Make-up entry
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Thursday 7:36pm 7Sep06

I forgot about my Daily Practice piece last night so I need to make up for it tonight...
I was going to go swimming after work but instead went to get my tickets for the reading series and for IFOA. I've got all my tickets and I'm too thrilled. 27 tickets and I still need to get a few more tickets that I couldn't order through the box office. Plus pay for the Canscaip writer's conference and I'm all done. Put in my vacation request today and I'm so good to go. It's so nice to be ahead of the curve instead of running to catch up which is often my norm.

I realize that I haven't done an undead television report since I got my television back up and running. I'm actually doing well, mind you the fall season hasn't started yet. The only new shows that I watch are Rescue Me and Weeds both on Showcase. I've been taping the shows and watching them later so I can fast forward through the commercials.

I thought last season for Rescue Me was good but this season is out of control. Dennis Leary must be worried that they won't get renewed so he's getting everything in there and it's only been three episodes. Each episode has had me throwing my hand up to my mouth in complete shock. "No he didn't!"

Unbelievable. If all the shows are this good this season, I'm in trouble.

Things have progressed enough in the man situation to the point where I can no longer discuss it publically. It's weird to know that you have an audience and yet feel that there's no one really reading.

See, dear readers, despite all that I have shared here on these virtual pages I do have a cut off point. There are things that I will not discuss.


EY

Quotes - Mostly Writers
Topic: Writing Outings
Wednesday 9:36pm 6Sept06

Iris Murdoch
Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

Ray Bradbury
My stories run up and bite me on the leg -- I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

Ned Rorem
I was early entranced with all the arts, as much a doer as a consumer. It was less a question of declaring, "I want to be an artist when I grow up" than "I am an artist, so how do I grow up?"
(Arguably, no artist grows up if he sheds the perceptions of childhood, he ceases being an artist.)

Richard Selzer
A good deal of what I do is in the form of a diary. My present project is to prepare my diaries for publication. On the face of it, this doesn't make sense. First you tell a notebook all your secrets, and then you publish it?
Writing, for me, is what purring is for a cat.
I carry an amulet in my pocket; I put on my lucky hat, the one that keeps my thoughts from flying off the top of my head.
A writer's mind is like flypaper - it traps whatever happens by, an object, an expression, a bit of dialogue.
In writing, the whole world is taken in for repairs and then put back in running order, piece by piece.

Elie Wiesel
Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove some how remain.

Langston Hughes
To create a market for your writing you have to be consistent, professional, a continuing writer -- not just a one article or a one story or a one book man.

Donald E. Westlake
Anyone can make a guy go into a room and pull a gun. But to make a reader feel as if he's seeing something he's not supposed to -- now that's something.

Whitney Houston
God gave me this gift, I'm not going to apologize for it.

Pierre Berton
I was hustling and now people are calling me an icon.

One way to learn writing is to fix someone else's work.

Successful authors are salesmen.

You need to be prepared to do many things to make money as a writer.

Make the next piece better than the last.

There should be fun in everything you write.

Write as if you are writing a film script.

Magnetism of the Heart (based on Maiden Vows adaptation & direction Sylwia Torsh)

Magnetism, they say, is unreined power, which pours the source of lice from one body to another. If I posses fertile powers in me to pour my fire into other veins, why should I not then, in a soul young and beautiful, clean as freshly fallen snow. Through a strong will and a strong pulse, make an impression of my own feeling!

100
Imagine that you must choose one single memory from your life and capture it everything else will be erased. That choosing this memory is your only way of passing through eternity that you have one hour to choose, or you will remain trapped in the magical space between life and death forever.
"100" originally devised at the Arcola Theatre and the Young Vic Theatre in London.
From your whole life, from all you've ever done, felt or thought, what is the one memory you treasure most? Choose now.

Deborah Joy Corey
The most dangerous place for us is home. It is where we are most vulnerable. And we are always looking for that balance in our relationship to home -- how to get away, how to get back.

Mordecai Richler
My job as a novelist is to keep in touch.

Quote about Timothy Findley
What was really striking about Timothy Findley's fiction was how willing he was to dig deep into his own psyche, and his own demons - including depression and drinking - to explore dark themes such as madness and abuse.

Neil Gaiman
There's no magic formula. To become a competent writer, you start to sound like you, and then you keep on writing. Finish things you start. Get better

Lynn Sharon Schwartz
Memory is revision. I have just destroyed another piece of my life to tell a story.

