Where the Walls are Soft…

Creep

I’ve been on “forced down-time” for the last few hours. I’m behind on a few too many things, and I was starting to get a little…. “antsy”, lets say.

So I took a Life Sabbatical for a few hours…. went driving with The Fly-Girl. Had a couple of drinks. Watched part of a ballet on the fabulous new TV that doubles as a fireplace and cried a little, that’s how beautiful it was to watch.

I don’t want to work tonight.

So I’m not gonna.

I found this while Stumbling around the internet, and it was The Next Best Part of My Day. So, I wanted to share it with you all. GO.

(The Best Part of My Day was the telephone call from Cardiogirl. Thanks, Betch. Shet Bag?!)

Not-So-Random Song for the Day: “Creep” (Acoustic) - Radiohead

“All Tuckered Out”
Taken November 10, 2007 with Canon PowerShot A550

…the Fear
of
Driving was
imaginary. How
cool is that?!Apparently, I am becoming a bi-weekly (or is it “monthly”?) blogger. Much of the steps to this new life I’m building have had to take place off-line (I’m driving! I’m driving!), and by the time I get back in the house and get comfortable again, the evening has disappeared.

Another thing keeping me off the blog has been that my kid seems to have lost her magic powers. Yes, the TV has finally given up the ghost completely. Fabulous sound. No picture whatsoever, not even the squishy, short people we were sometimes getting. No TV does not make for a happy teenager.

SO…

I went out to visit Louie and bought a new TV; whereupon the model purchased promptly went on back-order. As Louie very generously offered free delivery (not to mention, free haul-away of the gargantuan dinosaur that just died), I didn’t mind the wait of a week.

Ky spent the week watching DVDs on my computer. Now that I’ve given the laptop over to her for her exclusive use, it’s just not good enough anymore, so she steals mine out from under me. I figured I could deal with it… what’s a week?

Well, a week in Louie’s world is about two and a half weeks in mine. It’s difficult to arrange delivery and dinosaur hauling from an exotic island somewhere in the South Pacific, apparently. Yes, the bastard went on vacation, and during his layabouts on the beach, drink in hand, kids in the ocean, my kid somehow forgot television ever existed, having googled free full episodes of her favourite anime show (with my computer), and watching DVDs (with my computer), and doing homework (with my computer), for yet another week, and then of course it hit me square in the forehead. I could have better spent a thousand dollars on a new computer for her and cancelled the cable subscription. I may yet do that. The TV has not been delivered, after all.

In other news, The Fear of Driving was imaginary. How cool is that?! I have come to the “in-car” portion of my Driver’s Education course, and my instructor still finds it difficult to believe I haven’t driven a vehicle in over 15 years. The only thing he feels needs improvement so far, is my left-turn technique - although he is impressed with my ability to avoid the inevitable-looking head-on collision with on-coming traffic that my technique seems to employ. Apparently, as opposed to the “average” driver, I do not make my turns too wide… but avoid my lane altogether and choose the other guy’s. His way of training me out of this is to slap me. I’m serious - I’ve been slapped about 30 times now. I told him I will only turn right from now on.

Other than the slapping part, I’m loving the driving. I can’t wait to buy the truck and terrorize the States (look out Suzi…)!

There is much more to say. Unfortunately, time has got away from me yet again, and I’ll have to hold off with the news, the plans, the Ruby stories, hospital/Dad disappearing acts, and my excuses for the failure of my first foray into NaNoWriMo, at least until the TV gets here.

Random Song for the Day: “The Infanta” - The Decemberists

“First Snow”
Taken November 8, 2007 with Canon PowerShot A550

I’m hoping
the
next three
weeks of Weird
will just
turn the 10
pm thing into an
automatic occurance.The post that I had half-written to go with this picture is now stale and moldy, and the time has passed.

The snow didn’t stay, anyway. I won’t leave the house without boots, overcoat, toque, gloves and my over-the-head “hoodie-thing”, either, though, because that’s when we’ll get the first real blizzard. Just like, if I hang my laundry out to dry it will rain, dead certain. Not that I hang laundry out any more - West End. Steel Plant. ‘Nuff Said.

But Hell froze over, anyway. I stopped blogging. I mean, I had no interest whatsoever. No time. Can’t be bothered. Couldn’t care less. That has never happened before. Even when I ripped the original blog offline and swore I’d never type another post, I circled the option like a vulture until I caved and started over. Blogging has become my entire social existence and I love that existence. But…

Blah.

I’m sleeping, though, finally. It only took one day mashed into a teeny-tiny student desk, mashed in with 29 other teeny-tiny student desks overflowing with 29 other mashed-in students to finally cause my body to just keel over on the couch and sit up over 12 hours later when my cell phone alarm went off, but I slept. And this time, I didn’t wake up with a rodent chewing on my lip.

