On Lilies and Ozone and Poets

Lost Hour came a little early tonight. Lot’s of reason’s for that I guess. My stomach was growling so I’m trying to assuage it’s complaining (assuage is your word for the day) with a glass of organic milk. I had dinner with my family tonight and my fourteen year old nephew was rooting in my sister’s fridge for some milk which I pointed out to him was immediately in front of his face, top shelf centre. He read the carton and defaulted to the orange juice. “ I don’t do organic, he said.” Nope, I’m not kidding. I paused in mid mastication of a really delightful potato salad, (which my sister does in the French manner) cocked my head to the side and said, “What?”. And further conversation confirmed that in fact my ears have not yet begun to fail me. I would type it out here more or less verbatim for you, but I hate typing all those quotation marks, and the niceties of punctuating dialogue within prose are pretty much of zero interest to me – but I digress. He did not wish to sample the organic milk. I think even the imagination challenged of you can conjure up, in your mind’s ear, the incredulity in my voice when I inquired if that was because he found all those extra hormones and chemicals where what made the milk so tasty and nutritious. His older sister, a sweet girl not particularly known for her acerbic comment piped in with, “No, he’s just a fourteen year old boy.” Which, according to her means he is set in his ways and astonishinly suspicious of anything hitherto unknown to him.

I did eventually resume chewing and reflected, (after swallowing, so don’t be thinking I was talkin’ with my mouth full) that given she grew up with three brothers, and I grew up with none, that she was vastly ahead of where I was at her age in terms of understanding men. She laughed a very self-satisfied little laugh while my sister chimed in from far across the room, that what I said was probably very true. I thought, without saying, as I was chomping through another mouthful of that very delightful potato salad. That in fact I still seem to be way behind the curve on that front. That despite having recently written a spec script for Supernatural which has been widely praised by a number of young men as being astonishingly effective at capturing the respective character voices of the two hot young male characters so central to the narrative. Huh.

Another reason Lost Hour made an early appearance could also be the electricity in the air. Literally. Vast quantities of sheet lightening scored with loud classic rock on the radio scored my drive back north to Vancouver. I’ve never seen such a storm like that in all my years living here. A solid hour of massive horizon filling flashes. The sweet flinty smell - ozone mingled with the heavy scent of lilies coming from the bunch of star-gazers on the car seat next to me – was so intense, so present that I imagined it was seeping into my skin through my pours. Bonding with the flesh beneath and sealed there for all time by the warm rain splattering my face and arms through the open windows. I shouldn’t wonder if there was, henceforward, a faint whiff of ozone and lily emanating from me whenever temperatures rise above seasonal norms.

Good practice for me though, being up again during Lost Hour. Starting August 1 I am planning to participate in the 3:15 Experiment. Organized by a writer friend of mine, a bunch of us will rise every night in August at 3:15 a.m. and write. Supposed to be a poetry experiment in expressing the collective unconscious. I’m going to join with although I’m not much of a poet. Or I’m not much of what I think a poet is. Though my understanding of that is remarkably stunted as causality of not taking Eng. Lit in high school or university. I did have a boyfriend once who laboured at removing some of my heavy ignorance of all things poetical. Despite the fact that he took back his poetry text books upon the dissolution of the relationship, the exposure must have worked a bit as I did in subsequent years, from time to time, buy a few slim volumes – Byron, Keats, Yates, Shelly and a bunch of other 19^th century romantic types mostly.

Okay sleepy now. It has been such a full week that I’m really, really tired of thinking and talking and talking and thinking. Just too many people in my head right now. People past and people present and people future. I want to run away, alone, to a cabin in the woods for a year and a day. Or, at least to the land of nod for another six hours. One minute left in Lost Hour, so I’ll post this later. Night and God Bless – or nite-n-g’bless – as we say in my family.

I finished something

Yes, yes I did. The Conductor's Escort (a short film) is out and being both judged and proofed as we speak. Well okay, fine, we aren't actually speaking. Mostly I am sweating and trying to drink my nice glass of Prosecco (before it warms up to 32 degrees) in celebration of the event. In truth it is Wicked's bottle, purchased and inscribed in honour of his Flash Forward victory. But since he has dropped out of the Cocoverse I felt it was time to crack the damn thing. It made a very fine pop and I managed to overflow the first glass all over the floor.

Tough, tough, victory this one. Thanks to Mina Shum for her inspirational sharing at the lunch arranged by Women in Film and Television. Thanks to Lady Z for asking the tough question that inspired the idea for the film. Thanks to Shooter for asking the tough question about why my writing career has not yet matched my talent. Thanks to the Producer for basically a whole big whack of stuff that frankly I'm too tired (7 hours of UBC writing and 3 hours of my writing) to list. In fact I think I'm too tired to pour a second glass of wine and my computer is really really hot (know how it feels) so maybe I'll just get a big glass of ice water and cover the purple velvet couch with towels and watch TV. And thanks to my Dad. It woulda been his birthday today and though I don't think he'd actually like the script. He'd of sure liked the fact that I'd written it.

