another pearl of wisdom from a Dove™ chocolate wrapper

"sometimes, one smile means more than a dozen roses."

tales from the cubicle: caught!

the other day, i caught one our freelancers plagiarizing.

she’d submitted one of her assigned articles, and my editor asked me to give it a once-over and to tweak or edit where necessary.

for starters, it was poorly written and wouldn’t really provide any value to our readers. so i started tweaking and editing. but it still wasn’t working, and kind of called out for a rewrite.

i asked for the original assignment letter, so i could gauge what the client had wanted and then shape the story accordingly.

once i’d looked at it, and knew what the story was supposed to be about, i decided to google to get more information (that i could add to the somewhat thin info the piece contained).

when i got to the third google result, i clicked open an article on the same subject and paused. some of the text seemed very familiar. like, word-for-word familiar.

i couldn’t believe it.

she’d copied an entire paragraph from an online article. verbatim!

i scanned the rest of the online story and found a couple more sentences that had been lifted and pasted into the freelancer’s article.

good grief!

once i’d gathered the evidence, i went to my editor, who was mortified.

i asked whether i should spot check a few of her other stories for the magazine to see if this was an isolated case. he gave me the okay, and i promptly discovered:

it wasn't.

it really wasn’t hard to uncover, either. i just copied random sentences from her work into google and, presto!, other sites popped up.

i couldn’t believe it. this wasn’t some fresh-out-of-school newbie, either, but someone who’s been around long enough to know, you know, YOU DON’T PLAGIARIZE. i suspect she figured no one would ever be the wiser, and she could just continue to collect her cheques without worry.

so, the existing work has been completely rewritten by me, and she’s been relieved of all subsequent writing duties for us.

thank you, and good day to you madam.

it was my birthday on friday!: a recap

and, i'm happy to say, it was a really fun weekend. here are the highlights:

* i began the morning with a bunch of facebook greetings and an e-card from YB, then headed out just before 9am to meet up with her and mom for our day of shopping and eating and shenanigans.

* our first stop was what-a-bagel! where, on your birthday, you get a dozen bagels... free! i decided to let mom pick out the 12, hot-out-out-of-the-oven bagels for herself.

* we then drove north and stopped at petsmart, where i played with a very sweet, gentle cat named emmy, who was stationed in their adoption center. she was a calico, and petite, and she wanted nothing more than to be petted. she rolled over in her cage, pressed her body up against the bars and purred. then she reached out a paw and just placed it on my arm... then left it there. just touching my arm. no claws, just paw. i bent my face close to the cage and she reached the paw to my cheek and then held it there. mom and trix shopped for food for kyle and browsed the store while i hung out with emmy. for about 20 minutes.

* we stopped in at jacob outlet, where YB scored some super deals. jeans for $5! lounge pants for $2.50! unfortunately for me, none of jacob's pants are long enough for me, so i left empty-handed.

* then, a monsoon hit for ten minutes, so we waited it out in the parking lot before continuing on our way.

* we drove farther north and went to a costco. trix picked up a kitchenaid food processor, mom bought vitamins and i had a sample of some kind of almond/cranberry cracker.

* next stop: a shopping mall. trix treated me to baskin robbins for lunch (not "with" lunch, FOR lunch) after the young guys working the crêpe counter proved themselves to be ill-versed in food safety and i decided not to have anything they were making. mom had a coupon for a free muffin, so she had that. afterwards, i popped into sephora for my complimentary birthday gift – which i promptly gave to YB. it was cupcake-scented body wash and, while i enjoy eating cupcakes, "vanilla cake" is not what i wish to smell like. the mall didn't give up any deals, per se, so we moseyed onwards.

* we hit a wal-mart supercentre next and did some grocery/necessity shopping, which was productive. mom had given me a gift card en route, which made it a free visit for me.

* for dinner, we stopped at the keg. we were all starving, so it was the perfect place (a steakhouse) to chow down. plus: free dessert on your birthday! my slice of billy miner™ pie (mocha ice cream with drizzles of butterscotch and chocolate-fudge sauce, adorned with toasted, slivered almonds) arrived with a sparkler. our server, huffing and puffing, said he'd run across the restaurant to get it to the table before the sparkler went out.

