Walking the so-called star route
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
8:45pm Sunday 10Sept06

Once I finish this posting I will be one Daily Practice posting behind.

I went for my walk around 6:30pm. I find I have to make a decision on a route to motivate me to get going. I decided that I would walk the star route. If I was really into seeing the famous that have invaded Toronto for the film festival where would I go? I walked past Roy Thomson Hall and ended up on Spadina. I ended up in a furniture store that had some funky couches. It's a possibility for future purchases.

I bought some strawberries, carrots and lemons in Chinatown and decided to cut my star route short. I did run into Oliver at one of the theatres. I didn't know he was in town. I'd forgot that he always does the film festivals. I stopped and chatted with him and he told me his funny Borat and Michael Moore story and we made plans to get together during his free time to catch up with another friend.

I logged in my steps and have decided to up my goal from 10,000 steps a day to 12,000 since my daily average is 9,094 steps.

This weather is perfect walking weather. I get warmed up so quickly and when ever I stop at a red light I get a nice cool breeze on my face. Can't ask for anything more.

It's very quiet in my apartment. The cats are napping as usual. I'm going to sneak back into the kitchen for more tasty strawberries and spend the rest of the night working on White Wishes. Perhaps tomorrow I'll make the attempt at two daily practice postings to catch up from my playful weekend. It's gotta be done.

EY

Motivation?
Topic: WC - Upper A Riffing
5:22pm Sunday 10Sept06

WC - Upper A Riffing - Instructions
Pick 5 random words out of a dictionary or thesaurus and write a piece using those words. Don't think, just write! This isn't supposed to be a work of art, it's just practice to get you to write without editing.

My 5 words: conjure, foreign, spectacle, clapping, gift...

My Piece:
Some days motivation is foreign to me
the spectacle of life wears me down, preoccupies
I need to use the gift of courage to push me forward, to believe
I need that imaginary audience furiously clapping at my progress
that same audience I conjured up as a child like angels sitting on my shoulders.

EY

Progress Log - September 2006
Topic: WC - Progress Log
Sunday 3:09pm 10Sept06

I have to admit that I haven't been doing as much work on White Wishes as I would like. I still get pulled away by household chores and the like. It's a continual work in progress trying to balance everything. There are things I have to do everyday without fail like braid my hair (otherwise I scare myself), make my juices (it's time consuming but for my health), and do some sort of work out (still feel like I'm not doing enough of that). I like to say that I could let my apartment go and not be too focused on being a clean freak but by the same token I can't be a dirt freak either. I'm continually trying to clear the clutter. sigh!

Enough with the excuses...

I am managing to blog pretty much everyday. The blogging is my writing scales. A musician practices everyday and a writer must do the same. I am doing the writing practice. I've also been keeping a hand written journal of thoughts and the like. And I've been writing poetry (my friend John calls his Riffing, I think I'm going to use/steal that term). Men always make me Riff. Riffing is a way of getting my thoughts out quickly so I can go and do what I need to do.

So overall I feel happy about what I'm accomplishing but I need to crack down on the novel. I still have to transcribe all the digital recordings I have that include ideas and comments and direction for White Wishes.

I want White Wishes completed to the point where I can step away from it in November for Nanowrimo and give it a good read through in December to work on the re-write.
There's my goal out there! Need to email that to myself, post it on my bathroom mirror and in my writing space and on the fridge and sit down and write like mad.

EY

Playful Weekend
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Sunday 1:31 pm 10Sept06

I've been enjoying a playful weekend and play sometimes leads to blogging absenteeism. But every body needs a break from the norm, don't they?

I was out enjoying time with three beautiful men. Yes Ladies, sometimes this girl has all the luck! Not too often that I'd get a big head about it but anyway...

My luck began two minutes before my lunch break on Friday when I answered my work phone only because I recognized the phone number and with the full intention of giving the man on the other side a hard time.
"Do you want to meet me in the lobby of the Hotel?" He said teasingly.
"For lunch or for an afternoon delight?" Sometimes I just can't hold back my smart mouth. It's just my character.

Anyhow I had lunch with Ant, which is a perfect nickname for a man who is 6'7". Mustn't have a big nickname when you're a big man. We had some good laughs and even better, "get to know you," discussions.
I, as usual, know so much more personal info about Ant then he knows about me. He was the inspiration of the themes this weekend. (I've mentioned before that sometimes there seems to be themes to my weekends). The themes this weekend were: Making the time; The people you surround yourself with; and doing what you always wanted to do.

