June 8th, 2014

Blog questions about writing

There are a few little writing Q&As that roam the blogoverse. Like the frosh questionnaire, they sometimes come around more than once, but usually with enough space in between that my answers have totally changed in the meantime. I actually don’t think I’ve seen this exact one before, so even better. The “blog tour” is coming to me courtesy of my very talented friend, the writer/birder/teacher Julia Zarankin. She’s lovely and her answers to these questions are really wise and interesting–go read (the rest of her blog is also delightful–it’s about birds for the most part, but in a way totally approachable and entertaining to the non-birder). And now here’s my version–less wise than Julia’s, but hopefully still a little interesting…

What am I working on?
A new book! I finished the old one at the beginning of this year, and despite going back to it a couple times for revisions, and knowing that if I should be so lucky as to publish it a substantive edit is still ahead, I have plunged gleefully into a new on. The “finished” book was extremely challenging and dark, particularly at the end–I won’t say it ruined fall 2013 for me, but it certainly made it a grimmer season. Through that, I kept imagining a nice new project where nothing had gone wrong yet, where I didn’t fully know what would happen and the characters were waiting to be explored. Of course, doing that is significantly harder than thinking about it, but I am still enjoying this new, fresh writing with no expectations and no boundaries.

How does my work different from others’ in this genre?
Well, I don’t know that it does–I work hard a being good, but not necessarily at being unique. I figure that just comes with being myself and not being able to really disguise that fact or write in anyone else’s style. I’m actually a pretty conformist person and when I can be like everyone else, I usually will do so. Writing, though, I’m pretty much stuck with myself. I’m ok with that. So I suppose the short answer is that the way my work differs from other people’s is that it is written by me.

Why do I write what I do?
In terms of content, I write about the stuff that interests me. Writing fiction is a strangely useful way to figure out stuff in life that I don’t understand–when I don’t understand why people are behaving the way they are, sometimes I can write my way into their shoes. Who knows if I ever get it right, but I do acquire empathy for their ways of being and acting, and that’s really useful. I write short stories because that is what I am good at. I have been congratulated before at not abandoning my allegedly less-saleable stories in order to write allegedly more-saleable novels. But that is like congratulating me for not selling out to play with the NBA. I don’t know how to write a novel (or poetry or plays for that matter). I still have a lot to learn about stories, too, but I feel like I do know the form a bit, and how to most usefully work with it. That experience is hard won and it allows me to–sometimes–write something a reader can actually connect with. I may eventually be ready to start over in another form, but for now I’ll keep pushing stories to see how far they go.

How does my writing process work?

Whenever I have time–twenty minutes, two hours, a day–I open my computer and scroll through my current project until I get to the spot I was at last time, and then I try to keep going. I get distracted by everything, and rarely have a tonne of time to work, but bit by bit I get a draft. When it’s done, or at least has reached what feels like an endpoint, I go back to the top and read it through–changing obvious issues when I can. I try to go faster this time so I can hold the whole thing in my head at once. It’s usually only on the third time through that I start making big structural changes and finally feel like it’s actually a coherent story another human could read and understand. Another time through for line edits and then I’ll ask the aforementioned other humans for feedback. Then I’ll take the feedback that rings true, revise the piece yet again, and submit it for publication. If it gets rejected and the rejection comes with useful feedback–or doesn’t, but I’ve thought of some one my own in the meantime–I’ll revise it another time. Oh, and if there’s research to be done, it gets done whenever I get a chance. Easy stuff I can google or call a friend about happens mid-writing; trickier stuff that requires interviews or trips usually gets slotted in after the bulk of the writing is done. Sad but true.

***

This is meant to be a tour and I’m to pass on the baton at the end of this, but it seems I have fewer actively blogging friends than I used to, and those I do know have pretty specific content that they like to include most of the time. So I’m just going to leave this open to whomever wishes to try it out–but if you do take up the baton, be sure to let me know (if you don’t mind) so I can read your answers!