Note to self

Okay schmoop. What the hell? You had a huge flash of fear a moment ago when opening your short script. What’s that about? You are scared that people won’t like it, aren’t you? Or won’t like it as much as The Lobby. Well cowboy up ya big sissy. You are a writer. You write things. And yes people judge the things that you write. Sometimes they like it. Sometimes they don’t. Get over yourself already and get some product on the shelf! Listen to Mina Shum! Don’t take “no” for an answer, especially not from yourself. Crimminy Jickets, you know how to do this. You love this little story. So tell it that way and from that place. It is after all the story of a girl who gets told “no” and yet carries on with a smile on her face and a song in her heart.

Note to self

Okay schmoop. What the hell? You had a huge flash of fear a moment ago when opening your short script. What’s that about? You are scared that people won’t like it, aren’t you? Or won’t like it as much as The Lobby. Well cowboy up ya big sissy. You are a writer. You write things. And yes people judge the things that you write. Sometimes they like it. Sometimes they don’t. Get over yourself already and get some product on the shelf! Listen to Mina Shum! Don’t take “no” for an answer, especially not from yourself. Crimminy Jickets, you know how to do this. You love this little story. So tell it that way and from that place. It is after all the story of a girl who gets told “no” and yet carries on with a smile on her face and a song in her heart.

Honestly

You know what kids? Between writing for a living and practicing guitar my hands hurt so much that I'm gonna go read a book. Seriously, a big martini and 2 Advil and they still burn with the fire of a thousand suns. What am I reading - Henry James' Turn of the Screw and Ted Bell's latest Alex Hawke spy thriller - escapist? YOU BET YOUR ASS!

Stay on the trail

I’ve been thinking on that a bit this week. Weighing the relative merits as an artist and a human being of being a good girl following rules and living up to expectations or following the muse where he leads, even that is off the trail and, as my intensely religious upbringing would describe it – off the straight and narrow.

I’ve seen some wonderful illustrations this week of how good is rewarded and renegade behaviour punished. So, I stop by Whole Foods on my way to the office to pick up some snacks and a bunch of peonies for my desk. Because of course, for those of you that know, life is short and peony season even shorter, and they don’t like being grown in pots on decks, and for those of you that don’t understand the fleeting perfection of cut flowers on your desk (hands down the most important place to have them) please either skip ahead to the lascivious bits of this blog which are the reason you are here anyway, or take a time out and Google peonies and add them to your coco gift list. “But I digress. The point is when asked by the checker how much the peonies were, I replied, “$4.99”. Now, upon exiting the store with my purchases I noted that the sign on the tub containing the peonies had in fact been partially obscured earlier, and were in fact listed as “2 for 14.99”. A moments pause, and a dumping of my bag in the trunk of my car and I grabbed a second bunch thinking that I would return to make up the shortfall to the cashier and also get a bunch for Sweet Potato, a co-worker, who has had a rather rocky soul-searching time of it lately and with some recent good news in her life needed a bit of a “you are special” acknowledgement. The checker, impressed by my honesty, gave me the second bunch at a discount. Gee I hope his boss doesn’t read this. And I go on my merry way with 10 amazing peonies and the extreme satisfaction of having been rewarded for staying on the trail.

My second story occurs again on my daily commute to UBC, at the super annoying intersection of Cambie and 4^th, 6^th – whatever the frack they call it there – where a handsome young man walking OFF the trail by crossing against the light got buzzed by a police cruiser (right in front of the police station, not the spot to disobey traffic signals people) and embarrassed in front of dozens of fellow commuters in vehicles, on foot and bikes when the cop leaned from his car window and told the guy he better stand on the centre island where he was and what kind of idiot was he crossing a busy intersection that was also under construction endangering himself and all of us innocent fellow commuters!? And how do you like that for a run-on sentence.

And so taken together, these two little events have made me ponder the relative merits of behaving vs. mis-behaving. Hmmmm. The phrase “Stay on the trail” came into the Cocoverse many years ago, when while walking about a park in our country’s capital regional district in the company of Snorro (aka the Earl of Scallion, but Snorro is shorter and thus easier to type), we observed a number of signs advising us to “Stay on the trail”. In that special way of his, Snorro stepped across the boundary, turned, and held out his hand to me in invitation. I took it. And we departed from the trail, into the trees to do what it is that people do when they depart from the trail (this is where you use your imaginations people). And thus, for two friends a new entry into the private vocabulary of intimacy burned itself into the firmament. Firmament – that’s your word for the day. Firmament – noun – the vault of heaven, where all true friendships are recorded in the language of the stars.

