July 9th, 2007

The Work

Sometimes, when I’m plotting a new entry on why hwae dop bop is both delicious and hilarious, or how the humidity is driving me to watch a lot of questionable movies, I remember that this blog is supposed to be a “professional” writer’s blog. Ahahaha, I say to myself, but then I try to think of something writerly to say.

One thing I’ve been thinking about recently is how a story can be revised and revised and revised again, until not one word nor the structure nor even the events of the plot are similar to what was contained in the first draft, and yet it’s still the same story. According to my files, the thing I am revising now is on version five. The themes and motifs (incorrect plural form, as to distinguish from “motives”) have changed, and minor characters have disappeared and reappeared. Whole subplots that were only implied are now stated right out (I *hate* stating things straight out) and lots of background has altered substantially. Still, what I was trying to say in the first draft and I am still trying to say. The only reason I’m changing the story is that that first draft befuddled everyone to the extent that they didn’t know I was trying to say that. Actually, that was the problem with versions 2, 3, and 4, too. But 5 is going to be the winner.

I’m not only ranting on about *this* story, though it is much in my mind. More generally, I’m startled by how many different ways there are to approach not only the same materials/ideas but the same events. It’s like when you ask advice on how to get to a certain place. There’s always a couple different buses you could take, or go by subway, and if you’re driving, a huge knot of arguments about surface routes vs. highways, and which highway, etc. etc.

This analogy comforts me, because while you might save five minutes on one bus over another, you always get there eventually. I think that probably there is no One True Way to tell this story I’m trying to tell. There’s any number of fairly expedient versions of the thing, I just have to find one of them and execute it. No magic, no Ur-story, just a serviceable vehicle and gas for the long haul.

The very long haul. I’ve been working on this story since October and hope very much to be done soon. I guess this is why they call it the writer’s craft, not the writer’s lightning bolt. Sigh. Nevertheless, tonight I will go eat some hwae dop bop and watch *Live Free or Die Hard,* a story that I believe has been told in a number of different ways before now.

Don’t wanna end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard
RR

July 4th, 2007

On family

The brief lull in posting at Rose-coloured this weekend can be attributed to a visit to my family, which proved far too distracting for any internet interaction (also: I am lazy). It was Canada Day, of course, and since June has been a busy month, we were also catching up on Father’s Day and my brother’s birthday. With that amount of celebration, of course it was going to be a good time. Really, though, the weekend was made for me in the single moment when my erudite father dubiously pronounced the word “celebutante.” In fact, I think from now on, whenever I feel down, I will call him and ask him to say it again. Hilarious.

Is my family weird? Of course they are. “My family is strange” is one of those facts that I think people should really stop presenting as interesting and intimate secrets–along with, “Hospitals make me nervous” and “I get so impatient waiting in lines.” These are truths, if not universally acknowledged, at least nearly universally felt (well, I like hospitals, but I know most don’t). So is the bit about strange families.

In truth, every *person* is fairly strange–it is only the constant friction of decades of sharing bathrooms and cereal boxes, coupled with the legal certainty that these people can never get rid of you, that allows our strangeness to emerge completely. This is an especially great boon if you, like me, are slightly obnoxious. It is only the binding of blood and law that forces my family continue to tolerate me despite the fact that I constantly try to peck them in public. No, not a timid petite bise, like a schoolgirl, but with the nose, comme un oiseau. And there’s not a damn thing they can do about it, except run away. But then I chase them. And criticize their clothes and eat food off their plates. Hooray for blood bonds!

Someday, my brother is going to have to invite me to his *wedding*, despite the fact, that, when last we met, I was attempting to brush my teeth whilst walking down the stairs. When he made me laugh, I choked, collapsed into the fetal position and dribbled toothpaste all over my dress slacks. You, gentle reader, will never have to deal with such behaviour from me, unless you should be so foolish as to marry or adopt me. But my family gets nonstop nonsense.

And while we might be united in our communal dislike of lines and medical establishments, I guess we are pretty much stuck in our respective familial strangenesses. I adore my family, as I’m sure you do yours. However, when I say some of my most rose-coloured memories of us include trying to tie various items to the roof of a car, you probably can’t imagine why. And to me, that’s just strange.