* when we got back to my parents' house, i opened presents. i'd asked for "fun socks" and fun socks i did receive. :-D i also got some useful gift cards, subway tokens (which i always appreciate!), a new pillow and several small-sized reusable tote bags with which to carry my lunch to work... because, in case i haven't yet mentioned it, my job has now been extended through to the end of july.

* WE HAD CAKE!!!! mom made a whoopie-pie cake – which is essentially a devil's food cake mix with homemade whoopie-pie filling as frosting. so so so delicious! even though we'd stuffed ourselves at dinner, we each made room for big slabs of chocolaty wonderfulness.

* i stayed over at trixie's place on friday night because we had a second day of shopping planned for saturday. mom opted to sit this one out, which was totally understandable given that our (well, my) ultimate destination was krispy kreme. YB and i got up, had birthday cake for breakfast (yay!) and then hit the highway just after 8:45am.

* instead of going north, we drove west this time... all the way to the west pole (aka: mississauga). we tooled around assorted stores, tried on shoes, had chicken fingers and herbed potato wedges for lunch, spotted swallows roosting at a RONA and, when all was said and done, walked into krispy kreme. (cue: chorus of angels.) i bought two of my absolute favourite flavour: glazed raspberry filled. omgsoamazingandgood. trix bought an iced coffee.

* when we got home, trix whipped up a batch of her homemade tomato sauce (YUM!) and i made myself pasta. we ended the evening chez mes parents and watched the documentary Don't You Forget About Me, which kind of blew. but it was nice to share the crappiness together. misery does, after all, love company.

* i finished my birthday weekend by doing massive amounts of laundry. i have five giant bags full, and getting it all done (on saturday night and sunday morning) was incredibly satisfying. while stuff washed and dried, mom and i made apple-walnut muffins. then she gave me a ride home with all my stuff, i spent half an hour putting everything away... and then the weekend was over. i was pooped but happy.

it's my birthday!

i have bernard, and my camera, packed in my bag. YB has taken the day off work, and she and mom will be picking me up from the subway at 9:30am. from there, we're heading out for a day of shopping, eating, posing, cat-petting (we're visiting the newly reopened SPCA to check out the digs) and, of course, free-stuff procurement. the weather is poopy (overcast and super-humid with rain en route), but i'm looking forward to a fun day! i hope to have many stories later...

turning 40

last week, i told my therapist that i think the idea of turning 40 was much much more difficult a concept to handle as i approached my 39th birthday than it is as my 40th actually arrives.

because last year it felt horrible, and this year... it feels pretty nice.

i'm not sure why. maybe, or probably, it was the panicked feeling that i had One Year Left to do something extraordinary with my life or become someone amazing or reach whatever goals i thought needed to reach before hitting that milestone.

for some reason, 40 has always been a colossal marker in my mind – the age by which i should have my life together, my issues squared away, my future planned if not already well underway. 40 was being a grown-up, and turning 39 meant i only had one year left to get everything organized, sorted, settled and locked down.

ergo: dread.

last june, i was no position – emotionally or psychologically – to do any of those things, nor did any of them seem remotely do-able in the first place. and, so, panic. fear. worry. and all sorts of other decidedly unpleasant things that wrapped themselves around me like a soaking wet wool blanket. to me, at the time, the year ahead looked like it would be an enormous, arduous, uphill climb that would surely end in disaster and heartache.

but, then, it didn't.

yes, absolutely, there was an arduous uphill climb, but it actually started to get easier and, i'm pleased to say, things are different now. no disaster. no heartache. (phew.)

if you recall, back in september 2010, i decided to declare my year over and start fresh. clean slate! new year!

and you know what?

it totally worked. the changes that followed were kind of remarkable. after two years with barely any work, suddenly work started coming in. and coming in. and coming in. just trickles at first, but then a stream.