May 16th, 2013

Dumb Things People Say to Newlyweds

I wrote that post about dumb things people say to single women a while back with great joy–so many years of minor suffering exposed. I have been a married woman a comparatively brief amount of time, but I’m already finding that just because I have conformed to one set of societal expectations (getting married) doesn’t really keep people from picking on me. I think there’s probably a category of inane, mildly offensive chatter for every state of being–people can’t help themselves. My brief experience of marriage suggests single people get more obnoxiousness from the gadflies, but it hardly stops after the wedding ceremony.

Since I only have 9 months of newlywedded bliss to draw on, I’ve borrowed a few of these from friends…

Don’t get too used to…
I’ve heard this one applied to pretty everything nice about my husband. From remembering special occasions to simply doing his share of the household chores, apparently it’s all a show and Mark is on a one-way track to slothdom, soon to completely abandon his thoughtfulness in favour of televised sports and being a big jerk. It’s tempting to suggest that people who say this sort of thing are stuck in unhappy marriages and want me to get on the misery boat too–but I suspect some of them of being fairly fond of their spouses. I think this might be part of our weird societal fixation on monogamy–it’s supposed to be all anyone strives towards, but also a ball and chain that everyone resents. Weird Protestant work-ethic thing here?

Best thing to say to someone you like: “Shh–let me enjoy it while I can!”
Best thing to say to someone you don’t like: (with lip trembling, if possible) “Oh…no…I had no idea. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

Now you can finally let yourself go!

It is relaxing to know your partner no longer cares if you wear yoga pants when not doing yoga, but we had that revelation years ago. I think this comment, as applied to women, is kinda moot–the standards set in romantic comedies and magazines for a young(ish) woman presenting herself on the dating market are so irrationally high–perfect skin, perfect BMI, perfect hair, manicure, plucked eyebrows, all manner of waxing, hours of shopping for a dress that you’ll be embarrassed if you wear at two events too close to each other–that “letting yourself go” means just accepting normal human flaws that people with real lives deal with anyway, single or married. My friend, who is very beautiful, got this comment after eating a cookie. ONE cookie.

Best thing to say to someone you like: Ok.

Best thing to say to someone you don’t like: Ok. [I see no reason to prolong this inane conversation, no matter how much you like or dislike the speaker.]

You must be so happy not to be dating anymore.

I have probably mentioned before, but folks who hate dating are not great dates–especially if they announce it at the beginning of dinner. Yes, it’s hard to leave the house in your nicest clothes knowing you could spend the rest of the evening hearing about dice-related games, a pitch for real estate, or why your date doesn’t really want to be there. But a certain amount of hopefulness and faith in mankind is necessary to find a life-partner, and also just generally not to be an awful person to be around. I liked dating–new people, new conversations, new restaurants. I liked dating especially after I met my husband, but really if you don’t enjoy an hour or two of chat with a person who professes to like you, what’s the point?

Best thing to say to someone you like: I liked dating; what don’t you like about it?

Best thing to say to someone you don’t like: No, I pine for it actually.

Babies? Babies! BABIES BABIES BABIES BABIES!

Once you’re married, people get *very* eager to see you move on to the next obvious life phase on their checklists. To a certain degree, I get it. If you (and by “you,” I mean anyone I know) said you were going to make a tiny adorable person, and then maybe let me play with said person, I would be happy and encourage you to proceed with this excellent plan. But I wouldn’t *instigate* the plan, no matter how cute I thought your offspring might be. There are so many reasons someone might not like to discuss this issue, from infertility to financial or psychological issues making it not the best time to produce new infants, to “I’m pregnant right now but not telling yet.” There’s just no reason to introduce potential awkwardness like this unless you are *very* close to the potential parent in question. And I have it on good authority from moms I know that even *having* a baby does not eliminate this question from common conversation; people just move on to asking when you’ll have your second, and so on until basically menopause. At least it ends there for parents; for those who remain childless, at menopause I hear people just start asking about adoption.

Best thing to say to someone you like: We’ll see (this is a minor fudge if you in fact already know the answer; what you actually mean is “you’ll see” but that sounds kinda mean).