Shawshank Redemption
Get busy living or get busy dying


EY

Working out
Mood:  amorous
Now Playing: the music is in my head!
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
7:28pm Tuesday 5Sept06

Attempting to move a little faster tonight. Usually I'm a bit of a slowpoke in getting down to what I gotta do. Went swimming after work to weigh myself. Only lost a pound but better than gaining. It's a good thing I started upping my daily walk.

Forward movement on the man situation. The one I wanted to said more than I expected. Girlish giggles all day. Constant scene flashbacks... Did he really say that? Holy shit!
My response to him should have been, "it's inevitable."
It is inevitable.

Got to get to work on White Wishes for a couple hours before I go to bed. Remembered that my first writing instructor at Humber College wrote on the board... "Write to Disturb!"
It's something I've always practiced in my writing. Get to the nitty gritty. Pull out the gunk and stick your hands in it. Taste it if you have the guts.

I've always believed that every part of my life is a story. There is a story in there, just look for it. Ask, "What's the story?" You'll find it.

EY

At least it's not raining
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: Cat Stevens
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Monday 2:12 pm 4Sept06

Been up since 10:30 this morning. Not my normal thing, I'm usually up earlier than that. In my dreams were ballroom dancing contests and book shelves filled with Cole's notes and children's books. Some one I liked wanted to take me to his appointment before we went on our first date. I was nervous - what would we possibly think of to talk about? He stashed my scanner under the counter at his work so it wouldn't go missing. I still carried my writing notebook to sneak little observations and fears when he wasn't looking. He pulled his long hair out of an elastic and as I ran my fingers through I told him that I actually liked his hair shorter. A dog walker brought me my three dogs - a Boston Terrier, A Great Dane and an Airedale Terrier. The dog walker agreed to take care of my dogs a little longer and I left for my date. end of dream.

Got some food cooking in my crock pot (Red cabbage, apples, and carrots in Red Wine vinegar) and making some vegetable stock in order to make butternut squash soup in my other crock pot. I've also made some cheese tortellini mixed with veggies, pesto and Parmesan. It's a shit load of work cleaning and cutting vegetables. I can understand why a lot of people who live alone don't cook for themselves. Thankfully I love food more and I am far more satisfied with what I cook versus take out.

Tomorrow is back to school day with all that it holds for all that are returning to school. On my walk yesterday there seemed to be lots of potential students on the streets. It made me think of what my routine should be for my non back to school. In keeping with that, I thought of a whack of topics/columns to add to my two blogs. I'm glad that I've been doing well with keeping up to the Daily Practice on this blog but I really do need to add other stuff. Plus I'll be going on more writing outings starting next week so I'll be sharing anything from that of interest. And we'll see what else crops up.

I still haven't decided if I'll follow through with picking some words and writing a piece on it. We'll see. I waffle back and forth on that one.

At least it's not raining today. All that crying was getting tiresome. I used to believe when I was a child that the noise of thunder was God throwing stuff in Heaven because he was mad. I often wondered if he/she was mad at me. Anyway if thunder was anger, rain was tears.

Cat Stevens music brings me such peace. I've loved his stuff since I was a little kid. I admit, my eclectic taste in music comes from my mom. On Sundays, she would always play other music (anything that wasn't soul music - our staple). She played classical, jazz, soft rock, country and whatever else she was in the mood for. I liked Cat Stevens first off because he had the words to his songs in his albums. And I liked the words of his songs. I think today, my favorite song of his is, Father and Son. I like the Son's verses the best:


How can I try to explain, when I do he turns away again
It's always been the same, same old story
From the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away
I know I have to go

All the times that I cried
keeping all the things I knew inside
It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it
If they were right, I'd agree
but it's them you know not me
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away
I know I have to go


If I listen to it in the right mood it makes me cry. It makes me think about leaving home and the knowledge that I had to leave other wise I wouldn't survive.

What I like about Cat Stevens and what I know of his story is that he was all about this inner seeking. His songs tell you that and in his life he delved into Buddhism and mysticism and spiritualism and the like until he found the Muslim faith. I'm not unlike him except that my search is less religious and more dream ward. I pay attention to my nightly dreams because of the night terrors I suffered for the early part of my life. I pay attention to my dreams because the messages I've received haven't steered me wrong and I still get to see my mother in them.

His song that I loved as a kid was Moodshadow. I loved how he listed everything, hands, eyes, legs, mouth:


And if I ever lose my hands, lose my plough, lose my land,
Oh if I ever lose my hands, Oh if.... I won't have to work no more.
And if I ever lose my eyes, if my colours all run dry,
Yes if I ever lose my eyes, Oh if.... I won't have to cry no more.

