seven minutes

Todays' Blatherings is a WordGoddess collab. Our assignment was to "free-write" for exactly seven minutes. I'm intrigued by the idea of seeing how much I can write in that time with no particular topic in mind beforehand, so have set an alarm on my Palm.

So here goes...

So I've been using Grocery Gateway again, the online grocery service I tried for the first time several years ago when it first launched. I opted out of using it because I didn't like the user interface, and because I wanted to force myself to get outside more (it's sometimes tempting to fantasize about spending an entire day or several days or week just staying inside and seeing how much I can get done online...sort of like the Dot Com Guy, except now that I think about it, I seem to recall that the Dot Com Guy project ended up running out of money and the sponsors all pulling out).

Anyway, I've been pretty pleased with the service again...despite the fact that they've increased the delivery charge a tad, the user interface on the Web site has improved, they've added more products, and the delivery guys are just as charming. :-)

Had an interesting conversation with the delivery guy last time, though. He had delivered my grocery a couple times in a row so I suppose he felt he was getting to know me well enough to confide in me. My grocery delivery was slightly late that day (Grocery Gateway ended up waiving the delivery charge) and he wanted to explain why. Turns out he's been trying to quit smoking and hadn't noticed that his nicotine patch had fallen off during the night, so he started going through withdrawal during the day, with anxiety attacks. He said he almost quit his job.

But then he noticed the missing nicotine patch, bought a pack of cigarettes, starting smoking again, and he was fine. He told me he was planning to quit again as soon as he got home and had access to his nicotine patches again.

He also told me that he was pretty familiar with the whole substance-craving thing because he used to be a drug addict. Up to this point, I had been listening with an increasingly level of discomfort (I mean, even though he was a nice delivery guy, he was still a complete stranger and I just wanted to get back to my writing). As soon as he mentioned the drug addict stuff, I could hear warning bells going off in my head.

And part of me immediately felt bad. He was an EX-drug addict, after all, so had the strength to get off the drugs. But the paranoid part of me was suddenly aware that I was alone in the apartment and probably not as physically strong as the delivery guy. While these thoughts are going through my head, the ex-drug-addict almost-ex-smoker delivery guy is talking away about his life philosophy, and how hopeful he is about the future.

End of seven minutes.

I'm tempted to go back and edit, but I won't (except for adding a link to the Grocery Gateway). Hey, that was kind of fun. I usually do the free-writing thing every day, but never timed. Reminds me of the "Morning Page" exercise that Julia Cameron recommends in her book, "The Right To Write", except her focus is free-writing a certain output rather than timing.

For those reading my online comic strips, I've updated Waiting For Frodo and My Life In A Nutshell this morning.

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Today's Blatherpic:

Annie's hand after she and I had a skin-drawing session. I drew the star on her hand, but she did all the finger people. To parents: don't freak out, I used washable crayons meant for skin drawing. :-)

valentine

Today's entry was written as a part of an On Display collaboration. Assignment this month: "Send yourself a Valentine".

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The worst Valentine's Day in my life happened when I was in the thirteenth grade at Bramalea Secondary School.

Until then, I had really never cared that boys weren't interested in me. Or maybe I'm just telling myself I didn't care, subconsciously smoothing the rough edges of my childhood so that it's easier to talk about.

I had crushes in school, of course, but realistically never expected anything in return...the boys I had crushes on were always interested in other girls: the pretty, self-confident girls with stylish clothes and hair. Immersed in my schoolwork, Senior Band, and the Library Club (I'm sure that knowledge alone would have been enough to send any boy running in terror), I never had much real interest in the whole boy-girl mushystuff dynamic. At least until Valentine's Day in my last year of high school.

The school council had come up with the idea of a interclass rose delivery service. For about a buck, you could sign up to have a rose delivered to anyone in the school. I didn't pay much attention to all this fuss until Valentine's Day morning, in homeroom class. Girls all over the room squealed with delight as they found roses on their desks. My friend Christine had seven.

