate in the decision-making for the building, i can't be spending 15 hours or more a week on this stuff. if i were to have any kind of semi-full-time job, it would simply be undoable.

• on the home front, mom's been having some health challenges. sometime in october, she did something to her left knee -- she doesn't know what, just that it hurt. for weeks, she hobbled around as it got worse and worse, and wouldn't call the doctor. "i don't want to complain," she said. when it got to the point that she couldn't walk around the house without holding onto walls/furniture, couldn't get in/out of the car, couldn't go up/down stairs... i finally had it and told her this couldn't go on. plus, her knee had ballooned up due to swelling. so, she finally went to the doctor, who was shocked at the swelling. long story short: mom had the fluid drained from her knee, had a cortisone shot a couple of weeks ago, and her knee is finally improving. she's back to walking almost normally again, but was hobbling around for so long that she now also needs to go to physio to correct all the damage she did to her *other* muscles and joints while she was compensating for the wonky knee.

• the knee issue above meant mom obviously did not exercise for weeks and weeks and weeks. she's a fairly regular walker/exerciser, but she spent almost two months unable to do much of anything. then, last weekend (and as her knee was beginning to improve), she had one of her freakish and inexplicable dizziness + nausea + insanely-high blood-pressure-spike episodes. she has normal BP almost all of the time, and hadn't had one of these episodes since august 2019. at the time, her doctor ran a battery of tests but came up empty in terms of a cause. she gave mom an extremely low-dose BP prescription to take only if/when her BP spiked. mom hasn't needed any of that medication since last august.

things had been fine since last summer, mom's BP was consistently A-OK, she wasn't on any meds... then, last week, BAM. it happened again out of the blue. another long story short: for no discernible reason, she got extremely dizzy, extremely nauseated and her BP spiked to over 200, which is considered a "hypertensive crisis" that could lead to stroke. 

despite YB and i having drilled into her that she MUST take her BP whenever she feels dizzy, and then MUST take a BP pill to reduce her pressure if it's high, she did neither when this episode hit last friday. instead, around 5 p.m., she just went to bed. when i called shortly thereafter (unaware of what had been happening) to chat with her, my father casually mentioned the situation. i said, "YOU GO WAKE HER UP AND TAKE HER BLOOD PRESSURE!" 

he didn't really want to (it would have meant getting out of his recliner and putting his ipad down for five minutes), and said he'd do it in the morning. i yelled that she could be dead by morning if she were to have a stroke in her sleep. 

so, he went and checked it: 192 over something or other. she took a BP pill. i called YB to fill her in and she was just as upset as i was. by morning, mom's BP was back in the normal range... but then it spiked again in the middle of the night/into sunday morning. by 10am on sunday, her BP was 207 and she couldn't keep any food or water down. she threw up the BP pill she'd taken. so, i headed over. i consulted with YB, who said that if we couldn't get her BP down within several hours, we'd need to take her to the ER. thankfully, when i arrived at my parents' place, mom was sitting up and feeling a bit better. i think me being there -- i.e., she didn't have to rely on my father, who refuses to wear his hearing aids and thus would have no clue if she were somewhere in the house, calling for help -- helped relax her. i gave her some gatorade, and her stomach began to settle. i gave her another BP pill and, an hour later, her pressure was way back down. it has stayed down, getting as low as 109 but staying around 130 most the rest of the time, since.

we documented all the key moments in this saga, and she sent them to her doctor via email first thing monday morning. the doctor ordered a refill of the "in case of emergency" BP medication, gave mom instructions to monitor her BP at least twice a day for the next several weeks, and they have a phone consultation tomorrow. YB says that mom should request a CT scan just to rule out any mysterious bleeding anywhere in the body, which can cause a sudden BP spike, so we'll see what happens there.

it's a bit of a chicken/egg situation -- does the dizziness cause the BP spike, or vice-versa? the epley maneuver, which is used to help remedy vertigo, does seem to help with her dizzy spells, indicating that there might be some kind of deep inner-ear issue to blame. suddenly feeling the room spinning *can* cause your blood pressure to go way up due to stress/panic. at the same time, sudden changes in BP can cause dizziness. so, who knows what's happening first and causing the other.

it was all very stressful, for all of us. my anxiety caused my mind to race with all the worst-case scenarios. i told mom not to mess around with her BP -- and taking the medication when it spikes -- in the future, and that i didn't want to spend the rest of my life being angry with her if she were to die needlessly because she decided she'd just "sleep it off" instead of following protocol if/when another of these episodes were to hit.

anyway...

• in happier news, i have now written 92 terrible pages of a screenplay! on november 30, i realized there was one month left in 2020, and that i was nowhere near reaching my ONE goal for the year -- to finish a screenplay. i barely had ONE page written, let along an entire script. so, starting on december 1, i gave myself an order: write at least 10 screenplay pages a day, every day except weekends, until i get to "the end." no matter how bad the writing. i took two weekdays off to complete an unexpected writing assignment, but have otherwise stuck to the plan. i had an outline completed, which is always helpful, but the process of turning it into a screenplay has revealed all its many flaws. 

the screenplay is bloated, confusing, meandering and repetitive. there are scenes and characters that i now realize are completely pointless, and there are key elements/plot points that i've discovered are missing entirely. the dialogue is absolutely terrible: flat, obvious and devoid of subtext. it borders on:

CHARACTER A: I am angry with you.

CHARACTER B: Why are you angry with me?

CHARACTER A: Because you did that thing.

CHARACTER B: You are right. I did do that thing.

CHARACTER A: And that is why I am angry.

(actually, the above exchange is a considerable improvement on what i've actually been writing!)

but i am not stopping to revise or edit, no matter how cringe-worthy the writing is -- my goal is to just forge ahead, plot holes and exposition be damned, until it's finished. THEN and only then will i let myself go back and fix allllllll the things that are wrong with this story. 

draft #2 will, i hope, be a big improvement on draft #1. based on where i am in the outline, and the ratio of outline pages to script pages, i still have about 50-ish pages left to write, which should be an indicator of just how horribly overwritten this script is (a typical screenplay should run about 100-105 pages, but mine will likely clock in at almost 150). but... onwards! it *has* been a bit freeing to just let myself write drivel and to focus on getting it finished vs. getting it right on the first attempt. there's no agonizing over words, just churning them out. quantity over quality. for now.

• i've started watching The Good Wife on amazon prime and i love it. i'd watched The Good Fight (the spin-off series) first and enjoyed it, so i went back to watch the original series. there are seven seasons of 23 episodes each, and i'm about halfway through season three. so, this'll keep me busy for a while. i also have a pile of DVDs from the library to watch through new year's day: season three of Westworld; season six of Silicon Valley; season three of The Deuce; and the movies Mulan and Summerland. gracie has no clue yet just how much time we'll be spending on the couch in the coming weeks.