and now, in june, i'm floating along a steady river of work. i'm feeling productive and creative. i'm getting work finished and i'm earning an income. it's kind of incredible how much something so simple can do for one's self-esteem and sense of self-worth. there have actually been days when i've gone to bed thinking, "wow. i'm really good at what i do." not in a vain way, but in a pleasantly surprised, very satisfied, look-what-i-made way.

all that to say, my headspace in june 2011 is decidedly different than it was a year ago, and i'm able to view things without the gloom filter that hung before my eyes last june 24th when i literally cried myself to sleep on my birthday.

no tears this birthday, only smiles and laughter and a sense of contentment that i'd been missing for quite a long while.

over the past eight or nine months, i've really turned things around. no, my future isn't all neatly planned and, no, i didn't cure cancer and, yes, much of my life is still the same... but my outlook has greatly improved. sure, there's still fear and worry with a dash of panic, but it's not all-consuming.

why?

because that climb, however challenging and difficult and exhausting, eventually got me above the clouds and into the sunshine.

instructions from the unconscious mind

last night, i had a vivid and somewhat weird dream.

i was seated at a long, long banquet table that had been set up outdoors, on the street where i grew up. it was the kind of ordinary, wooden folding table that's common to schools and meeting rooms. and it had been pushed up edge to edge against other folding tables, so that the whole set up was a giant "hollow" rectangle, with its borders made up of one table after another. there was nothing on the tables – no plates, no food, no nuthin'.

in the dream, it was june and it was a sunny afternoon.

people were seated along all the tables, but i couldn't make out who any of them were. everyone seemed happy and excited, and the energy was positive, though.

the woman who leads my meditation group suddenly appeared and called everyone's attention. she said we were going to begin.

begin what?

she said we'd start by going from person to person around the enormous rectangle, and each one of us was to recite what we'd prepared about what the last year had meant to us. sort of like thanksgiving.

wait. what?

she looked down to her right at the guy sitting beside her, and she told us all that he would go first.

then i was to go next.

PARDON?

i started to panic. "we were supposed to write about what we're thankful for?!" i asked.

she smiled and nodded. i looked down at the blank paper and pen that had materialized in front of me and tried to get to writing. i figured maybe i could jot down a few points while guy #1 read his list (which i hoped was long).

but as i began writing, i started feeling. in the dream, i started writing about how vastly different i feel in june 2011 vs. june 2010, and how much had changed, and what i had learned.

and i felt myself starting to cry.

then i woke up.

and the thing is: it's true. i am different, the last year has been one of great change and growth, and the me of june 2011 is in a much better place than the me of june 2010. there's a part of me that does feel emotional -- and, sometimes, even teary -- when i think of it all, but not because i'm sad.

because i'm relieved.

clearly, the dream was encouraging me to do what i have not yet done in my waking life, and that's to sit down, take stock, embrace gratitude and recognize all the work i've done and all the progress i've made, both personally and professionally.

and then write about it.

a friday at home

today was my day off. i was very much looking forward to a big, fat, do-nothing day because my last two days off were occupied with a video shoot and a string of appointments, respectively. i even thought about maybe taking bernard out for a photo promenade this afternoon.

when i woke up this morning, it was very hazy and humid outside. not especially pretty and rather grey, and not really photo-friendly. ah well.

as much as i thought pyjamas should be the order of the day, i got dressed. a package – my first birthday gift of 2011! – from one of my faraway friends was to be delivered today, so i wanted to make sure i was at least halfway presentable when it arrived.

i opted to spend the day editing more video. i've now finished 13 promos. 17, if you include the ones that didn't make the cut. it's been tiring and, occasionally, frustrating (0.1s of footage can make or break a clip), but satisfying. and i think i'm done.

so, i passed the hours doing that.

i also wrote a review for The Art of Getting By, a terrible movie i saw earlier this week.

i ate leftover cookies and cake.

i ate leftover spaghetti and made garlic bread.

i chatted with mom on the phone.

and then, at 6pm, my gift arrived. :-D

i affectionately refer to it as "a forest in a box" because, as you see, it's a box. a very pretty box. and it's handcrafted from all different kinds of wood. thanks to its pre-arrival clues, i know at least some of it is made from cherry, white oak and mahogany.

