today i wrote at length about skis.
i ate rice that had no peas.
my windows were open for the last cool breeze.
we are all separated by the tiniest degrees.
there’s some pain in my knees.
i heard a story about stinging bees.
shot some video that’s borderline cheese.
my drawers are filled with needless Ts.
geez.
the transference of literary paralysis from one writer to another ceases to exist when the receptive writer embraces it and claims it as a gift from the giver.
young beatrix broke off a big chunk of one of her molars. eating a fig newton. you could see the root of the tooth...before it was fixed. the fix may be temporary. time, and the life of the nerve, will tell.
style makes the man and the woman. and sometimes a stylish man can mold a stylish woman.
tonight i had oatmeal for dinner. i don’t know that this was sufficient, even though i had it with a glass of molasses-thick orange-mango nectar.
i have somehow, in some way, and at some point today wrenched my neck in such a way that it hurts to turn my head to the left. i took a short nap and was sleeping on my left side, but i don’t think that did it. at least, not entirely.
video greetings are fun.
it is about to get unbearably hot in toronto. i am not looking forward to temperatures in the 30s (ºC), with humidexes in the 40s. i need to break out the seasonal nail polish for the toes.
i seem to be unable to consistently sleep well. it’s one night on, one night off. or two nights off. or three. but only ever one at a time of sound, rejuvenating slumber.
i now know all about ski resorts across the country.
i did not leave my apartment at all today.
the first thing i read today was an email that made me happy but sad.
it rained for much of the morning. the skies eventually cleared and the sun shone, but the air remained heavy. dank. oppressive. now it’s overcast and about to start raining again.
i met a new tenant this afternoon. we shared the elevator and she smelled very strongly of cigarettes. she was a little twitchy, and apologized for the smell of smoke, explaining that she was trying to quit. i learned her life story in under six floors.
the sound of fire engines speeding past, sirens blaring, happens daily.
i stayed in my pyjamas until about 1:30pm today. then i went to the library.
freelancing is a continuous cycle of famine and feasting in every conceivable way.
sometimes, a phone call is in order.
i am considering buying an iPod Touch.
i’m not sure why, but i’ve felt especially affectionate and tender-hearted today. like i want to hug everyone. except the woman in the elevator.
i will be eating the leftover spaghetti for dinner later. waste not, want not.
the girl down the hall has finally removed her rescued furniture from outside her door. i think someone else complained to the super.
it’s warm and breezy out today. i have all my windows open and the white curtain panels are swaying in unison from wall to wall.
a flurry of maple-tree helicopters just cascaded against my window panes.
i am trying to abide my page-a-day horoscope calendar. and then i remember that it’s also a calendar of lies.
last night, there was a baby scutigera in my sink. i killed it. then i looked to the floor and saw a silverfish scurrying along the edge of the wall. i killed that, too...then wondered if the two of them had been friends who’d come together.
i can’t believe it’s june 2nd already.
it’s 2:17pm and i am still in my pyjamas.
it just started to rain outside. pretty hard. and then, as quickly as it started, it stopped.
i made too much spaghetti for dinner and, even though i know i will likely throw it out on monday because i don't want it, i put a ziploc container of leftovers in the fridge.
the girl down the hall "rescued" a piece of furniture and has had it sitting in the hallway for three weeks now. it bothers me that it's there. she's started putting her shoes in front of it as though it was her part of foyer.
sometimes life is amazing. sometimes it's frustrating. sometimes it's amazingly frustrating.
i'm starting to develop great abs. you could bounce a quarter off of them.
i haven't slept properly in almost two weeks. it shows.
now it's thundering.
i really have nothing to say.
years ago, long after i graduated from university, i went back to the campus to visit with my favourite professor, who was preparing to leave and move to italy. he had always been one of my staunchest supporters and most fervent cheerleaders, and he believed in me long before i ever believed in myself. so i stopped in one afternoon before he left the country, just to catch up and wish him well. i was waiting for him in our department’s reception area, and he came out of his office with one of his current students. he smiled proudly and introduced me to her, saying how well i was doing and that i now worked at a national magazine. “wow!” said the student. “that’s so cool. that must be a really amazing job!”