• speaking of my small friend, i bought her christmas present last month and, thankfully, it arrived before visitors were once again prohibited from my building. YB was therefore still able to come over to help me put it together. it's a swanky cat condo and, for the first two weeks it was in my living room, gracie would NOT go near it. nothing could entice her to even step on it -- not food, not treats, not toys, nothing. then, one evening while i was eating my dinner, she walked over all on her own, hopped up into the second-level cubby, curled up and went to sleep. and she now LOVES it. phew!

hot in herrrrrrrre

evidently, as i sit squarely in the (hopefully) waning days of perimenopause, my body has now decided it no longer wants to regulate heat properly. 

i have started having hot flashes. 

a LOT of them. usually throughout the night, so that i am repeatedly awakened by the sense that someone is slowly turning up the thermostat... until i can feel every pore on my body releasing a drop of sweat. or a lot of drops of sweat. my ankles, my elbows, my neck, my wrists, my eyebrows and everywhere else. as if i went to sleep in my bed but woke up in a dry sauna.

it's the same sort of feeling i get when i have a fever and it breaks, except the hot flashes keep coming and going. they rise up inside my chest, then spread. i get sweaty and then, a minute or two later, they've passed, my body temp goes back to normal and i can (usually) get back to sleep.

then it happens again an hour later. and so on.

weirdly, my body seems to have no problem regulating its temperature during the day. just at night. ARGH.

it's been several of weeks this so far, and i've already had MORE than enough. the issue has been compounded of late by the freakishly warm weather we've been experiencing -- 20ºC (68ºF) days at a time of year when it should be about 7ºC (45ºF). plus, our condo building's heat is on, so my unit -- even with all the windows wide open -- never really gets below 76ºF. THAT IS TOO HOT FOR NOVEMBER.

the ambient temperatures are already extra-warm. throw in hot flashes and i've had a solid two weeks of pretty poor sleep.

maybe that's contributing to my general meh-ness?

existentially speaking

at some point in the past month or so, i became inert. existentially inert. more so than usual. as you may have noticed, i haven't blogged much, if at all, in more than four weeks. in fact, i haven't done much of anything -- save for huge amounts of work for the condo board -- in a long while. and, lately, i've been feeling especially anxiety-ridden about that.

if i'm not working at an actual (paid) job, i should be writing up a storm. but i'm not.

i've got four (!) screenplay outlines in various stages of completion, and yet i've barely touched any of them in ages. they're all sitting there, WAITING, but i seem to end every day thinking, "DAMMIT. another day wasted doing a whole lot of nothing worthwhile. tomorrow... tomorrow i'll buckle down and get some writing done." and then "tomorrow" becomes a far-off, imaginary day that rarely materializes.

back in june, my goal was to finish -- finish! -- at least one screenplay by the end of 2020. at the time, i even thought i might manage to get two screenplays completed before new year's eve. two! 

yet here we are, on november 4th, and i don't even have one page of one screenplay done... and december 31st is getting closer and closer.

any reason i find for the whole not-writing thing feels like a flimsy excuse... probably because that's what they all are: flimsy excuses. a while ago, i read a book that said you MUST treat writing like a job -- that you have to carve out specific hours for writing every day, and then abide by those hours and "report for work" the same way you would if you had to show up at an office every day. 

you can't just opt out of working an actual job whenever the mood strikes -- telling your boss you just don't feel like working today... or that you really need to go grocery shopping and that'll take all morning... or that you spent the afternoon writing condo-board memos rather than doing your job... or that your cat seems like she needs extra playtime... or that you have a long-overdue facetime catch-up call with a friend so you'll just skip work for the day and maybe try again tomorrow. 

so, you shouldn't do any of that when it comes to your writing, either.

yet i do it all. the. TIME.

as a result, there's been a LOT of self-flagellation of late... which, in and of itself, is yet another avoidance tactic for writing, i suppose. "oh, i'll just beat myself up for a while to make up for the fact that i didn't write squat today. maybe that'll help motivate me for tomorrow!"

yeah, it doesn't.

then the self-reflective, self-defeating, anxiety-laden thoughts begin to swirl: what am i really doing with my life? why am i squandering all my gifts? what do i have to show for the past year? where am i going? what is my passion? how am i going to earn a living? why am i so useless at getting these things WRITTEN?

and on. and on. and on.

and the more i think about it, the more anxious i get, the more creatively paralyzed i become, the less work that gets done... and the more time that passes. lather. rinse. repeat.

thing is, i have discipline. i can get work done. i can meet deadlines. and i can do all those things really really well, while turning in solid writing at the same time.

the catch?

i seem to be able to do all of those things when i'm accountable to someone else. 

when i'm my own boss, i'm a the slackeriest of slacker employees and, even though i'm self-aware enough to realize my own lack of accomplishment/motivation, i let myself off waaaaaaay too easily. or, perhaps, don't feel enough of a sense of dread over what will happen if i *don't* get the work finished.

(i should note that i also feel like i've written some variation of this exact same blog post several times since starting the blog. and yet here we are again!)

so, that's the current state of affairs. and why i'm sitting here now, writing this, instead of working on my scripts or stories. i'm sort of hoping that writing something -- even if it's just a stream-of-consciousness blog post -- might jump start *something*, or get the ball rolling again. but i'm also not especially convinced it will.

here we go again?

nine years ago, almost to the day, i blogged about herbie the stray cat. well, last weekend, we met another slim, friendly seemingly stray cat, who'd been wandering onto my parents' porch almost daily for about two weeks. 

recalling the situation with herbie, mom had decided to feed this cat and give it water to help it stay healthy. she also wanted to earn its trust so that, eventually, she might be able to scoop it up and bring it to toronto animal services.

on thanksgiving weekend, YB and i were visiting (for a traditional thanksgiving meal of... chicken fajitas and tiramisu), and we decided to see if we could maybe coax the cat out from wherever it lived by shaking a bag of treats and making cat-calling-esque noises in the backyard.

after a few minutes, from who knows where, this skinny petite black-and-white cat came trotting over to YB, who easily led it around to the front porch. there, the cat happily allowed itself to be pet and scratched, eventually flopping itself over for belly rubs. purring the entire time, too.

i managed to snap these photos during the five-or-so minutes the cat stuck around. when it decided it was time to go, that's what it did... and trotted back to the backyard and through the neighbouring yards.

YB fell hard for this cat and now wants to adopt it (assuming, of course, it's not microchipped and doesn't clearly belong to anyone). she'd been thinking of getting a friend for larry for a while, so this cat might be it.

or it might not. the cat is so tame and friendly that it's most definitely not feral. it might have belonged to someone who abandoned it, or it might have scooted out the door of its home and been unable to find its way back. or maybe its owners just let it out to roam all day and then it goes home at night to sleep. who knows?

for now, mom keeps feeding it. and YB keeps pondering what she'll need to do if the cat really is unchipped and healthy.

UPDATE: mystery solved. the cat has a home... around the corner from my parents' place and about eight houses away. yesterday, during a visit from the cat, YB put a paper collar around its neck. the collar had a note written on it: "is this your cat? we've been feeding it. please call..." and then my parents' phone number. within an hour of the cat trotting away, and while YB was still at my parents' house, the phone rang and a confused guy was on the line saying, "um, my cat has a note to call you...?" 

he said they let the cat out because "it gets into trouble in the house." (::: eyeroll :::) he didn't know what a microchip is, and said the cat didn't have a collar because sometimes he (the owner) takes it off. (::: eyeroll :::) YB said she could hear little kids in the background during the call, so she figures it's a family whose priorities aren't necessarily ensuring their cat is safe. she said the guy was very nice, but she encouraged him to collar the cat and get it chipped. oh, and it turns out the cat is a female and about two years old (the guy said they got her as a kitten). fin.

a COVID-era haircut vignette: the wealthy moron

today, i went to get my hair cut for the first time in almost a year. 

i was a bit anxious -- would it be busy? would people be following all the COVID rules? -- but was really looking forward to having about six inches of hair lopped off, and the remaining hair cut and styled into something other than "mane."

it would also be the first time since march that i did a big walk (almost) downtown. i walked on streets i haven't walked along in months, and the weather was great, so that was nice. (i also walked home afterwards -- about 55 minutes each way!)

happily, at the salon, i was the ONLY patron. just me and the stylist, doing her thing, in a big empty salon. evidently, tuesday mornings at 9 are decidedly un-busy.

this stylist has been cutting my hair -- usually twice a year -- for about the past three or four years, and she always does a fabulous job. she is extremely meticulous, always spending a good five minutes post-cut doing what i call "finishing work," during which she scrutinizes my head to spot any wayward strands of hair that need a teeny tiny snip. i appreciate the added effort.