Best thing to say to someone you don’t like: Whatever happens, I’ll be sure to keep you posted on this. (Especially hilarious if your questioner is someone you barely know, which is very very often the case.) I’ve also heard suggested, “Well, for now we’re happy just having recreational sex,” but there’s probably no one I’d want to embarrass that much and anyway I don’t have the stones to say it.

Where’s your spouse tonight?

Married people are varying degrees of joined at the hip: some have tonnes of interests they can share with their spouses, others are happy with “being married” as their only shared interest. Everyone who actually lives in society knows this, but somehow when you see your married friend standing at a party with no spouse in sight, it’s the first thing you ask about. I know, I’ve done it, and continue to accidentally do even as I insist that I have no idea what Mark is up to some nights and why is everybody asking me?

Best answer for someone you like: I guess, tell them if you know, and your spouse isn’t in the witness-protection program or at a strip-club or something.

Best answer for someone you don’t like: Oh my god, ack, I thought he was right over there and now he’s GONE. (Parents spring this one on me all the time when I ask about the whereabouts of their kids, but I think babysitting arrangements are way more normal to ask about than the movements of an autonomous adult! To each, their own, I guess….)

So, how’s married life?

This is the sweetest, most innocent question of all the annoying questions on this list. You spend months or a year (or many years) getting ready for your wedding, talking about plans and ideas and nerves, of course people are going to want to know how it all turned out. Of course, this question is impossible to answer–life is always a million things at once. I have learned to say, to anyone, “I like it–I think we made the right choice.” Whether I love them or hate them, most people are happy with this answer–people love love and happiness makes them happy…most of the time!

~~~

Anyone else want to offer up anything terrible said to a newlywed, either to you or by you or within your hearing?

February 5th, 2013

Dumb Things People Say to Single Women

I’ve been married nearly 6 months now, and apparently starting to lose my single-girl cred. When I try to empathize with or add to stories of single life, I’ve been getting some as-if-you-know eye-rolls. This sucks, because I lived alone for 10 years, so I know a little about that lifestyle. Plus, when I actually was single, I tried to avoid too much complaining about weird comments people made to me. I didn’t want it to come off as  sour grapes. It wasn’t–by and large I enjoyed my life then, but not some of the commentary folks offered thereof. Now I wish I’d spouted off more when it was appropriate. Our society seems to give some sort of craziness license when it comes to talking to single women–you can say whatever you want to them, apparently, without worrying about coming across as mean, stupid, or a lunatic. Here is a small sampling of things said to me *in a friendly manner* when I was uncoupled:

Why don’t you have a boyfriend?
What do you eat?
How are you going to get home?
Don’t you want to get married?
You miss out on so much when you don’t have a partner–movies, parties, dinners…
It’s so hard to fall asleep alone, isn’t it?
You must hate weddings.

Oh, my gosh–I’m annoyed just typing. But I do understand that no one (almost) meant to me feel like a loser/zoo animal with these questions, so in case you are someone who wondered these things, I’ll try to answer below. And in case you are someone who gets these sorts of queries/comments, I’ll offer the best answers I came up with in my many single years–though honestly, I’m still at a loss for some of these.

Why don’t you have a boyfriend?
If I knew, don’t you think I would’ve worked on that issue? Hahaha! I know mainly folks meant the question rhetorically, as in, “You are so great, so what’s going on here?” But they did leave an awkward awkward non-rhetorical pause after the question mark, leaving me to suspect that beneath their so-called praise they suspected I was secretly spitting on my dates or poking them sticks or swearing celibacy or something else deliberate to drive them away. There is NO good answer to this question most of the time, and even when there is, it’s usually too personal to answer at a dinner party (eg., you’re not supposed to date in the first months of sobriety). But…
Best answer for someone you like: “Well, some people win the lottery a little earlier than others.”
Best answer for someone you don’t like: “I guess there’s something really wrong with me.” or “I prefer sleeping around, actually.”

What do you eat?