“oh, it’s not like i do anything really important,” i replied, and went on to briefly explain to her that the job and the magazine were far from glamorous or exciting or challenging, and that my job sounded fancier than it actually was.
after she left, my professor looked at me somewhat sternly and said, “did you see what you just did there?”
“what?”
“you completely destroyed her image of you by answering like that and putting yourself down. she thought you were here (he held his hand up high in the air), and you then made her think you were here (he dropped his hand much lower). why would you bring yourself down? did you see her face? she went from being very impressed by you to not being impressed at all. you did that.”
he made me promise right then and there that i would never do that again. that i would never be the one to be self-deprecating in that way. that i wouldn’t be the one to put myself down, even if someone else was holding me in an unnecessarily high regard. “let them think great things about you! they’ll only stop doing that when you give them reason to,” he said.
i had an enlightening conversation with my friend darren today.
he and i have known each other for about 18 years, and he’s my go-to guy when i want an honest – sometimes brutally honest – opinion because he can always be counted on to give one. he doesn’t just tell me what i want to hear or what he thinks might make me feel better (if it’s not true) and, as much as i might not like what he says, i know he’s got my best interests at heart.
so, earlier today we were catching up and i was lamenting assorted struggles in my life, and he asked me a question. “what’s the most important thing to you when you’re writing?”
i wasn’t sure what he meant. he continued, “i think i know, because i think it’s the same for me.” i still didn’t know what he was getting at or what seemingly obvious answer i was missing completely. (i should point out that i didn’t go to bed until 3am last night, and only slept about four hours, so i was and still am a teeny bit slow on the draw today.)
i asked him to explain, and he said he thinks that, as writers, we tend to live our lives the way we write. the most important part of writing anything – a story, a screenplay, whatever – is the beginning, he said, because you need a good, strong beginning to get you where you want to go.
but i disagreed. i said that, for me, the ending was more important than the beginning. end well, end strong – how many good movies or books have been rendered disappointing by a crap ending? plenty. i argued that you could have hundreds of so-so beginnings but all you needed was one great ending. he countered that you could also have one great beginning and hundreds of possible mediocre conclusions. but without beginnings, there can be no endings.
all this led to his analogy that i live my life with the same approach that i use (consciously or subconsciously) when i write: that i am fixated on the ending. where something’s going. what will happen. how it will all turn out. and, in doing that, i am not living in the moment or looking objectively at the beginning (i.e., looking at opportunities for new beginnings that might arise while my eyes are trained on two weeks from now, or two months from now, or two years from now.) and, to a large extent, he’s absolutely right.
at the same time, and in keeping with the screenplay analogy he used, i think that even though i am preoccupied with the end, i often find myself stuck – as so many writers are – in the mire of the proverbial “act two.” act two is the middle section of a screenplay, after the establishing introduction and before the end. it’s where all the action is, where the meat of the story lies, where characters are developed and where conflict arises...but also where many a writer becomes completely buried in a big, muddled mess of unclear character arcs or pointless plot points or directionless story direction. act two usually isn’t much fun, and it’s where any number of problems may arise or things can go awry in all sorts of colourful ways.
and act two is where i so often find myself. the middle part of the story. muddling. confused. uncertain. unclear. making mistakes. trying to rejig something or fix something else. stuck. i need to get myself out of the act-two loop and either start some new beginnings or get to that amazing ending once in a while, i think.
finally, after many many weeks, i watched Mister Foe. you'll recall that a copy magically arrived on my doorstep after i posted this. life and film festivalling got in the way, but last night i finally sat down and watched it.
and didn't enjoy it.
i'd been warned by the DVD's benefactor that the movie was "dark" and "twisted," and it was and that's fine by me. but it made absolutely no sense. i had no idea what the hell i was watching or what, exactly, the story was trying to be. it was all kind of a big, muddled mess...which was disappointing, given the actors involved. alas.
i ♥ mia michaels.
i do. i want her to cradle me in her arms and tuck me into bed and sit with me until i fall asleep. i want her to look at me with those sparkly eyes and tell me inspirational, wonderful, creative things that make her tear up a little when she speaks the words.