naturally, we talked about the pandemic and what life has been like for the past six months. i was relieved that we share the same position on adhering to COVID protocols, and we shared our mutual exasperation with idiots who don't wear masks, or who wear them incorrectly (with the nose sticking out).

about 20 minutes before she was done with me, another woman (customer) came in and sat in the waiting area. she looked like she was probably in her 50s, started scrolling through her phone and then pulled her mask down below her nose. 

oh, FFS.

given the salon location (rosedale) and this woman's outfit (designer everything), i pegged her as a very wealthy and self-involved moron. i kept one (stink) eye on her throughout the remainder of my cut. she was far enough away that i wasn't concerned about inhaling any potential cooties, but still. the salon has a strict mask-usage rule, but no one said anything to her, and she was close enough that she would likely hear me if i pointed out her behaviour to my stylist. the mask stayed below her nose for the duration of my time in the chair.

later, when i was done and in the reception area, waiting to pay, i saw my stylist (who's a sweetheart) go over to the wealthy moron to usher her in. the wealthy moron huffed, "i have to LEAVE in about 10 or 15 minutes...", then literally thrust her phone in the stylist's face, presumably to show her the time.

oh, so you're not only a wealthy moron, i thought, you're also a jerk.

my stylist apologized for the delay, despite the fact that the fault was clearly with the wealthy moron, who obviously didn't factor in the correct amount of time for her haircut in the first place. (haircuts are always booked for one hour, and mine took one hour and five minutes as a result of the extra cleaning procedures. so she was only five minutes -- not 55 -- behind schedule.) nonetheless, in that moment, i felt glad that the wealthy moron, who chose not to wear a mask properly, might have to forego her cut. HA HA HA.

unfortunately for my stylist, the wealthy moron decided to go ahead anyway, and sat down in the stylist's chair.

as i wrapped up my payment, i left a bigger-than-usual tip for my stylist, because i KNEW the wealthy moron -- who had already proven herself a very difficult client -- would probably skip the tip as "punishment" for being inconvenienced.

fin.

covidiocy

almost daily, i'm surprised -- and not in a good way -- at how many citizens of earth seem to be so clueless or reckless or selfish when it comes to their behaviour amid the current pandemic.

people who refuse, for whatever reason, to wear masks.

people who continue to gather in groups without practicing any social distancing.

people who keep having backyard barbecues and birthday parties and wedding receptions and family reunions, at which neither masks nor social distancing are implemented.

my social-media feed regularly features photos of otherwise-sensible (i thought) people i know engaged in assorted social activities that fly in the face of common sense and/or personal safety given the current state of the world. why on earth would you go out to eat, indoors, with a big group of people, none of whom is wearing a mask and all of whom are sitting about two feet apart? and THEN post photos of it?!

even during last night's emmy awards, there were instances where nominees were gathered with groups of people and ignoring protocols ON CAMERA.

whenever i go out, i encounter morons who wear their masks incorrectly or not at all. nose sticking out. mouth exposed. mask hanging off one ear and flapping in the breeze while the "wearer" wanders a shop, talking on his/her phone.

and don't get me started on the new blue scourge facing the planet: discarded disposable masks, which have taken the place of discarded nitrile gloves as the de-rigueur COVID waste product littering sidewalks, roads and parking lots.

then, just this weekend, every news outlet in the city covered a massive impromptu car "rally," organized by what appear to be a bunch of twentysomething morons in a movie-theatre parking lot. dozens and dozens and dozens of them defiantly grinned at news cameras, (maskless) faces on full display, and several were even interviewed by reporters about their participation.

their responses? essentially variations on: "who cares, bro? we're young! this is fun, man!"

this when what they were doing is officially AGAINST THE LAW IN THE PROVINCE.

?!

IDIOTS, all of them. and i really hope their brazen displays of self-importance and profound ignorance (i.e., proudly showing themselves on camera) come back to bite them in the ass. i hope they're shamed by their parents, families, employers and whoever else in their lives may be impacted by their foolishness.

cases of COVID-19 are rising by the day in ontario. long gone, apparently, are the days of modest or negligible summertime increases. in a matter of about two weeks, we're back up to where we were at the end of may/start of june. this isn't so much a "second wave" as yet another surge in the *first* wave, which never really receded. 

restrictions are slowly being put back in place and i, for one, say: GOOD.

it's obvious that an alarming number of human beings can't be trusted to think for themselves and make smart decisions. and the longer these ding-dongs keep ignoring the health-and-safety guidelines, the longer we're all going to have to keep following them.

it's immensely frustrating and frightening.

anyway...

tomorrow, i'm getting my hair cut for the first time since october 2019. my guess is that my timing might turn out to be ideal, since haircuts may once again be prohibited very soon if the infection trajectory continues.

a long-overdue catch-up

hello!

it's been way too long since i blogged, here or on the photo blog, so i decided to get back on the horse this morning. not much has been going on and a lot has been going on. it's been weird.

my anxiety and stress levels have been unusually and somewhat inexplicably high for the past few weeks. i haven't been sleeping all that well, and i'm still waking up most mornings gripped by transient anxiety. that is, i sort of wake up in a panic -- about nothing and everything at the same time -- but it gradually subsides. i also feel like i've been a bit low-grade depressed. 

last week, i had a horrible IBS flare-up. just pain. that's all i get when it flares. but MAN ALIVE is it ever unpleasant. terrible, unrelenting cramps that make me lose my appetite. when they strike, all i want to do is lie in the fetal position until they pass... which, sadly, often takes hours. then they stop on a dime. then i'm fine for several hours. then they return. this can go on for anywhere from three to seven days. last week's flare lasted six days, and i finally felt OK again this past saturday.

my writing has been in fits and starts. i'll have a really good run for a day or two, and feel like i've made strides, and then i either hit a (creative) wall or get distracted, and my progress train derails. i'm still trying to write for an hour a day, but it's been inconsistent. i find whenever i break my streak, it's hard to get it going again.

so, today, i'm trying to get things up and running. i figured a catch-up blog would be a good way to exercise my muscles a bit and to feel like i'd written something on this crisp monday morning.

in no particular order, then:

* i think part of my anxiety stems from this week's impending condo-board meeting. it'll be the first one since we unseated the president (who, if you recall, pitched a fit) and it'll be my first as board secretary. so, i'm responsible for the minutes of the meeting... which doesn't sound all that scary until you realize these are the official records of the corporation. they'll have my signature on them. they're legal documents. i think i've gotten into my own head too much lately, especially as far as this is concerned, and know that i've (mentally) blown this all out of proportion. after all, one of the former secretaries was in her late-80s (!) and frail when she had the job, and she managed it... so i'm pretty sure i can handle things just fine. still, i'm worried that the former president will, once again, get all rant-y come wednesday. hopefully, he doesn't. our meetings are long enough without extra time added on for tantrums.

* i've also been weighing whether being on the board is truly worth the headaches. it feels like we just keep moving from one crisis to the next, without any reprieve. it's been a LOT of work and taken up much more of my time than i ever thought it would. my term expires in october 2021, so i'll eventually need to figure out whether i want to re-up and run again, or just step down and let someone else shoulder the burden. 10 more official meetings, plus an AGM and probably at least a half dozen supplementary meetings, between now and then. there's something to said for being involved and being part of determining how our building runs -- i like having a say and ensuring that things are done properly -- but it's also been unexpectedly taxing.