I woke up, and went back for Day Two of the Mash-In.

Driver’s Ed.

Ugh. A necessary step to The Great Escape, because I let my driver’s license lapse out of fear of driving (crashing) and I want to not be afraid of it anymore. I had the impression that taking a course in driving properly might make me more confident. Ha. I’m learning stuff designed to scare new drivers into being “good” instead of “stupid”, but they’re managing to make me scared shitless again.

I have two more days of the in-class fear fest before I “get” to drive with the instructor. I could have been driving for the past five years, mind you, if I’d had the opportunity and access to a willing certified driver (ummmm…. read “guts” there in place of “opportunity” for a more realistic picture), and gotten the G over four years ago. I wish I’d done that now, but I’ll have to be satisfied shortly that I’ve done it at all (and a possible 80% discount on insurance on the new truck for taking the course rather excites me, too).

All the sitting around is causing me to drop into Dreamland around 10 pm, though. I’m not lying there waiting to fall asleep. I’m not popping awake 8-10 times through the night. I’m not suffering “White Nights” with no sleep at all several times a week. I’m hoping the next three weeks of Weird will just turn the 10 pm thing into an automatic occurance. After that, my schedule will return to a more normal (for me) pace, and I’ll be able to get back to Ruby (damn, I miss Ruby!), and visiting my Dad, who’s still in hospital, but coming along nicely now, and blogging my idiot thoughts as I think them. I miss this too, now that I’m typing all this, so hopefully I’ll manage to steal time from panic sessions of NaNoWriMoing somehow through the rest of the month.

Eeeep. Maybe.

Random Song for the Day: “Death of a Cheerleader” - Marcy Playground

“Trickle Down Theory”
Taken October 20, 2007 with Canon PowerShot A550

I guess
you
don’t hit
on the guy
in the
next bed if
he’s a friend of Grandma.I’m …. tired. The last couple of weeks have been draining. I didn’t realize how tense things were getting, what with the good things, like gearing up for NaNoWriMo, the bad things, which I will get to in a sec, and the confusing things - mostly just trying to find “my place” at the J.O.B., which is difficult as I was sort of dropped down into the middle of the project, and I feel like I’m just sitting around picking my nose most of the time. I don’t feel very useful there, truthfully.

I’ve outlined a couple of freelance magazine article ideas - another good thing. One, I actually wrote a proposal for, because it’s about an organization that I want to write about, but need “interviews” with staff, and I thought it best to get the blessing of the head honcho. I got an immediate ‘yes’, and I’m excited about the project, which I already have a publication in mind for. And now (Sigh…*), I have to break it down into manageable chunks that can be dealt with on my lunch hour, since I kind of want to be face to face with the people I need to speak with.

My father is getting better. This was one of the “bad” things that I thought I might be jumping ship for, and I didn’t want to post about it, because we didn’t really know how things were going to turn out. He had a stroke, and then a heart attack, interspersed with several gushing nosebleeds just to make it all interesting. Even more interesting, he made friends with an imaginary bug that lives in the ceiling above his bed in the Critical Care Unit. He spent his whole first day there watching it dig a hole in the plaster and run around the curtain rail.

Yesterday, his 87th birthday, they let him out of Critical Care and he’s now in a general ward. A Co-Ed ward. With two “chicks”. He was a little put out with this at first, because he says he has enough trouble with women hitting on him, and he couldn’t see how he’d get any rest with two more hanging around his bed all day… turns out, he and my mom know the grandmother of one of them, so now it’s all good. I guess you don’t hit on the guy in the next bed if he’s a friend of Grandma. Or maybe you do but he doesn’t mind so much - I’ll have to ask.

My novel, now… I’m off to a slow start. Somehow, I’m not worried, though - I’m not sure why I’m not worried, but it may be that my main character, Emma, is very very solid in my mind, and I love her to pieces already.

I’m having trouble getting to the “getting it down part”, though, and that’s entirely because too many of the new things are still too new, and damn it, there’s too many of them. I want to go back to the more laid-back schedule of school and Ruby, J.O.B. and Ruby, Mom and Dad and Ruby, and rum on the weekends. Routine, please. The writing is more likely to happen then.

I won’t be going back to that routine anymore now, though, because I’ve gone and changed things and started a few things up that are designed to force me out of this place and into the Great Unknown, which, in my case is anything beyond 50 miles of here.

What, me - scared?! Pah!

Yes. Shitless.

I find the picture at the top of this post very calming. It reminds me to breathe, and to learn to take things as they come and actually do something with them. I’m learning how to recognize opportunities and yes, create some that weren’t there before, and Ta-DA! A life away from here is now “seeable”. The last thing I want to do right now is what I’ve been doing my whole life: hide from the things I want, and make up reasons to let them float by. I can’t dive at them though, either, because I’m likely to get myself run over. They are bigger than me.