ergo: a forest.

and i'm very grateful to lou for sending it to me.

say, have you checked out...

my photo blog recently?

hey asshat, mind your own effing business!

i’m at my desk at the office, on lunch, having just returned from the compound cafeteria.

i’d gone down to pick up something to eat – i wasn’t especially hungry, and had just finished a mammoth apple, so i was looking for something fairly small-ish. like a bowl of soup and a bagel, or perhaps one of the side dishes always on offer with the array of main courses.

craving something savoury, i decided to get a side order of rosemary-mustard seed potatoes. they looked good, they’d be perfectly salty and a clamshell container full of them would fit my bill.

i walked up to the counter and the friendly guy behind it greeted me. i placed my order, and he set about scooping seven or eight whole mini potatoes into my container. (the cost? $1.)

as he did so, a clearly un-busy older cook, who mans the adjacent grill, wandered over to stick his nose where it didn’t belong.

he looked at my container of potatoes, and then at me, and then said, “someone’s on a diet.”

his tone wasn’t particularly jovial, though i suspect he thought himself quite funny. i quickly replied that no, they were just to supplement the lunch i already had upstairs, but it wasn’t until i was walking away that it hit me how completely out of line his comment was.

“someone’s on a diet”?

wait. what?

WTF?

i don’t know this man, he doesn’t know me. he doesn’t know what my situation might be or if i have an eating disorder or if i really am on a diet or if there might be any extenuating reason i would interpret his comment as meaning i’m fat.

his job is to serve me food, not comment on what i’m eating or not eating. had i been overweight, would he have suggested i perhaps not order carbs? or told me to “slow down there, hon!”?

honestly.

by the time i got back to my floor, i considered going back down to confront him over his ignorant remark. but by then the moment had passed, the asshat was back to flipping burgers and my potatoes were getting cold.

that said, if it happens again, you can bet he’ll get a less-than-amused retort from yours truly.

ladies who pee

over the past seven weeks, at the office where i work, i've observed a rather bizarre phenomenon: two young women who, it seems, are incapable of peeing alone.

they both look like they're probably in their early 20s, and neither one is never, ever in the women's washroom by herself. each is always with the other.

they come in together, pee in adjacent stalls (chatting all the while), and then leave together.

each time i see them i think, "there they are AGAIN!" it's gotten to the point that i recognize their voices from down the hall, before i even enter the washroom, and i think to myself, "i wonder if they're both in there."

and, inevitably, they are.

everything within me wants to find out what the story is, and why they must seemingly pee in tandem. but, for now, encountering them has become like a game -- i want to see how many more times in a row i can find them together.

i think i might actually be disappointed if i wandered in and found one of them by herself at the sinks.

the weekend: in food and frivolity

* i spent the weekend in the 'burbs. i had two key tasks i needed to complete before this afternoon: 1) i had to wash my bedroom curtains, which are navy blue and thick and had developed an unappealing layer of dust; and 2) bake a batch of cookies to take to my meditation group's summer party this coming thursday. i needed to perform both tasks chez my parents because: 1) they have a washing machine and an iron and a surface large enough to facilitate the ironing of drapes; and 2) i wanted mom's supervision while i tackled a new kind of cookie.

* i am delighted to report that the curtains were washed, ironed and are now hanging back up in my bedroom. and the cookies – raspberry thumbprints, half the batch coated in ground pecans, the other half coated in coconut – turned out wonderfully.

* while making the new cookies (which mom has made before, but i'd never made myself), she taught me how to separate an egg. :-)

* speaking of eggs, we had breakfast – bacon and eggs – for dinner on saturday. i enjoy bacon when it's really well-done. i.e., so crispy it's brittle. i can't take the texture of chewy bacon. :-X (i don't think i need to tell you mom always mine extra-crispy.)

* for dessert, i made everyone toaster-oven s'mores. mom had purchased fresh marshmallows and two large bars of lindt milk chocolate, so the resulting s'mores were deliciousssssss.