* further to condo-related news, i've started wondering how much longer i want to live here. don't get me wrong: i love my place, love the neighbourhood. but i also know that it's going to get increasingly expensive to live here -- within the next couple of years, my monthly maintenance fees will hit $1000 or more... which means i'm spending $12K a year just to occupy my unit, and have water and electricity. that's a LOT and it will only continue to go up year after year. so, i've started asking myself if it's worth it.

* further to the further above: i've begun browsing houses for sale outside of toronto. living in the city makes sense for things like hot docs and TIFF, and proximity to YB and my parents. but, let's be honest, it could be YEARS before hot docs and TIFF ever resume in-person screenings the way they once did. and, even then, i don't know that i'll feel comfortable attending. i rarely go out, and don't imagine i'll be resuming my evening press-screening attendance again. proximity to the family is, however, important. but buying a house in toronto is impossible, cost-wise, unless i suddenly win the lottery. detached homes are welllll over $1 million and out of my price range. but nearby cities an hour or less away, like port hope -- and even ajax, whitby and oshawa, still have houses in the $400-600K range, which i *could* afford... with money left over, even. (the only benefit to the INSANE housing prices in toronto is the fact that my condo has almost doubled in value in the six years i've lived here, and would likely sell for almost $800K, as is.) so, i've spent more time than is probably healthy on realtor.ca lately. there, i've found properties like this one, or this one, or this one... none of which are "perfect," per se, but they're certainly interesting enough to make me start seriously weighing the pros and cons of staying/moving. more updates on this as time goes on.

* in family news, after years of thinking he knew better than his doctors -- and essentially following some or none of their medical advice -- it's looking like my father will need to be on kidney dialysis within the next year or two. his kidney function is extremely poor (again, due in part to him not really doing anything to prevent it from getting worse over the last five to ten years), so he'll eventually need a machine to clean his blood. the current plan is for at-home dialysis, which involves clearing out the master bedroom, having a home-dialysis machine installed (which has to be hooked up to plumbing, as well), to which my dad would hook himself up every night. it's a massive undertaking and one that's left my mom defeated because, lord knows, she's going to be the one having to manage all this. YB has been great -- shuttling dad to and from doctor's appointments and blood-work appointments every other week. but his "keep me alive, no matter what!" stance (mom told me he said he wants quantity of life, not quality) feels selfish to me, especially given his own apathy about following doctors' orders. 

* i have been woefully negligent as far as photos for the photo blog are concerned. most of the blame goes to the weather -- i typically take my photos while on my walks, but hot weather means what i wear is often pocket-less, so there's nowhere to stash my camera. plus, in summer, my "walks" are more run/walk combos for fitness, done in the early morning, so trying to carry a camera -- let alone stop to snap a photo -- is just unrealistic. and then, again because of the weather, i stay inside for the rest of the day. so, i have a small collection of shots taken over the past few weeks that i'll post later. hopefully, now that fall is on our doorstep and the weather is cooling down, better opportunities for walks with cameras will emerge.

* i'm finally getting my hair cut next week. it will have been almost a full year since the last time it was cut, and it is LONG. i'll be very glad to have a huge amount of it lopped off -- enough so that i might last another full year before needing to have it cut again.

interesting...

so, the new interface now works for me. i can see everything i need to see to create a post.

i can add a photo, like this one of a red chair...

and i can add a caption

but it's all still kind of weird and freaky. i HATE the new "photos" app, which is stripped of so many of the photo-editing functions that iPhoto possessed (including resizing images, adjusting sharpness, etc.).

i just keep reminding myself that it will take time to get used to the changes, to all the new stuff, and that soon it will feel ordinary again.

hmmm....

it's august 24th.

i've updated my operating system and all my browsers.

yet blogger is still allowing me to use the legacy interface.

i'm going to test out the new interface now...

a catch-up!

good grief. i knew time had passed since my last post, but i didn't realize THIS MUCH time had passed. i actually have a long blog entry that i wrote a couple of weeks ago but, for assorted reasons, i haven't yet posted it.

so, instead, a quick catch-up on stuff that's going on at present:

* i have been trying to stick to the hour-a-day-of-writing plan i posted way back when. it's been mostly successful, but i find i drop the ball on weekends when i'm typically not at home as much. it's a lot easier to sit down for an hour when i'm in my condo for 98% of the day.

* happily, i finished one screenplay outline. yay! but feel that the story is lacking something. it's fine, but not great, and it could use some more drama. as in: more intensity. more gasp-worthy moments. something to make people sit up and go, "oh, i didn't see THAT coming! i wonder what happens next!" right now, it feels a little middle-of-the-road and flat. so, i'm letting it percolate for a bit before i start the screenwriting component.

* while outline #1 percolates, i've moved over to outline #2. it's still in its infancy, but is very fun to write. it's a horror-fantasy-comedy, so there really are no rules in terms of what characters can do or how situations can unfold. i'm trying to push my boundaries and to stop stopping myself — i need to let my imagination go NUTS and conjure up the most insane scenarios or bits of dialogue or plot twists. right now, i feel like i'm still playing it too safe.

* also, in the spirit of willing something into existence, i'm designing a movie poster for outline #2, complete with my dream cast.

* about two weeks ago, i and a couple of other condo-board members removed our board president from his position. (we can't remove him from the board, but we can strip him of his title.) it was a long time coming, and is the best thing for the board and the building. but, man, the fit he pitched when we voted him out. it just reaffirmed that we made exactly the right decision. you'd think an adult's reaction to being told he's dismissive, argumentative and rude wouldn't be to immediately (and angrily) dismiss the claims, argue that he's right and we're wrong, and then call us names.

* as a result of the above chaos, i was super-rattled for a couple of weeks (before and after the ousting). i eventually became so fed up with feeling anxious that started investigating coping mechanisms for anxiety and stress, and actually started reading about crystals and spirit guides and the like. i know, i know, it all sounds woo-woo and loopy, but just researching those topics actually calmed my nerves. over the past week, i've been meditating more, taking Natural Calm (instead of my usual magnesium supplement) in the evenings and, thankfully, have finally been sleeping a bit better. it's all made me feel much better, too.

* corollary: when i'm stressed, gracie gets stressed. during the few weeks that i was a walking stressball due to the condo-board stuff, she was also "off." she wasn't eating properly, threw up a couple of times and started licking her back to the point that she's actually "mowed" a big patch of hair off. that, in turn, stressed me out more... which stressed her out more. and so on. now that i'm on a more even keel, her appetite and energy have returned, and i'm not stressed about her. if i can somehow get her to STOP licking her back (so that the hair can grow back), we'll be set. though, i suspect the licking is due to itchy skin, which is likely due to an allergy of some sort. but allergy testing is not in the cards in the near future.

* YB's birthday, on the other hand, *is* in the near future. it's on thursday and, once i finish this blog entry, i'll be starting phase 3 of her birthday-confection treat: homemade turtles. the caramel has been made, the pecans halves have been toasted, so next i'll wrap individual pecan halves in caramel and then put them in the freezer to firm up. after that, i'll melt some milk chocolate, then dip each caramel/pecan mound in to coat it. FYI: this batch of caramel might be the best i've ever made, so i'm upping the caramel-to-pecan ratio to create big gooey globs of tastiness.