and i want her to appear on every episode of SYTYCD, not just sporadically when shane sparks is busy or jean-marc genereux has the flu. yes, i know the perils of too much of a good thing – i remember my ill-fated infatuation with claire just a few embarrassing months ago. but i have nurtured my affection for mia michaels (whom i choose to address by her full name because i like alliteration) over the course of two seasons of SYTYCD, so this isn’t just a passing fancy.
mia michaels possesses a hypnotic, magically earth-mothery vibe that i adore. she’s emotional (she cries almost as easily as i do), and talented, and lovely (a friend of mine hung out with her one day last fall and verified this), and i bet she gives amazing hugs.
so tonight, with the season premiere of SYTYCD, my annual summer crush on mia michaels was once again ignited. i look forward to a good few months of dreamy dance choreography and raw, unadulterated warmth from the third chair at the judges’ table. *sigh*
as promised, i am sitting down on this rather blustery may afternoon (that actually feels more like a november afternoon...so i’m kind of happy, to be honest) to recap the events of late, important and not:
* on saturday, mom and young beatrix returned from their florida holiday. they bought me stuff, including candy (yay!), a purple-and-pink blanket, clothes and two 2.0G memory cards for my camera. as further proof of the price disparity between canada and the U.S., these memory cards were $25. total. rounded up. and YB pretty much came home with a whole new wardrobe (pants, shirts, dresses, shoes)...again, due to the kick-ass, ass-kicking sales she found in and around st. petersburg. to illustrate: she bought a summer wrap dress for $23. that exact same dress costs $125 here. and it’s not like she bought it out of the back of a van or something – she found it at macy’s! (the dress is for sale at the bay in canada. but why buy it here for five times the price?!) anyway, all this to say they had a wonderful time and walked through the front door with full suitcases.
* in related news, my mom’s blood pressure dropped about 30 blissful points during her dad-free stay in the south. she checked it yesterday and was dismayed to discover it’s jumped right back up now that she and dad are under the same roof again. coincidence? no.
* i saw the new Indiana Jones movie on sunday. i am professionally obliged to withhold my opinion until opening day, but i can tell you this: know what REALLY makes a movie-going experience amazing? having the idiots sitting beside you not only NOT turn off their cell phone, but having them actually TAKE CALLS – more than once! – during the film! and they even passed the phone back and forth between them! jerks.
* bra shopping is a challenge. you may recall the joys i experienced almost one year ago exactly when i bought bras at JC penney. thank the heavens i bought six at the time. but i needed one in a colour i don’t own, so it was off to the shops for a scavenger hunt only slightly less taxing than shopping for a bathing suit. now, i don’t have a whole lot up top, so you’d think that would make matters easier. oh no, my friends, it makes finding what you need exponentially more difficult because, as one saleswoman was kind enough to point out, “lots of companies don’t make the smaller sizes.” thanks. long story short – mission accomplished.
* so, yesterday this happened in toronto. why is this notable, you may ask? because i would be willing to bet my brand new bra that the assailant resides at Hell House. as soon as i heard the location of the incident, i immediately figured a HH tenant was responsible. HH is a couple of blocks north of the bus stop where the attack occurred and – oh, look at that! – police found the perpetrator a couple of blocks north of the bus stop where the attack occurred. ten bucks says he was hanging out in front of HH when he was apprehended. have i mentioned at all how thrilled i am that i no longer live in that building? or that i no longer have to deal with terrifying, knife-wielding neighbours? because i really, really, really am. especially after reading stories like that one.
* remember Chipgate? the string in my crisps? i heard back from the company, who apologized for the manufacturing glitch and then sent me a box full of free bags. nice! (so far, i have not found any foreign objects within any of the bags i’ve consumed.)
* i really don’t care about the American Idol finale.
* i really don’t care about the Sex and the City movie.
* i do care about the season finale of LOST, though...because i love that show. and, speaking of TV, the best show of the summer -- So You Think You Can Dance -- gets underway tomorrow (thursday) night, starting at 8pm ET...or 7pm if you live in canada, where CTV will air the season opener an hour early to accommodate the finale of Grey’s Anatomy, a show i used to care about, then didn’t, and now do again because it seems they’ve made brooke smith’s character a lady gay who may or may not have a lady-gay romance with sara ramirez’s callie. i will watch a show for HoYay!, and i will certainly watch one for actual gaiety.