* instead of watching TV last night, mom, YB (who also came to our parents' house for a sleepover) and i just sat in the front living room and chatted for several hours. it was very nice.

* during said conversation, trix told me she's asking her boss for the day off on my birthday so she can spend the day with mom and me. AND she said she's also keeping the next day (a saturday) free in case i want to do anything else. i thought this, too, was very nice, and i look forward to a fun day out. (fingers crossed her boss, who's pretty great, says yes.)

* it was nice to go to sleep last night and not worry that anyone was going to set the house on fire.

* this morning, YB and i got an early start on what was to be a fairly extensive shopping outing. on the docket: IKEA, Wal-Mart, Loblaws, Highland Farms, Dollarama, Bulk Barn... and all before 2pm. so, after watching a couple of episodes of The New Adventures of Old Christine over breakfast (our favourite sunday-morning activity), we hit the road at 9am.

* we were super-productive. we picked up sunscreen (for me) and soil (for trix). we bought pasta (me) and dental rinse (YB). we loaded a new table (hers) and a new pillow (mine) into the trunk, along with a utility cart (also hers) and a collection of fixins to make homemade granola (also mine). there were groceries and essentials, as well as treats and unexpected deals. we wound up stopping at Vaughan Mills, which is gigantic. we only covered about ¼ of the mall before we had to carry on. (we were there long enough for me to get a nutella/banana crêpe, and for trix to grab an iced earl grey tea + three fancy chocolate bars, though. :-D)

* under trixie's supervision, i set about making foster's market granola... which is, apparently, renowned and which YB has made many times before. it's delicious and hearty and it's what i'll be bringing to work this week for breakfast. i'm happy to say it, too, turned out fantastically.

* i'm now back at home, freshly showered and in my pyjamas. the curtains are rehung, the groceries put away, the cookies packed, my lunch for tomorrow made and the tony awards on the TV. i feel like i had a perfectly productive weekend.

* and i found out on friday that one of my faraway friends has sent me a birthday gift via UPS. it left los angeles on saturday and is now en route across america. :-D

FIIIIRE! (sort of)

at approximately 1:40am today, the fire alarm in my apartment building went off.

it is a deafening and shrill alarm, through which no one – no matter how sound a sleeper – could possibly sleep, and so piercing that it actually hurts your ears if they're not protected by earplugs. it is loud and, in the 4+ years i've lived here, it has never, ever gone off before (save for the annual round of testing).

i FLEWWWWW out of bed, heart pounding, and hurried to the front door. everything i'd ever learned in school about what to do in a fire came racing back into my brain. check the door – is it warm? no.

smell for smoke – is there any?

YES.

i pressed my nose to the crack around the door and could definitely smell smoke in the hallway outside. not cigarette smoke, not someone-burned-their-toast smoke, but distinct, SOMETHING IS ON FIRE smoke.

holy crap.

the alarm was still sounding, so i immediately ran back to the bedroom and got dressed. adrenaline pumping, i thought about what to grab in the event that this was a serious fire and i might not be able to get back into my apartment. this was suddenly quite scary – what if the building was really burning? what if i'd get outside and look up and see flames shooting out of someone's window? what if this was real and dangerous? i opted for my wallet and a memory stick with all my computer files on it.

as i was scrambling to put on my shoes, the alarm turned off.

i stopped. i went back to the door and sniffed – i could still smell smoke. i listened, and didn't hear any of my neighbours in the hallway. what the hell was happening?

i called the super, since i knew she'd be awake.

"hi, it's vickie."

"what happened?" said the super.

"that's why i'm calling you – the fire alarm went off and now it's stopped. do we need to leave the building???"

she said she wasn't sure, and explained that the crazy girl at the end of my hall had apparently pulled the alarm because "she smelled smoke and didn't know what to do." i told the super that i, too, could smell smoke in the hall.

