April 16th, 2007

At the platform’s edge

I feel a bit as if I’m on the eve of my execution just now, for in 22 minutes I must depart for the far reaches of Scarborough, invigilate that pesky exam and then mark all 82 of them over 60 hours in the course of the next five business days. FIVE! Argh. So the party of post-thesis is effectively over in 22 minutes, at least for a while.

But, if I’m truly to be executed, then the Becky Eats even on Saturday night was a suitable last meal, delicious and convivial and about 5 hours long, as all the best meals are. Mmm, creme brulee (I don’t know how to accent on this computer [or any computer]–sorry).

Yesterday’s attempt to be free and frolicsome didn’t exactly pan out, but I did manage my first ever post-surgery run. I concerned that the impact of feet on sidewalk would excessively jolt my healing jaw, but with my new ugly-but-well-cushioned sneakers (white with *shiny* blue patches on the sides–something a London gang-banger’s girlfriend would wear in 1987, I think, but so comfortable) all was serene. And I felt happily healthy, although I spent the rest of the largely inert, reading and (pretending) writing.

Ten more minutes. There is scarcely anyone in the library. Why is no one freaking out except me?

For a year we caught his tears in a jar
RR

April 14th, 2007

PS

In case you were on the edge of your seats about my bad morning yesterday, you should know that after gratuitous Mika-listening, things took a swing for the better. Just as I was leaving the house, I glanced for the 10000th time at the bookshelf and, bingo, there was the lost book. We here at Rose-coloured are choosing to interpret this as the dybbuk taking pity, and not as premature dementia. Thanks to all who were concerned. Jane and I are thrilled to be reunited

In celebration I went to the Bay in search of stockings to wear to my defense (because so many graduate degrees have gone awry due to inappropriate hosery choices). Post-purchased, I was offered a free facial. Are there people who say no to such things? Not around here–now I am glowing. Glowing! So lovely is beauty-capitalism that I was actually starting to think (as the nice lady massaged something gooey onto my cheekbones) that the reason department store cosmetics are so expensive is because they are *nicer* than drugstore things. I went so far as to enquire prices, only to find that the little tub of masque cost $85. Even I cannot delude myself into bankrupcy, so I made my apologies. Startlingly, the lady of cosmetics did not lose faith in me but gave me many tiny tubes of sample products, I think as bait to buy some, but which I will use *instead* of buying anything. Then I went upstairs to lingerie to find several dismaying advances in women’s undergarments since last I shopped, which, since we are still pretending that this is a terribly professional blog, we will not discuss.

Then, gym, then being delivered to the friendly theatre folks at the Walmer centre, who put me to work carrying things and prying carpentry staples (my deadly enemy) out of the window ledges. The Biscuiteers are exchanging labour hours for rehearsal space, and cheerful bartery project, if I do say so. And then there was this strange Moroccan “feast” that I went to at a cafe, for no other reason than that it was free. The food was fairly par, but there was a *belly dancer,* something I’d never seen before. My companion had to split, so I was reading and tea sipping when the ambient music got louder and I looked up to find a sequined undulating hip next to my head. The lovely woman was really talented, flexible and confident, which as a good thing since she was not performing under ideal circumstances (almost no audience, people passing through performance space, bare-foot, -bellied, -armed, -etc *in front of a door*… It was a maginficient performance, under those or any circumstances.

I was sad I had to go before it was over, but since it was to the land of delightful foods in Little India, not too sad. And it was delightful, and so was yesterday, despite the inauspicious beginning.

Today involves work and later more feasting at the much vaunted “Becky Eats” celebration of orthodontic success ce soir. So, on with that then.

Hey hey / you you
RR

April 13th, 2007

OOC!

