wait... REALLY?!: a pleasant vignette

because my brain is a little scattered lately, i forgot to submit my accreditation request for an upcoming film festival. the deadline was yesterday, and i realized my error this morning. (i'd actually downloaded and filled out the form last week, i just didn't remember to actually get it off my desktop and into an email to the PR firm handling media requests.)

i hemmed and hawed over what to do -- should i just skip the fest altogether, email my form a day late and hope they'd still process it, or just go to the screenings on my own dime (boo!) and not have the pressure of having to write about any of them (yay!)?

i opted for none of the above and, instead, sent a quick email to the PR firm to advise them i wasn't applying for accreditation because of my new job, and the fact that i might not actually be able to get to many films due to my full-time work schedule. i'm on good terms with the firm, and they were one of the first to actually acknowledge me as a legitimate member of the press, so i wanted to make sure they didn't think i was blowing off the festival.

off went the email.

a few minutes later, i received a "thank you" reply from a very friendly underling.

about ten minutes after that, the head of the firm emailed me to say, "thanks for letting us know. we've got DVD screeners of almost everything screening at the festival, so if you'd like to watch some and then write about them, let me know."

:-D

my own personal film festival! i can watch from my couch! i can attend screenings in my pyjamas! and i can do it all BEFORE the actual fest even starts!

yes, please.

communication

at the office, we sit in cubicles. there are eight cubicles attached to the cluster in which i sit – two rows, four cubicles on each side. i’m in desk three of four on my side, and the desk next to mine, the one at the end of our row, is occupied by a man i’ll call steven.

steven wasn’t present during my first week here. he’s one of many mail guys at the company, and several people asked me during that week whether i’d met him yet. i always said no, and i was warned by a few folks that he was odd. that he speaks loudly when he’s on the phone. and a couple of guys even snickered in a way that made it seem like steven might be a grade-A creep who’d enjoy sitting next to me.

steven appeared when my second week began. and he was not what i expected.

he’s asian, probably in his early 40s and developmentally challenged in some way. i think he’s likely autistic, as there’s an obvious disconnect in terms of engagement and interaction between him and everyone else. he doesn’t really talk much. he’s got a slight frame, and one eye that’s either lazy or blind as it doesn’t point forward, so he often walks with his head slightly cocked to the side, as if looking at the world through his good eye. steven has a very pronounced speech impediment, and a very thick accent, both of which combined make it hard to understand what he’s saying. and, yes, he does speak very loudly when he’s on the phone.

in the days and weeks that have followed, i’ve watched him. observed. i’ve noticed that many people are very nice to him, and treat him with kindness and patience and respect, and that makes my heart glad.

because, when i hear him as i do right now, speaking with great volume as he places a call, struggling to make clear the thoughts he wishes to get across, i feel very deeply how difficult communication is for him. i put myself in his shoes. i imagine what it must be like, the effort he puts in, and how impatient other people can sometimes get while he tries to express himself.

and it squeezes my heart a little.

oh hello, i didn't see you there...

* happy victoria day!

* right now, there are so many fireworks and firecrackers being set off in my neighbourhood that it sounds a bit like my apartment is in the middle of beirut. we had a big thunderstorm roll through earlier, so i think everyone has decided to make the most of the temporarily clear skies... all at the same time. plus, the acoustics around all the buildings are creating echoes, so the pops and booms just keep reverberating.

* i spent the weekend out in the 'burbs. on saturday morning, mom and i went shopping -- groceries and a coffee maker (for her) and samples and such. she dropped me at YB's house in the early afternoon, and i helped with some of her gardening chores. my task was to mix large quantities of peat moss and potting soil, and then to distribute said quantities into assorted pots of varying sizes. it was very warm and quite humid out, which made our tasks a little more tiring than they would have been otherwise. we discovered a family of four teeny, fuzzy, adorable red squirrels living in one the giant trees in her backyard. we had homemade soup and fresh bread for dinner. then, for dessert, we opened a fresh tub of...