And if I ever lose my legs, I won't moan, and I won't beg,
Yes if I ever lose my legs, Oh if.... I won't have to walk no more.
And if I ever lose my mouth, all my teeth, north and south,
Yes if I ever lose my mouth, Oh if.... I won't have to talk..


I learned how to write from songs. When I was really young about 7 years old, I would change the words from the silly songs off the Sonny and Cher show and sing them to my dog Smokey.

Sometimes I forget that I've always wanted to be a writer. I was interested in writing before I could write. I wanted to be like my mother and brother who could write things on paper and be understood. I used to scribble on paper and say, "look mommy, I'm writing." My brother was always fascinated by my fake writings and he would play that he could read them. Being four and a half years older than me, I wonder if he knew then how much that meant to me?

I wonder where he is today. I wonder if he's keeping out of trouble. We haven't spoken since my mom passed away. My sister in law used to keep me up to date but she and I had a major blow out New Years eve going on four years now and she hadn't heard from my brother for over a year herself then. We fought because she told me that she'd always been there for my mother and I hadn't. I mentioned her amnesia of all the shit she caused in my mom's house not including marrying her best-friend's son. I told her not to get me going on listing all the things I remembered witnessing her do in my mom's home. "Just because I was a quiet kid doesn't mean I was developmentally delayed." And I ended the conversation.

She called me back and the proverbial gloves came off. I told her what I really felt about her until she finally hung up in my ear.

I want to one day create a male character who personifies my sister in law. I've known her since I was 7 years old. I was impressed with her because she wasn't like the other women I knew. She spoke up for herself and would tell a man to fuck off to his face. Got to love that Irish Italian temper. My mother would never think of doing that. She had a boyfriend that hit her once and she climbed up on a chair and hit him in the back of the head with a cast iron frying pan. "Knocked his teeth right out of his fucking head," she said when telling my mother about it. I laughed so hard I was weak.

She was the person who brought me to the realization that I could actually scare my step father if I could organize my anger enough. In the midst of an argument with my mom, my step father pushed my sister in law and she punched him. His reaction to that punch was the first time that I realized that he was just a bully and bullies should get a taste of their own medicine.

By the time I organized my anger and put my hands on my step father (I was eighteen), pushed him up against the wall and threatened to kill him if he ever touched my mother again, I knew in my soul that I had the power and rage to back me.
My mother screamed, my step father burst into tears and I moved to Toronto.

All that is so far removed from my current life and my life in Toronto as a whole that I feel like I'm talking about some other person. And yet the memories are still clear. I am the memory keeper after all. That was the cloak I put on at 6 years old. That was why I needed to write. To chronicle what happened. To understand.

It's funny because as I work on my novel I realize that I am like the mother Rachel and the daughter Kali. Rachel wants to be understood and Kali wants to understand. I want to both understand and be understood...

EY

Superstar
Now Playing: Superstar/ Until You Come Back To Me - Luther Vandross
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
2:15pm Sunday 3Sept06

Had my weekly Sunday morning breakfast with my friend who works for a major music company. She brought me the newest CD of an artist I normally don't buy but who's latest album is up my alley. Too thrilled especially since one of the boys at work keeps asking, "Did you hear it yet? Did you hear it yet?"

My friend and I worked together in theatre. We both have music and book addictions. She does Stratford every season the way I do IFOA, which I may be doing too, once the new assistant artistic directors take over (Don Shipley specifically). Next season is all about honoring Richard Monette so I don't know how interesting that will be but the following year is when everything changes. I love change.

Innocently went to Fresh Obsessed to stock up on a few things for my beet juice. Ended up dropping 60 bucks without batting an eye. Something about the bonus air miles gets my interest to buy 5 more of what I was only going to buy one of. I have more than enough food in my fridge and freezer, I could have just bought the fresh vegetables and fruit. Been wanting some tortellini but I need an Italian to make it for me. My friend P makes a mean tortellini. Nice and simple and tasty. I need some lessons. My tortellini never comes out that good. P and her sisters make homemade tiramisu and make me jealous of their family brunches of too much food that I love and want. Every time I go to her house for a party I befriend the food first. ha ha!

I need to start a round robin of visiting all my friends and get them to show me how to cook like them. Yeah, learn how to make home made sushi from E, Tortellini and Tiramisu from P, West Indian foods from any one of my WI friends but specifically AV (she's a cooking fiend), Perogies... sigh! It's out of control. But I need some side dish to go with my veggies. Heck I need a lot of things that doesn't concern food but that's another story.