I’m growing into them though…

Random Song for the Day: “Aerodynamic” - Daft Punk

$5.99

I went shopping today, if you could call it that. I hate stores; I hate shopping in general. In particular, I hate shopping for clothes. Unfortunately, I have no suitable attire for job-hunting/interviews, so I was forced to go shopping. Ugh.

I also have that “no income” thing going on, so I went to one of our local thrifty-difty kind of places, which is cool with me, as I’m all for pinching a penny ’til it shrieks.

I found NO dress slacks in my size, which apparently is somewhere this side of nothing. I did, however, become the proud owner of a pair of jeans that will stay up when I walk - the first I’ve found since the pair pictured in this post, which has since died a good death. I consider $5.99 for jeans that fit to be a good deal, bearing in mind that I’m hoping to actually reach a “normal” weight some time in this lifetime (mine or the jeans’) and I’d hate to have to pitch a pair of $50-$90 jeans because I finally met a goal. Granted, I expect to be gainfully employed before that happens anyway, so maybe it won’t matter much by then.

I also caved and paid an additional $5.99 for a new (to me) white dress shirt rather than steal another one from my Dad’s closet. And get caught. Again. I’m pleased to report that the “pouty face” still works on him, and the nice gray one I was caught absconding with last week was reluctantly given to me free and clear. I didn’t even get grounded.

In other news, my brain is itching to get at the new story I mentioned in my previous post. The Ruby Story is not yet finished, however, - but it’s getting there! I’m working! - and I refuse to start anything new until it is, unless there is a paycheck attached to it. I looked into the Magic Paycheck for Writing Mirror yesterday, though, and (holding breath), saw the words “Paychecks May Be Closer Than They Appear.” Hope springs eternal. Belief, on the other hand, is as yet suspended until somebody shows me the money.

And now… I must study. Blah.

Random Song for the Day - “Peephole” - System of a Down

Success

The school deadline has passed. I have three exams left to write (I may want to consider studying for those at some point this week).

My last assignment for the Flash Experience Design course was an interesting one, and I got a great mark of 94% - I was pleased with that one. The final mark in the course was 89%, which kind of sucked because I got really good marks overall in the assignments, but kind of bombed out on the exam. I’m much better in the “practical” stuff - envision it, build it, yep, no problem. Talk about/teach it? Ummmm… not so much, no. Anyway, here’s that last assignment.

Back out into the real world again (uck), I officially have NO income now. Not a completely comfortable position. So, while I rebuild resumes for “real world jobs”, I’ve been applying for writing jobs as well: three on Saturday, and one today, so far.

I’ve also accepted a “maybe” freelance Flash job - “maybe” because I’m not sure there’s really a job there to accept, yet, but I’m pleased, nonetheless. This would go a long way toward feeling like the last eleven months haven’t been a big waste of my time. It would also go a good portion of the way toward keeping a roof over my head come November. Fingers crossed.

Have I actually written anything today? Uh, yeah… this post, anyway. There’s a new little sprout in my head though… beginning, middle, end, and all that, even. And the Ruby story end is coming for the handful on the reading list. Honest. It is, really.

Random Song for the Day: “Swing Swing Swing” - Count Basie

… the Order of Operations

… the News at Eleven

… Time-Management Made Easy

… the Audible “Click”

… Everything.

Not-So-Random Song for the Day: “I Want It All” - Queen

… as I overheard a small child say today. Laughed out loud, I did.

And Ruby laughed out loud yesterday, when I told her this joke. She then proceeded to tell me an even “blue-er” one, but I can’t remember it well enough to share, sorry. Ruby has a great laugh, and I’m hearing it more and more often over this past week. Perhaps my mood is infectious.

Wonderful things are going on. Ky gets her Cockburn Island vacation this year, after all. At first, it didn’t look like she could go, but there was a cancellation on the boat over for this weekend, so she gets to go now and she’s so excited I think she may pop.

I’ll be working on the final segment of “The Waitress” tonight and tomorrow. I’m still undecided as to whether or not to post it here, as the current plans for it may require a “non-published” past. It will be available, though, via email to a select few, if they want it (Poop-Tooth, this means you, Lurker-Man! ).

I’ve applied for an “over-the-Internet” editing position that rather impressively dropped into my lap the other day. The money is so-so, but the working-in-the-buff option rather turns me on, so I’ll take it if it’s still available. No one else has offered that perk so far, and I really don’t mind paying for my own dentist if I can take my pants off at work.

Well, I’ve gone and run my bloggery battery down, and Ky’s on a hunt for her groovy-coolest polka-dotty shades that she cannot go to an isolated island of Sand-Trampers without, dammit!, so I must go help her locate them. I’d hate to have all 19 people over there laugh at my daughter. What kind of mother would that make me?!

Random Song for the Day: “Sleepy Maggie” - Ashley MacIsaac