* president's choice pink lemonade ice cream. it was an impulse purchase on my part, because it's a brand-new product and it instantly made me think of the deeeeeelicious lemon ice cream (not sorbet, not sherbet, ICE CREAM) i used to eat each summer up at the cottage we used to rent. there was a tiny, ancient general store on the property, with big, old freezers in the front, and they would serve generous cones of the most amazing, creamy, refreshing, sweet lemon ice cream. so, saturday night, super-excited, YB and i each grabbed a spoon to sample the PCPLIC before scooping ourselves a couple of bowls. and let me just say... it was... absolutely terrible. bland, sour and the consistency of frozen mousse – which is to say airy and frothy, not dense and creamy. i really should have known better when i'd been tempted by it in the store: we've tried at least three different flavours from this crap-tastic line of ice creams and ALL have been disappointing. PCPLIC: FAIL.

* we watched Morning Glory, which was cute, and Waiting for Superman, which was very good.

* earlier today, and somewhat out of the blue, my mother said she "really needs" to figure out where she wants to be buried. then she added that trixie and i need to decide whether we want to find our own plots, or be buried with our parents. and i felt like i'd suddenly been hit with a panic taser.

* in case you hadn't heard, a volanco in iceland erupted. i am crossing all appendages that the country remains sound asleep for the duration of my visit... mainly because i'm SO not interested in being stranded in reykjavik indefinitely.

* SYTYCD starts up again this coming thursday. it's one of the signs (for me) that summer is approaching. i always know summer has officially arrived, though, when Big Brother gets underway for the season. (in case you're keeping track: it starts on july 7th!)

* speaking of summer, in one month and one day i will turn 40 years old. i have many thoughts on this subject, some of which will likely find their way into a blog entry or two between now and then. in the meantime, i'm trying to figure out what to do. part of me thinks it's a milestone birthday worth celebrating and that i should make an extra effort to do it up somehow, but the other part of me thinks, "you know what? don't get your expectations up. treat it like any other birthday. get your free stuff, have some cake, and call it a day." i remain undecided. maybe i'll just shave my head. (i'm only half-kidding.)

* further to my previous pants post, i bought three new pairs of pants last week. each pair was at least 70% off its original price.

* tomorrow is day one of week five (!) of the not-so-new-anymore job. originally, this would have been my final week but, now, friday will be the midpoint of the assignment. starting the following week, i'll only be working four days per week (every friday off). and, at the moment, there's an unfinalized, still-up-in-the-air discussion about extending the job two more months after that. possibly on a recurring, part-time basis. stand by.

* i continue to neglect my creative writing. not because i don't have time, but because i can't seem to motivate myself. i may try to loosen those muscles with a poem i've been mulling since i started the job: "ode to the world's most disgusting cough." (the cough does not belong to me. the cough – which is loud and phlegmy and completely revolting – belongs to some woman who sits somewhere in a cubicle not too far away, and it's been echoing through the office since my very first day. every. day.)

"saudade"

one of the stories i'm currently writing for one of the magazines on which i'm working is a travel piece about rio. it's just a general-info article on what to see and do.

during the course of my research, i decided to browse popular brazilian phrases to see if i could somehow incorporate one into the story. you know, to add a splash of colour.

in doing so, i came across the word "saudade" (pronounced sow-dadge), which has different interpretations but is described as a melancholic feeling for something you loved that no longer exists or is no longer present. my favourite definition, though, was the one that said the word means "the sadness we have for happy memories."

i thought that beautifully poetic.

(and, as a trivial aside, brazil actually honours the feeling with the day of saudade every january 30th.)

my past in pants

the other day, while rooting through my closet to see which of my “work clothes” still fit after nine years on hangers (answer: almost none), i found two pairs of pants i love.

they were waaay at the back of the closet, at the end of the rod, and i’d actually forgotten they were still there. a couple of years ago, when i mistakenly gave too much attention - and assigned too much importance - to who i was on the outside, i’d done a big clothes purge, getting rid of anything i thought didn’t reflect the person i wanted to be. or, more accurately, the person i thought i was supposed to be.

and i guess i thought these two pairs of pants had been given away along with everything else.

but there they were. alive!