And then it gradually dawned on me...I was the only girl in the entire class who didn't get a rose.

I remember sitting rigidly at my desk, hands folded in front of me, pretending that I didn't notice, my face flaming. It was the first time in my life that I truly regretted being different from the other girls, regretted being known as a browner (class brain) instead of just one of the gang.

I think I must have missed "girl" classes back in my childhood. Makeup, fashion, parties and boys...they held zero interest for me. I was always much happier with my head buried in a book. But I never felt lonely or isolated, at least not until that one Valentine's Day.

If I had access to a time machine, I would send my younger self a Valentine as well as two dozen sweetheart roses, and in my Valentine would be written the following:


"It's good to be different.

You will eventually meet someone wonderful who thinks you're wonderful, too.

-Don't- go for the more difficult Calculus course next year in university."



(Okay, so that last bit has nothing to do with Valentine's but hey, if I have access to a time machine I figure I might as well take advantage of it)

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. :-)

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Today's Blatherpic:

- The two boys in the Valentine at the top of this page were the heartthrobs of my childhood...Bobby Faltynek and Norm Brown. How I worshipped them (from afar)!

desires

Today's entry was written as a part of a Word Goddess collaboration. The assigned topic this month: "Desires".

At this moment, the word spins off a tumble of loose associations in my head: passions, lust, sex, chocolate...maybe even a combination of the above :-). The association with sensual pleasure is unmistakable...try to say the word "desires" out loud and listen to how the second syllable naturally slows down, lingers on the tongue, tantalizing and heavy with promise.

Yet it means so many other things, depending on the context. If you asked an eight-year-old about the word "desire", you'd likely get an entirely different answer. Desire? my childhood self would say. That's easy. Desire is the mystery present under the Christmas tree that I can't identify no matter how many times I shake it, a deliciously drippy chocolate ice cream cone on a sweltering day, a smile from the cute freckled boy with the Beatles haircut in my eighth grade class at school.

For a teenager, desire might be a new car, independence, recognition, raging puberty. In my own experience, desires have become more complex as I've gotten older. My concept of romantic desire used to be built on the soft-focus scenes you usually find near the end of b&w movies, with throbbing violins and tears and flowers and almost always with someone singing. I still love sappy romantic musicals, but I've learned they don't have much to do with the real world.

Real world desires, romantic or otherwise, don't always have satisfying endings. They don't come in pretty packages nicely wrapped in bows, and they're often messy and complicated. I'm talking about much more than simple wishful thinking here, though I'm sure some dictionaries include that definition as well. I'm talking desire as in knock you down, giant fist plunging into your chest and shaking you until you scream type of desire.

That kind of desire can hurt, especially when you desperately want something or someone you know you can never have, whether it's a cherished object you will never be able to afford, the ability to change a past mistake, a loved one who is no longer with you.

Sometimes I envy those whose desires are always in perfect harmony with their intellect. I can never have that, they think, so I don't want it. But other times I'm glad I'm the mess of unpredictable emotional chaos that I am. Desire keeps me from settling into a comfortable rut, inspires and motivates me. Desire reminds me to live.

Yes, I may end up hurt and disappointed, sometimes disillusioned. But at least I'm there in the thick of things instead of watching the world pass me by. And from time to time I am able to grab hold of a heart's desire after much effort, and those moments of pure joy make all the Bad Stuff pale in comparison.

If I ran into someone who told me they were perfectly happy with themselves and with everything in their lives, that they didn't want anything different, that they had no secret desires...my reaction wouldn't be one of envy.

How sad for you, I'd think. How dull.

And I'd leave them to their perpetual bliss, fleeing back to my turmoil of soul-wrenching spasms of desire and frustrations and heartache. I can't help but think I'm the one better off in the end.

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Writing Updates:

- EBookWeb posted an interview with me online today.

- Submitted my article to Country Connections magazine. It's slated to appear in their spring issue (published in April). I'm also going to be sending them a cartoon to illustrate the article; that's due at the end of the month.