"i'm coming up," she said.

but by the time i hung up, the sound of fire-engines approaching cut through the weirdly quiet night air. (honestly, i couldn't believe i was the only one awake, dressed and ready to get out.) i looked out my windows and saw two fire trucks pulling into my street, and figured i should continue what i was doing and get myself outside, just to be safe.

when i opened my apartment door, i heard the crazy girl's door open. she rushed out, locked her door and ran into the rear stairwell of the building. huh. weird. i immediately wondered if she'd, in fact, been the one to start a fire and then pull the alarm when it got out of her control. i decided to walk down the front stairs.

i got to the lobby, and the super was there was one of the firefighters.

"so, what's going on?" i asked. "is everything okay?"

"yes, it's okay now," she said, and went on to say that someone had set a piece of plywood on fire in the rear stairwell.

"was it someone on my floor?" i asked, flatly, because i knew she knew whom i meant.

"well," she said, "the fire was between your floor and the one below, and the person who pulled the alarm was from your floor."

"but is the person who started the fire from my floor?" i asked pointedly, making sure the firefighter was catching all this info.

"yes, i think it was someone from your floor," she replied.

as we stood there, i could hear a few more tenants descending the front stairs, so i went out to pass on the "all clear" news. we all stood outside for a while, kind of watching the proceedings (two fire trucks and plenty of firefighters) and watching as the crazy girl from the end of my hallway, acting like a manic nutjob, was ranting to a couple of other tenants about how she pulled the alarm because she "DIDN'T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO!!!!!" i pointed her out to the others, and said she was the one who pulled the alarm.

to me, her behaviour smacked of someone who really really wanted to seem like a hero, as though telling people her side of the story over and over again (because i heard her repeat it at least twice) would somehow convince them she'd done the right thing. one of the firefighters pulled her aside to take down her info – since, you know, she was the one who pulled the alarm – and she was talking to him as if she'd just downed a dozen espressos. spelling her name like she was in the military: "bravo, andrew, richard, richard..."

after all this, only six tenants out of more than 60 bothered to come outside, which is almost as alarming as the prospect of a burning building. i couldn't believe there weren't more people outside. there were a couple of women from a few floors above me, and both of them said the smell of smoke was very strong on their floor, which is why they fled, so clearly other floors had been affected. and yet... six people? really? did everyone else just roll over and go back to sleep?

anyway, i went back to my apartment and tried to get my adrenaline levels back under control. it wasn't easy, and it took me another two hours before i'd calmed down enough to fall back asleep. my mind was racing: what had *really* happened? did the crazy girl really set something on fire? why? i'd heard her have a mini tantrum (some yelling and then a slammed door around 10:30pm), so was she pissed off and armed with matches?

most importantly, was anyone going to investigate? if it was her, and if she did try to set the building on fire, shouldn't she... you know... BE EVICTED?!

and what if she does it again?

or, if it wasn't her, what if whomever it was tries to do it again?

first thing this morning, i called my super to get the full scoop. and even i was not prepared for the crazy girl's level of crazy:

everyone – police, firefighters, building management – believes she's the one who set the fire and put it out and THEN pulled the alarm.

the super said crazy girl ran down to the super's apartment at 1:40am, after pulling the alarm, and was hysterical, saying she'd "found" a fire in the stairwell, put it out herself and THEN pulled the alarm.

the super, wisely, didn't buy a word of it. why would anyone put out a fire and THEN pull the fire alarm?, she wondered aloud to me.

then, when firefighters and, later, police arrived, crazy girl started ranting that the person who set the fire was the creep next door to me (who, while creepy, has never given off any kind of threatening, pyromaniacal vibes). the creep, who'd come outside, was floored.

too bad for crazy girl not a soul believed a word she was saying.

seems she (crazy girl) had been in an argument with the creep next door to me earlier last night (which was, i discovered, the source of the door-slamming tantrum i heard around 10:30pm) over his smoking. and, my super theorizes, this was her way of getting back at him – setting a small fire and then blaming him for it.