I have never heard anyone use that abbreviation but Wanda on Doogie Howser, M.D., but it stands for out of control, as is apparently my literary life for the moment. The material that was to be this entry accidentally turned into a poem, and not a good one at that, so we are left with little to report. Except that the copy of Jane Eyre that I mentioned I planned to read a few posts ago has disappeared. Now, we here at Rose-coloured do *not* lose things, and we most certainly do not lose books. I had taken it down because I wished to see the picture of Jane on the cover, and then put it away somewhere because I had something else to read first and now *I do not know where*. Do you? I still have something else to read, so this is not an issue in that sense, and yet it has already ruined my morning (it’s early yet, we could bounce back). I keep wandering from bookshelf to bookshel, in vain search. I know I will find it a week from now somewhere that does not make sense, like the freezer (but not actually the freezer, I already checked). If you see Jane, please tell her I’m looking for her.

This sense of dismay is not helped by the fact that it is pouring out and I am feeling ill. I can’t attribute the illness to anything, so I like to make up causes, like the fact that I have been eating mainly sibilants lately (salad, cereal, soda, salmon). Which is clearly utter silliness, but cheers me on this most sad and difficult day of book-loss.

Why don’t you like me / Without making me try?
RR

April 11th, 2007

Scarberia

Yesterday started out well enough: a reasonable amount of dawn-time work, a trip to the gym, delicious lunch with Charming Kerry (guess who remembered how to do links?). Then, though, I attempted a dry run to UTSC in preparation for invigilating an exam there on Monday. I had never been via public transit, as my kindly supervisor always drove me last term, and this term all my hours have been saved for this behemoth exam (between that and my regular jobs, I will be working 80 hours next week, so there won’t be much action here at Rose-coloured). Anyway, I figured the day of the exam was not the time to be experimenting with routes, so I set off to time transit, and things went straight to hell..

You know when you ruin your own day and don’t even have anyone good to be mad at? Yeah, it was like that. It’s totally not Scarborough’s fault I got Kennedy station confused with Scarborough Centre (the concept of “end of the line” messed me up–two different lines, two different ends). Once at Kennedy, I fast realized that there was no 38 bus there, but at that point I didn’t know how I’d gone wrong, so I just wandered around, looking for lines full of student-type people. I tried looking at route maps, but most had helpfully been taken down. Argh.

At TTC stations, there really is no central repository of help info for the lost and disoriented. Once you are on a bus, most drivers are decently helpful, but if you don’t know *which* bus… The message seems to be, “Small incompetencies are ok, but if you really screw up, you’re on your own.” So I got on a couple random buses and asked who went to UTSC, and tried waiting for some red herring busses and eventually got a milk run 116 that took me, ever so slowly, to the campus. By this point, timing out the process had become moot, but if you are interested, it was now more than 1.5 hours since I’d boarded the train.

The 116 driver was gentle in pointing out (I went over to chat with him after almost everyone else had gotten off the bus, 20 minutes into the ride) that I was doing things the most inefficient way possible. He suggested various better ideas. I sighed, and realized I was going to have to do a non-stupid dry run and waste another afternoon. Then I took a little nap and then we got to campus.

I had brought my campus map but not the directions to where I was supposed to go (at this point, all four people who read this blog are saying to themselves, “I’ve got to stop reading this blog, this girl has the IQ of pudding.”) But, points in my favour, I did find the building and then the English office just from fuzzy memories and intuition. I was so thrilled with that success that I wished to present myself at the office simply to say, “Dry run successful, seeya Monday!” but of course it was closed for the day.

So I went back to the food court and got a root beer from the A&W concession. How come UTSC gets a real, mall-style food court and we get Aramak? Theirs is so much better. I think somewhere in that sentence lies the moral of this tale: It’s not Scarborough’s fault. It’s not their fault that they are far away and confusing. It sure seems popular enough a burgh, judging from all those many bus routes it has. And the root beer was delicious, and the girl I asked for directions was very nice. I lifted the title above from a friend who has lived and loved in Scarborough, but I strongly suspect that I, a disorganized interloper, is not allowed to use such a pejorative. It’s like how I can make fun of my little brother, but no one else can. What do outsiders know?