* as mentioned at the outset, the weather’s been a tad cool of late. unseasonably cool. which i lurrrrrrrrrrrve. any day that it stays below 20ºC is another day that it’s not 30ºC. and that’s fine by me.
...and that maybe it would be nice for them if there was something new to read when they drop in for a visit.
so, tonight i'd planned to write something new. but then i found myself distracted by TV, and email, and putting away purchases, and random nonsense. and now it's 12:12am and i should be in bed, not blogging about bra shopping.
but i will tomorrow.
i love cleaning.
sometimes i think i missed my calling in life, and that i could make a fortune if i opened my own housekeeping business. when i clean, i clean. my parents joke that Vickie Clean™ is an ideal that no average human can attain. do you watch Friends? have you seen how maniacal monica is about cleanliness and order and organization...to the point where she’s fully embracing a touch of OCD?
yeah, that’s me.
my apartment is always tidy. not spotless – that only happens after a dedicated cleaning session – but certainly neat and orderly and clean. i am physically unable to leave dirty dishes in the sink, and i can’t truly enjoy a meal if i haven’t washed most (if not all) of the prepware and utensils before i sit down to eat. i’m not squicked out cleaning toilets or bathtubs, and i get a tiny thrill when i watch my vacuum cleaner suck up a crumb or a stray thread or a tiny piece of something hard that then whirls around, clinking, as it shoots into the bag. i try to sort incoming items as they come in – mail, groceries, whatever – rather than letting them pile up. when i was in Hell House, i had to be anal about any kind of garbage, lest random insects wander over from other units...and i’ve just kept that up. if it’s organic and possesses the ability to rot and smell, it’s immediately taken out to the dumpsters or bagged and put in the fridge until morning. all this to say, i like cleanliness.
yesterday, despite absolutely gorgeous weather, i decided to spend the day in my apartment, in my pyjamas, and give the entire place a spectacular 3+ hour master cleanse. and i was quite happy to be doing it. cleaning is a meditative activity for me. when i’m cleaning, i’m in the zone...the same zone that i’m in if i’m writing or drawing. everything was dusted, vacuumed, swept, mopped, wiped, washed or scrubbed. no cushion was left unturned. no piece of furniture was left unmoved. no dust bunny was left scrambling out of reach by the time i was finished.
and, when i was done, it was 600 square feet of heaven, as far as i’m concerned. is there anything as satisfying as reclining in pure, sparkling spotlessness after hours of cleaning? it’s that blissful exhaustion of a job well-done. at least that’s what it’s like for me. i realize this may be anomaly.
anyway, what does all this have to do with mother’s day, you ask? why is vickie blathering on about scouring pads and windex and picking lint off the bathmat? admittedly, i may be reaching a smidge in order to tie this entry in thematically, but i think – in fact, i’m almost certain – that i inherited this trait from my maternal grandmother. (happy mother’s day! there. :-))
my “oma” (the german word for grandmother) lived with us my whole life, and she was a fastidious cleaner. she would get up before 6am to clean before any of us had stumbled out of bed. stuff that didn’t even need cleaning was cleaned. floors were washed regularly, laundry done several times a week, dishes were dried and put away every night without fail. for many years, she also worked as a cleaning lady for ballerina veronica tennant, among others. (i only found this out as an adult. i suspect the information would have meant little to me as a child, anyway.) and, though it certainly wasn’t a lucrative career, she worked hard at it...both professionally and personally. she was a cleaning machine. and i think watching her while i was growing up implanted that same fastidiousness in me. when i’m visiting my parents and get into the cleaning zone, my mother will frequently remark, “you must have got that from oma!”
as a kid, i never really understood how or why my grandmother devoted so much time and energy into keeping the house clean, but i do now. somewhere in the recesses of my brain, that coding stuck and kicked into high gear once i had a place of my own. there is a huge amount of personal satisfaction in cleanliness...especially when a place is Vickie Clean™.
or Oma Clean™.
tonight, i found out that K. died.