- Found out yesterday that Cottage Life magazine likes my story idea, yay! Article due next Wednesday, should appear in the April/May issue.

- Rainy Day Corner bought my submitted article, slated to appear in April.

- I have three articles due by the end of this week to The Anvil, ArtCalendar Magazine, and Canadian Businesswoman.

- Nine article queries still circulating. I have articles slated to appear next month in Harp Column magazine and Applied Arts magazine. Today's Marketing/Finance day, and my goal is to get three more queries out there!

a good day

(Update 2:45 pm EST: Diarist.net awards reminder)

Sunday was an extraordinarily good day. It started with brunch at La Hacienda (640 Queen St W) with Jeff, Parki, Lindsay and Wendy. The morning sun slanted in the front windows in just the right way to give everything an ethereal glow, nudging up the temperature so that we could almost forget the chill breeze outside and pretend it was early spring. Sweaters were shed; so were our "heading into another long Canadian winter" blues, at least temporarily.

I ordered the Breakfast Burrito and a glass of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice. Topics of conversation ranged from A Beautiful Mind (a movie we saw on the weekend and all enjoyed; Parki's lending me the book), Lindsay's and Wendy's house plans, the definition of art. I didn't participate as much as the others, partly because of my cough and partly because I was getting drowsy, lulled by the ebb and flow of conversation, the warmth of the sun in the restaurant.

I had a nap as soon as we got back; Jeff opted to go do work for a client, so I had the apartment to myself. Afternoon naps are a luxury I don't usually take during the work week unless I'm ill. When I do nap, I don't go for piddly 10-minute "power naps". My idea of a good nap consists of getting undressed and burying myself deep under the covers, shutting the blinds, taking the phone off the hook.



When I woke an hour later, I went to Parki's for a visit. Although I met Parki through Jeff, I like the fact that he and I have developed a friendship independent of the one that he and Jeff share...I think that's a pretty unusual thing, in terms of couple friendships. I sat in my favourite chair (in the world) and we had tea and just talked for a couple of hours until Jeff came to pick me up to go my sister's place for dinner.

We had our usual Sunday night dinner with my family. I can't remember when this tradition started...I think after my brother and his wife died. It began as a need to just be with each other, I think, to reaffirm the existence of the remaining family members. It's become much more than that now.

My favourite moment last night was dancing with Sara and Annie. Sara and I are going to see "Mamma Mia" together in the late spring (a birthday gift from my family); I bought her the CD soundtrack for Christmas. She and Annie already know all the words to three ABBA songs. :-)

Today's entry was written as part of an On Display collaboration. The topic is "What are you sure of?"

There's been a lot going on in my life these past couple of years, and there were times when I found it difficult to be sure of anything, even of myself. Happily, things have changed, and this was in no small part due to factors in my life that I've realized I can be sure of, both in myself and in others.

I've also learned that it's best not to over-analyze or second-guess, to focus on what's good and right in life and to not obsess over what isn't.

So last night as I danced with my young nieces in my sister's living room, I let myself give in to their pure, unhibited joy, delighting in the moment, looking forward to many more like it.

It was a good day. :-)

Diarist.net Awards:

I'm on the current Diarist.net Awards panel, and we've been asked to remind everyone that nominations for the awards close tomorrow.

If you know of a good journal or journal entry that deserves recognition, please do send in a nomination! Awards panel judges are not eligible for nominations, by the way (i.e. this is not a plea to be nominated :-)).

More info about the awards here.

Today's Blatherpics:

- The sunlight made everything much more interesting-looking at brunch yesterday; I felt compelled to take photos of some of things on our table.

- Like Jeff's bowl of latt|AMP|eacute;, for example. Several of the others were inspired by his latt|AMP|eacute; as well, so we passed my camera around.

- Lindsay, Wendy, Parki, Jeff.

- Jeff and I passed this sign after brunch; I thought the name was funny.

- Annie and Sara, dancing in their living room to the soundtrack of "Mamma Mia".