And when I found a 38 bus for the return trip, it was very efficient, and allowed me the delight of the RT from Scarborough Centre to Kennedy. Delight is a slightly qualified term, of course–it’s just as well I was alone, as that thing makes a sound like God gargling, precluding all conversation. But still, it’s an elevated, the only one in the GTA (I think). It’s so great just to be able to look out, even if it is over fields of parked garbage trucks and scrap yards, and some of the most amazing breakfast-cereal-inspired graffiti ever seen.

And so, sadder but wiser, I made my way home, to appraise the post, make salmon and asparagus for supper and plot never again to leave the core-city, or perhaps my apartment, ever again.

I could be your favourite girl
RR

April 10th, 2007

Long weekend

Kicked off the long weekend with a stellar meeting of the Free Biscuit-reers, which would be the theatre group I’m helping out with. They’re a group of actors committed to innovation, inclusion and ingestion of biscuits, and they graciously allow me to play along and help with scripts and stuff. Ever fun. They’ got a blog, and to kill two birds with one stone, you could surf on over and find not only what the group is like but read a film review I wrote of “Reign Over Me” at Free Biscuit Theatre. If you haven’t the time, the short version is that Free Biscuit is awesome and so is Adam Sandler.

Anyway, that film plus a peck of writing is what I did Friday, and then more work of the teaching variety plus a delightful trip to see my family on Saturday. Over cocktails I flew into an inexplicable rage (not really, but I was snarky) because my father told a delightful story about a horse he encountered as a child that I had never heard before. I somehow felt, having known my dad for nigh on thirty years, I would only be hearing breaking news and I was alarmed to know that he was sitting on such good material. As a result of my snark, over the course of the weekend got two more brand new stories, also delightful. I am on the verge of demanding my parents and everyone else I know get a blog (that will never happen). Really, you might think this blog is very boring, but this is exactly the sort of information I want to know about you. Yes, you. Go on, tell me what *you* did Thursday night, or the last time you were on a horse. If you don’t, I’ll accuse you of holding out on me.

Hard rock radio
RR

April 7th, 2007

The Reading Year

So April 6, 2006, was the rather arbitrary date that I started keeping a reading journal. I actually think the reason was that the semester ended at the same time it did last year and it took me a week-ish to read the first “pleasure” book of the year. I’m uncertain because I have a terrible memory, which was the reason I started keeping the journal in the first place. That, and estimable friends like Scott and Kerry (damn, I forget how to do links–you know who they are) had such logs, and look how estimable they are. The journal wound up including not only pleasure reading but school books from my summer class, non-fiction on useful topics, and serious journals I read entirely—but not the 30+ “novels” I read for “work” nor my ongoing obsession with reading every word of The New Yorker (that’s another post).

So the grand total came in at 61, which means about a book a week, which is about what I imagined. Though I was sort of scared I’d get to the end and it’d be 3 books and I’d realize that I am functionally illiterate. Wait, wait, that’s a bad stereotype that I have to stop indulging in. Some smart people don’t read, I heard a rumour. Anyway, this reading year ended not with a bang but a whimper, Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue. I love Bryson’s travel writing, and I love the English language, what’s not to like, I thought? The lack of narrative arc or pacing made it difficult, though each individual chapter was interesting. Interesting seemed to be the highest goal present though–lists were not exhaustive, and what was explained and what wasn’t seemed a bit hit and miss. Canadian English got maybe three or four mentions, mostly in relation to its past persecutions in Quebec, and there were some glaring political incorrectnesses (ie. Native American languages referred to as “foreign” tongues in America). And the book was poorly proofread, which makes me bats, especially given the subject.

Nevertheless, I learned a lot, not least that any Bradfordian, not just Ross, could spot a Leeds man or woman a mile out. Good to know. And now, onward.