Ohhhh, Followers...

And suddenly. There are followers. Okay no pressure to be entertaining now. Nooo. Especially since I believe my two, count 'em two, fans are themselves uncertain as to whether they read my posts for some insight into one artist's search for complete self expression, or for the more lascivious bits. Well, in truth I will strive not to disappoint on either account. (Frack I hate the possessive apostrophe - can't I just skip em and you guys can consider them as read)

I did have a rather amusing conversation with Sweet Potato today where I posited (your word for the day) that writing a book with a certain person (not The Producer mind) might be worth the 1000 hours without fiduciary recompense if he was willing to write into the contract 4 hours every Tuesday for a 6 month period wherein said person interacted with me in a manner completely to my specification. Oh, and the 50% of promised profits of course. I think I actually managed to shock poor Sweet Potato with that. Not to mention the co-worker who, micro-waving in the background attempted to ignore my thinly veiled attempts to incite outraged comment. That woman has some kinda self control people, because I was trying to provoke at least a muffed gasp.

Sigh. Not that I would ever propose such a clause. Not really. But a girl really does have to dream. Other wise the round of meetings that go no where and daily superficial conversations with people you don't give a rat's ass about and the hurt wondering why those you do give a rat's ass about can't be bothered to hit the reply button on the email even if just to type out a message shorter than a twitter post. Sigh. That isn't a complaint. No complaints here. I won 48,000 fake dollars on one Texas Holdem hand the other day - 4 Kings - after a hand like that kids you say "thank you" play one token conciliatory hand then WALK AWAY.

Frack, I guess now I have to look up how to spell conciliatory. Oh, look, I just did. Thank you.

And so much to be thankful for. For all those that didn't reply, I did make the top of two very important peoples call list. Having dinner with the Empress tomorrow - so there is a demo of how by trying to do something nice for Wicked (which totally tanked) instead I get a nice opportunity for me. And having drinks with the long lost Master of 3D on Friday. Gosh how I've missed him. Talk about mis-matched friends - he as cool and reserved and taciturn as they come and me, well, me. I'm only cool when I'm really really mad. Not like I'm going to punch you mad, but in the I'm going to kill all of your family and make you watch kind of mad. Thinkin few of you have ever seen me that mad and those of you who have, whisper when you repeat the tale. Or blanch and excuse yourselves to the restroom to splash water on your face.

More to say on the topic of burning bridges, but that for another day. Sleepy now. Going to try and win another 100,000 fake money before bed. But here's a thought. The very few bridges I feel that I've burned I couldn't give a rat's ass about so I guess really if I think about it, those who've burnt their bridges with me likely lose zero sleep over that. And so humbled by understanding my insignificance in the eyes of a small handful of those I respect, and kind of awestruck that if they are so stupid as to under value my regard (see even when crushed my ego is like a memory foam matress) okay maybe they are right since I can't spell matress - I will sign off counting my fans and my blessings. I love you all and promise to fete you, each and every one every chance I get.

A rumination on the tender feelings of artistes

Just been ruminating a bit on the relationship between hurt feelings and being a writer. In fact it may be one of the core things that make someone start writing fiction in the first place. That inability to protect oneself from the slings and arrows; from those annoying things called “feelings”. Instead of water off a duck’s back, a writer type internalizes, twists and morphs and spits it back out again as a piece of story that may be thinly veiled, or maybe almost completely unrecognizable when held up next to the thing that prompted it.

I have a writer friend that was a bit troubled by the concept that all writers have a dark side. She is troubled by this because she hasn’t one. At least she hasn’t one that she admits to. Having read a short fiction piece she wrote about deep fried electrified cat, I’m not so sure. And come to think of it, her retelling of Little Red Riding Hood ended with Red getting eaten by wolves, so Squish, perhaps the denying of your dark side needs to end?

But back to the hurt feelings thing. While we all have those moments of perfect clarity after the fact, where we whip off snappy comeback after snappy comeback, in the moment many of us are at a loss for something powerful and relavent to say. For writers I think this happens to us so intensely and frequently at a young age that we start wearing a groove in our brains repeating “What if? What if? What if?” ad nauseum. Gets to be kind of an OCD thing after a time and suddenly we are almost totally incapable of shutting that question down and living in the moment. Likely why so many writers(and artists in general) are thought of as neurotic and flaky. Cause we are. We try and deal with our feelings by transforming them. When it works, its golden, when it doesn’t we self destruct.