i loved them then, and love them now, because they’re unique. they’re a matching set – the exact same style, in two different colours (beige and olive). they’re men’s pants, and i remember buying them at a burlington coat factory, oh, easily 13 or 14 years ago. (i take good care of my clothes, so they’re still in excellent shape all this time later.)

they’re a sturdy cotton. not quite denim, but thick and tough, as though made to survive the rough and tumble antics of overgrown little boys. they have a narrow waist, so they fit me perfectly around the middle, and then enormous, billowy legs that are rendered sail-like in the wind. they’re not cargo pants, and they’re not painter pants, but they do have huge pockets at the back and one on the right-side leg right around the knee.

i bought them back when i was going through a mild skater phase, fascinated by girls (and guys) who could pull off a tight, girlie shirt and massive, boy pants. this look was usually completed by classic vans or original airwalk (before they became crappy payless-affiliated models) shoes. as an aside, i actually had a wicked cool pair of royal- and navy-blue airwalks, too, but wore them to the point where they could be worn no more.

i remember feeling cool when i wore those pants – especially the olive ones, which looked like they were part of some kind of fun, funky, jacked-up military uniform. they were wonderfully loose and super-comfortable and functional: all the pockets were roomy, and the side pocket on the leg was a great place for keys, or a small wallet, or whatever. they were nice and long, as well, which meant i could even roll up the cuff around the ankle.

when i found the pants again last week, i felt like i’d stumbled upon another version of myself. an older version. a familiar version. a version that might have been upgraded since, but one that still works, still has value, and was never entirely phased out.

and i put them on.

what does it mean to be creative?

i've been pondering that question a lot over the past few weeks.

ever since i began my new job -- which, btw, has now officially been extended through the end of june -- i've felt a curious, growing guilt that, while i've been enjoying having a regular paycheque and reawakening my long-dormant magazine skills, i've also been ignoring my creativity. abandoning it.

before the job offer, i'd done a lot of work through that creativity-recovery workshop and felt like i'd finally built a solid foundation on which to expand, creatively. i had new screenplay deadlines in place, an idea for reworking a very old screenplay into a stage piece (a musical, no less!), and thought perhaps i was moving successfully and concretely, however belatedly, towards a real artist's life.

thing is, since april 25th, all of those things have completely fallen by the wayside. completely. save for my photo-a-day blog and the tiny handful of entries i've written here, i haven't done a speck of my own creative work on any of my own creative endeavours. i sit at my desk, in front of my computer, all day at the office so, when i get home at the end of the day, it's the last place i want to be. even when i do sit at my desk at home, it's like i hear an internal dial tone. i feel like i'm tapping the flint, desperately trying to create a spark that might build a flame... but nuthin'.

and, instead of figuring out some other way to get the fire going, i wind up chastising myself for dropping the proverbial ball i spent so many months stitching together. as crazy as it might sound, despite finally feeding the long-malnourished professional side of myself (and the accompanying long-malnourished bank account), i feel like i'm letting my creative half down. that i'm turning my back on my plans, that i'm not putting in enough effort, and that i'm once again taking the "easy" way out of facing a potentially challenging situation (i.e., trying to make a living in the arts).

for the most part, i've managed to nip the negative self-talk in the bud by pointing out (to myself) the ways i am being creative during the workday. i write daily -- every single day, for at least a few hours a day -- and, with a few minor corporate tweaks here and there (since the magazines are specialty corporate publications and are subject to corporate, not editorial, approval), every word of it goes into print. there was a day last week when i was asked, for the first time in my life, to come up with a cover line. so, after some brainstorming, i did. and there it is still, right on the cover, approved as i wrote it, waiting to go to press. i get to use puns in headlines. i'm playing with words. i'm taking what could be dry, business-related subject matter and giving it pep. alliteration. colour.

despite all this, i still find myself wondering. worrying.

does it count?

is non-fiction, corporate writing less worthy than fiction?

am i copping out?

what does it mean to be creative?

door culture

working in an office for the past few weeks, i’ve noticed a curious phenomenon: people repeatedly, happily and patiently holding the door open for me.

