Hi there,
Welcome to my blog!
Still have my learner’s license, so stay tuned while I learn how to drive this thing.
Consider buying some poetry for a special stocking stuffer this Christmas… it’s not chocolate, but then again. it’s not a lump of coal either…
I’ve been writing some… not today but recently. I haven’t had much work but have been devoting some time every morning to writing and it makes me feel peaceful and happy. But i need to get some paying gigs so please keep me in mind. Maybe you’re having a birthday party and want me to come lead a poetry workshop for your guests! or maybe you have a wedding coming up and instead of getting pedicures and up dos, you want to work on your wedding speeches. Well I hope you’ll think of me! I don’t jump out of cakes, juggle or make balloon animals, but I can do something! I’m a mercenary poet.
It’s late. bedtime and dreamtime. I had a strange dream the other night that my friend Chava called me and then fell silent on the phone while i asked questions trying to figure out what was wrong. I woke up in the middle of the dream so never did find out why she wouldn’t say anything. The new med I’m on might make for more vivid dreams… I’m looking forward to more of those!
time for cornflakes. time for bed
It’s snowing… and I am home– full of healthy, delicious food, listening to my favourite radio station, with a free evening ahead of me. I’m at peace with my recent decision not to take a CEO position because I don’t like the acronym– reminds me too much of the ee i ee i o song. I don’t have a job, but I’m learning how to blog, am keeping my eyes open and hoping someone will want a hard-working writer on their team. My slogan: “Too bogged down to blog? Inspired to retire? I’ll do your job, you knob!”
Well it’s time to hunker down for the snow storm and think wintery thoughts. The cloud have covered o’er us and the the flakes are floating down….slow down all you car commuters… and what the hell are you doing online while you’re driving?
Well the new year has come and most of us want to see improvements over last year. Maybe we want a little less around the middle and a little more in the pocket. Well those are top of my list… but the very tip top of my list is to become a CEO. Because apparently they are the tip of the economic iceberg, and maybe of the evolutionary pyramid too… so skilled and wise as to be almost a different species. And therefore deserving of an outrageous number of shells, trinkets and stock options each hour they sit in their glass walled offices, watching the rest of the folk in their sweaty cubicles.
So today I state my intention to be a CEO, and I look forward to seeing what comes my way. I’ve got a nice business card and a comfortable chair. Now I want the private island and a trip into outer space… but I’d settle for a private jet and beachfront penthouse. After all a CEO has to start somewhere. . and I’m willing to begin at the bottom of the top.
This Sunday, December 18, Sass and I will be selling at the Seaport Market again- me, poetry and fiction; Sass- photocards. The Market is exciting, warm and fragrant at Christmas time, redolent of cinnamon and fir, beribboned and bowed, welcoming all into its embrace. I think there should be a fireplace there and comfortable chairs, and some elves under the tables, making and hammering and wrapping. But it’s still really, really good! Come see.
It’s been a lovely kind of day.. the kind of day I think is going to be lonely, unsatisfying and gloomy but which turns out to be just the kind of day I need. Marian and I went to the Dartmouth Market, which was a kind of festive zoo, and I had plans to go to Halifax but decided when I got home with my groceries to have a nap instead. Then made a hard decision to do laundry. Now home with a roast in the oven listening to my beloved CBC, which is my friend through thick and thin. I guess i didn’t stay home all day but it feels like a day well spent close by, and in, my cozy nest.
A year ago I was in the Czech Republic at Townshend International School, where the students were bracing themselves for exams and I was floating free, without any more obligations and without any real plan. it was a bit of a meancholy time, but a forward looking one… I was getting ready to go to my residency in another town, and to leave behind the friends I’d made in Hluboka. This year is much different… I feel like I am living in a comfiortable old shoe, like the old lady in the nursery rhyme but without all the children. I love the way it feels to be home. And isn’t that a hallmark of happiness- one of the great gifts life can give us, along with good health and harmony? Here’s hoping everyone will find and love their home in 2012.
Today, I did something I always regret. I had fish and chips. Mum and I also split an order of clams, at John’s Lunch, where one is served quickly, straight out of the grease.
When I eat something that good, I almost always feel bad. I was already tired, depressive almost. It’s happened a couple times lately and I think it’s related to eating the very things I know I shouldn’t.
Sometimes, even when I eat something good for me, I find myself feeling lower than I should be. For breakfast today I had oatmeal with a banana and almond milk. Oatmeal is about as wholesome as a newborn baby, but for some reason it doesn’t stick with me long… my blood sugar dips mid- morning after eating it. I think that was the reason for my first low today.
The next low came after eating lunch. I was ready for a nap, but instead called my father for a walk. The walk proved wonderful on this unseasonably warm afternoon, but I was still ready for a nap. So I came home and had one. And now I feel sleepy but good after a late, two-part supper of brown rice and lentils, and brown rice and chicken stew.