This question and its variants is surprisingly popular, which lead me, in harsh moments, to believe that many people equate being uncoupled in adulthood with being brain-damaged. Seriously, I know lots of people live in the ideal recipe-size of 4-person households, but surely people don’t ask this questions of childless couples, families of 3 or 5, etc? Do they really think lack of romance makes one unable to do fractions? Or order in? Or make a salad? Or eat leftovers?
Best answer for someone you like: “Whatever I want!”
Best answer for someone you don’t like: “I usually just have a fistful of cereal and cry myself to sleep in the bathtub.”

How are you going to get home?
Most of the questions here are just silly and don’t bug me, but this one, I’m still holding a grudge about in a couple cases. As a single female dependent on public transit, I considered myself responsible for myself, and I never made plans I knew I couldn’t get home from safely. I knew TTC routes, and whether I could afford a cab. If I understood the situation to be unavoidably dangerous (very very rare in Toronto) I simply didn’t attend. People casually asking if I knew how I was getting home–fine, that’s just thoughtful. Asking more than once, looking doubtful, implying that I don’t know how to transport myself safely around town–problematic.

I get more het up about this question when the asker implies I’m unsafe AND s/he is not going to do anything about it. For some, single women deserve to be unsafe, apparently. My brother always walks me to my streetcar stop and waits with me if it’s late, behaviour I find unnecessary but very sweet. It’s less sweet to make a fuss about me walking alone and then shut the door behind me! “Too bad you’re going to get mugged” seems to be the message there. Sob story: once I was walking home with a guy I thought was a friend and as we approached Carre St-Louis, he told me how unsafe he thought it was and how he always arranged his schedule to walk his girlfriend home through it if she was working late. I thought this was a long preamble to offering to walk to the far side of the park with me, but he simply bade me good night on the near side and walked off. After all these years, I’ve forgiven him, but barely.
Best answer for someone you like: “I know my way around; I’m pretty smart, you know.”
Best answer for someone you don’t like: “I have no idea. Could you walk/drive me?”

Don’t you hate weddings/talking about weddings/happy couples?
Seriously, the single woman=psycho shrew construction could not be more offensive. Even if said in a sympathetic tone of voice, this question still implies that to be single is to be so unhappy as to despise the happiness of others: nice. Yes, it’s classy to not talk *constantly* about one’s wedding planning to those who aren’t super-interested (how’d I do on that front, friends? I really tried!) But still, not being able to muster up a little proxy joy for dear friends’ celebrations seems awfully cold.
Best answer for someone you like: “Of course not. If I care about you, I want to hear about what makes you happy.”
Best answer for someone you don’t like: “Absolutely. Let’s just sit in silence for a while.”

Wow, this post is over 1000 words–guess I have some pent-up rage there… I didn’t even get through all my questions. I should try to put this stuff behind me, but not entirely–I think forgetting how it feels is where a lot of these dunderheaded comments come from. Empathy, people–it’s the only way!

Anyone got any single-girl (or guy) crazy comments you’d care to share?

December 31st, 2012

Now: 2012

In 2012, I read 68 books and reviewed a number, though without fully finishing my To Be Read Challenge (embarrassing, but I will eventually–stay tuned). I completed my lone resolution in that I cooked every recipe in the Milk Calendar, which is a project I’d recommend and will repeat in 2013.

Obviously, the biggest thing in 2012 is that I planned and thoroughly enjoyed a most wonderful wedding to a most wonderful guy, and embarked upon a marriage to same (I’ve been trying to structure this sentence better but it’s just not working out–obviously, who else would I be married to than the guy I married??) Everything else kind of pales in comparison–and honestly this was a pretty great year in many ways. But once you’ve seen everyone you love all together in one room, beaming at you and eating cake…there’s really no follow-up.

Nevertheless, some other memorable, in no discernible order:
–I saw my short story How to Keep Your Day Job become a short film by the same name. It was an absolutely magical experience to see Lea Marin, Sean Frewer, Georgina Reilly and literally dozens of others reinterpret and reimagine my story until it was something totally new, and amazing.
–I survived a tax nightmare that took up all of my free time last spring and judging from the fact that no one has come for me yet, I guess I filled out all the forms correctly. Touch wood.