On the horizon: I’ll be reading Frank Wah’s Diamond Grill next, because it’s on the exam I’ll be marking and I don’t really remember it from 5 years ago. Just knowing I liked it is probably not enough for the undergrads. And then, hmm…not sure, but likely another reread, Jane Eyre for a project I’m working on. I love that book, but I’ve only read it once, and then only because I was assigned Wide Sargasso Sea for a seminar and realized I was unlikely to understand without Jane. That is kinda a weird, angry way to experience the favourite book of so many childhoods. And now I need it for a story, so I need to really know it cold, which with my sieve-like brain, requires a reread. So, onward.

I hope y’all had a good Good Friday, Passover Sedar, whatever you’re into. I’m off on a mini-jaunt to my folks’ place. Shall we reconvene here next week?

I’m gonna stand guard / like a postcard / of a Golden Retriever

RR

April 5th, 2007

Linkages

Hmm, so I’ve put up some links. So far the links are only to people I know and journals I’ve been published in. Is it just me who uses the internet primarily as an interactive medium? Really, except for friends’ sites, email, Google and Facebook, I read the occasional journal and that’s it. Ok, and sometimes Television Without Pity (yes, I read tv because I can’t watch it–sad sad sad). I know people who keep totally up on current events, film, music, whatever, but unless I know someone involved personally, I’m not likely to find out anything. How do people get so cyber-connected, and how do they find time? Hmmm…maybe this blog with somehow connect me to the secret internet universe of useful knowledge… I doubt it. Good thing my friends are so interesting.

And it’s not 9:07 am. I’ve really got to fix that.

It’s just the bullets
RR

April 3rd, 2007

The adventure begins!

Ok, I think that’s it for the preliminary intro/blog set-up stuff, so we’re good to go (until someone grants me permission to put them on my links list–ahem!) I’m going with the optimistic word here, “adventure” as opposed to “abyss” or something along those lines. Really by “adventure”, I mean this mad after-graduation, rest-of-my-life thing that I’m embarking upon. Also the blog, of course, but I don’t think by any stretch of the imagination I’m going to be able to make this thing fascinating enough to constitute an adventure. Maybe a promenade.

BUT, I’m gonna make a promise here, because I’m trying to prevent everyone (including myself) from losing interest in this little excercise in, like, week. The promise is that I’ll try to be at least funny or interesting or weird or something in every entry. No recitations of arguments I had with the guy at the phone company or long pontifications on the nature of subjectivity. I promise. Well, I promise to try.

I kinda think this attempt at being interesting may eventually result in me just, well, making things up. But, then, Lillian Hellman pretty much died bitter and penniless because she changed her autobiography to make it more interesting and Mary McCarthy made it her mission to destroy her. So maybe it’s a bad idea. Well, you can *let me know*, cause you can comment on these entries. If you, you know, wanna.

Wow, it’s so not 4:55 am. I wonder why my blog clock says that. So many mysteries!!

I’ll dig a tunnel / From my window to yours
RR

April 1st, 2007

Let’s biograph!

The passage below is from a project of a few weeks ago, wherein I needed to come up with a “writer’s biography.” Of course, what I came up with was far too long and self-indulgent, but it did reveal to me how easy it is to become fatalistic in retrospect, assuming that you were always becoming what you ended up as now. This bio, which I’m happy to put in blog form, since it is otherwise useless (what I ended up using was so so so much shorter) makes it seem as if I always planned on being a writer, and never had a friend or a date or a job on the way that distracted me. Ahahaha. I barely know what I want to be *now* and, for all intents and purposes, I *am* whatever I was going to become. Anyway, with this is brief (but not brief enough) and ellided version of my past history as a writer, should you care.