the first few times it happened i thought, “wow. folks here sure are courteous!”, and then it kept happening. not just at the office or in the compound, but elsewhere out in the world.

i’ve always been the kind of person to hold a door open for someone else, but i’ve found it’s an increasingly rare practice. people are in a collective hurry; there’s no time to stand and wait three seconds for the person wandering in or out after you. “let them hold their own door!” frequently seems to be the thinking.

and yet here i was, multiple times a day, every day, having men and women hold doors open for me. likewise, i’ve found myself going out of my way to make sure to do the same, standing and waiting for people who are shuffling after me towards the door or hurrying with their cafeteria lunch to the elevator in which i'm already standing. pay it forward and all.

and then, earlier this week, i had what i can only describe as a weirdly amazing door-holding moment on my way into the subway. i was heading into the station and a young, scrawny and tall young guy, maybe 21 and sort of geeky, was heading out. i was still a good ten feet from the door when he exited and walked toward me. he looked up at me, suddenly stopped and, without saying a word, walked back maybe five or six feet to the now-closed door, opened it and stood there, holding it open for me.

wait. what?

?!

i was stunned. in a good way. i offered a big, surprised thank you and proceeded through. an older businessman walked in next to me, through an adjacent door. he sort of chuckled and said, “wow. you don’t see that every day.”

“i know!” i replied, genuinely shocked. because, really, it was genuinely unexpected and genuinely nice.

three weeks, tons of doors. and the more it happens, the more i notice it happening.

the meaning and metaphor not lost on me.

999

you know that old adage that, if you don't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all? well, lately, i've been quiet on the blog for a similar reason: i didn't really have anything meaningful to say, so i said nothing.

see, this is blog entry #999.

the next one will be entry #1000.

one thousand posts.

wow.

i've known it was coming for a while – i think i realized the milestone was approaching when i logged in one day last month and saw that i was on blog entry #980-something. then, last week, it hit me that i was just a few posts away from #1000.

and it was as though i suddenly dug in my metaphorical heels and stopped.

i didn't want to squander my thousandth post, and i also didn't want to get to it until whatever i'd write would be worthy of that epic number, so i just... didn't write anything.

to be fair, i was swamped last week and, between the new job and covering hot docs, i feel like i've been spinning. there wasn't time for me to sit down and write something thoughtfully, or even carefully, and i wanted to make sure that i was exhaling when i wrote, not gasping. thankfully, the dust is finally settling and i'm getting back into some semblance of routine.

coincidentally, over the past couple of weeks, i've felt strangely reflective – a feeling that's ideal for something like a thousandth blog entry – but i haven't caught my breath enough to really explore any of it, either in my head or in my writing. i know some of it has to do with my high school reunion (the one i didn't manage to attend), and i'm sure some of it has to do with my impending 40th birthday. i also think some of it has to do with this blog itself, and the fact that, over the past 998 entries, a lot of time has passed. sometimes, i can't quite believe how much.

i look back at the first few entries from 2007, when i first moved into this apartment and was starting fresh in so many different ways. things were happening, my life was changing. i remember it all so clearly – not just the what of it all, but how i felt. in the four-and-a-bit years that have since passed, so much more has changed. so much has also stayed the same. and a lot of it is documented here.

my friend lou has talked before about how a blog can be a marker, and that, by looking back through its entries, you remember who you were at different points in time. you see change. you remember. i think that's definitely true for me. i notice the ebbs and flows just by clicking randomly on old entries. and i can always tell which ones were written during periods of great emotion, good or bad, and why, and what caused them, and how life unfolded around whatever it was.

in some ways, i feel like entry #1000 should therefore honour that journey, both in life and in blogging. that it should be more than just a quickly fired-off post about something frivolous. it deserves more than that, i think.

or maybe it doesn't. maybe entry #1000 is no more special than entry #288 or #415 or #621. maybe it, like countless other posts on this blog, should just be about whatever it's about, and reflect the me of that day. whatever that might mean. and, in that, find meaning organically.

i dunno.

for now, i'm trying to figure out what to write. and how i might write it. but it's coming.