–I survived a project management course that took up all my free time last fall, though I’m still waiting on my final grade. I made a couple nice friends and, surprisingly, a couple enemies (well, I consider them enemies), but managed to do a lot of work that did not come naturally to me while under time pressure and duress and I think I did ok. Touch wood.
–I spent at least one night in 13 cities: Toronto, Niagara Falls, Halifax, Wolfville, Fredericton, Orilla, Hamilton, Liberia (Costa Rica), Vancouver, Ottawa, Moncton, Charlottetown, and Dorval.
–I obtained my dream of a second cat and my husband and I managed, through patience, vigilance, and a lot of closed doors, to teach the first cat not to hate her. Now they adore each other and are sad (read: viciously angry) when separated. My dream is complete.
–I wrote slower than I have written in years, with more self-doubt and angst than anyone’s interested in hearing about, but did manage to publish a few stories once I finally started submitting again last summer. More, the new collection now stands at 10 stories. Not sure if all 10 will get to stay in the final version, and a number more exist only as figments in my mind, but progress–progress.
–I remained employed by my favourite industry–publishing–one increasingly challenged on all sides. I have a lot of faith in this crazy little thing called books, and I’m happy to try to make them–in new and old forms alike–as long as I have the chance.
–I got a new family! Not that there was anything wrong with the old bunch, but now there’s just more of them–the natural result of getting married. That’s where I was this past week (I bet you didn’t even notice that it’s been ages since I last blogged), bonding with the inlaws. Lovely folks, and *very* good cooks.

And that’s just the big stuff and easy targets. I can’t even itemize all the small kindnesses I’ve received, the friends didn’t do anything they haven’t always done and are so wonderful for that.

Let me leave you with two of my favourite impressions from the last week of 2012:
1) being terribly motion sick on my flight home and given a tiny bottle of water when I most needed it by a gallant Frenchman
2) my niece, shy and stubborn and not quite two, opening her arms to hug me without anyone telling her to.

December 18th, 2012

Social Media Helps Me Live in the World

“Live in your world!” is something one my high-school teachers–the music teacher, oddly enough–used to exhort us. What she meant was that to truly inhabit the world, you need to know and at least attempt to understand it. She would use this sentence when we seemed too grossly ignorant of current events–the events of our world.

At the time, I could nod sagely, because I was a pretty well-informed kid. Of course, no one actually lives in the world–we all live in our houses, and my parents’ house was (and is) one of information. While I lived there, I absorbed news because it played on the radio and television several times a day and there were always newspapers and magazines underfoot, sometimes literally. There were also books and books and books, and usually someone available to explain whatever I didn’t understand.

Then I moved out on my own, and I discovered a key way I am not like my parents–I feel no drive to be well-informed. If you tell me things, I’ll take them in and even take an interest, but left to my own devices I am comfortable in my happy bubble of friends and work and fictional characters. After I moved out, my parents would phone me and attempt to talk about current events, and find me weeks out of date–often these calls were actually my only source of news.

What have we learned here? That I’m lazy, inane, not that bright? I prefer to say passive–I’ll learn what someone cares to teach me. Which is what makes social media kind of great. On the internet, on my own, I’ll look up book reviews and personal blogs and recipes and the life stories of people I knew in high school. But I read the newsfeeds on Twitter and Facebook, at least sometimes. And I learn stuff I didn’t know I needed to know. I follow links to actual newspapers and I read the articles. It’s easy to ignore the world when you don’t know what you’re missing; it’s harder when you have to try to ignore it.

I went on Twitter last Friday to post some inane complaint, which is mainly what I post on Twitter. I started reading my newsfeed and found a dozen comments on gun control in the US. I scrolled backwards until I found a name–“Newtown”–and then I googled that and read the news articles. It was miserable reading, of course, but utterly necessary if you want to be a human being living in the world today in a human way. Really, how could a real person ever choose to ignore that kind of tragedy?

Social media brings the tough parts closer, within reach even for someone like me, who often chooses to opt out of the tough parts. It’s not a perfect system (ie., Farmville) but in no small way, social media does help me be a grownup, living in the world.