I am from a very small southern Ontario town, a perfectly nice place to live, although perhaps a bit pointless to visit. My brother and I spent our childhood reading whatever our parents and teachers handed us, watching whatever came on television, and playing with whatever fell into the yard (snow, spring runoff, grass clippings, green apples, toads, dirt). Our town lacked a high school so we were bussed to a poshish suburb a half hour away. I’d always written stories, high school had a newspaper and a yearbook, for me to write for and later edit, and a literary festival for me to enter. I won often enough to get confused about the usual probability of doing so. I was often lucky—I won second place in a city youth festival, but the newspaper decided to run my piece instead of the winner’s because mine was shorter. I didn’t know the difference between a kids’ writing contest and a journal’s call for submissions, so I sent something to the latter and they actually took it. That seemed nice, but when the editor significantly altered the story, my teenage ego was horrified. In retrospect, I don’t know what either of us was thinking, because in both versions of the story, someone gets eaten by an alligator. That one gets left off my credits list.

In my final year of high school, I was able to take a writing workshop (it was a very good high school). Workshopping was concept I’d not seen before, but it seemed brilliant to me. I loved hearing what others thought of my work, and trying to help them with theirs. And so the pattern was set: I loved being edited and hated being published. I moved to Montreal when I was 19 to attend McGill. After some brief confusion about how good I was at math, I pursued an honours English degree with an irrelevant but entertaining geography minor. I eventually wound up as literary editor of the arts magazine, and published some stories there and in other student publications. McGill had no creative writing courses then (I hear with envy that they do now), but in my second year, a kind prof offered a non-credit prose workshop. Everyone worked like crazy for that non-credit.

The following year, I took a writing course at Concordia. There were some great minds in the class, but it was strangely embattled and ended in revolution. Since it hadn’t been an ideal experience and McGill was against fourth year transfer credits, I moved on to an informal writing group that some of my most likeminded Concordia classmates had started. It was (sigh) called “Write Club” after Chuck Palinchuk’s novel Fight Club and it was terribly masculine, despite the fact that I was not the only female in it. One of the boys wanted to be Charles Bukowski and they were always drinking absinthe. Another boy had a kitten named Chub-Chub that he kept in the hood of his jacket and even that was macho. I can’t explain it.

After I finished my honours thesis (on ironic distance in Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Tom Jones), I graduated and, eventually, moved to Toronto. I started taking publishing courses at Ryerson in the evenings and being treated strangely at strange jobs during the day (a theme in my life long before and since, and one of the few autobiographical details I think is probably evident in my fiction). Finally I got a job that allowed me both school and leisure time, and I was able to write a bit more. I got to take a writing class for free at George Brown by winning a postcard story contest in which I may or may not have been the only entrant. It was the only writing class I ever took that had no workshop component, which I found odd. I joined a few writing groups with friends, all productive but none permanent.

When I finally graduated from Ryerson, I started taking continuing studies writing classes. In one, I finally found a group of people with whom I could workshop ad infinitum (so far, so good) but by then I was realizing that I wanted to give full-bore writing at least a little chance, so I enrolled in the MA program in English and Creative Writing at University of Toronto.

In the first year, I workshopped and took courses on Virginia Woolf, Bibliography, Magical Realism, Environmental Literature and Canadian Satire. I wrote a lot and learned a lot and found another brilliant workshop group. At the end of the school year, it also occurred to me that if I wanted to be a real writer, it might be good if someone who didn’t know me personally actually read my work. It had been a long time since the alligator story, and I had had a lot of feedback in the meantime, and learned to take it manfully (womanfully?) I figured I’d be ok no matter what happened, so I sent out everything I had on my hard drive. I got many rejections—not too many to count, but I’m not counting them anyway. I also got some acceptances, five so far, which isn’t huge but is in every way enough validation to keep me going. And so I keep going.

And then, as my dear friend Anne-Michelle would say, it was now.

I am answering the questions / I am asking of myself
RR

March 31st, 2007

That’s me

Well, I’ll just skip the boring parts
Chapters one two three
And get to the place where you can read my face
And my biography

That’s Paul Simon speaking–he says a lot of things better than I do. The quote is by way of introduction to the picture at right–that would be me, wearing my Grandmother’s apron, about to make some gingersnaps with the bowl and book before me. Retro clothes, slightly confused, big smile all make for a very representative pic, I think.