The only way that I have ever found through the dark paths is to litterally keep my head down and place one foot in front of the other. I've been doing that at my day job today. One word. At. A. Time. Now on my lunch break appropo of nothing, I'm whipping off this little blog piece so quickly the keys are smoking. Last night though too, working on my current short script. Got masses done but kept panicing the whole time, judging instead of getting it out. Vividly seeing the scenes in my head but when I try and catch the words I'm raking my fingers through the air and only coming up with a fraction of the scene's richness. TIme and again I had to bring my self back with the instruction just to write one more line, one more sentence, come on now fix it later if it doesn't work but get it out there now.

What I need to do, both now in returning to this proposal and tonight when I sit down with the short script is to kick my internal editor in the ass and lock her in a brain closet for the day. She can come out tomorrow and edit the work of today. But if I can't get her to move her fat ass out of the way today it is going to be a James Joyce kind of day. That from the story (probably untrue) about a friend arriving at day's end to pick him up for a night at the pub and finding Jimmy at his desk, head in hands; "How many words today, Jimmy?" the friend asks. "Seven." groans Jimmy. "Well that's good for you, naught?" says the friend. "Yes,"says Jimmy "But I don't know what order they go in."

Rats. There is an incorrect use of "its" somewhere in the above but now I can't find it and I have to get back to the proposal writing so I'm going to let it skate and beg your grammatical indulgence yet again.

Ouch, that hurts.

I am fundamentally troubled by the complete lack of acknowledgement of my emails by one of my colleagues. I mean, if he doesn’t want to come to the smart career move event, he hits reply and takes about 15 seconds to type in an excuse. “Sorry, thanks for thinking of me, but I can’t make it.” How hard was that? And yet obviously insurmountably hard because he hasn’t done so. A friend pointed out that he is a guy and if he feels he didn’t live up to his own (or my) expectations at the last event, that he is just letting it skate in the hopes that it will all go away and he can go back to doing the easy stuff. According to her, he can’t even email a “no” and shut the door because a) that would be shutting the door and b) by articulating anything it means he has to face it and think about it – which must be painful in some way, I guess.

So fine. Not like I don’t have a gazillion other things to do. I guess he’s off my bus. Disappointing that. I thought we were on our way to being great life-long friends and founding members of each others fan club. Guess I was wrong. Not like that’s a first either, but it is a dim spot in an otherwise bright and shiny period in my life. And being me, I can’t quite figure out what my reaction is. I think it should be a shrug of the shoulders and a tossed off “His loss!” and off I go never to give it another thought. But of course, being a writer, and a chick, instead, that perpetual motion tape loop in my head that proclaims “What if? What if? What if? What if ...” all day every day (and often most of the night too). What if he is ill? In jail? In love? In Tibet? What if I run in to him somewhere? What do I say? What do I do? I don’t want to be pissy or offended or forgiving.

I’m confused. While I certainly feel hurt and disappointed and sad, I certainly don’t want him to know that. Crikey, he might think I actually care about him and what he does or doesn’t do. That thought is completely repugnant. It bugs me that it bugs me so much and it bugs me that now I am spending quality time having to look at the ugly thought that if let him see how hurt my feelings are that will hurt even worse. See, doesn’t pay to care about people, especially boys. Boys are stupid. I’m even stupider for giving a rat’s ass. And my feelings are hurt both personally and professionally as obviously his ignoring me is a strong statement that he thinks I’m no one and nothing to his future career. Men show who they are by what they do, not what they say, so at this point even if he does smarten up and apologize what am I supposed to do with that? Can’t do nothing with it, and I’ll feel all uncomfortable cause I’ll try and be classy and forgiving and what is the point of that? Not like it’ll fix anything. No, as my wise friend pointed out, he has shown me who he is and that is one thing guys are actually really good at, just most times we chicks choose not to see it. Still, I hate to be wrong. If you know me at all you’ll know how deep and true that statement is. So proud I am of having all the men in my personal and professional life organized and categorized and labeled. So proud that they all think I’m secretly in love with them (shhhh, don’t even hint to any of them that I’m not) and so proud that they are such simple creatures, easy to predict and even easier to manipulate.

Oh well, I guess there is a newly vacant seat on my bus. Which is a good thing as it is really a very small bus and space is at a premium. All in all a positive thing, since it kicked me in my real feelings which spend most of their time locked in a heavy brass-bound trunk in the back of my head. That is as opposed to my every day feelings which you all see and believe as truth but are for the most part just sound and fury – something shiny to distract you from the trunk in the shadows. Getting kicked in my real feelings is good for my writing. And I say to whomever that was that said “Looking good is the best revenge.” – try blogging.

No worries at all that he'll read this blog since he can't even be bothered with my emails so the word for the day is “transcend”.