* in just under a week, blogger's new interface becomes permanent. i still haven't upgraded my OS (and, thus, my web browser), so i fear i may not be able to post new content after the 23rd, and until such time as my computer and i join the year 2016 ('cause it's too old to upgrade to the OS of 2020).

preparation

back in march, when the pandemic first began, i -- like many others -- thought (hoped) it would wane over the summer. and maybe if people had been more cautious, wore masks, stayed apart, avoided restaurants and bars and parties, it might have. but it didn't, and now it's august and here we are.

canada's done a pretty decent job of tamping down infections and spread, but as the city of toronto enters phase 3 -- and bars, restaurants, movie theatres, gyms and the like all reopen for indoor business -- i fear it's only a matter of time before things go off the rails again. all one has to do is watch the nightly news to see evidence that people are selfish and clueless: huge parties, crowded beaches, packed nightclubs, no one observing any of the precautions that have been drilled into our heads for months. no face masks, no distancing, lots of reckless behaviour.

and, in about a month, schools will reopen.

gulp.

lately, i've felt like this period we're in now (in toronto, anyway) is a bit of a respite. stores are open and, save for disinfecting wipes, are fully stocked. in my opinion, we'd be wise to learn from what happened earlier this year and use this time to start prepping -- slowly and steadily -- for the fall and winter, and the very real likelihood that the world will once again need to shut down almost completely.

as such, i've advised my mom to start very gradually stocking up, a little at a time, on all the non-perishable things that vanished from store shelves in the spring, which she might need between now and, say, next april: dry pasta; canned and dried beans; rice; frozen fruits and vegetables; flour; toilet paper. right now, they're in abundant supply and my parents have a big "cold cellar" where they can store a HUGE volume of goods, so they have room to keep a winter's worth of stuff so she doesn't have to venture out unless absolutely necessary later on. better safe and well-stocked than sorry.

i've been doing that, too, to some extent. last week, i took mom to one of our go-to natural-foods stores in the west pole (vaughan), and i stocked up on all the vitamins and supplements i might need during cold-and-flu season... products which also disappeared quickly back in march and april. elderberry syrup and capsules, multivitamins, vitamin D. when i next visit a walmart, i'll be picking up some generic-brand nyquil, just so i have it on hand if/when i need it. i'm well-stocked with vitamin C, but will still buy a couple more bottles when they next go on sale. same goes for probiotics.

next week, i have my six-month check-up and cleaning at the dentist. my previous appointment in february happened juuuuuuuuuust as COVID-19 began to impact the world (back then, the virus didn't even have a name yet). i remember being asked by the receptionist whether i'd travelled abroad, whether i had any cough/cold symptoms, etc., but it was otherwise business as usual. thankfully, i know it will be very different this time. i have no qualms about visiting the dentist right now, either -- medical facilities are some of the safest places to be, IMO, since their protocols are strict and thorough. i feel pretty confident there won't be some maskless morons being allowed to wander around or groups of people congregating in the lobby.

in related news, i think i need to get my hair cut pretty soon. it hasn't been cut since october 2019. i usually go every six months, but the cut i would have had done in april obviously didn't happen. the salon i use opened back up at the start of july, but i'm planning to time my haircut so that, if needed, it'll last me through to next may or june. again, just in case everything has to close over the winter. so, maybe i'll book that appointment for sometime in the next couple of weeks, and opt for a cut slightly shorter than usual.

after that, the only other appointment i'll need to make is for my annual blood work, mammogram and wellness visit with my family doctor, which happens in february. (like the dentist, my last visit to the doctor happened right as the pandemic was declared.) i won't be attending what remains of TIFF this september -- the festival is trying to keep some kind of event running, but it just sounds like it'll be an expensive and disappointing mess. so, basically, i should be able to hunker down and continue to isolate myself socially for the foreseeable future, if necessary.

and, let's be honest, it's almost certainly going to be necessary.

colouring in the lines

when i'm working on a screenplay, it happens in stages.

first, the idea. this stage can take a very long time. often, i'll have the basic spark of an idea, which can strike at any time, but it's not really enough on its own around which to build a story. so i ruminate. i stew. i mull. i roll the idea around and around and around until some sort of narrative path makes itself known. i leave it alone and come back to it. this can literally take years.

once i have a solid enough idea ironed out, i start stage two: brainstorming. from that spark of an idea, myriad possibilities for characters and settings and twists and endings abound. it's a lot of mental noise, so i brainstorm a slew of options. sometimes, i'll do this with pen and paper. other times, i'll sit at the computer and just type. it's about getting everything out so i can sort through it and figure out the shape of the story, its key players and where it might all wind up.

that leads to the next stage, which involves building the skeleton of the story. writing out the key plot points. i usually do this out of order, writing down what i think the breakdown of scenes might be as they come to me. where/when is information revealed, any by whom, and under what circumstances? oh, geez, what about this secondary character -- don't i need a scene that explains who she is as a person? how will the story suddenly take a sharp turn, and how/where should that happen during the course of events?

and on and on and on. i write down as many possible scenes as i can think of -- sometimes just a sentence or two, and sometimes a more detailed description -- in one long list.

then i go through each item on the list, and copy and paste it into a new list that puts the scenes in order. it's a bit like alphabetizing -- i take a pile of mixed-up stuff and then organize it. thus, the skeleton is born.

after the skeleton is constructed, i review it to identify holes. because there are always holes. i drop in transition scenes to help the flow, and gap-fillers to add missing information, reinforce a theme or just bump up the action. it's a way to get the skeleton as strong as it can be because the next stage is one of my favourites.

the next stage is colouring in the lines. building the full outline from which the screenplay will be written. some writers can sit down and write a screenplay without an outline, but i like to know where my story's going before i launch my screenwriting software. without that outline in place, screenplays can meander, drag on, become directionless. i like to have a road map before i embark on the journey.

so, once the skeleton is finished, i go back to the start and, scene by scene, flesh out all the details. what actually happens in each scene? where are the characters, geographically and emotionally? who are these people? what are they *doing* in the scene (because no one wants to watch endless scenes of two talking heads onscreen)? how does this scene propel the action? what's the point of the scene? where's the conflict?

snippets of dialogue pop up and i jot them down. i get ideas for connections between scenes and note those so i don't forget when it comes to the actual screenwriting stage. i try to come up with settings that will provide visual and narrative interest -- what if i set this scene at a laundromat instead of someone's kitchen? could this scene be richer if it happened at night, in a deserted parking lot, instead of during the day on someone's front porch? what if i make this character a glass blower instead of a banker? etc.

while all the preceding stages are important, they're not quite as fun. they're the "work" part of writing a screenplay for me. developing the structure is, for me, the most challenging aspect of screenwriting and it has a more practical, functional, sterile quality to it.

but colouring in the lines is where my imagination can go nuts. it's where i find the meat and potatoes and sparkling pink lemonade of the story. it's where my characters come to life, and where their personalities -- quirks, hang-ups, tics, flaws, passions -- get filled out. it's also where brand new characters, new directions and previously unexplored ideas emerge... all of which help to make the story better. stronger. tighter. it takes a while, but it's so worth it.

right now, i'm in the colouring-in-the-lines stage of a screenplay. i'm about 1/3 of the way through, and have already realized that i forgot to give my main character any kind of best friend/confidante. (oops.) i'm sure it won't be the last realization of a missing component.

hopefully, i'll have this stage done by the end of next week, after which i can open up final draft and type the two words that signal the start of the final stage: "fade in."

uh oh... one more thing i can't do with my computer's outdated OS...

so, it seems that blogger has revamped its interface. it's all fancy and new... and, apparently, does not work with my mac's operating system. when i tried to create a new post, all i could do was enter a title.

nothing else.

there was nowhere to add body copy, no icons or buttons to click that might open up a dialog box in which to type words... nothing.

just: "title" and a "publish" button.

i tried everything i could think of, and then ultimately reverted to "legacy format" in order to create this post.

all this to say, i fear the day i will have no choice BUT to upgrade my OS is drawing very near. this will mean figuring out how to ensure all my software will still work (a lot of it likely won't) and that i'll somehow still be able to use my printer (drivers for which stopped being created by the manufacturer about eight years ago).

fingers crossed.