SHE IS INSANE.

the super said that the police detectives who arrived agreed that crazy girl was lying, and said they'd "have a talk with her." the big problem is: even though everyone knows she did it, no one has any proof she did.

there are no security cameras in the building, and no one actually saw her light a match to anything. but her history of disruptive, dramatic behaviour precedes her, and is on official record with the police (again: see: last november's wee-hour drama), and her manic behaviour during questioning last night was, despite her efforts to the contrary, a giant beacon of "IT WAS ME."

thanks to this blog, i was able to inform my super that it was on november 6th, 2010, that crazy girl was escorted out of the building by police. my super thanked me, and the info is going into crazy girl's ever-growing file with the management company.

and, you know, as much as the creep and the weirdo next door creep and weird me out, i would much rather have them living here than someone who clearly poses a very immature, very crazy, very real threat to everyone who lives in the building.

collaborative arts

this has been a week overflowing with creative endeavours.

first, the promo videos.

it began with one day of shooting last friday, which involved an elaborate set-up by my sound- and video-engineer friend, who not only had fancy lenses but high-tech recording equipment. we figured out the ideal camera position and designed the perfect lighting set-up, i dressed the set with silver picture frames and strategically placed tealights, and my interview subjects – who were fabulous – waited to be called in. each interview was around 17 minutes. i had a number of questions prepared and, more than a few times, tears welled and voices cracked during the answers. much to my delight, everyone opened their hearts and spoke openly, honestly and thoughtfully, resulting in rich material from which to mine gold.

after digitizing the footage and uploading it to my loaner mac, next came many, many hours of editing. it took up the remainder of last weekend and several hours after work each day for the first half of this past week. in addition to having great fun reviewing the interviews, marking soundbites, sourcing music, trimming clips, adjusting audio, designing titles, imposing supers, tweaking transitions and converting files to quicktime, i learned a lot. i am now a master of imovie. i also discovered several things about editing: it is the domain of the perfectionist. it is embraced by the fastidious. you need patience and persistence but, most importantly, a clever, creative eye. especially when it comes to problem solving.

and, though it was a lot of work (and, occasionally, mind-scramblingly frustrating), it made me feel so incredibly creative. i was putting together a project. creating a piece of art. (i know, it sounds pretentious and precious, but that's what i felt like i was doing.) best of all, i'm really proud of each of the videos. i think they're turning out wonderfully, and at least six more are still to come. stay tuned.

at work, meanwhile, about midway through the week, the head designer and i were tasked with creating test covers for part of one of the magazines' holiday shopping guide. we were also asked to redesign eight pages worth of gift spreads.

A PROJECT!

and, more importantly, a collaborative project. yay!

the process has been, in a word, awesome. huge amounts of fun and several different flavours of creativity for both of us. together, we discussed colours and fonts, images and text, placement of logos and why the stock photo of the droopy-eyed bulldog should have a toy photoshopped at his paws.

over a few days, we repeatedly consulted with each other – did i like this shade of blue? did she think that sentence looked lame with an exclamation point at the end? – and there were many hours spent fine-tuning our work together. honestly, i haven't had that much fun on a work-related assignment in... gosh... ever.

i mean, it helps that we get along terrifically and have the same aesthetic tastes. i don't think we disagreed on anything, really. we just worked and created and flexed our creative muscles. we also both remained respectful of the other's domain and talked about what we were doing in kind, supportive ways.

finally, this morning, we finished the spreads. i'd taken printouts home with me last night so i could concentrate on coming up with the right emotive language to sell things like winter jackets, diamonds, magazine subscriptions and pizza to (the client hopes) consumers eager to consume. i brought them into the office today, my designer friend worked her magic for the final polish and then it was time to show my editor.

we were both nervous – we really loved the pages we'd produced and we feared they would, for whatever reason, be shot down or revised or met with a meh.

i made the presentation and waited as my editor perused the words and pictures.

before he even finished flipping through it all he said, "this is great."

(omigod!)

"this is much stronger. this is great."

i was thrilled, and left to share the good news with my designer friend, who was equally elated. we'd done it! we honoured our own creative ideas and design tastes, produced work we loved and got an A for our efforts. sure, my editor's boss – who has radically different tastes – might hate it all when she sees it on monday but, for today, an A. hooray! we celebrated briefly and the soldiered on to the remaining test covers, which we'll finish next week.

i went back to my desk and, when i arrived, saw that i had a new email. it was from my designer friend. the subject line was "total YAY!!!" and the body read:

"go team!!!! :)))

i must say i am SO happy you are here! i am loving our collaborations!!!!"