I want a photo opportunity / I want a shot at redemeption
RR

June 28th, 2007

I wash my hands of this weirdness

Post-posting, yesterday continued to be strange. I was doing Pilates at the gym with my iPod on, possibly not a brilliant idea. I was doing jack-knifes, my favourite Pilation, wherein one lies flat on her back, then kicks legs into the air and pulls off the floor into a shoulder stand, then *jack-knifes* the body to put the feet behind the head. In that last step, I accidentally kicked an elderly gentleman with both feet, because I hadn’t heard him step onto the mat behind my head. He hadn’t seen what I was doing because he was bending over away from me, thus I kicked him in the, um, posterior. Needless to say, I tried to apologize and, also needless to say, he wanted only to get as far away from me as possible.

Following that I bought a Greek salad for lunch, only to find that the chunks of red juicy-looking tomato were, for some reason, watermelon. Then I went off to teach and it was the last day of school and the kids were *haywire.* One of my favourite students (I have many favourite students–is that bad?) gave me an end-of-term gift of candies. I was pleased, but when I read the card listing the things she liked about me, one was that I always let her go to the bathroom when she asked! Kinda scraping the bottom of the barrel for compliments there, aren’t we? At this point I went home to lick my wounds.

Today promises to be a better day, despite the fact that I am eating distinctly sketchy tinned tuna salad (it was on sale!) The evening promises Indian food and hilarity, and I only have a half hour more of work left. Huzzah.

Oh, I did hear a rumour that Rose-coloured comments weren’t working, but when I tested them they seemed to. You can always email me at RebeccaBooks@excite.com should you need to comment but be unable.

Floodwater pours from the mouth
RR

June 27th, 2007

Flurgh

I am going to have braces for the rest of my life, and in the after-life I am going to have a retainer. This morning I put a dead bug in a Ziploc and brought it to work with me. The top layer of skin peeled off my nose. I am reading 60 Stories by Donald Barthelme, and it has so flumoxed me that when I came across the line, “Several waves of smickering washed over the class,” I had no idea whether that was a typo for snickering or a new word that I didn’t know (not in the dictionary, except an obsolete usage from Dryden that doesn’t seem to suit) or else a joke. Still unsure, despite “Stop that smickering!” in the next line. Argh.

Barthelme makes me question my IQ. Also it is very hot, and I am now at the library and very cold, and so my system is all confused.

How can you live in the northeast?
RR

June 25th, 2007

You know what I hate?

Having eyebrows. I can’t believe that I left that off my pet peeves list a few months ago. They are my most loathed physical feature. I would pluck them all out if it wouldn’t make me an aesthetic weirdo. Even still, I tug on them when I am tense; during stressful periods in my life they develop little bald patches. What ugly things. Ick.

That’s the way you want it

RR

June 24th, 2007

Sunday at the library

I’ve never worked a weekend before, and it’s not as quiet as one might imagine. When the library hasn’t got many students, it draws out members of the general public, independent scholars and lunatics. Also, today, a bird; I got to chase a small frightened sparrow around with a box for a while, which was kinda fun. And talk to some visiting scholars from Venezuala and Korea. Oh, now my colleague is looking at puppies on the internet. Aww, pugs.

Ok, it’s pretty quiet here. Only 1 hour and 17 minutes to go!

You can read my face / and my biography
RR

June 20th, 2007

I went away…

but now am back. Hooray? Well, it’s nice to see Toronto again, especially this morning, after last night’s mini-hurricaine washed away the humidity and smog (less of an improvement: the lightning took out the big tree in front of the library). But really, I was starting to grow pretty attached to NYC and certainly didn’t see nearly enough of it in the scant five days I was there. No one wants the play-by-play, I am sure, but the gist is that it was fabulous. In short:

JetBlue is an amazing airline of punctuality, mini-tvs, legroom and animal crackers.

I was delighted by how navigable the subways were. You just look at a map to see where you want to go and where you are, then find the line(s) that go in between (or check hopstop.com for various routes). The whole express/local distinction takes a little getting used to, but otherwise easy-peasy.

Small Kitten is well and thriving, with a cute apartment, amusing friends and a fine sense of style. Sabrina has instituted a policy of biting where I am concerned, but I think I love her anyway. She’s just too beautiful not to love.

I ate many delicious things, including a classic New York bagel (far better than Toronto, though very different from/possibly not as good as Montreal bagels). Also IHOP pancakes, which are as fantastic as everyone says, complete with pink strawberry syrup and unlimited coffee. Mmmm….