September 18th, 2012

Exciting things

Sorry, there keep being all these distractions from the 1000 Things–I’ll get back to it soon, I promise. And it’s not like these things I’ve been posting about: cake, movies, my office…

Ok, number one, and this is a red alert: How to Keep Your Day Job, the film that Sean Frewer, Lea Marin, and Lesley Krueger, along with various other awesome, adapted from my short story by the same name, is premiering at the Calgary International Film Festival. It’s a part of Date Night, a collection of short films that will screen September 22 at 12:15pm, and then again on September 26 at 6:45pm. If you click on the Date Night link above, you can find out more, order tickets, etc. If you are in/near Calgary and can attend, please please do–I need to hear all about it.

In other, more October-ish news, I’ll be reading at the Vancover International Writers’ Festival on Octobre 19 and 21 (see the sidebar at right on this page for events). And the Festival programmers asked me to write a little mini essay on my writing space at home for the festival blog–if you’d like to read it, here it is.

That’s it for now–more lists soon, I promise!!

September 17th, 2012

What Is Pirate Cake and How Do You Make It?

So here’s a post that has nothing to do with anything that’s been going on on this blog. On Saturday I made a Pirate Cake for my husband’s birthday and, when it went horribly wrong, I asked for help on Facebook forgetting that Pirate Cake is not an actual thing and people would be confused. They were, along with very supportive (and the cake survived, though it was darn ugly) and curious. So here is what Pirate Cake is and how you can have one too if you like, for anyone from Facebook or anywhere else that cares.

I grew up in a house without “bought cookies,” so though I learned about–and pined for–Oreos in the schoolyard, I am not familiar with some of the more esoteric brands. My husband, on the other hand, is obsessed with Pirate Cookies and when we got together they were often in his cupboards. They are flat dry oatmeal cookies sandwiches around peanut-butter frosting–same general idea as Oreos, but different flavours. They’re really good.

I like to bake, and once he suggested I *make* Pirate Cookies. This made no sense to me because they are so good in their manufactured form, but I did it anyway, and they’re also really good. The big advantage to making them yourself is that you can have as much frosting as you like.

Then we made Pirate Cookie Blizzards (and will be drafting a letter to DQ shortly) and, for a birthday a while back, I invented Pirate Cake. I bet you can guess what it is–an oatmeal layer cake with peanut butter frosting.

It’s delicious, and pretty easy, and if you’re not a moron like I am you’ll make sure the bottom layer is level so that the top layer doesn’t slide off at an angle and endanger the whole operation. This is not a healthy recipe, but I guess it does have more fibre (oatmeal) and protein (peanut butter) than your average cake.

WORD OF WARNING: Remember that I am a person who did *not* take the above precautions about the level cake base, and therefore should not be trusted to give advice. And yet, people did ask, so here you go–caveat emptor.

Oatmeal Cake
(This is a low-fat version I found that is identical to the one in Joy of Cooking except for slightly less fat. I’ve made both and they taste the same, so you might as well use the lighter one and have more frosting instead.)

1 cup quick-cooking oats
1.25 cups boiling water
6 tablespoons margarine (I use butter)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 eggs (I use egg substitute because it’s both lighter and pasturized–you can eat the dough without fear of salmonella)
1.33 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
0.5 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
0.25 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch cloves
(I always omit the cloves, and next time I think I’ll omit all the spices–doesn’t completely jibe with the peanut butter)

1. Mix oats, boiling water and margarine/butter in a large bowl, stirring until margarin/butter is melted; let stand 15 to 20 minutes. Mix in sugars and eggs. Mix in combined remaining ingredients.
2. Pour batter into greased 13×9 pan (or in this case, two round layer pans) Bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean, about 35 minutes (way less for the layer pans–start checking at about 20 minutes). Cool on wire rack 10-15 minutes.

When the cake is completely cool, you can ice it (if you don’t know what a mess you can make icing a warm cake, consider yourself lucky).

Unfortunately, my recipe for peanut-butter icing isn’t a real recipe with measurements or anything, since I invented it. You just kinda eyeball and taste until you feel confident. You’ll always end up with too little or too much, too, unfortunately–try to err on the side of too much.