K. was a fighter if ever there was one. i knew her through my meditation group, and tonight S., the woman who runs it, broke the sad news. since a number of participants in this particular group are dealing with serious illnesses, it’s not the first time someone we all know has died. (the most recent death prior to K. was in january.) since it’s a drop-in group where attendees differ every week, many people tonight had no idea who K. was. her presence there was before their time. but, as a veteran, i remembered her... very well... and, even though we were just meditation pals who only saw each other every so often, i was very sad to learn of her passing.
K. was only 39. i didn’t know too much about her life or her history – coming together sporadically at a weekly meditation session doesn’t really afford anyone a lot of in-depth “get to know me” conversation time – but what i did know i liked a great deal. she was whip-smart and very funny, and she (like me) detested those cheesy email forwards containing inspirational verses or famous quotations or chain letters promising the granting of all your wishes if you just send it along to ten more people. we bonded over that. she was scrappy and, though she was sometimes in pain, she always came to the group smiling and positive. she loved knitting and was incredibly well-read. she wore fabulous glasses. she laughed at my sometimes (okay, often) feeble attempts at humour and was always happy to join in if random silliness erupted in what should probably be a slightly more reverent environment. she was the kind of person you’d want as a big sister or a best friend. just... cool. and open. willing to share the darkness within her as well as put forth as much light as her spirit could muster and her body would allow. to be honest, i didn’t actually know whether she was still sick.
K. had battled cancer for many, many years and in assorted forms. she lost an eye to the disease, but wore a funky patch to cover the scars. she’d had at least one organ transplant (double-lung)... possibly more. from the stories she would occasionally tell, i know that she went to hell and back numerous times, and endured treatments that repeatedly ravaged her body from the inside out. but she never lost her pluck. never gave up. never became cynical or negative. she was dealt a spectacularly awful hand, but she didn’t let that stop her from going all in. when i googled her name tonight (which is how i found the accompanying photo that couldn’t be more fitting), i discovered she worked in hospice care, providing palliative assistance to the terminally ill. that totally figures.
the last time i saw K. was maybe a year ago. she hadn’t come to the group in a very long time, and i worried. i often wondered if she’d taken a turn for the worse, and hoped her absence was for good reasons not bad ones, but i knew that if anything had happened we would have been informed. unfortunately, tonight was that night.
when she told us of K., S. said that there wouldn’t be a memorial service but, instead, a party. a celebration of her life, which is exactly what K. would have wanted. it may very well, in fact, have been what she outright instructed. she was that kind of girl. so, tonight, i’m thinking about K., celebrating her life and, appropriately enough, meditating on how she lived it – with gusto in the face of illness, with cheer in the face of profound sadness, and with courage shining out from every beautiful pore.
...i could tell you about my delightful new paint software. i bought it after deciding the only way to properly nourish my long-dormant inner artist was to actually nourish her. i’d been futzing around with an extremely rudimentary online drawing program for months, which served its purpose but which was ultimately not really satisfying. so i hemmed, hawed, researched and decided on a paint program from corel. it is now rocking my world, daunting though it is. it’s extremely sophisticated, and kind of makes me feel like a completely talentless moron, but i’m learning as i go. i drew this yesterday...with my mouse...in virtual charcoal...
...i could tell you about the back-to-school stories i’m writing. i’m not a parent, so (like the paint software) it’s a bit of learning as i go. pun intended.
....i could tell you how i’m supposed to be in florida right now, but airfares never dropped to what i consider an acceptable level on my given dates. i say "given" because last saturday to this coming saturday was/is my designated week at the condo with mom (dad got week one, and young beatrix gets the last week...mom stays for all three). but i’m here and she’s there. sorry, but i just refuse to pay $700 (or more!) on a flight to tampa. i think at one point the top price for a ticket was over $2000. um, no.
...i could tell you about the lovely walk i went on yesterday, where i strolled through the neighbourhood, looked at the expensive houses with their expensive landscaping, and took photos of the trees and bushes in bloom. it was beautiful out -- sunny and 14ºC -- so i went a'wandrin.
...i could tell you about Hallam Foe, but i still haven’t watched it yet, so i’d just be telling you what i heard, which is that it’s much darker than one would expect based on its trailer.