I am fearful of how sensitive my system seems to be, to fatigue and food. It shows me I need to be quite vigilant about keeping my blood sugar at a reasonable level and getting my sleep. Sometimes I feel like I am caring for a newborn, whose many needs consume my whole attention. As I get older, my system seems more and more sensitive and needy, as though it is becoming less and less mature, Benjamin Button style. And it’s not only food and sleep that I need to be concerned with, but medication and exercise.
When I was young, my body and mind seemed to be able to take all
kinds of abuse without suffering much but now I am middle-aged, I must handle myself with care. I don’t think that’s a bad thing however,but simply something new and interesting to experience. And as I writer, I’m all about the experience!
Tomorrow will be colder. I won’t have fish and chips and I’ll be going to exercise class. I can already tell it’s going to be a good day.
It’s been snowing all day and now the freezing rain is coming down. I’ve spent my precious snow day fretting about my lack of employment, or rather, my lack of a living. Things are coming to a head and I know I need to make find a way to make money, as my old strategy of waiting until something comes my way hasn’t paid off of late.
It occurs to me that I really like thinking about work, trying different jobs and helping other people get where they want to in their work life. I like the idea of helping people find their dream job, or that little part time job that helps them earn just enough to be more comfortable, to worry less. I like the possibility of creating jobs for people with disabilities…and of helping people who want to start their own businesses.
Work has always been important to me and for years I was happiest when I had a job, or when I was freelancing. Now that my energy, stamina and mobility are more limited, I feel my choices are correspondingly more limited. But just like so many others, I still need to pay the bills.
My mental and physical health have to come first, though. Working fulltime has proved difficult in the past so part-time work is what I’m aiming for. Work I can do from home, that involves a certain amount of creativity and challenge, would be amazinq. I burned out of freelance writing, but would still enjoy doing work that involves words and pictures.
I will do my best to keep an open mind and try things that I might have overlooked in the past… and if you have any tips for getting and keeping a job, please let me know! Comb my hair and wipe the spaghetti off my face, check. Anything else?
It’s coming up to that time of year that I so love… Christmas time. I love the decorations, the pepperminty eggnog, the dinners.. I love the sprinkle of snow on the still green grass and the kids’ growing hysteria as every sleep brings Christmas closer. Parents, as you look groggily into the bathroom mirror before the sun rises on a weekday, be advised that Christmas is closer than it appears. Before you know it, Christmas will be knocking, with all its sloppy, drunken overabundance, on your door ( like a favourite aunt), and the kids will be out of their minds with excitement.
If you help Santa stuff stockings or mail Christmas cards, think poetry this holiday season… you’ll find me and my words at the Dartmouth Farmers’ Market tomorrow and the Halifax Seaport Market on Sunday. Hope to see you there!
It’s a beautiful sunny day but I feel the cold coming through my bedroom window… my feet are the canaries in the coal mine.. I know I’m going to turn into an anna-shaped block of ice from the feet up if I sit here long enough. Thankfully I bought some knitted slippers from a vendor at the Mental Health Festival of Hope, just have to find them.
I spent all day Tuesday writing a story for the CBC short story contest. It’s the first time I’ve entered and I found it really motivating to be writing it on the very day it was due. Not likely the way to write a winning story but there you are. The women at the poetry group I belong to tolerantly agreed to give me a critique at the 11th hour and it was very helpful! Thanks, poetry girls!
I don’t always feel I need a critique, but I probably always need one more than I know. Usually, I’m pretty certain whether a poem is good or not, finished or not. But fiction is a different matter. Somehow I just don’t have the radar for it.
My hope is that this blog will look and sound better very soon! Please don’t give up on me… and feel free to critique! I’m a big girl, I can take it.
It’s a good day- a beautiful sunny Monday here in Dartmouth. Not a blogging day. More of a jogging or logging sort of day, neither of which I have the energy to even contemplate.
Last week, a group of four poets read their work at the Fables Club in Tatamagouche. Annette, the owner was abuzz, taking drink orders, and the place was packed. Zach Wells, Carole Langile and Harry Thurston, had no trouble following my act… they were brilliant. Zach’s poetry is word-licious, Carole’s thoughtful and aching by times, and Harry’s had the heart honking like a goose. I guess the novice always goes first, but I was glad because I was more nervous than I’ve been in a long while, and I was able to listen to the other poets fully.
There’s an interview with me in Atlantic Books Today about my writing residency in the Czech Republic. I guess I’m really going to have to finish my second novel, since eveyone knows I’m working on one now! Thanks ABT and Michelle Brunet, who interviewed me!
I still haven’t figured this blog thing out, or I should say, what I want this blog to be about. Writing and stuff, for sure. Maybe food, and maybe Baha’i stuff. If there’s anything you’d like me to write about, let me know and I’ll consider it!