Take a tablespoon of butter and 0.25 cup of peanut-butter, and leave them at room temperature until they are soft. I use the all-natural peanut butter, but you can use whatever–if you get the processed stuff, you might not need the salt mentioned later. Obviously, smooth pb would work better here, but if you make a mistake at the grocery store (I have) it can still work out ok.

When they are soft, squash them together with the back of a spoon. Add a bunch of icing sugar–half a cup–to the mixture, and squash that in. Then when you can’t add any more sugar, add a splash of milk (I use skim, but whatever will work) until it gets really runny. Then add more sugar until it gets really powdery. When you get close to what you perceive as the right amount of icing, taste, then throw in a dash of salt and taste again to see if you are happy with that. Then try to balance out the milk/sugar ratio until it looks like the consistency of icing.

Ice the cake. Decorate with whatever. Keep in mind that the icing will be beige, and not attractive, so you’ll want to decorate as much as possible. It’s occurred to me that I could use cocoa to dye some of the icing a richer brown, which I could then pipe onto the cake to decorate it, but I have never actually bothered to do that.

As you can see from the photo above, I tried to write “Mark” in chocolate chips, and it took me two lines for 4 letters, and also part of the R slid over the side when the top layer started drifting. This is basically as ugly as a cake can be and still have people willing to eat it, but Mark loves me and I love peanut-butter icing, so we tried it.

IT WAS SO GOOD!!

Enjoy!

September 4th, 2012

1000 Things We Like, part 3 (10-year anniversary edition)–coming soon

Yes, oh my god, it’s true–we’ve been doing 1000 Things We Like for 10 years. I’ve been searching for the original introduction from the 2002 edition, but while I was doing so I found this–a description of a wedding I went to in October 2002.

“Then, oh god, then it was cocktail hour, actually slated for an hour and a half on my invite. They seemed to have some trouble getting drinks out, the hors d’oevres didn’t appear for about 45 minutes, there were no chairs, there was simply nothing for me to do but stand about and not be talked to. Which is what I did, the whole time. I started out leaning against this oversized mantlepiece, and eventually discovered if I slouched just a touch, I could fit under it, so I did that. Not quite as weird as it sounds, but almost. People kept looking at me curiously, so I’d smile thinking they were about to say “Hi” or “Beautiful ceremony, eh?” or “Poor you, all alone!” or something, but then they’d look away. I was wearing the same pale floral dress as I wore to M/D’s and M/L’s weddings. Apparently, for a fall, evening wedding, black is the norm these days. I think I was the palest person except for the bride. Honestly, it would have been impossible for me to have been more uncomfortable without being on fire.”

I can just about remember how miserable I was that night, but it seems *very* distant–like that girl is a friend I don’t know well. And if you told that girl that, 10 years hence, she would be at a wedding where she knew *everyone* and that it would be her own–well, I don’t think she could have processed that.

Kay, nuff nostalgia, I’ll find the actual intro very soon.

March 15th, 2012

Entertainments

Life continues busy, but not of all of it is work, so if I can’t be providing substantial updates here, at least I can share the fun stuff I’ve been doing so you can (if you care to) do it too!

Watch Goon. Not-so-secret RR fact: I love Seann William Scott. I think he’s a great comic actor–not infinite range, perhaps, but Goon definitely expands it. It’s a funny, sweet, gory movie–I imagine it could only be better if one actually liked hockey or could look at violence without peeping through one’s fingers. I thought it was really interesting how realistic the violence looked. If you watch a lot of romantic comedies or even action flicks, you start thinking it’s pretty easy to knock a man down with one punch. If you watch *Goon,* you learn/remember that if that man is strong and used to fighting, it’s actually pretty hard to knock him down with seven punches–but you’ll make is face look like rotten meat in the process. Some of the negative reviews say this movie glorifies violence, but I think it really really doesn’t. But don’t let me go heavy on it–the best part is really SWS charming charming portrayl of a loveable goof, especially when he talks about how garbage sometimes blows in his face. Oh, and the city shots of Halifax are great!