...i could tell you about how white trash-y neighbours seem to follow me wherever i go. back at hell house, there was a family whose house backed onto the rear of my building...and their backyard was almost right under my (3rd floor) bedroom window. they would spend many a summer night outside on their porch, SPEAKING VERY LOUDLY AND PLAYING GUITAR AND SHOUTING AT THEIR ANNOYING AND EQUALLY LOUD TWEEN DAUGHTER, CLAIRE, OR THEIR DOG, CHILI...BOTH OF WHOM I SUSPECT ARE DEAF GIVEN THE VOLUME AT WHICH THEY WERE ADDRESSED. ugh. each year i counted the days until winter when it would be too cold for them to sit outside bellowing at each other. when i moved in here, where i am now, the top-floor apartment in the house adjacent to the building (coincidentally, once again near my bedroom window) was empty. and blissfully quiet. but a new, young, LOUD girl moved in there in early fall and *began* making use of her deck with her young, loud friends...but the cold weather hit soon and they were all forced indoors. but now spring is here, and the weather’s nice, and she’s done up her deck with chairs and a big BBQ and frequently has company...like she does right now. unfortunately, the positioning of the deck vs. the building means sound is amplified and everyone with apartments facing north can hear every word of every sentence anyone says on that deck. it’s going to be a long summer.
...i could tell you about the giant sandwich i had for dinner. with carrots. very summery.
...i could tell you about the giant fruit salad i made just before the giant sandwich. maybe “fruit” salad is overstating it. it’s two enormous (and sweet and delicious) navel oranges and a huge fuji apple. cut up. simple but good.
...i could tell you that my massive mane of hair will finally be cut next week.
...i could tell you that i have my six-month check-up at the dentist on wednesday and that i am currently hoping and praying for a clean bill of dental health.
...i could tell you that i’m going to a screening of What Happens in Vegas first thing in the morning, and that i’m hoping it doesn’t blow.
...i could tell you that i haven’t had any dreamlife dreams since my last entry.
i could tell you all that stuff, but instead i’m gonna go paint another picture.
sometimes, i wish i lived in my dreamlife.
occasionally, my sleep is plagued with nightmares, but often i find myself living a dream life in my dreamlife. and, every now and again, i have the kind of dream i had in my final moments of sleep this morning...the kind of dream that simultaneously fills every cell in my body with a sense of boundless joy but leaves me strangely sad and melancholy the instant i wake.
this morning, i dreamt of love.
i don’t know how to describe these dreams, but i know that other people have had them; i’ve read about it, so i’m not making that up. it’s a dream wherein you feel as though you are being wholly, passionately, unconditionally and deeply loved by another person, sometimes like no love you’ve ever experienced that way in your actual life. to be clear, they may be romantic but these are not sex dreams...in fact, they may not involve any physical contact at all. yet they are unmistakably, undeniably sensory. your heart is so full it feels as though it may burst. you can feel that warmth radiating through you, and it’s combined with a profound sense of peace and completeness. at least, that’s what those dreams are like for me, and that’s what this morning’s dream was: wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time.
i don’t have them very often, these spectacularly blissful reveries, but i treasure each one even though they always leave me wanting as soon as the clock alarm goes off. these dreams have become slightly more frequent in recent years, perhaps because my longing for that kind of connection has become stronger in me as time passes and my subconscious is trying to offer me comfort and satiate that yearning...even if it’s only in an imaginary scenario that exists but for a few perfect, fleeting moments.
i want to actually feel what i feel in those dreams when i wake up. i wonder what it must be like, but i have never experienced anything close to it. and, with each passing year, the fear in me grows deeper that it will never happen... that my dreamlife will have to be enough to fill the holes of reality.
i'm cat-sitting at the moment. while it's a very relaxing activity, and kyle makes for a pleasant enough companion (when he's not sound asleep), it does lend itself to occasional periods of ennui.
this afternoon, i was a little bored, so i grabbed my camera and, in a fit of lou-inspired photography, decided to snap some shots of my parents' and sister's gardens as they begin to bloom for spring. right now, there's not too much to look at, but the few flowers that have sprung forth are like little explosions of colour in a sea of post-winter brown.