tarted up

to many canadians, butter tarts are as quintessentially canadian as maple syrup, hockey, poutine and good manners. they are a staple dessert in households, bakeries and restaurants across the country, and recipes for "the best butter tart EVER" are circulated amongst friends, posted online and passed down from generation to generation.

for the uninitiated, a butter tart is basically a flaky-pastry pie crust with a filling consisting of mainly of brown sugar, butter, vanilla and egg (the amounts of which vary from recipe to recipe). it's a bit like pecan pie minus the pecans... unless you get a butter tart with pecans, then it's a lot like pecan pie. only better. and, in a perfect world, a lot goopier. if the filling of a butter tart runs all over your fingers after you bite in, you know you've found a winner.

in canada, there are butter-tart competitions, butter-tart-only bakeries, and even assorted butter-tart festivals. people LOVE butter tarts.

some like their butter tarts plain. some like them with pecans. others prefer them with raisins, but those people and i will fundamentally disagree on this issue for eternity because raisins do not belong in desserts, and raisins in butter tarts ruin the butter tarts. that's right. i said it.

and here's the kicker: until about two years ago, i'd never, ever in my life had a butter tart before. at all. ever. EVER.

i don't really know why, except for the fact that i prefer cake to pie, and butter tarts always struck me as just being little sugar pies, so i never felt particularly curious about them or compelled to have one.

then one day, back when i was still working in an office, a colleague brought in a couple dozen homemade butter tarts she'd picked up on a family trip to an apple orchard. it was the middle of the afternoon, i had an intense craving for a sweet snack, so i asked one of my colleagues if she wanted to split one with me. (note: these tarts were BIG.)

we split it, i took one bite and... OMG.

"HOW HAVE I NEVER ENJOYED  THIS DELICIOUSNESS BEFORE?!?!?" i thought to myself.

i quickly headed back to the communal snack table and grabbed another one to take home.

from that day onwards, i became a butter tart connoisseur, seeking out the best ones i could find.

i tried multiple iterations of the generic six-pack you can buy at every grocery store in the land: unsurprisingly, they were disappointing. gelatinous filling, waxy crust, bland flavour.

i tried the pre-packaged singles (from some small bakery, the name of which escapes me) at mcewan: meh. not worth the price and only slightly better than the run-of-the-mill six-pack variety.

i tried the plain and bourbon-pecan butter tarts from a tiny local bakery: pretty good, but very small and very expensive.

and i tried the award-winning butter tarts from the maid's cottage up in newmarket: excellent, and worthy of every accolade they've been given. rich, flavourful, fantastically gooey... and, usually, STILL WARM FROM THE OVEN when you pick them up. so very very very good. and so filling that i find it challenging to finish one in a single sitting. (when i have them at home, i usually cut each tart in half and split it into two servings.)

but driving up to newmarket every time i get a hankering for a butter tart is unrealistic. not to mention time-consuming and ridiculous, given the distance. once a year or so, YB and i will pop in to grab some if we're in the area for some other reason but, for the most part, those amazing tarts have remained a once-in-a-rare-while treat.

UNTIL TODAY.

because today i discovered they're sold (frozen) to a shop around the corner from where i live. (OMG.) literally a five-minute walk away. FIVE MINUTES.

i have just now placed and order for a half-dozen, and am really hoping that once i warm one in the toaster oven, it'll be just as good as one i would have picked up from the mothership. we shall see.

on death and dying

today, my mother has a meeting with a lawyer to update her will, take ownership of my grandparents' funeral plot, make arrangement for her own funeral, etc.

perhaps due to the pandemic and/or the extra time she's had on her hands, getting her "affairs in order" has been a frequent topic of conversation over the past month or two. and, frankly, it's all done a number on my anxiety. it's likely part of the reason why, for at least the past month, i've been waking up ridiculously early each morning, feeling panicked.

ever since i was a little girl, the thought of my mother dying has terrified me. it's something i've worried about as long as i can remember. if i think about it too long, i start to cry. i have lost countless nights of sleep over my lifetime to this worry. back when i had a therapist, it was often the subject of our sessions.

and, as i touched upon a few posts ago, it's obviously something that grows more pronounced with each passing year, as we both get older. i'm no less frightened of the thought now than i was when i was five or 15 or 25. i don't feel any more "grown up," or more secure. and i fear the loss will be so devastating that i will not be able to recover from it when it happens.

i almost never even speak of it, let alone write about it, lest doing so somehow triggers some kind of cosmic event that turns my worst fears into reality.

when the thought arises, it's not too long before i'm drowning in what ifs about when it'll happen. how it'll happen. what if it was happening right at that moment that the thought arose? there have been many an instance when i had to fight the urge to call my parents' house in the middle of the night to make sure she's OK because i feared she had just died and this was my subconscious letting me know. seriously. sometimes, i've been that scared.

now, this extreme worry and catastrophizing is part of GAD (generalized anxiety disorder). deep down, i know this. rationally, i know that when it does happen, i can seek grief counselling, that it will be horrible but i will make it through, etc.

when my fears on this topic manifest themselves during the day, i can usually ground myself and distract myself and snap out of the panic spiral. i can think more clearly and logically.

but when those thoughts creep in as i'm going to bed or randomly in the middle of the night, forget about it. it'll be at least an hour or more before my brain calms down enough that i might actually be able to fall (back) asleep. late in the evening or in the wee hours of the morning, there is no rational thought. only worst-case scenarios and chest-crushing terror.

i mention this now because of the lawyer visit -- it's brought all these fears to the forefront of my mind much more often than they might otherwise be on any given day. i've been spending way too much time and energy thinking about death and dying lately... again, it's probable that the pandemic has also been amplifying the subject for me (and, likely, other people, too), so i'm gonna chalk some of it up to that.

my standard-issue life-long fears about my mother's death have been coupled recently with worries about my own mortality. during a phone chat with mom about funeral plots the other day -- not-so-fun fact: in the city of toronto, it costs about $700 to have a small urn-sized hole dug in a cemetery, and coffin-sized plots *start* at $12K! -- she asked me whether i wanted to buried with her and my grandparents, or elsewhere.

and i said, "well, it doesn't really matter, because other than YB, no one's ever going to visit my grave." and, i added, if YB goes first, then it really wouldn't matter where my remains ended up because there would be no one left to visit me, her, mom or our grandparents. neither of us have kids. we're not especially close (physically or figuratively) with our extended families.

so, assuming i live a good long life, when i eventually die, who's going to care? or care where i'm buried?

probably no one.

i mean, i'd like to think i'll have people in my life who'll be sad when they get the news (from whom?) that i've died, but will anyone truly *care*? (again, outside of YB.)

and that thought was a bit of an emotional blow.

then, of course, i've started to worry about *my* affairs -- to whom will i leave my estate? who's going to care about my photos or clothes or furniture or any material possessions? good grief, who's going to bury me????

and thus we've had several more sleepless nights. thanks, GAD!

thankfully, and once again during my waking hours, i'm able to calm myself down and think rationally. i remind myself: there are plenty of meaningful new friendships left to forge alongside the nurturing of existing relationships. there will be new paths (that i don't even know about yet) to follow. although i've spent my entire life single and have resigned myself to the fact that i will likely never have a relationship, who knows? the point, i tell myself, is not to dwell on *any* one possibility (good, bad or otherwise) because there is no telling how life will unfold.

heck, my condo building could blow up the moment i finish typing this sentence and all these worries will have been for naught.

::: pause :::

okay, still here. no explosion.

yay!

anyway...

this post has been somewhat rambling but i felt compelled to purge these thoughts this morning, however disorganized they might be. i'm hoping that maybe writing it all out will help. maybe telling myself (in writing) what i try to tell myself (in my head) when i'm gripped by anxiety might help the healthier perspective to stick. or maybe not. for now, i'd just be grateful for a really good night's sleep.