Read the latest issue of The New Quarterly Even-less-secret RR fact–I adore TNQ. That said, not every issue is my personal delight–they celebrate a range of writing styles and forms, all interesting but–I just love character-heavy, witty, involving, open-ended short stories the best. There it is–my literary prejudice. And there are some great ones in this issue–by Michelle Berry, Caroline Adderson, Michael Bryson, and others. And intereviews about the short story form with the three listed above, including some interesting discussion about what a short story *is* and what it can and cannot do, alone, and with a book filled with sister stories. The differences between a short story collection, a linked short story collection and a novel in stories are fascinating to me right now–this issue couldn’t have come at a better time.

Read this review of *The Big Dream* in *The Gauntlet*. Thought-provoking, no?

Some other things I’ve done lately that can’t quite fit under the “entertainment” category though I, in my way, found them entertaining:

–I used up a lipstick, was has seriously happened maybe three times in my whole life.

–I rode in an SUV limo, which has happened zero times in my life and probably never will again. Fun, though.

–My cat learned to climb the shower curtain, to open the closet, and that the things flying around outside our window are birds that he could eat if it weren’t for the damn glass. Except sometimes he forgets about the glass.

–I bought a wedding dress.

January 2nd, 2012

Back!

Hello and welcome to 2012–I hope you had an excellent holiday and did not spend as much time in the Halifax airport as I did. But except for that little blip, and the fact that I never seemed to get the time to blog as I meant to, I really enjoyed my time off. It was spent reading, swimming, eating, playing with cats, talking to friends, talking to family, talking to people who will soon be my family, eating, wishing for more cats, opening presents (so many presents), and eating some more. There was also a lot of sleep involved–sometimes multiple naps per day.

2011 was one crazy mofo of a year–a wonderful one, but there was a reason for all those naps over the holidays–I was exhausted. In 2011 I talked to so many cool people, read so many excellent books, petted so many excellent cats, there’s really no boiling it down. So here’s a list of random good stuff from 2011:

Best cat of 2011: Evan, who likes everyone and everything except boredom, who didn’t panic when he fell into a half-full bathtub (twice), who sometimes gives actual hugs, and who desperately wants to eat a moth.

Awfullest Moment: When I realized I had hired the movers for the wrong day. The fact that it was the realization and not the actual move that was the worst day tells you something about the excellent friends (and brother, and partner) I have. Thanks, Scott, Ben, Mark, and Wren, for being not only the nicest but the physically strongest people around!!

Best musical discovery on my part of 2011: I don’t know how long they’ve actually been around, but I didn’t know about Elliott Brood until this year, and I’m sorry it took me so long.

Best-Planned Book Launch: Jessica Westhead’s launch party for *And Also Sharks* was such a superlative example of fun and inclusivity for a book that actually merits the excitement that surrounded it.

Most puking: That honour would go to the lady across the aisle on my Toronto to London (England) flight, who vomited noisily for nearly four hours. Obviously she was very ill and I doubt that this small honour can make up for that–I really hope she was all right and able to enjoy England, but oh my goodness gracious, that was a lot of puking.

Closest approximation of my life in 1991: Nintendo Wii. Seriously, I was wicked good at Super-Nintendo, and some things never fade.

Best interviewer: Well, obviously I’ve not been interviewed by all that many people, but sometimes it starts to feel like I have–all the ones who don’t enjoy it (plenty of good ones, too, of course). But Kerry Clare’s stage interview with me on the night of my book launch was so thoughtful, so insightful, challenging and interesting, all those things the best interviews are supposed to be, that it makes up for a lot of inane questions.

Dumbest illness: Getting mono just before my 33rd birthday, and a trip to NYC. I was never *that* sick, but I was undiagnosed for a while, which led to the stupidest thing anyone said to me all year–“It’s probably not leukemia” from the doctor at the walk-in, which did not lead to a very restful sleep that night. They actually didn’t figure out what I had until I’d been prescribed the counter-indicated drugs, which resulted in the year’s (and hopefully the lifetime’s) worst rash. Also, now it’s painfully obvious that I didn’t get kissed much in high school!

Best moment: Getting proposed to on the beach. Rashes, vomit, moving, who cares–this was the best year ever.

Best rap video partially set at No Frills: Show Me Where Ya Noms At by Hannah Hart and Songs to Where Pants To. Seriously, watch it now.