What I love about my time shared with Ant is that he really likes my mind and how I think about things. He shows me his appreciation for me and the time we spend together. He said, "I had to get together with you and I kept telling myself, 'make the time, Ant, make the time.'"
I was thrilled that he made the time. We've made plans of things to do together outside of just lunch. Things that I don't normally do. One of our inside reminders to each other is about focusing on your September eleventh person.

During the horror of September 11th, 2001, one of the things that hit me the most was about the people who knew that they were going to die and the last phone call they'd made. Ever since then I've asked myself, "If I lived a September 11th, who would I call to say good bye to and give my last words of love?"
That's an important person.

The first time Ant and I ever had lunch together, in the midst of a very serious discussion of confusing feelings and the like, I'd asked him, who is your September eleventh person. He hadn't hesitated in his answer.

On Friday, in response to his comment about making the time, I said that since my mother died I was always focused on making the time for people that I care about. Why waste time on people who don't make you feel good about yourself, people who only want to hang out with you because they are bored, people who tell you in subtle ways that they don't appreciate you.

It's nice having that surprise date out of the blue, heck, I was going to drink beet juice for lunch and instead I had a great lunch that Ant kept saying, "I feel like I haven't spent enough money on you," about it. I had a great visit with a man that knows how to make a woman feel good about herself by focusing on what is great about her, we made future plans. And hugging a man of 6'7"? Craazy! You have to stand on your tippee toes and stretch your arms real high!

Friday night was my lovely fish boy, "Got any twos?"
It was a beautiful balmy evening and the beer tasted right and he's just so damn beautiful to look at that just looking at him is enough. We had the discussions of the people you surround yourself with, doing what you want to do and making the time. Told you it was the theme. Our relationship gets deeper with each moment we get to spend together. I hooked him up (he's an actor) with my lovely director friend (who is way more deep than I could hope to be) more than a year ago and they have started doing some work together. He praises her for her easy way of dealing with talent and she praises him for being so open to doing what she puts out there in her classes. He and I made plans for this week and for an annual outing that we enjoyed together this summer. That yearly outing will be our thing.

Saturday was my day with Ado. We work together and on his days off he does volunteer work at the Filipino Centre with his wife. There was a street festival and I went to spend the day getting some culture and having a good laughing time. I know I mean something to him because of the way he treats me but something bigger happened. Every time he'd introduce me to someone from the centre they'd say, "Oh yes, I've heard your name before."

When your reputation precedes you before you meet new people, it's heart warming.

My best friend in Montreal told me once about how I could tell a man really cared about me. He said something along the lines that he'll want to do things for me, he'll want to spend time with me. It won't be an obligation, he'll do it because he wants to do it. I'd like to add that the same thing goes with your friends.

Make the time, pay attention to the people you surround yourself with and do what you really want to do.

And think about it, who is your September eleventh person?

EY

Singing
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Thursday 7:30pm 7Sep06

In the The Writing Life 2 - the blog posting was about singing yesterday. As I read her entry I remembered my young singing voice. I remember being in music class in elementary school and my singing voice over powering all the other singers. I remember toning down my voice so that the others would stop looking over at me and they too could be heard. I remember that I was a comfortable singer. I wasn't self conscious. I could have done a solo without batting an eye. Singing was my comfort zone.

It was in grade three. It was the third school of that year. In that school I was classified as a slow reader because no one thought to investigate hard enough to realize that I'd been to three school in a year and had to make friends, leave friends, make friends, leave friends too many times for a child of that age. No one thought to notice that if I could write well, I could read well. I was just too shy to read in class in front of the others and the material was too boring to continue with as homework after school. I didn't see myself in that material. There were no black characters (although we were still coloured then). There were no girls with alcoholic fathers, who'd moved around and had to make new friends. There were no single mothers that statistic hadn't become any sort of norm yet.

I can't recall singing in school in any grade after grade three.
I still love to sing as an adult but I'm a shy singer. I only sing in front of people that I'm really comfortable with or I know like the sound of my singing voice. my work buddy, Ado, has got me to sing more songs for him with the seriousness of a trained singer. He keeps threatening to manage me and get me out there (wherever there is) to sing. He's the one person that could get me up, as long as I could keep my eyes on his eyes and see him nodding his approval with a smile. I sure wish I had that same comfortable feeling as a singer that I did that day in grade three music class. I also wish I still had that voice.

EY