[one funny story to take the edge off: apparently, when my mom was discussing funeral arrangements with my father last week, he told her he wants to be cremated and then have his ashes "scattered." she asked where. he said he didn't know. when she recounted this to me yesterday, i laughed and said, "well, if he wants them scattered at his favourite place, we can just dump them all over his recliner." fin.]

practice makes imperfect

lest you think blog inactivity means i haven't been writing: rest assured, i have been. every day, for at least an hour, as planned. just not blog posts. (i actually did write a massive blog post the other day that i was going to post, but ultimately didn't, because it deals with a condo-board issue that i don't want to jinx. so, it's saved as a draft and will be published when the time is right... probably in a couple of weeks.)

anyway...

for the most part, my daily writing practice hasn't really been yielding anything of note. i've been jumping from project to project based on which one is calling to me on a given day. and, sometimes, i've been using the ideas in my idea notebook to just write something new for a while.

but this routine has made me feel weirdly noncommittal to everything on which i'm working. by hopping from story to story, i feel a bit like i'm just spinning my wheels, killing time, fulfilling a duty, and none of the stories are actually going anywhere or evolving.

so, yesterday, i posted a question to facebook (and emailed it to a couple of non-FB writer friends of mine) asking for tips, tricks and suggestions from my writer/creative friends on how to actually FINISH something.

because it's fine to have a stack of great ideas or half-finished pieces, but what's the point if none of them ever wind up completed?

i got some really amazing, thoughtful replies packed with clever strategies and practical advice. the gist of it all, though, was pretty simple: you just gotta write. sit down and write. write write write. good, bad, ugly, rambling, whatever. just write.

thinking about writing is fine, but without actually DOING it, the thing you're trying to create will never exist. dreaming of how your novel or screenplay or short story or play or poem will be received is fun but pointless -- one friend sent me a great quote by martha graham that basically says, "that's not your job. your job is just to get the thing finished." (i'm paraphrasing, of course.)

one of my biggest hurdles is overcoming the inclination to edit what i've written while it's still a work in progress, rather than forging ahead, for better or worse, to get to the end of a first draft and THEN go back and edit. my brain starts second-guessing what i've already written, or stalls trying to figure out the best way forward through a scene or a moment or a piece of dialogue. or i just start feeling like what i've been writing is lame and "why bother continuing? i should just scrap this..."

what i need to do is just move forward with something. a bad plot twist, or no twist at all. a wooden monologue or a scene without any dialogue. one supertsra designer friend put it best, saying the way through creative blocks is just to do all the "dumb ideas" first. write them, design them, whatever... but get them out of your system. this allows you to proceed (rather than waiting for lightning to strike) *and* gives your brain room to let in a good idea. or a great one. or the perfect one. or maybe none of those, but at least you'll be able to get to the proverbial finish line of whatever it is you're working on. and that's what matters.

i have a new bulletin board hung up next to my desk. i was going to use it as sort of a vision board, on which to pin inspirational/motivational images or quotes or self-help reminders.

back when i was working in an office, i had an 8x11" colour image of a beautiful swimming pool posted on my cubicle wall. on it, i wrote "JUST JUMP IN" as a reminder to just do it, just go, just take the risk, etc.

it came from a realization i'd had while in florida one year. every morning, i'd go down to the pool just before 9am to swim. although the pool was heated, the water temperature was always somewhat chilly first thing in the morning. and, every day, i'd s-l-o-w-l-y inch my way in via the steps in the shallow end. it was a very very very gradual process that didn't make starting my swim any easier. going slowly didn't magically warm up the water. eventually, i'd just quickly dunk myself under to get the shock to my body over with, then proceed to swim. and after no more than a minute or two, the water felt totally comfortable. no longer cold.

i soon learned that by dunking right away (instead of the slo-mo pool entry), i could gain a couple of minutes of enjoyment and spare myself the "agony" of the gradual submersion. "just jump in" and get it over with already so you can move on!

then i realized that approach could be applied to life beyond the pool deck. as a self-critical overthinker, how much of my life and my work was being hampered by a slow, methodical, ultimately unproductive process? what if i just jumped in whenever faced with doubt or fear or really cold water?

so, the first thing i've posted on my bulletin board is a post-it that says: JUST FINISH. and, hopefully, it can serve as a reminder of what to do whenever i'm sitting at my desk, struggling to write and pondering what should come next.

now, i just need to find another great photo of a pool to pin beside it.

water: logged

i love swimming. i love being in water. i really really love pools.

it's been this way as long as i can remember. the smartest thing my parents ever did for me was enrol YB and me in swimming lessons -- every single summer -- starting when we were very young.

back then, in july and august, i probably spent more time at the local outdoor pool than i did at home during the day. hours and hours. swimming lessons in the morning, then back at the pool with my friends for public swimming in the afternoon *and* evening. i couldn't get enough. i have photo of myself from that time, my hair bleached almost white from the combination of summer sunshine and my near-constant saturation with chlorinated water.

the pool was an okay size -- big at the time, but relatively small now that i look at it with adult eyes. it was an outdoor pool and in direct sunlight from about 9am onwards until sunset. through my lessons, i learned all the key strokes, learned how to dive, how to tread water, and by the time of my final summer of lessons (i think i was maybe 12?), i was doing endless laps with ease.

the community pool of my youth (now with much fancier fencing than it had when i was a kid)

i still remember the change room -- a plain concrete space with a line of metal benchwork around its perimeter. no lockers, just coat hooks on the wall. three or four toilet stalls and sinks. that's it. there were two shower heads in the small path leading out to the pool deck. you were supposed to rinse off before stepping in the water, but i don't remember anyone ever doing that. we'd do a quick rinse on the way *out*, but even that was cursory. see above re: bleached hair.

after lessons, we'd go home for a few hours before returning when the public-swimming hours began. it was about a 10-minute walk from our house to the pool -- a walk we almost always took alone. dad would join us for the evening swims, after he got home from work. mom didn't know how to swim, so she'd sometimes come along and sit in the nearby park to read while we swam.

all my childhood summers were defined by that pool.

well, that pool and the one at my godparents' house. that one was a round, above-ground model with a little in/out ladder. you could jump in from the deck off the house. we visited once a year, always in early july, and almost always spent the bulk of those visits swimming. the adults stayed on dry land, but YB, my godparents' son and i would be in the water. we always had a barbecued lunch with cake for dessert. and they had a huge cherry tree in the backyard, so a big bowl of fresh cherries was usually on hand, too.

and, of course, anytime we went on a family vacation, we stayed in hotels or motels with pools. YB and i have swum in pools all across the U.S. big ones, little ones, dirty ones... we loved it.

winter swimming was divided between various locations. we'd often register for lessons at the indoor pool at a nearby high school, or drop in for casual swimming on occasion. weirdly, i can't remember a single thing about that pool, though. not what it looked like, how we accessed it, what the change rooms were like -- nothing. but i know we swam there!

we also swam at the indoor pool near the north york central library. i have very vague fleeting memories of that space -- i seem to recall a brown brick interior with small windows. the thing i remember most is that afterwards we'd always go to the mcdonald's just down the street on yonge for sundaes and french fries.

when that pool was torn down and replaced by the douglas snow aquatic centre, we swam there. that facility was massive and fancy, with an olympic-sized pool, waterslide, wading area, and giant whirlpool that was so big it had its own ramp in. there were second-story bleachers where mom would sit to watch us, and huge change rooms with lockers, showers and hair dryers. (fun fact: these are also the change rooms where YB and i each contracted a plantar's wart.)

douglas snow aquatic centre

we went to douglas snow for a few years but eventually our visits petered out and stopped. it got very busy, which made swimming less fun. the novelty wore off, and getting to/from the pool during the frigid toronto winters became less and less appealing.