I walked like a crazy person–from Chinatown through Little Italy and Soho to Washington Square on Thursday, along the Coney Island Beach and then across the Brooklyn Bridge to the South Street Seaport on Friday (thanks, Melaniah, for your tour-guiding fortitude), 30 blocks along Central Park West and back on Saturday (I got confused), and from somewhere I can’t remember to and through Columbia on Sunday. Whew. It was fantastic.

I went to Coney Island, from whence my people sprung! It was neat, but I am still not sure I felt *of* the place. We ate at Nathan’s, but I had roasted chicken and vegetables because there are no veggie dogs in all of New York City. How weird and antidiluvian. Also no recycling bins. More on these topics later, I’m sure.

I met many of Melanie’s fascinating friends, and somehow let them suck me into singing in public. We are still not sure how that happened.

Ok, so that’s the short version and it is not all that short, and there is more to come. The point is that I had a fantastic time, and can’t believe the party is over and that I am at work eating a weird vegetarian sandwich that appears to consist mainly of shredded carrots. I miss you NYC, Melanie, Sabrina!!!!

If you can make it there
RR

June 14th, 2007

Landed

I’ve been in NYC less than 16 hours and I’ve already: sat on a patio, met four people whose name starts with M and one that doesn’t, been bitten by Sabrina (it was a love bite), had some diet Coke Plus (with vitamins and minerals!), been confused about that A train, been thoroughly well-entertained! And the trip and day are still quite young! To the Bronx, to IHOP, to Soho and beyond….

You have no scars on your face / and you cannot handle pressure
RR

June 12th, 2007

End and Goodbye

I should really be just posting a quick goodbye before I leave for NYC, and then getting *on* with packing and watering the plants and taking out the garbage before I go. I *should* do that, but I feel that it is of paramount importance that I first let you just how very good Joshua Ferris’s novel Then We Came to the End is: extremely so.

Sorry, I’m really bad at rave reviews. Even though I constantly read good books, you’ll mainly only hear me mention pans. I can be articulate about why something sucks, but my exhortations to read something good always sound like, “You’d like it, ’cause it’s really good. Like, um, really good. I was so impressed. Really, impressed.” But it usually doesn’t much matter, because I generally read stuff that everyone already knows is good (do I need to tell you how floored I was by Michael Winter’s One Last Good Look? Probably not.)

But Ferris is American, and being mainly hyped as an “office” writer, not that I even know what that is. And sure it’s a novel about an office, and accessible and funny and social enough that lots of angry office folks would likely love it. But it is also, technically, a masterpiece of voice and structure such as one (well, I) can’t usually find on the shelf.

I read it because I saw a capsule review in The New Yorker that basically just said it was pretty good for a book written in the first person plural. I wanted to read it ’cause *I* am writing a story in the first person plural, and I wanted some help with it, since it’s not going too well, and I don’t know many other things written in that voice–just The Virgin Suicides and “A Rose for Emily,” I think (others? suggestions welcome!) As it turns out, Ferris couldn’t really help me both because our projects are too different and because he is probably a genius and I am sadly not one.

But, gosh, I wish I were. I *can* tell you it is really hard to write a united voice for a group, and even harder to convince a reader that that’s the only valid way to do that, and Ferris totally succeeds. In fact, he succeeds to the point where I can’t tell you some of the more marvelous things he did with the voice because it would *wreck the ending.* How amazing is that, to marry form and content to that extent?

Possibly, this is not the book for everyone, but if this sounds at all appealing, you totally need to go read. It’s nearly 400 pages, but it won’t take you long, I swear.

Also, I’m off to NYC sorta tonight and definitely tomorrow. So miss me lots and find me at Sabrina’s place if you are desperate to get hold of me. Otherwise, expect highlights upon my return. And three rolls of film, natch.

Looked out into the blackness
RR

June 8th, 2007

There was this story by Margaret Atwood

At least, I’m pretty sure it’s by her; it begins when a young woman experiences some sort of crisis in her life and comes to stay with the protagonist in Toronto. They knew each other in high school, but weren’t really friends and haven’t spoken in a long time–she’s just the “only one still in the city.” The plot advances, or doesn’t, from there, I can’t really remember, but that’s the initial premise.

I read the story in high school, so it’s older, and I’d really like to read it again if I could. I know this is a really lame description, but if you can somehow figure out from it the title of the story or, even better, the title of the collection in which it is housed, I’d be most grateful. Really, I’d totally bake you some cookies or something.

Gwan just do it / whatever it is
RR

PS–Fred gets total props for reading the end of the very long Bob Dylan song I posted a couple days ago! Shout out!