:-)

yeah, it was a good week. tiring, but so very satisfying.

okay, THAT'S IT...

where the eff have my blog entries been?!

why are they now coming in at a snail's pace, four or five days apart?!

not acceptable.

at all.

i have no excuse except to say that they've fallen by the wayside due to other commitments... but that's not entirely true. like my lapse in creative self-nurturing (discussed a few entries ago), the blogging has slipped not because i don't have time, but because i lack motivation.

that's gotta change.

so, i'm going to shoot for at least three new entries a week for the next little while. saying i'll post a new entry a day might be a bit ambitious (and daunting), so i'll aim low(er) in the hopes that, before you know, i will be back on some kind of regular track again.

in the meantime, thanks to those of you who have kept checking back. there will be new stuff to read starting tomorrow...

quickly, then...

* i've been up to my eyeballs in work these past few days. but it's been good to be busy. helps combat any residual saudade. (mostly.)

* over the past week, i've watched 108 short films. thankfully, from my couch. and, tomorrow, i have to write about my favourite 15 of them.

* i spent all day friday shooting material for promos for friends who are launching a stage show in the fall.

* i was up until after midnight last night editing the footage from said shoot. i've put this and this together so far, and i'm quite pleased with the results. it's been a really great process, and it's spurred unexpected introspection. well, maybe not totally unexpected.

* i still haven't written my review for X-Men: First Class, which was fabulous. adding it to the to-do list for tomorrow.

* i have tuesday off this coming week. i'll be going to the dentist, then to see my therapist, then to get my semi-annual haircut. i am halfway considering chopping all my hair off.

* i've had a couple of pensive blog entries bouncing around in my head, but the dust (and, in this weather, the pollen) hasn't settled enough for me to get them written.

* in less than three weeks, i will turn 40.

sleep and saudade

i had the hug dream again last night.

it's been many, many months since i've had a hug dream, but this one was no less pronounced and powerful than its predecessors... though in a somewhat different way.

this time, the dream was long and detailed, with arcs and emotional movements and assorted locations and the distinct passage of time, with hours elapsing in the dream itself.

i awoke from it at 3:26am, left in the familiar grasp of saudade. i felt it so intensely that i almost got up out of bed to write this blog entry in the hopes that i might shake some of it off before morning. but i didn't, and it lingered as i got dressed, packed my bag for work and rode the bus.

while the themes and feelings were largely the same as those of hug dreams past, in this incarnation it was not i who was seeking forgiveness.

though there were assorted "scenes" and events that preceded it, the key moment came when my hug-ee tearfully slipped a long letter under my apartment door. i could not open the door to speak to her, and hit my fists against it. pleading. yelling "why don't you just talk to me?!" as she walked away.

i opened the letter and it was not addressed to me; it discussed me. it was addressed, almost like a memo, to a long list of her family and friends, and i realized i'd been given the copy as a way of being shown rather than directly told how my hug-ee felt. in the letter, she wrote honestly and openly, and talked about me with kindness and gratitude and regret. she said she missed me. she said she was sorry. and she expressed how much she wished things could go back to the way they once were.

i wasted no time and went to find her. when i did, she was walking down a long set of cement stairs and i was behind her. she was wearing a red suede jacket, which made her stand out against the grey of the steps. i called her name and she turned. she seemed nervous and, as i walked down to her, she started to say something about how angry i must be, but i cut her off and just pulled her in for a long, tight hug. again, as always, there was nothing sexual or seductive about the embrace. it was about love. forgiveness. and a profound sense of peace. when i started to let go, she held on. and i felt this enormous wave of relief and contentment wash over me.

then, the dream disappeared. upon waking, saudade.

i don't know what sparked this dream, or why it happened now. the subconscious is a weird and complex thing, i suppose. but, each time i have the hug dream, for a fleeting moment afterwards, a tiny part of my heart wonders if it happens because my hug-ee is having the same dream about me.