my pool time dried up for many years thereafter, but was restored when i started going down to florida with mom for one week every may. the condo building where we've stayed for the past 20+ years has a lovely little pool that opens at 9am is usually completely deserted until about 10:30am -- which is when it's in full sun and the pool deck fills up with sunbathing parents and their obnoxious children.

the florida-condo pool (*sigh*)

so, there, i swim from 9am until about 9:40am, when i can have the ENTIRE POOL to myself. it's beyond heavenly. i can float undisturbed to my heart's content, or swim laps, or do weird arm and leg workouts. i gauge my swim time by the position of the sun -- when the sun hits the "3 ft." marker at the shallow end, i know it's almost time for me to get out. (there's also a big clock hanging nearby, but the sun is a more accurate indicator of when i'd need to apply sunscreen.)

swimming at that pool as an adult is just as magical and fulfilling an experience as swimming for hours on end in the community pool as a child. i feel the same excitement and joy now, at almost 50, when i see that sparkling blue water that i did when i was 10. and i feel the same reluctance to get out that i did back then. "awwww, mom! FIVE MORE MINUTES?"

missing that opportunity this year due to COVID-19 was tough. and i don't think the situation will be stable enough for us to visit near year, either. the public pools in toronto are just now starting to open again, but i'm not comfortable enough (yet) to venture into any of them.

in the meantime: today, YB and i will be visiting a friend of mine, who has a pool. and we shall swim in it. and i suspect it will refresh my body (it's gonna be sunny and near 90ºF today) and replenish my spirit in exactly the right way.

the new abnormal, episode one: the shopping mall

yesterday, i went to a shopping mall for the first time in more than four months.

malls here reopened a couple of weeks ago, mom had been itching to get out of the house, and my curiosity about what the shopping-in-a-mall experience might be in a COVID world was growing. on monday, YB had gone to a usually-quite-busy mall in her neighbourhood (also for the first time in months) and said it was deserted -- very few shoppers, empty but well-stocked stores, ideal for shopping.

so, i floated the idea of a tuesday outing to mom, which she enthusiastically supported. then, yesterday morning, i picked her up and, masks on!, off we went.

before heading out, i'd visited the mall's website to get a sense of what to expect upon our arrival. restricted access through certain entrances only, readily available hand-sanitizing stations, arrows on the mall floors/stairs to indicate in which direction you should be moving, etc. pretty standard-issue fare that didn't seem outrageous or too far removed from what we'd already grown accustomed to when grocery shopping over the past few months.

but to say the experience of stepping into a COVID-era mall was surreal is an understatement. it was like we were stepping into some bizarre post-apocalyptic mirror world.

we realized this as soon as we parked the car and headed towards the entrance of one of the mall's department stores. there are eight doors at this entrance, but four were locked shut. two sets of two doors each were open -- one set had huge signs that said "ENTER HERE," the other set was marked "EXIT HERE."

the second we stepped inside, we were met by a masked store greeter standing next to a hand-sanitizer station. cheerfully, he welcomed us and directed us to please sanitize our hands, which we did. no big deal. little did we know that this would be just the first of multiple sanitizing requirements throughout the mall.

some of the aisles in the department store had arrows, some did not. the mall entrance of the store was mostly closed, but they'd pulled back the security gate at both ends -- again, with big "ENTER HERE" and "EXIT HERE" signs to indicate how to go from the store to the rest of the mall. getting to the "EXIT HERE" gap meant navigating through the serpentine route of arrows the store had created in the cosmetics/fragrance section, where certain areas/counters were roped off and others left open for foot traffic. it took far longer than it should have for us to wind our way out.

when we did, we found ourselves in a relatively deserted mall. we'd arrived almost an hour after it opened, but the small smattering of shoppers made it feel like the whole place was still closed.

there were arrows ALL OVER the floors, but spaced in such a way that you basically had to walk right up to an arrow in order to determine which direction it was telling you to go. the perimeter of the mall seemed to have been set up like one huge mall-walking track -- you walked in one direction all along one side until reaching an end point, where you'd loop around and walk all the way back along the opposite side.

large open areas -- say, outside the department stores or in the mall's large atrium-ed centre court -- were free-for-alls. arrows criss-crossing paths in a very confusing and convoluted way. it was challenging for *me* to figure out where i should be walking, so i can't imagine how difficult it migh be for seniors or kids trying to follow along properly. i know it was making mom frustrated. and, of course, even in areas where literally going with the flow should be easy, we encountered morons who chose to deliberately walk against the tide.

mask use was good but not universal. last week, the city of toronto instituted a bylaw requiring that masks or face coverings be worn by EVERYONE in enclosed indoor public spaces. this includes all stores and shopping malls. but the mall we visited was just outside the city limits, and technically not required to mandate mask use. most people had them on nonetheless but, as ever, we saw various mask-free individuals (almost all of them were either teenagers or caucasian women in their 50s) wandering around.

the stores themselves were mostly open, but more than we expected remained shuttered, further enhancing the unsettling, not-quite-right vibe. at the entrance to almost every single one was a staffer holding a bottle of hand sanitizer or standing next to a table on which some sanitizer sat. we had to sanitize our hands over and over again at multiple shops. the staffers then frequently delivered their retailer's unique how-you-have-to-shop-here-now spiel before permitting entry.

change rooms are closed.

credit or debit payment only.

you can't try on clothes or shoes in the store.

you can't pick up items unless you intend to buy them.

if you do pick an item up, you need to notify a staff member if you're *not* going to buy it.

testers and/or samples no longer available.

and, in the case of bath & body works, explicit rules about not opening bottles, not smelling scents (in short: no sniffing!) and using a paper bag (which they provide) instead of a basket to carry your items through the store.

[as an aside, between the nitrile gloves, single-use masks, paper bags and the like, the waste created by the COVID-19 pandemic is astonishing.]

much like grocery stores, the shops all had plexiglass protection for cashiers. some cashiers wore masks, some did not. the few lineups i saw (at checkouts) were long enough that they acted as an effective shopping deterrent for me. i didn't need an old navy T-shirt enough that i wanted to stand in line for 10 minutes to pay for it.

many stores also had their own mask requirements. no mask, no entry. the mall was so empty that i didn't see anyone anywhere having to confront a combative would-be shopper refusing to wear one. most stores had maybe one or two shoppers, at most.

the only store that was "busy" was the apple store. there, a socially distanced line of at least 20 people was waiting to get in. and, while the shoppers waited, assorted apple-store employees were taking everyone temperatures AND taking everyone's information (name, address, phone number) down on iPads for contact-tracing purposes. i was surprised that this rather exhaustive process wasn't keeping more people from standing in line. i guess if you want an iPhone badly enough, you'll subject yourself to it... but imagine if you'd planned to just browse? no thanks.

the food court was, not surprisingly, a barren wasteland. all tables and chairs had been removed, and only a handful of fast-food outlets remained open in the massive, empty space. takeout only -- no sitting and eating. mom and i had initially thought maybe we'd grab a sub to share, but given the sparse number of shoppers and the likelihood that there hadn't been enough turnover in food items to ensure whatever we'd get would actually be fresh (and not, say, stale bread that had been baked a few days ago as opposed to baked fresh that morning), we decided to forgo a meal out and just eat at home afterwards.

after just over an hour, we left.

all in all, it was yet another depressing look at what COVID-19 has wrought. mom and i used to love spending a day out, just window shopping. but this? this was just sad. desolate. weirdly lonely.

on the drive home, mom thanked me for taking her out. she was still happy that she'd been out of the house for a while, but said, "that wasn't fun. i don't think i need to go back to a mall for a long time."