It looks like another rainy day. A combo of Hurricane Ernesto and John affecting our weather. Yesterday I got out for my daily walk, I've decided that I would walk 10,000 steps a day and build up to 15,000 steps. I hit just under 13,000 steps. I walked in the pouring rain and finally gave up on my umbrella that could't fight the wind with any regularity.

I thought about an ex boyfriend that used to call me whenever it was raining and would say, "It's raining!"
"I know."
"I'm coming to get you."
I'd wait down at my front door and hop in his car and we'd drive in the rain for hours listening to WBLK and chatting and laughing. We never had a song that was our song like some couples do but we had an artist, Luther Vandross. Any love song by Luther was our song.

When Luther passed away, my ex and I got together and listened to his music to mourn his passing. We reminisced. We caught up, it's been about 10 or 12 years since we were last together as a couple. Our get together started because I'd called to say, "I don't know who else to call and talk to who this would mean anything to but Luther Vandross has passed away."

It was his idea that we get together and listen and mourn. It was a neat experience.

The only song that was saved for someone else was Superstar/ Until You come back to me. I was 18 years old when Luther's version of the song was out. It had previously been done in the 1970's by the Carpenters. My friend, Morris the cat, was at my house in the South Shore in Montreal. We sat in the living room having a few drinks and played that song over and over on vinyl. ha ha. We'd smoked a few unmentionables and chilled on the couch and replayed the song like two maniacs.

My mother and my sister in law (who at that time was coming out of her first marriage. It was still a couple years before she married my brother and the family feuding began) were in the kitchen partaking of their oun stash of unmentionables. There was a speaker hooked up in the kitchen and they talked and laughed and listened to Morris and I killing that song.

Morris was special in my family's house. He'd come from N.D.G. and would have to take a bus and two subways and another bus to get to me. It took serious commitment. He'd get to my house and my mom would come out with a big smile, a loud happy hello (she loved that guy) and a bottle of Otrivin with a label on it that said, "for Morris."

You see, Morris was allergic to cats (as if the travel wasn't bad enough) and he'd get all stuffed up and his eyes would get watery because of course we had three or four cats and a dog or two (aside from the parrot and budgies and cockatiels). It was full blown agony he was in.

No one from high school understood why I didn't really hang out in the streets with them causing trouble and getting into drugs and the like. I hung out at home. Morris discovered why I hung out at home. My mom bought the latest music, she had a killer top of the line music system and she would buy me hash (my smoke of choice then) whenever I wanted it. She figured if she could see what I was doing I wouldn't end up in the gutter. I never did.

Morris and often his brother Paul would come out to our house and spend the day. We'd eat massive BBQ'd hamburgers when we got the inevitable munchies. We'd listen to the music that I'd DJ. A lot of stuff that you never had a chance of hearing on Canadian radio. Morris and Paul would exclaim, "Who is that? That's some good shit." They'd read my latest poetry. They'd mock me for living in the suburbs when we'd walk to the gas station to buy cigarettes from the cigarette machine. They'd mock the fact that you could get a large pack of cigarettes out of it. Something you couldn't get on the island of Montreal.

I pursued Morris in high school. I'd call his house everyday and through my shyness I'd find things to talk about. Sometimes we'd sit on the phone silent for an hour watching the same t.v. shows. He told me that he'd already been pursuing someone and although he liked me too he was going to continue with her. We still continued to talk on the phone almost every day. I went out with my first boyfriend for 3 years, broke off with him and dated a nice boy that I discovered had always liked me through high school. That second relationship was short lived because I'd made the decision to move to Toronto.

Morris and I were both single and always friends and we started hanging out knowing that no real romance could be started when I would be moving away in a few months. On my last couple nights in Montreal, Morris and I played what is still to me our song. We continued to see each other every time I went home for about three years and never took our relationship to the level where we would have to make that big decision about who would have to move. We were both clear that I would't be moving back to Montreal. But we really loved each other.

He ran into my mother about a week before she died and the first words out of his mouth were, "Does she still look good?"
They hadn't exchanged phone numbers because neither of them had a pen. They promised to run into each other again.
"I'd love to see Shelley."
"She'd love to see you."
He probably still doesn't know that mom has died.

I was spoiled early on with the really great guys. I expected that it would always be that way. If I have any regrets, it's not fully recognizing what a good thing I had. Who knew that the best guy was the one I knew at 18 years old?

But now
it's all right, it's all right, ooh baby,
it's all right it's all right
it's all right now,
I used to be sad
but now it's all right, it's all right
ooh baby
it's all right, it's all right
all right now.
I wonder, I wonder
where are you again tonight
are you holding someone else real tight.
I wonder, I wonder, I wonder...

EY