eventually. ;-)

this will be a rant later, i'm sure

annoying: bringing your infant to a hot docs screening.

more annoying: taking your infant and sitting yourself smack dab in the middle of the packed theatre, about eight rows from the front, where you are surrounded by people.

so annoying that i am going to come down there and junk-punch you right up in your lady business: not immediately taking your restless infant OUT of the theatre when it begins to whine and cry and fuss, and -- instead! -- opting to keep it (unsuccessfully) entertained by turning on your enormous smartphone and having its blinding blue rectangle of light shine towards everyone else sitting behind you in the theatre. FOR ALMOST THE ENTIRE MOVIE.

playing catch-up

i hate to say it but, as much as i love it, i'll be glad when hot docs is over this year. trying to attend a film festival and work full-time is a juggling act i never attempted back when i was a salaried employee years ago (i always took the week of TIFF as vacation time), and trying to do it now, after a decade of working from home and making my own hours, is proving to be a challenge. a very tiring one.

for much of the past two weeks, i felt like i was perpetually behind and scrambling to catch up with everything. i had writing assignments to finish, pre-hot docs screenings to attend, a dead computer and a brand new job starting. i hadn't cleaned my apartment in a month, i had bags of laundry to be done waiting in my parents' basement, and my high school was holding its 50th anniversary celebrations this past weekend. how would i get it all done?

it was an exercise in multi-tasking, strategic planning and, for lack of a better word, sacrifice. i plowed through a huge amount of stuff on saturday, and opted to forego the high-school reunion (which was sad because the school is actually closing forever in june... something i'll write about another day) in order to finish the rest of my work before heading to hot docs on sunday afternon. i went grocery shopping and stocked up for the week, and caught up on my documentary reviews so i could begin this week caught up.

the job itself is going very well. i'm really enjoying the work i'm doing, and i like the fact that each day brings something new. there's also great personal satisfaction in ending a day and feeling like i've actually accomplished something – that i had tangible tasks to complete, and i completed them. i've also come to realize how much i've missed day-to-day interaction with other people. as in: talking to someone other than myself... every day. whether it's a cross-cubicle discussion of reality TV or a short chat break to learn about UFC matches, gardening gadgets or the breakfast special at the compound cafeteria, that kind of connection and regular engagement is something that had been sorely lacking in my life for a long time. so, you know, it's kind of nice to have that back.

most of the people in the office are a fair bit younger than i am, and almost all of them are much cooler and more hip than me. having not worked in an office for nearly ten years, my "work wardrobe" is thin at best. though i do have a number of professional-esque pairs of pants and the like, i found out last night that nothing actually fits me anymore. evidently, i've lost weight since 2002, and everything now looks like it's two sizes too big. as such, and since i work for a company that publishes a number of fashion magazines (staffed by fashionable people), i do feel kind of square... sort of like anne hathaway at the beginning of The Devil Wears Prada. only, i don't have stanley tucci or a giant storehouse of free designer clothes and shoes to get me from plain to pizazz. (as an aside, there are a LOT of beautiful, stylish women who work on my floor and elsewhere in the compound, and i feel kind of like i lumber around like a clumsy linebacker.)

at the same time, i have to keep reminding myself that this is a five-week gig. this isn't a permanent position, and it isn't my new full-time job. it's temporary. the other day, i caught myself mentally going over what new items i should probably buy – like a good pair of nice boots so i can keep walking to work without further foot injury (i think i might have a stress fracture in my left foot... did i mention that?) – and i stopped when i remembered this job will be over at the end of may. no sense in planning what to wear in july. or october.

in some ways, i kind of wish it were a longer-term assignment. i'm liking it. a lot. and i'm feeling productive and useful and appreciated... things i hadn't felt in a long time. i do recognize that i've sacrificed some degree of my more creative pursuits these last two weeks – for starters, updating this blog on a regular basis has fallen by the wayside somewhat, and i haven't done any of my own writing at all – but i'm hoping to achieve a better balance once hot docs draws to a close and i get my nights back. i just need to get through the next five days and things should fall into place in a much better way.